by Judith Gould
“Because you need me. You’ll never be able to pull it off by yourself and succeed.”
“You are sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“I also,” she continued calmly, “want to be named president of the corporation, and have written authority that all final decisions are mine to make. That includes hirings and firings, design, manufacture, promotion, and dealing with the stores. And last, but not least, in order to stand a fighting chance in the kind of market we’re after, you’ll have to up your three-million-dollar initial ante to at least five. And that takes only the first year into account.”
“And if I don’t agree to all these demands?”
“Then,” she said succinctly, “I walk right out of here.”
“You’re bluffing.”
She looked at him unblinkingly. “Try me.”
He looked down at his untouched rhubarb tart for long moments and then looked back up and nodded. “All right, it’s a deal.” He stared at her. “I’ll have my lawyers draw up the papers right away.”
Her face broke into a grin that would have dazzled old Scrooge himself. “I’d say we’re in business, then. Well? What are you waitin’ for, pardner? Break out the champagne!”
Chapter 42
The demonstration had been orderly. For almost two hours now, nearly fifty protesters had circled quietly in front of 550 Seventh Avenue. Now they went half-wild as Antonio de Riscal’s limousine pulled up and he got out, unaware that he was their target. Before he knew what was happening, a cry had gone up, the protesters had surged out of the designated demonstration area, and he suddenly found his way blocked by a furious, intractable human wall.
“Excuse me,” Antonio murmured, trying to get through.
They wouldn’t move. He excused himself again, and they closed ranks even further.
He stared at them in red-faced frustration, his white-knuckled fists clenched at his sides. Some of them were waving placards of ghoulish photographs of animals in agony. Others carried signs reading FUR IS DEATH and ANTONIO DE RISCAL SELLS MURDER! Still others were holding up gruesome steel traps and shaking them noisily. A few were handing out fliers to passersby who had gathered to watch. Then one of them began shouting, “Kil-ler! Kil-ler!”, and the others took up the cry and began chanting as one: “Kil-ler! Kil-ler!”
“Antonio de Riscal has just arrived here at 550 Seventh Avenue, the scene of the latest in a series of anti-fur demonstrations,” a forewarned television reporter said earnestly into her microphone. “Mr. de Riscal, do you foresee demonstrations of this kind as having any impact on your future collections? And will this sway your opinion one way or the other about continuing to design a collection of fur coats?” She thrust the microphone into his face.
Antonio drew his head back and found himself glaring directly into the lens of a video camera. Realizing that the tape was rolling, he quickly forced an expressionless look.
“At Antonio de Riscal, we neither buy furs, nor raise them, nor sell them,” he replied stiffly. “We simply supply a licensee with our designs.”
“And could you name that licensee?”
“I . . . ah . . . would have to check our records about that,” he said lamely. “You see, with sixty-four licenses currently disposed of, it’s a little difficult to keep track of who . . . er . . . is licensed to sell which particular collection.” He gave her the approximation of a cold smile.
“Then I take it the name Palace Furs does not jog your memory?” the reporter pressed.
“Everyone has heard of Palace Furs,” Antonio replied impatiently. “Like I said, I would have to check our records.”
“And if it is Palace Furs which holds your license?” the reporter persisted. “Do you plan on continuing or discontinuing the licensing of your name to them?”
“I really cannot speculate about that at this time.”
“Then does this mean you were not aware of the fact that Palace Furs has consistently been cited by anti-fur groups for the particularly brutal treatment the animals receive on their breeding farms?”
“I have not heard of those allegations, but I will certainly look into them.”
“With anti-fur forces gaining in strength and popularity nationwide, does this protest give you any second thoughts about licensing your name to furriers?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m really not prepared to answer that either. Now, if you will please excuse me—”
“Just one more question, Mr.—”
But Antonio had already turned away. The protesters would not part, and he had to shove two of them aside in order to fight his way into the building.
The reporter was saying into her microphone behind him, “As you can see, an obviously bewildered and somewhat shaken Antonio de Riscal has arrived at his Seventh Avenue headquarters in the midst of a rather passionate anti-fur protest. But only time will tell whether this protest, and others like it, will sway this designer and others on this growing issue ...”
Antonio was fuming as he waited for an elevator, and his usual composure was at the explosion point. No one had bothered to warn him that a demonstration was in progress or that Palace Furs was being singled out. Why hadn’t he been forewarned? There had been ample opportunity for either Liz Schreck or Klas Claussen to call him at home or on the car phone. Surely they knew what was going on. Were none of them on their toes? Well, they would hear about it, and good—that much was for certain.
By the time he stalked into his outer office four minutes later, his pink face had turned crimson and his clenched fists were trembling with rage.
“Liz!” he said in a dangerous voice as he advanced on his secretary’s desk. Reaching it, he placed both hands flat on the surface and leaned across it. “Why the hell wasn’t I called and warned to expect that . . . that motley crew of demonstrators downstairs?” His white enamel teeth were bared and his eyes were narrowed into slits.
With deliberate slowness Liz Schreck removed the lit cigarette which was glued, semi permanently, to her lower lip. Her pugnacious chin went up, her tightly coiled yellow-orange hair positively writhed, and she squinted right back at him through a cloud of blue cigarette smoke. “For your information, Mr. de Riscal,” she retorted tartly in her smoker’s rasp, “I’ve spent the last two hours fielding telephone calls from the press. Not only that, but the switchboard’s been overloaded by animal activists tying up the phone lines, so we couldn’t even get an outside line. Mr. Claussen assured me that he would go down to the pay phones in the lobby and call you.”
“Well, he didn’t, dammit!”
“Then take it out on him, why don’t you?” she snapped, busying herself with a stack of paperwork.
“Where is he?”
She glared up at him. “Where do you think he is? For starters, you might try his office. Or maybe the men’s room.”
Antonio was momentarily immobilized by sheer rage. Then, without warning, he slammed a hand so violently on the desktop that she jumped. “Who do you think you are?” he shouted. “The boss? Well, I suggest you listen, and listen well! Either you do something about that attitude problem of yours or ...” He left the threat dangling.
Liz pushed her chair back and stared at him. “Or what?” she asked quietly.
Antonio straightened. “Infer what you wish.”
“Then I suggest you listen well,” Liz retorted. “I’ve worked in this madhouse for thirteen years now, and I refuse to be talked to like that—even by you.” She got up, bent over to get the clear plastic shopping bag imprinted with yellow daisies out from the kneehole of her desk, and set it on her chair. Then she started to pull open her desk drawers.
“And what do you think you’re doing?” Antonio snapped.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she sniffed. “I’m cleaning out my desk. As of this moment, I quit. Accounting can send my final paycheck to my house.”
“Have it your way. Just don’t expect any severance pay.”
“Did you hear me ask for any?” s
he retorted.
They glared at each other, neither willing to back down.
“Can I get to my packing?” she asked snappishly. “Or is there something else?”
Antonio was too furious to argue or cajole. “No!” he said tightly, and every square inch of skin quivering, he turned his back on her and marched off.
Headed for Klas’s office.
Eighteen floors below, Billie Dawn had just arrived in front of 550 Seventh Avenue. Grabbing her oversize modeling portfolio from the seat beside her, she slid her slender body out of the hired limousine, thanked the driver, and stopped to stare at the protesters, who had returned to pacing peaceful circles. Her eyes took in the placards and gruesome blowup photos. When someone thrust a pamphlet from the Animal Rights League into her hand, she took a moment to glance through it.
She thought she was going to be sick.
There were photographs of minks in agony. Foxes ensnared in traps. Baby seals being clubbed in front of their mothers. Hundreds of raccoons stuffed into cages too small to house them all. Horrifyingly scarred, burned, and mutilated animals.
But the horrors didn’t stop there.
There were gas chambers for efficient killing.
Assembly lines, complete with conveyor belts, where the animals were cut open and skinned.
Photos of animals that had chewed off their own paws to escape traps.
She stood there too sickened to move. It was wholesale slaughter. A death camp for cute furry creatures.
And all so people could swathe themselves in pelts.
“Hold it, Tom!” the TV reporter who had accosted Antonio said to her cameraman, who was in the process of unloading his gear. “I don’t think we’re quite done yet. That’s Billie Dawn, the model. I want to get her opinion on this issue.” Years of covering the metropolitan beat had honed the reporter’s instincts to the point at which she could smell a story before it unfolded.
Cameraman in tow, she approached Billie Dawn, and when she was standing beside her, she turned to the camera. “If you look next to me, you’ll see that supermodel Billie Dawn has just arrived at the scene of today’s protest.” She turned slightly to face her. “Billie, I couldn’t help noticing your interest in this demonstration. Do you have any personal opinions you want to share with us on the use of furs as garments?” She held out the microphone.
Billie Dawn looked long and hard into the camera, then agitatedly flipped her waist-long hair back over her shoulders. “Yes, I do!” she said with quiet vehemence. “It’s disgusting! My God, those poor animals! Just look at this!” She rattled the flier she had been handed. “I had no idea they were being mistreated this way!”
“Then I take it you’re on the side of the activists?” the reporter second-guessed.
“You bet I am!” Billie Dawn said indignantly. “As a matter of fact, my agency was sending me to Antonio de Riscal right now. Would you believe—to be fitted for fur coats? Well, I can tell you one thing. That’s one photo shoot I will not be doing!”
The reporter hid her jubilation. “Thank you, Billie Dawn.” Turning back into the camera, she said, “From here at 550 Seventh Avenue, this is Marcia Rodriguez for NewsCenter Four.” She paused, then said, “Come on, Tom!” She tapped her cameraman on the arm and they half-ran to the press car. “What do you think of that?” she marveled gleefully. “Is this hot stuff, or isn’t it? Now, let’s get this tape to the editing room ASAP! Talk about adding some zest to the six-o’clock news! Who knows? We might even hit national!”
One little toot for a pick-me-up . . .
Carefully Klas Claussen tapped a little white powder onto the back of his hand. Lifted it to his nose. Snorted it up into one nostril with a long, noisy, ever-so-satisfying intake of breath.
. . . And one little toot for a buzz . . .
He tapped a little more of the white powder out of the tiny brown glass vial for the other nostril. Started raising his hand to snort it when—
The door to his office burst open without warning and the sudden draft blew the cocaine away in a powdery little cloud.
“What the hell . . . ?” Klas began, and then his jaw abruptly clicked shut.
Antonio was standing in the doorway, looking like the wrath of God. But he didn’t remain standing there long. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he exploded. His anger-reddened face had turned purple and the cords on his neck stood out.
“Do you always burst in like that without knocking?” Klas sniffed.
Antonio could only stare. Jesus! he was thinking as Klas added insult to injury by looking down his nose at him in that superior manner he had. No wonder this place is going all to hell! What a fool I was, thinking Klas’s drug habit would stay out of the workplace! Edwina was right all along, dammit!
Angrily he crossed the office and stopped in front of Klas, his eyes searing into the dilated pupils. A full half-minute of staring at each other passed, during which Antonio’s rage grew and grew. Finally, without warning, his hand shot out and knocked the open vial out of Klas’s fingers. It flew across the room, scattering its felonious contents as it spun through the air.
Klas glared at him. “For your information, that was two hundred and fifty dollars you just wasted.”
“What? What!” Antonio was incredulous. “Is that all you’ve got to say?”
Klas sniffed. “What do you want me to say?”
“How about explaining why you didn’t warn me about that demonstration going on downstairs? Or, better yet, asking for a leave of absence so you can join a drug-rehabilitation program and clean up?”
“Why should I want to clean up? I don’t have a problem.”
“Well, I say you do, dammit!”
Klas smirked. “Then that’s your problem, isn’t it?”
Antonio’s face twisted with rage, and it took all of his self-control not to punch Klas then and there. He let the built-up pressures inside him ease out in a slow sigh, and when he spoke again, his voice was oddly quiet. “You really think you can get away with murder, don’t you?” he asked softly.
Klas didn’t reply, but kept looking at Antonio in that imperial way of his.
“I’m really sorry you got promoted to this position,” Antonio half-whispered. “Do you know how often I’ve regretted it? With Edwina, there wouldn’t have been half the problems that we have with you. Nor would her store orders have plummeted, the way yours have.”
“Yes, but when Doris Bucklin walked in while you were getting fucked,” said Klas smugly, “Edwina couldn’t have been made the scapegoat, now, could she?” He turned away dismissively.
“You bastard!” Antonio grabbed him by the arm and twisted him back around. This was the last, the very last and final, straw. “Don’t you dare turn your back on me, you snide bitch! I’ve had it up to here with you! You’re fired!”
“Fired?” Klas mocked. “And let everyone know what happened that day when Doris walked in on you? Really, Antonio. Be serious!”
Antonio stared at him. “Are you by any chance threatening me?”
There was no fear in Klas’s eyes; the dissipated young man was that sure of himself. “Maybe I am. And then again, maybe you’re misinterpreting everything.”
Antonio felt an uplifting satisfaction as he said, “You heard me right. You can’t hang Doris Bucklin over my head any longer. It won’t work.”
“Oh, no?” Klas challenged.
“Perhaps you are so coked out that you have lost your grasp on reality. That incident happened so long ago that it’s stale. Even if you did try to resurrect it, it’s last year’s news, Klas. You’ll never get anybody to care.”
“Would you like to try to find out?” But now Klas was bluffing, and they both knew it. Despite the drug having kicked in, Klas could see the terrible combination of anger, contempt, and hatred emanating from Antonio’s dark eyes. And a peculiar uncertainty came into his own.
“As a matter of fact,” Antonio suggested, “why don’t you try me and see? I woul
dn’t mind so terribly watching you fall flat on your pretty face. You’ve long deserved it. And as for having served your purpose, well . . . all you are now is deadweight.”
“You can’t talk to me that way!” Klas hissed.
“Oh, no? Are you really that far gone that I must spell it out for you? You . . . are . . . fired. Now, Klas, your office keys, if you please?”
Antonio held out his hand, palm-up.
Klas slapped the keys into his hand.
“And while you’re at it, don’t bother cleaning out your desk. Don’t stop by accounting. Don’t collect your paycheck.” Antonio’s voice didn’t rise, but there was no mistaking the authority in it. “Just get the hell out of my sight before I call the police!”
Chapter 43
“It’s available immediately.” The building-management woman’s voice sounded hollow and seemed to echo in the empty spaces. “If it suits your needs, I’d advise you to move quickly, though. Several other firms have already expressed interest.”
Edwina nodded as she prowled thoughtfully from one office of the suite to the next, the real-estate woman in tow.
“As you can see, the kitchenette installed by the last tenant is still intact, and there are two private toilets, which is highly unusual for a suite this size.”
“And the cost per square foot?” Edwina inquired, going into a large corner office.
“Twenty dollars. It’s the going rate.”
Edwina nodded again and walked over to one of the windows. It looked down upon the hopelessly snarled Seventh Avenue traffic seventeen floors below—for her, one of the city’s most cherished views, not to mention one of the seven wonders of the world.
After a moment she turned back around. “And it’s what? Three thousand square feet?”
“Twenty-eight-fifty, total. But if the price per square foot is too steep for you, we have another building right down the next block.”
“The next block isn’t 550 Seventh Avenue,” Edwina said.
“No,” the woman agreed, “it’s not.”
