“Upstairs,” Garfunkel said shortly. “The unfinished area. The place is a mess-tools, wood, cans of paint all over the place. Ought to be reported to somebody and I guess I’ll have to turn the report in to him.”
Edwards thought about it for a moment. “Captain Harriman would do something about it immediately; Crandall’s going to hate you because then he’ll have to talk back to the construction foreman and Crandall being Crandall, he’ll probably get flattened on the spot. And then he will hate you. But you don’t have to worry about that.”
mean, I don’t have to worry about it?”
“Because Crandall really ain’t in charge.” Garfunkel Garfunkel looked at him curiously. “What do you raised his eyebrows and Edwards leaned back in his chair, smiled like the Cheshire cat and took a big swallow of his coffee. “The weather got to him; he went home at noon with a cough and a runny nose and eyes so red he looked like he had been on an all-night bender.”
“So who’s in charge?”
Edwards glanced up at him benignly. “Griff Edwards, senior engineer-look it up in the chart of organization.
If Crandall’s really down with the bug, I’ll probably run the whole shebang until the captain gets back. Just turn your little old report over to me, I’ve been aching to chew somebody out for a month now.
It’ll be a pleasure.”
“You couldn’t have told me right out, could you?”
Edwards looked wounded. “What fun would there have been in that?
The expression on your face was worth it all, Dan.”
Garfunkel grinned into his coffee cup, then turned serious.
“Griff, you know Jernigan?”
“Sure, good man.” Edwards looked at him sharply.
“He’s not thinking of quitting, is he?”
“No, no, nothing like that. He and his wife, Mamie, have invited me over for dinner tomorrow.”
“What’s wrong with that? I already know you got nothing against his color so why not go?”
“They’ve invited over a woman who works with Mamie, too. Harry said that she was-you know, a real looker.”
“On second thought, don’t go. Let me fill in for you.
Garfunkel frowned. “Griff, I want to go and yet I know I won’t.
I know I’d enjoy it and yet I keep thinking I really Just want to be by myself.”
Edwards nodded. “The holidays got you down already?
Don’t answer that, I hate ‘em, too, and may the good Lord forgive me, I can remember when I used to look forward to the chubby little man with the whiskers and the sack full of toys.” He was silent for a moment. “How’s your coffee-you ain’t drinking much tonight.”
“I drank enough of it to keep me awake until Monday. Save it for when you have to clean the wax off your floors.” He stood up to go, then paused for a moment at the door. “Griff, seriously, what would happen if a good fire got started in the building here?
Your honest opinion?”
Edwards brought his chair down on all four legs with a crash.
“Oh, for chrissakes, Garfunkel, quit acting like an old woman!
You really want to know, we’d go up like a Christmas tree, like a blooming Christmas tree! Now, are you happy?”
CHAPTER 11
Douglas ran to the door but the hall was empty; Jesus had abruptly vanished. He was still staring down the empty corridor, lost in thought, when Garfunkel came up behind him and asked what was wrong.
When the security chief mentioned the possibility of trespassers, he grew unreasonably annoyed. It wasn’t until after he returned to the office that he realized he hadn’t wanted the boy caught.
He wasn’t sure why, at first. The kid would undoubtedly have made some wild accusations. After all, how had he gotten past the guards and into the building? Wasn’t it logical that Douglas had taken him upstairs for all the obvious reasons? It wouldn’t wash, of course; he had signed in alone, and Barton, whom he had met in the elevator, could verify he had been by himself. But there would still be the half smiles that said silently: “You know what queers are like.” He had been through that type of hassle before. Well, he had faced the possibility of blackmail years ago and had sworn he would never give in to it, regardless of the price he might have to pay.
No, fear hadn’t been it; there had been something about the kid himself….
He replaced the glass shelf and stooped to gather up the scattered netsukes, the small ivory carvings used as ornaments for obis, the wide sashes that bound formal Japanese kimonos. It was a few minutes before he found the last one, a startlingly realistic carving of a water buffalo. It was his favorite and he fingered it lovingly.
Thee artist had,*etched the hair onto the body of the beast with such accuracy that you’d swear you could see each individual strand.
The face of the buffalo was placid and bovine.
Douglas replaced the piece with the others, feeling a quiet sense of pleasure at its beauty. The thought of selling the buffalo was abhorrent to him and he had steered more than one would-be purchaser away from the carving.
There would come a time, he knew, when just the right person would be charmed by it and then he would part with it. But by that time the piece would be so engraved in his memory that the mere thought of it would be as satisfying as the reality.
He walked slowly through the shop, past the small models of rooms with their own miniaturized lighting and the broad teak table upon which were the books of fabric and carpet samples. Matching chairs of teak faced the table and on the wall behind it hung a print of Larry’s favorite Picasso, “La Minotaurmachie.” Douglas had given it to him on his thirtieth birthday.
The office in back had little of the comfort and charm of the showroom. Taking up a sizable fraction of the room was a Herman Miller desk with an electronic computer on top and scattered scraps of paper and open ledgers surrounding it. There was a businesslike atmosphere to it all that chilled his heart.
That was it, he thought. His whole life could be summed up in the figures in the ledgers, all forty-four years of it. He absently ran his fingers through his thinning hair, then sucked in his stomach and placed his hands between his belt and belly, feeling the flesh push back against his palms. I’m getting old, he thought, and that was the real problem. Without the resilience of youth, minor problems became major tragedies, and you discovered the strength you thought you had, had slipped away during the passing years. You didn’t welcome challenges any more; you just felt tired and inadequate, or simply beaten.
He and Larry were going broke; the ledgers, the computer didn’t lie.
They were going broke in ways other than financial, too. He glanced at the small Kodachrome under the glass working surface of the desk.
It was of him and Larry, taken a number of years before at Fire Island.
They had both gone there on a lark; they hadn’t bothered with the obviously gay sections, spending most of their time on the beach or alone with each other. The world was young, relatively speaking, and they would never grow old.
Only that was ten years ago, Douglas thought, when he had been a vigorous thirty-four. Now he was a thicker, tired forty-four. On the other hand, Larry, who was naturally slender and saved from being too pretty by an almost insignificant thickening of the bridge of the nose and a slightly heavy cast to his chin, had matured into a striking man of thirty-two.
Too striking, Douglas thought. Larry, he was convinced, had developed outside interests. Douglas had always assured him that he had complete freedom in that respect; he had never believed that a man and a woman could be completely monogamous over the long haul, let alone two men. Recently Larry had been coming in late at night with no explanations offered-not that Douglas would have asked-and a week ago when Douglas had been walking along the street hurrying to an appointment, he had spotted Larry through the window of Belcher’s having lunch with a man in his late thirties. The stranger had the tanned, athletic good looks of someone who had the leisure and t
he money.to spend a good deal of time in the sun and to keep his body in condition. He had reminded Douglas of himself a number of years before.
Douglas sighed and sat down with the ledgers again, then abruptly closed them and pushed them to one side.
The shop had been a gamble, one that they had lost.
They had thought they would attract a good many clients from among the obviously affluent tenants of the Glass House, but it turned out that most of the tenants were older and more conservative in their design philosophy.
Those who were younger preferred to boast that their apartments had been done by Peck and Wuncraft; Today’s Interiors was very declasse, very unstylish.
He pushed his chair back and walked into the storeroom where they kept bolt after bolt of expensive drapery fabrics with delicate weaves and bright patterns, as well as quantities of thick, nubby upholstery materials with intricate traceries of metallic threads. Many of them had been ordered for jobs that had failed to materialize or had been canceled. On the other side of the narrow aisle were stacks of polyfoam decorator cushions and sheets of polyurethane foam that they used in some of their in-house upholstering jobs. Most of their upholstering was subcontracted but occasionally Larry liked to recover some of their stock pieces, altering the lines into something new and striking. Douglas ran a hand gently over the surfaces of the cloth.
When they liquidated, most of the materials would bring only pennies on the dollar, hardly enough to satisfy their creditors.
He walked into the showroom and picked up the small ivory carving of the buffalo. Just fondling it gave him a momenta peace of mind.
And then he remembered Jesus again. The skinny little Puerto Rican kid
…
It hadn’t been lust … he was far removed from that.
It had been what? Pity? Probably. A good deal of identification, too. One loser - spotting another. It was easy to recognize the telltale sign: It was when you gave up, He sat down on the couch for a moment and kneaded his forehead with his hands. You had to be strong to get by in the world. With a little strength, you could face failure or perhaps summon up that final bit of effort to save the game at the last minute. But this game was finished.
He went back to the office and started the long, painful process of checking the figures once more. Funny to see himself mirrored in Jesus, he mused. Maybe he should have told Garfunkel about it; God knows what the kid might get into. But no, he thought, he’d thrown a scare into him. He was probably long gone by now.
CHAPTER 12
The sleet had changed to a wet, driving snow and just outside the window, a watery ice formed on the ledge.
Barton stared out the glass for a moment longer, then shivered and turned away, flicking off the yammering from the small television set.
It was close to seven-thirty and the bar of the Promenade Room would be a better place to reflect upon his sins than his darkened office.
He straightened his tie and slipped into his suit coat.
The lights in the architectural division were now out; Moore had gone home for the evening, probably still hurt by his attitude. He’d call him tomorrow, Barton thought; if they had the time, he and Jenny might even drop out and see how Beth was coming along. He took the elevator to the sky lobby, nodded briefly to Jernigan, who, seemed as if something was bothering him and he didn’t want to talk, and changed over to the residential elevator up to the Promenade Room. A few moments later he stepped out into the foyer of the restaurant, alive with the soft murmur of diners and the clink of silver and glassware As always, the setting and the view were breathtaking.
The room was candle-lit, the dancing flames playing over the polished black marble floor. The tables were set with damask n and on each there was a vase with a single red rose. The walls were of a smoke-colored glass, allowing a darkened view of the promenade outside and beyond that, the lights of the city itself.
“Craig.” He have known the voice anywhere. He turned, almost indecently glad to see her.”
“Quinn! How long have you been working here?”
Her light blue eyes looked up from under long lashes in a familiar, almost puckish glance. “You helped me get the job, you ought to know.
Three months, all of them good ones.”
“I knew you were working here, of course, but”-he shrugged helplessly-“it slipped my mind or I would have come up earlier.”
The candlelight from the foyer seemed to flicker in her eyes.
“Forgotten me already, Craig? Fine thing!” She waved at the crowded dining room behind her. “If you’re going to be in town long, drop up some weekend afternoon-it’s slow then. And by all means bring Jenny, I’m dying to meet her.” There was no jealousy in Quinn, Barton thought, despite the fact that he had broken off with her when he met Jenny. Quinn and he had had something of an understanding and the breakup had been very close to a jilting. “Two years is quite long enough to keep her hidden, Craig.”
She hesitated a Moment, then asked seriously “How are things, really?
I hear rumors; I won’t deny I’ve always kept track.““Things could be better,” he said frankly. “Maybe it’s something everybody has to go through. I’m a lot older and-“
“d Jenny has to grow up, that it?”
He smiled. “I guess. How about yourself?”
Her laugh was throaty, almost a whiskey laugh. “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine, Craig. His name’s Leslie, he’s an architect-I seem to be consistent-and sometime within the next month I suspect he’ll try to convince me to marry him.”
“Do you love him’?”
“If he tries to convince me he’ll be shocked at how quickly he’ll win the argument!” She squeezed his arm.
“Come back on the weekend and bring Jenny. Incidentally, your table won’t be ready until eight, but I assume you know that. Showdown at the O.K. corral, right?” She laughed. “Don’t look so shocked, the walls have ears’ ” She picked up several menus from a nearby foyer table and swirled toward a couple waiting impatiently at the dining room entrance. If Jenny had half her poise, half her maturity, Barton thought … But the comparison wasn’t fair; Quinn had almost ten years on Jenny and you learned a lot about humility in ten years.
The right-hand quarter of the dining room was devoted to the bar, separated from the main room by a wall of the smoke-colored glass faced with a row of tall, potted ferns-It was a shadowy alcove of small booths and a mahogany bar with swivel chairs upholstered in rich, black leather. He had just started to, slide into one when a voice from one of the darker booths said quietly, “Care to join me, Craig?”
“I’d be delighted, Wyndom.”
Leroux was standing up when he came over, a tall, lean aristocrat with high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and a faint bluish gray to his sideburns. Barton had never known Leroux’s age but guessed that the man was in his middle fifties, maybe sixty; not past his prime but well within it, a man whose finely hewn features and deep-set eyes radiated an enormous sense of physical power.
Caesar, Barton thought, the noblest Roman of them all.
Leroux should have gone into politics rather than business; he had the sort of face that was made to be stamped on a coin. Barton shook the proffered hand and sat down. “Where are Jenny and Thelma?”
“They’re getting a view of the city from the promenade.” Barton glanced at the darkened walk just beyond the restaurant. walls. A hundred feet away-, two women were silhouetted against the night sky, gazing down at, the lights of the city far below.
Leroux motioned to a waiter. “The usual scotch with a twist?”
“That’ll be fine.” Barton’ guessed that Leroux kept a Farley file on his top employees and refreshed his memory at regular intervals as to what they preferred to eat and drink. He’d see what happened when they ordered dinner.
Leroux had relaxed in the back of the booth, his face -almost lost in the shadows. “Sorry to have called you back so suddenly, Craig; I realize what an inconven
ience it must have been.”
“some,” Barton admitted. “We were about to go before the Board of Supervisors with the proposal and I had to ask for a delay in the hearings; it will be another two weeks now.”
“That shouldn’t be fatal. How does it look?”
Barton hesitated. “The Citizens’ Committee is pretty strong when it comes to height limitations along the waterfront.”
“The popular feeling?”
“That they have a point.”
“Your feelings?”
“I don’t think they matter,” Barton said slowly.
Leroux hunched forward over the table and Barton sensed an annoyed hostility behind the outer show of geniality. “They do. Let’s say I’m curious.”
Barton took a breath. “I think they’ve got a point, too.
The buildings are too large for the site. They’ll block the view of the bay from quite a large section of the city. I don’t think we’ll get the project past the Supervisors, but I think we’ll make a lot of enemies if we try.”
There was a long silence. “If you didn’t believe in the project,” Leroux asked finally, “why did you agree to work on it?”
Barton felt like a small boy being reprimanded by his father. “It was my job; it was what you’ had hired me for. Once I got into it, things didn’t look the same. Regardless of my personal feelings, I don’t think my efforts suffered any.”
“You don’t? But you’ve just told me you don’t expect success.”
“That’s right, I don’t.”
Leroux thought about it for a moment, then dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “It’ll have to go to accounting and they’ll figure out the ratio of lower income against lower capital investment. I can’t do it in my head. So we don’t build as high, it was worth the attempt.”
He took a sip of his drink. “You’re a good friend of this division chief 11 in the Fire Department, Mario Infantino, aren’t you?
Right down to it, Barton thought. The real reason why he had been called in. “I’m a friend of his, I don’t know how good. We were in the same reserve unit when I lived here; we’ve sat in the same fire code meetings together.
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