A Kept Woman (21 page)

It was important not to be conquered by this. And I won’t call Ernie, Diana insisted to herself. I don’t care how long it takes him. Let him do the crawling back.

Ernie was showing Sir Angus Carter out just as Felicity’

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rrived at his apartment. He made the introduction, and watched her venal little eyes light up at the title. Cool as a cucumber she was, though. Nothing like Diana. At dinner last night she’d said she thought most marriages benefited from a little piece on the side. Discretion was what counted. Damn, how he agreed with her.

All this week, Ernie had had to endure the thinly veiled references in the Post and News, the snaps of his wife leaving the Pierre in those dark glasses, wrapped up like Jackie F”” ing O. They’d even run a shot of Mira Chen, a half-nude still from some porno she’d apparently done back in college. Nice, really. He’d had a stab of regret, staring down at those aggressive little tits peeking out of the bondage halter, that he’d had to get the personnel department to terminate her for lying about her criminal record. She’d tried to order him to stop, but Ernie had just laughed at her.

‘I don’t think so, darlin’. Not this time.’ Mira had begged and blubbed, and he knew he’d never be able to crawl to her boots again. ‘Now be a good girl, and don’t rfiake it hard on yourself. I promise you, one word about me to the press and I’ll have the cops up your ass like a twelve-inch dildo.’

‘How can you,’ Mira whimpered.

‘Very easily.’ His power gave him a little thrill. Not sex, but better. There are a hundred replacements for the Miras of this world, but only one of me. ‘Maybe I’ll send you a little something, but that’s it. Don’t even fucking think of trying blackmail, because I’ll go right to the police. Remember, my whole office already saw what you got.’

‘Ernie, I thought we had something good,’ she wailed. ‘So did I,’ he said, and hung up.

He’d waited three days. When she didn’t call, he sent her a pair of diamond earrings, anonymously. She could flog them before she got herself a new boyfriend. He felt

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no guilt. Love was a romantic illusion for suckers. Had that little whore thought she could actually be his wife,? His wife wouldn’t be the type who sucked cock in another woman’s bedroom. Undemanding, presentable and savvy, that was what he wanted in a wife. He glanced across at Felicity. Maybe she could fill Diana’s vacancy. She seemed to know the score.

“

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Felix Custer entered his boss’s office with the warm grin of a man who is about to impart some excellent news. He was fifty, and at first he’d baulked at the idea of working for someone nearly half his age. But he’d been laid off by HarperCollins, and most employers in America were so addicted to youth that his age and experience had actually handicapped him. He’d taken what he could get. Cicero was bullheaded, blinkered and sharp as a tack. Now the figures were in, Felix was going to look like a genius. The profits, the reorders, the low overhead from these unbelievably basic offices - the company had the best bottom line he’d seen in years.

This was his first report, and it was going to be a show stopper.

Custer smiled at his colleagues. It was strange to be on a winning team of people who actually liked each other. The street below them seemed busy and vital, the huge spinning neon news tickers wrapped round the skyscrapers impressive, futuristic. Before midtown had just stressed him out. He was starting to enjoy it again, like a kid.

Michael Cicero was so determined, it rubbed off on everybody. Even Helen, Felix’s flighty assistant, had started to spend less time playing solitaire and more updating his Rolodex. Jake Harold, the commissioning editor, and Rachel Lilly, who coordinated their distribution, also looked smug. No wonder. These numbers

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would make anybody look smug. Felix’s wife had started boasting about his work again.

Everybody was so damn happy in this office, it was like you expected a blonde chick to bust in and start singing about the hills being alive with the sound of music.

There was a rap on the door.

‘Come in,’ Felix said genially.

It swung open and Diana Foxton marched in. Custer’s good mood evaporated around the edges. She was an amazingly pretty girl, but nobody here noticed that. It was like looking at a lotus flower encased in a block of ice. Diana did her job well, if you. could call it a job. Nobody spoke to her, because she was rich and cold. She had a ‘Do, Not Approach’ sign emblazoned on her forehead in neon letters. Felix disliked her as much as anybody eise in this place, and passed on financial filing to her. She always took it without complaint, briskly and efficiently, and said nothing. It spooked folks, how silent she was. Diana ate lunch at her desk and went home on the dot of 6 p.m.

He couldn’t deny she was good, though, she had a way with words. But when Felix took the time to congratulate her, he’d had nothing but a ‘Thank you, Mr Custer,’ in a tone that would have made an Eskimo freeze up.

‘Susan called in sick, so Mr Cicero asked me to take the notes on this meeting,’ Diana said.

‘Have a seat,’ Felix .said, coolly. ‘Where is Michael?’ ‘Just taking a call from Ernest Foxton,’ she replied, blue eyes looking up at him like she had nothing whatsoever to do with that person. It irritated Felix. She was probably spying on Green Eggs for her husband, and she made out like she’d never even heard of him. ‘He’ll be right out.’

Diana crossed her legs. They were beautiful pins, strong-calved, slim-ankled, encased in very expensive77

looking hose … he could tell that by the way they shimmered … and they rode all the way up from her crocodile court shoes to her neat, eggshell-blue skirt. She had teamed this with a silky, milky shirt and a matching jacket, as well as a discreet string of pearls round the creamy hollow of her throat. She had a tiny dusting of freckles round her nose, and a full, slightly swollen mouth. Felix decided, clinically, that she was one of the most lovely women he’d ever seen. A trophy wife for Foxton. Surely the rumours of impending divorce could not be true. Where would Ernie get a better-looking arm ornament than that one?

The door swung open again and Michael Cicero strode

in. Felix drew himself up. There was something about Michael that made you sit up straight and focus.-He had the air of a battlefield commander about him. Whenever thoughts of his age crept back to Custer, Cicero’s bulldozing manner made him forget about them again. There was simply no time to worry about his age. Michael kept the whole team too busy for that.

“‘I hear good things,’ Michael said. No preamble, of course. He wasn’t good on the niceties. ‘I’ll get to your reports individually. But give me a summary first. What’s the picture?’

‘I’ll go first,’ Rachel said, with a sidelong nasty glance

at Diana. The women here had taken against her worse than the men. Rachel was a pretty girl, too, mid-thirties with neat blond hair, but she .was nothing to look at. Maybe Diana didn’t understand just how off-putting that whole ice-queen thing was to men. ‘Our sellers are fighting them off in the Mom and Pop stores, and Barnes & Noble, B. Dalton and Waldenbooks have all racked us out by the sales register. We’re just trying tO ensure even distribution round the country - to be fair. I’ve been taking a lot of international calls, but we’ll need a much bigger print run to cope with that demand.’

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‘The press loves us,’ Jacob Harold said, jumping in, not to be outdone. ‘I even got a slot on Good Morning America for Ernie Foxton.’

Michael nodded. ‘Excellent, but why wasn’t that given to me? It’s our line.’

A shadow of confusion passed over Jake’s face. ‘You know I work the PR side with the Blakely’s people, Michael. They told me you had turned it down.’

Cicero paused. ‘Maybe I did.’ His large frame shifted on the chair, like he was thinking hard about something. He shook himself slightly and turned to Felix. ‘How are we looking, chief?’

‘Pretty good.’ Custer heard his voice light up with pleasure. ‘You and I decided to ke6p the executive staff compact and multifunctional, and to cut down drastically on our proected overhead budget—’

‘You mean we only hired a handful of people and we chose simple offices,’ Michael said.

‘Exactly. Combine that with the success of the first printing of the series, and what Jacob tells me about lack of returns, and I’d say the first quarterly profit margin is—’

Felix smiled warmly and gave out the figure. ‘Wow,’ Rachel said, rather endearingly. Michael blinked. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I checked the figures several times. They depend on certain variables—’

‘You’re sure, right?’

‘Yes,’ Felix said, grinning. ‘I’m sure.’

‘Am I right in saying’, Jake asked, loosening his collar, ‘that that level of profitability means We will receive that bonus promised in the contract?’

‘That’s correct. Two hundred and fifty thousand apiece,’ Felix said, almost licking his lips.

‘Before you start drooling, let’s go through the reports,’ Michael said, dryly. ‘We still have work to do.’

Sixteen floors above him, in his glass and chrome palatial offices, Ernie Foxton was also discussing their figures.

‘Beautiful.’ Jean Fellows was turning the Green Eggs Cinderella over in her hands, but she wasn’t talking about the thick, glossy paper or the delicate watercolour pictures. Her eyes were on the sales figures projected onto the wall in front of them by Peter Davits. ‘I never saw sales like it in children’s fiction. It’s because of the illustrators.’

‘And you got the names and addresses?’ Ernie Foxton demanded.

Fellows turned her fleshy neck towards the president of the company. ‘Yes, just as you said, Mr Foxton. I took the names and addresses and signed them all to new individual contracts with Blakely’s. Exclusive contracts, with a no-compete clause. For one year.’

Ernie rubbed his hands. ‘Terrific. That’ll shut the little fuckers up.’

He beamed at his own deviousness. No-compete clauses were normally put in the employment contracts of filni presidents and engineers, but why not use them for scribblers and paint splashers, too? It meant that if they refused to work for Blakely’s, they couldn’t draw for anybody else - for example, a new firm that Cicero might be tempted to set up, once he figured out what was happening to him. The only job they would have would be to sling hash in some fast-food joint. Ernie was learning about the so-called artistic temperament. Seth Green didn’t understand what he’d signed, but that was his problem. He would draw for Blakely’s, or he wouldn’t draw at all. To a guy like Seth, revolting little faggot, that’d be unbearable. Same for all the other kids Cicero had recruited.

‘You spoke to the booksellers? Amazon and the other online people?’ ‘Of course,’ Janet Jensen said, primly. ‘They don’t care

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about our office politics. They just want to know that the line will continue. They all saw you on TV, Mr Foxtqn. They give you the credit.’

‘And so they should,’ Ernie said shamelessly. ‘It’s a Blakely’s line, and I run Blakely’s.’ ‘Very well, too,’ Janet said, giving him an oily smile. Ernie didn’t mind. What the fuck? It was true.

Tonight he would call Jane Grenouille at her firm and prep her on how to deliver the bad news. He had such a nice surprise planned. Of course, Diana would be getting it in the rear twice, which was more than she’d ever gotten from him. Frigid bitch. Felicity was right. He was well shot of her.

Ernie’s thoughts drifted away from victory to the new maid Felicity had hired to tend to his personal stuff. She was neat, compact and Eurasian, with milky skin and slanted #es. She wore stiletto heels four inches high around his apartment and tight little black dresses over her boyish body. He loved thinking about the insults which would pour out of her cruel little mouth, given half a chance. Felicity made herself scarce three nights out of five. She did what she was told, except in the bedroom where she was demanding and raked his skin with her nails. He could get it up for her, no problem. She ate next to nothing, and she sucked him with such enthusiasm and leapt to his touch which .she directed. It was a pleasure to eat out her neatly trimmed little pussy. Sometimes she even braided the small strip of pussy hair she had left and affixed little bows to it. In public, of course, you’d never know. Last night he’d taken her out for the first time, and he’d enjoyed the stares of the crowd.

Felicity reminded him that the whole of New York would be watching to see how he handled Diana. The way they watch my business, Ernie thought. But that’s OK. Let them watch, I’m going to show them how it’s done.

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‘Great meeting, everybody.’ His tone told them to get the luck out. He buzzed Emma, Marcia’s replacement. ‘Emma, get me Sir Angus Carter on the phone. Right now.’

Michael did something he never did, and gave everybody the rest of the day off. Helen and Kara whooped, gathered up their bags, and were out of there in under two minutes. His executives were more restrained but, still, they didn’t exactly protest. It was 78 degrees and sunny outside, and they could get back to their homes before the rush hour, and eat watermelon on their sun decks, and think about the sweet two hundred and fifty K they’d get for riding along with him.

He pretty much wanted out, too, today. He lox;ed his job, but it wasn’t every day you found out you were about to become an instant millionaire. His dad had been in tears when he rang him and told him. Right now, Michael reflected, he wanted head from Iris, a bottle of chiled Taittinger ros champagne, and … he’d figure out the rest later.

He was just finishing up with Diana Foxton. He resisted telling her to thank Ernie for him. He’d earned this golden-handshake bonus, he thought. They were making money because Blakely’s was making even more money. That was what he had to bear in mind.

Diana was handing him the last set of letters that needed his signature. She seemed remarkably unexcited about today’s news, but then again, why should she care? It wasn’t like one pre-tax million dollars would rock her world, exactly.