bulk of the money, about seven grand, had come from the office’s petty cash. Max thought this was a great idea because if the police investigated there would be no withdrawal slips or any other way to prove he’d hired a hit man. And fuck that crazy mick’s demand for small bills – the money was mostly fifties and hundreds. What was he going to do, turn it down? Yeah, like that was going to happen.
As Max poured his second vodka tonic, there was a soft knock on the door, a pause, followed by a louder knock.
Max recognized the signal and said in his sexiest voice, “Come in, baby.”
As usual, Angela looked dynamite. She was wearing shiny black boots, a short red skirt tight enough to see her butt-cheeks, and a lacy camisole. She had big blow-dried hair and was wearing the diamond stud earrings that Max had bought her at Tiffany’s last Christmas.
“You had two messages while you were on the phone,” Angela said, the soft Irish vowels driving him crazy.
“Fuck the messages. How about you put those magic little hands of yours to work?”
Angela locked the door and came up behind Max at his desk. Max breathed deeply, moaning, “Oh, yeah, that feels so good,” as Angela worked the muscles in his neck and shoulders.
“You have a lot of knots today,” Angela said.
“I bet my blood pressure’s shooting through the roof too.”
“Was that Dr. Cohen you were screaming at?”
“Who else? I swear, I don’t know how that jerk-off got a license. You know what that asshole told me? That I should start eating brown rice. Like the bacon, the fried chicken, the shrimp, the pizza – that’s not killing me. It’s the fuckin’ white rice.”
“Calm down,” Angela said. “You have to learn how to relax, not let the stress get to you. In Ireland we say, Na bac leat.”
The fuck was she talking about? He asked, “The fuck’re you talking about?”
She said calmly, “In American… No biggie. ”
Max exhaled, then took a long, steady breath. Angela was wearing some of that perfume called Joy he had bought her last month at Bloomingdale’s. Max couldn’t tell whether it smelled nice or not, but it had cost five hundred bucks an ounce so he figured it must be pretty good.
“You should be careful,” Angela said, “screaming in the office like that. Everyone could hear you.”
“So? If they don’t like it they don’t have to work here.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to, like, yell like that. I mean people could remember. They’ll tell the police ‘Come to think of it, Max was kind of acting crazy lately.”
“But I act crazy all the time, I’m a crazy kind of guy, it’s part of my appeal.”
“I’m just saying – it’s probably not a good idea.”
“Eh, you’re probably right,” Max said. “You know what else Cohen told me? He said I’m fat.”
“I love your belly.”
“Yeah, well, Cohen says it’s unhealthy. He showed me some chart that said I’m obese for a man my height and age. Meanwhile, you should see the size of that asshole’s gut.”
“How does that feel?”
“Nice. Real nice.”
Angela spun Max around in his chair, kissed him on the lips, then Max whispered, “I just want all this shit to be over with already. Last night I had a dream she was dead. The ambulances were there and they were carrying her out of our house, covered by a white sheet, and you know what? It was the best dream I’ve ever had.”
“You shouldn’t talk about her that way,” Angela said. She had her hands behind Max’s head, gently rubbing her fingers through his thinning hair. He was glad she was touching the back of his head, where he still had some hair left. “You know what they say – if you say things about your first wife you’ll say them about your second wife too.”
“You and Deirdre have nothing in common, sweetheart.”
“That’s what you say now, but in twenty years you might be paying to have me killed.”
“I’d be lucky if I lived another twenty years.”
“You’re not denying it.”
Holding her head steady and looking right into those fucking beautiful light blue eyes, Max said, “I love you. You think I ever went around telling Deirdre that I loved her?”
“You still didn’t deny it.”
“I deny it, I deny it,” Max said. “Jesus Christ.”
Angela smiled. Max kissed her then said, “You know, the only thing I’m worried about is this Popeye character.”
“Why?” Angela asked.
“First of all, I don’t like his name.”
“What’s wrong with his name?”
“Come on, it’s a fucking cartoon character. It’s like I’m hiring Donald Duck to kill my wife.”
“You can’t expect him to use his real name. I mean, he has to protect himself, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, but couldn’t he come up with something better, more hitman-like. I don’t know, like, Skull, or Bones, or something like that.”
“You can’t judge somebody by their name.”
“Eh, I guess you’re right. And I guess we’ve gotta assume he’s good at what he does or your cousin wouldn’t have recommended him, right? God knows the guy’s crazy enough to kill somebody. You should’ve seen the way he grabbed my arm.”
“So what’re you worried about?”
“I don’t know, it’s just a vibe. I just got a feeling the guy’s fucking around with me somehow. And I don’t like the way he changed the terms. It was supposed to be eight, then he made it ten. That’s no way to do business with somebody.”
Angela held Max’s hand, said, “Don’t worry. I mean, it’s only another two thousand. It’s not like he asked for twenty thousand.”
“Yet,” Max said. “I got a feeling this guy thinks he’s got me by the balls or something. That’s how he comes off, like he thinks he’s in control. You know what he called me? He called me a ‘suited prick.’ Asshole. And I couldn’t stand looking at him, either. Those disgusting lips.”
While he spoke, Max was massaging Angela’s breasts. He loved her breasts – they were the main reason he’d hired her. He’d always been a breast man. Even Deirdre had big breasts, although they were starting to sag below her stomach.
“This is probably a bad idea,” Max said as Angela started to kiss his neck. “Tonight has to be our last time for a while.”
“I can’t wait till we can be together all the time,” Angela said.
“Ditto,” Max said. “But until then, let’s just try to keep things as quiet as possible around here.”
For the rest of the day, Max and Angela went about their business. Amazingly, they’d managed to keep their affair a secret from everyone in the office. Around other people, Max was always very formal, asking Angela to send faxes, take messages, bring him coffee, order in lunch and other crap that presidents of companies ask their executive assistants to do. They never went out to lunch together or left the office together at night. If they were planning to meet for dinner, Angela would always leave first and then Max would meet her at a specified location. As for the times they fooled around in Max’s office during business hours, it wasn’t unusual for an executive assistant and her boss to be in the boss’s office together with the door locked.
At eleven o’clock, Max had his weekly meeting with Alan Henderson, his CFO, and Diane Faustino, the Payroll Director. They went over the company’s payroll and budget and talked about expanding the company website and the need to hire two more Senior Networking Technicians. Max also told Alan that he wanted to reward his employees with a ten-percent raise next year, and sent out a memo about this pronto, thinking at least no one could say he wasn’t in a good mood a couple of days before his wife was murdered. Besides, he loved giving raises, the surge of power it gave him, that he could make or break these assholes.
That evening, when the last person had left for the day, Angela locked the front door, and came into Max’s office. Max was already naked, lying on his back on his office couch, doing Kamal’s breathing exercise. She turned
