'Well, sweetheart, when I got into this game, you were in junior high, okay?'
'Don't call me sweetheart!' she hissed.
'You're right, that was inappropriate. In a million fucking years you'd never be my sweetheart.'
She responded with a full blast of whispered fury. 'Well that's good news because the last time you dated someone in the office you almost got fired. Way to go, Will. Remind me never to take career advice from you.'
Clive snorted and half stirred. They both went mute and glared at each other.
Will wasn't surprised she knew about his checkered past; it wasn't exactly a state secret. But he was impressed she had brought it up so quickly. It usually took him longer to push a woman to her boiling point. She had balls, he'd give her that.
He had taken the transfer to New York six years earlier, when Hal Sheridan finally kicked him out of the nest after convincing the H.R. group in Washington that he could handle a managerial assignment. The New York office thought he was an acceptable candidate for Supervisor of Major Thefts and Violent Crimes. He was sent back to Quantico for a management course, where they crammed his head with everything a modern FBI supervisor needed. Sure he knew he wasn't supposed to screw the admins, even the ones in another department, but Quantico never put a picture of Rita Mather in their training manuals.
Rita was so perfectly luscious, so fragrant, so inviting, and so allegedly spectacular in bed that essentially he had no choice. They hid their affair for months, until her boss in White Collar Crimes didn't ante up the raise she was expecting and she asked Will to intervene. When he demurred, she blew up and outed him. A huge mess ensued: disciplinary hearings, lawyers up the wazoo, H.R. into overdrive. He came within a hairsbreadth of termination but Hal Sheridan intervened and brokered a quiet demotion to let him finish out his twenty. On a Friday, Sue Sanchez reported to him; on the Monday, he reported to her.
Of course he considered resigning but, oh, that pension-so near and dear. He accepted his fate, took his mandatory sexual harassment training, did his job adequately, and kicked up his drinking a notch.
Before he could retort to Nancy, Clive stirred, his eyes blinking open. He was lost for a few moments then remembered where he was. He smacked at his dry lips and nervously checked the fine old Cartier on his wrist. 'Well, I ain't dead yet. Okay if I go pee on my own without federal assistance, chief?'
'Not a problem.'
Clive saw that Nancy was upset. 'You all right, Miss FBI? You look mad. You're not mad at me, are you?'
'Of course not.'
'Must be mad at the chief then.'
Clive rocked himself upright and painfully straightened his arthritic knees.
He took two steps and abruptly stopped. His face was a mixture of puzzlement and alarm.
'Oh, my!'
Will whipped his head around, scanning the room. What was happening?
In a fraction of a second he ruled out a gunshot.
No shattered glass, no impact thud, no crimson spray.
Nancy cried out, 'Will!' when she saw Clive tipping past his balance point and nose-diving the floor.
He fell so hard his nasal bones pulverized on impact and splattered the carpet with an abstract pattern of blood resembling a Jackson Pollock painting. If it had been captured on canvas, Clive would have been pleased to add it to his collection.
SEVEN MONTHS EARLIER
P eter Benedict saw his reflection and marveled at the way his image was chopped up and scrambled by the optics of the glass. The front of the building was a deeply concave surface, soaring ten stories over Wilshire Boulevard, almost sucking you in off the sidewalk toward the two-story disc of a lobby. There was an austere slate courtyard, cool and empty except for a Henry Moore bronze, a lobulated and vaguely human conception off to one side. The building glass was flawlessly mirrorlike, capturing the mood and color of the environs, and this being Beverly Hills, the mood was usually bright and the color a rich sky blue. Because the concavity was so severe, the glass also caught the images from other panes, tossing them like a salad-clouds, buildings, the Moore, pedestrians, and cars jumbled together.
It was wonderful.
This was his moment.
He had reached the pinnacle. He had a scheduled and confirmed appointment to see Bernie Schwartz, one of the gods at Artist Talent Inc.
Peter had fretted about his wardrobe. He'd never done a meeting like this and was too sheepish to inquire about dress codes. Did agents wear suits in this day and age? Did writers? Should he try and look conservative or flashy? Buttoned-down or casual? He opted for a middle ground to play it safe-gray pants, white oxford shirt, blue blazer, black loafers. As he drew closer to the disk, he saw himself, undistorted, in a single mirrored pane and quickly looked away, self-conscious of his bony litheness and receding hairline, which he usually hid under a baseball cap. He did know this-the younger the writer, the better, and it appalled him that his balding nut made him look way too old. Did the world have to know he was pushing fifty?
The revolving doors swept him into chilled air. The reception desk was fabricated from polished hardwoods and matched the concavity of the building. The flooring was concave too, made of thin planks of curved slippery bamboo. The interior design was all about light, space, and money. A bank of starlet-type receptionists with invisible wire headsets were all saying, 'ATI, how may I direct your call. ATI, how may I direct your call?'
Over and over, it took on the quality of a chant.
He craned his neck at the atrium, and high up on the galleries saw an army of young hip men and women moving fast, and yes, the agents did wear suits. Armani Nation.
He approached the desk and coughed for attention. The most beautiful-looking woman he had ever seen asked him, 'How may I help you?'
'I have an appointment with Mr. Schwartz. My name is Peter Benedict.'
'Which one?'
He blinked in confusion and stammered. 'I-I-I don't know what you mean. I'm Peter Benedict.'
Icily, 'Which Mr. Schwartz. We have three.'
'Oh, I see! Bernard Schwartz.'
'Please take a seat. I'll call his assistant.'
If you hadn't known Bernie Schwartz was one of the top talent agents in Hollywood, you still wouldn't know after seeing his eighth-floor corner office. Maybe a fine art collector, or an anthropologist. The office was devoid of the typical trappings-no movie posters, arm-around-star or arm-around-politician photos, no awards, tapes, DVDs, plasma screens, trade mags. Nothing but African art, all sorts of carved wooden statues, decorative pots, hide shields, spears, geometric paintings, masks. For a short, fat, aging Jew from Pasadena, he had a major thing going for the dark continent. He shouted through the door to one of his four assistants, 'Remind me why I'm seeing this guy?'
A woman's voice: 'Victor Kemp.'
He waved his left hand in a gimme sign. 'Yeah, yeah, I remember. Get me the folder with the coverage and interrupt me after ten minutes, max. Five, maybe.'
When Peter entered the agent's office, he felt instantly ill at ease in Bernie's presence, even though the small man had a big smile and was waving him in from behind his desk like a deck officer on an aircraft carrier. 'Come in, come in.' Peter approached, faking happiness, assaulted by primitive African artifacts. 'What can I get you? Coffee? We got espresso, lattes, anything you want. I'm Bernie Schwartz. Glad to meet you, Peter.' His light thin hand got squashed by a small thick hand and was pumped a few times.
'Maybe a water?'
'Roz, get Mr. Benedict a water, will ya? Sit, sit there. I'll come over to the sofa.'
