to embalm them.' Baines shrugged. 'I'll give your notes to the TV boys.' Then he quickly changed to his favourite subject: the Vikings. 'You catch them Sunday?'
'Afraid I didn't.' Brolan was one of thirty-two people in the entire Twin Cities who did not follow the Vikings. Or the baseball team, either, for that matter. As more than one Viking fan had said, there was a special place in hell for people like Brolan. About that Brolan couldn't argue. There probably was. But it probably didn't have to do with the Vikings.
On waking that morning, Brolan's overriding thought had been to find out how it was that Tim Culhane had come to know Emma. And just how far Culhane would go to act out his obvious hatred of Brolan.
On the way back to the production department-thirty minutes before his next meeting-he stopped by Kathleen's office to see if she was in yet. Because she always kept her door closed whether she was there or not, it was difficult to tell.
Shirley, the secretary the account executives shared, sat Buddha-like behind her battleship of a desk. Before her, like treasure she was admiring, lay two pieces of pastry, a strawberry kolach and a long john. The latter was sugar-coated and had a huge white wiggle of frosting on its top. Just what Shirley, at maybe two hundred fifty pounds, needed.
As always, however, Shirley was a testament to what big-and-tall shops could do for their customers. She wore a dark suit of sensible cut (sensible, given her size), a turquoise blouse, and some attractive rhinestones here and there. Her fleshy face was made pretty with makeup. For a woman her size, she was actually damned attractive.
But only if you didn't know her. Shirley, alas, was the agency gossip. Oh, everybody gossiped, even those self-righteous people who said that they hated gossip on principle. Everybody carried stories of who was sleeping with whom, who might be gay, who had a drinking problem, whose clients were slipping away. It was nothing to be proud of, certainly, but it seemed ineluctably human-people, even those who were otherwise decent, even those who were otherwise caring and sensitive people, indulged in gossip.
But with Shirley it was different. There was a meanness, an excitement, a pleasure in her gossip. When she knew something about you, she smirked every time you passed by. And if you had offended her in some way-Shirley was easily offended-then stories about you mysteriously started making the rounds. The past spring an art director Shirley despised had lost ten pounds. Shirley said it was from AIDS. A few months later a media buyer Shirley loathed was said to be having her two children taken from her because of her wild life-style. The woman was forever tainted with the notion that she was a bad mother. And so on. People loved to hang around Shirley's desk and hear her viciously and cleverly work over people who weren't there. In her repellent way she could be quite funny. This gave her a curious power within the agency. Shirley was in some respects the agency's arbiter of taste and standards. You always wanted Shirley's approval; you always wanted to be on Shirley's good side. Because otherwise Shirley would cut you up behind your back. But that was the irony, Brolan had learned. No matter how much you kissed up to her, no matter how friendly she might seem on the surface, she would inevitably turn on you. Brolan always wondered why the people who sucked up to her couldn't see that. That when they were gone, it was they Shirley talked about. Brolan had wanted her fired several months before. Foster had convinced him that she did good work, got along with all the account executives, and was not really a liability. This was one of those instances when Brolan had deferred to his partner. Foster felt more strongly about keeping her than Brolan did about firing her.
As Brolan approached Kathleen's closed door, Shirley said, 'Not in.' She didn't look up from the paperwork she was doing at her desk. She liked to give the impression that, like nuns, she had eyes in the back of her head.
'I need to see her on the Falcon account.'
Then Shirley looked up. Smirking. 'The Falcon account. Yessir.' Of course she knew all about Brolan and Kathleen. 'Has she called in?'
'No, but she told me she was having breakfast with Ken Gilman.' The smirk again. Gilman was the hunky ad manager for one of the agency's manufacturing accounts. Gilman had made no secret at agency parties of pursuing Kathleen. With her eyes back on her work, Shirley clucked, 'Third breakfast they've had in the past two weeks. They must really be working hard on that account.'
Of course she wanted the satisfaction of seeing him hurt or angry. But he wouldn't give it to her. 'Tell her I'd like to see her when she comes in,' he said, and walked slowly away from her office. He didn't want to give the impression he was running. At one point, though, he shook his head. He knew how frantic and pitiful a figure Shirley would make him out to be to others in the agency. 'Comes back here ten times a day. Always looking for her. Looks like a whipped puppy. I don't have the heart to tell him that she's screwing everything in pants.' By this point he figured that being whispered about was just one of the costs he paid to pursue Kathleen. The other major tally was Foster's growing disgust with him. Foster genuinely saw Kathleen as a predator and saw his partner as jeopardizing the agency by having a romance with her. In Foster's world men Brolan's age just didn't walk around lovesick. That sort of thing was done when you were in college, perhaps, but never after.
The second meeting concerned some disconcerting focus group tests. Raylan Chemicals, a major account of theirs, was about to market a new herbicide for agricultural use. Raylan was a respected name in the agricultural community, many farmers having used its products since the days when Herbert Hoover had promised to put a chicken in every pot. But Raydar 2 ('Hunts bugs down like radar') had been angrily criticized by six different groups of farmers in six different focus-group tests, one on the West Coast, one on the East Coast, the other four in the heartland. The objection was both simple and deadly: price. Several competitors had moved into the herbicide market lately and had been forcing prices down. Raylan was getting nervous. Profits had been sliding, and it was thought that profit potential for Raydar 2 would cheer stockholders.
The meeting was held in a small conference room. For most of the hour and a half-while two research-firm guys in Cricketeer suits and bow ties (no kidding)-slogged through page after page of statistics, Brolan stared out the window at the harsh grey day.
He tried to concentrate on the report and recommendations, but how could he?
The conference room opened on a hallway that led from the art department. Through the window to the right of the door, Brolan could see various art staffers bundled up and making their way to lunch. When he saw Tim Culhane pass by, he stirred in his seat. He wanted to run up to the man and throw him against the wall and ask him what he knew about the death of a prostitute named Emma.
Culhane, wearing a snap-brim fedora and a blast jacket, hurried past the glass and was gone. Brolan turned his attention back to the researchers and tried very hard to concentrate. He made it for four minutes, five maximum. Then he gave up entirely.
'Excuse me, Gil,' he said to the agency account executive. 'I've got to make a phone call. Why don't you take it from here?'
'Sure thing,' Gil said, giving Brolan a tiny salute of goodbye.
Brolan thanked the research men and left.
He wished then he'd counted the people who'd left the art department. Back in the small cluster of offices- and the one big open-spaced production office-there were twelve employees. If all twelve of them had left-and it was now ten past twelve-he'd be safe in doing what he was about to do…
Culhane's office was in the rear, with its own door, a mark of privilege. Two director's chairs sat on either side of the door, spots for suppliers when they came to call. Brolan checked the open area. All the stools adjacent to the art boards were empty. A radio played an old Doors song. The place smelled of Sprayment and cigarette smoke.
Before he went into Culhane's office, he tried the two cubicles on either side. These didn't have doors. But they were empty, thank God.
Brolan went back to Culhane's office, looked around guiltily, and then opened the door and went inside.
A Dali and a 'blue period' Picasso were framed and hung on one wall. A variety of advertising awards filled another. Culhane's desk was messy with purchase orders and phone messages. Culhane was notorious for not returning his calls, even when they came from clients.
The place was carpeted and furnished sparingly. It gave the impression of being an order desk in a third-rate print shop. That was the way Culhane liked it, hippie defiance in the face of encroaching yuppiedom. In a way
