Chapter 8
Bob sat in his office and leaned over his desk. He ran his fingers over his forehead, trying to massage away the pain in his head. His eyes ran across the neatly typed pages, line after line, then zipped back up to the beginning again because he hadn't taken any of the words in.
He pushed away from the desk suddenly and swore with a short oath. He rubbed his bleary eyes and scratched at his itching asshole, remembering the wild night.
He looked at the buzzer that would bring Janice running in. Maybe a quick fuck behind the file cabinet would help him concentrate better. But he remembered the way she'd been acting today--distant, cool, as though last night had never happened to either of them. He sighed heavily. Perhaps she was right-that way there wouldn't be any suspicion in the office. For whatever difference that would make after Friday.
He looked at the report again, reaching out hesitantly to curl the edges of the paper in his fingers.
Crandall was nuts.
He got up, went over to where his ice water was warming in the pitcher. He drank thirstily and looked at Barbara's grimacing picture out of the corner of his eye.
She never had said where she'd been all day yesterday. He nearly fought with her about it this morning. But he decided that wouldn't be smart since she apparently wasn't going to question him about where he'd spent most of that night.
She was going to the party, and that was all that mattered right now.
He went back to his desk, looked at the papers, and tried to put the party out of his mind. He checked over the figures and plans and history of Futures Unlimited again. He recognized the neat handwriting of Crandall's accountant.
The figures were from him, not from Vince Bartollo--the small, dark treasurer of Futures Unlimited. Crandall always did his own investigation of corporations, never accepting their word on anything. Crandall was very thorough. The figures Bob had access to looked good. Very good.
Too good.
He didn't trust them, no matter who prepared them. The whole damned corporation looked too solid to be true--like something out of one of his textbook cases. Vince Bartollo just didn't make the believable appearance of an officer and emissary of such a solidly grounded corporation.
The trouble was, their president was another kind of man altogether. He was warm and smiled a lot and oozed Truth and Beauty and Honesty all through the room and up and down the hallways. You simply had to believe everything he said.
But not so with Bartollo.
Bob looked at his report again, finding the main points of his argument easily. He sat back and judged the words critically, the way Crandall had so obviously done.
Like a bachelor railing hysterically against marriage, Crandall had said.
He read, he thought, he didn't see it. His feelings were intuitive. There was something phony about the whole setup, and he felt it inside, to hell with what the figures said.
He looked up again, his mind deep in thought. Then Barbara's picture came into focus.
Why would he be staring at that?
His mind flashed back. He stared at his wife and remembered how she'd put on the front of being from a rich background, full of culture and education and sophistication.
Maybe she was, but he didn't believe that any more, either, despite the front she put on. Every time he'd tried to talk to her about things of interest to him, she subtly changed the subject. She had a tendency to use words wrong--the big kind that people, including himself, rarely challenged her on.
There were moments--mostly angry ones-when Bob could swear she had played him for a sap. Moments when he knew without doubt that she was a phony--that she'd never had the background she claimed to have. There was nothing he could really put his finger on. Nothing he could come straight out and accuse her of. He just felt it.
The same as he felt that Futures Unlimited was rotten inside in spite of the pretty picture on its balance sheets and informational literature.
There were too many soft underpinnings-bonds, shares of stock in remote, new, obscure companies. They'd been checked out, too. Crandall was very thorough. They seemed secure enough. But again, Bob had the nagging feeling in the back of his mind that there was a common thread running through all of them--that one tug on the thread would send the whole structure unraveling and tumbling down like a house of paper stocks.
Bartollo.
He stuck out like a hairy wart on the face of a beautiful girl. No amount of mascara, face powder, hair spray, beads or perfume could hide his smell.
Just like, once you'd lived with her for five years, nothing could hide Barbara from him for what she wasn't. Even though he couldn't prove it.
He sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair wishing to God the day would end. It was torture sitting there for hours trying to think up a new way to put his argument down on paper. It was just as wrenching to try to see good where Crandall wanted him to see it.
If only there was time to check up on Bartollo!
"Are you thinking or sleeping, Mr. Miller?"
His eyes popped open. Janice stood before him in a short green outfit that made her hair soft and her eyes sparkle the way he remembered them.
"Well, I'm glad to see you're finally talking to me again today," he said.
"Just for a minute," she bubbled. "Sorry to seem so cool today, but you know how it is. I don't think Mr. Crandall would have much sympathy on either of us if he caught wind of any kind of story."
Bob agreed vigorously. "But in another few days, I don't think it'll matter much for me anyway."
"Oh? Why not?"
"I can't see his objection to this report. And I can't quite explain myself in the terms he wants. It's all very clear to me. I just don't trust the bastards. I think they're hiding something."
She looked at him and shrugged, her mind obviously not in tune with this portion of his problems.
"A lot of people hide the truth about themselves for one reason or another," she said lamely. "But I'm afraid I can't help you with this one. My specialty is in the other line. Speaking of which, what did Barbara say this morning--will she come?"
He sighed. "Yeah. She wanted to know more about it, but I put her off. She knows it's no office party. I guess I didn't have the guts to tell her it would wind up being a swap session and that she was going to be one of the participants."
"Oh, good!" Janice bubbled again, grinning at him. "I know everything's going to work out. Wally said he talked to Rod already today, and they drew straws. Wally gets first crack at her."
Bob squirmed in his chair, scratching his itchy butt again at the mention of Janice's heavy-cock husband.
"I'm not sure I envy my wife at all," he said.
Janice laughed gaily. "Wally said you were one of the tightest browns he'd had in a long time." He really dug your butt."
"He sure did," Bob agreed. "Incidentally, I hope you leave that goddamn toy of yours at home tonight."
Janice grinned mysteriously. "We won't be needing it."
"What do you mean?"
"You'll see-just be sure to bring your wife!" She spun around and left the room. Bob's suddenly-aware cock fluttered threateningly in his pants as he watched her tight butt move sexily under her short skirt. He couldn't help but undress her with his eyes as she left, trying to recapture the scenes of last night.
He turned back to the report and the mounting problem it represented. He couldn't concentrate at all now. All he could think of was the swap party tonight and what the result would be to his, marriage to Barbara. When they got through with her, she would have to forgive what he did and release him from the goddamn prison of mounting frustration she kept him in.
He picked up all the papers and started stacking them into a folder. He looked absently over the figures once again, hoping to see an optimistic future with the merger that would really be unlimited.
But he couldn't.
Bartollo. The name rang through his brain like a damned bell.
He gave one last effort to the problem and sat and searched his memory. Where had he heard that name?
It was useless. He stuffed the papers into his desk, got ready to leave. Barbara's eyes glinted at him from across the room.
A shell, he thought. A glittering, brilliant mask that he would shatter tonight.
Bartollo.
He would shatter that mask before it was too late, too. They were hiding something behind the mascara of stocks.