Brett Halliday - Guilty as Hell

“Wouldn’t she approve?”

“Oh, I don’t know. She might be a little jealous.”

She giggled suddenly.

“What?” he said, smiling.

She shot him a glance. “I just had a way-out idea, I don’t know what you’d think. She’s mad! My girl friend, absotively, posolutely mad. And if I give her a small sniff of this perfume, she’ll purr like a cat. The next time we have a date, why don’t we ask her along?”

His face sobered. So did hers.

“Honey? It was just a thought that happened to cross my mind.”

Despard moistened his lips. He could feel his heart hammering unpleasantly.

“What’s she like?”

She settled into the embrace of the comfortable bucket seat. “Cute as a button. Everybody says so. Much cuter than me. But goodness, it’s entirely up to you.” She made a small movement. “Honey, I wouldn’t want you to get picked up for speeding, but could you please hurry?”

In the main parking lot in Crandon Park on Key Biscayne, Walter Langhorne waited in his Chrysler. He had parked carelessly, the front wheels blocking access to the next parking space. Seeing a red Volkswagen coming off the Bear Cut Bridge, he started his motor, maneuvered forward and back, and opened up the space.

Candida Morse turned in and parked. She was wearing her elegant pink suit. As she swung out of her low-slung car, her skirt rode up to give Langhorne a fast glimpse of the loveliest legs in Greater Miami.

Langhorne had an air which his colleague, Jose Despard, failed to achieve through trying too hard-he looked as though he lived on a private income. He was well aware that to begin with, Candida had sought him out solely because he was a chemical-company vice-president with an itchy foot, and she was a wheel in a well-known headhunting firm. They had both put themselves out to be agreeable. This had been easy to sustain. Each had quickly discovered the other to be handsome, civilized, intelligent, a little cynical, very good company. They had met a dozen times, either behind closed doors or in unlikely places, as they were meeting now. Once they stole an afternoon and drove to a secluded beach on one of the Lower Keys. Each time, as they parted, Langhorne wished they had met in a different way. He had begun to wonder in the last few days if, by being a bit more difficult, he could have maneuvered her to his apartment and into his bed. Probably not, he thought. He was uncommitted and would remain so.

He brought a long-necked bottle of German wine over from the cooler in the back seat and was working the corkscrew when she opened the door and got in beside him.

“Rhine wine,” she observed. She uncovered two earthenware bowls in a wicker basket. “Vichyssoise. Watercress and cucumber sandwiches. Walter, why haven’t you ever been snapped up by somebody?”

“I’ve been too fast on my feet,” he replied, drawing the cork. “How do you know some charmer didn’t turn me down once and I’ve never been able to forget her?”

“I’d accept that,” Candida said, laughing. “Is it true?”

“I forget.”

He was busy for a moment arranging napkins and silverware. He took the chilled glasses out of the cooler and poured the wine. They touched glasses.

Langhorne said seriously, “To your success, if that’s truly what you want.”

“It’s what I want. But why so ceremonious? You sound as though the next thing you say will be goodbye.”

He nodded. “It’s our last meeting. In the present series. I’ll call you in six months’ time and see what you think about starting over on a different basis.”

“Then you’ve decided not to go with United States Chemical?”

“Almost.”

She disposed of the matter with a little movement of her lips. “That’s out of the way.”

“Candida, one more moment on business. We’ve always been able to understand each other, I think, without elaborate explanations. I don’t want to change the rules, but I do want to say this. I’m not one of the most loyal employees E. J. Despard ever had, and if you find yourself in any difficulty and there’s anything I can do to help, will you let me know?”

She put her hand against his face. “You really are a lovely man, Walter. But this is one time I don’t think I do understand you.”

“Something’s going on,” he said slowly. “I’ve probably given you a biased picture of our distinguished president. Hallam has never had any real existence for me outside of his role in the firm, but I learned long ago never to underestimate him. I told him I was considering an offer from one of our competitors-”

She broke in. “When?”

“Yesterday. If I hadn’t known him so well, I would have thought he showed emotion. We’ve been at exactly opposite poles on every decision, every attitude, every course of action. I would have said he’d be delighted to be shut of me. But on the contrary. I haven’t definitely said I’d stay, but if I do I’ll have ten thousand dollars more a year, complete autonomy, a big increase in the design budget, veto power over a broad range of policy, six months out of every eighteen in Europe-”

“Walter, that’s marvelous!”

“I agree. But unless I’ve been dead wrong about Forbes Hallam all these years, something’s behind it. He wants me on the scene, but why?”

He moved his wine glass so it caught the light. “And I’m wondering, in a perverse way, if he’s been told that I’ve been seeing you.”

“Would that be so ghastly?”

“Darling, of course not. Unless by some odd chance he connects it with the flap we’ve been having about a certain new nonpeelable paint known to our advertising department as T-239.”

Neither spoke for a moment. Langhorne tasted his cold soup and added a few grains of pepper from a pepper mill.

Candida ventured, “How does that concern me?”

Langhorne chose his words carefully. “We’re all of us sitting on a barrel of dynamite. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the roof blow off the administration building before the end of the week. There’s a directors’ meeting on Thursday, and the board is split down the middle. Hallam’s enemies have been waiting for a pretext to move. I think you ought to pass this on to Begley. I’m not too impressed with your employer, as a matter of fact. It may be a mistake for him to go to Georgia this weekend. I want you to consider seriously having him come down with a virus that will keep him in bed until after the board meeting.”

“He’s not exactly a fool, Walter.”

“Would you mind defining your terms?” Langhorne said dryly. “It’s not his brain I’m thinking about. It’s whether he can be trusted. We have a report that you’ve been seen going into the United States Chemical offices on Route 128 outside of Boston. Not Hal Begley, you see. Candida Morse. I’m usually right about these things. He has a bad eye. What that eye tells me is that Hal Begley in the clutch will think of Hal Begley, and of nobody else. If he has to jettison someone in order to survive, too bad for that someone. Hal Begley Associates will dwindle down to Hal Begley Period.”

He spooned up some soup. “I hate the idea of the kind of throat-cutting and back-stabbing I’m in for this weekend. Blood will flow! It’s no concern of mine who wins, the Hallams or the Despards. Probably I should have turned Hallam down outright instead of asking for a few days to think about it. One reason I didn’t was that I’d like to be on the inside when the trouble starts. Perhaps I can help. I’ve become very fond of you, my dear.”

He touched her knee. “Come, Candida, you’re not eating.”

Forbes Hallam, Jr., a good-looking, dark-haired young man with the build of a quarter-miler, tapped on a door on the twelfth floor of the Hotel St. Albans in Miami Beach. Without waiting for an answer, he unlocked it with a key he carried on his key ring and went in.