Except for an occasional business meeting or football game, Smedler saw very little of Gilly and B. J. after the marriage. The divorce eight years ago had been handled by an out-of-town firm, and the only inside story on it had come to Smedler from Charity: B. J. had run away with a young girl. Gilly was rumored to have taken the divorce very hard, though not all the effects were on the bad side. B. J., evidently suffering from guilt as well as his usual poor business judgment, had been very generous in dividing the community property.
“Sit down, my dear, sit down. Here, you’ll be more comfortable in the striped chair.”
He told her she looked lovely (false), that her beige silk and linen suit was very chic (true) and that he was happy to see her (a little of both).
He was, in fact, more puzzled than either happy or unhappy. Her phone call the day before had provided few details: she wanted to hire a young man who could speak Spanish and was trustworthy, to do a job for her, probably in Mexico. Why probably? Smedler wondered. And what kind of job? She had no business interests south of the border or even outside the country, except for a small money-hungry gold mine in northern Canada. But he had been a lawyer too long to go directly to the point.
“And how is Mr. Decker?”
“The same.”
“There is still no hope?”
“Well, my housekeeper prayed for him last night at church. That’s something, I suppose, when you’re as hard up for hope as I am.”
It had been three months or so since Smedler had seen her and she had aged considerably in such a short time. The results weren’t all negative, though. There seemed to be a new strength in her face and more assurance in her manner. She’d also lost quite a lot of weight. Smedler had always admired her sense of style — no matter what costume she wore, it was difficult to imagine it suiting anyone else — and the weight loss emphasized her individuality.
“About your call yesterday,” Smedler said. “It was rather enigmatic.”
“It was meant to be, in case anyone was listening in on my phone or yours.”
“Don’t worry about mine. I have no secrets from Charity.”
“I have.”
“She’s very discreet.”
“As my housekeeper would say, discretion is in the eye of the beholder.”
“Yes. Well.”
“Tell me about the young man.”
“His name’s Aragon. Tom Aragon. He’s twenty-five, bright, personable, speaks Spanish like a native, graduated from law school last spring. I find him a bit pedantic, though that could be simply his manner with me, since I’m the boss. Technically, anyway.”
“How much do I pay him?”
“That depends entirely on what you want him to do. We estimate the time of a recent graduate to be worth so much an hour.”
“Paying by the hour would be too complicated in this case. I’ll need his total services for — well, two or three weeks, perhaps longer. What’s Aragon’s monthly salary?”
“I don’t know for sure. Let’s call Charity and—”
“No. Negative no.”
“I think you may be doing Charity an injustice.”
“More likely I’m doing her a justice,” Gilly said. “Suppose I pay your office the amount of his salary plus a commission for the use of his services. Then I’ll make separate financial arrangements with Aragon. They’ll be strictly between him and me.”
“Why all the secrecy, my dear?”
“If I told you anything further, you’d try and talk me out of it.”
“Perhaps not. Give me a chance.”
“No.”
They stared at each other for a minute in silence, not hostile, but not friendly either. Then Smedler, sighing, got up and walked over to the main window. Clouds were parading across the sky like a procession of spaceships. On the earthbound street below, traffic remained sparse and sluggish. Smedler didn’t look either up or down. This is a damn stubborn woman. Okay, I can be a damn stubborn man.
“You were B. J.’s friend,” Gilly said. “But you always had a pretty low opinion of him. You treated him like a nice jolly little fellow without a brain in his head.”
“Now what in hell — I mean, what brought that on? What’s it got to do with anything? Even if it were true, which it isn’t—”
“Oh, it’s true. You made it quite obvious and it hurt. I guess it hurt me worse than it did B. J. because he never had any more faith in himself and his ability than you did. I did. I was full of faith.”
“Dammit, Gilly. Get to the point.”
“It’s simple. If I told you what I want Aragon to do, you’d just call me a fool.”
“Try me.”
“No.”
“Negative no?”
She didn’t answer.
“By God,” Smedler said. “I need a drink.”
Tom Aragon closed the iron-grilled elevator door behind him and approached Charity’s desk. He was a tall thin young man with horn-rimmed glasses that gave him a look of continual surprise. He’d come to Smedler’s firm straight out of law school, so most of the time he was in fact surprised. The jobs assigned to him so far didn’t often involve the third floor or the woman who ran it. There was a rumor, though, that she had a sense of humor if it could be found and excavated.
She must have heard the elevator door clank open and shut, but Charity didn’t look up from the papers on her desk or indicate in any way that she was aware of someone else in the room.
“Hey,” Aragon said. “Remember me?”
She raised her head. “Ah so. The new boy from the bottom of the bottom floor. Rather cute. Well, don’t try any of the cutes on me. What do you want?”
“The boss said you’d clue me in.”
“On the world in general or did you have something specific in mind?”
“This Mrs. Decker, what’s she like?”
“You’d better not ask my opinion. She just called me a smart-ass. What do you think of that?”
“I think that’s a leading question which in a court of law I wouldn’t be required to answer.”
“This isn’t a court of law. It’s a nice cozy little office with only two people in it, and one of them just asked a question and the other is going to answer.”
“Very well. Mrs. Decker could be right. You and I haven’t been acquainted long enough for me to judge.”
Charity pushed aside her wig and scratched the lobe of her left ear in a contemplative way. “The junior members of this firm, especially the junior juniors, are usually careful to show me some respect, even a little hard homage around Christmas.”
“Christmas is a long way off. Maybe I’ll work up to it by then.”
“I hope so.”
“Now back to Mrs. Decker.”
“Gilda. Gilda Grace Lockwood Decker. Lockwood was her first husband, a funny little man, looked like a drunken cherub even when he was cold sober. She married him for his money, of course, though Smedler doesn’t think so. Smedler’s an incurable romantic, considering the business he’s in and the number of marriages he’s had. Anyway, Lockwood’s long gone... Gilly did a lot of traveling after her divorce and there was talk of various affairs in different parts of the world. Nothing really serious until she met this guy Marco Decker in Paris. Then it was clang clang, wedding bells again. She wired Smedler to send her money in care of American Express for her trousseau. Some trousseau. She must have bought half the nightgowns and perfume in France. I guess it was too much for poor old Decker. He had a stroke while they were honeymooning at Saint-Tropez. So there was Gilly, stuck with a paralyzed bridegroom in the midst of all those lovely naked young Frenchmen.”