“Let me in!” Herb repeated, pounding again and again on the door. “I mean it!” The door did not open. “Look, I’m sorry I said you’d put on a few pounds. I was just teasing. You look great.”
He waited, but there was still no response from the other side. “I can’t believe you’d take advantage like this, just because I had to go across the hall to the crapper.” He shook with frustration. “Honey, what if someone comes through the front door—”
He gestured toward the front door, and in so doing, saw Ben crouched on the floor. “Too late.”
Herb ran behind a secretarial station and tried to hide himself behind a typewriter. “Kincaid! You again?”
Ben stood up. “This is becoming a distressingly familiar event. What’s the problem, Herb? Can’t you afford a hotel room like everyone else?”
“That’s none of your goddamn business. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I…had some work I wanted to finish before tomorrow morning’s staff meeting.”
“Sounds suspicious to me.”
“Says you. At least I have my pants on.”
Herb made an evil, growling noise. “Look, I don’t want this story going around the office, understand? Especially not to Crichton.”
“Really? I was thinking about putting it in staff notes.”
“Hardy har har. Cut me some slack, Kincaid. Guy to guy.”
“Well, since you put it like that.” Grinning, Ben headed back the way he had come. He heard Herb do some more pounding, then finally heard the office door open. He hated to think about what Herb must’ve promised her.
To his surprise, Ben hadn’t walked halfway down the hallway when he saw Candice approaching from the other direction. And heading toward Herb’s office.
“Candice!”
“True. What of it?”
“But I thought—I mean—I assumed—”
“Pull yourself together, Kincaid. You’re not making any sense.”
“I—never mind. What are you doing here this time of night?”
“I’m looking for that asshole Herb. Have you seen him?”
Ben felt beads of sweat forming on his forehead. “I think he’s in his office.”
Her eyes became tiny slits. “Is he alone?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“That son of a bitch.” She collapsed against the secretarial station. “I might have known.”
“For whatever it’s worth,” Ben said, “I think the less you have to do with Herb, the better.”
“Easy for you to say. You were brought in at an Attorney Four level.”
“At what?”
“Attorney four. Two levels and twenty thousand dollars above me. Since I started working here five years ago, Crichton has promoted every man in the department on a regular basis. But not me.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t play the game. Didn’t communicate my ideas via male intermediaries. Didn’t sit back and let men take credit for my work. And there was the Herb problem.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Herb had been coming on to me since day one. Suggesting that I should dress like a woman. Asking what I’d be willing to do to keep my bosses happy. Touching me when he talked. Making off-color jokes. Then he got bolder. He started asking if I wanted to come over to his place and watch porn movies. Asking if I ever got the urge to fuck various Apollo employees. Did I like to do it with other women? Did I like to do it with myself? He was disgusting. I rebuffed him at every turn.”
“Good for you.”
“Easy to say. Soon Herb was badmouthing me to everyone in the department, including Crichton. I confronted Herb, asked what the hell was going on. He hinted strongly that I wasn’t going to rise in this organization until my male colleagues—like him—stopped reporting that I was an unpleasant bitch. But he had a price for his positive recommendation.”
“Surely you didn’t—”
“I resisted for years. But after awhile, after I saw assholes like Chuck and idiots like Doug make Attorney Three and Four while I was still Attorney One, I thought, what the hell. Sure, it was a compromise, but…” She waved her hand shakily in the air. “I started giving Herb what he wanted.”
“And?”
“And, just four months ago, I made Attorney Two. First and only woman in Crichton’s department to be promoted. Of course, it was just a token promotion; even Crichton knew he might have legal problems if he didn’t toss a bone to one of the women in the department.”
“So that’s how it started with you and Herb.…”
“Yeah. Herbert the Pervert.” She laughed bitterly. “I hate him. All those fights between Herb and me that you thought were fake? They were only fake on one end. Maybe not even that. I came here to tell Herb it was over. I know Herb could still crush my career in an instant, but I just can’t stand it any longer.”
“I don’t think you want to go in right now.”
“No, this is fine. He’s made it even easier for me—if I catch him in the act, maybe he’ll feel guilty. Or maybe I can blackmail him. You wouldn’t happen to have a camera on you?” Ben shook his head. “Anyway, I’m going in there.”
“Do you really think that’s—”
Ben’s words were useless; she had already passed him and was practically in Herb’s office. Ben decided to move quickly in the opposite direction. A few moments later, he rejoined his group.
“What’s all the commotion up there?” Christina
“I’ll tell you later.”
“Later, schmater. I want to see for myself.” She started down the hallway.
Ben grabbed her arm. “Believe me, Christina. You absolutely, positively do not want to see for yourself. I have a hunch that in a few moments the whole corridor is going to go ballistic.” He swung her back toward the elevator lobby. “Let’s go around the other way.”
They tiptoed through the elevator lobby and emerged on the other side of the floor. Ben thought he heard a sound ahead of him—some kind of movement. He approached the corner cautiously, his back pressed against the wall.
“Be careful,” Christina whispered. “I heard it, too.”
Ben breathed in and out, trying to slow his racing heart. All this creeping around was starting to get to him. But why should he be afraid? Who hadn’t he met up here already? He spun around the corner.
“Ahhhhhh!” the man on the other side cried out.
“Ahhhhhh!” Ben cried back, startled.
After the initial shock, Ben pulled himself back down to earth and focused. “Loving?”
It was in fact Loving, Ben’s private investigator from his previous life. Loving was dressed in a T-shirt and blue jeans.
“What are you doing up here?”
“Covering your backside,” Loving answered. “I thought you guys might need some protection.”
“If you’re covering our backside, why are you in front of us?”
“ ’Cause you keep changing directions!”
“Oh. Sorry. How did you get up here? I didn’t hear the elevator.”
“I didn’t take the elevator. I took the stairs.”
“All the way up? You must be exhausted.”
“Piece of cake,” he said, trying to conceal his gasping for air.
“Look, why don’t you sit down and catch your breath? We have to move on.”
“No way. You guys might need some muscle. I’m sticking to you like glue.”
Ben resigned himself to the inevitable, and motioned for Loving to follow. Down the chain of hallways, Ben led them to his office and, on the other side of the hall, the main computer room. Various computer terminals and printers lined the walls, while one much larger terminal rested in the center.
“That one must be the big mama,” Jones said. “It probably controls the entire LAN.”