The human face was a canvas on which man painted his every thought and emotion. Some strokes were deft, lightning quick, others long and lingering. Look close enough, however, and you could see them all. A knitting of the brow, a tightening of the mouth, a narrowing of the eyes: Guilfoyle was able to process all of this instantaneously and know a man’s state of mind. It was his gift.
And so he had known that Thomas Bolden was telling the truth.
Yet to believe that, Guilfoyle had to also believe that Cerberus had kicked out a “false positive”-in the parlance, meaning that the system had identified the wrong man. He could not do that. There was the matter of the phone calls Bolden placed to Stillman. If Bolden had called Bobby Stillman, he had to know her.
Guilfoyle fingered the drawing of the musket. In his mind’s eye, he was looking at Bolden. The two were back in the room on the seventieth floor of Hamilton Tower. He traced every line of the man’s face, recalled every twitch of his lips, the direction of his eyes. He decided that he very much wanted to speak with him again. He had a disconcerting feeling that for once, he may have been wrong, and that Thomas Bolden had bested him. He did not enjoy being made to look like an idiot.
“Hoover,” he called.
“Yes, Mr. Guilfoyle?”
“How’s it coming?”
“Slowly, sir. We have a lot of conversations to go through.”
“Hurry it up. We’ve got to get our men in place before he arrives.”
Grasping the paper with his left hand, he folded it dexterously into quarters and slipped it into his jacket pocket. As a boy, he’d practiced long hours to be a magician. He became adept at sleight of hand, and, when working alone, was able to master the most difficult illusions. Yet, everyone agreed that he was a terrible magician. One fault doomed him from the beginning. He couldn’t smile. People preferred to watch his hands instead of his face.
17
The crew pushed past Bolden into his office, all four of them. One of the uniformed security men closed the door and took up a position with his back against it.
“Tommy, please take a seat in that chair,” said Michael T. “Mickey” Schiff, the firm’s chief executive.
“I think I’d like to stand, Mickey. What’s the deal?”
“I said take a seat. Your wishes are no longer a matter of concern to this firm.”
“Please, Tom,” said Sol Weiss. “Take a seat. The sooner we’re done here, the better.”
“Sure, Sol.” Bolden allowed the chairman to guide him to one of the armchairs normally reserved for guests. “What’s this about?”
“This is about you, mister,” said Schiff every bit as aggressively as before. “About your disgraceful predilections. About bringing dishonor upon the reputation of a venerable institution and shaming the man who gave you a chance to make a place for yourself.”
The CEO of Harrington Weiss was a slight man, wiry, and proud of his fitness, his skin tanned the color of polished oak. Schiff was the firm’s Mr. Inside, the ice-blooded technocrat who had overseen HW’s successful forays into derivatives and the private equity market. As was his custom, he was dressed in a tailored navy chalk stripe with plenty of cuff showing. His hair was colored a brassy auburn. Bolden noticed that his gray roots were showing. Must have been a busy week.
“Stop it right there,” he said. “I’ve never done a thing to hurt HW.” He appealed to Sol Weiss. “What’s he talking about?”
A crowd was gathering outside the office. Secretaries, assistants, and a smattering of executives formed a semicircle of aggrieved onlookers. At its center, her chin held high, stood Althea.
“Thomas, we have a situation here,” said Weiss in his tacks-and-gravel baritone. “Diana Chambers contacted us this morning to inform us about the misunderstanding that took place between you two last night.”
“What misunderstanding was that?” asked Bolden.
“The gist of her complaint is that you assaulted her in the men’s room of the hotel last night after she refused to perform oral sex on you. I’m sorry to be so blunt.”
Schiff cut in impatiently. “Is it your practice, Tom, to slap around women who won’t have sex with you? Are you one of those freaks that needs to feel like he’s in control to be a man?”
“Diana Chambers said what?” Bolden asked, dumbfounded. Like him, Diana Chambers worked as a director at HW. She was a pretty, prim blonde, proud of being a Yalie, short and athletic with blazingly white teeth and brown eyes that bugged out when she smiled. They were friendly, but not friends. “It’s not true. None of it. Not a word. I talked to Diana for maybe two minutes last night. I certainly didn’t go into the men’s room with her. I didn’t ask her to have sex with me and I didn’t hit her. Where is she? I can’t believe she said this. I’d like to talk to her myself.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Sol Weiss. “She’s at the hospital.”
“At the hospital?”
“That punch you saw fit to give her left her with an orbital fracture,” said Schiff.
“This is nonsense,” said Bolden, looking into his lap, shaking his head.
“I wish we could say that we agree with you, Tom,” said Weiss. “But we’ve got a sworn affidavit alleging your behavior. There are two detectives waiting downstairs to take you into custody.”
Schiff removed a photograph from a buff envelope and handed it to Bolden. “This was taken last night at the battered-women’s unit at Doctors’ Hospital. Care to explain?”
Bolden examined the photo. It showed a close-up of a woman’s face. Her left eye was swollen horribly, colored black and blue. There was no question it was Diana Chambers. The insinuation… no, the accusation that he had done this incensed him. A lump of anger rose in his throat, choking him. “I didn’t do this. Christ, I’d never…”
“She swears you did,” said Sol Weiss. “What can I do, Tom? My hands are tied. You know Diana. She’s a good girl. I can’t imagine her lying any more than I can you doing this to her.”
“But she is lying,” said Bolden.
“That’ll be for a court to decide,” said Schiff. “Now, you’re going to have to leave the premises. Didn’t you hear Sol? There are two detectives downstairs waiting to take you in.”
“Give me a break,” said Bolden. “Sol, I was at your table last night. So was Jenny. I could barely move ten feet, there were so many people stopping by. Did you see me talk to Diana Chambers?”
“Look, Tommy, it was a big place,” said Weiss.
“Did you see me talking to her?” Bolden demanded.
Weiss shook his head and grunted irritably. “I like you, kid. You know that. But I don’t have any choice but to go by what Diana’s telling us. If it’s nonsense, then we’ll forget all about it. But first, we have to get to the bottom of it.”
Bolden looked from one face to the next, then exhaled a long breath. Once he left the office, he’d never be back. HW wasn’t a white-shoe firm; it was more like silk-stocking. The taint of wrongdoing was enough. Once word got out, Bolden would always be the guy who beat up Diana Chambers. His ability to attract business would effectively be nil. The mere charge was tantamount to industrial castration.