For All the Wrong Reasons (11 page)

I could have had it before now, though, Michael thought. If I had sold out. He congratulated himself. What a fucking awesome buzz this was. He had held onto his baby company, had refused to take a salary. Now he was actually in partnership with Ernie Foxton. Independent control and mainstream money. It was a dream, and it was his.

The Blakely's building loomed up ahead of him. Michael stopped dead, leaving the businesswomen in their tight suits and the workmen clutching their Styrofoam cups of coffee to push forward around him, waving down the yellow cabs that crawled along the semi-gridlocked roads or diving into the subway stations. He looked upward. The tower was magnificent, covered in opulent black polished granite. It glinted in the morning sunlight, sparkling like marble in some Venetian palazzo. The name of the firm was etched on a large brass plate in royal-blue lettering. Michael noticed that Green Eggs had not yet been added to the list of companies housed there. He'd have to remedy that.

The thought gave him an electrifying thrill.

Revolving doors made of solid dark glass provided an entrance to the lobby. He could see his reflection in them. The young man facing him was heavyset, in a smart suit, with an intense look of concentration on his face. Michael resisted an impulse to wink at himself. He grinned, and pushed into the lobby. Time to get to work.

*   *   *

Ernie was looking out of his window as Michael Cicero arrived, but he didn't see him walk in off the street. He was staring out at the billboards for the movies and DKNY Jeans balancing amid the concrete forest of midtown, but he did not see them either. Small red lights blinked in and out of focus on his telephone bank as Marcia dealt with them. Right now he was distracted. He was talking to Mira Chen.

“You like the job then…?” he asked nervously, fiddling with the tie on his thousand-dollar Armani jacket. The costly clothes never seemed to hang quite right on Ernie, not that he gave a fuck. He dressed in the most expensive suits and shirts of the season. Top of the range, whatever it happened to look like. Ernie thought this gave him a sophisticated air.

“You like the job then,
what?
” Mira demanded, in a low hiss.

“I mean … you like the job then … Miss Chen,” Ernie half whispered. He didn't dare to call her Mistress on an open phone line, even though Mira was now his employee. He imagined her tiny, boyish body, her long legs tapering down to pointed, cruel stilettos. Mira was the first time he had cheated on Diana. Ooh, she knew how to treat a naughty boy like he deserved, Ernie thought. He had the first stirrings of an impressive hard-on.

“It's barely adequate. I need more money and a bigger office.”

“It's the best I can do for now … Miss Chen,” Ernie whimpered.

“It's not good enough. You need to be punished for even thinking I would accept this,” Mira snapped, hanging up on him.

Ernie gave himself a second to contemplate what tonight's punishment might be. It was a delicious picture.

His buzzer sounded, snapping him out of it. Ernie felt his hard-on wither and die.

“Yeah, what is it?” he barked at Marcia.

“Excuse me, sir,” his assistant said, nervously. “I saw you were done with Miss Chen … you asked me to let you know when Michael Cicero got into the office.”

Ernie switched his focus. He felt a surge of adrenaline. The fly had finally crawled into the web.

“Reception said he just signed in, Mr. Foxton.”

“Excellent. I'm going to take a little orientation meeting,” Ernie said. “You can route my calls to Peter or Janet.”

“Yes sir,” Marcia said.

*   *   *

Ernie rode down to Michael's floor in the regular elevator, the peasants' elevator, as he thought of it. Normally, he rode in the brass and velvet, air-conditioned president's car, which only he and his guests could use. It was non-stop from the lobby to the sixteenth floor. But Michael Cicero didn't get offices up near the executive suites of Blakely's. He had a basic set of rooms on the fourth floor. At this stage, there was no point in putting any more cash into Green Eggs than they had to.

If the children's book sector wound up profitable for Blakely's, Green Eggs would get all the cash it needed, but by then, Michael Cicero would not be a part of it.

Ernie smiled as he thought of Jack Fineman's cleverness. The back-door deal with Grenouille and Bifte had made sure that the contract was badly presented to Cicero. There were plenty of outs for Blakely's and few outs for Cicero. He would learn that nobody walked out on Ernie Foxton.

Of course, Michael didn't have to learn that just yet. A happy employee was a productive employee. Ernie wanted to get the best out of him, to pick his brains before he kicked him out.

Michael Cicero was thirty and self-made and he thought he knew everything. It would be a pleasure, Ernie decided, to show him how wrong he was.

*   *   *

“So what do you think of it?” Ernie asked loudly.

He pushed through the plain wooden door without knocking, and was pleased to see a young woman, presumably Cicero's assistant, jump out of her skin. The space was boringly decorated, clean and functional. There was nothing of the black leather and gilt-clock elegance of the other Blakely's offices, not to mention any trace of the opulence on Ernie's floor. Cicero had no Eames chairs, no hand-woven Persian rugs. He had secretary cubicles and swivel-back chairs from an “economic” office supply place.

But Cicero was walking around his small space as rapt as if Ernie had assigned him a wing at Versailles.

“It's amazing.” He glanced into the corner office, slightly larger than the two beside it, where he would sit. “You even got us our own kitchen.” Michael laughed. “Susan is thrilled she won't have to go on a bagel run twice a day anymore.”

“And you've hired your new people?” Ernie asked. He really didn't care what Susan thought. She was pretty enough, but girls like her were two a nickel in New York. He didn't promote women up from assistant positions and he didn't want to fuck her, so she didn't show up on his radar.

“Yeah. I spoke to Felix last week. Everybody will be coming in today, making changes to the run we have ready to go. Of course, they will have to get used to all this.” He waved a brawny arm around his offices, and Ernie realized the bitching about luxury wasn't going to come. To Michael Cicero, this
was
luxury.

“You have to bring your illustrators up to meet Janet and me.” Ernie smiled warmly at the younger man. His lawyers had told him he had to make sure of each piece of talent, individually, to really fuck Michael over. Last thing he wanted was Cicero walking out before he had got hold of his talent. “We take pride in really getting to know a team we work with.”

“I'll do that.” Michael repressed his distaste. He hated corporate therapy-speak that called workplaces “teams” and “families” and then didn't hesitate to fire a guy who was underperforming. Plus, the limey was thin and had manicured hands and what looked like a fake tan. He was a million miles away from Michael's idea of a guy. But he was the one coming up with the money. So far, there had been no memos, no corporate interference. Just production dollars, meetings with finance guys and lots of checks.

Michael reminded himself it was no more cheap paper and flimsy covers. No more riding around Brooklyn and the Long Island Expressway with a van full of products. For that, he could deal with Ernie and his corporate babble.

Ernie stuck out a bony hand, and Michael shook it, careful not to crush it in his.

“Great to have you on board,” Ernie said. “We love nurturing talent. We think you're really going to create a very special endeavor here.”

What the hell does that mean? Michael thought, but he just smiled. “Thanks. The guys will be arriving shortly. I'll send them upstairs when they get here.”

“Good. Remember, you're part of the Blakely's family now,” Ernie told him. Then he flashed an insincere smile at Susan Katz and was gone.

Susan closed the door behind Ernie and looked at her handsome boss. He was leaning over the windowsill outside his office, surveying the street. Nobody was here; the creative gang didn't show up to work until ten o'clock at the earliest. She indulged in a brief, glorious fantasy that Michael would turn around to her, thrust up her neat little burgundy skirt, grab her thighs around the cream-colored lace thigh-high stockings she was wearing today, and throw her over her cubicle desk and just fuck her brains out.

“So what do we do now?” Susan ventured.

Michael turned around and handed her a neat sheet of folded paper from his jacket pocket. “This is the call sheet for today. I made it up last night.”

“Yes, Mr. Cicero,” Susan said, sighing.

Of course. Work. She was insane to think there could be anything else in Michael's life.

*   *   *

Michael Cicero could never clearly recall his first few weeks in business. It merged into one long, confused, exhilarating, exhausting blur. While Seth and his other illustrators worked with Blakely's production team, he was hiring salesmen, visiting booksellers and making presentations. At night he was wiped out, but still didn't want to leave. Susan Katz, reluctantly, would leave the office, in a breath of perfume, wishing him good-night with her pencil-lined mouth, tossing her gleaming hair back across her shoulders, and Michael, oblivious, would head out to a bar when he could no longer squeeze in even one more call.

The line was coming together. The response was superb. He felt he was living on a cloud of adrenaline and energy. He snatched a sandwich or burger when he could, and fit in his workouts by rising an hour earlier. Every night, Michael wanted to celebrate.

What he really wanted was a woman.

There was no shortage of girls, of course. There never had been. Poor Susan; if Michael had met her in a bar he would have jumped her bones without thinking twice. But the office was sacred to him. Three times a week, on average, he picked up a girl, usually one he had banged before; girls he knew, clean, dumb, gorgeous girls, women he could take in small doses. They had big breasts, small waists and round, firm butts. Unfortunately, most girls were stupid and Michael couldn't take stupid. He was polite and kind and didn't lie to anybody. Nine times out of ten, they wanted a return encounter. He liked Janet, who wore a bra two sizes too small, so creamy, jiggling flesh poured out over the top of the black lace, and Elsa, the fitness instructor, who had that delectable ass, curvy, jutting and muscular. He laughed at her when she complained about it. When would girls learn that most guys didn't want a tomboy? Every time Elsa leaned over to pick up something from the floor, he got a twitch in his groin.

But all the girls who banged Michael so eagerly, all the condom packets he went through, didn't satisfy him. He wanted a girl he could talk to when she was done giving him head, preferably expertly. And if her technique wasn't perfect, he'd be happy to give her practical lessons.

He thought he'd found her when he met Iris. She was in a bar on Twenty-fourth and Eighth, but then again, so was he. She was a paralegal, with hopes of becoming a lawyer some day. She had an excellent body, a curvy ass, good tits, and she knew several words of more than one syllable. Michael asked her out and to his surprise, found she wouldn't give it up on the first date. Nor the second. She made it to three before sharing his bed, and when she did so, he found she could suck him well. Better than well. She wasn't the classiest girl, but he figured you had to make allowances. And he was full of adrenaline, and she was there.

One evening, three weeks into their relationship, after a more expensive dinner than he could really afford, Michael had taken her home, banged her, and was now wondering how long he had to wait before he could ask her to leave, without being rude. A girlfriend was great, but he had to get up in the morning.

Iris lay sprawled across his bed, reading his tabloids: the
News
and
Post
which Michael only bought for the sports sections. Iris liked to call all the jewelry shops advertising discount diamonds she couldn't afford, and then move onto the gossip pages. She propped herself up on her slim elbows, which let her breasts sway nicely, her nipples still hardened from his tongue on them earlier.

“Anything interesting?” Cicero asked. Play nice, he thought with an inward sigh.

“Yeah. Something about your boss.”

“Where? Let me see.”

“Oh, so
now
you're interested,” Iris teased, but she handed over the inky sheet. “It's a bit about the wife, actually.”

“Diana? She's a snotty little bitch,” Michael said unthinkingly, and then cursed himself. He shouldn't say things like that. Not even to Iris. Discretion was important in a business like his.

“You met her?” Iris demanded. She sat up butt-naked, and he admired the firm lines of her stomach. She sighed, wistfully. “They're always taking her photo. She looks so great. She throws, like, the hippest parties, and everybody goes.”

“Do they now,” Michael said, absently. He scanned the article to see if it said anything about Ernie. It didn't; he was about to throw it out.

“Sure. All the celebrities, the politicians, basketball players, everyone … and her clothes, such incredible clothes!”

Iris babbled on, but Cicero paid her no attention. He was looking at the shot of Diana, in a soft cashmere sky-blue sweater worn over a silk taffeta skirt, emerging from a dinner at City Hall. She looked … out of his league. Classy, like a princess or something. The thought of Ernie Foxton banging that was literally incredible. He tried to picture it: He failed.

Diana Foxton.
There was something about her he should remember, wasn't there? Something he had meant to do that had slipped by him?

Oh, shit, Michael thought. Of course. They had fought—stuck-up madam that she was. Class, sure, but didn't she know it—and he had signed his deal before she could go running to Ernie and blow it for him.