The Best Revenge Read Online Free Page B

I’d thought of it as an enclave for companies that know how to use interior space for the benefit of business. I daydreamed then of having my offices in the Seagram Building, but I was expected by actors and investors to stick to the West Forties, close to Sardi’s and, of course, the theaters themselves. Over the years, whenever I lunched at the Four Seasons or took a late night supper at the Brasserie, I’d sneak an upward glance at the huge building that held them both. If no bombs fell, the Seagram would survive any person in it. Not bad, Louie would have said, for that pisher. Meaning Nick Manucci.
    I scanned the lobby for Ezra. I had warned him to be here on time. It was three fifty-five and he was late.
    As I searched for The Venture Capital Corporation on the lobby directory, a gray-uniformed elevator starter asked, “Can I help you, sir?” If I’d been wearing my usual clothes—slacks and an open-throated shirt—he wouldn’t have called me sir.
    “No, thanks,” I told the man in uniform. I’d just found the room number. What difference did it make if this fellow found out I was here to see Manucci? A voice behind me made me turn.
    “Traffic,” Ezra said, glancing at his watch. “Let’s go.”
    “No briefing?” I asked.
    “If I interrupt, let me,” Ezra said. “Stick this memo in your case. If he wants facts, hand it to him. It’s sanitized.”
    Ezra followed me into an already crowded elevator. As I watched the lighted numbers track our fast climb, I remembered how when I was a kid I would stir my anticipation of adventure by thinking of each floor of a building as a story.
    Today, my story was on the thirty-second floor. The gilt lettering on the impressive, grained-wood double doors of suite 3218 had the name we were looking for. Those doors were nine feet high, not to admit giants but to give those entering a sense of the limitations of their size. I expected the entrance to be locked, but the knob turned readily. The reception room surprised me, a Max Ernst on one wall and a Zao-Wou-Ki on another. Coming from behind a desk, a young lady sheathed in silky polyester a mite too slinky for an office, with a touch of British accent said, “How good of you to be so prompt, Mr. Riller. Is this gentleman with you?”
    “Mr. Hochman is my lawyer.”
    “I see. I’ll tell Mr. Manucci’s secretary you’re both here.”
    As she spoke on the intercom, I felt Ezra’s elbow in my ribs. He nodded toward the lithographs, and whispered, “I wonder who had the good taste to steal those for him.”
    “You’ve seen too many gangster movies, Ezra.”
    From across the room, the receptionist said, “Mr. Manucci is just finishing an overseas call. He won’t be a moment. Please have a seat.”
    The coffee table displayed virgin copies of Forbes and Business Week.
    “Can I get either of you a cup of coffee while you’re waiting?”
    Ezra declined with a headshake.
    “Just had some half an hour ago,” I said. “Thank you.”
    She smiled. “I recognized you from your photographs, Mr. Riller. I still read the theater pages before the news.”
    Her smile strained for my attention. My eyes wandered to her sheathed body, the indented waist, the arching hips.
    Our family album contained sepia and gray photos of Louie with three or four women. Sometimes only one woman, gazing at him. Even after he married, the attention continued. Is it because of Louie’s example that I have never been able to do without the attention of women, which is, of course, a hazard through life?
    “I’m an actress,” the receptionist said. “That is, I used to be.”
    I knew what was coming.
    “I had to earn a living.”
    “May I know your name?” I asked.
    “Gertrude Atherton.”
    “I’ll remember that,” I said, as I always did, the shortest way to conclude that kind of conversation on a note of hope.
    A sharp buzz caused her to pick up the phone. “Mr. Manucci’s secretary will be out in a second.”
    And she was,