“And well you might. The thief usually resents being caught out.”

Standing with both hands on the edge of the desk, Steve glowered down at him. “I don’t like being put on the carpet.”

“Please sit down. There’s no need for you to loom over me… That’s better.”

The young man took out a cigarette and put his lighter to it, avoiding Claiborne’s eyes. Claiborne said, “I think you need to know that, were it not for your mother, I’d not hesitate to summon the other partners and fire you in their presence. As it is, I’m offering you a dignified way out.”

Steve dragged suicidally on his cigarette and said, with smoke spouting from his mouth, “Bullshit. If you fire me I’ll go straight to the exchanges and the SEC and tell them there are illegal manipulations going on in the firm-and I’ll tell them right where to look.”

“You’re refusing my offer, then?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

Claiborne said, “I realize the incendiary nature of this affair. But the only illegal manipulations to be found under this roof are those in which you have had a hand. To be sure, there’d be embarrassments all around, but in the long run you’d be the one to suffer most. Haven’t you learned by now that I’m too shrewd, too old, and too stubborn to be bluffed? I’ll just mention two other things-one, someone has tampered with my files, and I’ve taken the precaution of having a discreet private investigator dust them for fingerprints. I have the photographs of the prints, and they’re quite clear. I haven’t turned them over to the police for identification, and I trust you won’t force me to do so. Second, I’ve just had a call from an old and valued friend, Arthur Rademacher. I imagine you know better than I what he had to say to me. Your conduct with that old gentleman has been reprehensible and inexcusable. If exposed, it would at the very least put you in jeopardy of serving a prison sentence for blackmail and extortion, for which the penalty is quite severe. Now, then, I’ve put my cards on the table. I can’t tell you what to do. I can suggest you accept my offer to have your resignation arranged, and I can further suggest that as soon as possible you remove yourself from Wall Street, from this city, and in fact from this country.”

The old man had not once raised his voice. Steve Wyatt dragged on his cigarette and stared at him from the sullen depths of hooded eyes. “Do I have any choice?”

“You always have a choice in any decision. To be sure, in this case the alternative would not be palatable. I would of course spell out the whole dismal affair before your mother-whether that would have any effect on you I don’t know, I’m constantly amazed by the callous indifference you’ve displayed toward every decent human value since birth-but in any case, I’d consider it my duty to inform her of your conduct. After that I should allow her a decent interval in which to try to persuade you to leave the country before I turn the whole body of information over to the police, which in the face of your continued intransigence I should be obliged to do. Does my convoluted syntax confuse you, or do you understand English well enough to follow me?”

“No need to be insulting. I’m literate.”

“You are,” Claiborne replied, “both morally and ethically illiterate.”

Steve stood up, his mouth pinched into a thin white scar. Tipping his head back to direct his gaze at the youth, Claiborne said, “Tell me one thing. By what curious process did you arrive at the conclusion you could get away with all these ridiculous schemes? You could have been eminently successful without resorting to cheap crimes-you could have stopped this, even before it started.”

“Uncle Howard,” Steve breathed, “it’s just started.”

“What is that intended to mean?”

“I have no intention of fleeing the country.”

Claiborne spread his hands. “Of course. I told you that option was open to you. You do, however, realize the consequences?”

“What I realize,” Steve replied, “is that I’m not the only one in this room who tries to pull a bluff now and then. Your big threat becomes a pretty puny tissue when you analyze it. What does it amount to? One: You’ll audit my books. Fine. You’ll find I’ve made up whatever shortages might have existed one time or another. The Wakeman Fund’s in better shape now than it was when I took it over. How can you prosecute me for that? So it’s a bluff. Two: If I’ve manipulated anything illegally, I’ve done it in your employ, and the books will show it was done in your interests, not mine-you’re the one who’s profited from it, not me. Expose me, and that fact becomes public. No, you won’t do it-you’d be risking much more than I would. So that’s a bluff too. Three: It’s quite possible my fingerprints are on your files, along with your own prints, and Miss Goralski’s, and those of half a dozen other people. I’m one of your executives-I’ve had plenty of justifiable occasions to use your files, both in your presence and during your absence. So what have you got? Proof-of nothing. Another bluff. Four: It’s true I was a little tough on Arthur Rademacher the other day, but it was in his own best interests. He stands to make a good deal of money from it. You’d have a pretty tough time convicting me of blackmail when I showed the court how my so-called victim had, in fact, profited from my ‘extortion.’ So? Another bluff. Five: My mother’s getting on in years, and I’m convinced you wouldn’t risk damaging her health by filling her head full of allegations about me which I’ve just shown are feeble and inconclusive at best. No one’s been hurt by what you choose to call my reprehensible and inexcusable conduct-on the contrary, several people, including yourself, have profited from it. I trust you can follow my syntax?”

Howard Claiborne tipped his head an inch to the side. “You’re a clever fiend, I’ll give you that.”

“Yes, sir. And now that we understand each other, I will not stand in the way of a successor. I’ll be happy to have you arrange for my resignation at the earliest possible moment. As it happens, I intended to resign anyway.”

Oddly, Claiborne suspected that last statement was true, and not merely a dignity salve. Without stirring, he said flatly, “Clear out your desk and get out of here. I don’t want you to set foot in this building ever again.”

“It’ll be a pleasure,” Steve said with a thin smile, and went.

26. Anne Goralski

As the lunch hour approached, Anne felt weak with anticipation. He had left the office mysteriously, telling her he was going home for the day; she watched his empty desk and felt sure he had meant it as an invitation. An uneasy lethargy settled on her body, her nipples tingled, she felt a flush of heat; she kept watching the clock anxiously.

From the first night she had fallen completely under the spell of his lithe virility. Her tumultuous loss of self had become a drug, taken in doses of massive sensation that left her blind, mindless and uncaring, hardly aware of the passage of day and night except when they were apart; she had lived these days only for the compulsions of her flesh, swept violently into exhausting abandonment; hovering always on the point of collapse, swept into a fierce delirium of sensuous vortexes, she had taken refuge in love, allowing herself to feel only sensation, investing all her faith in the darkening drug of a craving lust that never abated. Now, at her desk, her thoughts stirred with expectant eroticism, she saw in her mind the happiness glowing in Steve’s face and felt an overwhelming love course through her, an unreasoning warm reaching out of her heart. She felt absurdly pleased with herself-she had to be the envy of every girl in the world, because she was the one who loved this man and had his love. She thought of him stretching out from the bed, his long pale hand picking past the Cartier watch to the pack, lighting a cigarette to be quietly shared; she thought of the wiry ridges of his lean body and the quiet loving amusement she always told herself lurked behind his casual air of indifference.