CHAPTER 6

“WELL, WHAT SHOULD I DO?” Brian Redfield finished telling Annie about his girlfriend’s snub and waited for her response.

He sat on the green plaid sofa in his large office, ignoring both the TV playing endless Bloomberg as well as the ticker rolling on his computer screen. Annie stood in his doorway and stared at him in disbelief. Sometimes she had trouble believing this was her manager—the man who had to deal with every employee and customer issue that hit the fan. Here she had some real problems on her mind, a fortune hanging on her wrist, and the urgent reason for Brian’s summons was to get some dating advice. She swallowed and rose to the occasion.

What was this again? Oh yeah, the ever-difficult Mary Beth had canceled a long-standing date for an important game at Yankee Stadium in favor of dinner with her posse, which consisted of two other unmarried women in their thirties and her mother. In Annie’s day such bad behavior would have been dating suicide.

“Dump her,” she said flatly. “Now can we get down to business?” She wanted to unload the minefield, pronto.

Unfortunately, Brian wasn’t ready. His handsome, clean-cut features performed acrobatics as he considered the consequences of breaking up with Mary Beth. She could feel his brain working on it. He’d been married for a number of years and had learned that women had different priorities these days. His needs didn’t happen to be at the top of the list anymore. His unguarded expression showed his hurt about the broken date, and his indecision about such severe retaliation. “Are you sure? Isn’t that a little harsh?”

“She doesn’t hold you in high enough regard, Bry. How long are you going to put up with that? Now, we’ve got to discuss the Teaths. It’s nearly four.”

Brian sighed and licked his lips. “You’re really sure about this?” He tended to trust her judgment in this area.

“Yes! There are lots of much better girls who’d be thrilled to have you.”

Annie’s eyes rolled up at the ceiling. She’d accommodated the opposite sex her whole life, so she didn’t have much patience for the Mary Beths of the world. As on all other occasions, she was on Brian’s side. She wanted him to have a happy life. End of story. Sometimes people in the office thought she and he were a tad too close, but she never paid any attention to gossip involving herself.

Needing the comfort of the ladies’ room after her long ride back, she wanted to dump the securities and pee. She stood in the doorway clutching the bag and feeling like a complete fool because she’d rushed in there for another round of the dating game.

Brian shook his head, still unsure. “But you know how personable she is . . .”

“That’s not a good reason,” Annie said scornfully.

“But I can take her anywhere. She’s got the right look, and she knows how to talk to people. Not like Sally,” he went on.

Sally was Brian’s ex-wife, his college sweetheart who’d turned out to be a poor dresser and a cokehead. Annie evaluated him, as she did several times every day. At thirty-eight, he was still thin and preppy. He wore nice suits that fit him well, and had pleasant blue eyes and an engaging smile. Emotionally he was a little worse for wear, but he worked out, made a good living, and still had hopes to love and be loved. Unfortunately, while he wanted a relationship, all the women he met seemed to want their independence. What was that about? Annie figured he was between an eight and a nine, and frankly—between her and herself—she wouldn’t mind having a man just like him. But that was another story.

“Would you please ask Darian and Frisk to come in?” she asked.

Brian nodded absently, still elsewhere in his mind, bobbing up and down on the seesaw of revenge. Annie knew she’d have to stay on hold until he returned. She sighed. He was the youngest of three divorced men in the office. The other two were fifty and sixty, but they were pretty much all the same. Before their wives had left them, they used to talk about politics and war, terrorism and world markets. The pace of their stride had been quick and their heads held high. But now they’d lost their starch and, more important, their conversation. They’d lost their ability to talk about anything beyond the women they were dating, the women they used to date, and the one perfect woman they were seeking. In other words, sex, sex, sex. None of them had any responsibilities or real worries beyond work. They had their independence—whatever that was. Since Annie didn’t have hers, it was hard to sympathize.

“I have to go home,” she announced.

With that, Brian finally focused his deep blue eyes on her as if he’d suddenly gotten a brand-new idea. “Why don’t you come with me?” he said.

She was puzzled. “Where?”

“To the game.” His eyes came to life with the possibility of Annie at his side. “Wouldn’t it be fun? Carl and Bill are going. You could be our fourth.”

“Well, that’s tempting, but I really can’t. I have to go home.” She actually looked longingly at the hallway behind her. Three divorced men covered with peanut shells, swilling beer and looking for girls? No thanks.

“Why not?” Now he was giving her a long, speculative look. A first. Annie; why haven’t I thought of her before?

What? She raised an eyebrow. Nobody had looked at her like that in a long time. What? A little shiver took her by surprise.

“It’s just business. How about it?” he wheedled.

She hid a pleased smile and shook her head. “Call Mary what’s-her-name and tell her she’s history if she doesn’t pull up her socks and cheer for the home team.”

“I already did that. She laughed in my face,” he admitted sheepishly.

“She laughed?” Annie was incredulous. This reaction was shocking.

Only five years ago, when Annie had been thirty-five, she’d had a husband, two children, a full-time job, and a household to run. She’d thought those things were what women wanted. Now all these thirty-five-year-olds who’d never been married didn’t seem to care a hoot for any of it. Mary Beth—who was by no means perfect, let that be very clear—was actually laughing in his face for wanting her. Brian might be a little self-involved at times, but he didn’t deserve that kind of contempt.

He squirmed uncomfortably at his admission and finally turned his attention to the shopping bag. “What do you have there?”

“Ah.” Annie finally entered the room and collapsed in one of his green plaid wing chairs. “You know, I went out to Staten Island to visit Carol Mack’s parents.” She said it slowly because Mack was not a welcome name in the office.

“And?” Brian frowned and tapped his fingers on the desk, eyeing the bundle that she’d wedged between her feet. “What makes me think this isn’t going to be a short story?”

“It was unbelievable. Those poor old people are living in a dump with a fortune in securities sitting around on the kitchen counters.”

“Really?” He leaned forward, suddenly interested.

“They were both kind of confused, and I don’t think they had any idea what was there.”

“Oh no.” Suddenly Brian put a hand to his forehead. “Please God, don’t tell me you took their fortune, after everything that’s gone on with the Macks.”

“Well, yes, it’s right here. Carol is my best friend. She asked me to. I had to. Her mother is dying. Her father is out of it . . .” Annie shrugged. She was their hero.

Brian groaned. “Oh, Annie, you shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s all right. I made a list.” She pulled the handwritten tally out of her handbag and waved it at him.

“It was wrong. Why didn’t you call me?”

“Ah . . .” She didn’t have a quick answer for that. She’d thought about him, certainly. She’d thought about him often. But she hadn’t considered actually consulting him.

“Okay.” He waved his hand, resigned. “What’s in there? Let’s see it.”

Annie exhaled and reached down between her feet to hand over the heavy bag. She couldn’t wait to let it go.

“I don’t know what you were thinking. This was a really stupid move,” he muttered. “Why couldn’t he just bring it in?”

“He’s not regular. You had to be there. You had to see them.”

Brian didn’t reply as he opened the bag wide enough to see in. The usual thing was for people to bring in a few certificates they’d found in a drawer or in a safe-deposit box. A few thousand dollars’ worth—sometimes as much as ten or twenty thousand. Nothing to cheer about. Then one of the assistants would scurry to get the proper papers to re-register the issues so the shares could be added to the person’s account. It was all pretty routine. Generally speaking, if someone was stupid enough to bring a shopping bag, there wouldn’t be much in it.

“Let’s see what we have here.” Brian pulled out a fistful of IBM and GE certificates and quickly thumbed through them. Then he moved on to the chunky utilities wad. The bag was really stuffed. “Wow.” Brian was impressed.

His fingers stopped moving at their furious pace, however, when he reached a five-thousand-dollar bearer bond with a bunch of hangers still attached. He stared at the dangerous bond for a second or two. Then, as if it and the uncashed coupons were tainted by rat poison, he pushed them quickly away and exploded.

“Jesus, Annie, are you crazy?”

She hunched down in her chair guiltily.

“You shouldn’t have touched this,” he said angrily. “What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know,” she replied in a small voice, biting her lip because there was a whole lot more where that one came from.

“Oh shit! You should have alerted me!” He got up, went to the door, then spun around and hurried back to grab the phone on his desk.

Annie knew he didn’t want to leave her alone in the room with the bonds, which was silly because she’d already been alone with them for hours. She shivered at his rage.

“Bev, I need Darian and Frisk in my office now,” Brian barked. Then he returned to the sofa and sat down heavily. “Do you have an idea how big an account this is?”

“Over three million, maybe as much as three and a half,” Annie said softly.

Brian whistled. Way to go, Annie. “You should not have done this,” he said sternly. “But congratulations.”