We had come to the most privileged corner of the O-Tech layout. In a large outer office, the entire senior staff was gathered in a tight knot around the slim, wan-faced Philip. He stood very straight, his slight frame impeccably turned out in a bespoke English suit, the sort that Angela had long ago taught him to require. With his salt-and-pepper hair slightly ruffled, he had the air of a crown prince fallen among pool-hall hustlers. The management staff—men in their thirties and forties, all in expensive shirtsleeves—introduced themselves in a flurry of handshakes and single-syllable, all-American names: Chuck, Dick, Tim, Steve, Mike.
Hogan and I nodded, and proceeded to ignore them.
“Philip,” I said, “how are you? I’m deeply sorry about Mandy. My sympathy.”
He brightened suddenly. “Hello, Jack. So nice to see you here.”
“Are you doing all right?”
“Fine, fine. These gentlemen have been a great help to me. Especially Mr. Andrews. Have you met?”
“I’ve had the pleasure.”
“Coffee?”
“We’re good. I’d like you to say hello to an old friend of mine, a straight-shooter named Hogan. Bernstein asked him to clear up a few things about Mandy’s death.”
Philip extended his hand. “Hello,” he said. “My name is Philip Oliver, and I believe I murdered my wife.”
“So I’ve heard. I’m the private eye your lawyer hired.”
“Excellent. I’m all in favor of transparency, Hogan. Investigative work must be very gratifying that way. You start with a cloud of uncertainty and then, bit by bit, everything becomes wonderfully clear.”
“That’s the idea. Unfortunately, things don’t always turn out that way.”
“Ah, but the process, Hogan. The rooting things out, the dogged search. What sport!”
Philip had been using fake British phrasing so long—ever since he fell for Angela back in London years ago—that it had become natural to him now, even with his mind half gone.
“Well, you’ve got that part right,” Hogan told him. “It is a dog’s life sometimes.”
“But surely that’s nothing compared to the rewards,” Philip insisted. “So enviable, to live in pursuit of clarity—it sounds tremendously bracing. Do you know how many people try to make things needlessly muddy and complicated?”
“Yeah, most of them I meet.” Hogan glanced casually around the room. “This is some spread. You could hold the World Series in here.”
“It is quite grand, isn’t it? I told Andrews it was too much, but he insisted. He thinks I should be ensconced like an Arab sheik—to impress clients and scare the bejesus out of competitors. Or was it the other way around?”
“You’ve got it right,” Andrews said.
“Good. Some people think old Philip has lost it, that my brain has turned to mush or whatnot. But we know better, don’t we?” He paused, speaking next at a slightly higher volume. “We know better, don’t we?”
“Yes, of course,” Andrews replied. “You’re completely clear, Phil.”
“Thank you.”
“We should have a little chat,” Hogan said. “Just you, me, and Jack.”
“And Carl. I always have Carl Marks with me. He tells me exactly where Oliver Industries and I stand financially.”
Andrews leaned toward us. “Carl Martes, actually,” he explained. “The nickname started as a little joke among some junior staff members here.”
“It’s no joke,” Philip insisted. “Carl Marks keeps me fully informed. Constantly. I find it most comforting.”
Eyes downcast, the so-called Marks—a tall man in an anonymous navy suit—stood wordlessly at Philip’s elbow, one step behind. I had met him several times before, though we never spoke. He carried a black laptop, prepared, on his employer’s demand, to provide financial stats at any moment. Bristling with colorful graphs and flowcharts, the device tracked data streams from the two Oliver firms and Philip’s various personal holdings—stocks, real estate, art collection, foreign currency, precious metals—then correlated them with current market values, deducted liabilities and expenses, and gave him a net asset figure updated automatically every hour. Philip thus possessed—continuously, no matter what the markets were doing in any part of the world—an answer to the vital question that plagued him: “What am I worth?”
“We won’t need the kind of information Carl has right now,” Hogan said. “I just want to know a little more about you and Mandy.”
“She was my one true love,” Philip replied. “Now she’s dead.”
“That’s a shame,” Hogan said.
Philip blinked at the two of us in turn. “What did I do?” he asked. “What? Tell me. Am I a killer?”
“We’ll try to figure that out, Phil,” I said, nudging him toward the door of his inner office.
Reluctantly, glaringly, Andrews and the others parted to let us pass. As Hogan closed the door behind us, I saw the execs start to deposit themselves on various anteroom chairs and couches, like buzzards perching on the edge of a safari camp.