“Shut up,” he snarled, erupting from his chair. “What were you doing, listening at the door?”
She walked over and punched a button on the intercom console. “I opened the intercom when I found out she was coming here. You think you’re so damn smart, but you never check to see if the intercom is open.”
He grabbed her by the arm, his powerful fingers biting into her flesh. “Don’t take that tone with me,” he warned.
“Or you’ll what? Divorce me? I don’t think so.” She jerked her arm free and picked up the envelope Candra had left. Carson made a move for it, but Margo stepped away and opened it, removing the pictures.
She looked at them, and ugly red color splotched her cheeks. She flipped through the photographs, and her mouth contorted. She whirled, her hand lashing out with all the strength in her arm behind it, catching him full across the face. His head jerked around under the impact.
Slowly he looked at her. His face was white except for the imprint of her hand. His eyes burned like coals.
Margo was shaking. “You’re worse than a fool; you’re the most imbecilic egomaniac I’ve ever known, and it takes some doing to top my father. I haven’t put up with you all these years to let you fuck things up now, with everything in place for the next election. You have to do something.”
“I’ll pay the goddamn money. I don’t have any choice.”
“What if she wants more?”
“I’ll handle it. Just shut the fuck up. I’m not in any mood for your shit.”
“Tough.” She threw the pictures at him. They hit him in the face and fluttered to the floor, eight-by-ten glossies. “I hope you’ve had an AIDS test.”
“Don’t be stupid. How long do you think that would stay confidential?”
She almost screamed with rage. “You’d risk my life rather than risk having someone find out you’d taken an AIDS test,” she said, her voice trembling. “You fret about a stupid handkerchief. How in hell can you be careful about a handkerchief but let yourself be photographed having sex with a man? Those are great pictures, by the way. The only thing more ridiculous than your expression while you screw him is the look on your face while he’s screwing you! Face red, mouth open—”
He backhanded her, knocking her against the desk. The contact was so satisfying he wanted to hit her again. “Shut up,” he said between clenched teeth. “We had snorted some coke, or it never would have happened!”
Slowly Margo straightened, hand to her aching cheek. Her hip throbbed where she had hit the desk. Hatred and disgust congealed in her stomach. “I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you not to take illegal drugs. There’s a picture of that, too. Won’t that look lovely on the evening news?”
“She won’t release the pictures. If she does, she won’t have any means of getting more money from me.” He was confident of that, at least. You never went wrong betting that someone would protect their own interests.
“You don’t know what she’ll do,” Margo said sharply. “Your track record so far isn’t anything to brag about. You have to take care of this, and you have to do it now. Offer her two million for the originals.”
“And you call me a fool,” he sneered. “There’s no way to tell if she gave me the originals. And even if there were, she could have any number of copies made.”
“Then you’d better think of something.” She was breathing hard, her nostrils flared. “And you’d better think fast.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Richard didn’t have a downtown office. Instead he had converted the bottom floor of his town house into a small office complex: an office for him, with the state-of-the-art computer with which he worked his market magic; small offices for his two assistants; a tiny kitchen; two bathrooms, one connecting to his office and the other shared by his assistants; and two rooms for storage and files. The arrangement was extremely convenient should he want to work late into the night or even all night.
Every day, he had one objective: to make as much money as possible.
He had spent most of his adult life amassing wealth. He enjoyed the challenge of anticipating and outguessing the market, but the pleasure was only moderate. He had known poverty and he hadn’t liked it, so when he was old enough to do something about it, he left home, joined the army, and set about learning skills that would enable him to make money He hadn’t learned quite fast enough. Pops, his grandfather, had died before Richard could do much to alleviate the grinding poverty of the little farm in western Virginia where he had been born and raised. At least his mother’s last years had been better; if she planted a garden, it was because she wanted to, not because she had to in order to eat.
Poverty ground you down, turned you into a social parasite, or it made you tough. Pops had eschewed welfare as charity, and instead worked his small acreage as well as taking any other work he could find. Richard’s mother had taken in sewing and ironing. When he himself was old enough he had not only helped with the farming chores but hired himself out for small jobs such as cutting the grass, helping cut and haul hay, the odd carpentry job where function mattered more than appearance.
He had only a vague, maybe wishful image of his father, and a grave in the small country graveyard to visit a few times a year, but from his grandfather he had learned that men didn’t lie around all day drinking beer and collecting what the old man called “damn government handouts” once a month, men got out and worked. So Richard worked, and worked hard. Survival of the fittest. You either surrendered, or you fought like hell to better your position.