Lipstick Jungle

“Is it going to be?” Victor asked. He picked up a glass paperweight—a tourist trinket containing a miniature skyline of New York City—and shook it, scattering glitter over the silver buildings.

“I don’t think so,” Nico replied. She had to get Victor back on the subject of Mike, but if she was too heavy-handed, Victor would shut her out.

“What does the husband want?” Victor asked. He put down the paperweight and leaned forward, staring at her face. The whites of his eyes were slightly yellow with age as well, like ancient paper. But the irises were dark—a deep blue, almost black. “The husband doesn’t work, does he?” Victor said. “He’s going to want money. Lots of it.”

“I really don’t know, Victor,” she murmured, and suddenly wondered if she’d made a mistake.

“You don’t know,” Victor said thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair. He kept staring at her. It was, Nico thought, like being in a cage with a lion. She had never seen this side of Victor before. He was always capable of going off on a crazy tangent, but she had never sensed this underlying violence. But of course, it made sense.

Nico stared him down, saying nothing and opening her eyes as wide as possible.

Most people couldn’t tolerate a stare like that, and Victor Matrick was no exception. He started talking. “If you really want to get to the top in this company, you’d better know everything about everybody,” he said.

“In that case,” Nico said, in as bland a voice as she could muster, “I do know about it. I’d just rather not talk about it.”

“But you’re willing to come in here to rat on Mike.”

She felt her face redden. This was it, she thought. She’d taken the wrong tack, both with Wendy and with Mike, and now she was going to get fired. Maybe she should have told him about Wendy, and how Shane was demanding the apartment and custody of the children. But she couldn’t do that to Wendy; Victor might use it against her. She mustn’t get flustered. “I thought you’d want to know,” she said.

“Because Wendy is a friend of yours and Mike isn’t,” Victor said.

“Wendy’s company brought in over two hundred million dollars last year. The publishing division only brought in seventy-three million. And twenty-three of that seventy-three million came from Bonfire.” Thank God for facts, she thought. But Victor already knew this. What the hell was he doing?

“So you want Mike’s job,” Victor said.

“Yes, I do. We’ve been discussing it for months,” Nico said coolly. If she could just continue to use her usual tactics, she might come out of this alive.

“Have we?” Victor asked. “I don’t recall any such discussions.”

She stiffened and looked away. She wasn’t expecting this response, but she should have been. People said that Victor was capable of this—of completely denying that he had done or said something in the past, which then made the other person wonder if they were crazy. On the other hand, Victor was old. Maybe he really didn’t remember. I’m finished, she thought. Seymour will be so disappointed . . . How will I live with myself? Everyone was right . . . Victor Matrick is a fucking bastard. He is insane . . .

And it suddenly occurred to her that maybe Victor had set her up, in order to get her out. But how was that possible? The information had come from Glynnis herself, through Victory. Victory didn’t even know Victor Matrick, but undoubtedly he knew that they were friends. What if Victor had set Glynnis Rourke up—if he had, it meant that he was operating on a level of treachery that was nearly inconceivable. He was capable of anything. On the other hand, maybe Victor had simply been doing the same thing she’d been doing with Mike, watching and waiting, waiting

for her to fuck up.

“Well?” Victor asked.

She looked back at him. There was a network of tiny broken blood vessels covering his cheeks like a delicate spider’s web. He was so old! He ought to be dead, perhaps he actually was dead, and no one had figured it out. Twenty-five years, she thought. Twenty-five years of seventy-hour workweeks, sacrifices, triumphs, all about to go out the window, thanks to this creepy old man who was so clueless, he wanted to give his executives’ wives counterfeit handbags for Christmas. He was, she thought, quite simply the embodiment of everything that was wrong with the corporate business world. And someday, I will replace you, she thought.

She sat back in her chair and crossed her legs, stalling for time. There was nothing in the manual about how to behave in this situation, but whatever happened, she mustn’t beg or show fear. She had to turn this around—if she did, she could probably handle anything. She shrugged. “Don’t mess with me, Victor,” she said coolly, as if he had to be kidding and they were both in on the joke. “We both know that Mike should go.”

It was her best shot, she thought. She sounded firm, but not aggressive.

“Mike doesn’t think so,” Victor said. He smiled. The smile was like a cartoon drawing of a smile, exaggerated and unreal. Nico guessed that Victor’s response meant that he’d talked to Mike about it. That was her worst fear, that Mike would get Victor on his side to get her out.

“I wouldn’t expect him to,” Nico said. She suddenly pictured her soft-boiled egg and the knife she used to slice off the top. Just three hours ago, she’d been convinced of her success. How could she have made such a mistake?

She was suddenly conscious of her breathing. It was too loud. Victor could probably hear her breathing from ten feet away, and he’d know she was afraid. She held her breath for a moment, quietly forcing the air out of her nostrils.

“No, we wouldn’t, would we?” Victor said. He reached up and touched one of his front teeth, wiggling it with his finger. He’d said “we,” Nico thought, watching him in horror and relief. That meant she was probably still in the game. If she was, she had to finish this up quickly, before Victor got distracted again or pulled out his tooth.

“The lawsuit will be all over the papers,” Nico said. “Glynnis is very public, and very vocal. Everyone will be interested, and she won’t hesitate to tell her side of the story.”

“Banging her own drum,” Victor said, still wiggling the tooth. “That’s what celebrities do, isn’t it? It’s a disease. They get addicted to the attention. It happens to children too, according to Dr. Phil. There should be a time-out room for celebrities.”

Nico smiled, and swung her foot a little. It was going to be okay after all, she thought, feeling as if color had just come back into her world. When Victor started talking about his favorite television shows, you knew you were okay.

“Should we do it before or after they file the suit?” Victor asked.