The Mural. Michael Mallory

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      She reached over and began to massage his chest under his open, buttonless shirt, hardening his nipples.

      They barely made it back to the hotel in time.

      Literally running to Jack’s room, they made love once on the bed, once on the floor, and finally in the shower. It was there, with the hot water streaming down their linked bodies that Jack asked her: “How much longer are you planning to stay here?”

      “Another couple of days. I might hang around longer and see if there are any local historical societies before heading back down to San Diego. If you want, I can see if anyone knows anything about your mural, or the old city.”

      “I’d hate to put you to any trouble.”

      She slowly knelt down, following the contour of his body with her tongue. “I think I’d enjoy it,” she said.

      “There’s nothing left,” Jack moaned as she took him in her mouth.

      He was wrong.

      * * * * * * *

      Several hundred miles away, Marcus Broarty leaned back in his executive office chair and scored a paper ball hoop in the circular file. Seconds earlier the ball had been a follow-up thank you letter from some hungry kid he had interviewed last week. He could not even remember the kid’s name, which did not make much difference, since he was not planning on hiring him. Job-hunters annoyed him. They were nothing but street beggars with neckties instead of cardboard signs, wandering around from company to company pleading for a chance to impress you with their “accomplishments,” then following-up any meeting with the kind of brownnosing missive that he had just used to score two cosmic points. He had never stooped to that sort of thing. His MBA was his ticket. Some of the pricks around here thought it was simply because his aunt was the wife of the chairman of Crane Commercial Building Engineering, but Marcus knew better. He still had to prove that he had the executive stuff after he was installed.

      His firing of the man who wrote MBA: Marc Broarty, Asshole on one of the washroom walls was just one example of his strength. Ditto for the miserable little shit that came up with the joke, “What’s the sound of a buzzard vomiting? BROOOOOOOARTY!”

      The intercom on Marc Broarty’s desk buzzed. Pressing it, he said, “Yeah, babe.”

      “Mr. McMenamin is on line two,” Yolanda’s voice said.

      What the hell does he want now? “Oh, god, tell him I’m...no, no, that’s okay, Yolanda, I’ll take it.” Wrapping pudgy fingers around the receiver, he put it to his ear and jabbed the button. “Emac, how the hell are you? I was thinking about giving you a call.”

      “I’m here now,” Egon McMenamin said at the other end of the line, and since he was using the speakerphone, he was likely not alone in his office. “I was wondering if you’d heard back from your guy up at the site yet.”

      “I don’t have his official report yet,” Broarty answered. “He’ll be in the office tomorrow. I’ll get him on the stick as he gets back.”

      “Well, Marc, I could really use some information now, even if it’s preliminary, anything you’ve got.”

      “Sounds like you’re in kind of a rush.”

      “Not me, Marc, the board. Can’t you call your guy?”

      “I suppose I could,” Broarty said, “though when I talked to him yesterday—”

      “Oh, you’ve already spoken with him, then,” Emac said.

      “Well, yes, but he had not completed his review at the time, and—”

      “Marcus, I’m going to confide in you. It looks like the budget on this project is going to be revised downward, so I need to be able to report back absolutely everything that can be salvaged.”

      Broarty took a deep breath. “Well, the thing is, Emac, it’s starting to look like the buildings out there might need a lot of work.”

      “Meaning what?”

      “Meaning, um, all this is based on an unconfirmed early report, you understand, but, well, the conditions of the structures apparently aren’t what I’d call great.”

      “I need you to be a little more specific than that, Marc,” Emac said. “If they aren’t great, what are they? Good? Satisfactory? What?”

      Broarty started to perspire. “Well, we might be in a situation where it could take a lot of work for the houses to be brought up to code—”

      “What code are we talking about?”

      “Uh, you know, the building and sa—”

      “Jesus, Marc, don’t tell me you people are using the building codes of Los Angeles to judge those structures by,” Emac snapped. “Most of the castles in Europe couldn’t meet L.A. standards.”

      Rivulets of sweat were running down Broarty’s temples. “I’m sure Jack Hayden is taking that into account,” he said. At least Broarty hoped to hell Hayden was taking it into account, since this was the first time he had stopped to consider such matters.

      “I hope he does, Marcus, because I’d hate to think that we engaged a firm that didn’t have a complete grasp of the requirements of the job.”

      “Emac, Emac, c’mon, you know we’re here for you.”

      “I’d like to think so, but what I’m hearing from you is a lot of vagaries. I have to go into a meeting this afternoon with the men who are paying my salary and your fee for working on this particular project, and I have to be able to tell them either that the Lost Pines Resort development is completely within reach and on track, or that it is going to be prohibitively expense and they should pull the plug. Now which is it?”

      “Emac, those are kind of extreme choices, aren’t they?” Broarty said. “I mean, isn’t there something in the middle?”

      There was a brief pause before Egon McMenamin replied, “You want option number three, Mr. Broarty? Here it is: that Resort Partners severs its contract with Crane immediately and sues to recoup the moneys already allotted, and then hires another inspection firm that understands what’s at stake and knows what the hell they’re doing.”

      Shit! Broarty had glanced at the photos Hayden had sent but had not studied them. Frankly, he was hoping to stay out of this altogether, except to sign his name on the cover letter of Hayden’s report.

      “I’m sorry, Marc,” Emac was saying, “but I didn’t hear your reply.”

      Broarty coughed. “Actually, Hayden is supposed to be in the office first thing tomorrow mor—”

      “Jesus, Marc, who’s in charge down there? Hayden or you?”

      “What do you want? Do you want me to sign off on the buildings as they stand?”

      “What I want is for you to tell me whether our goal of rehabilitating the existing town is doable. If you sincerely believe it is not, Marc, based on your expertise, then for Christ’s sake tell me. I’d be disappointed, СКАЧАТЬ