A Kept Woman (27 page)

‘Sure,’ Michael said, trying to keep his mind out of the

gutter. He hadn’t had a girl since Iris had left. An automatic hard-on was already starting in his groin. Shit. He moved out of the line of sight of her cleavage.

‘The day Ernie had us fired. What were you going to

ask me to do?’

His lips curled upwards. ‘You got pretty mad. Actually, I was somewhat impressed with your ability to judge book covers. I was thinking about giving you a shot at working with our illustrators, picking out flames and other in-book graphics.’

Diana’s mouth opened slightly. Cicero envisaged Shutting it with his. Her lips were plump and red, vulnerably soft. His teeth would tear at them, biting them gently, forcing them apart with his tongue while she pressed

those glorious tits up into his hands …

‘You really thought I could do that?’

Stop. Stop. ‘Yes, you had real talent, visually.’

‘I liked what I saw,’ Diana said thoughtfully. ‘I never

could draw, but I could pick stuff out. Look at that, for example.’ She pointed to a large colour spot detailing the graphics on CD-ROM Encyclopedia. ‘Boring, banal. Why would a child be interested in that? I know I wouldn’t.’

Cicero looked closer at the magazine in his hand. She

was right. There was nothing there to interest a kid … He clapped the page shut and grasped Diana’s hand. ‘What? What did I say?’ she asked, alarmed. ‘Nothing. Everything.’ Michael stood up straight, all

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thoughts of sex vanished from his mind. ‘You little beauty. You found it. You did it. We’re back!’

He made her put up a closed sign and switch on the answer machine.

‘We take the afternoon off?’ Diana said.

‘Don’t be inane. I never take afternoons off. We’re going to take a meeting.’

Michael led her westwards, back into the Village at Sixth and Twelfth, and ducked into French Roast. In the chic coffee house, among the louche beat poets and lazy students sipping their frapp6s, he sensed the old adrenaline bubble up in him like a Louisiana swamp on overdrive. He picked a table, and the lithe young waitresses swarmed round to serve him. Diana had been here alone, and it had taken her thirty minutes to get a menu. She.watched the girls play for his attention. Really. They could barely be more obvious if they had just unbuttoned their tops, right there.

‘You know I’m banned from publishing,’ he said when

her vanilla hazelnut arrived with his espresso.

‘I had picked that up, yes.’

Michael made an impatient gesture. ‘The point is, my expertise has been going to waste.’

‘True. I’ve been in livelier cemeteries than our office.’ ‘The whole Green Eggs thing was about a new look on old stories. To give child/’en something visual, something worth reading.’

Diana sipped her coffee. ‘I understand; they were good books.’

‘Today what do kids do? Play computer games.’ He rifled through her magazine. ‘And the article says most

computer games are mind-sapping rubbish.’ ‘Of course they are.’

‘But they needn’t be. I proved I can sell high-quality, smart books. American parents are crying out for

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something valuable to teach their kids. What if we just went into computing?’

An unfamiliar sensation started to churn in Diana’s flat stomach. A second later she recognised it. Butterflies. She had butterflies of excitement.

‘That’s … a pretty good idea,’ she said, slowly.

‘No kidding it’s a good idea.’ He looked at her, but she had the impression he didn’t see her. His mind was picturing a vast empire, she thought: limos, stock offerings, the cover of Forbes. Modesty had never been Michael’s strong point. ‘I still have contacts in publishing who ring me up every day, and most of them have CDROM divisions.’

‘But that’s still publishing, isn’t it?’ His face darkened. ‘Yeah. Fuck.’ ‘Language,’ Diana said, absently.

‘Whatever. OK, so I have to go to a computer games

manufacturer, and get them to start educational

software.’

‘But they don’t know you.’

“‘Nothing good is ever easy, babe. I’ll need help. Your job will change. You’ll be scouting out hackers and code writers, and guys who can draw pictures. You’ll write my

letters and come with me to the banks.’

‘What use would I be at the banks?’

‘You look classy,’ he said, as though pointing out the obvious.

‘But … but Michael …’

‘I’m not interested in buts. You were going to say the

month was almost done, and how will I pay your salary?’ She blushed. ‘Something like that, I’m afraid.’

‘Don’t worry about it. You let me take care of it,’ Michael said intently. ‘If your cheque isn’t there, you

have my permission to walk.’

‘Thanks,’ she said dryly.

‘It’s going to be hard and thankless at first. No more

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nine to five. No more reading magazines and filing your nails all day. Are you in?’

She glanced at her nails regretfully and wondered f she’d ever get a decent manicure again. ‘I’m in,’ she said.

He wasn’t kidding. Diana started setting her alarm for 6 a.m., and coming home at eight, not that she missed the extra time in her cramped box of an apartment. She started taking a flood of calls, typing up proposals and brochures, registering the new company, dealing with everything from lawyers to labels. Michael had no time to help her with anything. Getting the first slice of funding was like climbing the Eiger without oxygen dizzyingly difficult. Diana went to so many loan officers that one bank blurred into another. She laid out sample graphics and bound up Michael’s papers. She got blisters and learnod how to walk on them anyway. At night she came home too exhausted for anything more than a pot of pasta, a shower and the sleep of the dead.

At weekends she cleaned to placate Rita, shopped for food and went over draft pitch letters with a highlighter.

Once or twice Diana even called her lawyer for another helping of bad news; Ernie had everything tied up with pre-trial motions. It might take months to get money out of him.

When Michael finally came home with the funding, they had all but given up. Citibank was prepared to take the risk. The business plan paid off, and they had twenty thousand dollars for staff and one project.

Cicero found their first code-writer. His name was Opie Z., and he was eighteen years old, scruffy, and brilliant. He was a tip-off from Seth Green, miserable in a gilded cage over at Blakely’s.

He sat in the offices with the brand-new portable air conditioner and studied his shoes.

‘Dude. I ain’t much for nine to five. And I got a record. “

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Couldn’t do that Microsoft thing.’ Ruminatively, he spat chewing gum into a wastebasket in the corner. ‘Nor the Slick Willy Silicone Valley shit, neither. “The Imagine Arts family”.’ He made a face. ‘I don’t got a family, and if I did, they wouldn’t ask for my rsum and shit.’

‘Quite,’ Michael said. The boy was smart; his defiant street gear and low-slung swagger couldn’t hide that for a second. What the fuck. ‘If you come and work here it’s basic wages. You get to write your own stuff. When I get more money, you get more money.’

Opie thought about it. ‘But I ain’t about nine to five, either.’

‘Sure you are,’ Cicero said, instantly. ‘You turn up at five past nine, just keep walking right past the door, because you won’t be wanted. This is for real.’

How can he be cool like that? Diana wondered, hovering in the background with iced water for their guest. We need this guy so badly it’s not even funny. Without him, this thing is dead in the water. Opie was scowling at him, daring him to back down, but he was clmly crossing his arms and leaning back, like the little punk had nothing that could scare him.

The kid dropped his eyes first. ‘OK. You better not mess with my code, dude,’ he said.

‘Dude,’ Cicero replied, ‘I have no intention of doing that.’

He extended one massive paw and took the boy’s hand in his own.

‘Welcome to Imperial,’ he said.

The first attempt at a game was a mess. Clumsy, slow moving and crawling with enough bugs for a Hollywood horror movie. Diana struggled along on slave wages until Opie got it right.

But when he did, it was glorious.

Michael burst into the office.

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‘What is it?’ Diana sprang tO her feet, almost alarmed at the look on his face. He ran over to her and lifted her up in a bear hug, making her gasp and squeal with shocl. Michael never behaved like that. He was the biggest tight-ass on the planet.

‘It’s this. This.’ He high-rived the bewildered Opie. ‘We got a development cheque from Nexus Games. They loved the ReadWrite code. They want to press ahead. Take a look at this.’

‘Wow.’ Opie peered at the cheque. ‘I ain’t seen that many zeros outside of a Backstreet Boys gig.’ He chuckled at his own joke.

Michael glanced over at Diana. ‘You get a pay rise, too,’ he said. ‘Call a temp service. Get some extra help. We’re in business.’

The funny’ thing was, she thought a month later, that it was almost enjoyable. There were six people now in the cramped offices, working on the first complete game. She had a secretary of her own, Mona. Mona was a hefty girl and very smart. She didn’t bother flirting with Michael. Somehow, this endeared her completely to Diana. It was just annoying to have to deal with all the stupid female hormones.

Her new job was overseeing graphics. She worked under Michael, finding packaging ideas, rewriting the language of the game, trying to make it understandable for children. He sent he out of the office looking for illustrators.

‘What will they know about .computers?’ she asked, perplexed.

He gave her another of his are-you-stupid looks. ‘Nothing. We can just scan the work.’

She felt foolish, and it made her snappy. ‘Fine. I’ll come up with something.’

He was a bastard, a slave driver,-and he expected Diana to figure everything out for herself. When she

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wanted a bag, she went to Hermes. Where did you go to shop for cheap talent? Eventually, after her leads went nowhere, Diana moved to the source. In the blistering heat of the August sun, anyone rich fled the city. The only people left were poor and hungry. When she turned up at Forbidden Planet, Blue Cape, and the other underground comic-book stores, they were happy to give her some names. She met five or six artists, picked two, and brought them back to her boss.

‘I can’t believe you found these guys,’ Michael said.

‘I know you couldn’t believe it,’ Diana retorted. ‘But I did.’

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The first game was a bust.

The second, a minor hit. Enough for a bank loan. By the time summer eased into fall, Cicero had moved offices. He set up in West Fourth Street, in an elegant brownstone house. Five programmers and six illustrators, all scouted by Diana, worked twelve-hour days, but nobody minded. Michael cut them in on royalties and bonuses, ant his success was their success.

Diana found she was working too hard to enjoy her newfound status. She wasn’t rich, and she wasn’t back where she wanted to be, but at least she was kissing the bounds of respectable again. And in September, Herb Brillstein called.

‘He has a proposition for you,’ Herb said.

Diana clutched the phone in her bedroom in Rita’s tiny place and prayed silently. It was neat, but too cramped to take any longer. She wondered if her roommate was listening in to this call on her extension. The little bit of money she made with Imperial was enough to afford decent clothes, food and health insurance, but that didn’t leave much over for rent. Oh, to be rich again. Her ex husband had millions. What had Herb managed to pull out of the fire for her?

‘He doesn’t want to go to trial. Plus he’s thinking about getting married again.’

Felicity. Diana’s hand curled into a tight ball of anger. I was such a moron to trust her,-she thought. And I’m going to get my revenge.

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‘He understands that you can contest the divorce in the

UK, and though you weakened your case when you moved out, he wants done with it. But they’re pretty hard over in the UK. His lawyers said they would be prepared to wait us out, as you were married less than a year, you took employment and when you moved out you didn’t contact your husband—’

‘Yes. I know what I did, Mr Brillstein,’ Diana said

impatiently. ‘What’s the offer?’

‘Seven hundred and fifty.’

She ran the numbers in her head. Seven fifty. With the lawyers’ fees … That was three twenty-five. Barely enough to buy a one-bedroom flat somewhere decent, and it wouldn’t cover the maintenance charges. Ernie was worth about ten million, she thought. If she refused this settlement, though, she’d be stuck here.

Diana glanced out of her window at the pigeons flapping round the white plastic hanger her panties were drying on. Her dry-cleaning had overflowed out of her tiny closet and was hanging on the back of the door, off th end of the shelves, over the back of her chair. She wanted to get out so much it hurt.

‘Go back to him and tell him one million. Tell him if he refuses we will put an injunction on all the property we acquired together. I might not have got the apartment in our joint names, but I designed that place.’ She took a deep breath. ‘The table, the chairs, the antique sofas, the portraits, the carpets… I signed for it all. Visa will have a record of that. Tell him that unless he wants to take his mistress home to an empty apartment, he can give me the

money. And if he refuses, file for the injunction today.’

There was a pause at the end of the line.

‘If I may say so, Mrs Foxton, you should have been a lawyer.’

She smiled to herself. ‘In life you have to be tough.

Ernie always knew that. And now I’m learning.’

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She had to wait a day to discover that she had got the cash. Half a million for Brillstein and his fancy offices, and half a million for her. She signed the papers in the office, and her marriage was over.