Fast Women Read online

  * * *

  On Monday, Gabe smelled coffee as he came down the stairs from his apartment and felt unaccountably relieved. Of course Nell hadn’t really left him. She was a sensible woman. She loved him. She—

  He stopped in the doorway to the office.

  She was Suze, looking like a Hitchcock blonde in a well-cut gray suit a lot like the one Nell had been wearing when she’d put her shoulder into his window that first day.

  “Hi,” Suze said, pouring his cup of coffee. “Nell sent me to fill in until you find somebody else. I’m hoping it’s just until you come to your senses and beg her to come back.”

  “Do you have any idea how to run this office?” Gabe said.

  “Like Nell did?” Suze nodded. “She’s been showing me things right along. I can’t solve any problems, but I can keep the place going.”

  “Who’s running The Cup?”

  “Margie. Since it was an emergency, she told Budge she had to come back.”

  “You’re hired,” Gabe said. “As long as you don’t mess with my business cards, you can stay.”

  “Your business cards are butt-ugly,” Suze said.

  He took his coffee cup from her, said “Thank you,” went into his office, and sat down at his desk.

  His father’s pinstriped jacket sneered at him from the coatrack, reminding him of Nell and those long, long legs.

  “Suze,” he yelled and she came in. “Get rid of that coat. And take the hat while you’re at it.”

  “Okay,” Suze said, collecting them. “Anything else?”

  She stood in a shaft of sunlight from the window, possibly the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in real life, and he wished she were Nell.

  “No,” he said. “Thanks anyway.”

  * * *

  Suze took the hat and coat out to the reception room and stowed them in the closet there. Until Gabe got out of this mood, she wasn’t getting rid of anything. She sat down at the desk and called up the appointment log as Riley walked in and stopped dead in the doorway.

  “No,” he said.

  “What?” she said. “I’m just filling in until they get over this.”

  “No, you are not,” he said, looking like a maddened bull. He pointed to the doorway. “Out.”

  “Gabe said I have the job,” Suze said. “What’s the matter with you?”

  He walked past her and went into Gabe’s office without knocking, and she heard him say, “No, no, no,” before he slammed the door.

  What the hell was wrong with him? She got up and pressed her ear to the door, but she couldn’t hear anything, so she turned the doorknob slowly and pushed the door open just enough to hear Gabe say, “Get over it. We need her until Nell comes to her senses.”

  “Nell is not going to come to her senses,” Riley said. “Nell is right. You are wrong. Go apologize and get that blonde out of here.”

  Good for you, Suze thought, ignoring the blonde part.

  “You know, there’s a distinct possibility she doesn’t want to sleep with you,” Gabe said. “It’s not inevitable.”

  “Yes, it is,” Riley said. “She goes.”

  Me? Suze thought.

  “She stays,” Gabe said. “Grow up.”

  “Let me ask you this,” Riley said. “Has there ever been, in the sixty-year history of this firm, a secretary one of the partners didn’t sleep with?”

  “No,” Gabe said. “But we’re coming up on a brand-new century. Anything is possible.”

  “That’s why I want her out of here,” Riley said, and his voice was closer, so Suze scrambled back to her desk and was typing gibberish as he came out the door and glared at her.

  “What is your problem?” she said to him, as innocently as possible. “I’m a terrific worker.”

  “I have no doubt,” Riley said. “It’s not you. Exactly.”

  “Well, then?”

  “We have a tradition here. You don’t fit it.”

  “Oh, please,” Suze said. “I do, too. I’m perfect for it.”

  “What?” He look startled, and she pointed at the black bird on the filing cabinet.

  “The Maltese Falcon,” she said. “Sam Spade. I make a great Effie Perine. You can even call me ‘Precious.’ I’ll gag, but I’ll handle it.”

  “You know The Maltese Falcon?”

  “Of course, I know The Maltese Falcon,” Suze said, annoyed that he thought she was stupid. “It’s not my favorite but—”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Riley said, looking belligerent again.

  “Sam Spade, for one thing,” Suze said. “That ‘I won’t play the sap for you, sweetheart’ bit. What a crock.”

  “Hey,” Riley said. “Do not criticize Sam—”

  “He spent the whole story playing the sap for her,” Suze went on. “She fed him one line after another and he bought them all because he wanted to sleep with her, and then she slept with him and he bought some more because he wanted to continue sleeping with her. If they’d stuck a spigot in him, they’d have had maple syrup.”

  “You clearly do not understand the code,” Riley said.

  “What code?” Suze snorted. “He was sleeping with his partner’s wife. That’s a code?”

  “Women are treacherous—” Riley said.

  “You’re pathetic,” Suze said. “I have work to do. You can go.”

  “—but I’m on to you,” Riley went on. “I won’t play the sap for you, sweetheart.”

  “Oh, sure you will,” Suze said and turned back to the computer.

  “Probably,” Riley said and went into his office.

  Suze sat and stared at the computer screen for a minute and then she got up and went into Riley’s office. “Since you hate me anyway,” she began.

  “I don’t hate you,” he said, looking annoyed.

  “—I slept with Jack Sunday night.”

  He was still for a moment, and then he leaned back in his chair. “Congratulations.”

  “I feel really stupid,” Suze said. “I was really getting over him and—”

  “Suze, you were married to him for fourteen years. You don’t just walk away from that. At least women like you don’t.”

  “What do you mean, women like me?”

  “You loved him for a long time. It takes a while to get over a long marriage.”

  “Two years.”

  “What?”

  “You said two years. When we were talking about Nell.”

  “Right,” Riley said. “Most people are pretty much back on track after two years.”

  “I’ll be thirty-four,” Suze said.

  “And still a babe,” Riley said. “Relax and give yourself some time.”

  “You are being awfully nice about this,” Suze said. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t hit people when they’re down. However, you seem to be recovering nicely, so watch it from now on.”

  Suze nodded and turned back to the doorway.

  “So you came in here so I’d be lousy to you?” Riley said. “Thanks a lot.”

  “No. I had to talk about it with somebody, and for some reason I picked you.”

  “Okay,” Riley said. “You all right?”

  “Yes,” Suze said and took a deep breath. “I certainly am.”

  * * *

  Nell was sitting at her dining room table, drinking her third cup of coffee and trying to think of a plan, any plan, when the phone rang. Gabe, she thought, but when she picked it up, it was Jack.

  “Hello, Nell,” he said with his usual I-hate-you-because-you-broke-up-my-marriage chill. “Is Suze there? She’s not at home or at The Cup.”

  “No,” Nell said. “Can I take a message?” You adulterous weasel.

  “Do you know where she is?” Jack said, and then as an afterthought, “Why are you home?”

  “I quit,” Nell said, figuring it was the easiest way to get rid of him.

  “You quit.” Jack was quiet for a few moments, long enough for Nell to wonder what the hell he was doing.