"Yes. When he is angry, he has terrifying face. You know?"
"I know." The woman wasn't exaggerating. Cummings was a man whose face could clearly-almost oppressively-convey his feelings. You never had to worry about where you stood with Cummings. All you had to do was consult his face.
"Thanks again," Brolan said. He walked back around the corner and started up the hall.
Near the elevator the office door opened, and suddenly there was Cummings. He wore a fitted white shirt with a loosened red necktie and blue pleated trousers that obviously belonged to a suit.
"You've got balls, Brolan, I've got to say that for you." Brolan had the impression that this was the old West and that the meanest man in town had just announced his intention to draw down on him.
"How are you, Richard?"
"Don't give me any amenities, you jerk-off. What the hell are you doing up here?"
"I'd prefer talking in your office."
"I'd prefer not talking to you at all." Cummings's jaw muscles bulked. His eyes flared. As Brolan drew closer to him, he could feel Cummings's rage come off him like waves of heat. "Anyway, I figured you'd be out celebrating the account you took from me."
Brolan smiled. "That was a few nights ago."
He had the impression that Cummings was going to swing on him. Instead the man moved backward to the door, smashed it open, and stepped back for Brolan to go inside. "I still want to know what the hell you're doing here."
But before Brolan had a chance to speak, Cummings turned and led the way through the executive offices to his own office far in the back.
The place had changed a great deal since his last days there, Brolan noted. Dark panelling and even darker wainscoting gave the place the air of an exclusive lawyers' office. You wouldn't know the office was in the ad business at all except for a few discreetly placed framed print ads, all of them Clio winners. The buff blue carpeting seemed to get thicker the deeper you went into the place. By the time they reached Cummings's office,
Brolan had glimpsed half-a-dozen offices standing empty, each with a miniature American flag standing on its desk. Cummings must have gotten an extremely right-wing client and wanted to impress the man with the executives' patriotic fervour-exactly something Cummings would do, and without seeing anything ironic or cynical about it at all.
If the other offices looked as if they belonged to lawyers, Cummings's looked as if it were a judge's chamber. The dark panelling continued here, but it was joined by massive built-in bookcases and leather furniture that had recently been polished. It smelled pleasantly of oil. Mounted ashtrays sat next to each chair. They were made of marble and had claw bottoms, the sort of thing you would have seen in a men's club back when Victoria was still chiding Englishmen about their morality. A faint trace of cigar smoke lay on the air. Cummings probably still indulged-two a day, and good Cubans at that, never more.
Cummings hit him directly on the jaw.
It was a sucker punch because Brolan hadn't been expecting it at all, and it was, as you'd expect from Cummings, a hard punch. One moment Brolan had been standing there checking out the cushy office, and the next Cummings was slugging him.
Pinpoints of light-red, yellow, faint green-danced across the sudden panoramic darkness that cloaked Brolan's vision. It wasn't so much the pain as it was the disorientation, the rushing coldness in his nostrils, the wobbling of the knees. Blindly he put out a hand, grasping for anything that would help keep him on his feet. He didn't want to give Cummings the satisfaction of seeing him pitch to the floor. Why help Cummings gloat?
His fingers touched the leather of a chair. He steadied himself.
"Pretty mean punch, wouldn't you say?" Cummings said. He sounded as if they were boys talking about athletic prowess.
"You son of a bitch," Brolan said, his vision beginning slowly to return.
"Me, son of a bitch? You steal one of my biggest accounts, and you call me a son of a bitch?"
Cummings put out a hand to Brolan's elbow. He was going to help Brolan sit down. Wasn't that sweet? Brolan jerked his arm away. He didn't want Cummings to touch him. All his hatred for the man-the man's preening, the man's arrogance, the man's psychotic temper-rushed back to him now. There were times when he could be almost sentimental about Cummings (the man's larger-than-life qualities could sometimes be endearing when viewed from far away) but now Cummings's presence was too real and overwhelming.
Brolan went over and sat down in one of the high-backed leather chairs.
"You want a cigar?" Cummings said.
"No, I don't want a cigar."
"You want some sherry?"
"No."
"I'm trying to be nice. I feel a lot better about you now, Brolan."
Brolan said, "I want to know where she is."
"Where who is?"
"The girl on the playing card. The one in the S amp;M get-up." Cummings had been on his way around the desk. He stopped now and jabbed a finger in Brolan's direction. "You sent that, you bastard?"
"Where is she?" The playing card was what Brolan had sent over earlier that afternoon by messenger.
"What the hell's going on here, buddy boy? How did you even know I knew her?"
Brolan waved Cummings's anger away. "You're not answering my question."
Cummings went around the desk and sat down. The leather squeaked as he moved around in the chair, getting comfortable. His broad mahogany desk was clear except for a framed photograph of his children and a blank tablet and pen sitting in front of him. Cummings was an anal-retentive where neatness was concerned. He was famous for popping unexpectedly into someone's office and raging at the person for having a cluttered desk. Sometimes Cummings would clear the desk right then, sweeping everything to the floor, even breaking some things with the heel of his shoe. This was Cummings at his worst-the spoiled-little-boy temper, the unfathomable rage-and it was one of the reasons Brolan and Foster had left.
"What the hell is Emma to you?" Cummings said.
Brolan had decided on the way over there to use the story the pimp had unwittingly provided him. "I've made a bad mistake. I've fallen in love with a hooker." He shrugged, keeping himself nonchalant. He rubbed his sore jaw. He was tempted to fly across the desk and punch Cummings a few times before Cummings gathered himself and beat him into a crumpled heap. But he had more serious things to worry about than his ego. A murder charge, for one.
"I thought you were supposed to be making a fool of yourself over the beautiful Kathleen," Cummings said. He smirked. "The stories I'm hearing just aren't like you, old buddy. You were the one who always gave women a run for their money. But Kathleen is humiliating you every chance she gets, in the office and out of it." He laughed. "That's the sort of story I hate to hear. I think of you and Foster like my own sons."
"Have you seen Emma in the past three days?"
"No, I haven't. But why don't you ask Culhane?"
"Tim Culhane?" He decided to play naive, see what Cummings had to say on the subject.
"The one and only. Emma told me about him."
"What about him? That he sees her?"
"That he sees her and that he's into violence."
Cummings opened his desk drawer. In a moment he produced the playing card Brolan had sent him. Brolan's hope had been to rattle Cummings, make him reveal something useful about his relationship with Emma. But he'd forgotten how ably Cummings could defend himself. He was a past master at shifting blame. Now he was blaming Tim Culhane.
"That's quite a deck of cards, isn't it?" Cummings said.
With a great deal of ceremony and violence, he tore the card in half, letting the two pieces fall on his desk. "Stuff like this makes me sick."
"Then why hang around hookers?"
Cummings stared at him. "You mean you hadn't heard?"
"Heard what?"