Kill Fee Read Free

his office and washed his hands and face. The strain of the past few years hadn't improved the face any. Thin nose, slightly hooked; black, staring eyes; two deep furrows in his cheeks, bracketing the thin lips like parenthesis marks. Noticeably receding hairline.
    Jerry Sussman had a head of hair of the sort called leonine. He wore it slightly long because he was all too aware of the effect created by his big veldt-colored mane. Walsh grimaced at his own appearance; his name was Leon,
he
should have been the lionlike one. In America hair was still equated with virility, and Jerry Sussman played the King-of-the-Jungle bit for all he could get out of it. Walsh had once told him the male lion didn't even rule his own pride much less the whole jungle, that he was only a follower kept by the females for stud purposes. Sussman liked that even better.
    Leon Walsh made up his mind. He would publish the short story that presented the electronics industry in such an unflattering light. It was good fiction and that was all that mattered. If Mueller Electronics withdrew its advertising—well, that was too bad.
    He closed his office door behind him. The tapping of a word processor sounded from down the hall; someone working late. Walsh found himself wondering which of his employees it was that kept Sussman informed of what was scheduled for upcoming issues.
    A name immediately popped into his head: Fran Caffrey. Walsh smiled sheepishly; he'd been quick to suspect her simply because he didn't like her. Fran Caffrey was his fiction editor, and she was only twenty-six or -seven, young enough to be his daughter. She had this overly careful way of speaking to him, as if he were growing more senile by the day and she had to take extra pains to make sure he understood everything. But Fran did her job well; Walsh had no real reason to get rid of her. He'd always thought personal animosity a poor reason for firing a good worker, and he liked the feeling of fair-mindedness that attitude gave him.
    Just the same, he thought, she's the type to play
I Spy
for Jerry Sussman. Maybe he could get a friend in one of the publishing houses to offer her a job. Who owed him a favor?
    In the elevator a man stood on his foot. Walsh had to ask twice before he moved. On the street, two pushy young women crowded in front of him and took his taxi. As usual, he muttered under his breath when he was frustrated.
    As usual, it didn't do any good.

CHAPTER

    2
    As if the Russian army had marched through barefoot.
    That's the way his mouth tasted. He'd first heard the phrase twenty years ago but hadn't 'fully appreciated it until now. The pounding in his head didn't help. He finished his Alka-Seltzer and wished he'd stayed at home.
    "Would you like me to repeat it for you?" Fran Caffrey asked.
    Don't get mad,
Walsh told himself. "No thank you, dear, I managed to get it the first time."
    "My name's not 'dear,' Leon."
    He muttered to himself. Aloud: "Don't be so damned touchy, Fran."
    She made a noise of exasperation. "Will you listen to yourself? Now you're telling me how to
be."
    Just what he needed. "You're making something out of nothing. All I said was 'dear.' "
    "I've never heard you call any of the men 'old buddy' or the like. The men in this office you treat with respect—whether they deserve it or not. But you treat the women with a kind of offhand familiarity that's just plain insulting. As if we were cute little performing dogs instead of professionals."
    Is that what had turned this intense young woman into an enemy? "I'm not a sexist, Fran." His head hurt.
    She laughed. "Why, Leon, you're one of the worst kinds! The kind who's convinced he's so open-minded he doesn't need to make any special effort to treat people fairly."
    An echo from the past that made him wince: his second wife had once said something of the sort. He certainly didn't intend to be discriminatory in the way he treated his staff. Why hadn't she said anything before? "Fran—are you