realized what she’d done. She wasted no time on false modesty, but shot me a single look which seemed to tell me that any flip comment would prove terminal.
The conversation didn’t last long. Sitting by her desk in the office, Hilary spoke to the president of Trim-Tram in throaty monosyllables. After half a dozen question-and-answer exchanges, she cradled the phone on its hook and her head in her hands.
Her hair was hanging down, and it was indeed silky.
A long, silent moment passed. When Hilary finally spoke, it was without moving from her attitude of suffering.
“Get out the car keys,” she groaned. “We have to rush over to Trim-Tram.”
“Why?”
“Somebody stole Tricky Tires and sold it to Sid Goetz.”
That explained why she’d personally agreed to come to the toy firm, even though she was still three-quarters asleep. Hilary has a not-so-secret ambition—or, rather, a frustrated desire—to be a private detective, of which, as the Bard says, more anon. Her friend, Scott Miranda, must have asked her to find out the identity of the spy at Trim-Tram. It was the only kind of appeal that could have gotten her moving so early.
Normally, I would have been left behind like a good little boy to mind the office, but I was included because she wanted me to drive. Hilary would never trust herself behind a wheel in what was, to her, still the middle of the night.
3
T HE TRIM-TRAM HEADQUARTERS IS situated on a trash-littered plain just east of Queens. The place is literally a fortress: a dreary pile with three sets of locks on each door, armed guards patrolling the halls, and hidden TV cameras positioned in all the chilly corridors and over every entranceway.
Scott Miranda has the locks changed on the doors every week or so, and he allows only two other executives to own full sets of keys. I’ve even heard him boast that Trim-Tram has better security than Fort Knox.
The hush-hush gimmickry is understandable, of course. The company plows hundreds of thousands of dollars annually into R&D, construction of prototypes, package design, test marketing, and promotion; it’s not about to serve it all up on a platter to the first knock-off artist brazen enough to walk through the front door.
The irony was that the elaborate protective system hadn’t saved the firm from internal attack. Goetz apparently had gathered enough confidential data to copy the firm’s latest Toy Fair entry in the miniature auto-racing line: a flashy little scaled-down speed vehicle called Tricky Tires.
When I braked to a stop in a parking space, the Trim-Tram lot was practically empty. Hilary, who’d been reclining in the back seat, hadn’t said a word during the ride. But as I turned off the ignition, she spoke, and I couldn’t believe what she said.
Turning around to her, I pretended not to have heard, asked her to repeat what she’d just said.
She mumbled, “I said I’m sorry,” and looked out the window, away from me.
“Sorry? For what?”
She wouldn’t turn around. “For the way I acted this morning. I made a mistake.” She paused, then added, in a lower tone, “I was wrong about you.”
What the hell do you say to a naked lady? I could cope with the sarcasms of Hilary the Dominant, but this temporary abdication of authority confused me. I murmured something inept about her being justified in wanting to protect herself, considering her “attractive femininity.” The last phrase was uninspired flattery, and I fully expected it to bring on a healthy caustic sally.
So I was surprised to see her turn back to me with a little humorous uptilt creasing the corner of her mouth. She said, a little sheepishly, “I guess, after this morning, you can’t help but consider my femininity.”
She put a hand briefly, too briefly, on my arm.
4
“Y OU MEAN THEY’RE NOT the same?” I asked.
Dean Wallis, Trim-Tram’s advertising manager, retrieved the set of eight-by-ten glossy black-and-white product shots he’d given me to
The conversation didn’t last long. Sitting by her desk in the office, Hilary spoke to the president of Trim-Tram in throaty monosyllables. After half a dozen question-and-answer exchanges, she cradled the phone on its hook and her head in her hands.
Her hair was hanging down, and it was indeed silky.
A long, silent moment passed. When Hilary finally spoke, it was without moving from her attitude of suffering.
“Get out the car keys,” she groaned. “We have to rush over to Trim-Tram.”
“Why?”
“Somebody stole Tricky Tires and sold it to Sid Goetz.”
That explained why she’d personally agreed to come to the toy firm, even though she was still three-quarters asleep. Hilary has a not-so-secret ambition—or, rather, a frustrated desire—to be a private detective, of which, as the Bard says, more anon. Her friend, Scott Miranda, must have asked her to find out the identity of the spy at Trim-Tram. It was the only kind of appeal that could have gotten her moving so early.
Normally, I would have been left behind like a good little boy to mind the office, but I was included because she wanted me to drive. Hilary would never trust herself behind a wheel in what was, to her, still the middle of the night.
3
T HE TRIM-TRAM HEADQUARTERS IS situated on a trash-littered plain just east of Queens. The place is literally a fortress: a dreary pile with three sets of locks on each door, armed guards patrolling the halls, and hidden TV cameras positioned in all the chilly corridors and over every entranceway.
Scott Miranda has the locks changed on the doors every week or so, and he allows only two other executives to own full sets of keys. I’ve even heard him boast that Trim-Tram has better security than Fort Knox.
The hush-hush gimmickry is understandable, of course. The company plows hundreds of thousands of dollars annually into R&D, construction of prototypes, package design, test marketing, and promotion; it’s not about to serve it all up on a platter to the first knock-off artist brazen enough to walk through the front door.
The irony was that the elaborate protective system hadn’t saved the firm from internal attack. Goetz apparently had gathered enough confidential data to copy the firm’s latest Toy Fair entry in the miniature auto-racing line: a flashy little scaled-down speed vehicle called Tricky Tires.
When I braked to a stop in a parking space, the Trim-Tram lot was practically empty. Hilary, who’d been reclining in the back seat, hadn’t said a word during the ride. But as I turned off the ignition, she spoke, and I couldn’t believe what she said.
Turning around to her, I pretended not to have heard, asked her to repeat what she’d just said.
She mumbled, “I said I’m sorry,” and looked out the window, away from me.
“Sorry? For what?”
She wouldn’t turn around. “For the way I acted this morning. I made a mistake.” She paused, then added, in a lower tone, “I was wrong about you.”
What the hell do you say to a naked lady? I could cope with the sarcasms of Hilary the Dominant, but this temporary abdication of authority confused me. I murmured something inept about her being justified in wanting to protect herself, considering her “attractive femininity.” The last phrase was uninspired flattery, and I fully expected it to bring on a healthy caustic sally.
So I was surprised to see her turn back to me with a little humorous uptilt creasing the corner of her mouth. She said, a little sheepishly, “I guess, after this morning, you can’t help but consider my femininity.”
She put a hand briefly, too briefly, on my arm.
4
“Y OU MEAN THEY’RE NOT the same?” I asked.
Dean Wallis, Trim-Tram’s advertising manager, retrieved the set of eight-by-ten glossy black-and-white product shots he’d given me to
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