Wiseguys In Love Read Free Page B

“adjusted” it in another. He could hear the sounds of the traffic and the city from the open window.
    He looked back down at the books, closed one, and stuck it quickly in the safe behind his desk, then took out the big union checkbook ledger.
    He opened it up and filled out the deposit stub for the day. Underneath that figure, he placed a withdrawal to the Metropolitan Office Maintenance Company in the amount of the interest in the second ledger, to cover the check he’d just given Tony.
    That was for Solly. There had been forty new members in the union this quarter, and the Metropolitan Office Maintenance Company was supposed to get a percentage of all the pension dues, balance, and interest, just as it had done every quarter since 1951.
    Only, since Giuseppe had figured out his plan, they’d been short. It had taken him a period of time to see that nobody from Solly’s side had even ever asked or was ever going to ask to look at the pay rosters and line them up with the payoffs—not so long as he kept the union rosters looking consistent and kept neither a huge rise in union membership nor a consistent drop.
    So it was one for him, one for the Soltanos.
    Giuseppe licked his lips and began writing out another check.
    That was his. It had taken him the last ten years to make it into this position. He had a nice fat bank account in Zurich. When it was time for him to leave, he was going to take the clothes on his back, drive to the airport, get on a plane, and leave behind the boring, fat, married-for-thirty-years person, known as Giuseppe Geddone, and begin living the way God had intended.
    *   *   *
    Lisa got to work a little before nine, sweating from the August humidity and wet from the rain that had begun falling.
    She shivered as she sat down at her desk. The air-conditioning vent right above her was going full blast. She bent down and pulled off her sneakers and socks, then readjusted her panty hose on her feet. She opened up her bottom drawer and wiggled her feet into a pair of heels.
    Back to grim reality, she thought.
    Tom appeared by her desk with an armful of galleys from the previous day’s work. He dropped them down.
    â€œReady for the pit beast from hell today?” he quipped, and then leaned down, his voice low. “He wants to see these right away. He’s been in since eight-thirty.”
    â€œThanks,” she said, as though he had just thrown a sack of snakes down on her desk.
    â€œYou should have come out with Lynn and me last night; at least it takes the edge off.” She watched him shrug sympathetically and take a step away from her desk. He turned around.
    â€œOh yeah, Mrs. Morelli in Accounting needs to see you about something,” he said, and walked back off down the hall.
    That would be an excuse to get out of his office fast. She got up, armed with the pile, and began walking down the hall to his office.
    A cold shiver always went through her as she got to his door. But this morning, she felt her teeth begin to grind together angrily. She should—no, she was going to say something. She gave two gentle knocks.
    â€œWhat?” Henry Foster Morgan’s deep voice boomed, annoyed.
    Her resolve faded into her usual reaction—fear, which was followed by the thought that she just had to make it through until February.
    He was sitting at his desk with the Post opened to Page Six. A fuzzy photo of him and several “unidentified blondes” was splashed across it. He was on the phone. In front of him sat a glass of tomato juice. He usually poured into it a good dose of vodka from the bottle he kept in his lower drawer. Lisa would sit as he screamed, holding her nose from his breath.
    She looked at the other things on the desk. Next to the glass was a half-empty bottle of aspirin and a pack of French cigarettes.
    She was going to have to definitely block out any smell coming from him.
    â€œHere are the