In Bed With The Boss Page 0,38
couldn’t seem to grasp the reason why Brad would even want to pursue a friendship with him.
Chapter Two
The first time Richie Santori met Toby McFarlane, Richie was banging on the front doors of Johnson, Frederick, and Lindsay. He had a key to this suite of offices; he’d never had trouble getting inside after hours. All the maintenance men and cleaning personnel had keys to the offices in the building. But there was something obstructing the door and Richie couldn’t see what it was.
It was after seven, on a Friday evening in the fall of 1962, and Richie had to get inside and do his job. He usually started with JFL advertising, worked his way through other offices, and finished with Farmland Insurance. Richie didn’t like his routine interrupted; he’d get in trouble for this; maybe lose his job again. Richie knew there was someone inside. He saw lights and shadows coming from a back office at the end of the hall, so he continued to knock.
When he saw Toby walk into the main reception area, looking around with a clueless expression, he banged harder and jiggled the doors to get his attention. Richie had heard about the new guy in the advertising office upstairs named Toby something or other but he hadn’t seen him up close yet. Word spread fast with the work crew in buildings like this. When a few of the girls in the cleaning crew said Toby was cute and had a nice smile, Richie’s ears went up and he listened without being obvious. But that’s all the girls said, other than the fact that Toby seemed to keep to himself and mind his own business. One girl said he was shy. Another thought he was “stuck up.”
Richie was starting to think this Toby guy was just plain stupid. Toby turned toward the glass double doors, with a dazed expression, and gaped at Richie for a moment. When Toby finally figured out Richie couldn’t get in, he ran over and turned the lock. Richie noticed that Toby was unusually nice looking, in a crew neck sweater, conservative way. And he wasn’t even smiling that evening. There was something about him that gave Richie a good feeling and it had nothing to do with sex.
Richie jiggled the doors again and said, “It’s not the lock, buddy. I have a key to all the offices. There’s something stuck in the door and I can’t see what it is.” He pronounced “door” with a hard R that sounded too forced. He’d been trying to lose his heavy Bronx accent so he’d sound more refined.
Toby, still looking clueless, ran his palm down the back of his head. He looked as though he was trying to remember something important but couldn’t. Richie couldn’t help but notice that Toby’s hair was a little messy and his shirt tail was hanging out. His face was red and there were beads of perspiration forming around his temples.
When Richie pointed to the bottom of the doors, Toby rubbed his chin and squatted down to have a look. A second later, he reached down, moved something around, and pulled some kind of metal shim out that had been lodged perfectly between the bottoms of the doors and a thick piece of wood that framed the carpet. It was narrow at one end and thicker at the other. Richie wondered why on earth anyone would shove something like that between the doors.
As Toby did this, Brad Lindsay stepped up behind him and smiled at Richie through the glass. Brad looked neat and refreshed, as always. This wasn’t the first time Richie had met Brad Lindsay. Brad had been sending Richie smiles and glances since Richie had been hired as part of the cleaning crew a year earlier. Though everyone knew Brad was married to the boss’s daughter, there were a select few who also knew Brad was more than interested in a few of the good looking guys in the maintenance department. Once in a while, when no one was looking and Richie came up to empty waste baskets in the afternoon, Brad brushed up against Richie casually and winked. Nothing significant ever happened; Richie was still hoping.
Toby stood up and glanced down at the object that had been lodged between the doors. When Richie opened the doors, Brad stepped into the hall and turned back to look at them. Brad smiled at Richie and said to Toby, “I wonder how that thing got stuck in there. Good