Montaro Caine A Novel - By Sidney Poitier Page 0,10

Alan Rothman, or anyone else at Fitzer.

Unprepared. Damn it. I was unprepared, Montaro thought. Though he was alone in his office, his body stood tense and coiled as if in readiness for the next assault. So lost was he in his thoughts, Montaro didn’t notice when the summer sun unexpectedly blasted through the stubborn layer of clouds that had been hanging ominously over the city, sending floods of light crashing, splashing, and ricocheting everywhere at once through the canyons of Manhattan. Nor did he notice that the long, greenish-gray tinted window that ran the length of his well-appointed forty-first-floor office suddenly glowed with a golden haze that brightened the room.

“Mr. Caine, should I be with you at your eleven a.m. appointment?”

Caine spun away from the window to find his assistant, Jeffrey Mason, standing in front of his desk. Jeffrey, a slight, red-haired man in his midforties, had entered Caine’s office through an interconnecting door from his own adjacent office. Jeffrey had waited several seconds before speaking. Usually, Caine would have felt his presence. This time he hadn’t; his instincts were still eluding him.

“Oh, Jeffrey,” Caine mumbled.

“It’s 10:56. They should be here any minute,” Jeffrey reminded his boss.

“Who should be here any minute?”

“Colette Beekman and Herman Freich. Do you want me to be here with you?”

As Jeffrey Mason stood before him, Caine fidgeted with objects on his desk; he twisted paper clips a fraction this way, a quarter of an inch that way, and absentmindedly rubbed a small, smooth, sculpted object that resembled a woman’s compact, an object whose significance Montaro had long since forgotten.

Jeffrey stood quietly, waiting. He had observed Caine’s nervous rituals over many years and knew that whenever his boss fiddled with objects on his desk, the man was shifting gears. Sometimes he was shifting up, from casual preoccupation with run-of-the-mill concerns to more critical matters: sometimes down, from a honed, focused concentration. There was much that Jeffrey admired about his boss, but nothing as much as his reflexes in crucial situations.

“No, I won’t need you here. I’ll handle it alone,” Caine said.

“Mr. Caine, Mr. Freich, and Miss Beekman are here now,” a voice breezed through the intercom.

“Show them in, Nancy,” responded Caine.

Caine spun the smooth dark object on his desk counterclockwise; then, his index finger teased the blade of a letter opener from east to west. Finally, his thumb glided to the upper-left-hand corner of a neat stack of correspondence to nudge a paper clip from a vertical to an angled position. The ritual completed, he moved around his desk toward the door as Jeffrey exited Caine’s office, making way for Nancy MacDonald, Caine’s longtime secretary. Nancy’s fifty-two years were clearly etched on her face, but she struggled furiously, through creative use of makeup, hairstyle, and affordable, up-to-the-minute fashion, to stay the hand of time. Following Nancy into Caine’s office was a tall, middle-aged man and a stunning young woman with a sense of poise to match her beauty.

“Miss Colette Beekman and Mr. Herman Freich,” was Nancy’s brief introduction.

“Good morning, Ms. Beekman,” said Caine, flashing a businesslike smile.

“Good morning, Mr. Caine,” Colette Beekman returned warmly. She extended her hand in a manner, he felt, meant to put him on notice of some kind. Her handshake was firm, and it seemed to hold within it a promise or a threat.

“Mr. Freich,” said Caine, looking into the somber, sunken eyes of the nattily dressed man as they pumped hands.

“Thanks for seeing us,” Freich said.

Caine politely gestured toward the couches and armchairs in front of his desk and beckoned Freich and Beekman to sit down.

“Need anything else, Mr. Caine?” Nancy asked.

“I’m O.K., Nancy,” he said, which was his code to his secretary not to let his appointment run even one second over the half hour he had promised Buchanan. Nancy nodded to her boss before she left the room.

Colette Beekman sat on the couch next to Herman Freich. She had already cast an appraising eye over the decor of Caine’s office, which had a modern motif interrupted here and there by vagabond pieces of arresting antiques. She admired the Fitzer emblem embossed on the face of the immense crystal tabletop that rested in a sculpted, wrought-iron frame, giving the impression that the company’s emblem was floating free.

Whenever Colette walked into someone’s office, it was her habit to look for clues. Her experiences had already taught her that to really know a man one must first find out what he’s afraid of. A man’s office, even more than his home, usually