"Maybe." She wriggled a little, and the slits in her dress widened just
a fraction. "We've got the nucleus of a good PR department now. But with
a really experienced man at the controls--it could grow enormously.
Think you might be interested?"
"Maybe I would," Tom said. But he wasn't thinking about PR right then.
"Mr. Andrusco's had you in mind for a long time," Livia Cord continued.
"I've mentioned your name to him several times as a possible candidate.
If you hadn't been fired from Ostreich, we might have tried to tempt you
away." Her fingers touched a stray lock of red hair. "Now--we don't have
to be surreptitious about it. Do we?"
"No," Tom said guardedly. "I guess not."
"If you're free tomorrow, I could arrange a meeting with Mr. Andrusco.
Would you like that?"
"Well ..."
"His office opens at nine. We could get there early."
Tom looked at his watch. Livia said: "I know it's late. But we could get
an early start in the morning, right after breakfast. Couldn't we?"
"I dunno," Tom frowned. "By the time I get home ..."
"Home?" The girl leaned back. "Who said anything about home?"
Her bedroom was monochromed. Even the sheets were pink. At five o'clock,
the false dawn glimmered through the window, and the light falling on
his eyes awakened him. He looked over at the sleeping girl, feeling
drugged and detached. She moaned slightly, and turned her face towards
him. He blinked at the sight of it, and cried aloud.
"What is it?" She sat up in bed and nicked on the table lamp. "What's
the matter?"
He looked at her carefully. She was beautiful. There wasn't even a
smudge of lipstick on her face.
"Nothing," he said dreamily, and turned away. By the time he was asleep
again, his mind had already erased the strange image from his clouded
brain--that Livia Cord had absolutely no mouth at all.
* * * * *
It was hard to keep track of the glass-and-steel structures that had
been springing up daily along the Fifth-Madison Thruway. When Tom and
Livia stepped out of the cab in front of 320, he wasn't surprised that
the building--an odd, cylindrical affair with a pointed spire--was
strange to him. But he was taken aback to realize that all sixty floors
were the property of Homelovers, Incorporated.
"Quite a place," he told the girl.
She smiled at him tightly. Livia was crackling with business electricity
this morning, her spiked heels clicking along the marble floors of the
lobby like typewriter keys. She wore a tailored gray suit that clung to
her body with all the perfection and sexlessness of a window mannikin.
In the elevator, shooting towards the executive offices on the 57th
floor, Tom looked over at her and scratched his poorly-shaven cheeks in
wonderment.
They plowed right through the frosty receptionist barrier, and entered
an office only half the size of Penn Station. The man behind the
U-shaped desk couldn't have been better suited to the surroundings by
Central Casting. He was cleft-jawed, tanned, exquisitely tailored. If
his polished brown toupee had been better fitted, he would have been
positively handsome.
The handshake was firm.
"Good to see you," he grinned. "Heard a lot about you, Mr. Blacker. All
of it good."
"Well," Livia said airily. "I've done my part. Now you two come to
terms. Buzz me if you need me, J. A."
John Andrusco unwrapped a cigar when she left, and said: "Well, now.
Suppose we get right down to cases, Mr. Blacker. Our organization is
badly in need of a public relations set-up that can pull out all the
stops. We have money and we have influence. Now all we need is guidance.
If you can supply that, there's a vacant chair at the end of the hall
that can accommodate your backside." He grinned manfully.
"Well," Tom said delicately. "My big problem is this, Mr. Andrusco. I
don't know what the hell business you're in."