Perfect Partners

“You hold a mean grudge, Blackstone. That all happened damn near twenty years ago. Can’t you let bygones be bygones?”
    “Which bygones do you suggest I forget, Ben?” Joel switched his gaze to Jackson. “The five hundred dollar loan you wouldn’t give my father when he went down to your bank, hat in hand? He needed that money to pay for the funeral expenses for Mom. I knew better than to go to you for a loan when I needed help paying for his funeral. I realized you’d turn me down, just as you did him.”
    Jackson looked affronted. “Now, see here, Blackstone. Your father was up to his eyeballs in debt when he came to see me. No way could I justify a loan to a man in his position. No smart banker would have done it. I had responsibilities to the board.”
    Joel punched the elevator call button for the men. “No smart executive in my position could justify keeping Copeland Marine alive any longer. I’m sure you gentlemen understand. You’re all businessmen, after all.”
    “Come on,” Stan McBride said desperately. “Think about what you’re doing to your hometown, Blackstone.”
    The elevator arrived. Joel held the doors open politely. “I do think about it, Stan. I think about it a lot. The same way you must have thought about what you were doing the night you swore to the cops that my father was too drunk to drive the night he left the Anchor and drove off a cliff.”
    “He was drunk, damn it.”
    “Not everyone in the Anchor thought so.” Joel crowded the three into the waiting elevator. “But I’m sure that Victor Copeland made it clear he wanted your expert judgment as a bartender to prevail.”
    “Now, see here, Blackstone, you don’t understand what’s at stake,” Ed Hartley sputtered.
    “The hell I don’t.” Joel smiled.
    The elevator doors closed on the indignant, outraged, and desperate-looking faces of McBride, Hartley, and Jackson. Joel stopped smiling abruptly.
    The three men had come to see Letty. He had caught them on their way out. That meant they had already had their interview and a chance to make a pitch to the softhearted president of the company.
    Such incidents were not supposed to occur.
    That meant somebody had screwed up, and that somebody was named Arthur Bigley. Bigley had apparently forgotten his instructions. People who forgot their instructions did not work long at Thornquist Gear.
    Joel strode down the hall and stalked into Letty’s outer office.
    Arthur started at the sight of him and began a frenzy of blinking. “Mr. Blackstone.” Arthur’s eyes filled with alarm.
    Joel halted in front of his desk. “I just ran into three people in the hall who were on their way out from seeing Ms. Thornquist.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “I was not informed of their presence in the building.”
    “Uh, no, sir. You weren’t.” Arthur clutched a pencil so hard it snapped in his fingers. The pieces dropped on the desk, rolled to the edge, and fell off onto the carpet.
    “Such incidents are not supposed to happen, Bigley.”
    Bigley’s eyes filled with tears. “No, sir. I know they aren’t. Ms. Thornquist said—”
    “Christ, Bigley,” Joel interrupted in disgust. “Are you
crying
?”
    “No, sir. I’ve been having trouble with my new contacts, sir.”
    Joel let that go. “It doesn’t matter what Ms. Thornquist said,” he continued softly. “You had direct orders from me, Bigley. You became an executive secretary because you gave me your solemn promise that you would follow the instructions I gave you. Is that not right, Bigley?”
    “Yes, Mr. Blackstone,” Arthur agreed sadly.
    “You have failed in your duties, Bigley. That means I will have to remove you from this position and find someone else who can follow my instructions.”
    “Mr. Blackstone, please, I love this job.”
    “Then you should have done it right,” Joel said.
    The door of the inner office opened at that moment. Letty stood framed in the doorway. She took in the scene before her in one glance, and her eyes narrowed.
    “What in the world do you think you’re doing to my secretary, Mr. Blackstone? Get away from him at once.”
    Joel slanted her a cold glance, fully aware that Arthur was darting anxious, questioning looks back and forth between Letty and him. “I will talk to you in a moment, Ms. Thornquist.”
    “You will talk to me right now. And you will cease threatening my secretary this instant. I won’t have it.”
    Joel glowered at her. “I have a few things to say to him,