The Touch of Innocents Read Online Free PDF Page A

job for Fox Avionics. That’s why I made you planning director. Gave you a great salary and an expense account twice as big as my own. Surprised you haven’t put on even more weight than you have.’
    ‘I work it off. On your business,’ Michelini responded defensively.
    ‘Never any doubt. You kiss ass over on the Hill like those Senators have got mistletoe dangling from their belts, and get laid so frequently I sometimes think you must be running for President yourself. Eh, Joe?’ He started a laugh which echoed around the large office, but in return Michelini could offer only a taut smile.
    ‘Never any doubt, Joe.’ Vandel was leaning forward across his desk, the humour gradually subsiding. ‘Until now. Trouble is, there’ll be split loyalties. You here at Fox, and your wife the flavour of the month at WCN. Likely to get her own show soon, I understand.’
    ‘Crap!’ Michelini responded. ‘Erskine, there’s no way I would …’
    But already the president was waving down his protest.
    ‘Exactly what I said when some of the boys raised the matter with me. Capital K-R-A-P. Not old Joe, I said. But …’ He flapped his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘This is too big to take any chances. They said. WCN’s the opposition and we can’t afford the risk of having one of our top executives hanging out with them. Sleeping with the enemy. It’s not as if this is the sort of job you can leave behind in the office every night, it’s a twenty-five-hour-a-day commitment.’
    Michelini bit into his lip, angered. ‘If you know what’s going on at the station you’ll also know that my wife is currently based on the other side of the world. This is ludicrous.’
    ‘And every three weeks she flies back here for … well, I guess, a marital update?’ Vandel countered, trying for once not to take the coarse line beforequickly abandoning the unfamiliar approach. ‘Shit, Joe, it’s not as if she’s just another one of your casual pick-ups you can fuck and forget. Chrissakes, she’s your wife.’
    Michelini began to laugh through his nose. A hollow, scornful sound. Pillow talk! They were worried about pillow talk! Hell, what was he going to tell them? That he and his wife hadn’t made love – had scarcely even slept together – since the moment she knew the second kid had been conceived. That the baby had been a last and desperate attempt by her to glue back the pieces of a marriage which had been falling apart. That it turned out to be a lovely baby, and a pathetic mistake. The marriage would never be put back together, and now there was an extra child to complicate matters.
    ‘You don’t need to worry, not about my wife,’ he said.
    ‘But I do, Joe, I do.’
    ‘I don’t even know where the hell she is. You do not need to worry. The chance of me and my wife having a meaningful conversation about anything other than the kids is absolute zero. Believe me.’
    And then he knew it for certain.
    ‘There’s something you should know, Erskine. Tomorrow I file for divorce.’ There. It was out. Already he felt better, in control. ‘From now on, the only talking me and my wife are going to do is through lawyers.’
    London was in for a meteorological mugging. Bursts of cold November rain from off the North Sea squabbled their way up the Thames estuary, annoying the seagulls and blowing them inland where they cartwheeled and complained before settling on the turbulent water, only to be disturbed once more bythe river taxis forcing passage upstream against the ebb tide. The persistent rain had made the river angry; it scowled at the great city along its banks as it passed. A day for cancelling appointments, for crosswords, for drying out socks. A day when even Detroit seemed to have its attractions.
    In his new office overlooking the Thames, Paul Devereux sat content. While others had been battered by the changing winds, he had flourished. He had the gift which all politicians crave yet which is accorded only to