Villiers Touch by Brian Garfield Read Free Book Online

from?”
    â€œI wanted to have a look at it. We might be able to get the repro rights for a few thousand. It’s the one what’s-her-name auctioned off upside down at Parke-Bernet.”
    â€œNot bad,” Diane said.
    Cynthia stopped, stared at her, and uttered a horsey snort. “Not bad? My dear, you see before you examples of dismal taste from every period in the history of civilization. I ask you— look at that moth-eaten Scott Taylor. That vertiginous Mosarely.” She struck a pose. “Aht for the masses at pop-yew-lah prices! Madness, don’t you know? Yah gets what yah pays for, honey, and this pile of horse shit only proves once again that you can’t make a silk purse out of a two-dollar whore.”
    Diane laughed, picking a path across the room to her office door. “Better get it cleaned up before their majesties the out-of-town buyers arrive tomorrow.”
    â€œI’ll dump it all down the incinerator chute,” Cynthia said in her drawling, throaty voice. “Just see if I won’t!” She made a Girl Scout’s honor sign. Diane laughed again and shook her head, staring with amused wonder at the huge girl in transparent boots, lacy patterned stockings, a miniskirt, a little vinyl jacket, and a derby hat. Cynthia recognized her expression and crinkled her nose with fierce defiance. “Somebody around here has got to look the part of the artsy-craftsy kook. Who’d buy modern art from anybody who looks as sane as you?”
    Diane went into her private office, leaving the door open behind her. It was a big room with deep carpet, push-botton phones, big-window views of the downtown skyline and a patch of the East River. The furnishings were in walnut, gold, and beige; there was a long couch with a coffee table, a wide expanse of beige carpet, and set across the corner, the desk. Its opulence and size were part of the boss-lady image which, at rare moments, amused her. She had not got used to the idea—after five years she probably never would—and she still felt she lacked the hard brass that seemed common to all the bitch-on-wheels female executives she knew.
    She settled into her chair and buzzed the secretary: “Any messages, Maude?”
    â€œA Mr. Villiers called this morning. He said he wasn’t sure where he’d be and said he’d call you back.”
    Diane took a deep breath. “Thanks. Anything else?”
    â€œA call from the manager of the Seattle store wanting to know what had happened to his shipment of Thanksgiving greeting cards. I switched him to Mr. Winslow in Distributing. He sounded kind of sore—I guess the computer loused up his order.”
    â€œThat damned computer,” Diane said. “That all?”
    â€œYes. You have a luncheon appointment at one-thirty.”
    â€œI know. I’ll be in the office till then, if there are any calls.”
    She switched off the intercom and thought of Mason Villiers, constructing a picture of him—dark, tautly attractive, glittering with hard ambition and thoroughly masculine charm. She hadn’t seen him in months. She had met him just after her divorce, and there had been a few dates; she had been afraid of what the wags called the Rebound, and she had not allowed anything to come of it. He had wanted to seduce her; he was a man to whom conquest came easily. But she had told herself, I won’t be a pushover . She had evaded him, and he seemed to have taken the hint. Now he was back. Why?
    She played with a pencil, speculating, a walnut-haired woman with skin pulled taut across the good high bones, the sweep of her eyebrows emphasized in pencil. She knew she was beautiful, not with the padded softness of early youth, but with the pared-down bone beauty of thirtyish maturity. She had seen few men since the divorce, and those few only casually; she had plunged deep into her work. She didn’t want to admit she was afraid of herself in a