“But who owns them?” Melissa asked. “Slaves had owners.” They were entering the gymnasium now and crossing the basketball court, and Melissa lowered her voice because it seemed to echo inside here.
“Maybe your uncle?”
“My uncle did not own them. I’ve seen his apartment. It’s small. Where would he even keep a sex slave? Where would he keep two?”
Emiko corrected them both: “It was the men who were killed. They were the ones who owned them. That would make sense, right? The sex slaves killed their masters.”
Melissa could tell that Claudia was about to add something. But then the three girls saw the gym teacher watching them, and they all went silent. Melissa looked down at her sneakers. She thought about her father wanting a sex slave, and grew disgusted.
…
Dina Renzi found Hugh Kirn almost childishly petulant, but decided that any man with eyes that blue—they were cobalt—was probably used to being a jerk and still getting his way. Getting whatever he wanted. Now he sat across from her in one of Franklin McCoy’s smaller conference rooms, though it still had a panoramic view of the East River and Brooklyn.
“Did you know that the only vegetarian option at Harry’s is a four-egg omelet?” she told him soon after arriving at the investment bank, not so much small talk as an attempt to build commonality. The restaurant wasn’t far from the bank’s offices on Water Street, and she had had lunch there two weeks ago. She thought a joke about Harry’s might loosen him up. “Four eggs. Does anyone—especially someone who isn’t going to order the steak sandwich—really want a four-egg omelet?”
“It’s a steakhouse,” he said, not looking up from the manila folder in front of him that he had just opened. His hair was the color of cinnamon, and his eyeglasses were wire rims, rectangular and severe. Inside the folder, in addition to Richard Chapman’s personnel file, she could see tear sheets from some of the recent newspaper stories about the debacle in her client’s home.
“It’s an angioplasty waiting to happen,” she said.
“So, Richard Chapman,” he began, clearly disdaining any interest in irrelevant conversation. “Frankly, I think the man should be seriously grateful. He’s still getting a paycheck from us.”
“I disagree. This leave is punitive and there’s no cause. He violated no company policy. He hasn’t been charged with a crime—and won’t be.”
“If it were punitive, it would be a disciplinary leave of absence without pay. This is merely an administrative leave.”
“Forced.”
“It is mandatory, yes. And I would say there is cause. His presence here—and with our clients—is a public relations problem. We really don’t want to be associated with him right now. Would you? We feel the need to make a statement as a company—to distance ourselves from behavior we don’t condone.”
“He’s a victim, too.”
“Yeah, right.”
“He allowed his brother’s friends to have a bachelor party for his brother at his house. That’s what he did—and that’s all he did.”
“And two people were murdered.”
“Precisely! Two people were murdered. Your employee was doing his brother a favor and wound up a witness to a horrible crime. But he did absolutely nothing wrong.”
“We both know that’s not true. He had prostitutes and mobsters in his home. The media has suggested it was an orgy.”
She noticed a couple of pigeons on the window ledge, one with a boxer’s broad chest. “The media is sensationalizing the sex,” she answered carefully, because she knew that pig Spencer Doherty had some sort of video. “It was a bachelor party. I am going to go way out on a limb and guess that every male managing director at Franklin McCoy has been to a bachelor party. We all know what goes on at them.”
“I promise you, I have never been to a bachelor party where the men were engaging in intercourse with prostitutes.”
“And no one has accused Richard Chapman of doing that.”
“The investigation is ongoing.”
“It’s a murder investigation. No one is going to charge your employee with having sex with a prostitute,” she assured him.
“I hope not—for his sake and this company’s.”
“When can he come back?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“Every day you bar him from the office you are defaming his character.”
“Oh, that’s bullshit. We haven’t said or written anything about him that’s public.”
“Are you sure? Are you that confident that there isn’t a single e-mail between anyone at Franklin McCoy and any of your M and A clients that would make you…uncomfortable in that regard?”
He tilted back his chair and folded his arms. “Are you really going to play that card?”
“Look, the entire idea that you have put him on leave is, arguably, defamatory.”
“So, he’s going to sue us? Really? And then expect us to take him back with open arms?”