Alan Smythe stared hard at Carl Andretti, a mixture of astonishment and disgust on the Englishman’s face. The CTO had been whining ever since he burst into Smythe’s office. His trousers were muddy at the knees. He held his ribs and blathered away with some wild story of abduction and near assassination. The two executives faced each other in a pair of modern black leather-and-teak chairs on either side of a glass coffee table in one corner of Smythe’s office. Andretti reeked of sweat and garbage. Smythe kept moving his chair back farther from him a little at a time.

A large tumbler half-full of Scotch sat on the chrome-and-glass side table beside Andretti’s seat, a bottle of Dewar’s next to it. Andretti was pale, still terrified by his involuntary tour of the scenic Jersey wetlands. His voice was high, strained, and it quavered when he talked.

“I’m telling you, Alan, those bastards were going to shoot me dead. Liked to a’ scared the shit outta me.” His hands shook as he used them both to bring the glass to his lips and took a large gulp. “I don’t understand. Why would that son of a bitch Stern go to all the trouble of kidnapping and trying to scare the piss out of me now? We’re clean. We’ve done just what we said we were going to do. Everything is a go!”

Smythe adjusted the hang of his hand-tailored Savile Row blazer so that it draped smoothly from his narrow shoulders while Andretti slouched even farther down in his chair. The corpulent CTO had an odd thought as he watched Smythe. Though they had worked together for three years, he had never seen Smythe out of his jacket, never seen him loosen his tie or roll up his shirtsleeves. The man was never out of uniform.

The Englishman pulled his rose-framed reading glasses from an inside jacket pocket and twirled them about absentmindedly. He was trying to pull together what Andretti was saying. He studied the spectacles for a bit. His designer had assured him that the rose frames were perfect for him, for his perpetually suntanned complexion. His skin tone was a “spring,” after all, and rose was perfect for a “spring.” It was a fact that a man in his position must always be perfectly groomed. Dress as if he was successful or he never would be.

He looked hard at Andretti. Droplets of sweat marched through the grime on the CTO’s wrinkled forehead and pudgy cheeks, down over the multiple chins before disappearing into the dirty yellowing collar.