I took the right toward the row of glassed-in offices of the Yuppies who had climbed up a few rungs; in that central, twice-the-size office for the CEO’s son, company president Vincent Colby, the massive desk was unattended. Off to my left was a receptionist, a blonde babe in a red blazer with shoulders wider than mine, her tresses up, her glasses round-framed and big-lensed, the better to see me with.

She was seated at a small dark-wood desk and looking formidable for a girl of maybe twenty-two.

“I’m Mr. Hammer,” I said.

A mouth worth looking at, its deep-red lipstick outlined in black, smiled in a businesslike fashion. “Mr. Owens is expecting you. May I take your coat and hat?”

“Sure.”

She did, stowing them in a nearby closet, then returned to her desk and used her phone to say Mr. Hammer was here. She listened, said, “Yes sir,” and hung up. Very sweetly she told me, “Just knock and you’ll be admitted.”

“Should I say Joe sent me?”

She frowned in confusion. “Why would you say that?”

“A joke. Little before your time.” Damn. I had to get newer material.

“Knocking will be sufficient,” she said, and gestured toward a specific office; her nails were the color of her mouth. Even with a doll like Velda at home, I couldn’t help wondering what being twenty years younger for an afternoon would be like.

Off to my right, down the hall of exec VP offices leading to the CEO’s, another receptionist was looking my way—the old man’s forty-something guardian at the gate, that no-nonsense brunette in the black-framed masculine specs. Snugly curvy in a brown striped power suit, the Ice Queen with the glass-cutter cheeks apparently remembered I’d been a welcome guest yesterday, because she granted me a slight nod and slighter smile.

I grinned and waved at her enthusiastically like a kid from a back seat. It actually made her smile broaden a little and maybe she even stifled a laugh. You still got it, Hammer, I thought—if they were over forty, anyway.

The inhabitant of the office labeled WILLIAM J. OWENS, MANAGING DIRECTOR saw me approaching—a blond Yuppie under thirty in the mandatory shirt sleeves and bright suspenders (dark orange). He was just hanging up his phone, and motioning me in.

I did so.

He was handsome in a Beach Boys Go to College way, hair tousled on purpose and frozen that way with product. His eyes were blue and heavy-lidded, making me think grass not coke was his likely recreational drug of choice; his nose was misshapen as a result of a break or two that indicated he had once been athletic. Maybe he still was. His mouth was small and clenched. If I were a cruder man, I’d say it reminded me of an anus.

“Mr. Hammer,” he said, half-rising, extending a hand for me to shake. I did. It was slippery. He gestured for me to sit in the client’s chair. I did.

“Appreciate you seeing me, Mr. Owens,” I said, “at such short notice.”