“Get something straight, boy. You’re a penniless orphan, a bastard. Your parents didn’t want you. Same as all the children in here. You need to get your head out of the clouds and understand reality. You’ll be a working man—if you’re lucky.” Kovec turned his head and spat into the wastepaper basket. “Most likely you’ll wind up a drunk or a beggar. With that attitude of yours.”

The boy gave him a contemptuous smile. Kovec pretended not to see it. He would beat Vladek another time. For now, he just wanted to move on.

The kid was a creep.

Chapter 19

Chapter 19

“Gregoire,” Judy said.

He did not look up from his desk, which annoyed her. Judy thought she’d spoken pleasantly enough. She cleared her throat.

“Gregoire—excuse me.”

“Yes, what is it?” he asked, irritably.

Instantly she was enraged. How dare he act irritated? He was the one at fault here. She bit her lip to stop from snapping at him. Dealing with obnoxious people was one of Judy’s key strengths. I will not let him overthrow my composure, she thought.

She pressed her hands to the sides of her new suit. Chanel, real Chanel: yellow tweed, two inches off the knee, and fitted to her slender body like a calfskin glove. It had cost more than she wanted to think about, but it was a celebration of her new paycheck.

Judy assumed she could afford it, and she’d bought it. A fabulous feeling, to be wearing something as fine as anything Pierre’s placid widow would have hanging in her expensive closets.

“I’m so sorry to bother you,” she lied, “but there seems to have been a slight problem.” She gave him her most winsome smile. “My new raise—the two hundred thousand you promised me—it hasn’t come through.”

“What?” Lazard demanded. He was staring into space, tapping a pencil smartly against the side of his desk. The sound was most irritating.

“My money isn’t there,” Judy repeated, more directly. “My last paycheck—there was no difference.”

“These things take time,” Lazard said distantly.

Judy smiled briskly; she was not about to be put off.

“Not if they come from the chief executive,” she said. “You only need say the word.”

He dragged his eyes to her, as though reluctantly; the pretti ness of the suit, and aptness of the matching enamel daisy earrings, apparently lost on him.

“Later, Mademoiselle,” he said.

“I understand your busy schedule,” Judy said, doggedly. “So I’ve taken the trouble to prepare this for you.” She presented him with a neatly typed company memo, authorizing her raise in salary—two hundred thousand euros to VP Judy Dean, effective immediately. There was even a little dotted line. “If you’ll just sign there,” she said, offering him, uncapped and ready to go, her own pen.

“Suka!” Lazard exploded.