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  ‘I bet it bought you dinner,’ Gabe laughed, feeling a slight twinge of jealousy at that moment, which bothered him as he hadn’t known any amount of jealousy until he’d studied Lou. Since meeting him he’d learned two things that were of no help, for there he was, all of a sudden cold and envious when previously he had been warm and content. Bearing that in mind, despite always being happy with his own company, he foresaw that as soon as this gentleman and he were to part ways, he would experience a loneliness he had never been previously aware of. He would then be envious, cold and lonely. The perfect ingredients for a nice homemade bitter pie.

  The building had bought Lou more than dinner. It had gotten the company a few awards, and for him personally, a house in Howth and an upgrade from his present Porsche to the new model – the latter after Christmas, to be precise, but Lou knew not to announce that to the man sitting on the freezing cold pavement, swaddled in a flea-infested blanket. Instead, Lou smiled politely and flashed his porcelain veneers, as usual doing two things at once. Thinking one thing and saying another. But it was the in-between part that Gabe could clearly read, and this introduced a new level of awkwardness that neither of them was comfortable with.

  ‘Well, I’d better get to work. I just work –’

  ‘Next door, I know. I recognise the shoes. More on my level,’ Gabe smiled. ‘Though you didn’t wear those yesterday. Tan leather, if I’m correct.’

  Lou’s neatly tweezed eyebrows went up a notch. Like a pebble dropped in a pool, they caused a series of ripples to rise on his as yet un-botoxed forehead.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not a stalker.’ Gabe allowed one hand to unwrap itself from the hot cup so he could hold it up in defence. ‘I’ve just been here a while. If anything, you people keep turning up at my place.’

  Lou laughed, then self-consciously looked down at his shoes, which were the subject of conversation. ‘Incredible.’

  ‘I’ve never noticed you here before,’ Lou thought aloud, and at the same time as saying it he was mentally reliving each morning he’d walked this route to work.

  ‘All day, every day,’ Gabe said, with false perkiness in his voice.

  ‘Sorry, I never noticed you …’ Lou shook his head. ‘I’m always running around the place, on the phone to someone or late for someone else. Always two places to be at the same time, my wife says. Sometimes I wish I could be cloned, I get so busy,’ he laughed.

  Gabe gave him a curious smile at that. ‘Speaking of running around, this is the first time I haven’t seen those boys racing by.’ Gabe nodded towards Lou’s feet. ‘Almost don’t recognise them standing still. No fire inside today?’

  Lou laughed. ‘Always a fire inside there, believe you me.’ He made a swift movement with his arm and, like the unveiling of a masterpiece, his coat sleeve slipped down just far enough to reveal his gold Rolex. ‘I’m always the first into the office so there’s no great rush now.’ He observed the time with great concentration, in his head already leading an afternoon meeting.

  ‘You’re not the first in this morning,’ Gabe said.

  ‘What?’ Lou’s meeting was disturbed and he was back on the cold street again, outside his office, the cold Atlantic wind whipping at their faces, the crowds of people all bundled up and marching in their armies to work.

  Gabe scrunched his eyes shut tight. ‘Brown loafers. I’ve seen you walk in with him a few times. He’s in already.’

  ‘Brown loafers?’ Lou laughed, first confused, then impressed and quickly concerned as to who had made it to the office before him.

  ‘You know him – a pretentious walk. The little suede tassels kick with every step, like a mini can-can, it’s like he throws them up there purposely. They’ve got soft soles but they’re heavy on the ground. Small wide feet, and he walks on the outsides of his feet. Soles are always worn away on the outside.’

  Lou’s brow furrowed in concentration.

  ‘On Saturdays he wears shoes like he’s just stepped off a yacht.’

  ‘Alfred!’ Lou laughed, recognising the description. ‘That’s because he probably has just stepped off his ya—’ but he stopped himself. ‘He’s in already?’

  ‘About a half-hour ago. Plodded in, in a kind of a rush by the looks of it, accompanied by another pair of black slip-ons.’

  ‘Black slip-ons?’

  ‘Black shoes. Male shoes. A little shine but no design. Simple and to the point, they just did what shoes do. Can’t say much else about them apart from the fact they move slower than the other shoes.’

  ‘You’re very observant.’ Lou examined him, wondering who this man had been in his previous life, before landing on cold ground in a doorway, and at the same time his mind was on overdrive in its attempt to figure out who all these people were. Alfred showing up to work so early had him flummoxed. A colleague of theirs – Cliff – had suffered a nervous breakdown and this had left them excited, yes, excited, about the opening up of a new position. Providing Cliff didn’t get better, which Lou secretly hoped for, major shifts were about to take place in the company, and any unusual behaviour by Alfred was questionable. In fact, any of Alfred’s behaviour at any stage was questionable.

  Gabe winked. ‘Don’t happen to need an observant person in there for anything, do you?’

  Lou parted his gloved hands. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No problem, you know where I am if you need me. I’m the fella in the Doc Martens.’ He laughed, lifting the blankets to reveal his high black boots.

  ‘I wonder why they’re in so early.’ Lou looked at Gabe as though he had special powers.

  ‘Can’t help you out there, I’m afraid, but they had lunch last week. Or at least, they left the building at what’s considered the average joe’s lunchtime, and came back together when that time was over. What they did in between is just a matter of clever guesswork,’ he chuckled. ‘No flies on me. Not today anyway,’ he added. ‘Far too cold for flies.’

  ‘What day was that lunch?’

  Gabe closed his eyes again. ‘Friday, I’d say. He’s your rival, is he, brown loafers?’

  ‘No, he’s my friend. Kind of. More of an acquaintance really.’ On hearing this news Lou, for the first time, showed signs of being rattled. ‘He’s my colleague, but with Cliff having a breakdown it’s a great opportunity for either of us to, well, you know …’

  ‘Steal your sick friend’s job,’ Gabe finished for him with a smile. ‘Sweet. The slow-moving shoes? The black ones?’ Gabe continued. ‘They left the office the other night with a pair of Louboutins.’

  ‘Lou— Loub— what are they?’

  ‘Identifiable by their lacquered red sole. These particular ones had one-hundred-and-twenty-millimetre heels.’

  ‘Millimetres?’ Lou questioned, then, ‘Red sole, okay,’ he nodded, absorbing it all.

  ‘You could always just ask your friend-slash-acquaintance-slash-colleague who he was meeting,’ Gabe suggested with a glint in his eye.

  Lou didn’t respond directly to that. ‘Right, I’d better run. Things to see, people to do, and both at the same time, would you believe,’ he winked. ‘Thanks for your help, Gabe.’ He slipped a ten-euro note into Gabe’s cup.

  ‘Cheers, man,’ Gabe beamed, immediately grabbing it from the cup and tucking it into his pocket. He tapped his finger. ‘Can’t let them know, remember?’

  ‘Right,’ Lou agreed.

  But, at the exact same time, didn’t agree at all.

  5.

  The Thirteenth Floor

  ‘Going up?’

  There was a universal grunt and nodding of heads from inside the crammed elevator as the enquiring gentleman on the second floor looked at sleepy faces with hope. All but Lou responded, that was, for Lou was too preoccupied with studying the gentleman’s shoes, which stepped over the narrow gap that led to the cold black drop below, and into the confined space. Brown brogues shuffled around one hundred and eighty degrees, in order to face the front. Lou was looking for red soles and black shoes. Alfred had arrived
early and had lunch with black shoes. Black shoes left the office with red soles. If he could find out who owned the red soles, then he’d know who she worked with, and then he’d know who Alfred was secretly meeting. This process made more sense to Lou than simply asking Alfred, which said a lot about the nature of Alfred’s honesty. This, he thought about at the exact same time as sharing the uncomfortable silence that only an elevator of strangers could bring.

  ‘What floor do you want?’ a muffled voice came from the corner of the elevator, where a man was well-hidden – possibly squashed – and, as the only person with access to the buttons, was forced to deal with the responsibility of commandeering the elevator stops.

  ‘Thirteen, please,’ the new arrival said.

  There were a few sighs and one person tutted.

  ‘There is no thirteenth floor,’ the body-less man replied.

  The elevator doors closed and it ascended quickly.

  ‘You’d better be quick,’ the body-less man urged.

  ‘Em …’ The man fumbled in his briefcase for his schedule.

  ‘You either want the twelfth floor or the fourteenth floor,’ the muffled voice offered. ‘There’s no thirteen.’

  ‘Surely he needs to get off on the fourteenth floor,’ somebody else offered. ‘The fourteenth floor is technically the thirteenth floor.’

  ‘Do you want me to press fourteen?’ the voice asked a little more tetchily.

  ‘Em …’ The man continued to fumble with papers.

  Lou couldn’t concentrate on the unusual conversation in the usually quiet elevator, as he was preoccupied with studying the shoes around him. Lots of black shoes. Some with detail, some scuffed, some polished, some slip-ons, some untied. No obvious red soles. He noticed the feet around him beginning to twitch and shift from foot to foot. One pair moved away from him ever so slightly. His head shot up immediately as the elevator pinged.

  ‘Going up?’ the young woman asked.

  There was a more helpful chorus of male yeses this time.

  She stepped in front of Lou and he checked out her shoes while the men around him checked out other areas of her body in that heavy silence that only women feel in an elevator of men. The elevator moved up again. Six … seven … eight …

  Finally, the man with the brown brogues emerged from his briefcase empty-handed, and with an air of defeat announced, ‘Patterson Developments.’

  Lou pondered the confusion with irritation. It had been his suggestion that there be no number thirteen on the elevator panel, but of course there was a thirteenth floor. There wasn’t a gap with nothing before getting to the fourteenth floor; the fourteenth didn’t hover on some invisible bricks. The fourteenth was the thirteenth, and his offices were on the thirteenth. But it was known as the fourteenth. Why it confused everybody, he had no idea: it was as clear as day to him. He exited on the fourteenth and stepped out, his feet sinking into the spongy plush carpet.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Suffern.’ His secretary greeted him without looking up from her papers.

  He stopped at her desk and looked at her with a puzzled expression. ‘Alison, call me Lou, like you always do, please.’

  ‘Of course, Mr Suffern,’ she said perkily, refusing to look him in the eye.

  While Alison moved about, Lou tried to get a glimpse of the soles of her shoes. He was still standing at her desk when she returned and once again refused to meet his eye as she sat down and began typing. As inconspicuously as possible, he bent down to tie his shoelaces and peeked through the gap in her desk.

  She frowned and crossed her long legs. ‘Is everything okay, Mr Suffern?’

  ‘Call me Lou,’ he repeated, still puzzled.

  ‘No,’ she said rather moodily and looked away. She grabbed the diary from her desk. ‘Shall we go through today’s appointments?’ She stood and made her way around the desk.

  Tight silk blouse, tight skirt, his eyes scanned her body before getting to her shoes.

  ‘How high are they?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Are they one hundred and twenty millimetres?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Who measures heels in millimetres?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some people. Gabe,’ he smiled, following her as they made their way into his office, trying to get a glimpse of her soles.

  ‘Who the hell is Gabe?’ she muttered.

  ‘Gabe is a homeless man,’ he laughed.

  As she turned around to question him, she caught him with his head tilted, studying her. ‘You’re looking at me the same way you look at the art on these walls,’ she said smartly.

  Modern impressionism. He’d never been a fan of it. Regularly throughout the days he’d find himself stopping to stare at the blobs of nothing that covered the walls of the corridors of these offices. Splashes and lines scraped into the canvas that somebody considered something, and which could easily be hung upside down or back to front with nobody being any the wiser. He’d contemplate the money that had been spent on them too – and then he’d compare them to the pictures lining his refrigerator door at home; home art by his daughter Lucy. And as he’d tilt his head from side to side, as he was doing with Alison now, he knew there was a playschool teacher out there somewhere with millions of euro lining her pockets, while four-year-olds with paint on their hands, their tongues dangling from their mouths in concentration, received gummy bears instead of a percentage of the takings.

  ‘Do you have red soles?’ he asked Alison, making his way to his gigantic leather chair that a family of four could live in.

  ‘Why, did I step in something?’ She stood on one foot and hopped around lightly, trying to keep her balance while checking her soles, appearing to Lou like a dog trying to chase its tail.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He sat down at his desk wearily.

  She viewed him with suspicion before returning her attention to her schedule. ‘At eight thirty you have a phone call with Aonghus O’Sullibháin about needing to become a fluent Irish speaker in order to buy that plot in Connemara. However, I have arranged for your benefit for the conversation to be as Béarla …’ She smirked and threw back her head, like a horse would, pushing her mane of highlighted hair off her face. ‘At eight forty-five you have a meeting with Barry Brennan about the slugs they found on the Cork site –’

  ‘Cross your fingers they’re not rare,’ he groaned.

  ‘Well, you never know, sir, they could be relatives of yours. You have some family in Cork, don’t you?’ She still wouldn’t look at him. ‘At nine thirty –’

  ‘Hold on a minute.’ Despite knowing he was alone with her in the room, Lou looked around hoping for back-up. ‘Why are you calling me sir? What’s gotten into you today?’

  She looked away, mumbling what Lou thought sounded like, ‘Not you, that’s for sure.’

  ‘What did you say?’ But he didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I’ve a busy day, I could do without the sarcasm, thank you. And since when did the day’s schedule become a morning announcement?’

  ‘I thought that if you heard how packed your day is, aloud, then you might decide to give me the go-ahead to make less appointments in future.’

  ‘Do you want less work to do, Alison, is that what this is all about?’

  ‘No,’ she blushed. ‘Not at all. I just thought that you could change your work routine a little. Instead of these manic days spent darting around, you could spend more time with fewer clients. Happier clients.’

  ‘Yes, then me and Jerry Maguire will live together happily ever after. Alison, you’re new to the company so I’ll let this go by, but this is how I like to do business, okay? I like to be busy, I don’t need two-hour lunchbreaks and schoolwork at the kitchen table with the kids.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘You mentioned happier clients; have you had any complaints?’

  ‘Your mother. Your wife,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Your brother. Your sister. Your daughter.’

  ‘My daughter is five years old.’

  ‘Well, she called when you forgo
t to pick her up from Irish dancing lessons last Thursday.’

  ‘That doesn’t count,’ he rolled his eyes, ‘because my five-year-old daughter isn’t going to lose the company hundreds of millions of euro, is she?’ Once again he didn’t wait for a response. ‘Have you received any complaints from people who do not share my surname?’

  Alison thought hard. ‘Did your sister change her name back after the separation?’

  He glared at her.

  ‘Well then, no, sir.’

  ‘What’s with the sir thing?’

  ‘I just thought,’ her face flushed, ‘that if you’re going to treat me like a stranger, then that’s what I’ll do too.’

  ‘How am I treating you like a stranger?’

  She looked away. ‘Not something He lowered his voice. ‘Alison, we’re at the office, what do you want me to do? Tell you how much I enjoyed screwing your brains out in the middle of discussing our appointments?’

  ‘You didn’t screw my brains out, we just kissed.’

  ‘Whatever.’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘What’s this about?’

  She had no answer to that but her cheeks were on fire. ‘Perhaps Alfred mentioned something to me.’

  Lou’s heart did an unusual thing then, that he hadn’t experienced before. A fluttering of some sort. ‘What did he mention?’

  She looked away, began fidgeting with the corner of the page. ‘Well, he mentioned something about you missing that meeting last week –’

  ‘Not something, I want specifics here, please.’

  She bristled. ‘Okay, em, well, after the meeting last week with Mr O’Sullivan, he – as in Alfred –’ she swallowed, ‘suggested that I try to stay on top of you a bit more. He knew that I was new to the job and his advice to me was not to allow you to miss an important meeting again.’