“We ought to start giving Denise bonuses on the big ones,” Ray went on.

“Maybe,” Martin said, which was a surprising concession, since he never spent a dime he didn’t have to.

“Okay. So I’m out of here.”

“This will take just a second.”

Conspicuously, Ray checked his watch, then gritted his teeth and sat down in the high-backed plush chair opposite. “Snap. Snap.”

“I need to ask you something,” Martin said.

Ray tapped his foot.

Martin knocked the end of a drawer twice, then pulled it open. Inside, he had told Ray once, he hid problems and, sometimes, solutions.

He pulled out a bottle of wine.

“Hey, Martin, what the hell. Are you joking? It’s the middle of the day! And I told you-”

“I promise this won’t slow you down. It keeps me creative,” Martin said. “Check this out. It’s lunch.” He poked his head around a door. “Suzanne’s gone. She always locks the outside door.” The clock had clicked one, and everyone had rushed right out the door by the time it clicked one o one. “It’s just you and me this fine warm afternoon.” He uncorked the wine, pulling two crystal glasses from the drawer.

Ray shook his head. “No thanks. You’re an idiot, Martin.”

“It’s medicinal.”

“I don’t need medicine to feel creative, pal.”

“Well, your loss. Still, I’m surprised.”

“Why?”

“Leigh likes it so much.” Martin poured his glass full and crossed his leg. “Glug glug,” he said, smiling, and let his handsome head with its thick brown hair fall a little back so Ray could see his Adam’s apple bobble as he swallowed. It reminded him of Leigh on the night that-

It was then that Ray realized how much he hated Martin. The hate burst into full and complete existence, undeniable, hot. He could feel his face reddening. He couldn’t hide it.

So Martin wanted to talk about Leigh, and drinking gave him courage. Okay, Ray thought. He’ll get more back than he expects on that subject.

“We’re different, Leigh and I,” Ray said in a hard voice that Martin should have noted.

“In my opinion-not so much,” Martin remarked. “You’re yang, aggressive, male, and all that, and she’s yang, too. Yang yang. Like clashing bells.” He breathed in deeply.

Ray felt the bloom of blood vessels flaring in his face and said nothing.

“Is everything okay between you two?”

“What fucking gall, asking me that.”

“Are you two fighting?” Martin asked. “Because you should tell me. We have mutual clients and Leigh doesn’t answer her phone at work-the receptionist told me she hasn’t come in at all today. In fact, she’s worried.”

“Poor, neglected Martin,” Ray mocked. “Did Leigh miss an important date?”

A pause. Martin poured himself another glass, figuring things out. His hand was shaking. “What?”

“A date.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been sleeping with her. I assume that involves arrangements.”

Air blew from between Martin’s sensual lips. Had that attracted Leigh, the exaggerated definition of Martin’s upper lip? Ray rubbed his own with his fingers.

“Oh, shit, Ray.”

“I followed you. The Camelot Motel, Torrance, Pacific Coast Highway. Like a country tune. I watched her going in there, wearing that black lace shirt she wears that makes her breasts look big.”

“Hell. Ray, you’re hurt, man, but I’ve never known you to be mean-spirited-”

“I watched you leave the motel first a few hours later. You have a nasty five o’clock shadow at the end of the day,” Ray said. “You ought to shave twice like Nixon did.”

“You probably want to punch me out. I can’t blame you for that.” Martin was already moving into his smooth-over mode; he obviously felt he would not get punched out, that Ray was a professional, for God’s sake.

Ray continued his own train of thought. “She came out…disheveled. Her blouse hung low on the left and her jeans, they weren’t buttoned all the way up. She was still messing with them. When she came home that night, she said she had worked late and accomplished a lot. I wondered what she thought she was accomplishing at a motel on a noisy highway on Wednesday night with my partner, my former friend. Designing a one-of-a-kind armoire?” He laughed.

“So you caught us.”

“Yes.”

Martin set his glass on the desk and licked his lower lip back and forth, apparently trying to think about how to approach this catastrophe.

He was so predictable, Ray could have mouthed the words he would say next.

“It’s completely over. I swear it. She dumped me. She loves you, Ray.”

“Go on,” Ray said.

“No need to get worked up about it,” Martin said, and to Ray’s satisfaction, he began to look apologetic. “We’re a good team. Can’t let a mere woman get in the way, even one as outstanding as Leigh. Leigh and I-we never had a regular thing. She was a slipup. Very brief.” He cocked his head as if waiting for Ray to refute this obvious bull. “I’m sorry. I hope we can get past this.”

Ray said nothing.

“Can we?”

“No.”

“It will never happen again,” Martin said. “Our relationship-yours and mine-is much more important. I can’t believe I put that in jeopardy. I hope you can rethink this once we’ve all had a chance to cool down about it.” Then he asked, “But, Ray, where is she? Her receptionist at work is having to close up the office today. Is she sick? Did she-leave you?”

“Did she want to leave me?”

“I can’t speak to that.”

Had Leigh maintained some feeble level of discretion after all? Had she refused to talk about her relationship with Ray to her lover? Ray hoped so. The woman he married, the one he thought he knew once, would never have betrayed him like that. “When did you see her last, Martin?”

“Wednesday. We went to the movies. She wanted to end it. Wanted to tell me all about you, how much she loved you.” Gesturing, glass in hand again, he needed to explain some more. He didn’t seem to notice Ray’s hands, fists now, the tension in his body.

This fury-Ray loved this fury. He felt like he was being defrosted by this murderous heat radiating inside him.

Martin said urgently, “Ray, listen to me. I’d like to be honorable, insofar as a bastard can be honorable under these circumstances. It was only a few times. When she felt neglected. Trivial. No effect on your marriage, you know?”

Ray recalled the moment he knew, not the moment he confronted her, just the instant he saw what was going on.

Leigh had come home, not too late, around nine, on a night a week or so before their final fight, bedraggled, heading for a shower.

“Come to bed,” Ray had said, worried. “Wrap me in your lovely arms.”

Her skin under the badly buttoned clothes glowed. Her eyes had a luster.

Ray recalled that look. Postcoital. He knew instantly. He stepped back from her.

She didn’t notice. “Okay, sweetie,” she said, needing transition time, grabbing a towel from the linen cupboard, running toward the bathroom. “Just let me take off the day’s grime.”

So, for ever after, he would think of Martin Horner as the day’s grime.

“No effect on our marriage, huh?”

For the first time that afternoon, Martin really looked at Ray. “That’s the last time we got together. I swear it.”

So, they went to the movies together, not just to creepy motels. The idea of them sharing such casual intimacy crushed Ray. “What did Leigh say?”

“About?”

“The future. Ours.”

Martin sucked unhappily on his wine. “She doesn’t like talking about you, okay? But this one time, she was crying. She broke down, said you’d changed lately. Got cold on her. Scared her sometimes, because you always seem angry lately.”

“You fucking asshole. You’re a bad friend, an unfaithful husband, an absent father, a lousy architect. I ought to walk out of here and never come back.”

“Oh, hey, Ray, no.” Martin looked around as if seeking a miraculous solution to his problem. “I screwed up, okay? I’m truly disgusted with myself. I took advantage of her when she was down and I-betrayed a friend. It’s unforgivable. Yes! But this is business, Ray! This is not about the sorry state of your marriage. This is important!”