“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 the news of this lunch, 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-millimeter heels.”

“Millimeters?” Lou questioned. Then, “Red sole, okay.” He nodded, absorbing it all.

“You could always just ask your friend-slash-acquaintance-slash-colleague-slash-rival 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 the bill from the cup and tucking it into his pocket. He tapped it with his finger. “Can’t let everyone know, remember?”

“Right,” Lou agreed.

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

The Thirteenth Floor

GOING UP?”

There was a universal grunt and nodding of heads from inside the crammed elevator as the door opened on the second floor to an inquiring gentleman who looked in at the sleepy faces with hope. All but Lou responded, since he was too preoccupied with studying the gentleman’s shoes, which stepped over the narrow gap and into the confined space. Brown brogues shuffled in and then turned around 180 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 Lou could find out who owned the red soles, he’d know who she worked with, and then he’d know who Alfred was secretly meeting. This convoluted process made more sense to Lou than simply asking Alfred, which Lou thought said a lot about the nature of Alfred’s honesty.

“What floor do you want?” A muffled voice came from the corner of the elevator, where a man was well hidden—possibly squashed. As the only person with access to the buttons, he was forced to deal with the responsibility of comandeering the elevator stops.

“Thirteen, please,” the new arrival said.

There were a few sighs and one person tutted.

“There is no thirteenth floor,” the disembodied voice replied. “You either want the twelfth floor or the fourteenth floor. 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.”

“So you want me to press fourteen?” the muffled voice asked impatiently.

“Em…” The man looked from one person to the other with confusion as the elevator ascended quickly. He watched the numbers go up on the monitor above and then dived into his briefcase to find his schedule.

Lou pondered the man’s 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, the very floor his office was on. Perfectly simple.

He himself exited on the fourteenth floor, his feet immediately sinking into the spongy plush carpet there. He strode through reception toward his office and his secretary, arms swinging, lips whistling, while the lost man in the brown brogues wandered aimlessly in the wrong direction, eventually knocking lightly on the door of the broom closet at the end of the corridor.

“Good morning, Mr. Suffern.” His secretary, Alison, 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 responded, refusing to look him in the eye.

While he settled in and Alison moved about her desk, Lou tried to get a glimpse of the soles of her shoes. Once again avoiding his eye, she returned to her desk to type, and as inconspicuously as possible, Lou 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?” Standing, she made her way around the desk.

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

“How high are your heels?”

“Why?”

“Are they one hundred and twenty millimeters?”

“I’ve no idea. Who measures heels in millimeters?”

“I don’t know. Some people. Gabe.” He smiled, following her as they walked into his office and 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.

“Do you have red soles?” he asked her, making his way to the gigantic leather chair behind his desk, in which a family of four could live.

“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 the 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 in English…” She smirked and threw back her head like a horse, 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 ten—”

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

She looked away, mumbling what 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. What happened to my eight o’clock meeting? And why isn’t there anything at nine thirty?”

“I thought that it would be a good idea to make fewer appointments in the future.” She blushed slightly. “Instead of these manic days spent darting around, you could spend more time with fewer clients. Happier clients.”

“Yes, then Jerry Maguire and I will live happily ever after. Alison, you’re new to the company, so I’ll let this go, but this is how I like to do business, okay? I like to be busy. I don’t need two-hour lunch breaks 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.”