Elsinore Read Online Free

Metalurgical; Phipps Tool and Die; Phipps Entertainment Industries. It was like a vertical country, where Phipps was landlord and king.
    Holden went up to the foundation. A receptionist sat behind a glass cage, and Holden wondered if it was bulletproof. She stared at his Windsor Special. He could have waltzed out of another age, where men had all the elegance of a handsome, muted line.
    â€œI’m Holden,” he said. “I have a breakfast appointment with Mr. Phipps.”
    She pressed a button, whispered a few words, and said, “Have a seat.”
    But Holden didn’t like to sit in outer offices. He didn’t like to sit at all when he was wearing his Windsor, because bending his knees ruined that flawless line.
    He looked at the photographs on the wall, photographs of foundation projects. A room of battered wives; an ugly boy with a violin; a recreation hall of dying men. It seemed to Holden that the Phipps Foundation drew calamities to itself. But he was glad of it: there was nothing buttery on the wall, nothing meant to reward or inspire. It was like the spaces Holden had lived in, in spite of Windsor’s suit.
    A woman came out of an inner office with a bow in her hair. She looked twenty in her tinted eyeglasses. Holden figured she was some messenger girl, an intern from one of the Catholic colleges. Perhaps a student nurse. She was a bit shorter than Holden. She shook his hand. And when she smiled, he knew she wasn’t a nurse.
    â€œI’m Mrs. Vanderwelle.”
    Holden looked again. “You can’t be more than twenty-five.”
    â€œI’m thirty,” she said.
    â€œBut you run this operation.”
    â€œYes, Mr. Holden. I’ve been around. I graduated from Harvard Law when I was nineteen.”
    He couldn’t decide if she was pretty or not. She didn’t have Andrushka’s long legs or Fay’s curly hair. She wore a suit, like Holden, but without a tie. Her perfume dug into Holden a little. He expected to see her on the walls, with a violin in her lap. Foundation Graduate, Gloria Vanderwelle, All-American Girl. But then he remembered that Vanderwelle was her married name.
    She led him into a corner office that was laden with glass. It had the perfect pinch of Manhattan. Holden could see both rivers from those glass walls.
    The old man was behind his desk. Holden was disappointed, because Howard Phipps wasn’t wearing a tie. He had a shirt open at the collar and a cardigan with patched sleeves. He didn’t get up when Holden entered the room.
    Holden looked for Gloria, But she’d slipped out with that bow of hers, and the bumper felt uncomfortable. He’d never talked to a philanthropist or a billionaire. But then Phipps turned to look at him. There was a hardness around the eyes, a strictness to the cheeks. And Holden understood. Howard Phipps was a bumper too. It didn’t matter how many hospices he’d built, or virtuosos he’d thrust upon the planet. He’d had people killed. That’s why he’d wanted Holden in the house. So he could talk bumper to bumper.
    â€œHolden, would you care to sit?”
    â€œThank you, Mr. Phipps, but I prefer to stand. I like watching both rivers.”
    â€œShould we have breakfast now?” Phipps said, like a kindly doll in his cardigan. If he was ninety, Holden couldn’t tell. He had no liver spots or wattles under his neck. His hands didn’t shake, and he didn’t have Calendar’s waxen look.
    â€œIs this the breakfast room?” Holden asked.
    â€œNo. We’ll run upstairs to the restaurant. But I’ll be blunt. I purchased your contract six days ago.”
    â€œI’m not sure what you mean.”
    â€œI own Aladdin Furs.”
    â€œYou bought out Bruno Schatz?”
    â€œEntirely.”
    â€œAnd I was never notified? I’m vice president.”
    â€œThat was window dressing,” Phipps said. “You were never really an officer of