Tender Is LeVine: A Jack LeVine Mystery Read Online Free Page A

you can throw me the hell out.” I chuckled, a swell guy.
    “I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Mr….
    “LeVine. Capital V. ”
    “Mr. LeVine. Let me just ask Mr. Aaron if there’s a chance he could squeeze you in.… Excuse me.”
    Elizabeth Hamilton arose from her chair and headed for Aaron’s inner sanctum. Beneath her tailored suit, it was evident that she had the goods—that firm, white, wind-buffeted English flesh in ample and elegant proportion. We were quite suddenly naked before a fire in a Welsh cottage, on a fierce winter night, cups of steaming tea on the floor, the wind howling outside the window. “Oh, Jack,” she whispered, beads of sweat around her mouth. “Oh, Jack LeVine, you marvelous Hebrew.”
    “Mr. LeVine?”
    Fully dressed again, she slipped out of Sidney Aaron’s office and closed the door.
    “Mr. LeVine, I’m afraid that today will just be totally out of the question and the rest of the week looks quite horrid as well.” She returned to her desk and started scanning her appointment book in an unconvincing but oddly touching fashion.
    “That’s a real pity, Miss Hamilton.” I removed my hat; people sometimes take pity on a bald guy.
    “Meetings all next week as well … My God, how does this happen?” She lifted her head from the book. “Is it something that perhaps Mr. Peterman could help you on?”
    “Peterman?” I said.
    “David Peterman is Mr. Aaron’s executive assistant.”
    “I’m afraid not.” I walked to the door. “I’ll call you the middle of next week; maybe we can work something out.”
    Elizabeth Hamilton gently chewed the tip of her pencil. I had wicked thoughts.
    “I’m terribly sorry,” she said.
    “No problem.” I smiled and left the office, then crossed the hall and waited. It was twelve-fifteen. If Aaron was indeed going out for lunch, he’d be departing his office within the hour. I’m a patient guy, so I waited.
    At twelve-forty, the door to Aaron’s office opened and a tall man of about fifty stepped into the corridor. He had curly salt-and-pepper hair, a Hank Greenberg nose, and eyebrows like graying caterpillars. His charcoal-gray suit was made to measure, as were his shoes and shirt and probably his socks and underwear. He looked like a man who had made it on his own, leaving numerous casualties along the way. If this wasn’t Sidney Aaron, then I was Hopalong Cassidy.
    The graying man called back into his office.
    “Elizabeth, I’ll be back at two-thirty. Push the Ben Grauer meeting to four.” He closed the door behind him, inspected his shoes for high gloss, then made the right turn out into the corridor.
    “Mr. Aaron?”
    The man turned around. I stepped forward, a friendly hand extended.
    “Jack LeVine, Mr. Aaron. Thank God I had a chance to catch up with you.”
    Aaron warily shook my hand. He had brown eyes, but not nice brown eyes.
    “Do I know you?”
    “You don’t,” I said oh-so-agreeably. “But I’ll overlook that for now.”
    “I have a lunch date, Mr. LeVine,” he said, and began to walk away, “and I’m late already.”
    I followed him down the hall.
    “Busy day, huh?”
    “They’re all busy.”
    “I’ll bet they are.”
    He hurried to the elevators. It wasn’t that Aaron was anxious to shake me; as far as he was concerned, I wasn’t even there.
    “You handle the cultural end here at NBC?” I asked, curious as an Eagle Scout. Aaron pushed the elevator button. “Kind of the conscience of the company, you’d say?”
    “This company doesn’t need a conscience,” he said to the elevator door.
    “Maybe not. I need you for maybe three minutes tops, Mr. Aaron. Your secretary, Mrs. Miniver, told me you were booked up.”
    “That’s right.”
    “She suggested I see Mr. Peterman,” I yammered on. “But I told her I had to speak to the head dachshund, the numero uno.” This guy brought out the absolute worst in me; I just couldn’t help myself.
    The elevator doors opened. Aaron walked into the