The Singer's Gun Read Online Free

his secretary had vanished. An unfamiliar blond specimen was sitting in her cubicle.
    “Where’s Elena?” he asked.
    The impostor, who was chewing gum, looked at him distastefully. “Who are you?”
    “I’m Anton Waker. This is my office. You’re sitting at my secretary’s desk.”
    “They didn’t tell me anything about an Anton,” she said. “They said I was supporting Louise and Jasper.”
    “It’s Gaspar, not Jasper. I’m afraid you were misinformed. Where’s Ellie?”
    “Who’s Ellie?”
    “Elena James? My secretary?”
    “I’m your secretary.”
    “You just told me you weren’t.”
    “But then you said I was misinformed,” she said. He went into his office and closed the door behind him. He sat for a while at his desk going through yesterday’s research reports, spent a half-hour on the phone with Sophie who was crying because someone had cut in front of her in line at the bakery and she hated people and why was everyone always so horrible and mean, and when he ventured back out a few hours later the new secretary was gone. He heard her voice from somewhere down the hall and walked in the opposite direction to avoid her. Later in the afternoon he asked Dahlia if she’d made progress on the report she was supposed to be writing, and she told him that actually she’d been told to report to Gaspar in the Compliance and Regulatory Affairs department from now on.
    “But you don’t do that kind of work,” he said.
    She was embarrassed but had no explanation. It was just what she’d been told. His other seven direct reports told him the same thing, awkwardly, with their eyes downcast. No one really knew anything. It was embarrassing. The sympathy in their eyes made him want to punch someone. He couldn’t very well go across the hall and speak to Gaspar about it (“So, what’s this I hear about my entire staff reporting to you now?”), and repeated calls to his supervisor were not returned (“I’m sorry, Anton, he’s still unavailable. Would you like me to take another message?”), so he spent the day in his office with the door closed, waiting for an explanatory memo that never arrived. When he left at five his staff was in a meeting that he hadn’t been invited to. He heard Dahlia’s laugh and the strange new secretary’s voice through the conference-room door. Anton felt very formal all the way home.
    Sophie was working; he heard the cello through her study door. He turned on the television and turned it off again, ordered Malaysian takeout and ate alone in silence, read the morning’s newspaper for a while and spent time with the cat, ate a few spoonfuls of ice cream, sat for two hours in the living room spell-bound by Sophie’s music. He talked with Sophie about the day’s news headlines when she emerged from the study around ten o’clock, brushed his teeth, kissed her, slept fitfully, came back to the office at a quarter to nine. He was met at the doorway of his office by a man from HR. Jackson was about Anton’s age and of similar build, but always slightly better dressed. He had a way of smiling a beat too quickly, and Anton had always found him somehow suspect.
    “Anton,” he said. His voice was hesitant. “It’s good to see you.”
    “Jackson. Good morning. Do you know where my staff went?”
    Jackson smiled. “I believe they’re all in a meeting. May I talk to you a moment?”
    “If they’re my staff,” Anton said, “and they’re in a meeting, why wasn’t I invited to the meeting too? I’m supposed to be supervising them?” He hadn’t meant the last part to sound like a question.
    Jackson continued to smile instead of answering, but his smile was strained; he had the look of a man who’d have prefered to be doing almost anything else. Anton closed the door of his office behind them. He wondered if this was the last time he’d ever sit behind his desk, and he glanced up at the diploma on the wall to steady himself. Jackson sat down on one of the chairs