Free The Girl in the Face of the Clock by Charles Mathes

long as you want. You’re the boss.”
    Danko’s face hadn’t changed in any aspect as he spoke. His voice carried no inflection. However, his cold gray eyes betrayed him, at least to Jane. There was more than cruelty in those eyes. There was contempt. And something else, something frightening. Danko did not merely think Perry Mannerback a fool, he despised him. He hated him with a passion.
    â€œWhat do you think we should do, Ted?” Perry had asked, oblivious.
    â€œI can study the situation, if you like, and make a recommendation.”
    â€œThat’s good. That’s very good, Ted. Make a study and recommend something.”
    â€œI’ll do that,’ said Danko without a trace of emotion in his voice. “Thank you, Perry. I don’t know how we’d manage without your guidance. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting. A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Sailor.”
    Then he turned on his heel and marched away.
    â€œNice man,” Perry had said, beaming, clearly delighted to think he had solved another problem.
    The incident had left Jane with an unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach. Certainly, Perry needed someone like Danko to run his business. Perry couldn’t match his socks on a regular basis, let alone make the kinds of day-to-day decisions that a huge corporation like OmbiCorp depended on.
    But Jane knew instinctively that Danko’s animosity posed a real danger for her new employer. Perry seemed so vulnerable and helpless against such a man—and this was what had left Jane feeling so unsettled. She had taken this job to learn if Perry Mannerback might have destroyed her father. Now, after only a few days, she was beginning to feel as protective of him as Miss Fripp!
    â€œI live in the penthouse,” said Perry proudly as the elevator came to a stop, jolting Jane back to the present. He was wearing a plaid vest today, which was too busy a combination along with his striped shirt and patterned bow tie, but on Perry it all somehow seemed to fit. “Mine’s the best apartment in the building, isn’t it, John?”
    â€œYes, it is, Mr. Mannerback,” said the white-gloved attendant with a smile.
    â€œI have to get that article in Time magazine for Aunt Eunice,” Perry continued, fixing the elevator operator in his eager gaze. “The one all about sex chat rooms on the Internet. Did you read that article, John?”
    â€œNo, Mr. Mannerback.”
    â€œBut you remember Aunt Eunice, don’t you? The one who gets stoned out of her gourd every year at Thanksgiving? She’s always telling everyone what a sex maniac she is, which is why I think she’ll be interested in this article.”
    â€œI’m sure she will be, Mr. Mannerback,” said John. He opened the metal gate, then the outer door.
    â€œCome on, we’re here,” announced Perry Mannerback, urging Jane out of the elevator and directly into the vestibule of the most spectacular apartment she had ever seen.
    A huge silver chandelier carved with stags’ heads and grape-leaves was suspended into the room from a ceiling at least twenty feet high. The floor was alternating squares of black and white marble. An elegant limestone staircase wound its way to a second floor. Eight superb grandfather-type case clocks, graduating in size from three feet to eight, flanked one wall. An antique Brussels hunting tapestry graced another. A ballerina painted by Degas posed en pirouette above a walnut hall table.
    In the rooms ahead Jane could see a center table with an enormous arrangement of fresh flowers, stunning Oriental carpets, important paintings, and windows looking out onto the grand buildings of Central Park West across the green expanse of the park itself.
    Amidst this glory, however, all Jane could focus on was the sound.
    It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, high and low, near and far: a pervasive rhythmic pulsating, like a million