Free SoHo Sins by Richard Vine Page A

business-suited woman. She smiled up at us from beneath an enormous Oliver Technologies wall logo, its stylized “OT” glistening in hand-polished brass.
    The greeter, her brown hair pulled smartly back, told us we were expected, and to please follow her into a conference room. She made it a pleasure to comply.
    “Coffee, gentlemen?”
    “Black,” Hogan said. “A guy could get drowsy in the hush of this place.”
    The girl smiled. “No danger of that once Mr. Andrews arrives.” She went to the head of the room’s long wooden table and pushed a button. “You’ll be meeting with the executive staff.”
    “We don’t want to bother anyone,” Hogan said. “We just came to talk to Mr. Oliver for a few minutes in private.”
    “I’m sure Mr. Andrews will take your wishes into account.”
    A cart appeared at the door, maneuvered by a young man in a gray smock and dress slacks. He drew coffee for us from a towering silver urn perched on the white-skirted cart. Without a single word, without eye contact, he left.
    A moment later, a man wearing steel-rimmed spectacles and a dark pinstripe suit walked swiftly into the room and seized first my hand and then Hogan’s.
    “Bob Andrews,” he said. “Comptroller and deputy chief executive officer. How are you?”
    His hair, thin and black, was gelled straight back close to his skull, pushing his blunt features into prominence. The severe style seemed to emphasize the swell of his oversized forehead. Whenever he turned his face, the light glinted sharply off his lenses and frames.
    “Mr. Wyeth, Mr. Hogan, thank you for coming.” He motioned us to two facing seats at the end of the table. He sat down between us, at the head. “I’m aware, of course, of the reason for your visit. An awful turn of events. Mrs. Oliver was well-known to us all here, and universally liked.”
    “So I hear,” Hogan said.
    “That’s why I want to assure you that you’ll have the full cooperation of Oliver Technologies in your investigation.”
    “A smart decision.”
    “We expect, of course, nothing less than a full exoneration of Philip.”
    “I’ll see what we can do. But there is the small problem of his confession.”
    “Phil is not a well man,” Andrews countered quickly. “Trauma, fatigue, self-blame have all, understandably, disoriented him.”
    “It happens a lot in this town.”
    Andrews nodded gravely, his lenses flashing like semaphore lamps. “And as you know, Philip has been suffering from Wolfsheim’s Syndrome for the past several years.”
    “How exactly does that work again?” I asked.
    “Insidiously. Phil retains his analytic and decision-making functions, but his memory is deteriorating rapidly. He tends to remember only those parts of his experience that he enjoyed at the time. The doctors sometimes describe it as ‘obliteration by bliss.’ ”
    “That must cut down on his bar bills,” Hogan said.
    Andrews looked at him blankly, as though he had just spoken in Chinese.
    “At the same time,” the comptroller continued, “Phil is consumed by guilt over his wife’s death—and unable to censor his own conversations.”
    “But he still runs the company?”
    “No one here, or anywhere in the world, has noticed any decline in Philip’s business acumen.”
    “So the stockholders are happy?”
    “Oliver Technologies has increased its global revenues at a rate of eighteen percent annually for the last five years. The stockholders are very pleased. Glowing.”
    “I imagine that Phil, you, and the other top staff members here all have a healthy portion of those shares.”
    “The portion set by the board’s compensation committee. In line with industry norms. It’s how we hire and retain a talented staff.”
    We all nodded amiably to each other.
    “The thing is,” Hogan said, “we’re actually here to see Mr. Oliver. We have an appointment for eleven o’clock.”
    “Of course,” Andrews replied. “Phil will be joining us shortly for