“My friends,” Humphries began.
Friends my blistered butt, Pancho said to herself. He hasn’t got any friends, just people he’s bought or bullied.
“It’s so good to see all of you here. I hope you’re enjoying yourselves.”
Some sycophant started clapping and in a flash the whole crowd was applauding. Even Pancho slapped her hands together a few times.
Humphries smiled and tried to look properly humble.
“I’m so glad,” he said. “I’m especially happy to be able to tell you our good news.” He hesitated a moment, savoring the crowd’s obvious anticipation. “Amanda and I are going to have a son. The exact delivery date hasn’t been determined yet, but it should be in late August.”
The women cooed, the men cheered, then everybody applauded and shouted congratulations. Pancho was tall enough to see past the heads bobbing in front of her. She focused on Amanda. Mandy was smiling, sure enough, but it looked forced, without a trace of happiness behind it.
The crowd formed an impromptu reception line, each guest shaking Humphries’s hand and congratulating him and the expectant mother. When Pancho’s turn came, she saw that Amanda’s china-blue eyes looked bleak, miserable.
She had known Amanda since they’d both been astronauts working for Astro Corporation. Pancho had been there when Mandy had first met Lars Fuchs, and when Fuchs proposed to her. They were old friends, confidants—until Amanda had married Humphries. For the past eight years she had seen Mandy only rarely, and never alone.
“Congratulations, Mandy,” Pancho said to her, grasping her hand in both of her own. Amanda’s hand felt cold. Pancho could feel it trembling.
“Congratulate me, too, Pancho,” said Humphries, full of smiles and good cheer. “I’m the father. She couldn’t have done it without me.”
“Sure,” Pancho said, releasing Amanda’s hand. “Congratulations. Good work.”
She wanted to ask him why it had taken eight years, but held her tongue. She wanted to say that it didn’t take skilled labor to impregnate a woman, but she held back on that, too.
“Now I’ve got everything a man needs to be happy,” Humphries said, clutching Amanda’s hand possessively, “except Astro Corporation. Why don’t you retire gracefully, Pancho, and let me take my rightful place as chairman of the Astro board?”
“In your dreams, Martin,” Pancho growled.
With a brittle smile, Humphries said, “Then I’ll just have to find some other way to take control of Astro.”
“Over my dead body.”
Humphries’ smile turned brighter. “Remember, you said that, Pancho. I didn’t.”
Frowning, Pancho left them and drifted off into the crowd, but kept an eye on Amanda. If I can just get her alone, without the Humper hanging onto her …
At last she saw Amanda disengage herself from her husband’s hand and make her way toward the stairs that led up to their bedroom. She looked as if she were fleeing, escaping. Pancho slipped back through the bar, into the kitchen and past the busy, clanging, complaining crew that was already starting to clean up the plates and glasses, and went up the back stairs.
Pancho knew where the master suite was. More than eight years ago, before Mandy married Fuchs and the Humper was pursuing her fervently, Pancho had broken into Humphries’s mansion to do a bit of industrial espionage for Astro Corporation. With the noise of the party guests filtering up from below, she slipped along the upstairs corridor and through the open double doors of the sitting room that fronted the master bedroom.
Holding her long skirt to keep it from swishing, Pancho went to the bedroom door and looked in. Amanda was in the lavatory; she could see Mandy’s reflection in the full-length mirror on the open lavatory door; she was standing in front of the sink, holding a small pill bottle. The bedroom was mirrored all over the place, walls and ceiling. Wonder if the Humper still keeps video cameras behind the mirrors, Pancho asked herself.
“Hey, Mandy, you in there?” she called as she stepped into the plushly carpeted bedroom.
She could see Amanda flinch with surprise. She dropped the vial of pills she’d been holding. They cascaded into the sink and onto the floor like a miniature hailstorm.