Elaine Viets & Victoria Laurie, Nancy Martin, Denise Swanson - Drop-Dead Blonde (v5.0) (pdf) by Unknown (best classic books .TXT) 📗

out of 102 Elaine Viets its side. Vicki smiled sweetly in her newly painted office. I sat back to watch the show.

Six men marched into Mr. Hammonds's office in an angry delegation. Privacy is precious in any office. Vicki had stolen hers at their expense, so their mood was a lot like the pitchfork-wielding villagers in the old Franken- stein movie.

Mr. Hammonds laughed at them, and it wasn't a pleasant sound. He wasn't much to look at, either. Imagine Donald Rumsfeld sucking a lemon, and you had our CEO.

Mr. Hammonds let Vicki keep her coveted private office.

``She's smart. I like that in a woman--or a man,'' he told the angry delegation. ``She didn't take an inch more than she was entitled to, she just used the space better. And no, you cannot have your own offices. I've issued orders to maintenance that there will be no more late-night office raids. She was first and she was fast. You lost. Now take it like men.''

After that, Vicki built her empire a little at a time, so most people hardly noticed. But I did. Her desk was sleeker and more expensive than the others. She hung a painting on her wall, something psychedelic in pink and orange. Mr. Hammonds thought this meant she was in touch with the youth market, which was vital to our business.

A pink rose in a vase on Vicki's desk showed she was a woman. A big, heavy coffee mug that said WORLD'S BEST BOSS was a testimony to her management skills. Vicki claimed it was a gift from the staff at her last job. Some people suspected she bought it herself.

Vicki slyly kept the men stirred up. She sweet-talked them and did little favors for them, like giving them a sick day when they were really hungover. She teased them with- out mercy.

Vicki was supposed to be engaged to Chris--whom we never saw, by the way--but that didn't stop her from flirt- ing with every man at the office, married or single. I thought she liked to get the guys jealous by bragging about how ``Chris did this'' and ``Chris did that.''

Chris took Vicki away for a romantic weekend to a bed and breakfast, which was a lot racier in 1970 than it is now. Chris bought a fifty-dollar bottle of wine at the best restaurant in Lauderdale when that was a decent day's pay. KILLER BLONDE 103 Chris beat up a man who stared at her too long in a bar. Vicki was especially proud of that story.

But Vicki never brought Chris to the company dinners or the Christmas parties. She always said, ``Chris can't make it. My Chris is such a go-getter, always working late and on the weekends.''

There was one more key character in this story: Jennifer, Minnie's best friend at work. Jennifer was blond and beau- tiful, but everyone forgave her for that. We managed to overlook her platinum-blond hair, pale skin, and wide brown eyes because she was so sweet.

At first, you had a hard time believing Jennifer's sugarplum-fairy act. But after a while you realized there was nothing sneaky or calculating about Jennifer. She really was as kind as she was beautiful.

Jennifer urged Minnie to get a job someplace where the management would appreciate her. ``You can't bury your- self here, Minnie. You have to leave.'' Jennifer was too nice to say, ``You let Vicki pick on you.''

But Minnie heard it anyway. ``If I leave here, I'll only have problems with someone else,'' she said. ``At least Vicki is the devil I know. I've had too many bad bosses. You know what? They've all been blond.''

``Oh, Minnie,'' Jennifer said. ``Not all blondes are bad. I'm blond.'' She ran her slender fingers through her white- gold hair. She did that a lot, as if she couldn't believe any- thing so fine belonged to her.

``You're not a boss,'' Minnie said.

``I want to be one,'' Jennifer said. Her brown eyes looked like twin pools of chocolate syrup. ``I have a good chance of being promoted to department manager if I get a favorable evaluation. Do you know what a manager is?''

``No,'' Minnie said.

``A mouse in training to be a rat.''

Minnie laughed. Vicki was a department manager.

``The rumor mill says Vicki will be moving up to division head,'' Jennifer said. ``I want her job.''

``I'd love to work for you,'' Minnie said. ``It's my idea of heaven.''

``First, we have to survive the evaluations,'' Jennifer said.

But neither woman seriously expected a bad report. They were the office workhorses. They saw a rosy future at our 104 Elaine Viets company: Vicki would get promoted to division head. Jen- nifer would take Vicki's old job and her pink office, and Minnie would live happily ever after.

But Vicki couldn't resist trying to wreck their careers. She had the ultimate corporate power to destroy, and she was in love with it.

Vicki tried to ruin them both and signed her death warrant. Chapter 3

Evaluation week was a nerve-wracking time at our office. Raises and promotions depended on our supervisor's rat- ing. The right word or the wrong fork at lunch could mean another thousand a year in a pay envelope--or not.

There was another reason why the staff had nightmares during evaluation week: It was the only time our jobs were in jeopardy. A bad evaluation could start the process to get rid of the ``deadwood.''

Mr. Hammonds usually selected one person a year to be deadwood, and chopped without mercy. It kept the others on their toes.

The boys in my department knew they were prime tim- ber for cutting. They had their own survival plan for evalua- tion week. The boys. That's how I thought of them, anyway. What kind of grown men had first names that ended in y?

There were three boys.

Bobby had a prep-school accent, seersucker suits, and