Trophy Widow by Michael A. Kahn

wrapped around his waist.”
    â€œWhat did she do?”
    â€œShe slapped him in the face and called him a pervert and told him if he ever misbehaved she’d tell everyone in the neighborhood what he was really like.”
    â€œOh, my.”
    â€œI don’t think he learned his lesson. From what I hear, he still spends his free time trying to get into other women’s pants.”
    â€œIt’s so disgusting. I was at a fund-raiser last year, and he was, too. He acts like he’s God’s gift to women.”
    â€œMaybe we can convince him to be God’s gift to the women in our shelter.”
    Have a seat,” the secretary informed us in a bored tone, barely looking up, the phone cradled in the crook of her neck. She had iridescent fingernails the size of vulture talons. “The commissioner will be with you soon.” She swiveled away from us and resumed her telephone conversation. “So, then he goes, ‘Girl, don’t be talkin’ ‘bout what…’”
    I wandered along the back wall of the reception area, studying the framed photographs of the city’s flamboyant redevelopment commissioner posed with various visiting dignitaries—Nate the Great shaking hands with Donald Trump; standing next to Sammy Sosa, both of them wearing Chicago Cubs hats; embracing Colin Powell; giving a thumbs-up to the Pope, who looked baffled; grinning alongside President Bill Clinton, the two of them flanked by a pair of St. Louis Rams cheerleaders.
    â€œAh, welcome, ladies.”
    I turned to see Nate beaming at us from the doorway of his office.
    Sheila stood. “Good morning, Commissioner.”
    â€œSheila, my dear.” He stepped to the side and with a sweeping gesture toward his office said, “Please come in, ladies.”
    He followed us into his office, where a familiar, perennial figure stood by the picture window.
    Nate said, “I believe you ladies have already made the acquaintance of my assistant, Herman Borghoff.”
    Borghoff turned to gaze at us, expressionless, his arms crossed over his chest.
    Although both men were in their late forties, Herman Borghoff made such a contrast to his boss that cynics claimed Nate kept him around just to make himself look better. Borghoff was tall and lumpy and pasty-white. His boss was short and lean and jet-black. Borghoff wore thick hornrimmed glasses, an old-fashioned black Timex watch with a faded canvas watchband, and his high school class ring. He had a bad haircut that failed to disguise the cowlicks in his brown hair. His boss had a stylish goatee, a shaved head, tinted aviators, and lots of gold jewelry, including a Piaget watch worth more than my car. Borghoff wore an ill-fitting plaid suit and scuffed black shoes. His boss could have stepped out of the pages of GQ in his chalk-striped double-breasted navy suit, starched blue shirt with white collar, elegant silk patterned tie, and shiny black alligator shoes. The contrast remained in their lifestyles as well. Borghoff drove a late-model Chevy, lived with his mother, and rarely was seen outside of City Hall. Nate the Great cruised around town in a gleaming black Jaguar XJ8 and appeared at public functions with an ever-changing procession of gorgeous women of all races and ethnic origins. Never married, Nate made St. Louis Magazine’s “Most Eligible Bachelor” list every year.
    To me, their eyes were perhaps their biggest contrast. Borghoff’s were inert. Staring into them—as I had done on several occasions—was like staring at two gray pebbles. Nate’s were dazzling and manic, darting from face to face, sizing you up in an instant, moving on, zooming in, zooming out. Nate’s eyes kept me on guard. Borghoff’s gave me the creeps.
    Borghoff moved off to the side wall, where there was a chair with a legal pad on it. He lifted the pad and settled into the seat as his boss slid into the high-back leather chair behind his