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his job. Plus, he was handsome and charming and drove a Porsche, and those things she valued more than anything else. Sure, she’d felt a slight twinge of guilt when she had spoken to his wife on the phone, but then it was quickly erased by his wife’s absolute naïveté when it came to her husband’s infidelities. Besides, everybody had a weak spot, and any man could be forgiven if his Achilles’ heel just happened to be Alison.
    “What shoes does Alfred wear?” Lou called out, just before she closed his office door.
    She stepped back inside. “Alfred who?”
    “Berkeley.”
    “I don’t know.” She frowned. “Why do you want to know?”
    “For a Christmas present.”
    “Shoes? You want to get Alfred a pair of shoes ? ButI’ve already ordered the Brown Thomas hampers for everyone, like you asked.”
    “Just find out for me. But don’t make it obvious. Just casually inquire, I want to surprise him.”
    She narrowed her eyes with suspicion. “Sure.”
    “Oh, and that new girl in accounts. What’s her name…Sandra, Sarah?”
    “Deirdre.”
    “Check her shoes, too. Let me know if they’ve got red soles.”
    “They don’t. They’re from Top Shop. Black ankle boots, suede, with watermarks. I bought a pair of them last year. When they were in fashion.” With that, she left.
    Lou sighed, collapsed into his oversized chair, and held his fingers to the bridge of his nose, hoping to stop the migraine that loomed. Maybe he was coming down with something. He’d already wasted fifteen minutes of his morning talking to a homeless man, which was totally out of character for him, but he’d felt compelled to stop for some reason. Something about the young man demanded that Lou stop and offer him his coffee.
    Unable to concentrate on his schedule, Lou once again turned to look out at the city below. Gigantic Christmas decorations adorned the quays and bridges—oversized mistletoe and bells that swayed from one side to the other, thanks to the festive magic of neon lights. The river Liffey was at full capacity and gushed by his window and out to Dublin Bay. The pavements wereaflow with people charging to work, keeping in time with the currents, following the same direction as the tide. They power walked by the gaunt copper figures dressed in rags, statues that had been constructed to commemorate those during the famine who had been forced to walk these very quays to emigrate. Instead of carrying small parcels of belongings, Irish people of today’s district now carried Starbucks coffee in one hand, briefcases in the other. Women walked to the office wearing power suits and sneakers, their high heels packed away in their bags. A whole different destiny and endless opportunities awaiting them.
    The only thing that was static out there was Gabe, tucked away in a doorway near the building entrance, wrapped up on the ground and watching the shoes march by, the opportunities for him not quite as hopeful. Though only slightly bigger than a dot on the pavement thirteen floors down, Lou could see Gabe’s arm rise and fall as he sipped from his cup, making every mouthful last, even if by now the coffee was surely cold.
    Gabe intrigued Lou. Not least because of his talent for recanting every pair of shoes that belonged in the building, as if he had a photographic memory, but, more alarmingly, because the person behind those crystal-blue eyes was remarkably familiar. In fact, Gabe reminded Lou of himself. The two men were similar in age, and, given the right grooming, Gabe could very easily have been mistaken for Lou. He seemed a personable, friendly, capable man. Yet how different their lives were.
    At that very instant, as though feeling Lou’s eyes on him, Gabe looked up. Thirteen floors up and Lou felt like Gabe was staring straight at his soul, his eyes searing into him.
    This confused Lou. He knew that the glass on the outside of the building was reflective, knew beyond any reasonable doubt Gabe couldn’t possibly