Man at Work

by Elaine Fox

  “Look, why don’t you think about it? We can get together in a few days to talk about the site a little bit and see where we are. Would that be all right?”

  Tru looked at her speculatively for a moment longer than he believed was comfortable for her.

  “I may not need to call you at all,” she added, “but I’d like to get a really clear picture of the kinds of things that were going on there around the time of the accident. I’ve already noted that there weren’t and still aren’t guardrails on the open-sided floors. That’s the biggest one right there. I’m going to take some pictures tomorrow. But were there any other safety violations you can think of around the time of the accident?”

  Truman scoffed. “Only a few dozen.”

  “Great, maybe you could make a list. If you feel like it, that is.” She smiled warmly.

  Then something she’d said struck him. He leaned forward. “You’re going to take pictures tomorrow? Are you nuts? You think Lang’s going to let you stand there and gather evidence after you stole his dog?”

  “First of all, he doesn’t know it was me who stole his dog.”

  “Who else would it be?”

  She shot a pointed look toward the hand that still scratched Folly’s side.

  “Second,” she continued, “he won’t know I’m gathering evidence. He doesn’t even know I’m a lawyer, let alone whom I work for or whom I’m representing.”

  “Yeah, but he’s damn sure gonna know you’re not a tourist taking pictures of the scenery. He’s not gonna care what your motives are, he’s just gonna mind you being anywhere in the vicinity.”

  “And third,” she said with exaggerated patience, “I’ll be in the diner across the street, taking pictures through the window. He’ll probably never even see me.”

  Tru gave her a hard look. “I don’t know. I don’t like it.”

  And he didn’t. He hated the thought of her in Lang’s clutches, as she’d been on Thursday. He couldn’t bear to think what might have happened if he hadn’t shown up when he did. He didn’t believe for a second that Lang was above some rash act of violence.

  “It’s not for you to like or dislike.” She stood and pushed her purse up onto her shoulder. Folly jumped up at the same time and squirmed toward her. She bent to pet the dog, then held out her hand to Truman. “But thank you so much for talking to me, Truman. Maybe we can get together later in the week?”

  Tru took her hand, its softness renewing his trepidation about her photo shoot tomorrow. “I told you, I’m not testifying. I’ll try to help you but I’m not going to court. I can’t.”

  The dog leapt on her coat, its tongue flapping in and out as it tried to lick her somewhere, anywhere.

  “Of course you can. It’s easy. Trust me.” Her smile was calm, her determination unruffled.

  “Folly, no.” Truman grabbed the dog’s collar and pushed her to the ground. “I mean it.” His eyes rose to Marcy’s. “I won’t—”

  “You named her ‘Folly’?” Marcy looked at him with such a delighted expression it made his heart nearly skid to a halt, not to mention his words. “What a wonderful name!” She bent to pet the dog good-bye but smiled back up at him. “Though let’s hope it’s not too apropos, huh?”

  “Oh, it’s getting more and more apropos all the time,” he said dourly, wondering again as he looked down at Marcy how in the world she got her hair so shiny.

  3

  Tuesday, October 8

  WORD-A-DAY!

  INELUCTABLE: adj., unavoidable; in some cases, the irresistible lure of another’s company

  It didn’t strike Marcy until the next day, as she was packing up the Nikon to go to the diner, that Truman had said I can’t when they’d been talking about testifying.

  Can’t? she thought, straightening from stuffing as many lenses as would fit into the padded camera bag. Can’t as in I can’t set foot in court or I’ll be arrested? Can’t as in I’m someone with a record? Can’t as in my parole officer won’t let me?

  She had automatically assumed that can’t meant “won’t” or “don’t want to,” but now it seemed quite possible that there might be something wrong with Truman Fleming.

  For the purposes of the case, that was.

  She had to admit, he didn’t exactly seem the type to be nervous about testifying. Being intimidated by a courtroom was something she ran into all too often, but that’s not what Truman Fleming was saying, she was suddenly sure.

  Damn, she thought, plunking heavily into her desk chair. He was a fugitive. Or an ex-con. Or some kind of petty, two-bit vandal whose face was known all too well by the courts.

  She was more than familiar with the type. Growing up in a bad neighborhood with two trouble-making brothers had taught her a lifetime’s worth of lessons about the variety of ways a young man can get into trouble and ruin his future. She might even have joined them in their legally-challenged pursuits had she not been taken under the wing of a concerned history teacher in eighth grade.

  Marcy picked up a pen and bit the end of it, feeling far more devastated than the circumstances warranted.

  “Hey!” Trish Hamilton stopped in Marcy’s doorway. “What did the bartender say to the horse?”

  Marcy pulled the pen from her mouth and smiled. “What?”

  Trish, another junior associate and her best friend in the firm, flipped her long, gorgeous, blond hair behind her and said, “Why the long face?”

  Marcy groaned, then laughed.

  “So?” Trish asked.

  “Oh, it’s nothing, really. I just figured out that what I thought was going to be a really great fact witness might not be suitable.”

  “For the Burton case?”

  Marcy nodded. “I mean, I’m sure I can find someone else who’ll testify to the conditions at the site, but this guy…” She shook her head. “This guy was going to be so good.”

  Trish entered her office and leaned her hands on the back of one of the client chairs. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Marcy sat forward, elbows on her desk, her chin in her hands. “I’m not sure, but I suspect he might have a record.”

  Trish grimaced. “Well, maybe you could use him anyway, depending.”

  “Yeah, depending.” Marcy spun her chair to look at the dry-erase board on the wall behind her. It was full of facts pertaining to the case and had Fleming printed boldly under fact witness. “The thing is, I know this guy would come across well. He’s really credible. And heck, with a haircut and a shave he’d be pretty handsome.”

  Trish laughed. “Hope you got his number.”

  Marcy spun the chair back. “No phone. The guy’s pretty hard up, unfortunately.”

  “That is unfortunate. Why are all the good-looking ones poor?”

  They laughed together.

  Trish, Marcy knew, had grown up with lots of money. Not only did it show in the way she dressed, it showed in the way she moved, and spoke, and colored her hair. She was polish personified, and Marcy would have given anything to come across with as much class as Trish did.

  Trish would never think twice about a guy like Truman Fleming. One look at the pile of dirty dishes by that ratty old chair and she’d be heading for the hills. Which is just what Marcy should be doing.

  But then Trish, being the smart one, probably wouldn’t be attracted to the man in the first place. As a responsible lawyer Trish would take him as the great potential witness he was and that would be it. And Truman would make a great witness. It wouldn’t even take much to clean up his language; he wasn’t completely rough. Marcy would just need to get rid of the sugars and gonnas and have him tone down the swear words. He’d be good on the stand, she was sure of it.

  “Anyway, I’ve got to go,” Marcy said, rising and zipping the camera bag. “Guess there’s no sense crying over spilt milk. If he can’t testify, he can’t. I’ll just have to find someone else.”

  “You’ll find someone.” Trish turned and headed for the door. “Let me know how it works out.”
r />   “Sure,” Marcy said. But first, she was going to ask Truman straight out why he couldn’t testify. That way she could spend at least one more conversation looking into those lovely gray eyes and lamenting the fact that they belonged to a man who used the word chick.

  “Hey, Trish?” she called, shouldering the bag and her purse and heading for the door.

  Trish stopped in the hall and turned.

  “What do you think of guys who use the word chick?”

  “I think they’re juvenile chauvinistic assholes,” she said without missing a beat. “Why?”

  Marcy shook her head and waved the subject away with one hand. “No reason. That’s what I thought too.”

  The street was not as quiet as it had been when she’d come for the dog, but for a city street it had a distinctly deserted feel, considering it was the middle of a workday. The drizzly, overcast weather didn’t help matters much either. Marcy parked at the corner and walked briskly toward the diner, passing spray-painted windows and boarded-up shops that were no doubt havens of illicit activity.

  She’d meant to change into jeans for the assignment so she wouldn’t look so out of place, but she had another meeting after lunch and there was no telling if there’d be time to change back. Better to look out of place here than there, she’d decided. But as she walked past two bums engaged in an argument in the doorway of an empty storefront she thought otherwise.

  She reached the entrance to the diner and ducked in without looking back. Taking a seat by the front window, she scanned the street and construction site to see if anyone was around to notice. All she saw were construction workers busy at work on the open-sided structure.

  Her eyes dropped to the trailer where evil Chuck had been the Day of the Dog. She didn’t see him or anyone else in the gravel lot. Beside the trailer, however, the kennel stood battered and open, strangely lopsided, as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. Or a steel-toed boot.

  The lone waitress in the diner sauntered around the counter and came to Marcy’s table.

  “Get you something, hon?” she asked. Her black curls were held in a hair net and her pink dress was covered by an apron. If it hadn’t been for the digital watch she wore she might have sprung straight from the 1950s.

  “Coffee. Tuna salad on rye. And fries, if you’ve got them.” Marcy slid the menu back between the ketchup and the napkin holder.

  “We got ’em. Anything else?”

  “That’ll do it.” Marcy looked at her watch. One thirty. “Oh, ma’am?”

  The waitress turned.

  “Do those construction workers ever come in here for lunch?” Marcy gestured toward the project outside.

  “The ones that do, they been and gone. Most of ’em’s only here in the morning, anyway. For coffee and Danish, you know. Then more coffee. And more coffee.” She laughed, her face lighting up, and turned back to the counter. For a second Marcy was amazed. Imagine having a smile that transformed like that, she thought.

  Unbidden, she remembered Truman Fleming’s smile the night she’d shown up at his apartment. Lexus! She couldn’t help feeling pleased at the memory. His had been a transforming smile too, with deep dimples on either side of his face and eyes that crinkled warmly. A smile that had truly enlivened his whole face.

  She shook her head again and unzipped the camera bag. It would be such a shame if he couldn’t testify. He was just so appealing. As a witness.

  She lifted the Nikon from the bag and pulled out the low-light 135mm lens. The thing was enormous, wide and heavy, but with the lack of sunlight and the fact that she was shooting from indoors she thought she’d need it. She’d have to be fast, though. She’d just take a few quick shots, have lunch, study the scene, take a few more, and go. Hopefully if anyone happened to look her way, and happened to be able to see in, they’d just see a woman eating lunch.

  The sound of the shutter seemed abnormally loud in the diner. Two other booths were occupied, and one old man sat drooping over what looked like a bowl of soup at the counter, but still the place felt empty. Like the street, it was afflicted with an aura of desertion, whether people were there or not.

  Marcy put the camera on the bench beside her when she saw the waitress returning with her sandwich.

  “You an investigator or somethin’?” the waitress asked, setting the plate down and giving the camera a long, wary look.

  Marcy shook her head. “A writer. I’m doing a story on construction projects, thought I’d take a few shots to go with it.”

  “Seem like you’d get a better shot if you was outside.” She placed a hand on her hip and looked out the dirty front window.

  “Yes, you’re probably right. I’ll do that when I’m finished eating.” Marcy took a bite of the sandwich and thought about leaving.

  “Hmph. Thought maybe you was one a them investigators, taking pictures of a deadbeat dad or somethin’.”

  Marcy laughed and picked up the ketchup. “Nope. Nothing that interesting.”

  “I always thought that’d be fun. You know, checkin’ up on people who’s cheating on their wives and such. Takin’ pictures.”

  “I don’t know. Might be dangerous, I’d think.” She pounded the bottom of the bottle until a blob of ketchup shot out.

  “Hm, maybe.”

  A second later a large man in a dark suit entered the diner.

  “Uh-oh,” the waitress said under her breath. “Here comes trouble.”

  She turned away from the table and strolled back behind the counter without looking at the man again.

  Marcy put the ketchup away and discreetly studied the man as he stood inside the door, squinting at the guy slumped over the counter. He was looking for someone, apparently.

  He was an odd-looking man, with a neck like a watermelon that made his head look the size of a pea. His dark hair was slicked straight back and the coat of his blue, three-piece, pinstriped suit was buttoned over an impressively large girth. One hand fingered the button at his middle, and Marcy noted a large ring with some kind of red stone in it.

  He looked like a Hollywood gangster.

  She picked up her sandwich and took another bite, a bite that stuck in her throat as the man’s eyes found her and he started toward her table.

  She forced herself to chew, taking a swallow of water to get the bite down.

  To her horror, he sat down directly across from her.

  Even sitting, he towered over her. He seemed to block all the light too, because the booth, despite being perpendicular to the window, darkened with his presence.

  Her palms began to sweat.

  His eyes were black and sharklike. They bored into her without blinking.

  “That your camera?” His voice was low and tinged with a Jersey accent.

  Her eyes flicked to the Nikon on the seat beside her. She shrugged. “Sure.”

  He let the silence linger a minute. Letting her cook in her own sweat a moment more. A good tactic, she thought. One that was working.

  “What’re you doin’ with it?” He folded his hands on the table between them. A demure move for so large a man.

  “Taking pictures. What’s it to you?” She forced herself to pick up a fry, dip it into the pool of ketchup on her plate and eat it. She’d learned years ago, on the streets of her old neighborhood, that the most effective way of dealing with a thug was to get tough—no matter how tender you might feel inside.

  “You takin’ pictures a that?” He indicated the project across the street.

  She sighed, as if bored by the man. “Again, what’s it to you? I’m just sitting here eating lunch, minding my own business. What are you doing?”

  His face flushed slightly at that and she could feel a rivulet of perspiration run between her breasts. She hadn’t taken off her jacket to eat, which was good, she thought now. Her Mace was in its pocket.

  “I’m here to protect the interests a my employer.” He shrugged uncomfortably in his suitcoat, jutting his chin forward in a quick motion as if the collar
were too tight for his muscularity.

  “Yeah, so? Who’s your employer?”

  She knew perfectly well what he was going to say and she was already mentally packing her bag to go. She could shove the camera into the case without zipping it, grab her purse and slide out. No, she had to pay for her meal, which meant she had to get out her wallet, then put it back, put the camera away, and slide out. That was all going to take too long.

  He cocked his head toward the window. “That’s my employer. And he don’t like nobody takin’ pictures of his place without his permission.”

  She ate another fry and took a long moment to study him while chewing it. “Actually, I don’t need his permission. Whattya think of that?”

  The man flushed again. “He says you do.”

  She ate another fry. Her stomach was a knot. It felt like all the fries were piling up in her esophagus. “The law says I don’t.”

  At that the man stood up, his bulk pushing both the table in front of him and the bench seat behind him askew with a loud screeching sound. Marcy found herself nearly pinned in her seat by the dislodged table. Every fry in her throat wanted to come back up.

  “Lemme tell you somethin’, lady. Around here he”—he jerked a thumb toward the window—“is the law. And Guido”—he punched a sausage-thick finger into his own chest—“is his deputy. I listen to him, and you listen to me. Get it?”

  Marcy’s mouth went instantly dry. She looked up at him, her eyes riveted to his tiny head. In fact that was probably his nickname. Tiny.

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Now gimme the camera.”

  She looked over to where the camera would be, but the table was so crooked now she’d have to work her hand down between her body and the seat to get to it.

  “I can’t,” she said. “Besides, it’s not mine.”

  He narrowed his already narrow eyes. “Uh-huh. I begin to see. You’re doin’ somebody else’s dirty work.”

  “Look,” she said, and issued a little apologetic laugh. “I’m just a writer, doing a story on construction sites. I picked yours at random. I won’t use it, okay? I promise.”