Man at Work

by Elaine Fox

  “True?” The man turned his head slightly and looked at him askance. “What kinda name’s that?”

  Truman made an effort not to sigh. “Short for Truman, but that sounds a little…” He searched for the proper adjective for this man. High-falutin was too southern. Snobby, too condescending. Blue-blooded, too literary.

  “A little stiff in the shorts,” the man supplied, with a laugh and a smile that brought out the leprechaun in his face and eyes.

  Truman laughed. “Exactly.”

  “My name’s Donnie. Donnie Molloy.”

  “Good to meet you, Donnie.”

  “Likewise. Okay, you and me gonna be workin’ the north end. You got any objection to workin’ up high?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good.” Donnie nodded his head once, then cocked an eyebrow in Tru’s direction. “I like to sort out the nervous Nellies right off the bat. We don’t need no dainty boys around here, I’ll tell ya.”

  Their footfalls crunched in the gravel outside the project as Truman followed Donnie around the building. Truman was happy to have gotten work here for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that it would probably be more interesting than the Planners project.

  They were constructing an office building behind the façades of several row houses. The façades were real, the last vestiges of the old homes that had been torn down, and would camouflage the higher rising office building behind to keep it architecturally compatible with the neighborhood.

  And it was going up in the area of D.C. called Foggy Bottom, which was considerably closer to K Street and the office of a certain lady lawyer.

  Of course, the fact that it was also near a bunch of other K Street lawyers had its drawbacks, but it wasn’t as if he’d be going to the Prime Rib for lunch and running into them.

  The biggest reason he wanted to work here, however, was because he’d gotten a tip from a guy on the D Street site that another fired Planners employee had found work here—the guy who, it was rumored, had fallen from the first floor only weeks before Bob Burton’s accident.

  The very guy who, as it happened, Truman was talking to now.

  “So, Billy tells me you was at Planners ’fore this, over there on D. That right?” Donnie glanced back at him but didn’t stop walking.

  “Sad but true,” Truman said, following Donnie into the dank interior of the unfinished building. The smell of sawdust and wet cement hit him like a rag to the face.

  “‘Sad but true,’ ain’t that the truth.” Donnie chuckled, stopped before a freight elevator, and jerked the lever back. Heavy machinery screeched and churned; clinking metal and grinding gears echoed around them. “I hate them Planners bastards.”

  Tru glanced around the first level as they waited for the elevator. “You know Chuck Lang?”

  Donnie scowled and cast Truman a sidelong glance. “Hate that bastard most of all.”

  “Join the club. Are you the guy who worked over there?”

  “Yeah, but I ain’t the only one. We got five or six here bailed from Planners.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yeah, don’t nobody like workin’ for them.” Donnie turned to him, legs splayed and arms crossed over his chest, his expression outraged. “Lang fired me just for askin’ about worker’s comp. You believe that shit?”

  The elevator shuddered to a halt in front of them. Donnie dropped his pose and heaved open the metal gates.

  “They can’t do that,” Truman said as they clambered onto the metal floor grate.

  Donnie scoffed and shut the gates. They jerked upward. “Well, I’ll be damned if they didn’t. Told me to get my tools and get the hell out. If I was there longer’n it took to do that they said they’d blackball me all over town.”

  “No, I mean, it’s illegal for them to do that. You could sue.”

  “Sue?” Donnie commenced laughing long and hard, the sound bouncing off the metal and making it ring. “Where you from, anyway? Like I can afford to pay some cutthroat lawyer. Talk about rat bastards. I wouldn’t trust no lawyer anyway, I’ll tell ya.”

  Tru thought about Marcy, pictured her in that black silk dress, and imagined Donnie turning her down. Bet he’d trust that lawyer, Truman thought. Though she’d probably have a thing or two to say about the man’s, uh, colorful language. Elite girls always played puritan around working class people.

  “So what were you asking about worker’s comp for? You hurt or something?” Workers milled around the floors they rumbled past, some drinking coffee, some fastening on toolbelts, some gathering materials.

  Donnie pulled his dungarees up with one hand, puffing out his chest at the same time. The fingers of his right hand grasped the metal grate of the elevator as they shuddered up the side of the building, floor by floor.

  “I’ll tell ya. I damn near broke my neck on that project.”

  Bingo, Tru thought.

  “Took a header off the building while I was doin’ some welding,” the man continued. “Lucky I was only one floor up. Lucky too the damn blowtorch shut off ’fore it hit me in the stomach. I’s so covered in shavings and shit I’da smoked up like one a them snake things on Fourth of July.”

  Tru paused at the odd visual that produced, then asked, “‘Took a header’? You mean you actually fell off the building?”

  Donnie looked at him as if he needed lessons in the English language. “That’s what I’m tellin’ ya. Landed on some sandbags, so nothing broke. I was plenty sore, though. And my golf game wasn’t the same for weeks. Thought maybe I oughta let some doc check me out. That’s why I was askin’ about worker’s comp. I was wonderin’ if it would cover just a checkup after, you know, a fall like that.”

  “They didn’t have any railings up?”

  Donnie scoffed again as the elevator ground to halt. “Hell no. They didn’t have no railings on any floor on that place. Here, though, they got railings all over the goddamn place. Safety lines too. Donneville’s a sight better company to work for than Planners, I’ll tell ya that.”

  The man was a goldmine, Truman thought. Marcy would love him for this. “When did all that happen? The fall, I mean. And you getting fired.”

  “’Bout eight months ago now. Happened February second and next day they fired me. Bastards.” He opened the gates and spat onto the concrete of the ninth floor.

  February second, Truman calculated, as they exited the elevator. About six weeks before Bob Burton’s accident.

  “…supposed to rain tomorrow. Okay then, ah…bye.”

  Marcy pushed the repeat button and listened to the message again. The first time around she’d smiled at his window clarifications but now, at the end of the message, she frowned.

  He meant it. He didn’t want to kiss her again.

  She supposed she should be relieved, but she couldn’t be that dishonest with herself. The whole weekend she’d felt bad about the kiss, but it had rocked her in a way she’d never felt before. She found it difficult to be relieved that he apparently did not feel the same way.

  He was right, of course. If he hadn’t said it, she’d have had to leave him a similar message, no matter what she felt about it. If he’d had a phone. And an answering machine. So he’d saved her the trouble of having to say it face-to-face.

  She sighed and pushed repeat again, listening to the timbre of his voice this time more than the words. That deep voice was so soothing. Lulling, one might even say. She could almost imagine him saying something completely different, something sleepy and intimate, tender.

  She pictured his hand holding the phone…Where had he been when he made the call? she wondered. It didn’t sound like a pay phone, there was no background noise. She sat down on the straight-backed chair next to the machine, an elegant Queen Anne that more often held her purse than her person, and looked at the machine.

  She’d spent the entire weekend analyzing why she’d succumbed so easily to his kiss, despite all her protestations and resolutions that her attraction to him was objective, but co
uld come up with no good reason other than temporary insanity. Worse than trying to figure herself out, however, was imagining what Win Downey would say if he knew of this turn of events. She cringed every time she thought about it.

  Unprofessional conduct. Jeopardizing the case. Selfish disregard for the client. Schlock lawyering…The phrases passed through her head with unrelenting energy throughout the day. She also imagined him exploding into an uncharacteristic tirade about the irresponsibility of what she’d done and how she didn’t deserve the chance he was giving her to handle this case.

  Of course she didn’t tell him. She’d never tell him. Nor would she tell any other living soul, though that hadn’t been easy today.

  Trish, who unlike Marcy hadn’t worked on Saturday, had stopped by her office first thing.

  “So?” Trish had plunked herself in the chair across the desk from Marcy’s with an expectant look. “How’d it go Friday night?”

  Marcy marshaled her features into a positive expression and said, “It went great. I got everything I needed and more.”

  Trish cocked an eyebrow. “Everything you needed?”

  Marcy forced a chuckle and ignored her own blush. “You have a filthy mind, Patricia Hamilton. I got all the information I needed. Excellent information, as a matter of fact.”

  Trish’s expression cleared, somewhat reluctantly, it seemed. “Great. And he told you what all those pictures were for?”

  Marcy closed her eyes. Oh damn. The pictures.

  “You forgot to ask about the pictures, didn’t you?” Trish smiled slyly. “Mind if I ask what distracted you?”

  This time there was no controlling the blush. Marcy stood up and slapped a palm on the dry erase board behind her, in what she hoped was apparent frustration, turning away from Trish. “Damn. I knew I forgot something.”

  “Well, you’ll just talk to him about them next time. Has he agreed to testify?”

  Marcy picked up the dry-erase marker and wrote pictures slowly and carefully next to Truman’s name on the board, buying time for her face to cool off, before turning back.

  “If I can’t find anybody else, he said he would testify. But he gave me tons of useful stuff. Stuff I can look for and get in discovery.”

  “So he’s not wanted for anything? Not an ex-con? Not a fugitive.”

  Marcy laughed, then realized she hadn’t asked him why he wouldn’t testify. She guessed the question was just one more casualty of the evening, like her objectivity. “No, of course not,” she said unevenly.

  “And he didn’t even try anything?” Trish persisted.

  Marcy affected a chastising expression and sat back down.

  Trish held her hands up. “I’m just asking. I’m also wondering what in the world’s wrong with him. Lord, girl, you looked fantastic in that dress. Any guy worth his salt would’ve been all over you.”

  Then Truman was worth his salt, all right, Marcy thought.

  “Do you think he’s gay?” Trish looked genuinely curious.

  Marcy sputtered a laugh. “No. No, I don’t think he’s gay.” She tried to imagine anyone looking at Truman and thinking he was anything but one hundred percent, heterosexually masculine. “Though I appreciate the thought that anyone who doesn’t jump me must be gay.”

  Trish smiled. “Well, honey, you are one hot chick.”

  “And what about Palmer?” Marcy counter-assaulted. “You’re something of a hot chick yourself, you know.”

  Trish threw out a noncommittal hand. “Palmer Schmalmer. He’s a jerk.”

  Marcy sat forward, her elbows on the desk. “Methinks the lady protesteth too much. Or something like that.”

  Trish scowled. “He flirted around all night, then went home with some blonde bimbo in a tube top.”

  “A tube top?” Marcy laughed. Guffawed, really, but she toned it down quickly to a mere laugh. She’d been working to get that uncouth laugh out of her lexicon of sounds for years now.

  “Oh, you know, one of those sequined, two-piece, strapless dress things but it looked for all the world like a tube top to me. The man has no taste whatsoever.”

  “You think he should have gone home with a different blonde, then?” Marcy picked a pencil up between two fingers and tapped it absently on the blotter. She tried not to dwell on the idea of contacting Truman about the pictures, but her mind kept straying back to it.

  “I think he shouldn’t spread himself quite so thin.” Trish’s expression was arch. “Besides, I see what you’re doing. You’re trying to distract me from your close encounter with the construction worker. Do I sense some evasion going on? And why would that be?”

  But at that point Marcy had distracted her with the facts Truman had given her, and the details of the case that was beginning to develop quite nicely.

  Now, staring at her answering machine, Marcy felt confused. Just hearing his voice sent chills up her spine. Those good, stomach-quivering chills that simultaneously produce pleasure and pain. Those chills, however, were exactly the reason she should avoid him. She wanted to get in touch with him about the pictures, but common sense said if she couldn’t keep her hands off him she should find another witness.

  But she could keep her hands off him, she told herself. This was ridiculous, treating the situation as if she had no will, no control, no power to change things. So there was some mutual attraction and it had gotten out of hand. Surely they could get past that, couldn’t they? Certainly Truman seemed to think so.

  She stopped breathing for a second and put a hand to her throat. She pushed the repeat button and listened to the message once more.

  Was the reason “it can’t happen again” because he wasn’t going to see her anymore? Wasn’t going to help her?

  Why did she end up spending so much time analyzing the word can’t when it came from Truman Fleming?

  She exhaled slowly. Maybe it was best if he decided not to help her. She’d already spent too much time agonizing over what Win Downey would say if the truth were ever to come out that she had…uh…consorted with a witness. So how could she still consider using him as a witness?

  If she didn’t use him as a witness, there’d be no reason not to…consort with—or even date—him, would there?

  At this her stomach flipped over—and not in a good way.

  She couldn’t date Truman Fleming. He was a construction worker. He lived in a slum. He drove a barely running pickup truck, now that he wasn’t snarling around on a Harley. He was everything she’d worked her whole life to avoid, or, more accurately, to escape from.

  She covered her face with one hand, picturing another guy on a motorcycle. A younger guy. A boy named John Calabresi, who was the bad boy of Georges Heights, the dismal little neighborhood east of Washington in which she’d grown up. She had wanted John Calabresi with a passion, but he’d wanted—and subsequently impregnated—Marcy’s best friend, Karen Lipnicki. That’s when Marcy learned what became of girls who succumbed to their desire for bad boys.

  Even at the tender young age of fourteen Marcy had known that she wanted out of Georges Heights and the miserable life that went on there. Girls routinely got pregnant in high school, married their ne’er-do-well boyfriends, and lived hard, angry lives of dissatisfaction.

  That’s what had happened to her mother. Her father, devoid of ambition just like Truman, spent Marcy’s early years going to various construction jobs. Then, after getting fired from all of those, for reasons ranging from drunkenness to absenteeism, he’d spent the next fifteen years lying on the couch with a beer, while Marcy’s mother worked two, sometimes three, jobs.

  That was not what would happen to Marcy. She was going to find a guy with some integrity, some determination, and a career he wouldn’t give up for life on the couch with a beer.

  She’d sworn off John Calabresi then and she’d swear off Tru Fleming now.

  So, she concluded with no small amount of determination, as long as she was swearing off Truman Fleming there was no reason she couldn’t have him f
or a witness.

  Truman knocked on the door of Marcy’s apartment, then rubbed his hands together. Damp palms, he noted. That would be impressive.

  He hadn’t heard from her since he’d left his message the day before, but then, why would she respond? And how? He knew full well that if he hadn’t told her it would never happen again she’d have told him the same thing. As far as he was concerned, the best defense was a good offense.

  Nothing seemed to be happening behind the door so he knocked louder. He’d slipped past the doorman again—noting this time with some concern how easy it was—because he preferred to see Marcy’s unplanned reaction to him. But now he thought the doorman might have saved him a long trip up that impossibly slow elevator.

  He knocked a third time and at long last there was some rustling behind the door. He glanced at his watch: eight thirty P.M. Could he have caught her with a date? Maybe they’d been…busy, or something.

  Footsteps approached. Marcy opened the door.

  She was still in a suit but her hair was mussed in back. Her eyes looked puffy, as if she’d been sleeping.

  “Uh, hi.” Truman’s mind went momentarily blank at the sight of her. She probably looked just as pretty in the morning…

  He ran a hand through his hair, though he’d just combed it, and tried to glance discreetly behind her to see if anyone else was there. “Sorry to disturb you. Have you got a minute?”

  Her brows drew together and she blinked several times quickly. “What have you got against the doorman?”

  “Nothing. I just don’t like to put anyone out. After all, I know I’m not a burglar.”

  “I think they’re more worried about solicitors.” She stepped back from the door and motioned him in.

  “That explains why he’s not very hard to get by. I’d keep that in mind if I were you. The place could be teeming with unsavory characters.”

  “Clearly.” She looked at him wryly. “I’ve already decided to start using the peephole.” She led him into the living room. “How’s Folly?”

  He followed her into the apartment. The air smelled like fresh-cut flowers, though he saw none as he looked around. He noted the way the drapes matched the furniture, which matched the carpet, which matched the walls. All were white. Including the decorative sticks in the vase.