“You’ll never know, will you?”
I had a hunch she was bluffing but no proof. I could only shake my head.
“Cheer up,” Mary Pat said. “I got an idea that’ll make us both happy. Once in my misspent youth I did ninety days at the county farm for check forgery.”
“Keep talking,” I said.
We reached an agreement in principle, although “principle” was a misnomer for what we concocted. Mary Pat signed a statement admitting that she had pilfered the dime received by her brother for a lower incisor on 11 September 1952. She had an assortment of check stock in her tote bag and wrote one to “cash” for ninety-four thirty-one. The corporation upon which it was drawn would suffer no loss, for I would hold it in the file and conveniently lose it after the Quality Team had cut their swath through our repository.
I don’t think you will be surprised to learn that there was a quid pro quo. I had no personal funds and, in the given situation, no scruples either. Under the circumstances please do not expect an expression of guilt.
Mary Pat had admired my brand-new tires and appraised them as the only items of value on my company car. Since they were of no use to her and her Jeep, we drove into an alley to an associate of hers in the automotive parts profession. He looked around furtively, ushered us into a garage, and quickly substituted my tires and wheels for replacements of an earlier vintage. For this consideration Mary Pat received a secondhand carburetor guaranteed to fit in her Jeep.
Everyone was happy. Temporarily, that is. The Hoopsma file and others I handled passed the Quality Team muster, if not with flying colors, with a grudging acceptance. My boss wasn’t as fortunate. In fairness to her, the accumulated bureaucratic snafu was really quite impossible. Nevertheless, she racked up a record number of demerits and was transferred from Management to Production.
They told her not to look at it exactly as a demotion. There was a push on to get as many employees in the field as possible. After all, the corporate mantra of the nineties was “customer service”.
Don’t quote me as saying the transfer was ill-advised. Everyone deserves a chance. Not everyone is as lithe and graceful as they used to be, and one shouldn’t pass premature judgment.
Please permit me to offer a caveat, though. If you see a sputtering object hurtling low in the night sky, don’t jump to the conclusion that it is a killer meteor or comet. And if a child of yours just lost a tooth, open his or her window a crack.
Something Simple
by Rob Kantner
The first Monday of the New Year found us still digging out from the first big storm of the winter. Four days before, an Alberta Clipper had blown through the Great Lakes region, gifting us with twenty-one inches of snow. Behind that, an Arctic air mass depressed highs to twelve at best. All this fouled up the roads, loused up New Year’s Eve, and kept me on the clock all weekend long.
Well, that’s what they pay me the big bucks for. And besides, this being metro Detroit, we expect such events. We welcome them, even. They give us a chance to be as tough as we talk.
Relieved to be back indoors, I trudged into the cosy warmth of the Norwegian Wood maintenance office. My people were deployed on the day’s chores around the complex, dealing with busted pipes, tenants’ gripes, and snow and ice or a combination thereof. Time for a smoke. Time for some coffee. Time for—
“Good morning, Ben,” Shyla said.
She sat in my chair behind the plain, gray steel desk, slumped down so low I hadn’t noticed her. “Morning,” I said, not bothering hiding my surprise as I unbuttoned my peacoat. “You working this week? I thought you were back at school.”
“Classes start tomorrow,” Shyla said, straightening. I noticed that she had poured herself some coffee, smoked two cigarettes already. She had also switched my desk radio from ’ABX over to one of those Ani DiFranco stations. That’s our Shyla, I thought with a smile. “Got a minute?” she asked.
“Sure, kid.” Grabbing a chair, I sat down facing her and dug a short cork-tipped cigar out of my shirt pocket. Shyla Ryan was slight but not short, five seven or so. Her blonde hair was a close-cropped cap around a pretty face graced with high cheekbones and striking bright blue eyes. She wore a light brown jacket over a snug, longsleeved dark brown top. Her lipstick was the color of her top, making her look even paler than usual. Unlike many her age, she had pierced no parts, at least none I could see. She seemed restless and intense, which was typical of her, and worried, which was not. “What’s up?” I asked.
“I need your help,” she said.
“Sure,” I answered. Flaring a wood match, I lighted my cigar. “What’s the story?” I asked, thinking college problems, car problems, maybe boy problems. Here’s the windup and now the pitch, a nice high slow one for old Ben to hit out of the park for her.
“My dad’s disappeared,” she said, fidgeting. “Can you find him for me?”
A few years before, I got asked that a lot. A few years before, the answer was easy. Now the question came rarely, and when it did, it threw up all kinds of red flags. Looking into Shyla’s blue eyes, I realized how troubled she was. Damn, I thought. “I’d like to help,” I said, exhaling smoke. “But that’s really something for the police to deal with.”
Her eyes flashed. “You sound like my mother,” she said. “I already talked to the police, filed a report. They just shrugged at me.” She leaned forward, slender hands knotted. “I’m sure something awful has happened to Daddy. You’ve got to help me.”
Stalling, I asked, “Well, how long has it been since—”
“Thursday,” she said. “He called me Thursday. Said things were getting fixed. He sounded really happy. But after that I heard nothing. Yesterday I went to his place. He hasn’t been there. No one’s seen him.” Taking a cigarette out of her small purse, she put it to her lips, bending forward to accept my light. Nodding her thanks, she took a big hard hit and looked at me, exhaling. “I am so scared, Ben,” she said quietly. “He never goes away without letting me know. Never.”
“ ‘His’ place,” I said, waving out the wood kitchen match. “Your parents divorced?”
“Separated,” she answered. “He moved out four months ago. My mother has been such a bitch to him.” She took another drag. “So how about it?” she asked, brightening. “Will you help me?”
Hating myself now, I said, “Wish I could. But I don’t do that kind of stuff any more. Been out of it for years.”
“But you used to,” she pressed. “I heard all about you. Marge has told me things, and Mrs. Janusevicius—”
“Be careful what you believe,” I advised. “The stories get wilder in the retelling.”
“I heard you were awesome,” she said quietly.
I shook my head. “Work with the police, Shyla. This kind of thing, it’s their job.”
Now she was blinking, and I feared what was coming. “What they said, Marge, and Mrs. J, and the colonel and everybody — what they told me,” she said, voice shaking a bit, “is that you always came through for your friends.” She stared straight at me, blue eyes shiny. “Aren’t I your friend, Ben?”
The cell phone whistled just as I was wheeling my Mustang out of the parking lot. Bracing the wheel with my knee, I jammed the shifter into third with one hand and pressed SND with the other. “Perkins.”
“You called?” came Carole’s voice.
“Morning, Your Honor,” I said, and braced myself. “About tonight.”
“Yes?”
“Instead of picking up Rookie at the courthouse, how’s about if I swing by your place later, around suppertime.”
“Works for me,” she answered. “But doesn’t that take you out of your way?”