"Anybody want to make a few bucks?" she called. "Easiest five dollars you'll ever make in your life!" She heard a rustling noise, then three men appeared out of the shadows. Three large men, she noted happily. She pulled out her wallet, showed them the cash, then slipped the wallet back into her knapsack.
"All you have to do is stand around me and look mean. Think you can do that?" The three nodded, unfazed by the strange request. They huddled close to her and Tess caught the bitter scent of sweat dried on old wool, the too-sweet grape of bad wine.
"You do something wrong?" asked one man, a white man who was brown all over-brown hair, brown clothes, brown eyes, skin the color of a pecan from what must be years of living outdoors.
"Not that I'm aware of."
Within a few minutes, the brown-over-salmon car turned onto South Street, stopping short of where Tess stood. Even without a valid license plate, it would be an easy car to recognize. The windows were one-way mirrors, the job done so cheaply that strips of the reflective material were already peeling away. The paint job was new but cheap, a flat shade of dung-brown. The fenders were pitted with dents and scrapes, one headlight was cracked, and the muffler appeared to be loose. But these guys had a habit of changing cars-first a bright blue AMC Hornet, now this Buick. Or was the Hornet the first car, after all? She suddenly remembered the high beams of a car behind her on Franklintown Road, the car she had lost by running a red light the night she had acquired Esskay. The night Spike had been beaten.
The front passenger window rolled down slowly and a familiar pair of oversize sunglasses studied Tess. The concerned friend of Joe Johnson, the one who had wanted to give her a lift the other day. Then the rear passenger door opened, creaking horribly.
"Miss Monaghan?" The voice, thin and reedy, came from the backseat. Tess did not reply.
"It is Miss Monaghan, isn't it? Spike Orrick's niece? He has always spoken so highly of you. We saw him just the other day."
"Did you go see him when you visited your pal Joe?"
"For various reasons, we didn't have a chance to stop in and visit. But we did see Spike before he went into the hospital." A low, rusty chuckle. "Just before."
Her paid protectors drew closer, as if they understood the threat implicit in this exchange. Or perhaps they wanted to be sure to grab her knapsack if someone bolted from the car and dragged her away. In the space between the door and the car, Tess could see a leg, a beefy one in tight black denim. A brown leather jacket, styled like a blazer, hung over the jeans. But she couldn't see any faces. Somewhere deep inside the car, a small dog yapped.
"Hush, Charlton," the reedy voice admonished indulgently. The voice was colder, steelier, when it addressed her again. "Miss Monaghan, your uncle has something that belongs to a friend of ours. It has no real monetary value, but it is his, and he wants it back. Do you know where we could find this…item?"
Tess shook her head. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Are you sure?"
One of the homeless men, the nut-brown man, stepped forward. "She said no. Isn't that good enough?" There was just enough light to catch the short blade clenched in his right hand.
The man in the front passenger smiled and held up a gun. Paper beats rock, rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, gun beats knife, Tess thought. But the rear car door slammed shut and the old Buick took off, accelerating so quickly it bounced off one curb and then the other. Her bodyguards stayed close to her until the car disappeared, and Tess was touched, until she remembered she owed them money. She doled out five dollars to each. The first two said nothing, but the third one, the one with the knife, was curious.
"You owe them money?"
"I don't, but my uncle might. He's a bookie."
"That's a bad business. Stay away from that." With those words of advice the brown man was gone, melting into the dusk. A taxi pulled up as he vanished, and Tess, who had already spent fifteen dollars on her trip home, decided to spend another five dollars to reach her car. Shifting her weight to avoid the bad springs in the cab's backseat, she thought of how Spike had always kept the family at arm's length from what he called "my little sideline." Until now, she had assumed he was being dramatic, indulging his proclivity for mystery and secrets. Until now.
Chapter 13
"Reminder: when you want to destroy files, simply hit Command X. When private files are transferred to the Trash directory, it is recommended you erase them first, for the Trash directory can be ACCESSED BY ALL USERS. Many reporters and editors forget to delete their files, allowing prying eyes to skim them. Remember, each department-Metro, Features, Sports, etc.-has its own Trash directory. D. Starnes."
Puzzled, Tess stared at the computer screen. It was Tuesday, about 11 A.M., and she had just started her day at the Beacon-Light, after checking in with Colleen's secretary, as required. Funny, she had expected Colleen to have a male secretary, an unctuous himbo guarding her office, but the secretary was a pleasant moon-faced matron, who put a little smiley face next to Tess's name, along with a notation of the time-to the minute.
In her office, Tess had turned on the computer thinking she might fill her daily sentence of six hours by exchanging e-mail with Whitney, or reading the wires, only to see this message pop up. It was phrased as if it were a directive to all users, yet she knew enough about the system to realize the message was addressed only to her. Strange. Dorie wanted her to find something, but didn't want to make it too easy, or appear to be doing her any special favors.
With a quick glance at the cheat sheet posted next to the keyboard, Tess typed in the command instructing the computer to call up all items in "Trash Metro." The computer obliged, quickly and silently, and Tess soon found herself sifting through the electronic equivalents of cigarette butts, half-empty coffee cups, and tissues with lipstick traces. Here were memos as dull and plodding as any corporation's. Here were reporters' ill-crafted leads, the false starts they would have crumpled and tossed across the room in the typewriter era. Here were notes from telephone interviews. "Sez city mayor No can do/Constinal ish big. Pres. no agree. Wld req ref. More stdy requrd." Good fodder for a libel trial, Tess thought. It was doubtful the writer could reliably decode this Tarzanese. Fortunately, the notes would soon disappear: whatever was dumped in the trash expired in twenty-four hours.
Moving from Metro Trash to Features Trash and Sports Trash, then back to Metro Trash, Tess found daily staffing reports from each department's executive secretary and a log of overtime requests. Anyone filing for more than ten hours per week was flagged and expected to provide an explanation for daring to request what the contract guaranteed. Rosita, who had filed for twelve hours of overtime in the last pay period, had written an obsequious little note to Colleen, with copies to Mabry and Sterling, reminding them that the Wynkowski story was the reason.
"Now that the story has appeared, I'm sure you can appreciate how much time it took. I would never take advantage of your generosity. In fact, I worked almost 20 hours of overtime, but deferred the rest to comp time."