Callie listened carefully, but could hear nothing but just another guy bitching about his job. If Stanwyck had indeed smuggled out the earlier chip, she was willing to bet it was the first time he’d ever done anything like that. This guy was no pro. He told too much about himself.
Finally he stopped for breath. “By the way, my name’s Hal.” He stuck out a hand.
She shook his hand. “Carolyn.”
“Carolyn, do you have anything planned tonight?” He held on to her hand. “Let’s go someplace else. This joint’s getting too noisy.”
“Yeah, it is, isn’t it? Okay... where we goin’?”
They went to four other places. Hal was restless, unable to settle. And he talked compulsively, about all the things that were wrong in his life. It didn’t take long for the talking to turn into just plain bellyaching. Callie began to see why his marriage had lasted only seven months. That woman must have been a saint; Callie had had enough after seven minutes.
“Randall has the most selective memory of anyone I know,” Hal complained bitterly. Randall was the vice president he reported to. “He remembers only those things that make him look good. The first whiff of trouble, he doesn’t remember the conversation, he doesn’t remember seeing your memo. He just laughs and says, ‘Oh well, you know my memory!’ He’s so damned transparent about it — and everyone lets him get away with it!”
Not once did he ask “Carolyn” anything about herself, what she did for a living, how she came to be at Chez Stinky. Callie had a cover story all made up that she never got to use. His only interest in her was as an audience.
She considered him carefully. A little on the plump side, but nice-looking. Successful. Gifted in a high-profile profession. And what was he? A whiner, totally self-absorbed. And feeling unappreciated.
Yep. Mr. Hal Stanwyck was a good candidate for the role of chip-smuggler.
Callie finally put an end to it by pleading the need to get up early for work the next day.
At noon on Friday Callie made her weekly trudge down to Civic Plaza, a copious open space dominated by the new police headquarters building on the west side — all glass and steel and sharp angles. It stood in sharp contrast to the city jail off to one side, an elderly, patched-together structure where Callie had been held during her trial. Civic Plaza was surrounded by office buildings; walk away in any direction and you’d bump into a lawyer before you’d gone ten feet.
Callie’s destination was a graceful old building directly across the plaza from police headquarters; it had some fancy new name now, but everyone still called it the old county courthouse. The building was rundown, because the city didn’t have the funds to maintain it properly. But it was earning its keep, housing overflow city, county, and state offices until it was straining at the seams.
The whole first floor of the county courthouse was given over to the Welfare Department. Callie rode the elevator up past the second floor (Motor Vehicles Bureau, City Parks Authority) and got off on the third. In their collective wisdom, the planners of the new police headquarters building had neglected to allow room for the parole department.
Mr. Leave-It-to-Me Bass had signed papers saying that Callie was working at the Bass Agency as a mail clerk. Parolees were not allowed to associate with known criminals, but operatives were often in contact with “undesirables” — an unavoidable circumstance that would have the parole department screaming bloody murder. Callie was glad of the fiction; it made her weekly check-ins relatively free of hassle. She had no problem acting the honest citizen; it was a role she’d played in many of her scams. What’s more, she even had a Social Security number now.
Callie’s parole officer was a fortyish woman named Rosemary Barnes who thought of herself as Friend and Advisor Extraordinaire to all her charges. Most parole officers checked you in and out as fast as they could; it was the only way they could keep up with their caseloads. But Rosemary Barnes always took time to add A Personal Touch.
Today she folded her hands on her desk and leaned forward toward Case #19Y-645311A. “Tell me, Callie,” she said in a tone meant to invite confidences, “do you like working at the Bass Agency?”
Callie shrugged. “It’s all right.”
“But do you enjoy your work?”
Make it real. “It’s boring. Sorting the mail, pushing that damned cart around.”
The friendly voice now contained a hint of reprimand. “You aren’t thinking of quitting, are you?”
“To do what? I got no place else to go.”
That was the right answer; the Rosemary woman smiled smugly and nodded. “You know, Callie, you’re a bright girl. You could go far in office work if you put your mind to it. Have you ever thought of taking night classes to learn shorthand and word processing?”
“No,” Callie said truthfully.
“Then perhaps you should. Employers watch to see which of their employees are working at improving their skills. Secretarial training — that’s the way to advancement!”
Callie blinked. “I’ll think about it.”
That was all Rosemary Barnes needed to hear. “There are a number of business colleges in Port Wolfe with full curricula for night students. Why don’t you check into a few of them?” She took Callie’s mumble for assent and told her that would be all for this time. As Callie left, the probation officer was making a note in a folder, good deed done for the day.
Callie drove through the old Colonial section of Port Wolfe where she rented an apartment in a restored three-story building but didn’t stop. Nor did she stop at the Atlantic Building on the corner of Hawthorne and Seneca; no need to check in at the Bass Agency. She took the bridge to the northern part of town and looked for an eatery on Seneca.
Callie liked Seneca Street. It was a long commercial street running north-south through town, crossing the Wolfe River. To the immediate east of Seneca were the slums that formed the inland part of the waterfront district. To the west were a number of neighborhoods undergoing facelifts and filled with overpriced condos and townhouses. The most posh of those regenerated neighborhoods was Strawberry Hill, where Hal Stanwyck lived. Seneca Street, dividing the two extremes of slums and upwardly mobile, partook of both elements. A cheap liquor store right next to a place selling imported lighting fixtures, a junky souvenir shop across the street from a ritzy jeweler’s establishment. Callie found a soup-and-salad place that played videos on the walls and went in.
She lingered over her lunch, killing time. Unless Sal Gagliardo had changed his routine, he wouldn’t open up his tattoo parlor until midafternoon. Callie had a little protect-your-ass work to do. If Sal ever suspected that she had joined the straights and was in fact spying for them, he and her other old cronies would toss her off Front Street Bridge without a second thought. Sal was a good guy only up to a point.
Daytime traffic on the waterfront was murder, so she left the car on Seneca and took a bus down to Third Street. She was early, but she had to wait only ten minutes until Sal was open for business.
Callie went charging in, breathing fire, secretly relieved that Sal’s elderly mother was nowhere in sight. “Thursday night, Sal,” she said angrily. “That’s what you told me. Your buddy Mario needed a driver Thursday night.”