“I’m going to call the EPA right now and tell them the truth. That I told you it was Guthion in that drum.”
“That’s exactly why I came by here!” Jules said. “I thought you might panic and do that if you heard my truck got stolen. I thought you might try to put it off on old Jules. I just want you to think about it, Burl. Who signed the manifest? The contents’re listed right there as flammable waste bound for L.A. Who signed it? Who paid cash to my driver?”
“We could both go to prison if somebody’s hurt. Do you understand that, you shit-sucking little prick?” Burl Ralston clenched his big fists on the desktop.
“Put a customer’s order form, or a credit-card receipt, or a note to your sister Mabel, or any goddamn piece of paper you have into an envelope and send it certified to the EPA. When they finally contact you about it, just say, ‘What? You mean I didn’t send you the manifest copy of the Guthion that Green Earth was going to take to Texas for disposal with some other hazardous waste? Well, land o’ goshen!’”
“And my generator’s copy. Does that get misplaced?”
“Of course. Your files’re a mess. How old’re you, seventy-something? Tell them you’re lucky if you can file your nails. And that you know it’s time to retire but you just can’t let go. And that you’ll look everywhere for the manifest copy. But you’ll never find it, will you? And don’t worry about my two haulers. I doubt that either of them can read anything more complex than the label on a beer can. They just knew to pick up the two loads and bring them to our yard. Period.”
“The thief might get caught with the manifest in his possession.”
“No truck thief is gonna keep owner documents lying around. He’d toss them away. The manifest doesn’t exist, not after you destroy those two copies in your hands. Now we’re both going to tell anyone who contacts us that the waste was indeed Guthion and that it was correctly manifested as Guthion and it was heading for incineration in Texas within three days. That’s in case the waste ever does show up and gets tested. I’m trying to help you, Burl.”
“You’re trying to help yourself, you snake.”
“I want my business to close escrow with no problems. If the EPA or the D.A. starts going over all my past manifest copies, who knows what mistakes they might find in some of my other cash transactions? Even some I’ve done with you.”
“If that manifest is in the truck when the cops finally find it, then what?”
“It won’t be.”
“But if it is?”
“The cops don’t know from jelly donuts about manifests or hazardous waste. They’ll notify me if the truck gets recovered and I’ll run down to their tow yard and destroy the manifest. But it won’t happen like that.”
“I never wanna see your smarmy face again,” Burl Ralston said. “You’re never doing business with me after this.”
“Not with anyone,” Jules Temple said. “Not this business anyway. You know, Burl, I got a very good price for my company, recession and all, but maybe I shouldn’t’ve sold. With Al Gore as vice president and all those ecology groupies flocking to Washington, waste hauling might become a very good business indeed. Environmental protectors, that’s who we are.”
“Get outta my office,” Burl Ralston said. “You got what you came for.”
When Jules headed for the door, he said, “It was okay for two years, wasn’t it, Burl? All those low bids I gave you? All those manifests you signed, not caring how I described your waste or where I was taking it? Now when something goes wrong you give me sanctimonious bullshit. Well, just remember that at your age any jail time could be a life sentence. That’ll stop your sniveling, old man.”
When Fin got home that evening with too much booze in him, he checked his messages and found a call from Orson Ellis, who said, “This is the world’s greatest agent calling to inform you that tomorrow morning you’re going to read for Ms. Lenore Fielding, co-executive producer of Harbor Nights! Finbar, my son, you have but to command me. Remember, be yourself. Good luck. And dress tall. The professional killer is probably a formidable specimen.”
After Fin turned off the machine he was excited. He ran to a mirror and looked for the face of a contract killer. But he saw nothing but a flushed middle-aged civil servant with fear in his eyes!
Fin went to the medicine cabinet and grabbed a vial of Halcion that a nurse he used to date had given him for nights like this. He knew he shouldn’t mix the drug with all the happy-hour booze, but what the hell, George Bush took them and hadn’t expired yet. But Bush was close to expiration, being ten points behind Clinton with only a few days left.
When Fin got under the covers he tried to relax every muscle and fiber. He almost succeeded until he thought about that earthworm of an agent telling him to dress tall.
CHAPTER 11
Fin only had twenty minutes to rehearse before going to work, but he made the best of it. He had to find the eyes of a killer. Instead, they looked like tide pools of disgusting red plankton, and he used half a bottle of eyewash trying in vain to clear them.
When he got to the office he had trouble keeping his mind on the mound of paperwork: the reports requiring follow-up calls, license and VIN numbers to be checked, the glorified secretarial work that made up his job and his life. He was surprised when his thoughts kept flashing to Nell Salter, of the long-ago fog lights, and long legs, and the sexy broken nose.
But on this day he had other things to worry about. He’d shaved as closely as he could, and he’d worn his best dress shirt, and a herringbone sport coat with an understated paisley tie. He thought he should dress against type. He was the professorial, calculating, professional hit man, someone who had it in the eyes.
Fin hoped they wouldn’t videotape the reading. That had happened to him twice before and his performances had suffered. Of the dozen or so tricks he’d used so unsuccessfully during thirteen years of amateur and professional acting, the one that helped him most was to start an argument with somebody just before a reading, to elevate his energy level. John McEnroe used that gag in every successful tennis match.
It’d been easy to find something to get mad at when he was still married, but now that he was single he had to search for sufficient aggravation to motivate a performance. Just before leaving for his reading, he settled on Maya Tevitch. You could rely on her to fly into a rage simply by confessing that you’d spanked your puppy with a newspaper.
In addition to animal rights advocacy, Maya was one of the few cops he’d ever known who was an outspoken liberal Democrat, having championed Clinton from the moment he did the saxophone gig for Arsenio Hall. So when the time arrived, Fin looked over at Maya, who’d just hung up the phone, and said to her, “Maya, did you hear the latest medical report on Clinton’s laryngitis? They say it’s just an excuse to let Hillary make all the speeches, since all he is, is her beard anyway.”
“He’s got allergies,” Maya said disgustedly. “My god, the poor guy was dripping!”
“I hope it’s his nose,” Fin said. “With him you never know.”
Because Fin was a Perot supporter, Maya retorted, “Did you get a load of Perot Monday night? You still think there’s a genius imprisoned in that grotesque little body? Like Toulouse-Lautrec maybe?”