“Come on,” I teased, getting up, “I know you work for another man besides Don.”
Eva seemed thrown. “Wha… what are you talking about?”
“I know you take memos for Hurley sometimes.”
She bounced a pencil off my skull. “Ah, Manny, just beat it, will ya?”
I sat back down on the desk, making a show of dusting off the edge first. “So,” I said, lighting a cigarette, “you going to the Christmas party this year?”
“After the spectacle you made of yourself last year?” Eva asked incredulously, leaning back in her chair and making performance art of folding her arms. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”
“Spectacle?” I asked. Eva just laughed. I gave up. “So where is everybody?” I asked.
Eva gave me the patented ‘Are you nuts?’ look. “Did you forget what day it is today?”
I jumped up. “Oh, man! Did I come in on Saturday again?”
“It’s the Day of the Dead!” Eva exclaimed. “Everybody’s back in the Land of the Living, visiting their families like we should be.”
I probably knew that. Maybe. I never really cared much about the Day of the Dead, though. More of a living-person’s holiday, I thought. “So why aren’t you visiting your family today?”
Eva shrugged. “The boss is here so I gotta be here. How about you, Cal?”
“No one back there I want to see.”
Eva looked slyly at me. “And you don’t want Domino here alone, getting all the good leads.”
“Domino’s here!?”
“He’s at the poisoning,” she cooed sweetly, “stealing your commission.”
“Well,” I said, quickly stubbing out my cigarette, “I gotta go hit the bricks.”
“OK,” came Eva’s parting shot as I ran to the elevator, “you show those bricks a lesson.”
When I got down to the garage and couldn’t find my driver, Endive. He usually had the car waiting for me. Actually, he always had the car waiting for me. I looked every place I could think of, then went back to the elevator to use the phone that hung beside it. I called up Eva. “I can’t find my driver,” I complained, lacking anything more constructive to do.
“Do you want me to page him?” I was too agitated about the poisoning, Hurley, and my missing driver to notice the tone of her voice.
“Yes!” I said.
“Then get Don to stop being such a cheapskate and install a paging system.” Yeah, I walked right into that one. I knew we didn’t have a paging system. “You’ll just have to troll the garage until you find a demon with a driver’s license. Sorry.”
“OK, Eva,” I said and hung up. So I started prowling around some more, ending up in a far corner I’d never been to before. I found a shack surrounded by spare tires, automotive parts and tool cabinets. I could see movement through the single dirty window. I knocked on the door and got no answer. I whacked the door with my open hand and shouted, “Hey! Service!”
“Who the…?” a rough voice barked as the door crashed open. The biggest, most orange demon in blue overalls I’d ever seen squeezed his bulk through the door. The look on his face made me think that a wild demon had somehow gotten into the city. But then his snarl was suddenly replaced by a kind of sheepish, puppy-dog look. “Sorry, sir,” he said. “I didn’t…” he stopped and put his massive hands on his hips. “Sales agents don’t usually come over to this part of the garage!” he exclaimed.
“I’m Calavera,” I said, craning my neck up at the monster. He had to be at least ten feet from his toes to the tips of the little ears perched on the top of his head. “Manny Calavera.”
“My name’s Glottis,” he said. I could have jumped through his smile with a clear foot on any side. “I don’t get many visitors.” He suddenly jerked even taller and I nearly bolted. “Hey! I got a message for a Mr. Calavera!” Glottis scratched his head. “Uh… your driver said… that Mr. Hurley said… that he could take the rest of the day off.”
I was floored. “Domino sent my driver home?” What the hell was going on?
“Yeah,” Glottis beamed, completely blind to my agitation, “wasn’t that nice?”
I shook my head. “Looks like I need a new driver.”
For a second I thought Glottis was going to bounce off the ceiling. “Oh!!” he blurted in a kind of bass squeal. “I… uh… I,” he got some kind of control over himself before continuing on in an exaggeratedly nonchalant tone. “Uh… I would agree with that. Yes,” he nodded solemnly, “you do.”
Well, it was pretty easy to guess what Glottis was so excited about. “You want to be my replacement driver?”
“Me!?” he said in that weird squeal. “No, no, no. Sorry. Can’t. Rules,” he said bitterly.
“Come on, Glottis,” I urged. “I need you to be my driver.”
“No, I can’t,” he whined. “I’m… I’m…” he turned away from me and looked at his massive hands. “I’m… too big.”
It was so ludicrous it was hysterical, but Glottis was obviously pained by what he was saying. I didn’t have to try very hard to keep the laugh down. “You’re not too big.” I tried to sound as sincere as I could without spraining something. “You’re just right!”
“No,” he said miserably, “they told me again and again. I’m too big to drive!” He sounded like he was about to cry.
“Well,” I said helplessly, “isn’t there anything here big enough for you to drive?” I’d make the trip in a wrecker if that was what it took to get on the road.
“No,” Glottis answered with a sniff, “only those dang compact cars.” But then he suddenly perked up. “Hey! That gives me an idea!” His face scrunched up as if his brain hurt to work. “I could alter your car just a bit… with just a quick torch job to let out the seams, you know?” But as quickly as his spirits rose, they fell again. “Oh, but I’m not allowed to modify the cars without a work order from upstairs!”
“A work order, huh?”
“Yeah,” Glottis said miserably. He pulled a scrap of paper from one of his pockets and showed it to me. “I can’t torch anything bigger than a cigarette without one of these signed by your boss.”
I snatched the form from Glottis before he could stuff it back into his pocket. “Hey, that’s my line, getting people to sign. Back in a snap.”
Glottis beamed that huge smile of his as I trotted to the elevator. “Yeah, too small!” I heard him say. “I’m not too big… everything around here is just too small!” I laughed quietly then.
I raced back up to the office and headed for Copal’s door. Another pencil bounced off my skull. “Big mister boss man doesn’t want to be disturbed today,” Eva announced.
“Eva, I really need Copal to sign this work order!” I pleaded.
She shrugged, “I’ll give it a shot.” She turned to the intercom. “Mr. Copal? Mr. Calavera has something out here he says he needs your signature on…?”
“Ah, Christ, Eva!” Copal shouted. His voice was just as clear through his office door as it was from the speaker. “Just sign it yourself, will ya? I’m busy!”
“You’ll have to excuse him, Manny,” Eva said tiredly as I handed her the work order. “It’s probably a really hard crossword puzzle he’s got in there today.”
“Eva, I’m impressed,” I said as I took the signed work order back. “I had no idea you had this kind of power!”
“Well, we all have our secrets. What’s it about, anyway?”
“Domino sent my driver home and the only demon I can find is a mountain. I think the only the way he’s going to fit in my car is to do a chop job.”