I blinked at her. "Yes.”
Her eyes narrowed. "Starbucks?”
"Only when desperate.”
"What did you want to talk to me about?”
"The project. Terry said you worked on it for a while. I need to know more.”
She shoved her massive mug at me. "Get this filled with hazelnut coffee that doesn't taste like crude oil and I'll tell you anything.”
I looked at the cup, then looked back up at Frankie. "No.”
She pouted. "No? Why should I tell you anything if you won't do something for me first?”
"Because I can just sit and watch you have a coffee jones until you give in and it costs me nothing, whereas filling that portable black hole of a mug will cost me twenty dollars and a half hour of time I won't enjoy in the least.”
She stared at me and poked the tip of her tongue out to flicker over her top lip like a snake tasting the air. Then she huffed and turned away, saying, "I'll be right back.”
She marched off into the warren and I heard the laughing voice yell briefly before she returned with the mug half full.
"OK," she announced. "I can stand to shackle myself to this job for about half an hour now. Or until Tuck gets in." She rolled her eyes. "Whichever. C'mon. Back to the pillory.”
Frankie slurped some coffee and headed to the Psych office with me in tow.
"You don't seem too. . pleased with this job," I hazarded.
"Oh, God, no," she replied, sliding back behind her desk. "I only came because of Tuckman. I used to be one of his grad students at the University of Washington—I thought he glided across water like eiderdown. Tells you what a big dope I was, huh?" She slurped coffee at every conversational turn.
"Anyhow, so, when Tuck got the chop at the U, I was still trying to finish up my thesis, so I transferred here to follow him and the project. I helped him set up the room and the protocols, and I'm still typing up his project reports, but. .”
"I heard that coming. But what?" I asked, leaning on the counter.
"I have learned to my sorrow that Dr. Gartner Tuckman is a particular variety of dickweed that grows in the slimiest of swamps composed of rotten, overinflated ego. He is—to be delicate about it—a manipulative, unethical jerk who slants his protocol to get the result he wants. Fie only got the offer here because PNU was too starry-eyed about him to see he thinks this school is a second—no— a third-rate babysitting service for spoiled brats too stupid to get into a 'real' college. And he's got too big an ego to realize how lucky he is that no one spilled the beans about why he left U-Dub in the first place.”
"And why did he?" I prompted, not because I had to, but because it was obvious she wanted me to and I didn't mind playing along a little, so long as she was talking.
"Technically it was a cutback, but really they were looking for a reason to get rid of him without looking like big idiots. His last couple of projects were major money pits. He's got a magic touch for making money go places it shouldn't and getting away with it, but his last projects at U-Dub didn't clean up so well and they both got buried because Tuckman's favorite thing is manipulating his subjects—and his assistants—into going way too far for safety or good sense. He likes to push people and he sets up experiments that push them to push others. People got hurt, but Tuck was able to blame some of the assistants and the participants and get away with it—mostly. Everybody on the review board must have known he'd been playing fast and loose with the cash and messing up his subjects, but they didn't have enough proof to do anything but unload him at the first opportunity. Which they did.”
"And he took up where he left off when he got here?”
Frankie nodded. "Pretty much. He always wanted to try this ghost thing. At first I was all for it—I thought it would be kind of neat—but it's not. It's crap. And he's not being straight with anybody. He's doing the same bad things.”
"How so?”
"OK, you understand this experiment is a really dangerous idea. Tuck's got this bunch of kind of wacky people thinking they can levitate stuff and make things appear out of thin air. This was supposed to be PK by committee, remember, but Tuck's stopped emphasizing that little detail. He's letting them think they have the power individually as well as collectively. Can you imagine what's going to happen to them when this project breaks up? He's got these guys thinking they can do anything—like they're all Superman or something—that the rules of the normal world don't apply to them. You know what we call people who think like that? We call 'em psychopaths. The whole thing's just creepy and I don't know what he thinks he's going to show, but I'm betting it'll be nasty—'cause with Tuck it always is.”
"Then why are you still here?”
"Because I now owe PNU for my graduate program. So I took this job and—naturally—they put me in the Psych Department, where I have to see Mr. Ego every day except Friday. I'm trying to get a different job, but there isn't anything available midterm. Unless someone dies.”
"You know, Tuck thinks someone is sabotaging his project. . ”
She giggled and drained the coffee mug. "Well, it's not me. I'm trying to make sure no one gets hurt if I can help it. That's why I volunteer to clean up the room for him—so I can see if he's changed anything. I wouldn't put it past him to electrify the chairs or something like that if he thought it would get him a novel reaction or push his subjects just a bit further. So I check for stuff every time I do the room. So far, so good. Although, you know, I heard he's got a theft problem.”
"Really?”
"Yup. His poltergeist is a magpie. Likes shiny things. Steals people's keys and loots the women's purses. Always has, from day one. I was kind of surprised he just let you have those keys since he'd be in six feet of deep-fried trouble if they got lost.”
"How much trouble would he be in if he lost an assistant?”
"Depends on how he lost him," she chortled. "You mean, like, quit—no problem. You mean, like, dead—not so good.”
She didn't know. "Do you read the paper or watch the news?”
"As infrequently as possible—I don't need any more nightmares than I got out of Tuck the past few years. Why?”
"Did you know Mark Lupoldi?”
"Tuck's special effects guy? Sure.”
"He was killed last Wednesday. He didn't make it to the session.”
Frankie's jaw dropped open. "You're kidding. Right?”
"No. The cops are looking into it.”
"Holy. . shrimp basket. For real?”
"Real as it gets.”
Frankie gaped and started shaking her head. Then she stopped and stared into her coffee cup. She didn't look up when someone entered the office, but I did. A lanky gray-haired man in a sweater stood in the doorway holding a coffee mug almost as large as hers.
"Oh. Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt. I was bringing Madam Frankie coffee. Before she decides to have my head boiled in it. Is she in here? I thought I heard her…”
I pointed over the counter. "She's a little upset.”
He gave me a cockeyed smile. "She can't be too upset—she's not swearing." He looked over the counter. "Oh. Oh, no. That looks bad.”
"A friend of hers died.”
"Oh." He went behind the counter and crouched down next to Frankie, pouring the coffee into her mug with care. "Brought you coffee, Frankie. Hello. Earth to Frankie. Time for verbal abuse—it's Starbucks.”
"You brought me Starbucks. .?" she muttered.
"I know how you love to complain. So. I hear you're feeling like crap…”
"I don't feel like crap. I feel like the lowest trilobite fossil ever ground up and dumped on a roadbed in Tumwater under half a ton of tar.”
"That good, huh?" He glanced up at me. "I've got her. She'll be all right.”