by Don Bruns
She knocked again. Nothing.
“Here.” James, the pushy S.O.B, reached beyond her and pushed on the office door. It swung inward smoothly, showcasing three-quarters of the spacious room. I looked over his shoulder and could see the massive oak desk, the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, some more art that I had no interest in, and two visible skylights that bathed the room in early morning light.
“Mr. Walters?” Sarah gave James a dirty look.
James just smiled. “The door was open. It must have been the Lord’s will.”
It probably wasn’t the smoothest thing to open someone’s office door. But James didn’t have an office, and he was good at sticking his nose into other people’s business, so it didn’t seem that strange to him.
“Mr. Walters?” More timid this time. Sarah reached for the doorknob to close the door, but once again James barged up to the doorway. He stepped into the office as Sarah whispered loudly, “Stop it. You can’t just—” she followed him in two steps behind.
“James, it’s time to go.” I’d just gotten the job and I didn’t want to lose it already.
“Pretty nice office. Guy must be pulling down some serious jack.”
“James, please.” She nervously looked around the office.
I stepped in. Not to see if Mr. Walters really was there or not, but to escort my good friend out. “James, I’ve met Ralph Walters. He’s a no-nonsense kind of guy, and he’s going to be pissed off if he finds us in his office. I can’t afford to lose this job, and neither can you.”
“Yeah,” he hesitated, obviously taken with the surroundings. I could tell he was picturing himself working in a fancy office like this. James was always dreaming about hitting the big time.
“James. Let’s go.”
“Okay, we’re out of here, pally.” James gave it one last look, turned, and exited. I was close behind. Sarah followed, backing out and starting to pull the door shut. I saw her stumble and stop.
“Oh, my God.” Her eyes were riveted on Walters’s desk.
“What?” She spun around, and in that hushed whisper she said, “Somebody’s feet are under his desk.”
“Where?”
“Under the desk.”
James and I both turned and looked. Sure enough, the soles of someone’s shoes, socks, and the cuffs of brown trousers were visible under the desk.
I looked at James, and he shrugged his shoulders. In his own hushed voice he said, “Maybe the guy takes naps there? Or maybe, just maybe,” he glanced at Sarah, “he has a mistress and they meet under the desk.”
She rolled her eyes. “Mr. Walters?”
No answer.
Finally James did what James does best. He barged back into the office and walked behind the desk, involving us again in a truly messy situation. I should never have involved the son of a bitch.
“Holy crap, Skip. Come here.” He grabbed the edge of the big oaken desk.
Sarah took several steps in his direction.
“Sarah, I don’t think you want to see this.”
The two of us reached the rear of the desk at the same time. Ralph Walters’s body had slid from the desk chair and was on the floor, his legs protruding from the front of the desk. In his right hand was a blue steel revolver and the left side of his head was blown away, remains of brain, bone, and blood spattering the veneer of the desk drawers.
CHAPTER FIVE
I’ve seen dead bodies before. I could never get used to that. But what about a coroner or a funeral director? Someone who dealt with dead bodies every day? They must have a cast-iron stomach and nerves of steel. Me? I ended up shaking and thinking I was going to be sick. I suppose I should have put my arm around Sarah and comforted her. Some pretend boyfriend I turned out to be.
So we waited while the police did their investigation. They interviewed each of us separately.
“You broke into the office?”
“Um, the door was open and my friend sort of pushed it.”
“You didn’t notice anything unusual when you entered?”
“Not the first time.”
“You mean you went back a second time?”
“Well, when we saw the feet.”
“The feet?”
“Under the desk.”
I don’t think any of us were really suspects, but they asked us a lot of questions. It wasn’t too bad. We checked with each other afterward and we’d all told the same story. It had happened so fast, we didn’t have time to make one up.
“How bad would things have to be?” James sipped his coffee. The three of us were sitting in the break room, sterile white tiled walls on four sides, and a stainless refrigerator, microwave, and coffee maker.
“Bad.” I couldn’t fathom the feeling. What the hell would cause me to take my own life?
“Ralph was—well, I haven’t been here that long, but he was like the rock. I mean, he loved this place and he loved his job. And I think he had an idea that Sandy might be moving on, so he was in line to take over.” Sarah’s color had come back to her face, and she was on her second cup of high-voltage coffee.
I couldn’t drink the mud brown liquid. My stomach was still churning, and I kept seeing that head covered in blood. “Guys, girls,” Em hated being called a guy, “this man must have had some serious problems.”
“Well, as the song says, suicide is painless.”
I nodded. “Mash. Donald Sutherland, Sally Kellerman, Elliot Gould. Nineteen—”
“Seventy.” James stirred his coffee with his finger. “Before we were born, amigo.”
Sarah looked back and forth at us, trying to figure out where the conversation had gone south. It always did.
A man with graying hair stuck his head in the door. From the shoulders up I could see a loosened tie, a stiff collared shirt, and tanned face with just the slightest hint of a five o’clock shadow. I took a quick guess. Sandler Conroy.
“Sarah. Can I see you for a moment?”
She gave me a quick look, almost like a girlfriend would give her boyfriend before going off with another man. Or maybe it was just my imagination. She stood up and walked out to greet him. We could hear her heels click down the hallway.
We were both quiet for a moment, the only two people in the room. I could hear a very small buzz and traced it to a clock that hung above the sink.
“Skip, we’ve stepped into it before, but—”
“But.”
We didn’t talk for several minutes. James sipped his coffee, and I pretty much stared at the table. I was trying to work out everything that had happened in the last week.
“There’s still a good side to this, my friend.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Look, you’re still making good money. I mean, this shouldn’t shut down the installation. Am I right?”
“You’re right, James.”
“So we’ve got that going for us.”
Us? It was always us. James had been my best friend since grade school and we shared about everything. Even Ginger Stevens in the seventh grade. Of course, I think she pretty much kissed every guy in 7A.
“You think that was her guy?”
“Sandler Conroy? Yeah, I’d bet. He’s got to be a little shook up right now.”
“Yeah. And you?”
“I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Nothing. Don’t make anything of it, pard.”
“This thing with Sarah. I mean, I can get past the part that she’s a high-class hooker, but—”
“No you can’t.”
“You’re right. I can’t. It’s very weird.”
“Very.”
“James, how does a girl, a woman, how does she decide to do that?”
“Skip, let’s say you meet some great looking girl at a bar.”
“I know where this is going.”
“Humor me.”
I humored him too much as it was.
“You buy her a couple of drinks, offer to take her out for a nice dinner, and you
end up at your place. Or, her place.”
“It’s still not the same thing, James.”
“It’s a one-night stand, amigo. And you paid for it.”
“But a woman? How does she make the conscious decision to do this for a living?” I just couldn’t picture it.
James cleared his throat and stood up. He walked to the doorway and peered out into the hall. “No one around.” He turned and came back inside, put his hands on the back of his chair and stared intently at me. “This little scenario I cooked up. It was a one-night stand for both of you. She didn’t fall in love with you, you didn’t fall in love with her. It was sex, Skip. Sex.”
“And?”
“And she starts thinking. Maybe there’s more than just a couple of cosmos and a steak dinner in this little game. She gets dollar signs in her eyes, Skip. She thinks, maybe, just maybe, I can fall into a compromising situation and do better than a couple of drinks and dinner.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Come on? That’s the way it happens. You know it does. It’s like the old question, why does a dog lick his privates? Because he can! The woman finally figures out she can make some serious money charging for it. You’re just mad because you can’t do it. Excuse me, compadre, but you are just an ordinary, halfway good-looking guy.” He stepped back from the chair and gave me a hard look. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, amigo. Listen. It ain’t gonna happen for you. But, if you could have one-night stands and get paid five hundred, a thousand dollars, wouldn’t you do it? If you could have sex whenever you wanted and get paid big bucks, you’d do it. We’d all do it. Every man on the planet. What’s the difference, Skip?”
I couldn’t tell him. Because maybe there wasn’t any difference. Except I’d never picked up a girl at a bar, bought her two cosmos, taken her out for an elegant steak dinner, and fallen into bed with her. Nice dream, but it had never happened. Not to me anyway. That never seemed to be the Lord’s or anyone else’s will. But it seemed pretty real to James. Maybe there was something about my friend I didn’t know.
“But this pretend boyfriend stuff. I mean, that’s pretty strange.” It was. I was feeling used, but paid well at the same time. Taking a bonus for being a pretend lover. I had this fleeting thought. Did that make me a male prostitute?
James shook his head and walked to the sink, pouring himself another cup of the bitter brew. “Everything about this is strange. What does she want you to do?”
“Walk her to her car after work.”
“That’s it?”
“A couple nights a week I’m supposed to park my car outside of her condo, just in case Carol Conroy drives by.”
“So far this sounds pretty innocent.”
Yeah. It was innocent. I wasn’t a male prostitute. I didn’t want to think of what I was. I just wanted the bonus. Ten grand. Pretty sweet.
“So that’s it? Park the car outside her place?”
“Hey, James, it’s not like I’m going to be sleeping with her. And we’re not going to the movies or holding hands. After all, she does have a boyfriend.”
“Ah, yes. The head honcho. The much talked about, seldom seen, Sandy.”
I could hear the heels clicking in the hall. “Cool it.”
She walked back into the room, Sandler Conroy nowhere in sight. “Sandy says he’s sorry you had to see what happened.”
James nodded. “He’s sorry?”
“He feels bad that you guys were here to see it. That’s all.”
“What else?”
I could see tears welling in her eyes. “There is nothing else. Okay? The installation will start Wednesday and whatever you need, get in touch with me.”
She turned and hurried out of the room. I could hear gentle sobbing as she walked away.
“She and Sandy must have had words.” James pointed in the direction she’d gone.
“It would seem.”
“Something a good boyfriend would have picked up on.”
“Drop it, James.”
He didn’t say another word as we left the building. If he had, I might have decked him.
CHAPTER SIX
At seven the next morning I was in Michael’s office. Michael, director of Jaystone Security’s Carol City office. The lowest of the low, and a far cry from the splendor of Ralph Walters’s office. Michael’s tiny, closet-sized office was drab, sparsely furnished, and dreary. No artwork on the walls, cheap wallpaper that was peeling in the corners, a gray metal desk, and a ratty cloth office chair that showed major signs of wear. But at least he had an office. I, on the other hand, got to file my paperwork in the room that doubled as the reception area. As if we had customers who walked in and needed to be recepted. As if. Worn, soiled carpeting, a build-it-yourself desk that was falling apart, a big computer that was built during the Dark Ages, and a desk chair with wheels that had frozen probably ten years ago.
“A suicide?”
“You saw it on the news, Michael.”
“But, Skip. You found the body. That can’t be good.” He sat behind his tiny desk and shuddered.
“For me. For the company, for the situation it means nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, as long as we still have the order.” Mr. Bottom Line. As long as we still had the order. Maybe the company was going to buy him a new desk chair with the profits.
“We do. We still have the order.” I prayed we did. I needed that order worse than Michael did.
“Skip, you have one supervisor for the project.”
“James Lessor.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He frowned. He’d met James and obviously didn’t think much of him. “I’m not entirely happy with that choice, but I guess we’ll deal with it.” Michael shuffled papers on his desk. “But we need two. The contract calls for two. It’s a bull-shit position. Any ideas of who could do it?”
“You’ve got the installers?”
He nodded. “We need a second supervisor. It’s a gopher position, Skip. You’ve been on these jobs before.”
Actually, I hadn’t. The few sales I made were mostly residential. Selling safety and security to people who had very little to secure. And when I did sell to businesses, they usually needed one or two door detectors and maybe a window sensor. Hardly any reason for a supervisor.
Michael looked past me, shaking his head. “What did it look like?”
“What did what look like?”
“The suicide.”
“You don’t want to know.” I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. The gory, blood-stained desk and carpet and the side of the man’s head with a hole in it.
“No. I don’t.” He looked back at me. “We need another supervisor. Simple stuff, really.”
“I can do it. I’ll be the second supervisor.”
“No. You’re in charge of the project.”
“But I could—”
“No, Skip. Regulations call for two supervisors, and one person in charge of the project.”
“So what’s my title?”
“Person in charge of the project.” Michael shrugged his shoulders.
Great title. I squinted my eyes and gave him a questioning look. So if I could figure a way to also be supervisor, I could make an additional twelve bucks an hour.
“And, no. You can’t be both.”
The son of a bitch was on to me.
“My title is really Person in Charge of the Project?”
“Sure. Why not?”
I shook my head. “I might know someone.”
He looked up from his gunmetal desk in his tiny cubicle office. “That would help. As person in charge, it’s going to be your job to find that someone. And if they screw up, as I feel certain your roommate will, it’s going to fall on your shoulders.”
The guy was a prick. “This man I’ve got in mind, he has his own business. He’s obviously good at management, and I think he’d work well in this environment.”
“Bring him by tomorrow, okay? I’m going to need to at least meet
him.”
I was faking it. I had a vague idea, but who knew? The guy might be legit, he might be a fake.
“Michael, I’ll have him here tomorrow morning. You’ll be in till noon?” He had a habit of scooting by eleven thirty. You’d never see him the rest of the day.
“Um, yeah. You get him here no later than noon, okay?”
“Sure.”
I didn’t know what time he woke up, but I was going to pound on Jim Jobs’s door tonight until he finally answered. There was no way this job was going to get away from me because of a missing supervisor. I didn’t know Jim Jobs well, but for what this position called for, anyone could do it.
Hell, I’d hired James hadn’t I?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sure, I should have contacted someone I knew. This was a job that was paying me a fortune, and I should have approached it with a little more responsibility. However, in my defense, I am not a responsible person. In my short life, I’ve come to accept that fact. I think I’m stuck in an immature, irresponsible lifestyle, and I have to be content with that. As it turned out, I wish I’d looked elsewhere.
I knocked three times, and finally he opened the door.
“Huh?” Spoken like someone who had just been wakened from a deep sleep. At two in the afternoon.
“Jim Jobs?”
“Huh?”
“I’m sorry. I’m Skip Moore, two doors down? Apartment 12 E?”
He just stared at me, scratching himself through the white Hanes Jockeys.
“You do odd jobs, am I right?”
He seemed to be a little more clear. “I do.” His thick head of hair was spiked all over his small head and his face sported a two-day, three-day, maybe a four-day growth. Various shades of brown and gray.
“Well, I’ve got an odd job.”
He squinted, scratched himself again, and nodded. “Can you give me just a minute? I think I need to make myself presentable, this bein’ a business deal and all.”
“Sure.”
He came back a minute later, dirty T-shirt and a pair of khaki cargo shorts. The shirt was gray, but appeared to have been white originally. I was relieved that he’d dressed, until he scratched himself again.
