Only Flesh and Bones

by Sarah Andrews

  I grabbed a coffee mug off the counter next to the door and brought it to my lips as if drinking, and watched.

  There was no way this man was taking the stairs for the exercise. I knew at a glance that he did not belong in this office, and the fact that he was being smuggled out via the fire stairs was only my first clue. The oil patch was still, twenty years into equal-opportunity employment, a white, northern European-decent boys’ game, and this man did not fit that description. Moreover, his suit jacket had just a bit too much style and silk.

  The third man’s needle eyes flicked left and right, taking in the details of the room, flicking back to me, fixing my position with the precision of a field gunner adding to a list of potential targets. And as he fixed me, I measured him. He was fundamentally different from the shoulder-clapper from Saratoga, not a good ol’ anything, and neither was he a corporate suit boy or a pink-faced moneyman from Holland. He was the product of a rougher neighborhood, a place where people get physical about their arguments.

  Fred Howard turned, saw me, scowled. It was the kind of quick contraction of facial muscles one sees on a man who habitually substitutes anger for fear.

  The secretary rushed up behind me, panting. “Oh, ah, there you are! Ah, please, step this way.” She grasped my arm and pulled. Hard. I thought I heard an edge of panic in her voice, and as Fred Howard’s glare shifted from me to her, I could see why.

  All this happened in an instant. The third man straightened, raked a look across Fred Howard’s face that must have burned. I could almost smell the bacon frying. Then he clicked his lighter closed, strolled past Fred with the ponderous ease and power of a tank maneuvering between obstacles, and disappeared into the stairwell.

  I let the secretary lead me away.

  Five minutes later, the secretary took me back into the waiting room and without saying bye-bye, scooted back behind her desk.

  “Well, thanks for the tour,” I said. “Most interesting.”

  “Mr. Howard will be with you in a few minutes,” she said idiotically, her eyes fused to the computer screen.

  I leaned back to watch her. She was, after all, a stunning example of the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil secretary. I bet she drew top dollar, and I hoped I had not just cost her her annual bonus. As I watched, I saw one of the lights on her telephone bank blink off, then come on again. It stayed on for two or three minutes. Twenty seconds after it went off again, the phone buzzed. The secretary lifted it to her ear, said, “Yes, Mr. Howard,” stood up, faced me as if I were a firing squad, and informed me that I could now enter his office.

  I lurched to my feet and wandered toward his door. It did not follow that someone like Fred Howard, and especially someone at his stratum of the corporate world, would place any of his own telephone calls. It didn’t therefore take a wizard to suppose that he had been placing a call he didn’t want witnessed.

  The secretary followed the path of my gaze nervously. “Uh, Mr. Howard’s a very busy man,” she squeaked, urging me along.

  “I can see that,” I said as I followed her direction into his lair.

  It was the kind of cave most corporate officers lurk in: big, imposing, stylistically forgettable. Fred sat in an enormous leather swivel chair behind the broad mahogany desk, looking as magisterial as any man the size and shape of a pig can. As I took Fred and the room in, a rather nervous voice in the back of my mind moved to remind me just how dangerous it can be to encounter a wild boar on his own turf.

  Fred did not rise as I entered the room. I installed myself in one of the smaller, upholstered chairs that faced the throne, then said, “Thank you for meeting with me today, Fred.”

  He waved a pudgy hand and squeezed his chubby cheeks into a smile.

  I watched him, unsmiling, waiting for him to speak.

  His smile congealed into a toothy grimace, and I lost sight of his tiny eyes. Even as ugly as he was, I might have been taken in by the display of joviality if his skin hadn’t been the color of a day-old corpse. “S’nothing,” he said expansively. “Any friend of Joe’s. But like I told ya, we got no work here, and I don’t know shit about anyone else up and down this street. But it’s your nickel.” He stopped talking, dropped the pretense of the smile, and returned my gaze.

  The hair began to stand up on the back of my neck. He was watching me, the pig staring at me from the scant cover of the shadows at the edge of the forest, measuring me to see how much I had. seen of his position and his territory. It occurred to me, just a little bit late, that in my infinite wisdom I must have witnessed something I might have been better off not witnessing.

  “Well, fine,” I said, trying to look and act and smell like the hapless chick who wants the job, and not an enemy to be gored. “Hey, nice office you got here.” I shifted gears, grinding into interview mode. Sound knowledgeable. Ask questions about the growth potential of the company. “Well, I got to reading your corporate slick sheets while I was waiting out there. You got bought out by overseas money, I see.” I knew as soon as I’d said this that my tone had been a little too much like: so, you got bent over a stump, sucker.

  Fred Howard’s little eyes came the rest of the way back out into view, focused sharply on me for an instant, then were again eclipsed by his cheeks. “Yeah. Yeah, new money. Great, great.”

  “Good money, though?” I asked recklessly.

  Fred stared a moment longer. “We gotta take it where we can get it.”

  “Oh.” And spend it in dumb places, I thought, like setting up to drill dusters on the Broken Spoke Ranch? “So what’s it like working for the Dutch?”

  Another look. He waited.

  I made my eyes a little rounder, a little stupider.

  He seemed to relax a bit, but grew instantly more morose. “So whaddaya wanna know?” he asked irritably. “I got maybe five minutes to give ya. Boomer’s midsized and growing. Foreign money’s taking all of us over, one by one, all up and down the street. You got a problem with that?”

  Startled, I smiled prettily. “Sorry, I’ve been out of town for most of a year, as J. C. told you, and I’m trying to catch up, is all. All this influx of foreign money is kind of interesting. I mean, I’m just an old ranch girl from Wyoming. I go back to the days when we were all a bunch of cowboys and girls drilling holes on back acres and getting lucky, so I guess we’re all in this foreign takeover basket together. Right, Fred?”

  “Wyoming. Huh.”

  I nodded. It was getting harder and harder to play dumb. The man’s manner was pissing me off so thoroughly that I wanted to clobber him with everything I knew and suspected about him and all the low-life, self-serving swine he ate slops at the corporate trough with. Why in hell couldn’t he just wise up and line up a little talent—like me—with a job, and see something happen?

  As if reading my mind, Fred said, “Trouble is with cowgirls like you, you think knowing where some oil is is all it takes to make a deal. It’s a brand-new world out there.”

  Shifting gears, I said, “I guess making the deal is your job. But finding the oil is mine.”

  Fred’s lips drew up like a little purse. “You mean the job you’d like to have,” he said nastily.

  I caught myself leaning forward in my chair, like a supplicant. I tried to lean back and relax but managed only to cave downward. As I did so, Fred’s skin began to return to its normal blotchy pink, and I began to see how he’d gotten as far as he had in the high-stakes poker world of the oil patch.

  He said, “Now, if we’re done here, I got several other meetings to go to.” As he spoke, he leaned forward onto the desk, and I noted that his chair was jacked way up to what must have been its highest setting above the floor. He stood up and moved to the side of his desk to indicate that it was time for me to go. He had to bend his arm slightly to rest his hand on the top of his desk. Oh, the misery of a short man in corporate America, where everyone the hell else is exactly five foot nine and a quarter.

  From the depths of my own bitterness, I began t
o smile. “So you’re going offshore in Africa,” I said, staying seated.

  “S’outta another office.”

  “Okay, how’s domestic production coming along? I saw a picture of a rig out there doing what rigs do. Where was that?”

  Fred Howard began to curl and uncurl his stubby fingers. He remained standing, willing me to rise before he began to look stupid or out of control. “Infill drilling. The engineers do that.” Suddenly, he fixed me with a leering grin and asked, “So, how you and J. C. getting along?”

  My mouth sagged open.

  “Oh, come on, you know he’s got an eye for you. He’s not dead yet, ya know. Yeah, he’s a vital guy. And lotsa bucks. Young woman like you oughta jump at a chance like that.”

  I could feel the blood coursing into my head. “I’m sure you are mistaken.”

  “No, really, you two got so much in common. That East Coast tweedy stink to ya both.”

  Rising abruptly from my seat, I said, “I’m sure I’ve taken too much of your time already.”

  “S’nuthin. Naw, really; I heard Joe talk about you. He—”

  I gave him the flat of my palm in a “that’s enough, stop it right now” salute, said an abrupt “See ya,” and marched out the door. And closed it. Firmly. And crossed to the elevator. And got the hell gone.

  As the elevator doors closed, I thought I heard the secretary sigh audibly with relief.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “SURE, you can buy lunch,” I informed J. C. Menken as we hurried down the sidewalk. He moved in a fast saunter, I in a still-fuming stomp. “You owe it to me, after what I just went through with your pal Fred. I’ll be candid with you. I find his sense of humor a bit lacking.”

  Menken’s cheeks were rosy in the noonday April sunshine. “Oh, now, Emily, I’m surprised at you. I thought you knew how to handle yourself in the corporate jungle. Or have you gotten rusty during your sabbatical?”

  Had I? “Well—”

  “What could he possibly have said to you that’s gotten you into such a state?”

  “Well … oh, forget it.” No, I wasn’t going to give my former boss turned eligible widower an opening like that.

  “No, tell me,” he insisted, his eyes dancing in smug delight.

  “Here’s our restaurant,” I said, steering him into the Rocky Mountain Diner. Might as well kill two birds with one stone, I told myself, see if Julia really went out of town.

  “Oh, this place. A charming little bistro. I hear they have roast duck enchiladas here, but I have to watch my figure, you know. Did you make reservations? This is a popular place, and I’d say there was little chance of finding a table free at this hour.”

  Julia was there all right, huddled over a plate of greens across the table from a woman I didn’t know. When she saw me, or perhaps when she saw Menken, or saw me with Menken—I couldn’t tell exactly which—Julia’s eyes widened, first in alarm and then in embarrassment.

  “Julia!” I called as we swept up to her table. “I thought you’d be gone until Friday.”

  Her shoulders tensed. She introduced us to her companion, who shook my hand with a grip that went with sensible shoes, plenty of exercise, and enough glasses of water per day.

  Menken gave the two women a grin that went clear back to his second molars. He spread his hands in benediction. “Why, what luck finding you here. May we join you?” He put a hand on Julia’s shoulder and sat down in the empty chair next to her.

  Julia lunged to her feet, grappling her handbag by mid-strap like she meant to use it as a weapon. “No, Joe, we were just leaving. Lydia, give me the check.” To me, she said, “I’ll see you another time, I’m sure,” and, snatching the check off the table, hurried away toward the cashier.

  The startled Lydia hoisted herself to her feet, grabbed a last chunk of bread out of the basket, nodded good-bye, and followed her friend toward the door.

  While I stood there hoping flies didn’t land in my open mouth, Menken calmly pulled Julia’s abandoned napkin over his lap and broke a crust of bread out of the basket. “Sit down, Emily,” he said. “Tables can be hard to come by during the lunch rush.” As a flabbergasted waitress arrived too late to avert Menken’s maneuver, he informed her, “Our friends had to leave. We wanted separate checks anyway. I’m ready to order now, aren’t you, Emily?”

  Over baby back ribs, coleslaw, and fries (I ordered the most expensive thing on the menu, angry as I was over the debacle with Fred Howard), I laid out my demands to J. C. Menken. “I need you to make some more contacts for me with your CEO friends up and down the street here. And smart ones this-time,” I grumbled. “Like guys who know better than to drill wildcats south of the Platte River up there by Douglas.”

  Menken’s eyes sharpened. “What do you mean?”

  “Like the one they were going to drill on the Broken Spoke Ranch.”

  Menken looked blank, so I added, “Isn’t that how you knew about Po Bradley’s place?”

  “Why no. Miriam made that contact.” His eyes saddened for an instant, then recovered. As if by an act of will, he smiled, and teased, “So you didn’t enjoy your visit with Fred?”

  “Fred was … not much help, but at least I see now what to ask in these interviews. There’s foreign money coming into the oil patch now, and that appeals to me,” I said, turning the conversation toward more neutral topics. “I’ve never been overseas, not even to Europe. Perhaps you know someone who’s got a project going in Africa, or somewhere. interesting like that. I saw where Boomer has an agreement going there, at least, and there have to be more.”

  “Done,” J. C. said, nibbling a bit of unbuttered bread. “I’ll have my secretary make you some appointments. No, don’t worry,” he said, raising a hand as if I was about to protest. “You need your energies for our other project. And how’s that been going?” he asked cheerfully.

  I let my shoulders drop. “Hard at it. You’re into me for ninety dollars.” I presented Ms. DuBois’s receipt for the check I’d written earlier that morning. “This could get pricey, you know.”

  “No cost too high for my Cecelia.”

  “None?” I said, speaking before I’d thought.

  “Certainly not. Why, what other expenses have you incurred?”

  “Well, I meant to tell you that I took a drive up to Douglas this weekend, just to poke around, see if I could find anything out that might help, ah … Cecelia. And, well, I didn’t run up a hotel bill or anything, but—”

  Menken beamed. “You just bring me your receipts,” he said. “And you drove? Why, that’s a long way to go, Emily, and what if you have to go again before we’re done? I think you should consider flying next time, catch the evening hop up to Casper and rent a car. Saves two hours at least. Here, why don’t I just give you some money in advance?” He whipped out a checkbook and scribbled happily. “A thousand dollars seem about right? There. Now, about dessert,” he said happily, replacing his checkbook and plucking the menu back up from the table. “How about a slice of the mile high chocolate cake? Young, healthy figure like yours can certainly take a few calories. Or here, the Grand Teton hot fudge ice cream sundae.”

  Much as chocolate has always sung its siren song to me, my mind was anywhere but on dessert. I was already half way back to the Wyoming border, but I wasn’t flying commercially: I was three thousand feet off the deck in a single-engine plane, watching the shadows of the foothills grow longer as I pushed the craft at a 120 knots toward the high, wide horizon through the freedom of the skies.

  TWENTY-SIX

  POSSIBLE excuses to return to Douglas crowded my head as I hurried down the street to my bank to deposit Menken’s check. As with all links into small airports, the price of flying commercially from Denver to anywhere near Douglas (namely Casper, the only airport in the area with scheduled flights) on short notice is steep. I was certain I could about justify the hourly rental cost of flying there myself, thereby gaining two major cross-country flying legs for my pilot’s license. Accepting Menken’s mon
ey obligated me to do more for him, of course, but hell, I wanted to help Cecelia, and … and what?

  I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, wondering at how easily Menken had reeled me in, the thousand-dollar windfall dragging at my pocket like a brick. Give it back, an exhausted little voice in my head pleaded. Give it back and stay independent.

  Right, stay out of a trouble I couldn’t quite name but knew must be waiting for me.

  Give back all of it? another voice countered. He does owe you for the ninety-dollar shrink fee, after all, and your good old truck sure drank a lot of gas on the way to Douglas and back … .

  I started to walk again, promising myself that I’d sit down and do the math when I got home to Betty Bloom’s, figure out what Menken really owed me, and return the difference. And what if some of these other shrinks want cash on the barrel head? Speaking of which …

  I picked up my feet and began to move. My next interview was only a few minutes away.

  That appointment was another disappointment. While it was not as negative as the others, I found a lack of positives that was just as damning. The woman had a noisy problem with her adenoids, and looked anxious for a smoke, just the kind of authority figure a teenager could easily disregard. In her favor, she gave me half an hour of her time for free. After twenty minutes, I excused myself and left, figuring she could keep the change.