On Tour

by Christina A. Burke

  "Good work, son," Howard told him.

  Wally beamed.

  Howard looked at me. "What are you doing up here?"

  "I just asked her that," Wally said. "She can't do her job without help."

  I waited for him to stick out his tongue at me. It wouldn't have surprised me. "I do need help, Howard," I said agreeably. "He gave me an emergency project, and I can't read his handwriting, and it's delayed my getting to work on your Complaint."

  Wally's smile disappeared at the same time as Howard's, for an entirely different reason. "No," he snarled, shoving the pad back at me.

  I stared at him. "You're not going to decipher it?"

  "N-O," he said, enunciating so exactingly I could count the veins in his neck. "It says 'no.' Can't you read? It's perfectly clear to me. And by the way, the toilet's clogged. Call a plumber."

  "After you type my Complaint," Howard added.

  And Wally said, "Of course, of course."

  "But didn't you just use the bathroom?" I asked.

  "There's no need for insolence," Wally said. "Go. Type. Call."

  He'd make a fine dictator one day. I left the two of them stewing in their own grandeur while I fled back to the safety of the secretarial pool. By the time I got there, I was hungry from the stress of the second floor. I kept a box of Tastykakes stashed in my desk drawer for moments like this, so I hauled out a package of Butterscotch Krimpets. Nothing wrong with me that a good sugar fix couldn't cure.

  Missy looked up when she heard the crinkle of the wrapper. "Uh-oh. Everything okay?"

  I leaned my elbows on Wally's legal pad with a sigh. "What are the chances Wally will get fired by five o'clock?"

  "Not good," she said. "He cleans Howard's pool on the weekends."

  I grinned. She grinned back.

  "You shouldn't eat those," Paige told me. "They'll go right to your hips."

  "I can only hope," I said. If they did, it'd be the first time in my life I had hips. I finished the first Krimpet and eyed the second.

  "Don't do it," Paige warned. "It's all fat and sugar."

  "Your lipstick's smeared," Missy told her, and Paige retreated to her mirror in alarm.

  "Don't worry about your hips," Missy said, even though I wasn't. "And don't worry about Wally. I'm going to put a box of Midol in his Christmas stocking this year. You'd be better off worrying about Dougie. His wife's on her way here to have lunch with him."

  The Krimpet stuck halfway down my throat, and my breath stuck halfway up. I'd met Hilary Heath a few times, and those meetings had been only marginally more pleasant than a gynecological exam. The best word to describe Hilary was sharp. She had a body like a letter opener and the sort of eyes that could perform x-rays. More importantly, she had Dougie, and she protected her investment through unannounced inspections and merciless interrogation of the support staff. Hilary trusted very few and liked no one. Rumor had it that she'd once had a secretary fired for laughing at one of Dougie's lame comments. Hilary thought it indicated an unacceptable level of intimacy.

  I shot a wild look at the clock. "You think we could take lunch early today?"

  "You could," Missy said, "but why miss the fun when Hil finds Dougie up there with Bambi?"

  "She's right," Paige said. "This'll be good."

  It did have a certain appeal, but Missy seemed to be looking forward to Hilary's arrival a little too much.

  "I don't know if I have the stomach for this," I said. "It might be too much confrontation for one day."

  Missy shrugged. "Leave if you want, but I'm not going anywhere. Dougie's got this coming. My wife loved it. Huh."

  Paige and I looked at each other.

  "Besides," Missy added, "I'm skipping lunch today. I'm seeing Braxton tonight."

  Braxton Malloy, the pharmacist Missy kept penciled-in on her Daytimer for a Monday night playdate. The relationship kept Missy in discounted prescriptions and qualified as a weekly aerobic workout at the same time.

  Being the inveterate list maker that I am, working out has been on my to-do list for years. I just never seem to be able to find something I liked enough to stick with. At the moment I was trying to practice yoga, but because I had the flexibility of a two by four, that wasn't going so well. And I had a little trouble achieving oneness with the universe, since the universe was always conspiring to cheat me out of the finer things in life, like patience, wisdom, and a good parking spot at the mall.

  Maybe I needed a Braxton. But first I needed to escape Hilary Heath.

  MOTION FOR MURDER

  available now!