The Answer Man

by Roy Johansen

  “Stop it.” Ken righted the lamp and looked at his brother. Bobby had always been slight of build, but now he was bordering on emaciated. His hair was thinning, and his long face was half hidden by a scruffy beard.

  “What the hell am I gonna do? It’s tough even getting out of this bed. Tina’s working two jobs just to pay the rent.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “How can I not worry?”

  “I’ll help out.”

  “You did your bit for Dad, Kenny. You don’t need to keep doing it for me.”

  “Shut up and move your legs.” Ken sat at the foot of the bed. “The V.A. should pay. Isn’t there anything you can do?”

  “There’s a Gulf War veterans group. They’re fighting this shit, but it’ll take a long time. Jesus, Kenny—”

  “Shhh. Don’t get yourself worked up. You’ll just make yourself sicker.”

  Bobby turned away as his chest rumbled with a deep cough. He wiped his mouth and turned back to Ken. “Have you seen Margot lately?”

  “Yeah, I just saw her and Bill tonight.”

  “You never should have let her get away.”

  “I didn’t have too much choice.”

  “Sure you did.”

  Ken quickly changed the subject. “The Vivianne misses you.”

  The Vivianne was a fourteen-foot boat that Bill had inherited from his parents. He and Margot never seemed to have time to enjoy it, so they entrusted Ken with the care and upkeep of the vessel. He and Bobby had spent many afternoons sailing the Vivianne on Lake Lanier.

  “I’ll have to get you back out there,” Ken said.

  Bobby let out a long breath. “God, I’m sorry.”

  “About what?”

  “You shouldn’t have to deal with this. You were there for Mom and Dad while I was off seeing the world. This is my thing.”

  Ken shook his head. “It’s our thing.”

  —

  Ken gave Tina sixty dollars on his way out, leaving himself with just enough money to cover meals for the next couple of days. He hoped his newest client paid his bills promptly.

  Ken drove down the dark streets of Bobby’s neighborhood. He cursed out loud. It wasn’t fair. The Department of Defense still maintained there were no significant levels of nerve gas deployed in the Gulf War, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Bobby was evidence enough, Ken thought. The guy had hardly been sick a day in his life, but shortly after returning home from the war, he was hit with the illness that had racked his body ever since.

  Tina was the real hero. She never complained and was the one good thing in Bobby’s life.

  They deserved better.

  Ken thought back to his meeting with Myth and Sabini. Fifty thousand dollars for two weeks’ work? God knows he could use it. Bobby’s condition had been a serious drain on his funds, and the situation didn’t look like it was going to improve anytime soon.

  But there had to be another way out.

  —

  Myth kicked off her shoes as she watched Burton Sabini through a window. He shuffled down the driveway, climbed into his car, and drove away. He had wanted only a “quick drink” after Ken left, but he nursed it for the better part of an hour. Myth supposed he wanted to talk. He was lonely.

  She knew how that felt.

  She walked back into her study, picked up the phone, and punched a number.

  Her call was answered. “Yeah?”

  “The polygraph examiner was here,” Myth said. “I think he may do it.”

  “But does he think so?” the voice rasped.

  “Not yet. But he’ll come around.”

  “Perhaps he needs some persuading.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Myth said. “I’m all the persuasion he’ll need.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Ken was late for work.

  The traffic on Roswell Road was, as usual, stop and go. Less than a mile away from his office, north of the I-285 highway, he saw a motorist in need of assistance. She wore a tight white T-shirt, black shorts, and hiking boots, and she stood next to her convertible Mustang, peering uncertainly under the hood. As Ken approached, she looked pleadingly up at him.

  What the hell.

  He pulled over and quickly strode over to the young woman.

  “What’s the problem?”

  She gestured toward her vehicle. “I don’t know. It died on me, and I can’t get it to start.”

  He looked under the hood, knowing he probably wouldn’t be able to diagnose the problem with only a quick glance. He checked the battery connections. The young woman leaned over with him, offering a view of her ample cleavage.

  She smiled. “Thanks for stopping. I didn’t know what to do.”

  He smiled back. “I’m not sure I know what to do either. But if nothing else, there’s a garage up the street. And if you need a lift somewhere—”

  At that moment, a tow truck roared past and whipped around in a tight U-turn. It headed straight for them.

  He turned to the woman. “Did you call him?”

  She shook her head as the truck suddenly braked to a stop. The driver hopped out, and Ken instantly recognized him. It was Stu, one of the repo men from the bank. Stu ran to fasten his hookup to Ken’s front axle.

  Ken tried to stop him. “Come on, Stu! Don’t do this!”

  The repo man acted as if he had not heard. He worked quickly and expertly, with the proficiency of someone who had been doing his job for years.

  Ken shouted, “Look, I’m gonna get paid up tomorrow! Tomorrow! Stu?”

  Still, Stu did not respond. He walked back to his truck, stopping only to wave at the woman. “Thanks, Donna!”

  Ken looked incredulously as the woman slammed down her hood, jumped into her Mustang, and started it up. The engine roared to life without hesitation. The woman blew Ken a kiss as she drove past.

  It was a setup.

  Stu climbed into his truck and laughed. He leaned out the window. “The one time Donna couldn’t get me a car back, the guy turned out to be gay. You’re only human, Ken.”

  He put the truck into gear and pulled away.

  Ken ran alongside his car, collecting papers from the front seat. He managed to pull out the last of them before his MG, suspended from the tow rig, disappeared down the busy street.

  Great. Just great.

  Ken tucked the papers under his arm and walked toward his office. He’d been dreading this day for months, but at least now he wouldn’t have to play hide-and-seek with the repo guys. That took almost as much energy as riding MARTA, the local mass transit system. MARTA was fine, but Atlanta was a hard city to negotiate without a car.

  Ken broke into a sweat as he neared his office building, which was located behind one of the city’s more popular comedy clubs. The two-story structure was built in the late sixties, during a brief period in which adventurous “space age” architecture was the rage. The tide of fashion, however, was not kind to the L-shaped building; the pseudo-modernistic exterior stairways, rounded edges, and baby-blue molding contributed to a look more suited to Tomorrowland than to a place of business. Oval-shaped stairs led up to walkways overlooking the parking lot, and a thin layer of grime tainted the once-white building. Its only drawing card was the low rent.

  Ken jerked open the building’s glass door, climbed the stairs, and hurried toward the second-floor receptionist. What was her name again? He couldn’t remember. Receptionists came and went so often. She was an attractive woman, about twenty-five, whose mouth was pulled into a perpetual smirk. She sat behind her desk, slightly swiveling her chair back and forth.

  “Any messages?” he asked her.

  “Yeah.” She handed him a pink sheet torn from her pad. “Liz Benton from Packard Hills Mall called. She wants the results from your exams.”

  He nodded.

  The receptionist sipped her diet Coke. “Did you catch a crook?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? People pay you for maybe?”

 
“Not often enough.”

  She smirked. “The old man was looking for you.”

  The old man. Downey. The building manager was after the past couple of months’ rent. So far Ken had been able to dodge him, leaving messages when he knew the old man would be out.

  He shrugged, but the receptionist was still smirking. He smirked back and walked to his office.

  —

  Ken wanted to call the bank and find out how much it would take to get his car back, but first he had some unfinished business to tend to. He had administered five tests the day before. At sixty dollars a pop, they earned him grocery money, but he wouldn’t get a dime until a report was sent to the mall management office.

  Chicken feed compared to the money he could make from Myth Daniels and Burton Sabini. With that kind of cash, he could get his car back. And get caught up with his bills. And make sure Bobby was taken care of.

  Don’t think about it, he told himself. It wasn’t an option.

  His large electric typewriter hummed uncertainly as he flipped the power switch. He had bought it secondhand when a local high school switched over to computers for its typing classes. In fact, a metal plate still affixed to the typewriter read COBB COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT, accompanied by a lengthy serial number.

  He reached for the graphs from the previous day’s sessions. Of the five, he was immediately certain that three were innocent. They were pleasant, relaxed, and their readings were strong and stable. The other two were a different story. The readings were all over the place. They were clearly nervous, but that was only natural considering they were wired to a strange-looking machine and accused of a crime.

  It was time to earn his pay.

  Ken looked for baseline patterns on the questions he knew they were truthful about. Their names, places of employment, and dates of birth didn’t leave a lot of room for fibbing.

  The pattern for each of the interviewees was different. One answered each question only after inhaling. The other always exhaled first. One experienced a small rise in blood pressure before answering each question. The other’s was relatively stable.

  Both perspired throughout the exams, but so did the people he had already decided were innocent. Better juice up the A/C next time, Ken thought.

  One of the men showed a spike in pulse rate each time one of the crucial questions was asked. He also stopped breathing for a moment after answering those same questions.

  The other man’s graph showed some erratic readings, but they were consistently erratic across both the control questions and the critical questions. Ken didn’t believe he was lying.

  Ken picked up the phone and dialed the mall manager. She answered it herself.

  “Liz Benton.”

  “Ms. Benton, this is Ken Parker. I’m from Polygraph Associates. I did the exams on your employees yesterday.”

  “I expected to hear from you sooner.”

  “I’m sorry. I needed extra time to analyze the charts. In my opinion, Carlos Valez is the untruthful one.”

  There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone.

  “Ms. Benton?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she finally replied. “I’ve had my doubts about him. Thank you, Mr. Parker. Send a report and your invoice to my assistant, and she’ll see that your payment is taken care of.”

  —

  Half an hour later, Ken was almost finished with Liz Benton’s written report, when he was startled by the sound of a dull pounding on his office door. It didn’t sound like a knock exactly, but…

  There it was again.

  He went to the door and opened it.

  Flash! An intense burst of light.

  Standing there was Downey, the building manager, and he had just taken a picture with his Polaroid camera. The photo wasn’t meant to be of Ken, but of an eviction notice pounded into the door.

  Ken ripped the notice off. “Come on, Downey. Didn’t you get my messages?”

  The old man separated the photo from the chemical paper backing and fanned it in the air. “I got your messages, but I didn’t get your rent. You got thirty days, kid.”

  “Thirty days?”

  “You’d be out of here tomorrow if I had my way. But that’s the law. Thirty days.”

  “I’ll get paid up. I will. I have some big accounts coming up.”

  But the old man wasn’t listening. He turned and stepped down the hallway, still flapping that picture.

  Ken stepped back into his office and slammed the door. Shit. What a day.

  First his car, now his office. What did this mean? Was it a sign that he should take up Myth and Sabini on their offer?

  Get real, he told himself. It wasn’t a sign of anything except that he had screwed up his life.

  He often tried to pinpoint where it had all gone wrong. When he left for Alaska? Possibly. But there were other guys out there laying pipe, and they probably hadn’t made such a mess of things.

  No, he decided. He couldn’t blame it on that. He just didn’t have the stomach to do his job the way it should be done. Myth was right. Polygraph firms stayed in business by delivering results, right or wrong.

  Whenever he was unable to clearly identify a deceptive employee, the client often thanked him for his honesty but never hired him again. Successful examiners gave hard-and-fast answers, whether the readings supported them or not.

  He couldn’t play that game.

  He picked up the phone and dialed quickly. The call was answered on the first ring.

  “Margot Aronson.”

  Margot worked at a chemical lab, where she was developing an industrial petroleum cleanser. Her voice reflected what Ken called “the suit mood,” a businesslike demeanor she effected whenever she was at work or even just talked about it.

  “Hi, Margot, it’s me.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Who said anything’s wrong?”

  “You did. It’s in your voice.”

  He grimaced at the battery-acid taste in his mouth. He couldn’t believe he was doing this.

  “I’m in trouble, Margot.”

  “What is it?”

  He sighed. “The bank repossessed my car, I’m about to lose my office, I have a small business loan that I’m four months behind on…and I don’t even know how I’m going to pay next month’s rent on my apartment.”

  She sounded startled. “I had no idea.”

  “I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want anybody to know. I’m not exactly proud of it.”

  “I knew you weren’t in the greatest financial shape, but—”

  “The polygraph biz has been slow, and this stuff with Bobby has been pulling me under. He’s getting worse. I’m funneling him all the money I can spare, and I guess some money I couldn’t spare. I’ve been giving my creditors earnest money, but it’s not enough anymore.”

  “Oh, Ken…” Her voice smacked of pity. He didn’t want that. He wished he didn’t want anything from her.

  “Margot, I need to borrow some money. I’ll pay it back right away, maybe in a couple of weeks. I hate to ask you, but I don’t have any other choice.”

  She said nothing for a long while. Damn. He knew the call was a mistake.

  “Ken, I can’t.”

  “Okay,” he quickly replied, trying to euthanize the conversation.

  But she insisted on explaining. “We’re just staying above water ourselves. We’re up to our asses in debt. Between the house, the cars, student loans, there’s not a lot left.”

  “I understand.”

  “Bill spends more than he should. He works so hard. He deserves to be rewarded, but he just gets carried away. I keep telling him I’m happy with what we have, but it’s never enough for him.”

  It wasn’t the answer Ken expected, but in a strange way it relieved him. He didn’t want her money.

  “I can give you fifty dollars walking-around cash,” she offered. “If you want to swing by, there’s an ATM downstairs.”

  “No, it’s okay.”
<
br />   “Really, let me just—”

  “No,” he said firmly. “Come on, do you think I would’ve called if I had known your situation? Forget it.”

  “I’m sorry, Ken.”

  “Don’t be. I’ll talk to you later.”

  —

  “Good morning, Ms. Daniels.”

  Myth did not have to turn to know Derek Rogers was greeting her. Rogers, one of the city’s more talented district attorneys, always went out of his way to catch her attention. He was a lean, forceful type who had quite a reputation as a ladies’ man. Myth, who had been dealing with his ilk since her teen years, knew the best way to keep Rogers off balance was to treat him with utter indifference. He was her opponent in the upcoming Burton Sabini embezzling trial.

  “Good morning, Rogers.” She didn’t break stride as she paced through the municipal courthouse corridor.

  He quickly joined her. “Slow down, will you?”

  “Can’t. Sorry. Some of us work for a living.”

  “Have you thought about my offer?”

  “Which offer is that? The one where I walk on your back barefoot, or the one in which we go nude four-wheeling in the North Georgia mountains?”

  “You remember!”

  “Unfortunately I do. But I suppose you’re talking about the stipulated polygraph test.”

  “Unfortunately I was.”

  “I’ve taken it under advisement.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning, I’m thinking about it. The mere fact you offered a stip test proves what a flimsy case you have.”

  “Think what you want. But I need an answer within two weeks.”

  “You’ll have it.”

  “Later, counselor.” Rogers disappeared into a hearing room.

  Myth continued down the hallway. She hoped to have an answer for Rogers a lot sooner than two weeks. Although she had made her name on high-profile cases, she would be happy to see this one go away quietly. Rogers, however, was making as much noise as he could, a tactic that could backfire if his case folded in on itself.

  Rogers was ambitious. Cocky. Glib. Like so many men she knew. Like Tim.

  Stop it, she told herself. Tim didn’t matter anymore.

  She caught sight of a padded envelope protruding from her briefcase. She had almost forgotten. It had been given to her on her way inside the courthouse.