The Ice House

by Laura Lee Smith

  “Are you all right?”

  “Johnny, are you all right? I haven’t heard from you.”

  “Yes, I know. Lost my phone, big long story.”

  “But are you okay?” She didn’t like the timbre of his voice. He still didn’t sound like himself.

  “I think so,” he said.

  “You think so?”

  Roy walked into the kitchen.

  “And how did it go with Corran? And the baby? I’ve been on pins and needles over here.”

  “Good. Okay. I don’t know. Listen, Pauline, let me tell you some stuff pretty quick here. I’m on the hotel phone, but I’ve got to get going to catch the flight. I found out something really important about the accident.”

  “Hang on,” she said. “There’s coffee made,” she said to Roy. “And cups in the cabinet there.” God, her ankle was throbbing. She looked at it. A purplish swelling had begun to emerge.

  “Who’s there?” Johnny said.

  “Roy.”

  “Roy’s there? It’s seven-thirty in the morning.”

  “Sugar in the canister there,” she said to Roy. “Now what?” she said to Johnny. “The accident? How can you be finding out anything about that all the way from Charlotte?”

  “Listen! I need to get this out quick, and it’s important, okay? Put me on speaker, as long as Roy’s there.”

  “But how is your head? Are you feeling okay?”

  “Pauline, please! I’m in a mad rush.”

  She put him on speakerphone. “All right, here we are,” she said.

  “Hiya, Johnny,” Roy said. He leaned against the counter and stirred his coffee, looking a bit sheepish. “I’m getting my house tented. And I needed a place to—”

  “Listen, now, both of you,” Johnny said. “Here’s the deal. I accessed the security films online and looked at some areas we’d never examined before. Owen Vickers has been entering the factory after hours.” Pauline looked at Roy. His eyes widened.

  “Vickers?” he said.

  “Yes,” Johnny said. “And it gets worse.” He told them, then, about his discoveries: Rosa letting Vickers into the plant, the shutdown of the electricity to throw off the surveillance system. “All the shorts we’ve been having? The fucked-up electric? The beer caps on the ops floor? Now we know.”

  “The sunglasses in my office,” Roy said. He’d gone a bit pale.

  “He’s been providing access to someone—and I’m betting it’s Leonard—to tap the ammonia. Quite a nifty scheme,” Johnny said bitterly. “And Rosa gave him the opportunity. She’s right there on the films, letting him in.”

  Rosa? Pauline was staggered. Rosa? How could she?

  “She’s being used, Pauline,” Johnny said, as if reading her mind. “Vickers is behind the whole thing, I know it. Rosa’s too naïve to know what the hell she’s doing. She barely knows how to tie her shoelaces, for God’s sake.”

  There was a moment’s silence in the kitchen. Pauline stared at Roy, knowing he was doing the same thing she was—trying to make sense of it all.

  “Are you there?” Johnny said.

  “We’re screwed,” Pauline said, finally. It had taken only a moment to whittle the implications of Johnny’s revelation down to the obvious terminus, which was that Bold City Ice was stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. If they gave the surveillance films to the lawyers to bolster the argument that the tank had been tampered with before the accident, they were exposing Rosa to certain prosecution. On the other hand, if they didn’t hand over the films as evidence, they were leaving Knowles & Frusciante with zero evidence of outside tampering and, therefore, little choice other than to bail on the appeal and accept the OSHA fines. Path of failure, after all.

  “Screwed we are,” Roy said. He’d come to the same conclusions, Pauline could tell. He looked like he might be sick.

  “Lord, I need ice,” she said.

  “I’m trying to get back, Pauline.” Johnny sounded impatient.

  “No. I mean I need ice for my ankle. It’s all swelling up and looks horrible. Roy, can you get me some ice? There’s plastic bags in that drawer there.” Roy walked over to the freezer.

  “All right, I gotta go,” Johnny said. “We’re getting a shuttle to the airport. Chemal’s waiting for me. I’ll be home quick as I can, aye? And meantime, maybe you two can figure out what the hell we should do.”

  “But what about Corran?” Pauline said.

  “I gotta go.”

  “What about your cyst?”

  “Back by noon, Pauline.” Johnny hung up.

  “Oh, for the love of Moses!” Pauline said. Roy brought her a bag of ice and she held it against her swelling ankle. “He makes me crazy, Roy!”

  Roy slumped in the chair opposite her.

  “This is bad, Pauline,” he said. “Really bad.”

  “What should we do?” Pauline said. Roy shook his head.

  “Should we call the police?” she said.

  Roy now looked at her as if she was crazy. “The police? Are you kidding? We’re talking about Rosa here. Claire’s firstborn. We can’t call the police. And anyway, what would we tell them? Two ice plant employees came into the factory after hours? I’m not sure there’s anything illegal about that.”

  “Well, then, I guess we just tell the lawyers? Maybe we can cut a deal of some sort, get them to go easy on Rosa?”

  Roy was getting agitated. He stood up and paced the kitchen, then sat down again.

  “No,” he said. “Nope.”

  “Roy,” she said quietly. “If we don’t present new evidence, we’re looking at three-quarters of a million dollars in fines. The factory will shut down. We’ll all lose our jobs.”

  “We can’t implicate Rosa, Pauline. We can’t.”

  “What would you do, Roy? I mean, for work? You’ve been with us for so long. Where would you go? You need your job! What about Ally?”

  Roy took off his glasses and laid them on the table. His eyes looked smaller now, and frightened. Pauline didn’t like it. His jaw was clenched.

  “This might be our only way out, Roy,” she said.

  Roy put his glasses back on and looked at her intently. “We gotta find another way, Pauline,” he said. “We can’t do this to Claire. If she thought Rosa had anything to do with the accident …” His voice trailed off.

  Pauline felt herself panicking. What did he think she was, heartless? She didn’t want to implicate Rosa either. But what else were they going to do? “Roy, everything’s at stake here!” she said. She threw her hands up in emphasis, and the shift in her body made the ice pack slide off her ankle and onto the floor.

  “Yes, it is!” he said. “Including Claire’s heart.” His face was flushed. He put his coffee cup down on the counter, and Pauline could see that his hand was shaking. And then she understood: To Roy, Claire’s heart was the most important thing of all.

  “I gotta go make ice,” he muttered. “Thanks for letting me stay.” He walked out of the kitchen, but returned a moment later. He approached Pauline and picked up the ice pack from under her chair. He laid it on her swollen ankle.

  “You can drive all right?” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. She waved her hand at him. “I’m fine. Go. I’ll be in shortly.” She heard the front door open and close. She heard Roy’s truck start up and then listened to the whine of its engine as it moved down Beacon Street and out toward the Watchers Island bridge. She repositioned the ice pack and sat in the kitchen a little longer, watching the General. He was asleep on a dog bed near the laundry room. He must have been having a bad dream; he was twitching and moaning, his fat little legs pumping like he was running. Pauline banged her hand on the table to wake him up and he jolted up and stared at her, disoriented and vacant. She watched him focus on her, catalogue the situation, and lay his head back down. Within a minute, he was asleep again.

  Let’s make a deal! Pauline thought.

  Behind curtain number one? A perfectly thriving ice trade, and your best
friend’s daughter in jail!

  And behind curtain number two? Off to the poorhouse with the lot of us, but at least our hearts are intact! Wheeee!

  Then another thought occurred to her. She was the CEO of the Bold City Ice Plant. Which meant that it didn’t matter what Roy thought they should do. In fact, if it came right down to it, it didn’t even matter what Johnny thought they should do. Johnny? Johnny who? Oh, the Johnny who flew off to Scotland and left her here alone to deal with this mess? The COO? That Johnny? You’re on deck, Pauline, she told herself. You da boss, baby. You call da shots.

  So call ‘em.

  She tossed the melting ice pack into the kitchen sink and limped up the stairs to take a shower.

  When she reached the factory, she went straight to the ice floor. The machines were in full swing, production was hopping, and the noise was nearly deafening. Even Dumbo seemed to be cooperating. Roy was fastening a padlock on the storage room door.

  “What’s that about?” she said.

  “I got something in there I don’t want the crew messing with,” he said. His eyebrows were knitted; his jaw was still set as it had been earlier this morning after they’d talked to Johnny. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Your ankle okay?”

  “No,” she said. “But I wrapped it. I’m just going to ignore it. Mind over matter. Now listen—the lawyers are coming shortly, to discuss the appeal. I think you should be in on that meeting.”

  “Did you call the meeting?”

  She shook her head. “They did. It was set up yesterday. I think they’re going to tell us they’re giving up on the appeal, to be honest.”

  He gave her a hard look. “Are you going to tell them about the films?” he said.

  She pretended he hadn’t asked the question. “I want Claire at the meeting too,” she said. “We need to all be on the same page here.”

  “Are you going to tell them?” he said again.

  “Roy,” she said. “You’re asking me to let the business be ruined.”

  “I’m not asking you anything of the sort,” he said. “I’m asking you if you’re going to tell them about the films.”

  She turned away, exasperated. She started walking back to the admin wing. God, her ankle was throbbing.

  “Pauline!” he shouted.

  She turned around.

  “I don’t know, Roy!” she shouted back. “I don’t fucking know!” Four guys on the conveyor line stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at her. “What?” she said to them. “Your virgin ears?” They returned to their work.

  She turned to look back at Roy, but he had already started walking away.

  Thirty minutes later Pauline was seated at the head of the table in the Bold City Ice conference room. There’d been no word from Johnny yet, though she consoled herself with the thought that he’d probably be calling her from the house on Watchers Island before long. He said he’d be home by noon. She glanced at her watch. It was only eleven-thirty. Roy and Claire were seated to her right. Sam Tulley and—in a rare cameo—Thomas Knowles, Esquire, were seated to her left.

  Pauline was wishing she could park her beleaguered ankle on the chair next to her to elevate it, but said chair was occupied by Sam Tulley, and she had no desire to demonstrate to him that she’d been injured. And, no, not while running a marathon, she’d have to tell him; on the kitchen step, as a matter of fact. He’d probably offer to go buy her a walker, maybe the type outfitted with tennis ball glides on the back legs. God! All right, focus. Important meeting here, Pauline. Pay attention.

  The topic, as she’d expected, was abandoning the OSHA appeal, given the fact that they’d developed zero effective tactics that would change the ruling or diminish the fines. “Damage control, at this point,” Knowles was saying. “I guess what I’m saying is exit strategy, you understand? Liquidating equipment. Eliminating staff. I suppose the goal now is to plan a way to shut down the business with the least possible stressors.”

  Least possible stressors? Pauline wanted to laugh. Oh, too late for that, Mr. Knowles! Give me a break. You’re telling me to jump out of a burning building, but don’t be stressed about it! No big deal! We’re here for you. She looked around the table. Sam Tulley wouldn’t meet her eye. Claire and Roy both looked like they were at a funeral. Which, of course, they were.

  Exit strategy. Pauline tried to think about what such a process would even look like. Firing the staff would probably come first. But no—wait—they’d have to retain at least enough of the crew to help dismantle the equipment and power down the ops processes. And then what? Sell stuff, that’s what. The fleet vehicles. The conveyors. The entire cooling system in the storage room. An auction? Yes, maybe an auction. That’s how these things were done, wasn’t it? Open the doors, let ‘em in. Bidders and buyers and the busybodies who’d be posing as buyers, all come to gawk and judge, to pore over and pick through what was left of the entire history of the working life Pauline and Johnny had shared for all these years. Wouldn’t the opinion editors at the Times-Union love it!

  But let’s not get too excited about the prospect of said auction bringing in any liquid cash, Pauline told herself. If the OSHA people were so expert at levying fines, they were no doubt equally talented in orchestrating liens and forfeitures. Pauline could picture it now: the old ice plant yawning cavernous and silent, empty as a bucket, staff gone, lights dim, doors thrown open wide, and the creeping hot humidity of Little Silver making its way in to melt any stubborn remnants of ice that might still be clinging to the innards of Dumbo. Because Dumbo would still be there, of course. Nobody would want to buy an old shitter like Dumbo.

  “I don’t think I’m ready to completely throw in the towel,” Pauline said to Knowles. “We have two weeks. I feel that we should still be working toward an appeal, not planning a shutdown.”

  Knowles leaned forward and spread his paws out on the conference table. “Mrs. MacKinnon,” he said. “Part of my job is to share with you my vast experience in working with the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration. I’d be remiss if I didn’t counsel you to act in preparation for the inevitable. We’ve had our staff working on the discovery phase for a significant time”—Knowles made a sweeping gesture toward Sam Tulley, who smiled wanly but did not look up—”and we have not unearthed any additional evidence to bolster an appeal. If anything, we’ve found even more gaps in your maintenance logs, which certainly does not work in your favor. Our firm’s role has to evolve at this point, Mrs. MacKinnon. You need to think of us now as not so much fighting to save the business as helping you shut it down in the most painless way possible.”

  He sat back in his chair. “No compelling evidence of tank tampering, do you see?” he said. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. MacKinnon. We’ve got nothing.”

  We’ve got something! a voice inside her head was screaming, but Pauline didn’t know whether to listen to it or not. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t think! Roy was staring darkly at the table. Claire was looking at her, questioning. Claire! My sweet friend, Pauline thought. My sweet, bitchy Claire. Pauline looked away. I’m sorry, Claire. Because here it was: It would be ludicrous to intentionally let the appeal crumble just to spare Claire’s daughter the consequences of her mistake. Rosa did something stupid, and it was something wrong, and it led to catastrophe. And if Pauline didn’t speak up now, the entire staff would soon be unemployed. Failure is not an option.

  Oh, shut it, Rohan Bergonia! She was suddenly filled with loathing for that smarmy podcaster. What did he know, anyway, about failure? It is an option, you idiot. Case in point: She could choose to fail at business, or she could choose to fail at friendship. See? Failure is always an option. Roy raised his eyes from the table and looked at her, and the sorrow on his wide, furry face nearly broke her heart. Say it, she told herself. We have new evidence. You have to say it, Pauline.

  There were footsteps outside the door. Ed from Sales stuck his head into the conference room. “I think y’all bette
r come outside,” he said. “You’re going to want to see this.”

  “This isn’t a good time, Ed,” Pauline said.

  “No, seriously, Pauline,” Ed said. “This is big.”

  Everyone in the room was silent.

  “People? Hello?” Ed said. “Breaking news here, folks. They got Leonard.”

  They all turned to look at Ed.

  “Yep,” he said. “Bing, bang, bam. Dude is busted.”

  The cop was in the street sweeper.

  Pauline stood in the parking lot of the ice factory, shaking her head, trying to process the enviable brilliance behind the orchestration of the bust now taking place in Leonard’s front yard.

  The cop was in the street sweeper!

  Word was spreading fast. A tight throng of neighbors had gathered in the ice plant parking lot to watch events unfold, and from them Pauline had gotten most of the story: JSO’s narcotics division had come up with the idea of putting a surveillance officer in the sweeper several weeks ago, and said officer had been circling the neighborhood at odd intervals, watching the activity at Leonard’s house, shooting cell phone video, and compiling enough probable cause to obtain a search warrant. Then, rather than make a hasty bust, they’d been waiting for the ideal time to strike—a moment that would present evidence damning not just Leonard and his Little Silver operation, but also the large-scale drug ring that was supplying Leonard, a notorious Orlando outfit that had been the subject of a five-county investigation for years.

  This morning the police got a tip from an informer that a delivery was imminent. The street sweeper circled, waiting for the Orlando supplier to appear. A black Nissan pickup truck pulled up to Leonard’s house just a little while ago, and the supplier got out with a suitcase and disappeared into the house. That’s when the cop in the sweeper called in the cavalry, and law enforcement pounced. Bing, bang, in Ed’s words. Bam. Now the entire operation was being laid bare on a cordoned-off area in front of the house. Four police cars manned the perimeter, lights flashing. A mobile crime lab was setting up shop in the driveway. Leonard, two of his cronies, and the Orlando perp were handcuffed, sitting on the curb.