Stranger in the Room

by Amanda Kyle Williams

  We left the office together, and I snaked through downtown in Neil’s Smart Car. Sunlight streaming between skyscrapers dappled the streets. It was almost five, and the traffic was getting worse. Neil’s little blue bump was like melting in a butter dish at stoplights. I passed Underground Atlanta and saw Rauser peel off a few cars back, heading to City Hall East. He had stayed long enough to be sure I wasn’t being tailed. We were both keenly aware that blocking his path to Miki, that my story, my life, had all the elements to trigger Richards’s rage. My name was in the news again. This time in a favorable way because of the crematory scandal. And he had proved he was perfectly willing to train his sights on me if he couldn’t get to my cousin.

  I rang my parents and told them about Miki’s broken leg and that Miki was going to stay at Rauser’s. Mother immediately declared she would prepare meals for Rauser’s refrigerator that we’d be able to heat for Miki. She surprised me by saying she’d actually enjoyed having cops hang around her house. She liked the company. My dad wasn’t a big talker. And she was using the detail assigned to keep them safe as guinea pigs for new recipes.

  I turned onto Mitchell Street a block from Tyrone’s office. I had to take the time to make up with Tyrone. I didn’t want the gap to widen. His business was an important part of my monthly income. And I liked the guy. That wasn’t true for a few others I’d met in his line of work. I’d regretted the tone of our last conversation. I wanted to set it straight. It was one stressor I did not need tugging at me. And one I could actually make go away.

  No thugs were waiting for me this time. They had taken Tyrone’s warning seriously and cleared out. I smiled. A big Glock didn’t hurt either. I finally found an empty meter and walked half a block to Tyrone’s dingy yellow stucco building. Color was chipping off the building so the tips of the stucco peaks were white. The glass doors looked too new for the rest of the place. A hallway with closed doors and dirty carpet went off to the right, a staircase to the left, elevator dead center. I don’t use the elevator in this building. It shudders and bumps, and I don’t like touching the filthy buttons. But the staircase reeks. By level three I’d actually adjusted to the smell of urine. My thighs had started to burn, though, another reminder to get back to running. And to pick up those free weights collecting dust on my living-room floor. I’m told it makes an amazing difference in your level of fitness if you actually lift them off the ground and move them up and down a few times a week. Go figure. I stopped at the top landing and caught my breath. I couldn’t walk into Tyrone’s office red-faced and panting.

  “May I help you?” The reception desk actually had a receptionist today. She was young. Very. And pretty. Very. The faces changed frequently at Tyrone’s office. A buddy of his operated a temp agency, and since Tyrone had only enough clerical work to keep someone busy for a couple of days a week, this worked out well for them both. Plus, Tyrone could be a little bit of a rascal. I didn’t think he’d learned the lesson yet about office romances. Twice last year I’d walked in and found someone crying at the desk.

  I could see Tyrone in his office with his feet propped up, ankles crossed, leaning back, the phone to his ear. He hadn’t seen me yet.

  “I was hoping to pop in on Tyrone for a couple of minutes,” I told the receptionist. “I’m Keye Street. I’m—”

  “I know you,” she interrupted, and stabbed a long turquoise nail at me. “You’re that Booger Bandit lady! We’ve watched that about a hundred times. The part where his finger goes in his nose, that’s some classic shit right there.”

  “Yeah. Classic. You mind letting Tyrone know I’m here?” He had spun around in his desk chair, still on the phone, gazing out over his Mitchell Street kingdom.

  “Personally, I think you should have capped his nasty ass.” She reached over to shake my hand, carefully, like her nails were wet. They were weirdly long, kind of curvy on the ends. “I’m Latisha.”

  “Nice to meet you, Latisha. Is Tyrone being a good boy?”

  “He’s being as good as he is capable of being.”

  “You’re here all week?”

  “Oh, I’m not one of those temp hos. I’m permanent.”

  Oh boy.

  She got up and went to Tyrone’s office. Her skirt was turquoise to match her nails and barely covered a high JLo butt and muscular thighs. Total brick-house body. She had on white sneakers and short, fuzzy girl-jock socks that matched her skirt and her nails. Tyrone waved from his office and held up a finger, the one that meant give me a minute.

  Latisha came back to her desk. “Would you like to sit down? You look flushed. How about some water?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Did you come up the stairs? That’s what I do. You won’t see me stepping in that nasty-ass elevator.”

  “No kidding,” I agreed. “Wonder why he stays in this building. It’s disgusting.”

  “ ’Cause he cheap,” Latisha said.

  “Maybe he likes the pee smell,” I whispered, and we shared a giggle.

  Tyrone emerged from his office in white linen, immaculate. Chocolate shirt, open collar, no tie. I was betting he’d had his nails done this week too. He smiled, and LL Cool J–style dimples cut craters in his perfectly smooth brown cheeks. Slurp. My knees always get a little wobbly around Tyrone. I forgot why I’d been mad at him.

  “You meet my girl, Keye?” He came up behind Latisha’s chair and massaged her shoulders, then bent and kissed her cheek. Latisha could not have been more than eighteen, if that, too young to handle the power imbalance that comes with a boss hitting on you. I folded my arms over my chest and gave Tyrone all the silent disapproval I could convey. “Come on now, Keye!” Tyrone laughed. “Don’t do me like that. This here is my oldest daughter.”

  Latisha smiled up at him. Dimples broke out everywhere. Yup, she was definitely Tyrone’s kid. “There’s three of us, in case he forgot to mention his children. And three baby mamas. Our daddy is a man ho.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” I told her. “My biological father was a drug addict.”

  “Your mama too?” Latisha wanted to know.

  “Stripper,” I said. “Then some white people adopted me.”

  “Oh, now see, I’d rather have to drive all over town to see my brothers and sisters than live with that. White people do not know how to have fun.”

  “Yeah. We played a lot of Monopoly,” I said.

  “See what I mean?” Latisha asked.

  “Tyrone, I owe you an apology. I was hard on you on the phone. I’m sorry. I know you acted out of concern when you spoke to Rauser.”

  “No problem, Keye. We’re friends, right? I wasn’t worried about it.” Tyrone smiled.

  “Okay, good. Well, I need to run. Latisha, it was nice to meet you.”

  “Hey, wait,” Tyrone said, as I reached the door. “How ’bout some work? I got an absconder who needs some encouragement. Little nerdy guy. Fast.”

  “What do you mean by fast?” I asked.

  “He’s a runner. Takes off.”

  “I’m snowed under,” I said.

  “I need him checked in by close of business Friday after next. So you got over a week. Latisha, get the Banerjee file and assign it to Keye.”

  Latisha pushed away from her desk and shot her dad a look. “A please and thank-you might be nice.” We watched her go to the file cabinet.

  “Lord help me,” Tyrone whispered. “I thought giving that girl a summer job would calm her down a little. Her mother has just let her run wild.”

  “Growing up too fast, huh?” I said, as if I had a clue. I knew nothing about children. Especially teenagers. I thought about Jimmy and Paul, starting a family. I had a feeling we were all going to get a crash course in children.

  Tyrone sighed. “It’s my fault. I was only eighteen when she was born, and no kinda father. She needs a role model, Keye. A woman, I mean.”

  “So maybe you should settle down.”

  “I was talking about you.”

  “Oh no. I’m not the
maternal type. And I’m not exactly a role model.”

  “Neil said you were going to hire somebody for your office. Latisha’s real smart. But she’s driving me crazy.”

  “I can hear y’all,” Latisha called. “This ain’t no movie where you can’t hear somebody in the same room.” She pushed the top drawer of a black metal file cabinet closed with her palms, careful of her painted nails. “My daddy want me out because he can’t be a man ho with his children in the office.”

  “I just thought you’d like a little freedom too,” Tyrone told her. “Be good experience for your résumé.”

  “Some people should not be stuck in an office together all day,” Latisha said, and handed me the Banerjee file.

  I glanced at it. The man had been charged with identity theft. His bail bond had been posted at fifteen thousand dollars. I don’t do a lot of quibbling when I’m offered work. I’m mortgaged up to my eyeballs. Generally I take what I can get. If I’ve learned anything these last four years trying to build a new business, it’s that work leads to more work. Word of mouth is huge.

  “I could report for duty on Monday morning,” Latisha told me. “Would we be going out on jobs together? Do I get a big-ass gun too?”

  “No,” I said. “I need clerical help. And someone to take messages. No gun.”

  “So I got the job?”

  “Let me think about it, okay?”

  “You’re blowing me off,” Latisha said. “I know when somebody blowing me off. I’m a high school graduate.”

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  “I’d rather you just say no than try to blow me off.”

  “Okay. No.”

  Tyrone went into his office and came out with a Taser gun. He handed it to me. “Fifty thousand volts and it shoots fifteen feet.” It looked a lot like my Glock, except that it had bright yellow detailing and half the weight. “Nerdy guy takes off, let him have it right between the shoulder blades. Look, it came with a service holster.” He held out a cheap piece of imitation leather.

  Leaving Tyrone’s with a job I didn’t have time for, a job applicant I was nervous about, and a Taser gun wasn’t exactly how I’d planned it. But almost nothing was lately.

  I parked in the attended lot across the street from the hospital and headed up to Neil’s room. I had an hour before I needed to leave for the airport to pick up Miki. I thought about that and sighed. I was dreading it.

  “Well, look at you,” I said when I walked into Neil’s room and found him sitting up with his computer on his lap. “You’re so alert. How’s the leg feeling?”

  “Way better. They release me tomorrow. They’ve already slacked off on the rocking pain medication.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and smiled. “I know how you hate being present.”

  “I know, right? Hey, thanks for bringing my stuff over this morning. I barely remember you being here.”

  “I’m driving your car. Is that okay?”

  “Sure. But you get it shot up, you’re paying for it.”

  “Ah, now, that’s the generous spirit I know and love. You need me to pick you up tomorrow? Or are Cindy and Peggy competing for the honor?”

  “Cathy and Tammy.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “The blondes.”

  “They’re making me nuts, Keye. I had a shrimp alfredo for lunch. And look at that.” He pointed to the windowsill, which was stacked up with cookies and brownies. “A person can only eat so many damn cookies. I have to make a decision. I can’t handle both of them anymore.”

  “Poor baby.” I walked over and picked up a brownie, sniffed it. “There’s nothing in these, right?”

  Neil waved a hand. “They’re clean.”

  I took a bite of brownie. “Whoever’s doing the baking, my vote’s on her.” I pressed some brownie into my front teeth and smiled at Neil. This always guaranteed me a laugh. I handed him a brownie, and he blacked out his front teeth too. We’d had whole conversations like this at the office when we should have been working. I swallowed the brownie and swished some water from a paper cup. “Hey, I just picked up a job from Tyrone. It’s not a big rush, but if you’re bored, you can do the trace for me.”

  “Heck yeah.”

  I handed him the file, which now had a chocolate smudge on the folder. “By the way, Tyrone has a daughter who needs a job. She’s working at his office right now, but they’re driving one another a little crazy.”

  “Have you met her? You like her?”

  “Well, she’s outspoken, I’ll give her that. I’d want you to talk to her too. How do you feel about coming back to the office?”

  “Great. As soon as this weirdo Miki stalker is off the streets.”

  “Hey, at least he’s a crappy shot,” I pointed out, and Neil chuckled. “I’ll check in on you later.”

  A female voice called my name when I walked past the nurses’ station. “You’re Keye Street, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I saw you yesterday in Mr. Donovan’s room. He told me you were business partners.” I waited to see where this was going. “Someone dropped this off for you during the first shift.” She handed me a card addressed Keye Street–visitor to Neil Donovan, Room 3301 in small, tight cursive. It was a slightly oversized white envelope of the greeting-card variety. No weight. And oddly flimsy, like there was no card inside.

  I tore the envelope down the side, careful not to disturb the glue strip—old training kicking in. I tapped it. A handwritten note tumbled out onto the tiled floor. I borrowed a piece of tape from the nurse and touched the corner to pick it up.

  See what you did to your friend? See the pain you caused? That bullet was meant for you. I will find her. I always find her. And then I will come for you.

  I looked left, then right down the corridor. A nurse in quiet shoes turned into a patient room. The elevator doors opened and a volunteer in pink scrubs and a hairnet pushed a dinner cart stacked with meals under thick plastic domes.

  “Is everything okay?” the nurse called.

  My heart was hammering. I glanced at her name tag. “Mary, you have a plastic bag back there I could borrow?”

  She handed me a bag about half the size of a newspaper sleeve. I slipped the note back into the envelope and dropped it inside, twisted a knot in the end. I looked up for security cameras and found them. One pointed at the nurses’ station. Another was positioned in the corner near the elevators to take in the long passageway lined with patient rooms. Those tapes might tell us what Jesse Owen Richards looked like.

  “Mary, do you know who took this note?” I asked the nurse.

  “It was left here, I was told,” she answered. My tone made her frown, puzzled, no doubt, by the urgency in it.

  I started down the corridor, glancing at each door as I passed, seeing only vague shadows through small glass windows. A few doors were open—patients in their beds, visiting relatives or friends, flickering televisions. A gurney with a wheel that thumped on each rotation caused me to spin around. An attendant in blue scrubs gave me a nod, then pushed through a set of swinging double-doors marked For Hospital Staff Only. My fingers brushed the Glock that was concealed under my jacket. Security. For what it was worth.

  I walked quickly back up the hall toward the nurses’ station, checked the waiting area, glancing at faces, at shoes. I went to the windows and looked out onto the parking lot, a pedestrian bridge over the street. I pressed in Tyrone’s number.

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” I told him when he answered. “I’ll consider Latisha helping out at the office, but I need a favor. And I need it right away.”

  Then I called Rauser. I told him I was staying at the hospital with Neil and that I’d arranged for Tyrone to pick Miki up at the airport. I asked him to get ahold of the surveillance tapes.

  I pushed open Neil’s door and found him snoozing with his computer open on his lap and the file I’d given him scattered on the floor beside his bed. I picked it up, found a folded blanket in the tiny closet, sat
down in the chair with my Glock, covered myself up, and clicked on the television. I didn’t want to leave him alone. And it sure wasn’t the first night I’d spent in a hospital with my gun in my lap.

  35

  When the door opened and light from the hallway streamed into the room, my hand tightened instantly around the Glock. Neil didn’t budge. Rauser stepped into the room. He had two coffee cups and a folded newspaper. “Fivebucks coffee,” he whispered, and grinned. Rauser was always snarky about Starbucks, but he always bought it anyway. Just like he made fun of Whole Foods, called it Whole Paycheck, and shopped there all the time.

  It was four in the morning and pitch black outside. I could hear Neil breathing smoothly. Rauser and I walked out into the corridor, then sat down in an empty waiting area.

  “Got the surveillance video. Several shots of him coming in the main entrance, walking through the lobby, and several angles on this floor,” Rauser told me. “He wore a hoodie and kept his head down. He knew where the cameras were. So we don’t have anything with a clear shot of his face. But we know one thing for sure. He’s not a fat boy anymore. We’re going to release the video to the news channels this morning at seven.”

  I took a sip of coffee and rolled my neck. I felt like I’d slept in a chair. “How about Miki?”

  “Sleeping by the time I came in. I woke her up and showed her a picture of Richards. She remembered him as Owen, which is why she didn’t recognize the name Jesse Richards when you asked her. She was completely floored. She thought he was a nice guy.”

  “Something happened,” I said. “He took offense at something. Something triggered his rage. That’s how it goes with borderline personalities. He might have been completely in love until she said or did something he perceived as demeaning or dismissive. Then, all that emotion turns to fury. It can turn on a dime.”