by Elaine Viets
Maybe Helen couldn’t talk about the murder here at work, but she could do some background checking. She had to sell so she could get survey duty again and look at those computer files.
“I gotta get a sale,” jittery Nick said. He had the computer next to hers. “I really want to keep this job.”
“Me, too,” Helen said.
“But you’re selling,” Nick said, biting into his fifth jelly doughnut of the day. “I saw your numbers on the board yesterday. I haven’t had a sale in two weeks. If I don’t sell anything soon, I’m gone.”
He was right, and they both knew it. Nick was a junkie trying to go straight. He’d been on the street, then moved into a halfway house. Now he was living in a rented trailer. He was touchingly proud of that. But the less he sold, the more twitchy he grew. Now Nick could hardly sit still long enough to sell anything. Helen suspected he was back on drugs.
“I’ve got to work, Nick,” she said.
Helen tried to sell all morning. But the more she pushed her potential clients, the more phones were slammed down. She was cursed, insulted and propositioned. The computers were calling Kentucky and Tennessee in areas where the gene pool needed some chlorine.
“Hi, Mr. Moser, this is Helen with Tank Titan. We make a septic-tank cleaner that is guaranteed to help reduce large chunks, odors and wet spots.”
“Wet spots?” Mr. Moser had a Gomer Pyle accent. “Wet spots are a big problem for me, honey. Got them all over my mattress. You wanna come over and—”
Helen hung up and hit REMOVE FROM LIST so no other telemarketer would be subjected to him.
No one was selling that morning. There wasn’t a single sale posted on the board. All around her, she heard the rustle of candy wrappers and chip bags. Telemarketers ate through their stress. Jittery Nick ate yet another jelly doughnut and popped the top on his third can of orange soda. Marina, the Latina single mother, was scarfing Snickers. She couldn’t afford day care. Ramon, her dark-eyed toddler, played at her feet on the dirty carpet, a truck in one hand and a melting candy bar in the other.
Taniqua was popping Pringles. Helen noticed a slight bulge above her red skirt. When Helen first met Taniqua, she’d had a model’s flat stomach. Now, like nearly everyone else in the boiler room, she’d packed on pounds. Helen had put on five pounds in two weeks, which was why she struggled to ignore the call of the salt-and-vinegar chips in her desk drawer.
“I don’t hear you talking,” Vito said. He walked the aisles with a fat black monitor phone, listening in on conversations, trying to get the staff to say the right stuff and sell. Finally, even he gave up.
“Break time!” Vito said. “Everyone clock out and come into my office.”
The telemarketers groaned. They would have to listen to a Vito lecture at their own expense. Sixty telemarketers piled into Vito’s plywood-paneled office. The crowd pushed Helen forward until she was sitting on the edge of Vito’s dusty desk. Vito marched up and down behind it, a rotund general trying to rally his dispirited troops.
“You!” he said, pointing at Taniqua. “Why didn’t you make your last sale?”
“When I say she ought to buy it from me, she say she want to think about it,” Taniqua said in a soft voice.
“And you said?”
“I say she should buy it.”
“But she didn’t, did she? Here’s what you should have said, ‘What’s there to think about? It’s like putting oil in your car every three thousand miles. It’s more expensive not to do it than to do it.’ Then she would have bought it.
“You! Richie! What about your last call?”
“Some old lady said, ‘I’m not interested’ and hung up.”
“And you said?”
Richie shrugged, too discouraged to answer.
“You should have said, ‘Not interested? Not interested in saving over seven thousand dollars in repairs?’
“You gotta fight for those sales, people. You got to use psychology. How many of you heard, ‘I have to ask my wife’?”
Most of the room raised their hands.
“Don’t let any guy use that excuse. Here’s what you say: ‘Does your wife ask you when she buys fifty bucks worth of lingerie? Be a man. Make your own decisions.’
“Make him feel like he doesn’t have anything between his legs unless he buys that septic-tank cleaner. That’s psychology. Selling is aggressiveness. It’s a tug-of-war. The last one to let go is the loser. And I don’t employ losers.”
With each word, Vito punched the air with thick pink fingers like hot dogs. He’d attack someone’s manhood to make a sale, but Helen didn’t work that way. Watching him shout, pace and punch made her more tired. She looked down at Vito’s desk, and saw the boiler-room employee roster for the week. Helen looked at the ninety names on the list. She only recognized sixty of them. That’s because there were only sixty desks in the phone room. Vito’s list had thirty phantom employees. What was he doing?
“What am I doing? I’m trying to get you to sell. Right, Helen?”
She looked up, startled and guilty. “Right, Vito,” she said. When in doubt, always agree with the boss. Her eyes shifted back to the bloated roster. She checked the names again. No doubt about it. Vito had listed thirty people who didn’t exist.
“End of lecture,” he said. The effort left him red-faced, with sweat rings on his shirt. “Go get me some sales.”
Helen couldn’t sell beer at a frat party today. It was hopeless. She would not get upstairs to do survey work tonight, and she had to. How else could she search for more information about Hank Asporth? What if she went into a sales slump and got fired? She’d seen it happen before. She might never get up to the survey section again.
One minute to go, and no sales. The computer shut down. Helen packed up her purse in defeat and headed for the time clock. Vito blocked her way. “You’re working survey duty tonight. If it was up to me, you’d be here. But the suits requested you.”
Helen knew the suits didn’t request her. She was working survey duty at the express wish of Henry Asporth’s lawyer. Thank you, Mr. Asporth, she thought. I’ll use that time to nail you.
Helen did not see Margery when she came home for lunch. She missed her landlady. She saw too little of her these days. She missed her friend Peggy, too, and their companionable evenings sitting by the Coronado pool drinking wine. Now she spent too many evenings in the boiler room trying to make more money. For the hundredth time, she asked herself if this job was worth it. She still didn’t have an answer. She opened a can of tuna and dumped it on a slightly stale bun. Thumbs, her cat, made a dramatic leap for her plate.
“Down, boy,” she said. He sat sulkily on the floor. Some lunch. She had to fight the cat for her food.
After a nap that left her groggy and muzzy-headed, Helen returned that evening to the hushed, expensive offices of Girdner Surveys.
“You’re still here?” Nellie asked. The night supervisor seemed surprised and relieved.
“Against all odds,” Helen said. “Penelope’s not happy about it. I don’t think I’d better waste any more time talking.”
Helen picked up the phone, so it looked like she was working. She typed in Henry Asporth’s number and stared at the computer screen, looking for some way to get to him. She reread his information and took notes: Name and address. Phone. Cell phone. Vehicles. Income. Age. Hobbies. Pets. Some unknown telemarketer had left a warning about his rotten temper. Interesting.
Wait. What was this? “Lives with #948782.” That note made sure the telemarketer didn’t pitch the same place twice.
Helen typed #948782. The entry was for Laredo Manson, a twenty-two-year-old woman with a year of junior college and an annual income of less than twenty thousand dollars. Laredo did not smoke. She drank wine, liquor and beer. Her occupation was “actress/waitress.”
Reading between the lines, Helen saw a much younger woman living with an older, richer man. Virtue went cheap in Florida, when job choices were hauling plates, cleaning houses or working the phone
s.
Was Laredo the woman Hank killed? Twenty-two years old is so young.
Helen dialed Laredo’s second number. An answering machine said, “Hi, this is Laredo. You know the drill: Leave a message.” The voice was young, sweet and slightly country, with the hint of a giggle.
“This is Helen Hawthorne at Girdner Surveys. Please call me. I’m worried—”
A woman picked up the phone.
“Laredo?” Helen said, relief flooding her. She hadn’t heard a murder after all. The woman was safe. Hank Asporth was just a generous man who didn’t want to see her fired.
“Hello? Who’s this? Laredo’s not here. I’m her sister, Savannah.”
“Oh,” Helen said, disappointed. “I . . . I was just checking to see if she’s OK.”
“She hasn’t been home in a week. Do you know where she is?” Savannah was older, maybe Helen’s age. She had a deeper voice than her sister, tinged with a bit of country.
“I think she’s in trouble,” Helen said.
“What kind of trouble?” the voice demanded.
Helen didn’t know what to say. Should she tell the woman what she heard?
“Tell me. I have the right to know.”
“I think I heard her being killed. But no one believes me.” As soon as Helen said those words, she wanted to take them back. She should have broken the news gently. She was talking to the woman’s sister. What was wrong with her?
She expected Savannah to scream, cry or deny. Instead the woman said, “I knew it. I felt it in my bones.”
Chapter 4
“I think we better get together,” Savannah said.
Helen realized she’d been holding her breath. “I thought you’d call the cops on me, the way I blurted that out.”
“I’ve got a good feel for people,” Savannah said. “I hear a lot of things besides words when they talk. I think you want to help me. Where do you live?”
“Right off Las Olas,” Helen said. “How about the Floridian?”
“Sure, it’s my favorite grease spot.”
They agreed to meet there a little after ten P.M., when Helen got off work.
A distracted Helen signed up two more people for the martini survey, but she couldn’t keep her mind on her work—or her eyes off the clock. Nellie, her supervisor, must have noticed, but she said nothing.
The black hands crawled around the clock face like they were crippled. After half an eternity, it was ten o’clock. Helen walked up Las Olas with long, impatient strides, slowed by tourists fluttering around the chichi stores like moths around patio lights.
“Isn’t that cute!” she heard over and over. Helen wondered how everything from a spike heel to a cat statue could be cute.
The Floridian had resisted the yuppification of Las Olas. There was no valet parking. The waitresses took no sass off anyone. The cashier took no checks or credit cards. In fact, a blond couple in impeccable unwrinkled linen was arguing with her now. Helen stood just inside the door and watched the drama.
“But we don’t carry cash,” the blond woman said.
“We got an ATM right here,” the cashier said, pointing to a pint-size money machine across from the cash register.
“Our credit cards don’t work in that one,” the blond man said, as if that settled it. He had the smooth face of someone who always got his way. A tiny wrinkle now marred the woman’s forehead. She glanced warily at the kitchen, as though afraid she might have to put her pale, perfect hands in dishwater.
“There’s a bigger ATM at the convenience store across the street,” the cashier said.
“OK, we’ll be right back,” the blond man said.
“You’re not going anywhere until you pay.”
“But I have to get the cash. Here—I’ll leave you my watch.” He started to remove a watch that cost as much as a small car.
“This isn’t a pawn shop,” the cashier said.
“How about my driver’s license?”
“How about your wife?” the cashier said.
“My wife?”
The blond woman looked frightened now. Was she going to be sold into white slavery for a waffle?
“You leave your wife here until you get back with the money.”
“I’ll be back soon, honey, I promise.” The blond man looked amused. His wife did not.
“You’d better,” she said. She picked up a free paper from a rack by the door and pretended to read, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment.
“Your money or your wife. I like that,” said the woman standing next to Helen. Her white-blond hair was long, straight, and parted in the middle. Her black cowboy boots were scuffed and her jeans were worn at the knees. Her voice had a country lilt that Helen recognized right away.
“I’m Savannah Power.”
Helen stood six feet in her sandals, but Savannah was tall enough to look her in the eye. She shook Helen’s hand with a strong, callused grip. Savannah was about forty. Hard times were etched in her pale, freckled face and lean body.
“That guy didn’t mind leaving his wife hostage in a hash house,” Helen said.
“You could leave me here any time,” Savannah said. She was wearing a light, flowery perfume. Underneath it, Helen caught a curious sharp smell—bleach or some kind of household cleaner.
“Sit anywhere,” said a passing waitress, loaded with plates.
They found a table under a sign that read, DON’T STEAL . . . THE GOVERNMENT DOESN’T LIKE COMPETITION.
On a street known for serious snobbery, The Floridian had a sense of humor. The menu offered a “fat-cat breakfast” of steak, eggs and Dom Perignon for two for $229.99. It also had a “not-so-fat-cat breakfast—same as above with a bottle of our finest el cheapo champagne” for $49.99.
Helen felt suddenly lonely. She wished she could laugh with a man and order cheap champagne for breakfast. But she’d sworn off men after her last disastrous romance.
“What can I get you?” the waitress said.
“Eggs, grits and a Bud,” Savannah said.
“You want a glass with that?”
“Bottle’s fine,” Savannah said.
A straightforward woman, Helen thought. She ordered coffee, ham and eggs.
“Savannah Power. Interesting name,” Helen said, when the waitress left.
“My momma had a rough time when she had me. She gave birth at home. She saw this name on her bedside dresser: Savannah Power. She kept concentrating on it to get her through the pain. She thought it was a message. It was. It was a shut-off notice from the light company, but Momma didn’t know that then. Anyway, Savannah Power’s my name.
“We’re all named after cities. My middle sister is Atlanta Power. Momma lived there next. She was in Texas when Laredo was born. She’s the baby.”
“Laredo has a different last name,” Helen said.
“Different daddy,” Savannah said. “Lester Power took off by then, and Momma hitched up with Woodbridge Manson.”
“Just the three girls?” Helen said.
“Yes, and that’s a good thing. With her third husband, Momma moved to Wood River, Illinois, which wasn’t a proper name for anyone. Atlanta lives in California now. I only see her every couple of years. But I’m real close to Laredo.”
Helen felt like she was in a Who’s on First routine. She was glad when the waitress returned with the butter-soaked platters of food.
“Why do you think something happened to your sister?” Helen said, between bites.
“She disappeared a week ago. We share a double-wide. I got home from work and her things were gone. Every last stitch. Even my new red heels, which she’d borrowed. Laredo loved red shoes, but she would never take my best heels. And she’d never leave without telling me. She knows I’d worry. She would have left a note, at least.”
Savannah rummaged in a floppy leather purse the size of a saddlebag. “Here’s a picture. Look at her. Does that look like a girl who’d just up and leave?”
She produced a washed-out snapshot of
a curvy young woman with a street urchin’s grin and a mane of honey-colored hair, thicker and curlier than Savannah’s. She wore a white tank top, tight white shorts and red heels, and posed in a parody of a pinup. Laredo knew just how pretty she was. She stood in front of a sagging green mobile home with a straggly palm tree. Laredo was laughing, vibrant, out of place in those hangdog surroundings.
Helen thought she looked exactly like someone who’d run away. She certainly would.
“That’s where we live,” Savannah said. “Would you pass me the salt? I called the police and filed a missing person report. They weren’t real interested, her being an adult and all. But they went and talked to a waitress who worked with her at Gator Bill’s.”
“The restaurant owned by Bill Shannigan, the Gators football star?” Helen said.
“The very one. Right here on Las Olas. Laredo was a waitress there. Wore the cutest cheerleader costume. That was gone, too. This waitress, name of Debbie, told the police my sister was bored and wanted to hit the road. Said Laredo had talked about packing up everything and driving off into the sunset. Oh, I forgot, her car’s gone, too.”
“What kind of car?” Helen said. She’d eaten her way through a slab of ham and two eggs. She started on the butter-soaked toast.
“Little yellow Honda Civic. But that isn’t like her to up and leave. Besides, Laredo had a part in a real Shakespeare play. The director’s called twice looking for her. Laredo worked hard to get that part. She thought it was her big break. She’d be at the rehearsal come hell or high water.”
Savannah sounded more like a mother than a sister. Another reason for a young woman to suddenly leave home.
“Was she restless?” Helen said.
“She said she didn’t want to wind up like me: trailer trash working a bunch of lousy jobs, stuck with a mountain of debt.”
Helen winced. “That must have hurt.”
Savannah shrugged. “She was young. She didn’t mean it.” Again, she was the protective momma.
“Laredo said she was going to make it big. She would live in a mansion, marry a rich man, wear pretty clothes and be part of Lauderdale society.”
“Did she say how she was going to do this?”
