by G. M. Ford
“Terry, it’s Leo. How drunk is he?”
“Twisted,” he answered without hesitation.
“Get him for me, will you?”
He dropped the phone once before getting it up to his head. “’Lo.”
“George. You hangin’ in there?”
“Course,” he slurred. “Reamed ’em all good. ‘Ceptin’ the mayor lady. Her lawyer he called. Said he was comin’ to the office.”
“Good job,” I said. “I think we best fix the phone to hold now.”
“I dunno how, Leo I—”
“Give me Terry, will you?”
“Whatsamatter, you doan wanna talk to ol’ Georgie anymore?”
“Just give me Terry, will ya?”
“Ya think you’re too good for—”
On the other end, Terry must have been listening. I heard him say, “Here, gimme that.” Followed by some grunting, and then he was on the line. “Leo.”
“Shut him down,” I said.
“Just rings or the recording and on hold?”
“On hold.”
“Will do.”
MONDAY :09 A.M.
CAMERA 1—TRESSMANHe’d been on the phone for twenty minutes discussing an easement over city property for a driveway when his secretary popped her head in the door.
“Someone to see you, Mr. Tressman.”
He waved her off. “Not today,” he said. “Hold everything.”
She seemed pleased when she turned and headed back out to the anteroom. A minute later, however, she reappeared.
“She says it’s important.”
Tressman held the phone tight against his chest. “What did I just tell you? Didn’t I just this minute tell you—” Another voice now.
“I’m sorry to be such an inconvenience,” Narva said. Tressman looked up from his desk. If sharks smiled, that’s what they’d look like.
“Come in,” he said. “Come in.”
He spoke into the phone. “I’ll get back with you this afternoon, Herman. No, no…something’s come up. Yes…yes…”
He returned the phone to its cradle.
He scurried out from behind the desk, and for a second was lost from view. He reappeared with a red leather chair, which he set close to the desk. “Please,” he said. Narva looked as good from the top down as she did from any other angle. She looked like she had in the Five Spot. All-American, drop-dead gorgeous.
Tressman looked to his right. “That’s all, June,” he said.
“Close the door, would you, please? Thanks.” The door clicked shut.
Although it had never occurred to me before, as I watched her work, it became obvious that acting must be a major part of what she did for a living. The girl was too smooth for it to be any other way. She put it on him just the way we’d discussed it.
Here in town at the behest of a major corporation. Not at liberty to drop names. Just doing a little research on property. The Springer property and adjoining non-Indian land at the west end of the county. He told her about the sale. She nodded knowingly. “Just in case,” she said with a Mona Lisa smile.
The more Tressman tried to convince her that he had a done deal with Claudia Springer, the more often she said, “You never know,” and gave him that little I-know-somethingyou-don’t smile. It drove him nuts. Twenty minutes after she’d walked in his door, Tressman volunteered to take her down to the clerk’s office and help her find the records she needed. She blushed and told him she didn’t want to be a bother. He reckoned how he’d muddle through.
The cell phone at Carl’s elbow rang. He picked it up. “Okay. Lemme see.” He reached to his left and switched on a monitor. The rear of the mayor’s Cadillac was visible as it rolled toward the highway. Just as the image began to get fuzzy, the view shifted. The picture was now coming from the front. We watched as the car stopped at the sign and then turned left. The lens followed as the mayor gave it some gas and disappeared around the nearest bend in the road. “Works great,” Carl said into the phone. As Robby talked into his ear, Carl motioned for me to turn around. I did. I slipped my head into the earphones for camera four. MONDAY : A.M.
CAMERA 4—POLSTEREven in black and white, Emmett Polster’s face was bright red. “It’s not esoteric like bridges or sewer systems. They’re going to know right away.”
“You really think he’s got state inspectors coming in on Friday?”
“Damn right I do.”
“I think he’s bluffing.”
Polster paced the room, biting on his thumb. “It’s pretty goddamned easy for you to think that. It’s not your ass in the wringer.”
“Will you relax?”
Polster raised his voice. “No, goddammit, I won’t.”
Nancy Weston put a finger to her lips and nodded toward the secretary in the other room.
Polster wasn’t impressed. “I could lose everything.”
“You’re not going to lose anything.”
“I’m not going down alone,” Polster insisted.
“Nobody’s going anywhere,” Weston insisted.
“I’ve got a lot going on. I don’t need this shit.”
Weston raised a hand from the desk. “Believe me, Emmett. We’ve all got a lot going on today.” Before Polster could respond, Weston changed the subject. “You hear about the burglary?” Polster said he hadn’t, so she filled him in. MONDAY : A.M.
CAMERA 1—TRESSMANSeated behind his desk again with a small smile twitching on his lips. The phone rang. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. I took her down there.”
Carl rolled past me, swung around and handed me the earphones for Camera Three. I checked the monitor. Nancy Weston on the phone. I had one voice in each ear. I was moving my head back and forth like I was watching a tennis match.
“I don’t understand what she’s doing here,” Weston said.
“I think the Springer woman has received a counter-offer. I think they’d like to find some way out of the deal with us.”
“How could they do that?” Weston demanded.
“They can’t,” he said.
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Because I’ve got my ass covered,” she said. Long silence.
“Oh?”
“That’s all I’m going to say.”
“Relax,” Tressman advised. “Really, Nancy. Nine and a half days. That’s it. Period. The rest won’t matter.”
Nancy Weston sat at her desk, her arms folded across her chest, staring at the wall. Tressman pushed one of the buttons on his phone and a moment later, June came in through the door. “Yes?”
“I’m going to have to cancel for tomorrow night,” he said quietly.
When she came into camera range, her hands were on her hips. “I got a sitter.”
“Can’t be helped,” Tressman said.
She backed up out of range. “You think it’s easy?”
“I didn’t say—” he began.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to arrange to be away? For me to get a sitter? To make excuses to my mother?”
Tressman took the offensive. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but there’s quite a bit going on around here this morning.”
His phone rang once and then again.
Tressman looked up at June. “I need to take this call,” he said. The door banged hard enough for me to hear the glass shake in the frame.
Suddenly, his office door banged open.
“I’m going to lunch,” June announced.
I listened to the sound of her heels receding and then grabbed my car keys.
“Where you going?” asked Carl.
“Think I’ll join her for lunch,” I said.
29
THE COUNTRY CORNER WAS HOPPING. WIDE-HIPPED waitresses in light green uniforms crisscrossed the room with platters of food, water pitchers and coffeepots. The clash of silverware rang above the low roar of conversation and shouts from the kitchen area. A veil of smoke hung above the room at about eyebrow level.
“What are you doing here?”
“You told me this was a good lunch spot, so I was in the neighborhood…you know, up at the City building…and I thought I’d check it out.”
She smiled the same tentative smile I’d seen before. Up close, she was younger than I’d imagined. Twenty-six or seven. Pretty but blank in the amorphous manner of young girls. At this point in her life, she could safely be referred to as ample. Literally and figuratively a handful. Ten years down the road and we were talking heavy equipment.
“Saw your boss in the records office,” I said. Half hidden behind a hamburger, her face clouded. “Going over platt maps with a…if I might be so bold as to say…a very attractive woman.”
“I suppose,” she said grudgingly. “If you like that type.”
She took it out on the burger, tearing off a chunk and grinding it between her teeth.
A waitress appeared at my elbow. Name tag read Betty.
“Whatcha need, honey?”
“What’s good?”
“Burgers ain’t bad,” she said.
I ordered a cheeseburger and a Coke. Hold the fries. I leaned over the table toward June. “I thought I heard that Tressman was married.” Her eyes widened, so I kept at it.
“Because if you don’t mind me saying…when I saw him today, he surely had the look of a man on the prowl.” Eyes wider. Chewing faster. “I could be wrong, of course…and you know…woman like that…who could blame him?”
Her expression suggested that she might grab me by the ears and take the next bite out of my face. “In name only,”
she said through her teeth.
“Excuse me?”
“They’re married in name only.” She checked the booth for spies. “She mostly lives in Seattle with her sister. Mark goes there on weekends.”
“Not very romantic,” I commented.
“He can’t leave her. It’s all hers.”
“What’s all hers?”
“The big house. The money. Everything. It all belongs to his wife. If Mar…Mr. Tressman leaves her, he’s left with nothing but some worthless property his parents left him.”
She filled me in on what a manipulative bitch Barbara Tressman was. How she’d never allowed poor Mark Tressman to mingle his meager resources with hers and thus create a “community property situation,” as she called it. I kept sympathizing and looking for a button to push. I should have just shut up and listened instead.
I shook my head sadly. “Shame to have to live that way.”
She went from angry to the verge of tears in about seven seconds. “Yes…it is.” She dropped her half-eaten burger into her plate and looked away from me. She brought her napkin up to her face, changed her mind and flung it on top of the burger.
Before I could come up with something soothing, she began to slide out of the booth. “Excuse me,” she choked.
“I’ve got to get back to work.” Oops. Wrong button. She never looked back my way as she paid her bill at the register and pushed her way out through the glass doors. I was still going back over the conversation, looking for hints as to where I’d screwed up, when Betty strolled over.
“You always have that effect on women?” she inquired casually.
“It’s a cross to bear,” I told her.
She dropped a cheeseburger onto the table in front of me.
“Hereya go, honey,” she said. “The all-American meal.”
“If God didn’t intend us to eat animals, they wouldn’t be made of meat,” I assured her. She started to agree and then pointed a segmented finger my way.
“Good,” she said. “That’s real good. I’ll haveta remember that.”
Her lips rehearsed the syllables as she ambled back toward the kitchen.
I had just finished my burger and was fishing for money in my pocket when a shrill voice attracted my attention. Emmett Polster. Standing at the counter talking to a satchelfaced woman with prematurely purple hair. He smiled at her, said something and started my way. I pulled myself into the recesses of the booth and turned my face toward the wall as if I were studying the wallpaper. I felt the bump as he sat down directly behind me. Only the partition between us. When the waitress appeared, he ordered a grilled cheese sandwich, a cup of chicken noodle soup and a beer. I wondered if he always had a beer with his lunch or whether maybe he wasn’t feeling a bit more stressed out than usual. I handed Betty a ten on her way by, then got up and followed her to the counter, collected my change and walked out the front door into the sunlight.
I turned left, going around in front of the lunch counter, so as not to risk Polster seeing me through the big window that ran the length of the dining room. As I walked, I pulled the cell phone from my pocket. Dialed Carl and then asked for Harold.
“Round up Ralphie,” I said. “Get Boris to drive you. Meet me in that park in the center of town. Hurry. Ten minutes.”
I hung up and hustled for the car.
It took thirteen. I left the Malibu parked and got in the back of the Blazer with Ralph. “Park over there by the icecream parlor,” I told Boris. “Back it in.”
I turned to Ralph. “I want you to flop on somebody.”
He gave me a great big grin. “Been years,” he said.
“You’re the master,” I told him.
“The best,” echoed Harold.
“Vat ees flop?”
“Who?” Ralphie asked.
I went over it slowly. Exactly how I wanted it done. Had Harold explain to him how to watch for the signal about where to pick them up. How he had to be close when they got to the emergency entrance so he could see Harold. I gave Harold a handful of change. I pointed to a phone kiosk immediately to the right of the restaurant’s front doors.
“Go call somebody. He drives that new gray Honda…” I counted. “Six cars this side of the door.”
“By the orange truck?” Ralph asked.
“Yeah.”
I was too far away to read the plate, so I reached for my notebook. Tore out the page with Polster’s number and handed it to Ralph. “Check, but I think that’s it.”
As soon as they’d checked the plate and were in place, I told Boris that I’d be back. To stay where he was until I got here.
Emmett Polster’s back was toward the door, so he never had a clue until I slid into the booth across from him. “Hey there, Mr. Polster,” I said. “You give any more thought to what was wrong with Mr. Springer’s cabins, or are you just waiting around to be embarrassed on Friday?” He tried to stay calm and was doing okay at it until he missed his mouth with the spoonful of soup, sending a rivulet of thin liquid rolling over his chin, down onto his lap. “Get the hell away from me,” he squeaked.
He was shaky. His body vibrated as if an electric current coursed through his veins. “I thought small-town folks were renowned for being hospitable,” I said.
He groped for his napkin and then wiped his chin.
“Get away from me.”
“First one who comes forward usually gets the best deal.”
His narrow eyes darted around like flies.
“Forward?”
“Yeah…and tells how certain members of city government conspired to drive J.D. Springer out of business.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Might even save your ass as part of the deal.”
He moved so fast he scared me. In a second, he slid to the end of the booth, jumped to his feet and then turned and sprinted for the front door. He’d have made it, too, if the busboy hadn’t had the aisle blocked with a silver cart. Polster bowled through the cart like an NFL running back, pitching it over onto its side, spreading three shelves of cups and glasses, ashtrays, egg-stained plates
and lipstick-smeared napkins out over the floor like a tidal wave. For a second, it looked like Polster might maintain his balance and make his escape, but, alas, it wasn’t to be. As he struggled for equilibrium, his right foot slipped on a halfeaten stack of pancakes, throwing him forward and down, until he came to rest with the upper half of his torso crammed under a table occupied by a pair of elderly women. From there on, things got pretty hectic. Polster wiggled out from under the old women and struggled to his feet. He had a ketchup stain on the front of his jacket and a paper napkin attached to the sole of his left shoe when he started for the door, pointing at me and screaming. “You stay the hell away from me, you hear? The hell away.”
His voice rang in the air for quite a while after he was gone. A great many eyes seemed to be pointed my way, so I tried to look nonchalant and unhurried in my exit. I was halfway to the door when I ran into Betty. “You’re hell on business,” she said.
“Many are called, but few are chosen,” I said cheerily. At that moment, Harold came bursting in through the front doors.
“Jesus…somebody call 1. There’s been an accident.”
I stepped aside and let the crowd beat me out the door. By the time I pushed my way to where I could see, Ralph and Harold were well into the routine. Ralph was on his back, his face a mask of agony, his limbs shaking and contorted. Harold was lamenting at full volume. “…and this guy here just run ’im down like a dog…” He pointed at Emmett Polster, who sat white-faced on a concrete parking divider, his chin buried in his hands. “Just goin’ like hell, not paying any attention…oh god, look at ’im…where the hell is that ambulance?” Somebody said, “It’s on the way. Merla called’em.” Ralphie was flopping around like a trout on a riverbank, his nearly toothless mouth bellowing to the heavens. Ralph’s got a trick hip. Double-jointed or something. He can turn it out to the side at an ungodly angle. Used to make a decent living getting hit by tourists in rental cars. Many the traveler to the Emerald City has thanked his stars that the old geezer took the two hundred bucks and limped off into the sunset. As the sound of a siren became audible above the buzz of the crowd, Harold went into the finale. He crawled across the pavement, pulled back Ralph’s coat and pointed at the impossibly aligned hip.
