Man at Work

by Elaine Fox

  “So he didn’t threaten you, didn’t ask you specifically about Planners or your interest in it, didn’t ask for anything, just said he was checking up, asked if you had a boyfriend, and left?”

  She nodded. “You’ve got it. That’s about it. What do you think?”

  Truman shrugged, thinking Planners had hired an imbecile. If they truly wanted to scare Marcy off the case, Arthur Crumpton ultimately wasn’t going to be able to do it. Marcy was nervous now, but she wouldn’t be after another encounter or two.

  “I mean,” she continued, leaning forward and peering into his face, “do you think he’s dangerous? Could he, do you think he’d actually do anything?”

  Truman started to scoff when a little devil on his shoulder stopped him. “Is that why you came over here? Because you were scared?” The idea touched him.

  She straightened up, her expression considering. “Yes, but, well, no. I mean, that is why I came here. Because you seemed to know something about Arthur. But I wasn’t exactly scared. I guess I just need to know if I should be.”

  This was a tricky line to walk, Truman thought. He didn’t want her to be afraid, didn’t want to engrave his reservation in hell by lying just to scare her, but then again, he liked that she came to him for help. Really liked it. It was as if her mind was telling her one thing about him, but her heart was saying something else entirely. Maybe Truman just needed to wait until her mind realized her heart was right.

  He rubbed a hand along his jaw, the scratch of stubble satisfying. He loved not shaving every day.

  “I could see him becoming a nuisance,” he started.

  “A nuisance, but not a danger?”

  He glanced over at her. She wasn’t scared. Not plucky Marcy P. Not the girl who’d taken on Chuck Lang over a puppy. Would it be so bad to fabricate a little something, just a tiny hint of barely possible danger, so that she might think rejecting Truman wasn’t such a good idea? Or would that be too devious?

  “Well, that’s hard to say. I don’t know what he was hired to do, exactly.” That much was true, at least. “He probably knows you live alone. He probably knows where you work. He definitely knows your car from that day with the camera.”

  Her hands twined together. The idea of a stalker was not sitting well with her.

  “So what’s he going to do with all that information?” he asked rhetorically. “Hard to say.”

  “I thought he might be a good way for me to gauge the effect my case is having on Planners. The more often I see Guido, the closer I am to damaging them.”

  Truman frowned. “I hope that won’t be true. I mean, because your case is pretty strong. I’d hate to think that on the cusp of victory Guido suddenly gets the order to do something drastic.”

  Marcy’s expression went perplexed.

  “What?” Truman asked.

  “‘On the cusp of victory’?” she repeated. “How can you talk like an ignorant redneck sometimes, then turn around at others and say something that could come from the mouth of a tenured historian?”

  Truman’s cheeks heated. She was too quick and he was a lousy liar. But it was important, now more than ever, to keep up the charade. Because despite all she’d said and done, he still held onto the hope that Marcy might be the woman to fall in love with him for himself and not his money.

  “Listen, tell you what I’ll do.” He hated to use techniques learned from his father, but he knew that if you didn’t want to answer a question you just pretended it had never been asked. “I’ll talk to Arthur. I think I can find him and I think I can make him talk. Let me see what I can discover and let you know.”

  The look of relief on her face was more than gratifying. It was guilt-inducing. She couldn’t look so relieved if she hadn’t been afraid, could she? He was pure evil, he thought, allowing her to fear someone she needn’t fear.

  Still, he didn’t tell her that.

  “Thank you, Truman.” She stood up and held out her hand to shake.

  He took it with a wry smile. From her bed to a handshake in one short week. “You’re welcome,” he said, holding her hand just a second too long.

  They left his apartment and strolled at a leisurely pace down the sidewalk to her car.

  “I do appreciate your help,” Marcy said, as they neared her car and slowed.

  “No problem. How ’bout if we meet Thursday night, I’ll let you know what I’ve found out.”

  “Thursday?” She reached for her purse, dug through it and pulled out a Daytimer. She flipped to Thursday and ran a neatly clipped fingernail down the entries.

  Truman remembered the day he threw his Franklin Planner in the trash. It was the most liberated he’d felt in years.

  “Friday’s better,” she said. “I’ve got a dinner meeting Thursday, and client cocktails Wednesday…” She looked up. “Well, you probably couldn’t do tomorrow anyway, could you?”

  “Depends on Guido. Let’s do Friday.”

  “Friday it is.” She pulled the pen from the leather sling and wrote it down.

  They stood there awkwardly. Truman debated taking her by the arms and kissing her good-bye. Would she pull away? he wondered, but something else stopped him. Was he really the only person she could come to when she felt unsafe?

  “Well, thank you again, Truman.” She nodded, started to hold out her hand, then switched the gesture to pat him uneasily on the arm.

  He smiled. “You’re welcome. And Marcy?”

  She had started to turn away but stopped. Truman stepped closer and gently took her by the shoulders. He bent and kissed her softly on the cheek, then said quietly, near her ear, “You can trust me.”

  She looked quickly up at him, then glanced away. “I know.” She walked around to the driver’s door and got in, starting the car and putting it into gear almost simultaneously.

  He watched her go, then went slowly back into his apartment.

  He had some groceries to put away.

  Truman found Guido with considerably less effort than he’d thought he’d have to expend. Arthur Crumpton was listed in the phone book and lived just over the line in Maryland. When Truman dialed the number, Arthur’s pugnacious voice answered on the first ring.

  Truman hung up, of course. He just wanted to be sure he’d found the right Arthur Crumpton, not warn him he was coming.

  Pulling up to the small postwar brick rambler with the tidy green lawn, Truman was surprised to find that Arthur appeared to be a homeowner. It was tough to picture the big man with a weed whacker.

  He parked the truck on the street, walked across the springy front lawn to the door, and pushed the lighted doorbell. On the door was a welcome wreath complete with plastic birds and fake flowers. Truman was starting to think he must have the wrong house, when the door opened to reveal a small, rotund, white-haired woman.

  “Hello,” she said in a granny voice with a granny smile. She wore a checkered apron over a flowered housedress.

  Truman glanced past her into the house, caught a glimpse of a sideboard covered with framed pictures and a wall with a crucifix on it. “Uh, hello. I’m looking for Arthur, is he home?”

  Her face lit up. “Of course. Are you one of Arthur’s friends?” She had something of a New Jersey accent, like Arthur’s, but her little voice had none of the gangster in it.

  “Yeah. Sort of.” He pushed his hands into his pockets, feeling like Eddie Haskell. He’d come over here ready to break “Guido’s” neck for threatening Marcy. Now he felt like the neighborhood bully picking on the Beav. “Are you Mrs. Crumpton?” he asked, still unreasonably hoping he had the wrong house, the wrong Arthur, the wrong granny.

  “Yes, and what’s your name, young man?” She smiled up at him as she held the door and he passed through it. She wore clip-on earrings shaped like daisies.

  He scratched one side of his face. “Gui—uh, Arthur knows me as Harley from the job site.”

  “Well, let me get him for you, Harley. Arthur?” she wandered off down a hallway calling.

>   Truman exhaled and looked around the living room. Powder-blue carpet complemented a blue and rose couch covered with dainty throw pillows. Two matching wing chairs flanked it. Truman could hardly imagine Arthur sitting on the furniture, let alone living in the neat little house.

  From the kitchen came the smell of browning onions. One of Truman’s favorite smells.

  A moment later Granny Crumpton came back down the hallway followed by Arthur, looking grotesquely large behind his diminutive mother. He wore black sweatpants stretched to capacity and a yellow T-shirt two sizes too small from King’s Dominion theme park.

  He spotted Truman and looked embarrassed. “Whadda you doin’ here, Harley?”

  Mrs. Crumpton smiled up at him. Truman looked at her uneasily.

  “I just wanted to talk to you about something, Arthur. If you’ve got a minute.”

  Arthur tugged his T-shirt further down over his belly. “I dunno. I guess so.”

  They both looked expectantly at Mrs. Crumpton.

  “Oh, don’t you boys mind me. I can take a hint. I’ll just leave you two alone,” she said with a wave, and shuffled back toward the kitchen. Before she got there, though, she stopped and turned back with an impish smile. “How ’bout I bring you both some iced tea. Would you like that?”

  “Not now, Mom,” Arthur groaned.

  Truman shook his head. “No, thank you, ma’am.”

  She tipped her head, still smiling. “All right, if you’re sure.”

  “We’re sure, Mom. Jeez.” Arthur rolled his eyes. Once his mother had disappeared he gestured to Truman. “C’mon out here. Quick, before she invites you to dinner.”

  The way the house smelled, Truman wasn’t so sure that would be a bad thing.

  He followed Arthur through the living room to a sliding glass door at the back. As they passed through the room, Truman noted a corner cabinet filled with baby dolls and glass rabbits. Beside it sat a tall wooden basket filled with yarn.

  Arthur stepped out onto a cement patio and Truman followed, sliding the glass door shut behind him. The choice of seating was a picnic table and a turquoise-and-white porch swing hanging from a rust-pocked chrome frame. Arthur sat down on the latter. Truman eyed the sagging frame as he did, expecting the top bar to snap at any moment. He sat on the bench of the picnic table, far enough away that he wouldn’t be hit by any flying parts from the soon-to-be-decimated swing.

  “So, whaddya want?” Arthur asked. One foot pushed against the ground so his huge bulk moved gently back and forth on the swing.

  Truman frowned. It was hard to feel threatening with Arthur looking the way he did. Using a little imagination, Truman could picture him twenty years and three hundred pounds ago, a fat, dirty kid on a porch swing as his mother cooked dinner.

  “I wanna talk to you about Marcy Paglinowski,” Truman said, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to feel tough. “The lawyer.”

  Arthur reddened and looked at his own hand. One finger peeled a layer of paint off the arm of the swing. “Yeah? What about her?”

  “I think you know, Arthur. How come you keep threatening her?”

  Arthur looked up sharply. “That what she thought? I was threatenin’ her?”

  “Well, yeah.” Truman looked at him, confused. “First you go after her in the diner, then you show up at her apartment. What’s she supposed to think?”

  He shrugged. An obstinate child. “I dunno. Not that.”

  “Come on, Arthur. Get real here. We both know Lang’s paying you to scare her.”

  He shrugged again. “No he ain’t. Not exactly.”

  Truman leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “What does that mean, ‘not exactly’? It’s not Lang? Is it Planners?”

  Arthur’s flat little eyes met Truman’s. “Planners got it in for Ms. Paggalousy, you got that right.”

  “Paglinowski,” Truman corrected, irritated on her behalf. It wasn’t that hard to say.

  “Yeah, well, whatever. Your girlfriend.”

  Truman scoffed. “She’s not…Never mind. So what does Planners have in mind to do to her?”

  “They got connections. Plenty a connections, Lang says, and he would know, ya know? And they wanna make her look real bad.”

  “Make her look bad? To who?”

  “Everyone.” He said it as if Truman were an idiot. “If she sues Planners they gonna make sure the judge don’t like it, her client don’t like it, and most of all her bosses don’t like it. They think they can get Miss Paggalinousy to lose her job over this one. So really, I’d be doin’ a good thing, performing a service, ya know, if I got her to stop suing ’em.”

  Anger started a slow burn in Truman’s gut. He’d known there were some OSHA violations at the site, but he’d assumed it had been Lang’s fault, lazy son of a bitch that he was. Hearing it was company-endorsed infuriated him. “So you were sent to her apartment to scare her off the case?”

  “Actually,” Arthur said, holding one finger aloft, “it’s a condo. A condominium. Miss Paggalin—Paglanin—Miss P’s doin’ real good ’cause she prob’ly owns it, see?”

  Truman looked at him for one long fatigued minute before saying, “I know what a condominium is, Arthur.”

  “Well, then you know if she loses her job, then she loses her place, see? Then she’s, like, ruined, ya know?”

  “So you were sent there to threaten her with that?” Truman asked, wondering why Arthur didn’t say anything like this to Marcy.

  Arthur shrugged again and looked toward the house. Truman glanced toward the house, too, and saw Mrs. Crumpton inside the kitchen window. She waved an oven-mitted hand at them. Truman and Arthur waved back. He half expected her to poke her head out and call them both in to dinner.

  “Arthur,” Truman warned. “I need to know what you were doing there, at her apart—at her condo. And I need to know now.” He donned what he thought might be a menacing expression.

  Arthur looked back down at his hand and the paint scratching began anew. “I just, you know, I think she’s cute.”

  Truman felt the wind in his self-righteous sails diminish. “You…what?”

  Arthur looked narrowly up at him. “She ain’t your girlfriend, really, is she? I mean, I know you hang out with her sometimes, but you an’ she ain’t really…you know.” He made a semi-lewd gesture with one fist.

  Truman’s eyes flashed to the kitchen window. “Jesus, Arthur. Your mother’s right there.” He tipped his head toward the house.

  Arthur ducked and looked back at the window, where his mother waved that oven-mitted hand at them again. Truman almost laughed.

  Arthur turned back to Tru, expression belligerent. “Well, are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  Arthur made the gesture again, with wide sarcastic eyes. “With Miss P.”

  “No.” Truman gave him a disgusted look. Not that he hadn’t done just what Arthur implied, but he didn’t like anyone gesturing like that about Marcy.

  “Well, then, I just went over there ’cause I wanted to see her again. You know, maybe ask her out if the, uh, climate got right. If ya know what I mean.” He grinned and Truman winced to think of him taking Marcy out.

  “And did the ‘climate’ get right?” Truman was sure of the answer but an irrational pang of jealousy shot through him just the same.

  Arthur scrunched his lips to one side. “Naw. She’s too rich to look at someone like me.”

  Truman did laugh slightly then. So even Arthur Crumpton knew the perils of dating a rich girl.

  “What’s so funny?” Arthur asked defensively, sitting up straighter and puffing his chest out as if he could look more manly there on his turquoise-and-white porch swing with his mother inside cooking his dinner.

  “Nothing.” Tru shook his head. “Just, she’s too rich for me, too.”

  Arthur nodded in commiseration.

  “So, what, are you giving up now?” Truman asked. “She’s made it clear she’s not interested, right?”

  Arthur looked
so sad then that Truman actually felt sorry for him.

  “I mean, she’s made it clear to me, too,” Tru said, deciding to take pity on the poor oaf, “so I’m just packin’ it in, you know. Who needs to be rejected by some snobby lawyer time and again?”

  Arthur looked at him hopefully. “You givin’ up?”

  Truman shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Why should I beat my head against a brick wall?”

  Arthur smiled, a disconcerting sight. “Okay, well, I’m glad you told me that.”

  Truman stood up, feeling as if he’d given millions to a charity. “Just one more question, Arthur. I want to be sure I got my facts straight. It’s Planners that’s out to get Marcy? Not just Lang?”

  Arthur stood up too. “Oh, it ain’t just Lang. He’s just the one givin’ the orders, you know? He told me so himself. It’s Planners. Them guys at the top. Or somewhere.”

  Truman nodded, dismayed and incensed. Little did Marcy know, but Arthur “Guido” Crumpton should be the least of her worries.

  They stepped back inside the house and Mrs. Crumpton scurried out from the kitchen to meet them.

  “My, isn’t this good timing!” she exclaimed. “Dinner is just ready. You boys go wash up now and come sit down at the table. Harley, I’ve already set a place for you and I won’t take no for an answer.”

  Truman glanced back at Arthur, who shrugged and started through the kitchen.

  “Bathroom’s this way,” Arthur said.

  Tru looked again at Mrs. Crumpton.

  “It’s fried chicken with mashed potatoes and onion gravy,” she said.

  Truman smiled at her. “All right, then,” he said, and followed Arthur’s path through the kitchen to wash up.

  10

  Friday, October 25

  WORD-A-DAY!

  NYCTALOPIA: n., blindness after dark; or perhaps the naïve belief that events transpiring late at night are not strictly considered to have occurred

  Friday afternoon Marcy barely left her office. That morning she’d met briefly with Win to tell him about Donnie Molloy’s testimony and subsequent case of his own, and he’d been very encouraging about the work she was doing on Burton v. Planners Building & Design. She might even have impressed him with the information about Donnie, and that had motivated her like nothing else.