Choked Up (13 page)

After a Sunday of sex, guns, and PT, I was back to invincible. Hank insisted Ragnar drive me to work, which suited me fine. The creep factor of Mant's note in the starter of my Honda gnawed at the back of my brain. I felt like a prize-class weasel not telling Hank, but it wasn't like I had a wide range of options.

A butterfly gave a halfhearted flutter across my stomach as I neared the Traffic Enforcement Bureau.

The last PEA to mess up Leticia's weekend became her personal gal Friday and spent two weeks of “in office” detention fetching Leticia's dry cleaning, lunch, banking, snacks, even putting money on her layaway account at Kmart . . . pretty much anything she could think of.

Ragnar pulled up to the rear gate. Chen, the front gate guard, shoved open his window and thrust out his dried-apple face. “No. No, no. Authorized vehicles only.”

I leaned across Ragnar so Chen could see me. “I have a meeting with Leticia.”

“You getting fiii-red!” he crowed. “You getting fiii-red!”

“Transferred,” I fibbed and sprinkled a little sand in his salad, “so I can see your happy face every day.”

“Geh!” He slammed the window shut, raised the gate, and gave us the good morning bird as we drove through.

It was shaping up to be a delightful morning.

Leticia, clad in a neon yellow blouse and an orange infinity scarf, was on the phone. She saw me leaning on the doorjamb and waved me into her office. I took the chair in front of her desk and smiled back at Glenn Beck and Mark Levin in the double-sided picture frames. Which meant Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh were facing her.

Righteous indignation was her mood this morning.

Leticia's hot pink leopard-patterned nails gripped the handset so tightly it made a wrenching squeak. “Oh, I hear you, aight.” Her nostrils flared in annoyance. “Yeah. Yeah. I'll keep that in mind.” She slammed down the phone, yanked the lid off her candy jar, and scooped out a handful of jelly beans. “That was the vice president of the Traffic Enforcement Bureau. Seems Mrs. Coles's Bentley's been scratched to hell.” She tossed the candy into her mouth, chewing around it as she spoke. “Jesum M. Crow, McGrane. Do you even know how much trouble you in?”

I cleared every trace at the impound lot. “How bad?”

“You spit-roasted. Screwed at both ends.” She massaged her temples, fingers splayed. “You got two choices. The file room or West Englewood. Night shift.”

West Englewood's claim to fame was running a victim of violent crime ratio somewhere around one-in-thirteen.

Leticia scooped out another handful of candy. “I figured they'd banish you to the suburbials or some such. But Englewood? Damn. Even I won't go there.”

The blood drained from my head to my gut, which clenched accordingly.

She shook her head and held out the jelly bean jar. “You don't look so good, McGrane.”

“Screw this.” I got up. “I need a cinnamon-pretzel donut from Stan's and a Mexican Coke.”

“Now you're talkin'. Bring me back a couple o' them pieces o' legalized X-TC. And a Fanta.”

There is something decadent about having a driver. I trotted in and out of Stan's, bringing Ragnar a sizeable snack and oversized coffee. Back in Leticia's office, I felt markedly better. Virtuous, even. We both did, gorging ourselves on the salty, melty goodness while Dennis Prager's chipper tirade echoed throughout her office.

Leticia dabbed her hot pink lips with a napkin. “At least you kiss a girl before you slip her the crippl'er.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” I brushed cinnamon-salt off my pants.

“Your beef with Coles. That crap don't hurt only you.” She tossed a file my way. “I got PEAs dropping faster than Ebola victims. And now you in the office? Our numbers can only pray to be wormshit.”

Things are tough all over.
“I'm sorrier than you—”

“Save it.” She swept the breakfast wrappers off her desk into the trash can. “We square. Your secret incentivizing program is keeping the rest of 'em around.” She stood and cracked her back. “C'mon. Let's go see your twentieth circle o' hell.”

“Gee, how can I resist?”
Filing. Almost as exciting as a glass of club soda.

My fearless supervisor led me down the hall into a dank, musty room. She flipped the light switch. Droning fluorescents cast a dismal glow over dusty paperwork and hills of collapsing cardboard boxes.

More like caustic soda.
“Ugh,” I said, walking into the room. “Turn them off.”

“Pew-ee.” Leticia fanned the air in front of her face. “Smells worse than a cat box in here.”

“They can't be serious.” I lifted a few papers. Gritty and slightly moist at the same time.
Ergh. Where's the hazard pay for working at Mold Central?

“It gets worse.” She left the doorway and returned with an industrial paper shredder.

“Safer to incinerate the stuff.”

“You're gonna shred all the shit in the boxes. Then, you file all the loose papers into the same empty boxes.”

“But they're wet.”

“You don't get it, do you?”

“Huh?”

“The mayor has you riding a two-wheeled trike on a treadmill.”

A tiny groan escaped me.
Talbott Cottle Coles sure knows how to hurt a girl.

“Well, let's not hang around gettin' all morose an' shit. It's lunchtime, and Monday is pizza day.”

“Wouldn't miss it.”

Leticia clattered away on her stilettos, while I took a final look at my new and dismal future. I shut off the lights, closed the door, and hit the break room.

There was a reason why I never, ever came back to the office during the day. The employee lunchroom was as friendly and accepting of multicultural diversity as your average prison yard.

Sanchez and her mini La Raza crew held the tables at the vending machines while the Betty Bruisers—a squad of fifty-something hefty white women who weighed more than a Mack Truck—staked out the fridge and microwave. The Bella Donnas, hair-hopping Mafia wannabes, drifted between the break room and the locker room, the fruity, floral stink of cheap body spray delineating their territory. Leticia, generally found sitting with the 'Hood Sistas, was the only one able to cross gang lines with no fear of retribution.

That left me, a couple of Asians, some random no-loads, and a chubby white guy with a mullet hovering at the edges of the pizza party, waiting to snatch a couple of greasy slices without drawing attention.

“Aww, jeez. They always order Marie's,” Mullet whined and thumped his heart with his fist. “Are they trying to gimme a grabber?”

“One of the Bettys'll spot you some nitro.” I reached around him and shifted a slab of Marie's Special—sausage, green peppers, onions, and mushrooms—onto a flimsy paper plate. I backed away to the neutral corner—the one farthest from the time clock—and dug in.

“Yo! Not so fast,
culo
.”

I looked up to see hotheaded Sanchez step in front of a huge Eastern European in a suit and tie. I recognized the dark hair, the broad, rounded shoulders and the scarred, lumpy Neanderthal forehead.

Stannis's head gorilla.

He was there for me, I knew, but the chance of seeing Sanchez get knocked down a peg or two had me superglued to my seat.

The break room went dead quiet, everyone crossing their fingers for bloodshed.

“Where you think you going? This a private building and you ain't got no clearance.” Sanchez rolled her shoulders. La Raza got to their feet behind her.

“I look for girl,” he said.

“Ain't no
girls
here, Holmes. Fuck off.”

The gorilla didn't like that. “I help you understand,
Frijolero
.”

The tips of Sanchez's ears went brick red.

He scratched his chin, his Spanish stilted and slow, “
Te voy a meter una leche
. Yes?”

Sanchez rocked back and forth on her heels, furious with an edge of fear.

Leticia stood up, hiked down her skimpy optic yellow print skirt, and jumped in. “Simmer down,” she said to Sanchez and La Raza. “The man obviously don't speak no Spanish.”

Sanchez weighed her chances, spat on the floor, and went back to the vending machines.

Leticia sauntered up to the gorilla, hips undulating like a cobra on LSD. “I'm Traffic Enforcement Supervisor Leticia Jackson.” She thrust out her chest. “How can I help you?”

The gorilla gave her an appreciative eye. “I seek Maisie McGrane.”

“And what would a fine man like yourself want with her?”

I raised my hand in a halfhearted wave. The gorilla saw me, pressed the headset at his ear, and said something into his wrist.

One of the Betty Bruisers whispered loudly, “Forget it, Leticia. You're too fat for him.” Which was along the lines of a blimp telling a hot air balloon they were overinflated.

Leticia smoothed a hand down the side of her body. “This ain't fat. This is sexy overflow.”

A second suited Serbian entered the break room, carrying a colossal cut-crystal vase of pink roses.

The gorilla led him through the ocean of my slack-jawed hill-people coworkers and gestured to my table. The man set the flowers down.

The gorilla said in a low voice, “Stannislav Renko sends his regards.” He gave me a short nod and the two men left.

“Who you fucking now,
puta?
” Sanchez sneered from across the room.

The mini La Razas started heckling rapid-fire. Thankfully, I couldn't understand the bulk of what they said.

They had Leticia chuckling, though, as she came over to inspect the bounty. She reached out and squeezed a rose where the petals met the stem. “Firm. Some damn fine flowers,” she mumured absently. “You oughtta toss in a couple o' aspirin in the vase, keep 'em fresh.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

She eyed me, brow puckered in consternation. “What is this, McGrane?”

“A marriage proposal?” She elbowed me in the ribs. “Or a ‘please, baby, take my sorry ass back'?”

“I have no idea.”

 

I officed the day in the break room in front of the ocean of pink flowers. Amidst the occasional hissing slur, I filled out the paperwork for my new position, made a list of the hazmat gear I needed from Home Depot, and chewed over Stannis's intentions.

I'd never cheat on Hank. Not for the Bureau of Organized Crime's Special Unit. Not ever. But even in an alternate universe where Hank didn't exist, I don't think I could get past what I walked in on at the strip club.

I blew out a breath, ruffling some rose petals.

When exactly had my proactive-initiative-taking turned into job-jeopardizing-insanity?

I pushed away from the table and left the break room to rummage in my locker. Beneath my gym bag, poly-blend uniforms, and a stash of PowerBars, lay half a package of personally engraved Connor stationery from Barney's. Because when your mother is July Pruitt of the Georgia Pruitts, a handwritten thank-you card for any gift received will be thoughtfully penned on personal stationery and sent the following day or the earth will come to a screeching halt upon its axis, condemning all enlightened society to utter darkness.