Dying Embers (2 page)

At this point, I'd have been a quivering pile of gelatin. Not so for Ms. Tracy. She stood up, made fists of her hands, and crushed her bosom with her folded arms. “No, I certainly did not,” she said. “And if you persist in this, I am leaving.”

“I thought you'd want to see the videotape before you left.”

Tracy sat back down, perched on the front edge of the chair. Her eyes
had gone from narrow to quite round, which, along with her parted lips, made her face telegraph a silent, “Oh-oh.”

I pushed my chair back. I'd hidden the monitor and tape player under the desk in front of my feet.

“The camera is in the ceiling, over the white table, behind the cash drawer where you wrap the deposits.” I set the monitor on the desk and turned it so that we could all see it. “It's called a pinhole camera because it takes the pictures through a tiny hole in the ceiling.”

I bent back over to get the tape player from under the desk, and that's when it happened—a long, baritone rip. I felt my trousers go slack across my fanny. I sat back up with a start, but without the machine.

Lorna, her face red, held a hand over her mouth. I looked at Tracy. A smirk had settled on her face.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“You have little yellow smiley faces on your boxer shorts,” said Lorna as she sat and giggled behind her hand.

I looked back at Tracy. Her smirk had turned smug.

“Be that as it may,” I said, “the damage is done and I think that we should press on.” I bent over again but stopped when the size of the draft area reached panic proportions, opting to hook the player with my foot and skid it within easy reach. I set the player on the desk and scooted my butt back on the chair. The leather felt chilly.

Lorna had turned away and sagged down in her chair. She held her side and gasped for air. Tracy planted her face in her hands and collapsed onto the desk. She wheezed out laughs in groups of three or so, separated by gulps for air.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. I had to laugh.

Tracy sat up, folded her hands on the desk, and affected a serious face. When our eyes met, she slid off the chair and out of sight. I could hear her pulsing and gasping on the floor. Lorna's jaws were tight as she tried to cap off the heaving in the rest of her body.

“Could you help Tracy back into her chair?” I asked.

“Art, I don't think I can walk yet,” Lorna said in a faint voice, then slumped back down in the chair and lost it again.

The door opened, and Harold Butler's head and shoulders appeared through the opening. His hair and moustache were both steel gray and he wore a black pinstriped suit. He looked around his office. “Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“We can hear you all over the dealership.”

“Sorry.”

Harold looked at Tracy and said, “Oh my god.” He brushed in the door and bent down to lift her from the floor. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“I wanted to make sure that Tracy wasn't as mortified as Mary Ellen,” he said and piled her in the chair like a rag doll.

“She's not.”

“She's laughing?” he said.

“Maybe I over-corrected.” I punched the play button on the recorder. “Tracy, Tracy,” I said, “Tracy! Try to focus here!”

Tracy wiped her eyes with her forearm and looked at the screen. She fell silent but not quite sober as the tape played and she watched herself stuff the money and the invoice in her purse. Finally she said, “I guess I stole
that
money.”

Harold Butler pushed the door closed behind him and made an astonished face. “Is it all right if I stay?”

I looked at Tracy. She shrugged and giggled.

“On Friday last did you steal …” Tracy started sliding down her chair, and I flipped the next half-dozen sheets of yellow legal pad paper into the middle of the desk one at a time. “Tracy, when you stole the first hundred dollars you made this a felony. On each of these incidents you stole over a hundred dollars, making every incident a separate felony.”

“Tracy,” said Harold Butler, “I know how much money you stole, and I expect you to pay it back.”

“I didn't steal anything Mr. Smiley Face doesn't have pictures of,” she told him.

I pushed the stop button on the player and then the rewind. While the player hummed away, I fished a spreadsheet out of the file, circled the total, folded the paper, and stashed it in the breast pocket of my jacket. The player clicked to a stop.

“This is the second of two tapes concerning your thefts,” I said, “but I suppose we can play this one first.” I pushed the play button. Tracy watched, entranced.

I picked up the telephone and dialed.

“Who are you calling?” asked Tracy. Panic replaced the mirth in her face.

“My wife,” I said. “This is a two-hour tape and I've already seen it.”

Tracy deflated back in her chair and Wendy answered the telephone, “Silk City Surveys.”

“Hi,” I said, “I have a little problem. We have to back off my meeting with your client.”

Wendy ran a detective agency from the house that specialized in industrial undercover work. Her client, Scott Lambert, had a personal matter that he wanted looked into, and Wendy had recommended me for the job.

“I told you about this last week,” said Wendy.

“And I called.”

“Yeah, to tell me you weren't going to make it. Like always. Like last week you missed Daniel's football game.”

“I called.”

“So what?”

“Honey!”

“Scott is flying out at three and wants the work done before he gets back. This is business. I thought I could at least count on you for that.”

“I split my trousers.” Now Harold gave me the wide eyes, and the ladies started giggling again.

“So pull your jacket down and don't turn your back to Scott,” said Wendy.

The door exploded open, and Tracy's husband crashed into the office. Ken Ayers stood just under six feet tall, weighed a lean one-eighty, and sported a Fu Manchu moustache that drooped around the corners of his mouth to hang an inch and a half below his chin. He wore a black leather vest over a black T-shirt and jeans. A folded red bandanna wrapped his forehead, tied at the back; he'd left the loose ends to trail down with his ponytail.

“The sales manager called me. He told me Tracy was hysterical,” he said, his face red with anger. He looked from Harold to me and then back to Harold. “What the hell is going on?”

Harold backed up behind Lorna and pointed at me. Lorna had her black leather purse in her lap like she was digging for her cigarettes or a lipstick—that's where she kept her Walther PPKS. Ken looked at me and I pointed to the screen of the monitor on the desk.

“You okay, baby?” he said as he stepped up behind Tracy's chair and settled his hands on her shoulders. “Hey, that's you on the TV.”

“Right hon,” said Tracy, “and I'm in big shit.”

“It's worse than that, kiddo,” I said into the telephone, “the curtain is open like a Broadway play.”

Both the ladies giggled. The lights came on in Ken's eyes. He looked at me, leaned over the desk, and pushed the stop/eject button on the player.

“Just a sec,” I said and whacked Ken's patty with the telephone.

Ken straightened up and snapped his hand back. He stared at me with his mouth open while he rubbed his right hand with his left.

“Think 'obstruction,'” I said. I put the telephone back to my ear.

“What on earth are you pounding on?” said Wendy.

“Sorry,” I said. “There must be some way to reschedule.”

Ken dove onto the desk and grabbed my tie. I bopped him on the nose with the telephone. Lorna stood with her right hand inside her purse. Ken let go of my tie and grabbed his face with both hands. I switched the telephone to my left hand and put it back up to my ear.

Harold started for the door. “I'm calling the police!”

I held up my hand. “Wait!”

Harold stopped, his face drained of color. “Have you lost your mind?”

“How soon do you want your money back?”

Ken's right hand went back to his hip pocket. By the time he got his butterfly knife up to my throat Lorna's purse crashed to the floor, she had a double handful of Walther, and I had the front sight of my Detonics .45 inside Ken's left nostril.

“What is going on, and what's all that pounding?” asked Wendy.

“A man is holding a knife to my throat.”

“Don't shoot him,” said Wendy. “If you shoot him you'll miss the meeting with Scott.”

“Here, you talk to him,” I said. I held out the telephone for Ken to take. His face was less than a foot from mine, and he looked like he had just discovered a cabbage in his bowling bag.

I waggled the telephone a little. “It's my wife,” I said and nodded affirmatively.

He took the telephone with his left hand and raised it to take a swipe at me. I thumbed the hammer on my lead launcher, and he lowered the telephone to his ear in short jerks.

He listened for a few beats. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, a brown check suit.”

“Oh, shit,” I said. “Now I'm in trouble.”

“Maybe you can bury him in it,” he said.

I couldn't hear what Wendy said, but Ken was done talking. His eyes
went from narrow slits to saucer circles, and his face flushed. The knife rolled out of his hand and clunked onto the desk. He handed the telephone back and showed me his empty hands.

I took the telephone. “Thanks, doll,” I said. “Looks like we have that cleared up. Just a sec.” I took the handset off my ear and pressed it to my chest.

“You're crowding the desk, pard,” I said. “You want to get back over on your side?” I arched my eyebrows, twitched his nose with the muzzle, and added, “Pretty please?”

Ken's moustache started to pulse, and his eyes crossed. I kicked my chair back. Ken snatched the bandanna off his head, clamped it over his face and sneezed.

“Bless you,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said through the bandanna. He rolled over on his back, sat up facing away from me, and wiped his nose. I snapped up the safety on the pistol. He stashed the hanky in his hip pocket and scooted off the desk.

I used the muzzle to slap shot the butterfly knife across the desk top. “Put that in your pocket.” I returned the telephone to my ear. Wendy was already talking.

“—your fault. You wore that damn suit. I put it out for the clothing drive.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but I like this suit.”

“It's ugly.”

Ken cast Lorna a sidelong glance while she studied him over the sights of the Walther. “Just nothing sudden,” she said.

“It was ugly when you bought it and the pants are too tight,” said Wendy.

“Not anymore,” I said. Wendy didn't answer.

With his index fingers Ken folded the halves of the handle around the blade of the knife as it lay on the desk. “I'm going to pick it up now,” he said. He put it in his hip pocket with his right hand.

“Okay Hon,” I said into the telephone. “Where do I meet him?”

“Yesterdog's on Wealthy,” said Wendy. “I told him that you'd be there at one. Try not to be too late. Scott pays his invoices in ten days.”

“I'll be there.”

“Good,” she said. She hung up.

I set the handset back in the cradle.

“Lorna,” I said, “please give the gentleman your chair. I'm going to put my pistol away but I think you should keep yours out.”

Harold Butler took Lorna's chair by the backrest and rolled it over next to Tracy. Ken sat. Harold backed over to the corner away from the door
and across from me. He folded his arms, his face stern and accusing.

“We're almost done,” I said, but it didn't improve Butler's face. Ken made a tight-lipped smile at Lorna and folded his hands in his lap. Lorna lowered the pistol but kept her shoulders square and her stare icy.

“Tracy, I know that this is all new for you—the getting caught part I mean. You've been stealing from Mr. Butler since the week you were hired.”

“You can't prove that,” she said.

“You're busted and you're good for it,” I said. “Wouldn't you say that was about right, Ken?”

“Yeah,” he said. He rolled his eyes up.

“So here's how it goes when you're busted and you're good for it,” I said, but I had to wait for Tracy to stop glowering at Ken and look back at me. “You cop to it all. I mean everything. If you filched a tuna sandwich from the lunch truck—you tell us now. That way you make your best deal.” When I said the word “deal,” Ken straightened up in his chair and his face snapped over to meet mine. “That way nothing creeps up to bite you on the backside.”

I nodded once at Ken, and he nodded back. Tracy let her mouth fall open as she directed a horrified gape to Ken, then to me, and back to Ken again. Harold Butler's stern countenance softened.

I took the folded ledger sheet out of the breast pocket of my jacket and slid it across the desk to Tracy. “Twenty-one thousand, eight hundred thirty-three dollars,” I said. “That's all I can prove. If you got any more, I guess you got over.”

Ken looked at Tracy with merry eyes. “Babe,” he said and tucked in his chin.

Tracy backhanded the paper without looking at it. “That doesn't prove anything.”

I pushed the play button on the video deck. “That proves everything,” I said. I left it running.

“I don't have that kind of money.”

“Of course you do,” I said and leafed through the file to the financial work-up. “In the bank next door you have eleven thousand, six hundred and twenty-two dollars in a savings account. You haven't made a deposit in three months, but the days and amounts of your deposits coincide with days that you worked and the amounts of missing invoices. Ken here,” I nodded and smiled, “just registered a brand new Harley Davidson with no lien.”