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 phones.
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.
