some sort of anabolic issue.
“I’m not really the receptionist, so this phone is like Swahili,” the guard said. “I’m just here for extra security and the receptionist is at lunch.”
“Security?” Fi took a chance. “Because of that explosion the other day?”
The guard smiled and Fi saw that her teeth were insanely white. Nice teeth are important but this was absurd. It was like she had a mouth filled with piano keys. “Yes!” she said. “Omigod. Did you hear about that? It’s crazy, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Fi said. This security guard woman was really quite the woman of multitudes. She projected strength and body dysmorphic issues, but also seemed incredibly vapid. Very strange. “This whole boating industry can be very dangerous.”
The guard nodded her head, which was also a strange exercise, since she nodded and blinked excessively hard at the same time while keeping the smile burnished on her face. “This is my only day, but everyone at the agency was like, hey, you might get to break an arm, Gretchen! And so I thought, hey, when else do you get the chance to break an arm in a really nice building like this one? Mobsters and rappers and rich people. I could really meet someone neat, right?”
Fi didn’t really have a response to that. Chiefly because none of it made any sense to her. She had the impression that this was a woman used to people not listening to her closely and thus no one ever corrected her when she said absurd things. A shame, really. A little molding and Fi thought she could probably turn her into a fairly competent knee-breaker. But she’d need to get rid of that tan and that smile. It was all very off putting.
“Anywho,” the guard said. She poked around the phone some more. “I don’t know how to get Mr. Sherman on this thing. Do you know where his office is at?”
“Yes,” Fi said. She had a new opinion. Anyone who ended a sentence with the word “at” and managed to get the term “anywho” into a sentence was unmoldable at any cost. “If you’ll just open the door, of course.”
The security guard got up from behind the desk and made her way to the door to unlock it, which gave Fi a chance to look at the phone system and see that Mr. Sherman was in office 129. It was right on the phone in huge bold letters. It also said he was not to be disturbed until after the race. A very important man, no doubt, in the same way many people think they are very important: that their particular world is more interesting and important than yours.
That didn’t jibe with Fi. Timothy Sherman, she thought, you’re going to be picking flowers.
The interior offices of the Star Class Association resembled something put together by Gilligan and the Skipper: Nautical paintings on the walls, bits of ancient oars and masts and such encased in glass frames and boxes scattered down the long hallways. A cubicle farm painted light blue and with funny signs at their various nexuses that had arrows pointed to Bermuda, Cape Cod, Hawaii, the Tropic of Cancer. The cubicles themselves were largely empty, which made sense since all of the action was happening down in the marina in preparation for the race, but the few people she did see were all young men who looked like they’d been born wearing navy blue diapers.
Timothy Sherman’s office was at the back of the floor and looked out over the cubicles in one direction and out towards the sea in the other. His door was open, presumably so the drones working away could periodically stand up and see out to the water and marvel at how lucky their boss was.
She already didn’t like Timothy Sherman, which was nice since she hoped she’d get the chance to hurt him.
Just a little.
Maybe a pinch.
A tight squeeze.
A pistol whip to the eyebrow. Something worth the trouble she went to putting on the silly conservative suit she had to wear in order to look like a young car rental executive, never mind the tacky DayRunner she was using to hold documents.
When she reached Sherman’s office door, she found him sitting with his back to the door, staring intently at his computer, which was filled with what looked to Fiona like weather reports and information on the tides. Very important stuff, no doubt.
“Timothy Sherman?” she said loudly, making him jump a bit in his seat. He turned and faced her and Fi saw that he was angry. He still had at least another few days before he could be disturbed, of course.
“Who are you?”
“Pitney Bowes from Allied Car Rental,” she said and extended her hand for Sherman to shake, which he did. He was one of those guys who shook women’s hands like he thought his strength might overpower them, so he intentionally went light, so Fi gave him all she had until he actually winced and pulled back. “Sir, we have a big problem.”
She reached into the DayRunner and slid out a copy of the police report Loretta had made earlier involving a certain Peeping Tom. Fi had done a little work on the report, adding the plate of the rental to it, and Sherman’s name, too.
Sherman read the report silently, apart from the growing sound of his labored breathing, and then set it down.
“This is a big misunderstanding,” he said.
“Mr. Sherman, you understand that it’s bad public relations when our cars are used in the commission of a sex crime, don’t you?”
“Of course,” he said. “But that wasn’t what was happening. I wasn’t even there. I’ve been right here all day.”
“So the car drove itself?”
“No, no,” he said. “I’m afraid the car was in use for official Cup business, but I certainly wasn’t the driver and I can assure you that the person driving the car was not engaged in any crime.”
It was really too bad Sherman wasn’t the ultimate criminal here, Fi thought, because there was just something about him that annoyed her. It was probably that he used the term “official Cup business” as if it meant something she should be impressed with.
“Mr. Sherman, there are no other drivers listed on your rental contract,” Fi said. “I’m going to have to contact your insurance agency and, I’m not afraid to say, you are civilly liable if poor Ms. Loretta, who I must say sounded terribly distraught, chooses to litigate.”
Ah, the word that makes men of a certain ilk quake: litigate.
“We don’t need to go in that direction, do we?” Sherman said. He was smiling now, confident, like he’d been in this position before. He reached into his desk and pulled out an envelope, flipped through the contents and then came out with a ticket. “I would love for you to be my special guest on our hospitality yacht to watch the first half of the Cup.”
“That’s very generous,” Fi said and returned Sherman’s smile, even gave an extra flourish with her eyes, licked her lips twice, let him really think that a ticket on a yacht was just the sort of thing a girl like her would really want. She kept that look of honest rapture and joy on her face as she said, “But I still need the driver’s name, or else I’m afraid the police will be showing up here in about an hour to arrest you, and so I can stop my assistant from calling your insurance carrier to let them know of the malfeasance your organization has been party to.”
Sherman swallowed hard. “His name is Robert Roberge.”
Not a name he wanted to give up. Interesting, Fi thought. Now that he was frightened, she had him precisely where she wanted him. Scared people think they can talk their way out of problems, think that by giving up the information you ask for that they’ll stay out of trouble, particularly someone like Sherman, who seemed like he had something to hide, or at least something he didn’t want to tell the kind woman from Allied Car Rental.
“Social security number?” Fiona said, thinking, what the hell, why not fish a bit. Besides, she needed to get him out of the office for a few moments so she could plant a wire in the room, since she figured the real interesting news would come after she left.
“Why do you need that?”
“Mr. Sherman, do you see this?” She waved the police report. “This is not a joke, sir. This is the police.”
“I’ll need to get his file,” he said. He was positively bashful as he walked out of his office, perhaps because he saw his entire career flashing before his eyes. Wait until he found out his race was fixed.
Fiona would have felt slightly sorry for him if he’d been gentleman enough to offer her two tickets for the
