'No. He was always plugged into a phone line. Surfing. Doing email. Real secretive about it, too. If someone came over to him he'd close up the computer. Probably was on some porno site. He looked like the type.'
'Slimy?'
'Male. I keep protection in my desk for those types.' She opened her top desk drawer to show me her canister of pepper spray.
I continued to move around the room, saving Edgar, the Asian guy, for last. Several of the women thought Singh looked unhappy. Alice Louise thought he might be secretly gay. No one could fault his work habits. He arrived on time and he did his barrel. No one knew he was engaged. No one had any idea where he lived or what he did in his spare time, other than surf the Net. Everyone had seen the newspaper article and thought Vinnie looked like a weasel.
I called Ranger at noon.
'Yo,' Ranger said.
'Just checking in.'
'How are the folks at TriBro?'
'Not giving me a lot, but it's still early.'
'Go get 'em, babe.' And he disconnected.
I drifted over to Edgar's table mid-afternoon. Edgar was dropping acid on a small metal bar with threads at either end. One drop at a time. Drip, wait, and measure. Drip, wait, and measure. Drip, wait, and measure. There had to be a thousand bars waiting to be tortured. Nothing was happening. This job made watching grass grow look exciting.
'We're testing a new alloy,' Edgar said.
'This seems more interesting than the gear measuring.'
'Only for the first two million bars. After that, it's pretty routine.'
'Why do you keep this job?'
'Benefits.'
'Health insurance?'
'Gambling. If the product fails, one of us goes to Vegas as a tech rep. And the products fail all the time.'
'What's a tech rep?'
'A technical representative. You know, a repairman.'
'Did Singh ever go to Vegas?'
'Once.'
'And you?'
'On an average, once a month. Failure is usually stress related. And that's my area of expertise.'
'Did Singh like Vegas?'
'Why are you so interested in Singh?' Edgar asked.
'I'm taking over his job.'
'If you were taking over his job you'd be sitting at his desk doing measurements. Instead, you're floating around, talking to everyone. I think you're looking for Singh.'
A point for Edgar. 'Okay, suppose I am looking for Singh. Would you know where to find him?'
'No, but I'd know where to start looking. The day before he disappeared he was in the lunch room calling all the McDonald's places, asking if a guy named Howie worked there. It was pretty strange. He was all excited. And it was the first time I'd ever seen him make a call.'
I looked through the window, into the manufacturing area, and I caught Bart Cone's eye. He was examining a machine, standing with three other men. He glanced up and saw me talking to Edgar.
'That's not a happy face,' Edgar said, his attention shifting to Bart.
'Does he ever have a happy face?'
'Yeah, I saw him smile once when he ran over a toad in the parking lot.'
Bart made a wait here gesture to the men at the machine and marched across the work floor to the test area. He wrenched the door open and asked me to follow him out to the offices. I took my purse since it was the end of the day and there wasn't much chance I'd be returning.
Bart was once again dressed in black. His expression was menacing. I followed him into an office that smelled like metal shavings and was a cluttered mess of stacked catalogues and spare parts collected in tattered cardboard boxes. His desk was large, the top heaped with loose papers, disposable coffee cups, more spare parts, a multiline phone, and a workstation computer.
'What the hell were you doing in there?' Bart asked, looking like a guy who might have murdered Lillian Paressi. 'I thought I made it clear that we had nothing to tell you about Singh.'
'Your brother feels otherwise. He suggested I work undercover for a day.'
Bart snatched at his phone and punched a key on speed dial. 'What's the deal with Ms. Plum?' he asked. 'I found her in the test area.' His expression darkened at Andrews answer. He gave a terse reply, returned the handset to the cradle, and glared at me. 'I don't care what my brother told you, I'm going to give you good advice and God help you if you don't follow it. Stay out of my factory.'
