sat down. She had eschewed the Oriental hamburg. On her tray was a sandwich and a cup of tea.
A girl not long out of the high-school corridors came past me wearing very expensive clothes, very snugly. She had on blue harlequin glasses with small jewels on them, and she smelled like a French sunset.
She smiled at me and said, “Well, foxy, what are you looking at?”
“A size-nine body in a size-seven dress,” I said.
“You should see it without the dress,” she said.
“I certainly should,” I said.
She smiled and joined two other kids her age at a table. They whispered together and looked at me and laughed. The best-dressed people in the world are the single kids that just started working.
Two men in business suits and one uniformed guard came into the cafeteria and walked over to Rachel’s table. I slid along behind and listened in. It looked like my business. It was.
“We invited her here,” Dorothy was saying.
One of the business suits said, “You’re not authorized to do that.” He looked like Clark Kent. Three-piece suit with a small gray herringbone in it. Glasses, square face. His hair was short, his face was clean shaved. His shoes were shined. His tie was knotted small but asserted by a simple pin. He was on the way up.
“Who are you?” Rachel said.
“Timmons,” he said. “Director of employee relations.” He spoke very fast. “This is Mr. Boucher, our security coordinator.” Nobody introduced the uniformed guard; he wasn’t on the way up. Boucher was sort of plumpish and had a thick mustache. The guard didn’t have a gun, but the loop of a leather strap stuck out of his right hip pocket.
“And why are you asking me to leave?” Rachel was saying.
“Because you are in violation of company policy.”
“How so?”
“No soliciting is allowed on the premises,” Timmons said. I wondered if he was nervous or if he always spoke that fast. I drifted around behind Rachel’s chair and folded my arms and looked at Timmons.
“And what exactly am I supposed to be soliciting?” Rachel said.
Timmons didn’t like me standing there, and he didn’t quite know what to do about it. He looked at me and looked away quickly and then he looked at Boucher and back at me and then at Rachel. He started to speak to Rachel and stopped and looked at me again.
“Who are you?” he said.
“I’m the tooth fairy,” I said.
“The what?”
“The tooth fairy,” I said. “I loosen teeth.”
Timmons’s mouth opened and shut. Boucher said, “We don’t need any smart answers, mister.”
I said, “You wouldn’t understand any.”
Rachel said, “Mr. Spenser is with me.”
“Well,” Boucher said, “you’ll both have to leave or we’ll have you removed.”
“How many security people you got?” I said to Boucher.
“That’s no concern of yours,” Boucher said. Very tough.
“Yeah, but it could be a concern of yours. It will take an awful lot of people like you to remove us.”
The uniformed guard looked uncomfortable. He probably knew his limitations, or maybe he just didn’t like the company he was keeping.
“Spenser,” Rachel said, “I don’t want any of that. We will resist, but we will resist passively.”
The dining room was very quiet except for the yellow walls. Timmons spoke again—probably encouraged by the mention of passive resistance.
“Will you leave quietly?” he said.
“No,” Rachel said, “I will not.”
“Then you leave us no choice,” Boucher said. He turned to the uniformed guard. “Spag,” he said, “take her out.”
“You can’t do that,” Dorothy said.
“You should wait and discuss this with your supervisor,” Timmons said, “because I certainly will.”
Spag stepped forward and said softly, “Come on, miss.”
Rachel didn’t move.
Boucher said, “Take her, Spag.”
Spag took her arm, gently. “Come on, miss, you gotta go,” he said. He kept a check on me with frequent side- shifting glances. He was probably fifty and no more than 170 pounds, some of it waistline. He had receding brown hair and tattoos on both forearms. He pulled lightly at Rachel’s arm. She went limp.
Boucher said, “God damn it, Spag, yank her out of that chair. She’s trespassing. You have the right.”
