interview with a good prospect after work. An accounting firm wanted an office assistant.
The office was in a new building four blocks from the Coronado. Helen saw herself sitting at a clean, well- lighted desk with a comfortable chair and a potted philodendron.
The pay was better than the bookstore: eight fifty an hour.
The requirements would be laughable anywhere but South Florida.
Helen hoped she could persuade the owner to pay her in cash off the books. She’d settle for eight dollars an hour.
At four-thirty, Helen put on fresh lipstick, combed her hair, and checked her panty hose for runs. No doubt about it, she looked neat. She walked confidently to what she hoped would be her new job. The door to the office suite was a solid slab of mahogany with a discreet silver plaque:
THE HANSELMEYER COMPANY. The old corporate part of her responded immediately and approved. The receptionist’s desk was equally impressive, and the woman behind it was a dignified fifty instead of some fluffy young chick. Another good sign.
The owner, Selwyn Hanselmeyer, looked like a snake in a suit, but Helen figured she could put up with him. He had a flat face, yellow eyes that never blinked, and a large bulge in his midsection. Helen wondered if he’d swallowed a piglet for lunch.
Just beyond his door, she glimpsed the office cubicles, padded with soft gray fabric to deaden sound. Even ordinary office workers had big leather executive chairs. She longed to sit in one. On the closest desk, she saw a framed baby picture and a philodendron in a blue pot. The throne-like chair was empty. It was waiting for her.
Please let me get this job, she prayed. I’ll work for a snake. It won’t be so bad.
Hanselmeyer was so short, she suspected he’d jacked up his chair to make himself look taller. He did not rise when Helen entered the room. He probably didn’t want to be measured against her six feet. Instead, she looked down on his elaborate comb-over. She wondered if it hid a diamondback pattern.
Helen recognized his first questions as part of the standard employee interview. He wanted to know her goals and past experience. Helen lied about both. She truthfully said she was skilled in all the right software.
When Hanselmeyer asked what job she wanted in ten years, Helen knew not to say, “Yours.” The snake asked when she would be available.
“Tomorrow,” she said.
Could she could work overtime? “I love overtime.” Yes! she thought.
Then he hissed, “Do you hear that old biological clock ticking?”
“I beg your pardon?” Helen said. She wasn’t sure what this had to do with typing and filing.
“I know I shouldn’t ask, but are you planning to have children?”
“I’m not married,” Helen said.
“Unmarried women can have children,” Hanselmeyer said, pointing to the empty desk. “That girl out there had herself a turkey-baster baby because she was afraid time was running out. Now she’s off half the time taking care of the kid. It’s always sick. Got croup today. I can’t fire her or I’ll have the libbers all over me. Maybe it’s a little illegal to ask, but are you going to have kids?”
Helen wasn’t. But she could feel her anger burst in her brain in a red-hot shower. How dare he? He only asked because she was powerless. He knew he could get away with a question that was piercingly personal and definitely illegal.
“Oh, dear, I wouldn’t want you to do anything illegal, Mr. Hanselmeyer,” she said. “So I won’t answer that.”
Oh, damn, she thought. There goes my chance to ask the snake to pay me in cash under the table. That’s illegal, too.
Well, I couldn’t work for the slithering SOB, anyway.
She stood up and said, “Thank you for your time.”
On the way out, she gave the desk with the leather chair one last lingering look.
Helen dragged herself home to the Coronado, tired and discouraged. Margery poked her gray head out her door and yelled, “Pick your face off the sidewalk. That boyfriend of yours is on the phone.”
“Rich?” she said. She’d asked Rich never to call her landlady unless there was an emergency.
“You dating someone else?” Tonight, Margery’s shorts were a militant mulberry. They clashed alarmingly with her plum sandals and crimson toenail polish.
Helen picked up Margery’s phone with a fluttering heart.
“What’s wrong?”
“I couldn’t reach you all day.” Rich sounded whiny, her least favorite male mood. “I called the store six times. No one answered.”
“I’m sorry, Rich. We were swamped because of Page’s death. When that happens, the phones go unanswered.”
“How are you?” he said. “Are you avoiding strange men at the store, like I told you?”
She wanted to tell him not to be so foolish, but she wasn’t going to fight on Margery’s phone.
“Look, I don’t want to tie up Margery’s phone. She may be expecting a call.”
“Then let’s talk tomorrow night. We could go to my place. I’ll pick you up after work and throw a couple of steaks on the grill. You can meet Beans and Sissy.”
His pets—at his place. For Rich, meeting his animals was like meeting the family. Beans was a basset hound who’d been brought to the clinic with terminal flatulence.
The exasperated owner wanted to put the gasbag to sleep, but Rich adopted the dog instead. Helen thought that was sweet. Sissy was a regal gray Persian. Helen had not been to Rich’s home yet, so she’d only heard about the animals.
This was a step forward in their relationship.
“Helen,” he said, “why don’t you let me buy you a phone?”
Helen did not want to be in any phone company computer. She’d be too easy to trace.
“Thanks, Rich, but I’d rather not.”
“Don’t let your pride get in the way. I know you can’t afford one, but I can. You can keep it with you and then I can talk to you anytime I want.”
Anytime he wanted. The phrase lodged uneasily in Helen’s mind. Would that also be anytime she wanted? She could see Margery in the kitchen, pacing impatiently back and forth, smoking a cigarette, the red tips of her fingers and her cigarette glowing in the evening shadows.
“I can’t talk now, Rich,” she said. “I’m tying up Margery’s phone. I’ll see you tomorrow night at six. Your roses were still gorgeous this morning.” She hung up.
“Everything OK with lover boy?” Margery said. She blew a wreath of smoke.
“Just fine.” Helen had a feeling her landlady knew she was lying. “Gotta go.” She almost fled out the door to avoid talking about Rich. She ran straight into a wall of heat. Even at six-thirty, it was a force. Helen liked it better than artificially chilled rooms. She was ready for a cool drink by the pool.
Pete and Peggy were already out there. Helen waved at them, but Peggy didn’t respond. She was staring into space.
She hadn’t been herself since the murder.
Why should she? Helen thought. Peggy had found a dead man in her bed. Once the police tape came off the door, would Peggy ever sleep in that soft, sensual bed again? Or would she always share it with a bloating corpse?
Helen was worried about her friend. Peggy seemed drained and lifeless. Her dark red hair was flat, and her long elegant nose seemed more beaklike than ever. Maybe a glass of wine would cheer her up.
“Want a drink?” Helen called across the courtyard.
“Yes,” Peggy said. She sounded like she was sleepwalking. Pete let out a raucous squawk. “Don’t bring any crackers. He’s getting fatter.”
Helen opened her apartment door and was hit with the funeral-parlor scent of dying flowers. She’d turned off her air conditioner when she went to work that morning, to save money. The heat must have roasted her roses. The dropped petals looked like spots of blood on her coffee table. Rich’s gorgeous gift was dead too soon.
Helen sighed, threw the roses in the trash, and dumped the water down the sink. Then she slipped into
