In this chapter Be a comes back and Law is less than thrilled about it. Let's see how the two of them get along. Will they be able to work together, or not?
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NOTE: Check out my other stories in the Sci-fi / Fantasy Section Crown Vic to a Parallel World From Whence I Came Stolen Love
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Wasted Life a Law Edwards Mystery by Sam Stefanik
8 What are you doing here?
The next day I got up at regular time, six-thirty, and got ready for the day. I hadn't slept well, and my mind was foggy and sluggish. Not much went through it while I showered and dressed. A little after seven, I pushed into the office on my way to breakfast at the corner diner. Bea Arlott was sitting in my swivel chair looking through the letters and stuff she'd brought the night before. Next to the original pile were more letters and a short stack of thin, soft-bound books that looked like coffee table magazines but had plain, dark-green covers.
"Why are you back?" I asked without any other preamble.
Bea stood from my chair to address me. As she rose, I noticed her appearance was entirely different. The most obvious change was the medium grey, high-waisted, pleated pants she wore in place of the long skirt she'd fought with the previous morning. Her shirt was a plain-white buttoned-down with a wide collar. She wore lace up brown oxford shoes and carried no bag. Her face had the barest touch of makeup, and her hair was brushed straight back with no wave. She looked good, more comfortable than the day before, but that didn't mean I wanted to see her.
To compound my annoyance at her presence was the additional insult I felt when she crossed to where I stood, and I realized she was an inch taller than me. Her height was not her fault, but I still wasn't happy about it.
"I can't pay you what you're worth, so the least I can do is help you." Bea said to explain her presence in my office.
Frustrated anger filled my tired mind. The green taste of bile rose in my throat. I tried to swallow it, but it wouldn't swallow. It filled my mouth with a flavor as bitter as fresh hate. Just what I need,' I grumbled internally, a silly fuckin' woman tossing a wrench in the works.'
I refused her offer of help. "No, go home."
Bea crossed her arms over her modest bust. "You need me." She insisted. "I thought about it last night. If Preston is running from something, how would he know not to run from you? If I'm with you, he might let himself be found."
I refused again. "Not a chance."
Bea and I faced each other grimly and had a silent battle of wills until she broke. I had the advantage of age. Youth hasn't been kicked around enough to learn real obstinance. It takes years to properly develop. Bea was good, but she was good for an eighteen-year-old girl. She couldn't hope to stand against a forty-three-year-old war veteran and ex-cop.
Bea dropped her arms and switched from insisting to begging. "Please, Mister Edwards. I can't sit at home and wait. I need to do something."
`Ah shit...' I thought. I rubbed my face with both hands and swore through them. I found it tough to argue with someone who felt the need for action. I also had to admit that more doors would open to an attractive young woman than to a middle-aged man who look like he slept in his clothes.
I had an argument with myself that broke the surface in the form of a mild tantrum. "Fuck...fuck, fuck...FUCK...fuck-fine...fine...fuck...FINE, you can help." I dropped my hands and advanced well into Bea's personal space. She held her ground and let me advance on her.
I poked the ball of her right shoulder with every other word. "I tell you to do something, you do it. If I lie, you swear to it. Any instructions I give, you follow. You will NOT question me. You will NOT speak while I'm asking questions. If you do ANYTHING that pisses me off, we're DONE, and you go home. It's that way or no way. GOT IT?"
Bea seemed to get it, and she was thrilled about it. "Oh, thank you, Mister Edwards, thank you! I won't let you down." She gushed. Her eyes flared wide as all at once she seemed to realize her reaction was overly enthusiastic. She clamped her jaw shut and stifled the enthusiasm. When she spoke again, she sounded like she was reading the news on the radio. "I mean, thank you for letting me work with you. I'll try not to disappoint you."
Even Bea's reduced enthusiasm was too much for me and I let her know it. "You can skip that eager assistant nonsense." I stepped back and rudely pointed at her lower half. "What's with the pants?"
Bea glanced down at herself like she wasn't sure what I was talking about. "Oh, when I'm at work, or out with father, he expects me to look like his idea of a woman. When I go out on my own, I dress as I like. This is what I like. Does a woman in slacks bother you?"
"Nope." I shrugged. For all I cared she could walk around nude. I issued some instructions to my new assistant. "Grab a notebook and let's go."
She did as I asked and followed me out of the office. I plodded down the sidewalk toward the diner. I immediately got frustrated with the sidewalk crowd and stepped into the street. Bea followed, timidly at first. She didn't seem comfortable walking in the street, but I didn't care.
She soon got used to the different pavement and offered her observations on the morning. "Isn't it a nice day?" She asked as she looked up and down the sun-drenched street. "Warm, blue-sky, nice breeze."
I couldn't believe my ears. I decided I wasn't going to partner with some kind of half-assed candy-striper in slacks. I halted my steps and glared at Bea until she lowered her head and learned her place. Isn't it a nice day?' I mentally mocked. Christ! She's not going to last out the day.'
We walked to the diner on the next block and sat away from the other patrons. I did that for two reasons. The first was I couldn't stand the normal diner chatter. Most people are fucking stupid. If they could only hear themselves, they'd talk less. When do you think we'll invade?' Uncle Joe Stalin is really giving it to them.' Did you hear Roosevelt the other night?' The boys will be home by Christmas.' Bah!
The other reason I moved to the last booth near the kitchen was that I wanted to be able to talk about the entire case without an audience. I made Bea wait while I ordered my meal. She asked for a cup of coffee. When both came to the table, I shoveled food in my face and talked around it while Bea took notes.
"What do we know?" I asked rhetorically, then rattled off what we knew. Bea added a few thoughts. The list looked like this:
Young guy, queer, broke, been gambling, looking for big payoff, worked at Navy Yard, rode trolley, key means something, hasn't sent a letter, maybe doesn't want to involve sister, maybe can't communicate, maybe afraid to go outside. He's an engineer, good with numbers, understands blueprints. Abandoned job. Doesn't know the city, except near the college and South Philly near the yard. Stole documents from Consolidated.
I exposed the document theft to Bea only because I wanted her to keep complete notes. She didn't like when I told her about it. She tried to say her brother would never.
"You're not going to argue with me." I pointed my fork at her. "Mark it down."
Bea paused with her pencil pressed to the page and asked what Preston took. I handed over the scrap of paper I'd written Beedle's words on and asked if she knew what they meant. She read the list and picked up a hexagonal glass saltshaker with a screw on metal strainer top. She pointed to the shaker with the tip of her pencil and used her paper placemat to make little sketches.
"A plan' is a drawing of an object looking down on it." She drew a circle with dots in it inside a hexagon. "This is a plan of the shaker. An elevation' is the same thing from the side." She drew another sketch of the side of the shaker. "See?" She asked and held up her placemat.
I glanced up to scrutinize Bea's work. Her free hand drawings were impressive. The straight lines were straight, and the circles were circular. She also maintained good proportions. The elevation she'd drawn of the saltshaker even had perspective. I grunted affirmation through a mouthful of fried potatoes.
Bea took my grunt to mean I wanted to know more. She continued the lesson. "'Details' are exactly that." She drew a slanting angle drawing of the shaker cap and added a bunch of notes to it. The notes labeled how many holes the cap had, their diameters, how wide the screw cap was, and how many threads it had. "It's all the information a fabricator would need to build this one part of the assembly.
"`Specs' are all the information about the material requirements. They call out what type of metal should be used for the shaker cap, if it's coated what it's coated with, if it's stamped or pressed, if it needs to be heat treated or polished, stuff like that.
"'Material reports' are kind of a special thing." Bea pointed her pencil at the shaker. "Let's say this saltshaker was a critical piece of a ship. The Navy wants a record of where the glass was made, when it was made, where the sand came from to make it, a batch number, and the formula for the glass.
"If a flaw is ever discovered in this saltshaker, the Navy could trace the material. They could also identify if these same saltshakers were used in other Navy projects and they could be traced to see if only this shaker had the flaw, or if they all do. They could also identify and investigate the manufacturer to see how the flaw occurred and how to prevent it from happening in the future."
The way she explained things made it sound like the Navy wanted a lot of information on something that wasn't that big of a deal. I expressed my skepticism. "Sounds like a lot of bullshit. What would they do that for? I mean, what parts?"
"I don't know for sure, but I've heard father complain about the amount of detail required for working with the government. I think they want paperwork on everything."
I sneered at the idea. "Sounds like they should just build the ships from fucking paper and cut out the middleman. Is any of that stuff worth anything?"
"I don't think so." Bea shrugged her confusion at me. "A ship is a ship. How much different could they be?"
I noticed that Bea's words echoed Beedle's from the day before. "Maybe he's not a liar." I said aloud to myself.
Bea turned the discussion on its head when she went back to her original objection. "Even if they were valuable, Pres wouldn't have taken them. He certainly wouldn't have stolen them to sell."
I didn't appreciate being questioned again, and I growled my disapproval at Bea. "I told you to skip it. Mark it down and don't fucking argue with me."
Bea winced as I growled at her. I wondered if it was my tone or my foul language. Either way, her discomfort was just fine with me. I wondered if I could chart a careful course of offensive behavior to keep her as a client but lose her as a sidekick. I decided to have a try. When I reflected for barely a second, I realized my normal behavior was probably just the right amount of offensive and I wouldn't have to change anything. I simply wouldn't bother to filter myself. With that resolved in my brain, I got back to the case.
I checked to make sure Bea had taken the notes I wanted her to take and asked another rhetorical question to premise our next line of thought. "Now, what questions do we have? We want to know..." I rattled some more, and Bea wrote down what I said.
Why did he leave his rooming house? Why did he abandon his job? Who is he hiding from (must be from someone) or who / what is he running to (must be something)? Is he still in the city? Where would he go? How would he go? Would he ask for help? Who would he ask if not his sister?
I thought about the list as Bea finished transcribing it. "That last one is interesting." I said to the air. "Maybe we could find someone he asked. If the need happened suddenly, he couldn't have called you or even sent a wire without alerting your father. Maybe he reached out to one of his old friends or Simon. Who does he know in the city?" I pushed my empty plate away on the last question.
Bea noticed my action with the plate and assumed correctly that it was time to leave. She flipped her notepad shut and finished her coffee in a gulp. "I brought his school yearbooks and some letters from his friends." She announced as she stood from the table. "Maybe they can help us."
It wasn't a bad idea. I waved to the waitress for the check and paid off. I almost made Bea cough up the nickel for her own coffee, but I remembered that, out of my pocket or hers, it was her money.