Known to Evil

23

At least Laughton and Price was modern enough to have disposed of the cubicle mentality. The brunt of the workforce was situated at a couple of dozen desks in a very large room. The ceiling was low but there were windows on three sides and enough space between the desks so that the workers could lean back without bumping into each other.

Most of the employees were young and earnestly engaged with their papers, phone conversations, computer screens, and drawing boards.

Larry Spender led me through the modern-day white-collar sweatshop toward the corner office door that had his name on it.

"HAVE A SEAT," HE said after closing the door behind us.

There was a comfortable brown leather and chrome chair facing his desk, behind which was a window that looked south down Lexington Avenue. The November light, even on a clear morning like that one, seemed to carry darkness in its womb.

"So what do you know about Angelique?" he asked.

"I didn't say that I was bringing information, Mr. Spender. I came here looking for her, or at least for how to find her."

These words set Spender back in his swivel chair and even pushed his face in a little. These aspects of suspicion came naturally to him.

"Who sent you?" he asked.

"I was hired by Lizette Lear, Angelique's mother. She, Lizette, relies on her daughter, financially and emotionally, and is at her wits' end." I find that proper diction is a balm for suspicion among the professional classes; reminds them of favorite professors or something.

"Her mother hired you?"

I nodded and smiled.

"But, but, but Angie says that her mother doesn't, um, isn't very friendly with her."

"That might be true," I said. "My father was a union-organizing socialist who hated banks as much as a good Catholic hates the devil. But you better believe that if he ever misplaced his passbook he'd have torn our little cold-water flat down to the ground looking for it."

I also find it useful to tell the truth now and then. There's a special timbre to the truth coming out of one's mouth. If you mix that in with the lies it helps lubricate the dialogue.

"I guess, I guess her mother might ask someone to help," Larry said. "Angie is a wonderful person."

"That's what everyone seems to be saying," I agreed. "All the people I've spoken to, her mother included, have talked about how perfect she is."

"Who have you spoken to?"

"Lizette, of course, and Shad Tandy, her fiance-"

"No," Larry said. "They're not engaged. Actually I think they broke up a month or so ago."

"No? But he said-"

"He lied. That bum was just using Angie."

Bum?

"You sound like a little more than just a boss," I suggested.

His fingers were picking imaginary lint from the desktop.

"Angelique is a very natural kind of person, Mr. Tooms. I run this office, supervise everyone who sits out there. Most of them want things from me and at the same time talk about me behind my back. They secretly tattle on each other and cheat the company in a hundred different ways. They can't be trusted, most of them. But Angie is just, just different. She's always at her desk half an hour early and she doesn't have a bad thing to say-period. I like her very much. She, she… you don't feel like she's trying to get you to do anything for her, and then you find yourself wanting to help."

"I also went to speak to a Wanda Soa," I said, deciding it wouldn't be profitable to comment on this middle-aged man's puppy love.

"Who?"

The murder, partially due to the cops, I was sure, hadn't made it to the front page of any New York paper.

"Just another friend. Have you heard from Angelique?"

He shook his head and pulled his lips into his mouth.

"Can you think of any way to get in touch with her?" I asked.

Again the sad sway of his head.

"Any work friends who might know?"

"I'm her closest friend in this department. You know, Angie has an MBA but she wants to be more, more creative. We're working together on an ad campaign for an Indian tea company that wants to start importing their brand. We convinced them to set up a bottling plant in the Northeast in order to make them seem more American."

"Do they have any contact with Angelique?"

"I wish I could help you, Mr. Tooms," Larry Spender told me. "I really care about her. But she just stopped coming in two weeks ago. She doesn't answer her phone. She hasn't called."

He raised his hands to the level of his shoulders in a perfect expression of helplessness.

"Maybe you could do one thing for her," I said.

"What's that?"

"Do you have an HR department?"

"Yes. Of course."

"Introduce me to someone there. You can tell them that I'm representing her mother."

TRUTH IS THE AGREEMENT between me and you about something, anything: the world is flat, all Arabs are terrorists, the future is predicated on the past. It is true if we agree that it's true.

I was John Tooms representing Angelique Tara Lear's mother, Lizette. This was a fact presented by both Larry Spender and myself to Ms. Sharon Weiss, assistant head of HR.

The HR department, which occupied a moderate-sized space on the ninth floor, had real offices for the six employees situated there. These offices were small and the walls were amber-tinted glass, but you couldn't hear their private conversations.

Ms. Weiss's desk was a blue plastic plank held in place by a black stalk that was anchored to the floor. Weiss was blond to the world, if not by birth, and voluptuous in the way that made Hugh Hefner's millions. Her body, wrapped in a furry tan cashmere dress, looked to be in its late twenties, but her face was almost forty.

Sharon's expression told me that she had not yet been convinced by Larry's and my corroboration of the true. By that time, the office manager had left for his floor filled with real and, I'm sure imagined, backstabbers.

"You say that you, um, represent Mrs. Lear?" Ms. Weiss asked.

I leaned forward in the hard chair she had for guests and penitents, placed my elbows on the blue plastic, and laced my fingers. When she saw my hands, Ms. Weiss's expression changed. I have very big hands, a workingman's hands, a prizefighter's hands, virtual baseball mitts. A certain breed of woman, raised under working-class fathers, is very impressed with hands like mine. It's a meta-sexual response, not about romance, or even touch.

While Sharon was trying to get her nostrils under control I used one of those hands to bring out my wallet.

Breland Lewis hadn't pulled the name John Tooms out of a hat. That was one of my primary aliases. I took out a card that read JOHN TOOMS-PERSONAL INVESTIGATIONS.

"Not private investigator?" she asked after reading the lie.

"I do mostly family work," I said. "Missing kids, wayward spouses. I never use a camera or tape recorder."

Placing her elbows on the desk, Sharon Weiss asked, "What can I do for you, Mr. Tooms?"

"Angie Lear is missing," I said. "Her mother is a sick woman who relies completely on her daughter. She's very worried, for many different reasons. I came here to look for her, and also to find out if she's been let go."

"I'm not allowed to give out personal information," Sharon told me. There was a lot of yellow in her brown eyes. I wondered if the reflection of my suit brought out that hue.

"I won't tell anyone," I said. "And as long as you don't give me any specific information, there would be no reason to question you."

She believed my hands.

Opening the folder that she had retrieved when Larry Spender called, Weiss paged through, slowly. As she read a frown came across her face.

"Hmm."

"What?" I asked.

"This is very unusual."

"What is?"

Sharon looked up at me.

"I've never worked on Miss Lear's file," she said. "It's, um, strange."

"In what way?"

"She didn't go through the usual interview process. Upper management simply sent down the word to hire her. And, and there was a note attached, just a few days ago, that says to keep her position open regardless of her absence. I've really never come across anything like it."

"Is the note signed?"

"No. But it's stamped with the executive board's seal. No one, not even the president, can revoke that."

"Damn," I said. "Are there any other abnormalities?"

"No. She has good attendance and no behavior reports. All in all, except for her recent absence, she's an exemplary employee."

"I see. Well… thank you, Ms. Weiss. You've been a great deal of help. And don't worry. I won't pass any of this information on to her mother. I'll just tell her that as far as I know she hasn't been fired."

"Thank you."

We both stood and she came around the blue plank as I opened the glass door. I extended a hand that she took with both of hers.

"You have very strong hands, Mr. Tooms."

"Do you have a card?" I asked. "I might want to call you."