Looking for Rachel Wallace

12

“I’m meeting with a caucus of women employees at First Mutual Insurance,” Rachel said. “This is their lunch hour and they’ve asked me to eat with them. I know you have to be close by, but I would like it if you didn’t actually join us.” We were walking along Boylston Street.

“Okay,” I said. “As I recall from your book, First Mutual is one of the baddies.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way, but yes. They are discriminatory in their hiring and wage practices. There are almost no women in management. They have systematically refused to employ gay people and have fired any that they discovered in their employ.”

“Didn’t you turn up discriminatory practices in their sales policy?”

“Yes. They discourage sales to blacks.”

“What’s the company slogan?”

Rachel smiled. “We’re in the people business.”

We went into the lobby of First Mutual and took an elevator to the twentieth floor. The cafeteria was at one end of the corridor. A young woman in camel’s-hair slacks and vest topped with a dark-brown blazer was waiting outside. When she saw Rachel she came forward and said, “Rachel Wallace?” She wore small gold-rimmed glasses and no make-up. Her hair was brown and sensible.

Rachel put out her hand. “Yes,” she said. “Are you Dorothy Collela?”

“Yes, come on in. We’re all at a table in the corner.” She looked at me uncertainly.

“My name is Spenser,” I said. “I just hang around Ms. Wallace. Don’t think about me for a moment.”

“Will you be joining us?” Dorothy said.

Rachel said, “No. Mr. Spenser is just going to stay by if I need anything.”

Dorothy smiled a little blankly and led Rachel to a long table at one end of the cafeteria. There were eight other women gathered there. I leaned against the wall maybe twenty feet away where I could see Rachel and not hear them and not be in the flow of diners.

There was a good deal of chair-scraping and jostling at the table when Rachel sat down. There were introductions and people standing and sitting, and then all but two of the women got up and went to the food line to get lunch. The luncheon special was Scrambled Hamburg Oriental, and I decided to pass on lunch.

The cafeteria had a low ceiling with a lot of fluorescent panels in it. The walls were painted a brilliant yellow on three sides with a bank of windows looking out over Back Bay on the fourth side. The bright yellow paint was almost painful. Music filtered through the cafeteria noise. It sounded like Mantovani, but it always does.

Working with a writer, you get into the glamour scene. After we left here, we’d probably go down to Filene’s basement and autograph corsets. Maybe Norman would be there, and Truman and Gore. Rachel took her tray and 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.”

Spag let go of Rachel’s arm and straightened up. “No,” he said. “I guess not.”

Timmons said, “Jesus Christ.”

Boucher said to him, “All right, we’ll do it. Brett, you take one arm.” He stepped forward and took Rachel under the left arm. Timmons took her right arm, and they dragged her out of the chair. She went limp on them, and they weren’t ready for it. They couldn’t hold her dead weight, and she slipped to the floor, her legs spread, her skirt hitched halfway up her thigh. She pulled it down.

I said to Spag, “I am going to make a move here. Are you in or out?”

Spag looked at Rachel on the floor and at Timmons and Boucher. “Out,” he said. “I used to do honest work.”

Boucher was behind Rachel now and had both his arms under hers. I said to him, “Let her go.”

Rachel said, “Spenser, I told you we were going to be passive.”

Boucher said, “You stay out of this, or you’ll be in serious trouble.”

I said, “Let go of her, or I’ll hit you while you’re bent over.”

Timmons said, “Hey,” but it wasn’t loud.

Boucher let Rachel go and stood up. Everyone in the dining room was standing and watching. There was a lot on the line for Boucher. I felt sorry for him. Most of the onlookers were young women. I reached my hand down to Rachel. She took it and got up.

“God damn you,” she said. I turned toward her and Boucher took a jump at me. He wasn’t big, but he was slow. I dropped my shoulder and caught him in the chest. He grunted. I straightened up, and he staggered backwards and bumped into Timmons.

I said, “If you annoy me, I will knock you right over that serving counter.” I pointed my finger at him.

Rachel said, “You stupid bastard,” and slapped me across the face. Boucher made another jump. I hit him a stiff jab in the nose and then crossed with my right, and he went back into the serving line and knocked down maybe fifty plates off the counter and slid down to the floor. “Into is almost as good as over,” I said. Timmons was stuck. He had to do something. He took a swing at me; I pulled my head back, slapped his arm on past me with my right hand. It half turned him. I got his collar in my left hand and the seat of his pants in my right and ran him three steps over to the serving counter, braced my feet, arched my back a little, and heaved him up and over it. One of his arms went in the gravy. Mashed potatoes smeared his chest, and he went over the counter rolling and landed on his side on the floor behind it.

The young girl with the tight clothes said, “All right, foxy,” and started to clap. Most of the women in the cafeteria joined in. I went back to Rachel. “Come on,” I said. “Someone must have called the cops. We’d best walk out with dignity. Don’t slap me again till we’re outside.”