Джо Горес - Gone, No Forwarding

“This just isn’t fair!” burst in Giselle. “The accusation is made by the Bureau of Consumer Affairs, and the accusation is heard by the Bureau of Consumer Affairs. What sort of—”

“At this stage the State is treating it as a routine administrative matter.” He laid a calming hand on her shoulder. “Take it easy, nobody’s laid a glove on us yet.”

“That bastard! ” exclaimed Kearny.

They followed his gaze to the hearing room door ten yards away. Johnny Delaney was just entering, attaché case in hand, accompanied by a short, stout mid-thirties man wearing a brown suit and a Western string tie and a tan shirt with Texas longhorns stitched into it. His clothes were wildly at odds with his thinning black curly hair and black goatee.

“Norbert Franks,” said Kearny bitterly. “After Hawkley—”

“I expected Franks,” said Tranquillini. “They’ll use him to try and establish that letter Kathy is supposed to have signed. I’ll take care of Franks.” He tapped Simson’s folded statement against Kearny’s chest. “This statement helps, but what we need is an eyewitness.”

“He says he and Kathy were alone in the office.”

“Just in case,” said Heslip, “I’ve been trying to run down the file clerk, Verna Rounds. Last address, New Orleans.”

“What about the switchboard? Wasn’t some Irish girl—”

“Rose Kelly,” said Giselle. “Larry was supposed to get her statement over the weekend, but we haven’t heard from him yet.”

Ballard had been a wise-ass, trying Bridgeville instead of Kneeland as Roy Shelby had instructed, and so had been stuck in the mud since 4 P.M. Sunday. When Giselle wondered aloud on Monday morning where he was, Ballard had covered some ten miles afoot from his car. Ten soggy miles, on toward Rose Kelly (now Palermo) instead of back toward Bridgeville, because he was sustained by the certain knowledge that next time he’d have a spade in the car to dig out with. A spade with which he already would have beaten Dan Kearny to death.

“You lost, mister?”

The voice jerked his head up. Hey. He’d reached the top of the hill and the rain had slacked off; he’d almost passed right by the narrow gravel track going off to the right between white plank fences toward a pros-perous-looking farm with old-fashioned red barns. A diminutive middle-aged man with thick gray-shot curly hair was resting his forearms on the top rail of the fence.

“Are you Angelo Palermo?” asked Ballard.

“That’s right.”

“Then I’m not lost.”

Rose Kelly-Palermo was mucking out the cow barn when Ballard came in. She was dressed in bib overalls and a Pendleton shirt. Her chin was fleshy and belligerent, her nose strong and hooked, her blue eyes quite mad. She threw aside her pitchfork at sight of him. “Larry Ballard!” She gathered him to her immense bosom, cantilevered out like a Frank Lloyd Wright roof. “C’mon up to the house for some breakfast. You too, you wop bastard,” she added fondly to her husband.

Breakfast was impossibly bountiful, and Ballard ate everything in sight. After all, twenty-eight hours had passed since those coffee-shop eggs the previous morning. As he drank a fourth ambrosial cup of her coffee, and watched Palermo canonize her with his gaze, he decided old Rosie had to have something, all right.

“I’m surprised you found this place,” said Rose. “I haven’t exactly been leaving calling cards since my ex-, that Mick bastard, swore to shoot poor Angelo here.” She turned from the stove where yet more bacon sizzled. “Now I’m wondering why you bothered.”

Ballard told her. Rose was indignant. “Jesus, last November? You realize how long ago that was? I didn’t even know this wop bastard yet.” She tousled the graying curls. “Picked him up in a motel bar just down the road from the place in Santa Rosa.”

“Yana, next door to that place, gave me the lead to your brother.”

She put aside the bacon to drain. “Poor Yana. Married to a real mean gyppo bastard. She saw in her crystal ball I was going to meet Angelo—”

“Married?” Ballard’s hopes, barely articulated, fell.

“Since she was about twelve or some damned thing.” She dropped into the chair across from Ballard’s. “Anyway, I don’t remember any bohunk bastard named Pivarski.”

“Irene Jordon says you were on the switchboard that day.”

“If Irene says I was working, then... wait a minute!” She slammed an open palm on the table, making Ballard’s empty plate jump a foot in the air and overturn in his lap. He grabbed his cup of precious coffee in mid-bounce. Rose was already at the sideboard, rummaging in her purse. “November. Early Novem... YEAH!”

She waved a flat packet of birth-control pills in triumph, and stabbed a fat red finger at the prescription label.

“Sure, I’ve got it now. I had my checkup that Friday, because my prescription had run out. So I wasn’t on the switchboard after all for that extra hour.”

“Who would have been?”

“The spade chick, I guess. Verna Rounds. Kathy would have kept her late to fill in.”

The hearing room was like a miniature courtroom, with a raised desk to serve as a bench for the Hearing Officer, a witness chair, a smaller table below for the court reporter — a colorless man with horn-rims who was just opening his transcription machine — two counsel tables and a dozen chairs for spectators.

The Hearing Officer himself was a not very judicial-looking thirty, but Tranquillini liked his crisp, decisive delivery: it would give clear-cut specifics later if he had to appeal. “We will open the record and come to order. This is a hearing before the Director of Professional and Vocational Standards, Consumer Affairs Bureau, State of California. We are here in the matter of the Accusation against Daniel Kearny Associates, Inc. Note the appearances of John E. Delaney, Deputy Attorney General, representing the Complainant, and Attorney-at-Law Hector C. Tranquillini for Respondent-Corporation. Inasmuch as this is an Accusation, the burden of proof is upon the Complainant.”

Delaney began. Tranquillini seemed at first disinterested. “We will submit at this time the moving papers, already examined by the Respondent,” said Delaney. “They consist of the Accusation, Statement to Respondent, Statement of Service by Certified Mail, a signed copy of the Notice of Defense, a Notice of Hearing, and a Statement by Certified Mail of the Notice of Hearing.”

“These will be received as the pleadings,” said the Hearing Officer, “not as evidence. They will be marked Exhibit A.”

Delaney cleared his throat. “We would like to bring to the attention of this hearing two facts which we feel materially affect the nature of these proceedings.”

“This is material not contained in the submitted documents?”

“That is right, Your Honor.”

Tranquillini shifted on his chair like a fighter on his stool before the bell for round one. What the hell was this? He waved an arm in airy dismissal. “No objection.”

“Proceed.”

“Over the weekend, Respondent Corporation has paid, by check, the sum of $226.30 plus costs and interest to Kasimir Pivarski through his attorney, Mr. Norbert Franks, here present. Respondent Corporation also paid Mr. Franks’ legal fees for his representation of Mr. Pivarski.”

“Noted,” said the Hearing Officer, looking puzzled.

Delaney cleared his throat again. “The State feels, Your Honor, that these payments constitute prima facie evidence of guilt on the part of the Respondent Corporation.”

Tranquillini’s face had gone very white and he had gotten entirely still. Back in the spectator section, Giselle whispered to Kearny, “Dan, does that mean what I think it does?”