Peter Spiegelman - Death's little helpers

It was on a corner, and Danes’s name was outside. Nearby was a large low-walled cubicle with Giselle Thomas’s name on it. It was empty. I looked around and saw no one. I tried the door. It was locked.

“Can I help you?” It was a woman’s voice and nothing like helpful. I turned around. She was tall and very thin, and she was standing near Giselle Thomas’s cubicle, holding an armful of journals. She wore khaki pants and a beige button-down shirt and a wary expression on her pinched face.

“Irene Pratt’s office?” I said.

She scowled. Her eyes went to Danes’s nameplate and came back to me. “Well, this clearly isn’t it.” She looked me up and down and decided I passed some sort of muster. “Irene is back that way and around the corner.” She gestured with her head. I thanked her and walked off. I glanced back as I was rounding the corner and saw her talking to a tall black woman. They were looking in my direction. Shit.

My pulse quickened. It was just a matter of time now; I needed to pick up the pace. Irene Pratt’s office was where the skinny woman said it would be, and the door was open. Her assistant’s cubicle was empty. I looked into the doorway.

Pratt’s office was similar to Turpin’s, but with more evidence of actual work being done in it. There was more technology on her deskthree big flat-panel screens- and more paper, too- wobbly stacks of spreadsheets, prospectuses, research reports, and trade rags- and no room for knickknacks. Pratt was at her desk, talking into a telephone headset and scanning one of her monitors, when I stepped in. She looked up.

Disheveled chestnut hair fell past her shoulders and framed her pale oval face. Round wire-framed glasses sat askew on her short straight nose; the eyes behind them were large and dark and intelligent. Her mouth was small and skeptical and partially obscured by the headset microphone. Her pink blouse had a square neck and a coffee stain down the front. If not for the headset and the speed at which she spoke, it would’ve been easy to imagine Irene Pratt as an academic- a Beowulf scholar, perhaps, or an expert in medieval textiles- something dusty and far from the world of commerce. A fragment of her conversation dispelled the thought.

“I’m telling you, they’re full of shit. They’re shading the costs, and their pension assumptions are solidly fucked.” The high nasal voice was as I remembered it.

Irene Pratt tilted her head and looked at me. There was no alarm in her gaze and not much curiosity, just a mild annoyance. She nodded as she listened through the headset and turned back to her monitor. She started speaking again but I never heard what she said.

“Excuse me, sir, can we help you?” It was a stern, skeptical voice- a cop voice- from the hallway behind me. They were faster than I expected. I felt an adrenal surge and turned.

There were two of them, both well over six feet, in ill-fitting blue blazers, sagging gray pants, and thick cop shoes. They wore equipment belts under their jackets, a radio on the left hip, a telescoping baton on the right; the cuffs and mace were probably in back. The older one was broad and balding and sleepy looking. The younger one had a blond crew cut and a thick face and big hands he couldn’t keep still. The cop voice belonged to the older one.

“Could you step over here, sir, and show us some ID?” he said. He gestured to his younger partner to flank me, but their rhythm was disrupted by Dennis Turpin, rounding the corner with a full head of steam. Standing up, he was no more than five-foot-six, and his rolling bandy-legged gait and long arms accentuated his chimplike qualities.

“I knew it!” he said. He was huffing and somehow pleased. “I knew I couldn’t trust you. What the hell do you think you’re doing here? Did you think I wasn’t serious when I told you to stay away? Did you think I was just blowing smoke?” He jabbed his finger in my chest. I smiled down at him.

“That’s the problem with playacting- too much of it and people don’t know when you’re blowing smoke and when you’re not. Like that nonsense about creative tension. What was I supposed to make of that?” I stopped smiling. “And please keep your hands off me.” Turpin sputtered and glanced at his security guards and at the people who stood staring from their cubicles. The balding guard still had his sleepy look, but his brow was furrowed, as if he’d forgotten something. The younger one looked eager.

“You’ll see how serious I am when I have these men toss you out of here, and I have you up on trespass charges.”

“Trespass?” I smiled again. “I took a wrong turn on my way out, and when I found myself in the Research department I thought I’d drop in on Ms. Pratt. That’s pretty thin grounds for trespassing, Turpinespecially when I came here at your invitation.” I looked back at Pratt’s office. She was watching from her doorway, but her expression was hard to read. Turpin sputtered some more. He shook his head fiercely and poked me in the chest again.

“Throw this bastard out on his ass,” he said. The older guard started to speak, but the young guy couldn’t hold his water any longer. His voice was nervous and excited and surprisingly high-pitched. Probably the steroids.

“You heard the man, shithead, you’re gone,” he said.

“No, Jimmy-,” the balding guard said, but it was too late; Jimmy had already gripped my arm, just above the elbow, and was reaching for my wrist to complete the come-along hold. I took a step forward and Jimmy followed, off balance and leaning into me. I took a quarter pivot and drove my free elbow into his ribs. He gasped and loosened his grip, and I pivoted again, jerked my other elbow loose, and popped it into his nose. His head snapped back and his hands flew up and I spun away, adrenaline dancing through my arms and legs.

“Fuck!” he yelped. Blood trickled between his fingers. “My fucking nose!” Turpin looked- open-mouthed- from Jimmy to me and back again.

“Jesus,” he said. The older guard shook his head ruefully. Jimmy wiped his nose with the back of his hand and winced. He stared at the blood and then at me, and his eyes got small.

“Bastard,” he hissed, and he reached for his baton. The older guy put a hand on Jimmy’s wrist and stopped him in his tracks.

“Okay, Jimmy,” he said softly, and he looked at me. His eyes were hard and shiny, like blue marbles, and there was nothing sleepy left in them. “This fellow is just leaving, and he’s doing it quietly and right away. And he knows, if he does that, then nobody has to lay hands on nobody anymore. Isn’t that right, sir?” I nodded slowly, and something relaxed in the old guy’s shoulders. He tensed up again when Turpin spoke.

“He’s not going anywhere, goddammit. He assaulted this man, and we’re holding him for the police.” Turpin rocked from one foot to the other and the older guy shook his head.

I took another deep breath and managed a small laugh. “That’s your story. Mine is that you incited this guy to attack me and I defended myself. I’m happy to stick around and let the cops and the press sort it out; I’m happy to leave, too. It’s your choice.”

Turpin’s face was an odd mauve color, and his lips all but disappeared. The balding guard looked at him sadly, but Turpin didn’t notice. He just stood there- red-faced, silent, and shaking with anger. I looked over at Pratt’s office. She was still in the doorway, watching, and her expression was still a mystery. After a moment, I headed for the elevator.

Peter Spiegelman

JM02 – Death's Little Helpers aka No Way Home

I slouched in the back of the cab and cursed myself all the way to 34th Street. Mixing it up with Turpin and his security thug had been stupid and pointless, and I was angry with myself for doing it. He was a posturing little martinet and I didn’t like being poked, but that was no excuse- nor was the fact that he’d been so easy to bait. Screwing around with him hadn’t bought me anything, and it could have landed me in some time-wasting trouble.