J. Jance - A more perfect union

"You're my kind of woman," I said. "Your breakfast ranks right up there with the Doghouse."

She laughed. "Just don't let anybody around my department hear you say that. After all, I have a certain professional image to maintain, you know."

"You mean the chief's not supposed to cook great over-easy eggs."

She smiled. "Among other things."

"Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me."

When it was time to leave, Marilyn walked me to the door. By then she had put on her dress-for-success costume as well as her sensible shoes. The transformation seemed complete, but at the door she took hold of the two loose ends of my tie, pulled me close to her, and tied it for me. A perfect four-in-hand.

It was an awkward moment. I didn't know what to say, so I leaned over and kissed her. "I had a wonderful time," I said. "Thanks."

"Me too," she murmured. "We'll have to do it again sometime."

Marilyn's condominium complex has a guard shack with twenty-four-hour coverage. A young security guard had noted down my license number the night before when I brought Marilyn home, and now another beardless youth waved and checked off something on a clipboard as I drove past. I admit to feeling a little guilty, which was silly since Marilyn Sykes and I are both well past the age of consent. Nevertheless, it's one thing to do a sleep-over. It's something else to have a security guard taking down your vehicle license number while you do it.

I was soon too immersed in traffic to worry about the security guard. Living downtown, I seldom had occasion to drive from Mercer Island back into the city during morning rush-hour traffic. I hope I never have to again. It was a mess. Despite years of work, that section of I-90 still wasn't complete, and I soon discovered what Mercer Island commuters have been saying all along, that there aren't nearly enough onramps to allow island residents adequate access to the roadway.

I inched forward, one car length at a time. It wasn't as though there was a tangible reason for the problem on the bridge, not even so much as a flat tire or a fender-bender. I guess rush-hour traffic moves like that every day of the week. It would drive me crazy. It makes me glad I can walk to work.

Back home in Belltown Terrace finally, I had just time enough to change clothes before my scheduled interview with Martin Green. To reach his office, all I had to do was go downstairs and cut through the garage entrance on Clay. That's my idea of commuting. It was evidently Martin Green's as well.

The Labor Temple has been at First and Broad for as long as I can remember. It's a low-rise, two-story building that occupies the entire half-block. My only previous visits had been on election day when I went there to vote. The building directory told me Ironworkers Local 165 was located on the second floor.

There were a few men lingering in the gray marble hallway outside the ironworkers' office, burly men in plaid flannel shirts and work boots with telltale faded circles of tobacco cans marking their hip pockets. On the door was a typed notice announcing that the office would be closed the next day from 1 to 4 P.M. so office staff members could attend the funeral of deceased member Angie Dixon.

I stepped inside and announced myself to a female clerk who was seated behind a counter. She glanced uneasily over her shoulder in the direction of a closed door. "Is Mr. Green expecting you?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "My name's Beaumont. I have an appointment at nine-thirty."

She looked slightly hesitant. "He has someone with him just now, if you don't mind waiting."

I sat down on a surly, swaybacked vinyl couch that squatted against the outside wall. Next to it sat a scarred end table with a few dog-eared magazines and a smelly, overflowing ashtray. If ironworkers had heard anything about the Surgeon General's warning on cigarettes, they weren't paying attention.

At the far end of the room, a second woman finished running an exceptionally noisy copy machine and returned to her desk. In the newly silent office, I became aware of the sound of raised voices coming from behind the closed door I assumed led to Martin Green's private office. I was looking at it when the door flew open and a man stormed out.

"I quit, goddamnit! If all I'm fit for is to sit in a tool shack and make up bolts, that's what I'll do, but I'll be goddamned if I'll do this son of a bitch of a job one more minute."

Saying that, he slammed the door to Green's office with such force that the frosted glass window shattered and slipped to the floor. As he rushed past, I realized it was Don Kaplan, the man I'd met on Martin Green's balcony the night before. He strode by me without any sign of recognition. I don't think he noticed anyone was there.

The two women working in the outer office exchanged guarded looks, then one of them rose and stepped gingerly toward the broken door. Instead of speaking to Martin Green through the jagged hole in the glass, she carefully opened the door.

"There's a Mr. Beaumont here to see you," she said. Green must have said something in return because she motioned to me. "You can come in now, Mr. Beaumont."

Martin Green came to the door to greet me. "You'll have to forgive the mess," he apologized. "We've had a little problem here this morning."

"I noticed."

He ushered me into the room. "We've got a hell of a union here, Mr. Beaumont, almost perfect. But it's like anything else. There are always people who don't like the way things are going."

"People who want it to be more perfect?" I asked.

Green nodded. "You could say that," he said with a laugh. "A more perfect union."

He directed me to one of the two chairs facing his desk. Perfect or not, Martin Green's union work space was a far cry from his private living quarters in Belltown Terrace. His apartment was definitely upscale, first-class cabin all the way and spare no expense. In contrast, Ironworkers Local 165 had him in lowbrow digs. The chair he offered me was one of the gray-metal/green-plastic variety. I recognized it instantly as a littermate of chairs we still use down at the department. You don't often see relics like that anywhere outside the confines of municipal police departments and old county courthouses.

Martin Green seated himself in a creaking chair behind a battered wooden desk and smiled cordially. "Now what can I do for you, Mr. Beaumont?" Under his outward show of easy congeniality, I sensed that he was still deeply disturbed by whatever had gone on between him and Don Kaplan.

"The Bentley, remember?" I reminded him.

"Oh, yes, that's right. In all the hubbub it slipped my mind. Is it going to be fixed soon?"

"Within a matter of days, we hope. In the meantime, we have the Cadillac. I know it's not quite in the same class…"

"Oh, the Cadillac's fine," he interrupted, waving aside my explanation. "As long as there's something available. Forgive me. I never should have gone ahead and mailed that letter to you. I was just so irritated. My mother would have been thrilled to be picked up at the airport in something as exotic as a Bentley. You know how mothers are."

I was a little taken aback by Green's total about-face, but I wasn't going to argue the point. If he was happy, I was happy.

"Does that mean you won't be taking us to the Better Business Bureau?"

"Of course not. There's no call to do that, none at all. As I said, I was upset at the time, but I'm not an unreasonable man, Mr. Beaumont. Surely you can see that."

"Indeed I can." I hadn't anticipated that the interview would go quite so smoothly. Martin Green was already getting ready to show me out of his office and I hadn't had time to mention my other reason for coming. "By the way, I noticed on the front door that one of your members passed away. That wasn't the woman who died in the accident at Masters Plaza on Monday, was it?"