W is for Wasted

“We don’t have an agreement. I left a message on your office phone. Mary Lee’s decided to quit. She’s giving her two weeks’ notice today. She’s fed up. She says life’s too short.”

Pete was taken aback. “I’m sorry to hear that. I guess it’s a done deal, then.”

“You better believe it is and if you ever breathe one word of this business to anyone, you’ll be sorry,” Willard said, his voice ominously low, and then he shut the door in Pete’s face.

Pete stood for a moment, trying to process the implications. Obviously, if Mary Lee quit, then Linton had no need of him. After today, all bets would be off since essentially there was no way to blame her for the data tampering. He’d been paid to go into the lab, launching a scheme that was suddenly completely irrelevant. Nothing to be done about it now. More problematic was the certainty the good doctor would insist Pete give his money back, which Pete had no intention of doing. That money was for him and Ruthie, with every nickel going toward their trip abroad. Linton had plenty more where that came from. Pete Wolinsky did not. For the moment, Pete was safe. For all Linton Reed knew, he’d done what they agreed.

Pete returned to the office and sat down at his desk. This time he pressed the play button on his answering machine. He listened to the message from Willard about Mary Lee quitting her job. There were two additional messages from Linton Reed, who neglected to identify himself, but he said roughly the same thing both times: the deal was off. In neither instance did the good doctor specify the reason for the cancellation. Pete’s only option was to play dumb. He put in a call to the doctor, whose answering machine picked up. Pete left his number without mentioning his name, asking if the doctor would call at his earliest convenience. Linton must have been sitting right there, letting calls go through to his voice message, because within minutes he called back. “You owe me two grand,” he said.

“And why would that be?”

“Something’s happened.”

“I gathered as much. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Not on the phone.”

“How about let’s meet, then.”

“When?”

“Ten o’clock tonight?”

“Where?”

“Bird refuge,” Pete said. He depressed the plunger, cutting the connection before the doctor could argue the point.

•   •   •

Traffic was light when Pete arrived at the bird refuge shortly before ten. The Caliente Café was crowded, its parking lot jammed. Arriving patrons had snapped up additional slots in the strip lot across the way. Pete slowed the Fairlane to allow a pedestrian to cross in front of him. Belatedly, he registered the big panhandler’s red baseball cap and red flannel shirt; fellow heading home for the night after a hard day’s work. The panhandler turned and gave Pete a lingering look, which Pete ignored.

Pete hoped there’d be one last parking place, but he spotted the turquoise Thunderbird and realized Linton had beat him to the punch. Pete was forced to park on the street, which mattered not except for the psychological one-upsmanship. In a momentary nod to caution, he went around to the trunk of his car and swapped out the S&W Escort for his Glock.

The two men came together in a wide pool of shadows between two streetlamps. The path was lined with shrubs. A patchwork of rustling leaves created shifting patterns of light, adequate for conversational purposes but preventing either man a clear view of the other’s face. The damp night breeze coming off the lagoon smelled sulfurous.

Linton wore the same dark wool overcoat he’d worn at their earlier meeting. Pete’s sport coat was inadequate for the evening chill, and he envied the other man’s comfort. He was still debating how to play the occasion, so he offered Linton the first move, saying, “What’s this about?”

“Mary Lee Bryce quit her job. Game’s over.”

“Nice if you’d told me before I went out to the lab.”

“I left two messages on your office machine, telling you the deal was off.”

“When was this?”

“Two o’clock and again at five.”

“I wasn’t in the office yesterday. If I’d known she quit, I wouldn’t have put myself out.”

“Too bad. I want my two grand back.”

“No can do. I went in with her badge as agreed. You ask your computer techie and he’ll show you the trail she left.”

“Prove it.”

“I can’t prove it standing out here. You prove I didn’t.”