Geri looks like she just got hit over the head. "Twelve years?" she says. "Working here?"
I must be getting pretty miffed at the whole morning, because that comment bugs me a lot more than it normally would.
"Hey," I say, pretty sharp, "in case you haven't noticed, we're not all just here between semesters, kiddo."
Geri looks honestly embarrassed, which makes me feel kind of bad for snapping at her, even though it was a low-grade snap as snaps go. She really has been decent to work with, and she never slacks like most of the summer help does. She only slacks as much as us long-timers.
"Flip," she says, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything..."
"It's okay," I tell her. "I guess I'm just kind of jumpy this morning "
I'm leaning against a drying table on my elbows, facing Geri. She reaches across all of a sudden and gives one of my arms a squeeze.
"I'm sorry," she says again, and just looks at me. Then she turns around and heads back for the door to Etching.
I'm a bit surprised, and I just watch her all the way out of the room. Then I glance over at Cowboy Doug's deck and find him giving me his widest shit-eating grin. He rolls his eyes back and makes a gesture with his hips. I answer him with a gesture of my finger.
*
We go on lunch in shifts, everybody gets an hour between ten-thirty and one-thirty. I take mine early today as Etching still isn't sending over any new panels, and it's just me and Flo from Lamination. She's on the phone at one side of the break room, so I'm eating alone at a table by the front windows. Looks like the rain's puttering out. I'm munching a tuna salad sandwich when Len comes flying through the door behind me and gooses me in the side, screaming, "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!" I just about spew tuna all over the table.
"Len, Goddammit!" Flo screeches across the room with her hand cupped over the phone. "I'm talking to my kid's teacher!" Flo's hair is back in a big steel-grey bun (so it won't get caught in the sliding machinery of the laminator), and she looks fierce. She gives Len a big time stink-eye and he cringes in terror. Then he slaps me on the shoulder and bawls, "Smoke break!"
I stick the other half of my lunch back in the break fridge and we go back through the building to the dock. The rain has stopped, so we don't have to press against the wall while we light up.
"So what happened?" I ask. Len's not wearing his rubber apron but he's still got on a pair of sneakers just stained to beat all hell. He sticks one foot in a puddle and shakes it out, flinging little orange globs around on the pavement.
"Y'know, I bet I stained the fuck out of the carpet in Wayne's office!"
"Len," I say. He waves his hands at me.
"Nothing happened!" he says. "Wayne puffed himself up like one of those fish and gave me the whole-nine-yards of, 'company property, gone missing, hurumph, hurumph!' Never once said, 'Oh, and by the way Gant, you're suspect numero uno.'"
"You think he thought that?" I ask.
"A'course he thought that, I'm the only guy here with a record in the charts, as they say. But he wouldn't say it, of course. So I did."
"Oh geeze, Len!" I can't help myself at that point, "What are you, retarded?"
Len gives me a big smirk. He's got his cigarette jammed in one corner of his mouth, which right there is probably the limit of Len's best James Dean impression. Still, he's got a happy rebel look in his eyes that probably hasn't been seen since before he went into jail fifteen years ago.
"Would you relax, Flipper? Relax! All I did was speak up and tell Wayne that I knew why I was there, and then I asked him if he actually thought I was stupid enough to boost a couple grand worth of gold, and then show up for work Monday and spend the whole morning trying to jury-rig etcher one? Does this sound like the actions of a man with no loyalty to the company teat?"
"So'd he fire your ass?" I ask.
Len shakes his head. "No. What he did," Len flicks his smoke away and steps closer, "was apologize for wasting my time. And then he said he was going to get a machinist in here to look at number one, this week!"
Len holds his hands out in front of him, palms up, and I go ahead and give him the slaps. He's higher than a kite and he immediately announces at the top of his lungs to the empty dock that he's going for a long lunch. I beg off to go finish my tuna.
On the way back to the break room up front, I wonder about Len's talk with Wayne. I know it didn't go like Len said, otherwise it wouldn't have taken the hour-plus that it did. The way I figure it, Wayne probably already knew that the head of his Etching area wouldn't have ripped off Kirkson Parts, Inc. Wayne probably just needed the talk to confirm for himself that Leonard Gant, at this point in his life, is not a guy looking for anything bigger than a regular job he's gotten good at. A little orange-stained part of a dirty building where he can be king.
I wonder if Wayne's going to want to talk to me today too, or if he knows I'm just as beat as Len, so why bother?
*
The rest of the day is pretty slow, uneventful. Wayne is still in the building, up front somewhere, but he doesn't send the supe's back to fetch anybody else to his office. He just sits up there and stews, I guess. I still feel a little bad about the back-and-forth with Geri, and she must too, because neither of us says much as she drops off and picks up panels. I keep tally on the Eagle panels that come over from Etching, and by four it's close to a hundred have been stripped and sent on to Inspection. The order is for 256, but even if we can finish it today and tomorrow, we're already backing up on the Honeywell run. Looks like we'll be working Friday.
I had a couple cans of soda with lunch, and by four I've got to unload them. I leave my deck and head up to the rest rooms in front, but when I push open the door the first thing I see is beige slacks on the floor around an expensive looking pair of shiny black shoes, under the door of the one stall. Wayne Kirkson himself, in the crapping flesh. I don't go in, but all that soda is starting to slosh around, so I go around to the less-frequented john way back by Cutting.
Len wasn't kidding when he said the place had seen better days. The air in there is just foul, the only paper towels are all balled up and spilling out of the garbage that doesn't look like it's been dumped this month, and the urinal is bleeding suspicious colored water through cracks in the bottom of the porcelain. It looks bad, but I'm not about to risk a look in the stall, so I use the urinal and hit the flush with an elbow.
I'm wondering if touching the mildewy pink sink will actually be less sanitary than not washing my hands at all, when the whooshing flush of the urinal cuts out with a sucking growl, and I hear water start to patter to the floor from inside the stall.
My first impulse is just to leave, whistle nonchalantly, and make for my area on the other side of the building. I don't, though. Maybe me and Len are both the gutless company-wonders Wayne knows we are. I go to the stall door, which has an "Out of Service" sign on it, and is only held shut with a strip of duct tape. I can still hear water overflowing in there, and even though I'm no plumber and the extent of my plan is pretty much to jiggle the handle, I pull the tape off and let the door swing open.
The overflow has already slowed, and it finally stops at some point during the several minutes I stand there staring into the stall. The floor is soaked by then and I'm standing in this big scummy puddle, staring at the wide, unmarked crate, resting up on top of the bowl.
*
At six, Wayne cuts everybody loose. He knows by the backlog that we're going to need a full day on Friday, and he doesn't want anybody to start building up hours that'll turn to overtime before that.
Len, Ving, and a couple of the others are headed down to our regular haunt. Out in the parking lot, Len announces that he's buying, and everybody gives him a cheer. By now, the story is that Len pimp-slapped Wayne until he broke down and agreed to buy a brand new Etcher. Looks like a good time, but I beg off and once all the other cars are out of the lot I drive the other way and park behind one of the warehouses in the business park, and walk back
The rain has picked up again, so I huddle across the lot against one of the warehouses with my hands in my pockets, smoking. I feel a little bit like I'm in some Humphrey Bogart movie, but it's not really enough to keep me feeling anything other than lousy.
Fact is, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Whoever got in over the weekend obviously didn't get the gold all the way out, but I have no way of knowing if they're coming back for it now that the theft's been noticed, and the heat is on. If it had been me, I'd probably just decide to leave enough harm done and wait for somebody to stumble upon the booty in the pooper. Like I already did.
So maybe I should've just run right up front and told Wayne I found his gold. That would have at least saved me from standing against a warehouse in the rain. But the thing is, I just didn't feel like it.
See, the way it seems to me, is that whichever one of us Kirkson employees it was that pulled the yank on Wayne's gold, whoever used their key after hours and at least started to...well...at least started to do something. Whichever one it was that did that, is doing something that the rest of us would love to do ourselves. But of course won't, as we're all just long-timers at our respective brainless jobs, and totally unable or unwilling to do anything about it.
So I guess I'm hoping that somebody is going to come back after hours tonight, pull up under the loading dock, and scurry into the building. Mostly, because I just want to know who it is, and then maybe I want to shake their hand, too.
And if it gets on towards real late, and nobody shows...Well, I've been keeping that out of my mind pretty good, but it is true that I know where this crate of gold is, right inside the building. And parked nearby is my old Monte Carlo with all that trunk space. I don't know that I have that kind of balls, which is why I haven't been thinking about that. Much.
But as it turns out, the waiting doesn't go all that good. The rain after dark is just real damn cold, and this morning I had dressed for a drive to work, not for a stakeout. After I'd been waiting for an hour and flicked about half a pack worth of dead butts down a storm sewer, I've had enough and am about ready to am-scray. Then it occurs to me: Why the hell am I waiting outside? I'm waiting for somebody who may or may not ever show, just so I can get a look at them, so why the hell don't I just wait inside where it's dry and there's snack machines? I can get behind a stack of boxes in Loading and see the back door a hell of a lot better than I can from across a parking lot, anyway!
So feeling wet, cold, hungry, and stupid, I troop across the rainy lot, mount the stairs at the back of Kirkson, Inc., and slide in my key. It goes in neat as you please, and I open the door and step inside just like I was the first guy here in the morning.
It is dark inside and I automatically go for the light switch. I stop though, and think: Can anybody outside see a light on in here? There aren't any windows in back, but with the garage door...does any light leak out under that? I've never looked at it like that and I have no idea, but decide not to risk it. Using only the weak red glow of the exit sign above the back door, I make my way real slow across Loading, keeping one hand on the spools of nickel and steel stacked in racks on the left. Moving that slowly and quietly, I get to the first door and open it. It is the hall down to Cutting, and the light is on. Backing out of the men's room at the far end is a pair of hindquarters I recognize only too easily.
Geri has the men's room door wedged open, and she is carefully guiding out one of the drum dollies, the ones normally used for maneuvering around 55 gallon barrels of Pratta stripper and Hydro. The dolly has fat wheels, a wide lift at the bottom that can be cranked up high enough to slide onto a deck, and plenty of back bars to bungie in something as big as a barrel. It is a real handy conveyance, and Geri is concentrating on it hard enough coming through the doorway that she doesn't notice me at the far end of the hall until I say her name. She has the whole thing leaned back at about twenty degrees, straining to keep it at that, and when I say her name she squeaks and loses her grip. The dolly swings back to upright, and when the bottom of that crate of gold strapped to it hits the concrete floor, it damn-near shakes the whole building.
*
"I wasn't trying to steal it," Geri says.
We are at the men’s-room end of the hall. I'm resting with one arm hooked on the grip of the dolly in the doorway, Geri is squatting with her back against the wall and one hand stuck in her loose hair. We're both smoking, my last two cigarettes.
"How'd you get in here over the weekend?" I ask.
"I didn't," Geri shakes her head. She flicks the ash of her cigarette and it hits the crate on the dolly. Geri glares at the crate.
"I was still in the ladies' room up front when you guys locked up Friday. All the lights went out, and I shouted, but nobody heard me."
She looks up at me with what is, even now, a really fine smile.
"I about killed myself stumbling around in the hallway before I could figure out where I was, and remember where the damn light switches are."
She laughs and takes a deep pull of her cigarette. Like I said, her hair is loose now, and I guess it's the first time I've seen it like that. Everybody keeps their hair pulled back when their working around the machines. Geri's has always looked great that way. It looks even better down.
"There weren't any cars in the lot Friday," I say. "And there aren't any now. How the hell were you going to get this out of here?"
"I wasn't! Flip," Geri looks at me, "I don't have a car! I rollerblade to and from here, or I catch a ride! I'm telling you, I wasn't trying to steal this," she throws out a foot against the dolly, which doesn't budge it in the least. "Steal this big-ass bastard! I got stuck in here Friday night, and I probably should have just made my way the hell out, but, well..."
I just wait. Geri sucks on her cigarette some more before shaking her head and going on.
"But it was like the first time I'd ever been in here, you know, alone. So I just sort of hung out for a while and went poking around through all the places I hadn't been in. I sat in Wayne's chair in his office for a while, then went through the lines, and wound up in Plating."
She shoots another nasty glare at the crate strapped to the dolly. If looks could kill and gold could die...
"I found this, got the dolly, and moved it into here," Geri points into the john. "I don't know why. I guess I just thought it would be kind of funny..."
"Funny?" I say. Geri turns back to me and nods, desperately. Like she really wants to explain.
"Funny, that's all, I only meant it like a joke! I thought Sharon or Bruce or another supe would notice there was gold missing after a couple of days and we'd have some big Chinese Fire Drill, scavenger hunt, sort of a thing! Just something to break the monotony, for Christ's sake! I never thought Wayne himself would come down and start dragging people off for questioning! Jesus, Flip, I didn't want Len or anybody else to get in trouble!"
Geri looks up at me, all imploring.
"So what the hell were you doing tonight?" I ask.
"Taking it back!" Geri says, standing up and throwing out her arms at the dolly and cargo. "I hid in the ladies room again and I was just going to put the damn thing back in Plating, and..." She looks at me again and gives a half-hopeful smile. "And hope everything will work out."
There is a suggestion in that statement, and while I wait a moment, like I'm thinking about it, I already know that I'm going to give Geri a hand getting the loot back to its home, and call it no harm, no foul. At least that’s what I would have done.
But it is right at that point that the door at the end of the hall, the same one I came through from the dock, bursts in. Two cops with their guns out come down the hall shouting at us, and me and Geri just stand there stunned until we're thrown up against the wall and cuffed, just quicker and slicker than snot. Then Wayne Kirkson himself comes down the hall behind the cops, recognizes us and starts bellowing for answers.
And I give them to him.
*
I have one Robin Hood moment in there, wh
ere it actually occurs to me that I could take the rap and feel the wrath, and go down as something maybe not so far removed from chivalric. And to be square with you, at some level it is tempting. Real tempting. I mean, I could go up the river, if not for the love of a woman, then at least for a woman, and a damn good-looking one at that.
But I don't. I'm straight with Wayne and the cops, with only minor stuff left out. I tell them I came back to Kirkson just to grab my house keys out of my locker, but then I'm straight about the part when I ran into Geri hauling the gold out of the shitter.
That's when Geri takes up the story and gives them the, "It was just a joke!" line. I believed her when she told me that, and I believe her still. Maybe Wayne believes it too, knows that robbery was never what she had in mind, but he doesn't really care. Plus, he has no sense of humor. He has the cops uncuff me, but then tells them to go ahead and put Geri under arrest. They take her away up the hall, and she looks back at me like this is my last chance to jump in and be the white knight sort of guy. I just stand there.
Wayne starts talking with another cop about whether or not the gold has to be confiscated as evidence, or if it can be wheeled back to Plating and then superheated to melt and cover the parts of next week's Ambrecht order. I'm still just standing there, realizing more and more that in the last thirty seconds or so, some window of opportunity has flashed by, and I had just watched it go. I feel a bit guilty, and then I get angry at myself for that feeling.
Guilty? For what? Geri had been screwing around and she'd got caught and now she was going to pay, and maybe (if Wayne has anything to do with it) the price will be a bit harsher than is really warranted. But seeing as how Geri's a college kid, she probably has a Daddy that can foot a lawyer or two and get her off with a minimum slap on a fine-boned wrist.
And that thought annoys me, at Geri. Where the hell does she get off trying to drag me into this, anyway? This is not my summer job we're talking about. This is what I do, period.