Slow Squeeze (Iris Thorne Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  Art Silva was leaning back in his chair, forcing the spring mechanism so far backward that he was almost horizontal. His hands were clasped behind his head, his elbows akimbo and biceps stretching the sleeves of his crisp white button-down Oxford cloth shirt. His thick, wavy black hair was brushed back from his forehead. His even teeth shone white as he smiled into his telephone headset. “It’s shirts and skins at fourth down and goal. It’s a gut check.” He gave Iris a thumbs-up as she walked by. She returned it.

  She reached the part of the corridor where the trajectory with Herb Dexter’s office gave her a view of him sitting at his desk. She looked up at him at that precise intersection, and he looked up at the same moment. She waved energetically and gave a cheery smile. He waved and smiled back.

  Dexter was tall and narrow with a cheerful, honest face and an accessible, folksy look enhanced by his round, tortoiseshell glasses and trademark bow tie. He had an Ivy League background and had served in the Nixon administration as assistant to the assistant to the secretary of something or other. He’d sold a large farmhouse in Westchester County in New York to come west and put the L.A. office back on track. He was reading one of the myriad new reports that he now required from his staff in an effort to keep all his ducks in line and make sure the firm was scandal free, or at least to find out about any scandal before the rest of the world did.

  “Read those reports,” Iris said to herself.

  “Sign of senility, Iris. Talking to yourself.” Billy Drye walked up behind her, his briefcase in his hand. Drye had been with the firm as long as Iris. He had thinning blond hair and was of medium height and medium build. He had an impish smile, pointed eyebrows, pointed ears, and was pointedly misogynistic.

  “At least it’s intelligent conversation,” Iris responded.

  “Pardon me.” Drye put his hand on her waist as he walked by, even though there was plenty of clearance for both of them.

  “Maybe in the next administration, Drye.”

  She reached the corner of the suite, fished her keys from her purse, and unlocked her office door. The cursor on her computer terminal pulsed mindlessly at her in the dim light. She felt for the light switch.

  “Top of the dung heap.”

  She put her purse inside a drawer of a filing cabinet in the corner, hung her jacket behind the door, hoisted her briefcase onto her desk, clicked open the brass clasps, took out her thick, leather-bound date book, several yellow pads with rolled-back, scribbled-on pages, and a few manila files and threw everything on her desk and on the credenza behind it. When she turned to the credenza, she roused herself from autopilot and looked out the window. She’d earned this view. She might as well enjoy it.

  The floor-to-ceiling windows in her corner office faced west and south. From the west she had a view of the shiny, spanking-new buildings of downtown and Wilshire Boulevard. On the rare clear day, she could glimpse a sliver of the ocean glittering in the sun and the silhouette of Santa Catalina Island, thirty miles offshore. Today was a clear day.

  From the southern window, tall office buildings blocked her view. She could see into the cells of the other worker bees in the neighboring buildings. Most of the windows were dark, as it was still early. Books and papers were stacked on some of the window ledges. Commerce waiting to begin.

  If she pressed her cheek against the southern window, she could see the rolling hills of the lower-middle-class neighborhoods of East LA: El Sereno, Lincoln Heights, City Terrace, Eagle Rock, Highland Park. She grew up there. Home wasn’t far, but she was a long way from it.

  Another set of windows overlooked the suite and gave a view of the investment counselors’ cubicles and Herbert Dexter’s larger office directly across from Iris’s in the opposite corner.

  Back on autopilot, she grabbed her BUDGETS ARE FOR WIMPS mug from her desk drawer and walked down the corridor and into the lunchroom, where she peeked in the refrigerator just to see if it held anything interesting. She raised the lid of a pink cake box. The frosting on the remaining hunk said:

  PPY FIFTIETH BIRTHD

  GEO

  She ran her finger over the slick paper liner where the cake had been cut away, gathering the gooey remnants. She put her finger into her mouth, then ran it against the box lining again. The lunchroom door opened and she quickly closed the refrigerator door.

  “I saw you.” Art Silva smiled his winning quarterback’s smile and winked at her.

  “Who’s Geo?”

  “George, over in Accounting.” Art picked up the coffee pot held it out in an offer to pour for Iris.

  “Thank you. A well-trained man.”

  “I aim to please.” He grinned ingratiatingly.

  Something on Art’s shirt sleeve caught her attention.

  Art followed her glance. “Shoot. It’s the one I burned.”

  “You iron your own shirts?”

  “Like you said, I’m well trained.”

  “Take a tip, Art. Send them out.”

  “Too expensive.”

  “Not as expensive as letting your clients know you don’t have the dough.” She took a sip of coffee.

  “You’re right. In the six months since I was promoted to Sales, I’ve bought more clothes than in the whole two years I was over in Accounting.”

  “I didn’t know you were there for two years.”

  “Worked there while I finished my degree and studied for my license at night.” Art flicked his sleeve. “Great. The day I’m having a big meeting with Oz.”

  “Oz?”

  “Dexter. You know. Smoke and mirrors.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m gonna make a play for Sam Gold’s accounts when he retires.”

  She topped off her coffee mug. “Good luck. Just be aware that a couple of those accounts already have my name on them.”

  Art smiled broadly. His white teeth contrasted with his olive skin. “Sometimes even the guys on the bench get a chance at bat.”

  Iris smiled limply. “Right. See ya.”

  She walked out of the lunchroom and back down the corridor to her office. Try to move in on me. Chew him up and spit him out. “Does his own shirts,” she said out loud.

  Sean Bliss looked at her legs as she passed his cubicle.

  At the next cubicle, Billy Drye stood and pasted a concerned look on his face. “Just awful what happens to you when you get older.” He tsk-tsked. “Talk to yourself, get flabby, lose your touch. I guess even an Ice Princess grows past her prime.”

  “Shaddup, Drye.”

  She got to her office in time to answer the ringing phone. The phone’s display indicated it was an outside call.

  “Iris Thorne.”

  “Good morning.”

  “Good morning yourself,” she said to John Somers.

  “I finally heard back from the Atlanta Police Department. They didn’t come up with anything on Hal or Barbie Stringfellow. No priors. The guy I spoke with had eaten at Hal’s restaurant. Said it was a nice place but he thought it had been sold. You want me to call the new owners, see if they knew Barbie?”

  “If the cops don’t have anything on her, that’s good enough for me.”

  “Nothing under the name of Barbie Stringfellow. She might have used aliases.”

  “The Accounting Department deposited her check on Tuesday. It cleared. Her money’s good. If she coughs up the million bucks she was talking about, she could be an ax murderer for all I care. Bringing in some big money would stop the noise around here that I’ve lost my touch.”

  “You’ve never lost your touch with me.”

  “That’s true. You’ve never had any complaints.”

  “Let’s go away for your birthday. Take a long weekend.”

  “My birthday? That’s a couple of months from now. You’re planning ahead? What’s gotten into you?”

  “Just wanted to do something nice for the Ice Princess.”

  “I thought you wanted to go with me, not Penny.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “Y
ou have any place in mind?” She opened her date book and began flipping through the pages.

  “A guy at work was telling me about the Mariah Lodge up the coast in Las Pumas, about a four-hour drive from here. Heard of it?”

  “Sure. It’s a yuppie hideaway. A lot of the glitterati go there. It’s very expensive.”

  “You’re worth it.”

  “Worth it? You mean you hope I’ll make it worth it for you.” She studied her date book. “We’ve got time but we should still make a reservation.”

  “I’ve already called.”

  “Already called? My, my.”

  “Booked their best room, called the Cabin in the Woods. It’s all by itself on this point overlooking the ocean.”

  “So we can be loud?”

  “If you feel the urge.”

  She wrote in her date book. “It’s in ink.”

  “Great. You still coming over to barbecue on Saturday?”

  “Unless I get a better offer.”

  “‘Bye.”

  She hung up the phone, smiling. As soon as she did, it rang again. The display said: H. DEXTER CALLING. She glanced out the window that overlooked the suite and saw him on the phone in his office.

  “Morning, Herb,” she answered cheerily.

  “Iris, I just saw the paperwork on this new sale. Congratulations! Snagged a live one, huh?”

  “She looks real good.”

  “Cold call?”

  “Actually, she saw me on that TV show.”

  “Is that right?”

  Iris saw him leaning back in his chair. It was swiveled to face the northern window, his back to the suite, the ankle of one leg on the knee of the other, one arm crooked behind his head. The posture was carefree and the conversation light. Iris chuckled with him, but she knew that he hadn’t made it to that office by simply being pleasant.

  Dexter reversed the position of his legs. “I’m glad to see you’re bouncing back. You were in a bit of a slump after”—he lowered his voice reverentially—“the scandal. Frankly, I was a bit concerned about giving you those accounts of Sam Gold’s we talked about. Some of them need to be handled with kid gloves and I wasn’t sure whether you…needed more time to regroup. But this is wonderful news. No one’s happier to see it than I am, Iris. Keep up the good work.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was early afternoon, and Iris was working hard.

  “Hi. This is Iris Thorne with McKinney Alitzer. I wanted to get some information on your limited partnership in the recycling plant. How many have you sold? My client is prepared to spend twenty-five, thirty grand, with more later if things work out.”

  She took notes on a clean page of a yellow pad. Used pages that she’d scribbled on were in a pile on the corner of her desk.

  “Thank you very much. I’m just evaluating different options at this point.” She smiled into the telephone receiver as if it were an animate object. “I’ll let you know. Good-bye.”

  She make a few closing notes, tore the sheet from the pad, grabbed the pile of pages she’d already worked, added the new sheet, and tapped the pages’ edges even against her desk top.

  “Okaay…for Barbeh,” she said to herself, mocking Barbie’s accent. “Three risk levels: high, I mean hiii, mod’rate, and low.” She looked at the sheets and chewed her lower lip as she thought. “No, for Barbeh, gotta be very hiii, then mod’rately hiii, and mod’rate with different turnarounds.” She started dividing up the pile. “Recycling plant. Very high and long-term. Medical stocks mutual fund. Moderate risk, short-term. Precious metals commodities…”

  Amber Ambrose rapped quietly on Iris’s door frame.

  Iris didn’t hear her and continued muttering to herself, “Li’l ol’ virtual reality company, new issue…”

  Amber rapped more insistently, and Iris jumped.

  “Amber. Hi. Come in.”

  Amber took a long look over her shoulder before she walked in. Iris glanced out her inside window and saw Billy Drye peeking around the side of his cubicle. He puckered his lips at Amber. Amber pulled Iris’s door closed hard. Iris saw Drye laugh, his face crinkling into his Beaver Cleaver grin. Then he righted himself in his chair and disappeared inside his cubicle.

  “Can I sit down?” Amber said distractedly, after she’d already seated herself in one of the two chairs facing Iris’s desk.

  Iris gestured affirmatively. Her phone rang. The display said: B. DRYE CALLING. Iris let it ring. After five rings, the phone mail picked up.

  Amber crossed her legs, looked at Iris, and delivered her message with dispatch. “Has Billy Drye ever…touched you?”

  Iris knew immediately what Amber meant. “Yes. He’s touched me.”

  Amber sighed and her shoulders dropped. “I’m so glad to hear you say that. At least I’m not alone.” Her story, now exposed to the open air, spilled out. “Right after I came to McKinney Alitzer, a few months ago, Drye started making these little comments…you know. I didn’t like it, but the guys over at Pierce Fenner used to give me a hard time too. I know they’re testing you and you don’t want to look like a bad sport or a baby. It comes with the territory. But then Drye starts getting very…explicit? I think, ‘Okay, now what?’ So I asked him to stop, told him I found his comments offensive. He just laughed. Then in the lunchroom, right before I came in here, he kind of jostled into me and sort of accidentally on purpose put his hand on my breast.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I backed away and said, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ He just laughed, you know, that creepy giggle. I should have smacked him. Hell of a thing. He goes over the line, but I can’t bring myself to respond in kind.”

  Iris’s phone rang again. The display said: B. DRYE CALLING. She picked up. “Yes, dear. Don’t flatter yourself. We’re not talking about you.” She hung up, then got up and turned the rod to close the miniblinds over the window that overlooked the suite.

  “What is wrong with him? Is he nuts?” Amber’s voice was shrill.

  Iris nodded. “Yeah. I’ve known him for four years and he hasn’t changed one iota.”

  “You never complained about him?”

  “I used to complain to the guy before Dexter. He never took it seriously. Told me it was part of the environment here. Drye did things like leaving dildos in my briefcase and dropping pornographic snapshots of him with women on my desk, all in front of his buddies. They’d laugh, but I think they just didn’t want to stand apart from the herd. The groping, of course, Drye always did in private.

  “I documented everything and avoided being alone with him. And I tried to give as good as I got. He finally stopped doing the more outrageous stuff, but he still taunts me all the time. I’ve gotten so used to him, I don’t even hear it anymore. I’m really sorry he’s after you. I know how upsetting it is.”

  “Iris, forgive me, but you seem untypically passive about the whole thing.”

  “I know it looks passive but at the time it was a hassle to do anything official, and risky, too. I was the first female investment counselor in this office. All eyes were on me. People loved telling me, ‘If it’s too hot, get out of the kitchen.’”

  “I think we should go to Dexter.”

  “Right. All he’s interested in is squashing controversy.”

  “We shouldn’t have to put up with this.”

  Iris paused. “Let me think on it. Evaluate the trade-offs.”

  “Trade-offs? What Drye’s doing is against the law!”

  “I know. But outing him is going to come with a price. He’s not just going to roll over. Plus, I don’t need the negative attention at this point in my career. You can always go to Dexter on your own.”

  “But we’re stronger together, Iris. You’ve been here a long time. Everyone respects you.”

  “I promise I’ll think on it, okay?” She stood and grabbed her coffee mug. Amber took the cue and also stood. She opened the door, and Iris walked with her down the corridor. Drye poked his head out of his cubicle to watch them
.

  Amber went back to her desk, and Iris continued to the lunchroom. She filled her mug with the last of the coffee and took a sip. It was scalding hot from being on the warmer for a long time and tasted burnt. She took another distracted sip and puckered her lips, looked at the coffee, and dumped it into the sink. She began to make a fresh pot. It was something to do as she gathered her thoughts. As she ran water into the pot and grabbed one of the premeasured packages of coffee, the lunchroom door opened behind her. The cologne and the arrogant footsteps identified the person before he even spoke. An office is so like a household, Iris thought, steeped in familiarity and routine.

  “Hello, Drye,” she said with her back still to the door.

  The footsteps approached. He was standing very close behind her. She was used to this. Drye’s life was a power play. He stood in your space so that you’d step back. She wondered whether he did it consciously. Maybe it was the only way he could get close to another person. She took her time finishing her job, pouring the water from the pot into the brewer before turning to face him. “What’s going on?” She still held the package of coffee in her hand.

  He was still standing very close to her. At any time of day, Drye’s breath had a unique and distasteful sour smell. His dental hygiene had been a subject of morbid speculation among Iris and her office cronies. She wanted to gag, but refused to step back.

  “What were you and Amber Ambrose”—he said her name derisively—“up to in your office?”

  “That’s none of your business, Drye.”

  “You guys aren’t buddies. You don’t have closed-door chats.”

  “Very observant. Too bad you can’t channel that into something positive.”

  “You weren’t talking about me, were you?”

  “Now why would we talk about you?”

  “Because Amber’s out to get me.”

  “Why would she waste her time?”

  “Because she has an attitude about men.”

  Iris shook her head bitterly and turned back to the coffeemaker. She pulled the plastic and foil coffee package between her hands, feeling Drye close behind her. The package wouldn’t give. She slammed the package on the sink, turned her head to the side, and said, “Drye, why are you standing so fucking close to me?”