So I headed out back to get on with the morning deliveries, leaving both of us to spend the next few hours mulling over sixty seconds of rapture.
When I returned from lunch, Jim and Harold didn’t seem worried. I could hear them laughing in the lunchroom from the back of the loading area. Kara and Maggie had stepped out to go for a walk, leaving me to feel like a huge pile of steaming horse doody. Fortunately, Jamar was at the desk. He reassured me that Kara didn’t hold anything against me. If anything, she felt horrible and was worried I would hate her for the events of the morning.
The look on my face said it all.
“I know, man. No guy in the world will ever hate a woman for jumping his bones.”
Laughing, I returned to the back to grab my sandwich and a few minute’s peace. But Jamar paged me before I could get in a bite. I sighed and grabbed the wall phone.
“Hey.”
“It’s your lucky day. You’ve got the guys from BOA again.”
Great. Just what I needed.
“Can you tell them I’m out?”
“They spotted you pulling in. I have a sneaky feeling they were waiting for you to return from your route.”
I sighed, then went out to meet with the BOZOS, as I had come to think of them. I would have to make a serious effort to be polite.
“Folks.”
It was Spitzer and his female colleague again. Same uniforms, though this time both wore black gloves and camo ballcaps in deference to the cooler weather. Spitzer glared at me with a look just short of open hostility.
“We understand someone made use of a Class 1 Restricted agent this morning.”
So much for the niceties.
“Guys. Class 1? Class 2? I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Spitzer stared at me as though trying to determine whether I was an idiot, or just stubborn. Fact is, I can be both.
“This morning,” his colleague was back to her notebook again, “around oh-seven hundred hours, a Class 1 mixing agent was used to initiate a spell on these premises. The medium utilized is unknown, however we believe it may have involved a potion, unction or incense.”
“Unction?” My eyebrow went up. These guys were weird. “I have no idea-.”
Wait a second.
“What time did you say?”
“Oh-seven hundred.”
Shit.
“OK. Around seven a.m. I accidentally knocked over one of our delivery packages, and spilled a few drops of the contents in our backroom.”
That caught their attention. Spitzer flipped to a new page, and pulled a pen from his back pocket.
“What, if anything, resulted?”
“Well… “
They stared at me.
“We had an incident. One of the staff became somewhat affectionate. To me.” Christ, this was humiliating.
The woman spoke, a nasty tone of sarcasm in her voice.
“And was this ‘staff person’ aware she was under the influence of magic?”
“What?”
“Was she aware she was under the influence of magic?” Voice was getting a little shrill… “Or did you just bang her on this conference table and leave her to wonder what had happened?”
“Nice.” Bitch. “As it happens, one of my colleagues assisted me in defusing the situation until we were able to obtain aid in neutralizing the, uh, unction.”
“Is it safe to assume that the affected person was your receptionist, Miss-” she checked her book “Sinclair?”
The look on her face suggested she was interviewing a convicted rapist. As if I wasn’t feeling bad enough, I was starting to feel like one.
“Yes.”
“And you’re saying this was accidental.”
“Yes.”
They both gave me the same look my mother used to give me when I came home from a party and denied having anything to drink. At least when that happened I was too drunk to care.
“How were you affected by the spell?”
Me? Well, I got jumped by a pretty girl.
“I wasn’t.”
“How do you mean?”
“I’m not sure what you’re asking. I wasn’t affected. Kara was.”
They traded a look, again making me feel like I was being excluded from their little club.
“I thought you said this incident was not deliberate?”
“It was an accident. If I wanted to get involved with her, I would just ask her out.”
Silence.
“And then she would reject me, and that would be that. Anyways, I’m not about to do that kind of thing.”
“You’re saying you have no interest in a relationship with Miss Sinclair?”
“No. Well, yes.” Now I was going in circles, I think. I rubbed my eyes, and sighed.
“Let’s move on, shall we?”
After they finished questioning me, the two of them insisted on waiting for Kara to return in order that they could meet with her. I wanted to wait for them to finish with her, to make sure she was alright. But we were already behind, and couldn’t afford more delays.
Maggie seemed convinced the whole thing would blow over, that there were no hard feelings, just embarrassment.
“What a nightmare.”
“Well, it could be worse.”
I squinted at Maggie, trying to see how that was possible. All I could see was a glint in her eye that suggested mischief.
“Imagine if Jamar hadn’t been here to help.”
Oh, I was desperately trying not to imagine that.
I asked her to call me when Kara got out of the BOA session, to let me know she was alright.
I trudged to the back, feeling lower than I had felt in a long, long time.
By six, I was exhausted. Big Jim and Harvey had finished for the day, and Maggie had left after checking one more time that Kara was alright. Jamar was helping me tidy up in the back, while Kara waited at reception for her ride home.
My brain should have been able to put one and one together when Maggie told me Kara had gotten a ride in that morning and would be picked up by a quarter past six. Should have, but I guess I wasn’t thinking all that clearly.
So when I heard voices out front, one soft and calm, and the other harsh and escalating in volume, I figured it was none of my business. At least, not until a tall fellow wearing a dark suit, blue shirt, striped tie and black shoes stormed along the corridor from reception, past the bullpen and into the garage where Jamar and I were finishing up.
Things became a little clearer when that same fellow strode up to me and planted a right jab hard on my chin.
I spun and fell to a knee, as much shocked as anything else.
“Chad! No! I told you — it wasn’t his fault!”
“Yeah, right!” Chad grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me back to my feet, turning me as he did so. “Sonofabitch.”
Another punch, this one glancing off my cheekbone.
Behind the angry boyfriend, I could see Jamar holding Kara, tears running down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry. Look, it was an accident-.”
He was still throwing punches, with me bobbing and moving my head to lessen the impact. No damage so far, but the last thing I needed was to open up the cut on my forehead or aggravate my concussion.
Finally, Jamar stepped forward and took hold of Chad by the shoulders, dragging him out of the fray. He took a couple of elbows to the face in the process, though I don’t think those were deliberate.
“Asshole!”
“It was my fault, and it never should have happened.”
I tried to explain, but by then Kara had taken hold of him and was angrily maneuvering him to the door. By the time they were in his car — a slick BMW M3 convertible, of course — I was seated in the bullpen with a bag of ice pressed to my cheek.
Time to call it a day.
On the way home I put a call into Clay and Harper at the hospital.
Harper sympathized with me, and said she would call Kara that night to make sure she was alright and reassure her there were no hard feelings about the boyfriend’s outburst. Throughout it all, I could almost see the smile on Clay’s face. If laughter was the best medicine, Clay would be up and dancing the tango within a day or two.