Chapter 20
The tears were flowing at the reception desk when Jake stepped out of the elevator. Mascara streaks painted the receptionist’s cheeks, her blonde hair ruffled. Jake avoided eye contact, said “good morning,” and didn’t break pace as he blew past the emotionally charged Winthrop Enterprises employee. The receptionist was prone to outbursts, and it didn’t take much to send her fragile psyche over the edge. A bad hair day. A run in her pantyhose. Jake had quickly learned not to ask.
The somber ambiance and solemn faces of the other Winthrop Enterprises employees told him the receptionist’s tears weren’t a simple case of running out of hair gel.
Jason McDonald, financial wizard with a receding hairline, broke the news to Jake. “Did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“Marilyn passed away this weekend.”
Jake’s posture slumped, the invisible punch to the stomach taking his breath away. “How?”
“She had an accident on the elevator stairs at the Metro. Broken neck,” Jason said, shaking his head.
Jake’s legs almost buckled and he put one hand on the corner of the desk for support. Jason McDonald quickly pulled over a chair.
“When did this happen?” Jake asked in a hushed voice.
“Friday night.”
“Good God.”
The timeframe of Marilyn’s death made Jake nauseous. His head filled with images of his mother on the sofa, each breath more shallow than the last until the one that never came. She went quietly, with a smile, her hand in Jake’s. Being the last person to see someone alive was not a prize to be cherished.
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. You two seemed to have gotten close in your short time here,” Jason said, running his hand across his expanding scalp, as if plowing his fingers through an imaginary mane.
“Yeah, I guess. We had a few things in common, as it turns out.”
“Well, don’t let it get you down. The office will be closing early tomorrow. There will be a service at a funeral home in Alexandria. Then her body is going to be flown back to Milwaukee on Wednesday for burial in a family plot. Her brother is stopping by the office later to pick up some personal items. Maybe you could say a few words, offer your condolences.”
“Yeah, sure. I will.” Jake agreed, still in a daze. “Is my father in?”
“Not yet. He has been running around trying to help with arrangements. She was his secretary for twenty-five years.”
Don’t remind me, Jake thought. “Thanks again, Jason.”
“Sure thing. Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.”
Jake found his office and moved his chair to stare out the window. He shed a single tear for Marilyn and wiped his face when he knew it was going to be the last.
The anti-abortionists were next on the list for the protest-of-the-week, and their numbers were growing in Franklin Park across the street. Jake stared out the window at several mothers holding posters that read “abortion is murder,” their children beneath them in their strollers holding smaller versions of similar signs. There were men and women, the religious element, and the politically charged. Jake gazed out the window and his mind wandered. The girl in Saipan. His father forcing Marilyn to get an abortion at the same time his mother was pregnant with him. Madness.
The street vendors were doing a brisk morning business feeding the anti-abortionists donuts and coffee at a three-hundred percent mark-up. A muscle bound man with a ponytail and twin boys joined the line, his children pointing at everything on the menu. Jake paused and squinted at the figure in the park. Something clicked in the back of his mind and for the second time in ten minutes his stomach dropped. “Son of a bitch,” he said to himself. ***
Jake peeked under the edge of the bridge before walking past Al’s neighbors who waved to the only guest their neck of the woods had seen in months. In the winter, Social Services and various help-the-homeless non-profits stopped by when the temperature fell below freezing. When it dropped to the single digits, the space under the bridge was one of the prime spots for the city workers to find a frozen body. In the summer, no one cared. Few homeless died of heat exhaustion or exposure, especially among the “river rats” who lived near the banks of the Potomac. Relief was only a bucket of water away. Nasty, undrinkable water, but still useful enough to drop a body’s core temperature a few degrees.
Jake disappeared from the sun into the damp atmosphere of Al Korgaokar’s living room. Al was sitting in his wicker chair with his feet on a milk crate, his eyes closed behind dark sunglass, one arm of a broken pair of Ray Bans clinging to his left ear.
“Al?” Jake asked, not sure if he was asleep or not.
“Jake?” Al answered without opening his eyes.
“Yeah Al, it’s me, Jake.”
Al moved his feet from the crate and placed the heels of his boots on the ground. He flipped the sunglasses to the top of his head, exposing a pair of crystal-clear blue eyes. “Have a seat,” he said, pushing the empty crate forward with his feet. The guest chair for the day.
Al turned to his right and pulled back the corner of an old tattered blue tarp he had fished out of the river since Jake’s last visit. A new piece of furniture covering for the living room.
“Marilyn is dead,” Jake said abruptly.
Al shot upright in his chair and his sunglasses fell off his head. “When?”
“Friday night. It was in Sunday’s paper.”
“What happened?” Al asked. He reached for his stack of newspapers from the weekend, not believing he missed any piece of published news.
“She fell down the escalator at the McPherson Square Metro station. That’s the report anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Al asked, pulling out Sunday’s Metro section.
“I was with her on Friday. And I’m not really sure, but I think we were being watched. Followed. I don’t know.”
Al’s eyes watered as he stared off into the distance. “Tell me exactly what happened. Details count.”
“We went out for drinks after work and went our separate ways near the station. As I was getting into a taxi, I think someone was watching me. An Asian guy.”
“That’s it?”
Jake told Al about Marilyn crying in the office and the morning conversation that had ruined his appetite for the day and his taste for waffles for life. “There is a service for Marilyn tomorrow evening,” Jake said with compassion. “I thought you might want to know.”
“Thanks.” Al rubbed the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. There was something there, something below the surface that Marilyn’s death had stirred up.
“Did you go to the police?” Al asked.
“Not yet. I wasn’t sure if I should. Like I said, I don’t know if it was anything. I don’t know if it was a coincidence, or if the guy was just zoned out on crack. But he was definitely looking at me. Gave me goose bumps.”
Al thought in silence before speaking. “It was probably nothing. I know a lot of homeless guys who will stare you down for no reason.”
“I guess that’s the truth.”
“You know that girl you are looking for?”
“Did you learn something?”
“She works for Chang Industries, but I think you already knew that.”
“Yeah, I knew where she worked. I wanted to know if you could find out where she worked.”
“Thanks for the show of confidence. Let me see if I can tell you something you didn’t know. Chang Industries is a sweatshop for which Winthrop Enterprises serves as the middleman. A guy named Lee Chang runs the sweatshop. Call it whatever you want, but Chang Industries, as benign as the name sounds, is not a nice place.”
“I haven’t heard anything about either Lee Chang or Chang Industries at work.”