Fever(18)

“Woman’s prerogative.”

“If you weren’t coerced into it.”

“It’s changed, isn’t that enough? Enough questions! Can’t you see I’m hurting?”

“Offered to get you a doctor.”

“I don’t want a doctor. I want to go home.”

“So why didn’t you call your husband, have him come get you?”

“With what? I don’t have my cell anymore. No money, either. Why do you think I walked all the way over here?”

“Where’s your purse?”

Shrug.

“Whoever beat on you take it?”

Slurp.

“You could’ve called from Ginger’s room, or the lobby desk.”

Krochek winced, pressed fingers gingerly against her puffed lip. “For God’s sake. Will you just call Mitch for me? Will you do that, please?”

Tamara said with sour irony, “Quicker the better,” and went into her office to make the call.

But getting rid of Janice Krochek wasn’t going to be that easy. Her husband was away from Five States Engineering today, out on some job site. Tamara pried his cell number out of Krochek’s assistant, but when she called it she got his voice mail. She left a curt message, saying it was urgent he return the call as soon as possible.

Back to the anteroom, where she found Janice Krochek curled up in a fetal position on the couch. Sound asleep, making little wheezing, moaning noises in her nose and throat. She’d spilled some of the coffee on the low table and carpet and hadn’t bothered to wipe it up.

Oh, yeah, great. Terrific. Just what the agency needed for an advertisement if a client should happen to walk in—a banged-up gambling junkie passed out on the anteroom couch.

Krochek had shed her coat; it was crumpled on the floor. Tamara picked it up, started to drape it over the woman, and then hesitated. Might as well play detective here, just for practice. She ran her a hand into each of the pockets. One was empty; the other had the agency business card Bill had left for her, and a folded piece of paper torn off a scratch pad. Written in ink on the paper, in a woman’s hand, was: La Farge—s. 1408. Below that, heavily underlined several times, was the numeral 9.

One of her johns, or something to do with the money she owed? Not that it mattered; once she was out of here, the agency was through with her and her messed-up life. Tamara put the paper back where she’d found it, spread the coat over the lower half of Krochek’s body. The woman didn’t move, just kept right on snoring.

She sighed. So much for another try at the woman-to-woman thing. And so much for the good mood she’d been in earlier.

She got a towel and cleaned up the coffee spill, washed out the used mug. In her office, waiting for the phone to ring, she answered a couple of e-mails and tracked down an address Jake needed for the pro bono case and then called him on his cell. Voice mail again. Whole damn world was unavailable this morning, it seemed. She left him a message.

An hour passed. Still no callback from Mitchell Krochek. She went out to check on the woman. Hadn’t moved, from the look of her. Her breathing was still noisy and a little labored.

Well, shit.

Tamara called Bill’s home number. Answering machine. So then she called his cell. If she got his voice mail, too …

She didn’t. He answered on the third ring. She said, “I hate to bother you but I’ve got a problem here,” and explained about her sweetheart morning with the Fever Woman.

“She would have to pick on us,” Bill said. “Unpredictable as hell, that’s the trouble with addicts.”

“Probably shouldn’t’ve taken the case in the first place.”

“Hindsight, the great teacher.”

“So what do I do? Keep on waiting for her husband to call back?”

“No. He might not check his messages.”

“She can’t sleep or hang here all day. I’ve got a client coming in for a consultation at one o’clock.”

“Where’s Jake?”

“Busy. He’s not answering his cell and Alex is down in San Jose. I suppose I could cancel the appointment and close up, take her over to Oakland myself …”

“You’ve had enough hassle already. I’ll do it.”

“You sure? If you’re busy …”

“Busy doing nothing,” he said. “Errands, that’s all. It’ll take me twenty minutes or so to get to South Park. If Krochek calls in the meantime, give him my cell number and I’ll work something out with him.”

Bet he doesn’t call, she thought.

He didn’t.





7




JJanice Krochek was still sleeping on the anteroom couch when I got there. She’d been pretty badly used, all right. Looking down at her built an impotent anger in me. Violence against women infuriates me every time I encounter it. Nobody, no matter how much they mess up their own lives, deserves to become somebody’s punching bag.