Fire Sale

“So when she finished, Mr. William, he gave this kind of phony laugh”-she darted a glance at Billy as if he might be offended-“and said, ‘I see you were telling the truth, Czernin. I thought you were making empty threats. We’ll work it out. You get the truck loaded up, we found the sheets okay, they’re in these boxes here, and I’ll write you out a check.’”

Josie gave a startling imitation of William’s precise and fussy ma

“Then I don’t know what really happened, because we were under a table, but Mr. Grobian and Mr. Czernin, they loaded up the forklift, and the English lady, she said, oh, she would adore to drive the forklift, she’d done tanks and the semi but never a forklift, and Mr. Grobian said he would back the truck up to the loading bay and Czernin could show her how to handle the forklift. Only somehow the forklift went over and they fell off, the English lady and Mr. Czernin. She screamed, kind of, but Mr. Czernin never made any sound…” Her voice trailed off; suddenly it wasn’t exciting anymore, it was frightening.

“What happened?” I was trying to picture the scene-the forklift driving up to the truck and then over the edge. Or Grobian and William dumping a load of cartons on Bron and Marcena.

“I didn’t see it,” Billy whispered. “But I heard Dad say, I think that’s done it for them, Grobian. Load them into the truck. We’ll take them over to the landfill, and their nearest and dearest can imagine they’ve run off to Acapulco together.”

He started to cry, loud retching sobs that shook his whole body. The outburst terrified Josie, who looked from him to me with scared eyes.

“Get him a glass of water,” I commanded her.

I went around the table to cradle his head against my breast. Poor guy, witnessing his own father commit murder. No wonder he was hiding. No wonder William wanted to find him.

I jumped as a voice spoke behind me. “Oh, it’s you, Victoria. I might have guessed from all the racket that you’d shown up.” Mary A

44 The Recording Angel…or Devil?

With her bald head atop her scarlet tartan dressing gown, Mary A

They’d spent the remainder of Monday night huddled under the worktable, too shocked and frightened to try to leave. They thought they’d heard more voices than just William’s and Grobian’s, but they weren’t sure, and they didn’t know if someone was watching the plant. But by morning, they were cold as well as hungry. They risked getting up to use the bathroom, which was in the intact part of the plant. When no one attacked them, they decided to leave but didn’t know where to go.

“I wanted to call you, Coach Warshawski,” Josie said, “but Billy was afraid you might still be working for Mr. William. So we came here, because Coach McFarlane was the person who helped Julia when she got pregnant.”

I shadow-punched Mary A

She gave her grim smile. “I wanted them to go to you, Victoria, but I’d promised I’d keep their secret safe until they were ready to tell it. Trouble is, I thought Billy was hiding while he sorted out the ethics of his family’s business-I didn’t know ’til I heard him just now that they’d witnessed Bron’s death. If I’d known that, please believe I’d have called you quam primum famam audieram.”

Mary A

“You said Marcena read from a transcript, that she didn’t play the recording,” I said to Billy. “But did you see her recorder at Fly the Flag?”

“We didn’t see anything,” Josie said.

“And Billy’s dad didn’t see you?”

“No one saw us.”

I could see why William was looking so desperately for the recorder. They’d gotten her computer, but they didn’t have the original. But why was he so desperate to find Billy if he didn’t know his son had been there? I asked Billy who else he had told.

“No one, Ms. War-sha-sky, no one.”

“You didn’t instant-message anyone?”

He shook his head.

“What about the blog-April said there’s one you and your sister use to stay in touch.”

“Yeah, but we use nicknames, just in case. Candy’s at a mission in Daegu, that’s in South Korea, my folks-my dad, he sent her there after the-the abortion-to keep her out of temptation and make up for the life she’d taken. I’m not supposed to write her, but we post to this blog, it’s devoted to Oscar Romero, on account of he’s my-my spiritual hero. My dad doesn’t know about it, and when I write her I use my blog name, Gruff, but-”

The hair prickled on my neck. “For ‘Billy-the-Kid-Goat’s Gruff,’ no doubt. Did you tell her about Bron and your dad?”

He was looking at the linoleum, tracing a circle with his ru

“Carnifice could track your blog postings through your laptop, even if you’d used the world’s cleverest nicknames.”

“But-I told her about Bron through Coach McFarlane’s computer,” he objected.

I yelped so loudly it sent Scurry ru

Mary A

I didn’t waste time arguing with her or trying to persuade the kids to move; my most urgent task was to find Marcena’s recorder before William’s Dobermans did. Since she seemed to carry it everywhere, she must have had it on Monday. Maybe she’d only read from a transcript because she was recording the meeting, or she was wary enough not to let them see her device.

Her big Prada bag, which she also took everywhere, hadn’t materialized after the assault, so William must have gotten that. He’d searched the remains of the Miata. If the pen wasn’t there, or at Morrell’s, or the Czernin house, then I was betting she’d lost it either at Fly the Flag or in the truck that took them to the landfill. Or at the landfill itself, I suppose. Since I didn’t know where the truck was and couldn’t look at the landfill until morning, I’d swing by the plant now, before William had the same idea.

I hoped Billy and Josie would continue to be safe if I left them behind. It was hard to live with so much uncertainty. I’d been trailed yesterday, but not today-as far as I knew. But I’d been using my phone this past hour, and Billy had been using Mary A

Josie had gotten them this far. She was four years younger than Billy, but a harder-headed urban survivor. It was she I coached to put the chain bolts on both doors and not to open them for anyone but me; if I didn’t come back tonight, then tomorrow they had to tell a reliable adult what was going on.