Here Be Monsters - By M T Murphy Page 0,4
response was a slightly raised eyebrow and a deeper frown.
“I’m here to see Lucy. She said I could stop by?” It wasn’t really a question, but Tim’s apprehension made it sound like one.
“Of course she did. This way.”
She walked over to an enormous oak door directly across from the elevator. Tim wondered how he had failed to notice it before.
The door must have weighed at least a hundred pounds, but the woman pushed it open like it was nothing. “You have a visitor,” she said.
Tim stepped into the office and the woman left, closing the door behind her. Lucy sat at a stylish black desk that was empty save for a phone and a small day planner. Behind her, the Los Angeles nighttime skyline poured in through the floor to ceiling window, a sea of glass towers, lights, and life.
“Hello again,” she said. “Have a seat.”
“Hi.” Tim sat in the amazingly comfortable leather chair directly in front of her desk. Immediately an object on the shelf next to the window caught his eye. “Is that a samurai sword?” he asked.
She glanced back at the shelf. “Yes. They tell me it is a very old wakizashi, the shorter sister of a katana. Would you like to see it?”
“Uh…no. I just didn’t know you’d be armed.”
“Should I be?”
They laughed, and Tim realized that his hands were trembling again.
“There is something I need to talk to you about, Lucy.” Sitting in her office and calling her that just felt wrong. “I mean, Miss Romana.”
“Lucy is fine,” she said. “You can talk to me, Tim. What is going on?”
“I have a friend who is in trouble. He made some mistakes and borrowed a lot of money from the wrong people. Now I think his life may be in danger.” He didn’t realize just how weak the story sounded until he said it aloud.
“Your friend is an employee of Romana Industries?”
“Yes.”
“I can do nothing for him unless he requests help of his own free will.”
Tim nodded. The trembling was getting worse. He forced back tears as the weight of the situation hit him. If they didn’t do something Barry might end up dead.
Suddenly, Lucy was sitting in the chair next to his. He hadn’t seen her move, but it must have been the stress. He wasn’t paying attention.
“It is all right, Tim. You did the right thing in coming to me. This company is run like a family and a family takes care of its own. Tell your friend he can come to me and he will have nothing to fear. Loyalty is a quality I value above all others.”
“Thank you.” Tim felt a little better. Lucy had to be close to his age, but her confidence and manner made her seem so much older.
“You are welcome. And now, there is something you can help me with if you have time.”
“Anything,” he said.
She led him to the private elevator in the back of her office, offering no further explanation. They entered the elevator and descended into the lower levels of the forty-story tower.
“Will you give me your completely honest opinion?” she asked.
“What if it isn’t what you want to hear?”
“Then perhaps it is even more important that you tell me.”
The elevator stopped three levels below the lobby. She led him down a dusty hallway that ended at a metal door. There was no lock or security keypad on the door, which was quite unusual.
She stopped with her hand on the doorknob.
“Can I ask you something of a personal nature?”
“Sure,” he replied, a little too enthusiastically.
“What do you value most in a friend?”
It wasn’t the kind of question he was expecting.
“I guess I value loyalty and trustworthiness above most things.” He thought about Barry. “A friend you can trust and who is loyal to you is worth his weight in gold.”
Lucy smiled. “I could not agree more.” Her green eyes seemed to twinkle even more than they usually did.
She opened the door and ushered Tim inside. He squinted in the glare of the single naked light bulb that hung from a wire in the center of the large, bare room. Lucy closed the door behind her and the sound echoed in the emptiness. The walls were unpainted cinderblock and the floor a concrete slab. Five rectangular columns made of red brick stretched from the floor to the ceiling against the left wall. The columns were about four feet wide and four feet deep. It seemed unlikely that they were meant to support the weight of the