so quickly his chair rocketed back against the desk behind his. He charged to the door, his face turning red, and unlocked and opened it. "We don't open till nine o'clock!"
Don knew not to answer an angry man directly. "Is Cindy Claybourne here?"
"Does it look like she's here?"
"Her car's in the parking lot."
"She walks home," said the agent.
So that's how she kept that girlish figure. Must be a good agent, too - all the neighborhoods within walking distance consisted of very nice houses on large wooded lots with winding lanes. Don had built several of those houses, back in an earlier life.
The man had been as helpful as he intended to be. "Now I've got work to do, if you don't - "
"She wanted me to meet her here so we could ride together to a nine o'clock closing downtown."
Don knew the magic words: Closing. Ride together. No matter how annoyed, a decent agent wasn't going to queer a colleague's sale. And this guy was a decent agent.
"Sure," the guy said grudgingly. "Come in and wait." As Don came through the door, the agent held out his hand. "Ryan Bagatti. I sit at the desk next to Cindy's."
To Don it sounded like grade school. I sit at the desk next to Cindy's. "Lucky," he said.
Bagatti rolled his eyes. "She should have been here to let you in herself."
"Maybe I'm earlier than she expected," said Don. "You're pretty early yourself." He also noticed that Bagatti had apparently not been sitting in his own place or Don would never have seen him from the door. Bagatti stopped at the desk he'd been sitting at, but only long enough to exit some program on the computer and return the chair to its place. Then he led Don back to Cindy's desk, offered him Cindy's chair, and sat down in his own, glum behind his professional smile.
"Think Cindy'd mind if I used her phone?" asked Don.
"Cindy's real accommodating, if you know what I mean," said Bagatti.
One of those. Macho pinhead who flirts with Cindy to her face, then pretends behind her back that he's had an affair with her. Don toyed with the idea of entering the fray - are you the agent in her office that she calls Tiny? - but decided that would do Cindy more harm than good. "It's only local calls," said Don.
"Be Cindy's guest," said Bagatti. "Everybody else is."
This guy really needs to get beat up someday, Don thought. But not by me. Let it be some drunk who'll get six months for assault, suspended. If I once started beating on somebody, I don't think I could stop till I earned a solid manslaughter charge.
In his pocket address book, Don looked up the number of Mick Steuben at Helping Hand Industries. As he expected, Mick was already at his desk.
"Got a houseful for you, Mick."
"That you, Mr. Lark?"
"Who else?"
"How many rats living in the couch?"
"Five couches. Place used to be an apartment building."
"Oh, we moving up in the world."
"No rats, or at least if there are any they're real quiet and they don't shit."
"Man, I wish I'd married into that family."
"I'm closing on the house this morning so it won't be mine to donate till after noon."
"I'll get a crew together."
Helping Hand didn't officially provide a moving service. Supposedly you had to have the furniture and appliances you were donating out at the curb. But Mick had figured out that when somebody was emptying a whole house, they weren't going to pay for a crew to haul everything out just so they could give the stuff away. So he had a well-known but unwritten arrangement with several contractors who worked with old houses, that he'd get some volunteers from his pickup crew to do the hauling, as long as the contractor gave his workers some pretty fair tips. That way the contractor saved money on the hauling, and Mick got a houseful of furniture and appliances that otherwise might have been sold or junked. This amounted to aggressive marketeering in the help-for-the-down-and-out trade. "Mick, you'd be dangerous if you ever got into a business with money and power."
"That's why God put me in this place," he said. "Seeya this afternoon, man."
Don pushed a button for another line and called the city to make sure they were really going to hook up the water today. He was still on hold when Cindy arrived. He hung up and stood to greet her.
She looked good, walking the length of the office, and