The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

"I hear you've been spending time with some high-powered company. I'm very impressed."

I wasn't surprised Rose had told her, a secretary is supposed to keep a division head informed about what people are doing. And besides, even a queen of secretaries is entitled to a little gossip.

But if Bea knew about Henry, I could take advantage of it even though I wished I'd never met the CI spook. I said,

"The Devonshire dump case seems to be turning into a national security affair. That's why I've put it at the top of my to-do list." I shoved the parchmentacross the desk at her.

She looked at it, she looked at me, she shook her head slowly back and forth a couple of times. In that church-choir voice of hers, she said, "David, why do I get the feeling the main reason you're showing me this list is to get my approval in advance for what you intend to do anyway?"

With some bosses, wide-eyed innocence would have been the best approach: Me? I can't wtagfne what you're talking about. Try that with Bea and she'd rap your knuckles with a ruler, maybe metaphorically, maybe not. I said, "You're right. But I really think these are the things that need doing. I'll handle as much of the rest of the stuff as I can, but I'm not going to worry if I get behind on it while I'm settling the big things." If I'd had to, I'd have told her about Charlie Kelly then. That would have shown her I wasn't taking the spell dump case too seriously.

But she looked at me again, nodded as slowly as she'd shaken her head before. "David, part of being a good manager is giving your people their heads and letting them run with their projects. I'm going to do that with you now. But another part of being a good manager is letting people know you're not here to be taken advantage of."

"I understand," I said. And I did: if these cases turned out to be inconsequential, or if they were important and I botched them, she'd rack me for it. That was firm, but it was fair. Bea is a good manager, even if I do hate staff meetings.

"All right, David," she said with a faint sigh. "Thank you."

Rose gave me a curious look as I emerged from Bea's office. I flashed a thumbs-up, then waggled it a little to show I wasn't sure everything would fly on angels' wings. She made silent clapping motions to congratulate me. "Oh, David, what was mat bird the constabulary legate called you about?" she asked.

"As a matter of fact, I still don't know myself," I said. "I went to the reference center to look it up, but I couldn't fend it there. That means it's not local, whatever it is. I'll call Kawaguchi back this afternoon and find out I'll let you know as soon as I do." One way to keep a secretary happy is not to hold out on her.

I went back to my office, dug through my notes, found the phone number for Bakhtiar's Precision Burins, and called. The way my luck had been running, I figured a thunderbolt would probably smite the Confederal Building just as I made the connection.

And I was close. The phone at the other end had just begun to squawk when a little earthquake rattled the building.

I sat there waiting, wondering the way you always do whether the little earthquake would turn into a big one. It didn't; in a few seconds, the rattling stopped. Along with (I'm sure) several million other people, I breathed a prayer of thanksgiving.

The secretary for Bakhtiar's Precision Burins and I spent a little while going "Did you feel that?" and "I sure did" back and forth at each other before I confirmed my appointment and hung up. Then I got back on the phone - this morning I'd used it as much as Bea usually does - and called Tony Sudakis. "HeDo, Dave," he said. "I was wondering when I'd hear from you again. Thought maybe my file fell behind your desk or something." He laughed to show I wasn't supposed to take him seriously.

I laughed too, to show I didn't. "No such luck," I told him.

"This is just to let you know that we will be doing a sorcerous decontamination check of the area around your site as soon as we can get the apparatus together. I appreciate the courtesy of the call, Inspector," he answered slowly - I wasn't Dave any more. I have to tell you, though, we still deny any contamination. You'll need a show-cause order before you can start anything like that, and we'll fight it."

"I know," I said. "When your legal staff asks you, tell them the case is under the jurisdiction of Judge Ruhollah" - I spelled it for him - "since he granted me the original search warrant." If the EPA couldn't get a show-cause order out of Maximum Ruhollah, I figured it was time for us to fold our tents and head off into the desert.

"Judge Ruhollah," Sudakis repeated. "I'll pass it along.

'Bye." I didn't think he knew about RuhoBah. But the consortium's lawyers would.