Dirty Work | Page 4

kids on the floor with their dinners between us and the TV.
"I got four hours in today, ten bucks an hour. I should make at least that tomorrow."
"That wasn't what I asked."
One reason I never ran around on Charlene is I don't think I could fool her for a second. "I don't like it," I said. "I think he's using me to scare somebody, because I'm big and ugly."
Charlene grabbed the back of my neck and shook me like a cat. "You're big all right. But I always thought you was handsome." Then she leaned back and picked up her magazine again and she was gone.
*
Everybody was asleep by eleven. I went out real quiet and drove over to Lane's apartment. There were a lot more cars out front this time and I wrote down all the new ones on my log sheet. The light was still on in her apartment. I was about to head home when the blinds moved and she looked out and saw my truck.
I wanted out of there bad enough that I made the tires on that pickup squeal.
*
I slept awhile and then laid awake awhile and then it was morning. I had a lot of coffee and not too much to eat which made my stomach hurt.
I was already at the library when Lane came in. She saw me and went straight through the STAFF door and stayed out of sight. A few minutes later a campus cop knocked on the door and she stood in the doorway with him and pointed me out.
I felt like high school again, like I'd been caught with a Playboy in the toilet. The campus cop walked walked over and asked me if I had any ID. I showed him my driver's license.
"What you up to here?"
I gave him one of Dennis's cards, like Dennis said I should. "I'm doing research for a law office. Call this number, they'll back me up."
"Don't look like you're doing research to me. Maybe you should move along."
"Fine," I said. I put my book back on the shelf, which was too bad because it had gotten interesting. Only I couldn't check it out because I wasn't a student. I went outside and sat on a wall.
It was a nice day for something. Warm again, a few clouds, the birds getting ready for spring. College girls all around. I never saw so many good-looking girls in one place. Young and healthy, in tight jeans and running shoes, clean soft hair blowing around, sweet smells trailing along behind them. It hurts to see so much that you want, that you can never have, to be so close you could reach out and touch it.
About a half hour later Lane came out of the library and headed down Speedway, right through the middle of campus. I didn't think she saw me. I found myself noticing the way she walked, the way her young, firm ass strained against her jeans. Don't even think about it. I waited until she had a good lead on me before I started after her.
She turned left on 24th Street, by the Experimental Science building, and I lost sight of her. When I turned the corner she was gone. I hesitated for a second, kids shouldering by me on both sides and then I went up to the first door I came to and looked inside. Not there.
When I turned around she was right in front of me. "What do you want?" she said. She was shaking and her voice was too loud.
"I'm working for a lawyer--"
"That defense lawyer? That fuck? Did he hire you to follow me around? What the fuck does he want from me? Is this Gestapo bullshit supposed to make me drop the case?"
"I don't think he--"
"What kind of slimebag are you, anyhow? Haven't I had enough shit already? How can you stand to go around and humiliate people this way?" Crying now, people stopping to stare at us. "Do you know what happened this morning? My boss called me in and wanted to know why I was being followed. Like it was my fault! I had to tell him everything. Everything! Can you imagine how humiliating that was? No. Of course you can't. If you could imagine it you would go shoot yourself."
A boy walked up and put his hand on her arm. She shook it off and shouted at him, too. "Leave me the fuck alone!" She turned back to me, her mascara running all over her face, and spit on my left shoe. Then she shoved her way through the crowd and started running back down Speedway, back the way she came.
*
I started shaking too, as soon as I got in the truck. I shook all the way to Dennis's office.
He was with "one