There is something weird with the dude next door to me,” I tell Rik. Across the conference room table, his small, weary eyes rise reluctantly from the file he’s reviewing. His brain seems to chase after my words for a second, then he hits me with a sneaky little grin.
“Oh, I get it,” I say. “‘Look who’s talking,’ right? But he’s weird. Maybe not me-weird, but he’s strange.”
“You mean he doesn’t have a nail through his nose?”
“Ha,” I answer. It isn’t even in today. And it isn’t even real, just old Goth jewelry I bought used, the head and blunted point of a framing nail worn as separate studs on each side. It’s been kind of my trademark look for years now. But Rik says I might as well hang one of those road signs around my neck that warns, ‘Sharp Curve Ahead.’ Before I started here two years ago as the investigator in his law office, I promised to ghost the nail when I’m doing interviews or meeting clients. In fact, because Rik is so stressed about this case, I’ve put on one of my three dresses, a shapeless blue sheath whose long sleeves hide some of my most outrageous ink.
“You can mock me,” I say, “but something’s up with this guy. He moved in like a month ago and he doesn’t talk to anybody. He has no visitors. He doesn’t go to work. The inside walls in that building are like those Japanese screens, but it’s been weeks since I heard anything from next door. It’s like he’s one of those silent monks—no voices, no phone, no music. He doesn’t own a car, as far as I can see. And he’s never even cleaned out his mailbox from the prior tenant. The post lady has to dump his mail on the floor, and he walks right over it. Just a very weird dude.”
Rik says, “He sounds like a guy who wants to be left alone. Which means you should leave him alone.”
“I have a creepy feeling about him,” I answer.
Rik holds up a soft hand.
“Pinky, please,” he says. “We’ve got ten minutes before our first real meeting with this client. Let’s make a good impression.”
The case has been breaking the Internet—days of headlines in various papers and even a few national hits on the gossipy TV shows. Our client, the chief of police here in Highland Isle, has been accused by three officers of demanding sex in exchange for promotions on the force—‘sextortion’ as a couple grocery-store tabloids have labeled it. A complaint before the local Police and Fire Commission, ‘P&F’ as it’s called, is asking for Chief Gomez to be fired. Worse, the United States Attorney has launched a federal grand jury investigation, which could even mean jail time. The Chief is in deep.
As Rik is rereading the file, I say, “I just can’t figure this dude. I mean, he goes out once every day around noon with his gym bag. And he grabs some carryout at dinner. Seven days a week, same same. So what’s his deal? Is he stalking somebody? Is he in witness protection?”
Glancing up again, Rik clearly can’t even remember what I’m talking about. You might call Rik and me family, depending on how you’re counting. His dear dead mom, Helen, married Pops, my grandfather Sandy Stern, not long after I was born. As I remember Rik from my childhood, he was this uber-nerdy chubby college student, still super messed-up after his parents’ divorce, who managed to flunk out of Easton College by not attending a single class for forty-nine straight days. Even when he got it together enough to go back, he drifted through college and barely made it into law school.
Now, about twenty-five years later, he’s got the shape of an autumn gourd. His little remaining mouse-colored hair looks like dirty soapsuds that will blow away any second. Still, I sometimes think it would be okay to end up like him, a person who learned from his troubles back in the day and, as a result, is kind to everyone.
After playing rewind in his head, Rik is frowning about me going off again about my neighbor.
“Pinky, your imagination must be one of the most interesting places on earth. It’s like living in 4-D. All this stuff that never could happen, and you’re running it as the feature attraction.”
“Hey, I have great instincts, right? Don’t you say like sometimes I have ESP?”
“Sometimes ESP,” he says. “And sometimes PES.”
I take a second. “PES?”
“Piles of Erroneous Shit.” Teasing me is one of Rik’s favorite office pastimes. Since I was little, being the object of a joke starts a near-riot close to my heart, but with Rik I can mostly ride with it. He is the best boss ever and gets his biggest chuckles at his own expense (like how in high school he decided to drop the c in ‘Rick,’ actually hoping that axing one little letter would make him cool). Plus him and Helen always seemed to like me better than most people in my own family.
“Let’s stay on task,” he says. “I don’t want the Chief changing her mind. You know what this case could do around here.”
Rik doesn’t do much legal work that attracts big attention. I was a paralegal in my grandfather’s law office before Pops closed shop. He and my aunt represented all the richest crooks in the Tri-Cities, and our space had the quiet atmosphere and heavy furnishings of a bank lobby. With Rik, I’m kind of in the working class of the legal world. Our office, in a recovering part of Highland Isle, is cramped, with the same cheap paneled walls people put up in their basements. We do a lot of workman’s comp and quick-hitting personal injury cases to keep the electricity flowing in the sockets. Rik would love to handle headline defenses like Pops, but most of the criminal cases that come through the door here are rumdum misdemeanors—bar fights and first-time DUIs and drunken stunts by teenagers. At fifty-two, Rik thinks Chief Gomez’s case might help him finally step up.
“I thought you’d been retained,” I say.
“We had a get-together at a coffee shop for about ten minutes before the Chief went on vacation. But Mr. Green has not arrived.” He’s referring to a retainer. In criminal, you have to get paid up front, since clients don’t send many checks from prison. “Supposedly, we’ll see it today.”
His attention returns for a second to the P&F complaint, then he suddenly stops cold and squints at me.
“How’s he look?” Rik says.
“Who?”
“Your wacky neighbor. You’ve been keeping quite an eye on him. What’s he look like?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Asian.”
“He’s going to the gym two hours a day, so he must be in good shape, right?”
The man is definitely lean and fit, but what’s most striking is his skin, a rich shade I’ve never seen before, close to what was called ‘ochre’ in my crayon box but with a more lustrous undertone. He’s tall too, around six foot three.
“Point?” I ask.
“Point is maybe you’re a little hot for him.”
“Nah,” I say. “This guy’s maybe forty-five. You know my story, Rik—older women, younger men.”
“Pinky,” he says, “it’s none of my business, but your story seems to be anybody born human.”
“Ha,” I say again, although he’s probably right.
Nomi, Rik’s assistant, peeks around the door.
“Chief Gomez is here,” Nomi says.
Not the kind to wait, Lucia Gomez-Barrera sweeps in with a burst of positive energy that fills the room. She immediately opens her arms to Rik for a hug.