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"I'm sorry, Mildred."
Mildred tried to stay angry. Lucy could see that. However hard she tried, she started laughing a few
seconds after Lucy stopped. "I don't know why I let him get to me," she said. "He is just a sack of manure.
But when he's there telling lies right to my face, I want to take him and sew his lips shut, that's what I want
to do."
Lucy had thought she was over the giggles. That started them all over again. She and Mildred both howled.
So did several of the women around them who'd heard.
Naturally, the foreman came storming back. "What's this?" he shouted. "What's this? What's going on
here?"
"Nothing, Mr. Simmons," Mildred said sweetly. It was a good thing she answered, because Lucy couldn't
talk right then. She kept imagining Hank Simmons under the sewing machine. Too bad it was only
make-believe.
After lunch, Simmons called her away from her machine. Everybody stared at her. She wondered what
she'd done. Simmons hardly ever let people stop working she couldn't remember the last time, in fact.
He'd found out somebody's mother was in an accident one morning, and he didn't tell the poor woman till
lunch.
He took Lucy into the office and closed the door behind them. The walls were covered with pinup photos,
big, small, and in-between. Simmons lit a cigarette. The smoke was especially nasty in the small, cramped
space. He tapped ash into an ashtray on his desk that was already overflowing with butts.
From behind that smoke screen, he studied her as if she were a puzzle piece that didn't fit where he thought
it should. He's going to make me say something first, Lucy realized. "What is it, Mr. Simmons?" she
asked the safest question she could think of.
"Fellow came in and wanted to talk about you earlier today," Simmons answered. "Not a big fellow, but
important-looking. Important-sounding, too." He was impressed, no matter how he tried to hide it. "Fellow
with connections," he added. "He made that real plain real plain."
Till then, Lucy hadn't had any idea who this man might be. Now she did or, if not who he was, what those
connections were. She nodded back to the foreman. "I see," she said, as if she'd been sure all along.
"Why didn't you say you knew people with clout like that?" Hank Simmons stubbed out the cigarette and
nervously lit another one. "Why didn't you tell me? You think I couldn't have fixed you up with a better job
before this? I'm no dummy, Miss Woo. I know which side my bread's buttered on. You'd better believe I
do."
Lucy blinked. He'd never called her Miss Woo before. She had to tell him something. "It was necessary,"
she said let Simmons figure out what that meant.
He said, "Well, it sure isn't necessary now. This fellow made that real plain real plain." He repeated the
phrase again, this time with a kind of shudder. Then he asked, "You read and write, don't you?"
"Oh, yes," Lucy said, wondering why he cared.
He told her: "Okay, then. Starting tomorrow no, starting right now I'm taking you off your machine.
You're a file clerk, as of today. Pay's fifteen dollars a week, and you get a half day off on Saturday. Go to
the front office. Ask for Mrs. Cho. She knows you're coming. She'll show you what to do."
"Mrs. Cho," Lucy echoed in something not far from a daze. She got out of Hank Simmons' smelly office as
fast as she could. The Triads, she thought dizzily. It must be the Triads. Had the "fellow with connections"
said he'd murder Simmons if Lucy didn't get promoted? Or had he said he'd burn down the factory and
everybody inside it? Whatever he'd said, it had done the trick.
Mrs. Cho was expecting Lucy. She showed her the paperwork that needed doing. It wasn't very hard. It
was ridiculously easy, as a matter of fact. Lucy had dreamt of a job like this. She hadn't dreamt she could
get one, though. And at almost twice the pay! And with a half-holiday on Saturday! It seemed too good to
be true.
That brought her up short. Maybe it was too good to be true. The Triads hadn't got her this job because
they were nice. They'd done it because they still wanted her help with Curious Notions. As soon as she
thought it through, that seemed pretty plain.
And, as soon as she thought it through, it raised another question. What if she didn't help Stanley Hsu and
his friends? They'd proved they could do things for her to get their way. What would they do to her if they
didn't? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]