Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(81)
I nodded. “I like blunt.”
“Good. My husband is a piece of shit. He lied to me and deceived me for over two decades. He broke every marriage oath in the book and I wish him anything but well.” Her eyes were hard and determined. “You don’t strike me as the type to make random coffee drops. You came here to ask me something. Well, you did me a favor, once—a big favor. You helped me to see the truth about my marriage, and you didn’t let me overreact after I found out.” She leaned toward me. “I’d like to return that favor. I don’t know what you want or what you’re up to or how it fits in with my husband and, honestly, as long as it doesn’t improve the quality of his life I don’t care. Anything I can do—just ask.”
The sun was coming in bright through the east-facing windows. I shifted a little so it wasn’t in my eyes. “Last time we talked, you mentioned that you had copied the key to your husband’s office. Do you still have it?”
She was surprised. “I can’t believe you remember that. But yes, I think so. One second.” She got up and went over to the kitchen island for her purse. She searched through it and came back over with a single brass key. One side was engraved with the words DO NOT COPY.
“Does he know you have this?”
“I did it secretly.” She smiled. “It took me forever to find a locksmith who would do it in spite of the ‘Do Not Copy.’ I had to pay him an extra hundred dollars. Why do you ask?”
“You’re right,” I said. “I do need a favor from you. Can I borrow that key?”
39
People could be funny. They often seemed to like things to happen without caring much about how. For example, offices. People who worked in offices liked them to be clean, but they didn’t like actually seeing the cleaning process. Partly a matter of convenience. No one wanted to be on an important phone call with a vacuum cleaner going in the background. There was something more, I’d always thought. People preferred not to think about someone scrubbing a toilet or mopping a floor. They just wanted the toilet to be pristine and the tiles on the floor to gleam like they’d never been stepped on. So it made sense that custodians tended to be nocturnal. The fewer people they encountered, the happier everyone was. They could work more efficiently, and employees could walk in each morning without having to think about coffee stains or dirty sinks. An arrangement that suited everyone.
At a law firm, plenty of people worked late. The junior partners tended to leave reasonably early and the senior partners earlier still, but the hungry young associates saddled with billable hour quotas were eager to have their late-night e-mails and punch-out times prove their worth as they chased promotion. Working until nine, ten, maybe eleven at night was no problem for associates in their twenties. Seventy, eighty hours or more a week was normal.
The custodial outfit that cleaned the offices of Gilbert, Frazier & Mann probably cleaned a dozen different sets of corporate offices each night. They were an efficient group. Six of them traveling in two minivans. They carried equipment with them and seemed to reach Gilbert, Frazier & Mann between eleven and eleven thirty nightly. The firm took up three floors of a skyscraper in San Francisco’s Financial District. The kind of place that during business hours had security in the front lobby and a strict sign-in system for visitors. After hours the building relied on electronic readers and swipe cards. Law firms were busy places. They wanted their lawyers to be able to work late.
As the last of the six cleaners walked into the building, I stepped around the corner and waited until the glass door had swung closed. Then I kicked the door loudly with my foot. It hurt. I was used to kicking with motorcycle boots, not open-toe heels. The last of the six turned at the noise. I kicked the door a second time. Impatiently. As though annoyed at even a second of delay. He came back and opened the door, a small Hispanic guy in a Giants sweatshirt and baggy jeans. I walked in, barely nodding as I passed him. “Thanks.”
He started to say something and then changed his mind. I was wearing a black skirt with a blouse and blazer. My hair was pinned up into a bun and my arms barely wrapped around a large cardboard shipping box, so full the top flaps couldn’t close properly. I walked purposefully across the lobby until I was in the midst of the group waiting for the elevator. They watched me. One of them whispered something in Spanish to another. They seemed torn between wanting and not wanting to ask me something.
“Excuse me, do you work here, ma’am?” the second one finally asked.
I gave a curt nod without looking at him. The kind of short, impatient gesture that said my mind was on far more important things. There was a floor directory by the elevator. Gilbert, Frazier & Mann were floors ten, eleven, and twelve. I stood by the elevator and got one hand from under the box, juggling it on my knee as I tried to bring a lanyard and plastic card around to the card reader. It couldn’t have looked easy. “Shit!” I exclaimed as the box I was holding started to fall. I tried to catch it, clumsily, and wasn’t able to get my arms back around it in time. The box hit the floor and several manila folders fell out. Papers scattered over the floor. “Damnit,” I said with more irritation, and knelt to grab up the papers. “Hold that, will you?” I called as the elevator opened.
It wasn’t really a request. They held the door while I stuffed papers back into the box. It was a tight fit in the elevator. Pressing the box against the wall, I freed a hand and managed to hit the button for the twelfth floor. Silas Johnson’s Pacific Heights Victorian had been too expensive for him to be anything but a senior partner. He’d be on the top floor. The janitorial crew got out on ten, where the reception area and kitchenette would be. The most time-consuming floor to clean.