Bad Publicity

Chapter 2

James Cooke tried to ignore his cell phone, which was ringing again at the bottom of his gym bag. He was determined to finish two more rounds of bench presses, then shower and have a cup of coffee before talking to anyone about anything. Mondays were always busy at Temp Zone, and today would be worse than usual because his boss, Ginger Wainwright, was on vacation. Knowing that he and the other recruiters would have to pick up the slack and stay into the evening, he'd given himself permission to work out longer and arrive late. He wasn't ready to leave his endorphin high behind and face the world. Besides, he couldn't imagine who could be trying to reach him so urgently.

"Excuse me? Excuse me!"

James set his weights down with a clang and looked up at the skinny white girl standing over him. She'd recently started working out at his Harlem gym and was always lurking in the weight room chatting up guys with the lamest, most transparent conversation-starters. So far he'd been able to avoid her by pretending not to speak English.

"Can you either turn off your phone or answer it? It's kind of annoying."

So are you, thought James, grunting in response.

He sat up and dug around in his bag for his phone. Just as he disentangled it from his spare jock strap, it stopped ringing.

"Oh, well." The girl tossed her long dark hair over her shoulder and pointed at his midriff. "Arms look good, but you want to pay more attention to your abs."

James full out growled at her as she walked away toward the weight machines swinging her thin hips, but she just waved at him over her shoulder. One way or another his workout was over, so he hauled his 250-pound frame off the bench, tucked his bag under his arm, and headed for the locker room. He considered the gym a shrine for private, intense workout, a time to commune with his body. This little squirt was trying to turn it into her personal pick-up joint.

To be fair, she hadn't been trying to strike up a conversation this time; she'd only been suggesting that he answer his phone. Well, he thought sternly, one thing always led to another.

James had just stepped into the shower, when his phone rang again.

"Goddammit!" he cursed at the tile walls.

He took his hand off the hot water knob, which, fortunately, he had not yet turned on, and reached for his bag. This time he managed to grab the phone on the third ring.

"What?" he barked.

There was a pause, and then an all-too-familiar voice launched into an all-too-familiar monologue.

"I'm sorry to keep calling, but it's an emergency and you're not at your office. You were so mad at me last time when I didn't tell you right away, and the police aren't here yet, and I didn't want you to be mad at me again, so I - "

"Isobel! Slow down, slow down!" James grabbed his towel and wrapped it clumsily around his waist. "Where are you?"

"At Dove & Flight. I didn't have anything to do with this - you have to believe me. It's crazy! I mean, what are the odds of me being in an office with a murder two times in three months?"

James felt his chest tighten, and he pulled the phone away from his ear to check the number. Yes, it really was Isobel, and she really was saying what he thought she was saying.

"Isobel."

"What?"

"Are you telling me that someone at Dove & Flight is dead?"

"A client. And I didn't do it. I mean, I did do it - but I didn't mean to, I swear!"

James massaged his brow, trying to make her words mean something else, but he couldn't.

"What do you mean, you did do it?" he asked slowly, not wanting to hear the answer.

"I served him coffee right before he died."

"And the coffee killed him?"

Isobel paused. "Well, actually, I don't know. I just sort of assumed it did. But - oh, my God! The pot is still on in the kitchen. I have to go!"

"Wait - WAIT!"

But she was gone. James threw the phone into his bag. So much for his shower.

She was right - it was crazy, he thought, as he pulled on his pants over his slick, sweaty legs. But he had no reason not to believe her. In the three months he'd been sending her out on temp jobs, James had learned that Isobel was many things - endearing, annoying, witty, and even, sometimes, if his defenses were down, attractive - but she wasn't a liar. Nor, despite the fact that she was an actress, or a would-be actress, or some sort of actress-in-training, was she unnecessarily dramatic. There had been real panic in her voice. If she said someone was dead, as unlikely as it might seem, someone was dead.

He had to get his ass down to Isobel's office in midtown, that much was certain. He couldn't let her face the cops alone if there was any chance she was responsible, even accidentally. Isobel didn't always know when to cork it, and she didn't always make the best first impression, especially on people who lacked a finely tuned sense of the ridiculous. And cops fell squarely into that category.

James cast his mind back to their first meeting, when Isobel had flounced into his office with her round gray-green eyes, shiny brown ponytail and translucent skin. Against his better judgment, he'd let her steamroll him into sending her out on a temp job, despite the fact that she'd never worked in an office. It was only supposed to be a half-day of phones and light typing at a bank. Nothing in the job description mentioned discovering an obnoxious secretary sitting on the pot with a pair of scissors plunged into her chest, nor the task of cleaning up the mess. Of course, the crime scene folks and the building staff had taken care of the blood, but Isobel had been the one to clear up the confusion by correctly fingering and trapping the killer. She had never been more appealing than at that moment.

But there was nothing appealing about Isobel now, and he groaned in frustration at the garbled message assaulting his ears over the subway loudspeaker. It was just intelligible enough for him to catch the general drift: a suspicious package at 145th Street. Downtown trains delayed until further notice. He pounded up the steps to the street, his breath misting in the frigid January air, just as a bus barreled up to the curb. James shot his MetroCard into the reader and started down the aisle.

"Need the fare," the bus driver called after him.

"What? This is an unlimited card."

"You gotta wait eighteen minutes before you can use it again. You just used it."

James stormed back to the front of the bus. "Damn right I just used it. On the subway, which isn't running."

"They shoulda given you a transfer."

"Well, they didn't," James growled.

Two elderly women exchanged a glance and pulled themselves to their feet. They hobbled toward the rear of the bus, preferring to maneuver their canes down the aisle than be attacked by a raving, fare-deficient madman.

The driver gave an exaggerated sigh, as if he were talking to a five year-old. "You gotta ask for one."

"I didn't have time to ask. I'm late, and I've already shelled out the money for an unlimited card, so don't you go goddamn limiting me!"

"Well, this is the Limited bus," joked a wiry Hispanic kid in horn-rimmed glasses. James glared at him and he shrank back into his seat.

"Eighteen minutes or pay the fare," the bus driver said stoically.

James ignored him and plopped down next to the Hispanic kid, who receded even further into the blue plastic.

The bus driver shifted into neutral and turned around in his seat. "Either pay the fare or get off the bus," he said, in a voice that brooked no argument.

"What are you gonna do, throw me off?"

There was a collective intake of breath from the passengers. In response, the bus driver pulled his walkie-talkie from his belt and began to speak.

"This is the 101 Limited, bus number 6650, operator 142. I've got a large, African-American male, won't pay his fare - "

"Son of a b***h! I don't have time for this!" James roared.

He stormed through the open doors, nearly knocking over a gaggle of teenage girls running to catch the stalled bus. A middle-aged woman in a suit stuck her mouth up against an open sliver of window.

"Now you've held up the whole damn bus! You're not the only one who's late, you know!"

"I'm the only one who's late to a murder!" James shouted back, although he realized as soon as the words were out of his mouth that they didn't exactly help his cause.