Hidden Agenda by Lia Matera

Author:Lia Matera
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

29

“Earth Woman! You look terrible!” My landlord reached instinctively for my arm, though I had no intention of swooning.

I brushed his liver-spotted hand away. “I don’t have my keys. Let me into my apartment, will you?”

He disappeared momentarily into what he called Spaceship A, then came back into the hall with the key to (what I called) Apartment B. “Where have you been?”

“For the last four and a half hours, at the Hall of Justice. I’m glad you’re still up. My purse is at Mother’s Fresh Start Commune, and I don’t feel like facing the Addams Family right now.”

He tapped the key against my keyhole a few times, squinting shortsightedly. I took it away and unlocked my door. Unaired for three days, the apartment smelled like a laundry hamper. It looked like one, too. If I still had a job, maybe I’d hire a cleaning lady. “I knew it couldn’t last,” I lamented.

“Troubles?” He sounded vaguely hopeful. He and my parents didn’t want me to keep the job. They didn’t want me to take a respite from the cannibalism of left-wing politics. They didn’t want me to earn a decent wage.

I couldn’t keep anger out of my voice. “Everything’s peachy. Except that my boss just got poisoned. My other boss. That makes three. I’m two ahead of Plato, now.”

He stuck his neck forward and tilted his head. With his long yellow-white hair and leathery face, he resembled an aging orangutan.

I stepped closer. “You know what else? Those two cornflakes Mother installed at Julian’s house are nothing but trouble. They’re going to burn the place down, or kill each other or something. What’s wrong with you guys?”

I slammed into the bathroom to run a tub of hot water. Whatever was wrong with them, I was stuck with them. I’d never expand my circle, I’d never get a decent law job again. It would take all my left-wing connections (the only kind I had, alas) to get into a shoestring Legal Aid clone. I’d be back to busboy wages and the same old crap. Visualize peace and pass the 1985 Napa Valley Chardonnay (“You can’t go wrong with an ‘85 Chardonnay, comrade!”).

My phone was ringing, so I went out to the living room and took it off the hook. Then I smoked a joint and soaked in the tub. My briefcase and suits were at the commune, but it probably didn’t make any difference. The office would be closed until the cops were through searching for traces of the hemlock that killed Mott. Unless he’d been poisoned while dining alone at Jack’s (where Krisbaum said he’d eaten lunch), then he’d gotten the dose from something in the attorneys’ lounge refrigerator. Or from someone who’d come to see him that day (Krisbaum would not elaborate on this).

Anyway, the San Francisco office of Wailes, Roth was probably “somewhat defunct,” in the words of the New York partner who’d initially contacted me. Thomas Spender (I think his name was) might even think it was completely defunct.

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