West Is San Francisco by Lauren Sapala

Author:Lauren Sapala [Sapala, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-23T20:00:00+00:00

15

Aleksia was head of surveillance now, which meant Sal gave her all the best cases. No one could keep up with her. In fact, it seemed we couldn’t keep any new guy for more than two weeks before Sal erupted like a volcano on him, incinerating the unlucky rookie of the moment who had inevitably done the wrong thing in the worst situation. Two weeks was just enough time to learn how to aim the camera before Sal fired them.

Because Aleksia was so good at what she did, Sal was out of the office more. As the spring days got warmer he spent his afternoons down at the ballpark or out to lunch with business friends. I ran the office by myself while he stayed in touch with Aleksia and I kept contact with everyone else. And even though I was still halfheartedly looking around for a new job, for now, everything seemed to be working.

Until one day life snuck up on me, with events that started out innocently enough. Like everything does before it turns black and horrible. That morning, as Sal banged up the stairs into the office, I raised my voice over the sound of his feet.

“Hey Sal! Grove called! He’s sick and had to bail on the Petrelli case!” There was no answer. “Sal?” I called again. “You hear me?”

The absence of noise was like someone had shut off a vacuum cleaner suddenly. The only thing I could hear was Sal’s labored, stertorous breathing.

“Grove called in sick?” he finally asked. He stood frozen outside the door to my office and looked at me blankly. Hmmm...preoccupied, I thought. Must be new clients at today’s lunch. Sal was in his good suit.

“Yeah,” I said around a mouthful of coffee. “He said his stomach’s bothering him.” I swallowed and kept my eyes on Sal, still standing in the hall. I got the distinct feeling that he needed to be dislodged—like a nefarious chunk of food is dislodged from the windpipe of a person who’s choking—before he could move from that spot.

“Hey Sal? You okay?” I asked, and then looked down. I wasn’t in the habit of asking Sal questions, ever. Especially not personal ones.

“Huh? Oh yeah!” He sprang back to life like a movie reel starting up again. Snapping his fingers, he barreled into his office. I heard him digging frantically through his desk for the papers he needed, and then humming Danke Schoen by Wayne Newton off-key and out of breath.

Sighing, I went back to my coffee and stack of reports.

But it wasn’t Sal’s lunch with new clients that day that was making him act so funny. It was Grove. And it was me who had been preoccupied, not Sal. I was the one who missed what was really going on because I was too distracted by deadlines, the next report, the next client—all the smokescreens life throws up in front of us. At that time in my life I never saw the actual moment I was living in.

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