“Say, you’re a classy-looking lady. It was worth a try,” he quipped, flashing her a stupid grin. “You can’t blame a guy for making a pass at you.”
“Oh yes I can, Mr. Matthias.”
“Then you’re one of those women’s libbers with penis envy. Ball busters, I call you. I believe you had your mind made up about me before we ever left for lunch.”
“You’re right, I did.” Since he hadn’t spared any words, she saw no reason to keep her impressions to herself. “Your office is a mess. I’m not talking about the clutter that hard work generates, I’m talking about overflowing ashtrays, empty soda cans, and a muddy floor.
“Secondly, I arrived without an appointment just to see how you would handle the situation. Your previous luncheon engagement deserved a personal call from you to explain the postponement. Furthermore, I couldn’t spend months working with an individual who begins almost every sentence with ‘say.’ And finally, I knew you weren’t right for this job the moment I saw your hands.”
“What’s wrong with my hands?”
“They’re soft, and your nails are manicured.”
“Say, lady, where do you get off—?”
The siren of an approaching LAPD squad car silenced Matthias. The car rolled to a stop just yards from where Jade and he were standing.
“What the hell is going on?” Forgetting Jade, Matthias marched forward and grabbed one of the policemen by the sleeve. “What are you doing here?”
“Who are you?”
“Wayne Matthias. I’m the boss here.”
“We got a complaint call. Apparently one of your workers went berserk and attacked another one. Somewhere up there,” the policeman added, tilting his head back and scanning the top stories of the unfinished building.
“Shit. This is all I need,” Matthias muttered, loosening the knot of his necktie. A crowd of pedestrians was collecting, curious to know what was going on. “You’d better keep these people back. I don’t want a lawsuit on my hands if somebody gets hurt.”
Jade was herded back along with the other onlookers, but she felt compelled to stay and see what difficulty had warranted a call to the police. She and the others stood in expectant silence as they watched the service elevator slowly descend. When it reached the ground, the clanging metal door was slid open and a man was thrust forward into the arresting arms of the uniformed policeman.
“You!” Matthias sneered with disgust. “I might have known it would be you.”
It was the man Jade had been watching through the binoculars.
Chapter Eighteen
The policeman elbowed Matthias aside and confronted the man, whose hands had been secured behind him with someone’s leather belt. Two other workers stepp
ed off the elevator behind him, through they kept their distance.
He hadn’t given up without a struggle, Jade noticed. He was bleeding from a cut above his brow, but the other men’s faces had sustained worse damage. He regarded those standing around him with contempt, especially Matthias.
One of the policemen asked, “Okay, what happened up there?”
“He could have killed us all,” a worker blurted out. “Nearly did before we wrestled him down and got his hands tied.”
The policeman nodded to his partner. “Get that belt off and put him in cuffs.” He asked the speaker, “Who are you?”
“I’m the foreman. We were up there working on the air ducts, and he started bitching about the lousy quality of the materials. I told him the materials were none of his goddamn business and to get back to work. He refused and demanded to see Mr. Matthias here. I told him that the boss didn’t give a rat’s ass about his opinion of things and to get back to work or I’d fire his ass. That’s when he threw a punch at me.” He touched a swelling bruise on his chin.
“Is that right?” The cop turned to a Latino worker who had come down in the elevator with them.
“Sí. He start hitting everybody.”
“He was yelling and calling Mr. Matthias here dirty names.”
“Me?” Matthias asked, stepping forward. “What’d I do? I wasn’t even up there.”
“You ordered that shit.” The low, vibrating voice of the accused man, speaking for the first time, stunned everyone else into silence. “Your building will burn like paper if it ever gets so much as a strong fart in those air ducts.”