“Curt, man, she fired me.”
He gaped. “No kidding?”
“No kidding. She fired me, and now you’re telling me I’m going to stay fired, probably forever?”
“Look, I don’t know.” He rubbed his eyes. “I can maybe speed things up, but they’re going to want to wrap this all into the bigger investigation.”
“She can’t get away with this.”
He jabbed a finger at me. “She is not getting away with it.” He hesitated. “She’s just not getting charged in the next few weeks.”
“Give me a timeline.”
“Months. Probably.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“And what do I do in the meantime? I can wait for all this to come out in court then sue the system for wrongful termination, but by then it’ll have been months of being out of work. I can’t have that kind of gap on my resume.”
“This is a shit situation. I truly don’t know what to tell you.”
“I want you to tell me that we can arrest her tomorrow.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Fuck.” I felt deflated, and all the visions of glory I had only seconds ago fizzled away. I stared at the grimy Panera tabletop and wanted to pound my fist through it.
Justice was too slow. It was a grinding bureaucratic machine, a clockwork automaton with too many moving parts and conflicting interests. It lurched along, barely getting one step forward, while the criminals and thieves sprinted along like gazelles, circling around its hulk-like corpse and laughing. I pictured Maria sitting behind her desk, smirking at me, and I wanted to kill her.
“There has to be a better way,” I said.
“I’m sorry. Unless you have proof that there’s imminent danger—”
I leaned forward. “Wait, what?”
“Imminent danger. Threat of bodily harm. The threats you recorded weren’t subtle, but she never said she was going to have you killed or anything. If you could show imminent danger, then I could get the feds to move real fast. That sort of shit always gets them going.”
I leaned back and let out a slow breath then pointed to the stitched-up wound on my forehead. “You see this?”
“I was meaning to ask. You get drunk and fall off the stairs or some shit?”
“I got jumped by two mafia thugs.”
He whistled. “You’re kidding me.”
“Nope.”
“And you’re not dead.”
“It didn’t go the way they wanted, although I have a feeling they were only sent to hurt me, not kill me.”
“Still, I’ve seen the sort of shit they do. They’re not the kind of guys to take things halfway.”
“This is proof, right?”
He hesitated. “You got evidence of that?”
“Curt—”
“I’m sorry man, I’m just telling you the truth here. If you don’t have evidence, and it’s your word against theirs, then it won’t fly. But if you’ve got proof, you know, a hospital report from that night, a police report, CCTV footage, a fucking picture on your phone, anything, then I could leverage that.”
“Goddamn it.” I leaned my head back. “I didn’t go to the hospital. I didn’t call the police.”
“Then I can’t do a thing for you.”
I sucked in a breath and let it out. There was a chance, but it felt so slim as to be nonexistent. Maria was going down, but I wanted it to be sooner rather than later. I didn’t want to wait, and I didn’t want her to keep living her life while I was fucked and fired.
There had to be a way. There was always a way.
I slipped out of the booth and stood. “I’ll get you proof.”
“I hope you do,” he said. “I mean, I hope you do it without getting hurt again.”
I shook his hand. “Keep your phone handy. You’ll be hearing from me soon.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets and walked off, mind reeling through a list of possibilities. None of them were good, but then again, the alternative sucked just as much.
Ultimately though, I knew this would involve provoking another fight. I walked down the packed morning rush hour side walk and took out my phone. I dialed up the hospital and had them connect me to Maria’s office, which rang and rang, before her secretary answered and put me on hold. I wandered the sidewalk, gazed at some creeping spurge clawing its way from between a crack, admired the knotweed that grew alongside it in long twisted strands, urban grasses trying to survive in this fetid place, before Maria finally picked up.
“What do you want, Dr. Coarse?” she asked, sounding put out.
“Hello, Maria. How are you doing?”
“I don’t have time for this. I have a meeting in two minutes.”
“Then I’ll be quick. I have proof that you’ve been laundering money by taking fake donations and buying fake products from fake mafia-owned shell companies, and I’m going to make sure you get burned for it.”
She was quiet for a few seconds. “I don’t think so, Dr. Coarse. I know you’re desperate to save your job, but I don’t think you have anything.”