Chapter 4

Marc hated Dave Coleman pretty much as soon as he met him.

Any hope he'd had of getting actual work out of the assistant district attorney's son vanished quickly. Marc was pretty certain a site foreman should have some experience in construction. He was also sure it wasn't good to refer to the person interviewing you as "bra" or his assistant as "the battle axe." Marc couldn't exactly disagree with the characterization, but it seemed like bad form.

He watched the young man through slitted eyes. It seemed like Dave must be close to seven feet tall and more than half as wide at the shoulders. For what felt like the last two hours but was probably only a few minutes, Dave had been droning through a long, involved story about a "booze cruise" that had apparently been one of the highlights of his college days. Marc had lost interest after the first few sentences and now checked in every minute or so to see if Dave had gotten anywhere within shouting range of a point. Marc couldn't even remember the question that had prompted this monologue. He thought it might have been "Describe a difficult problem you solved."

"Well, I want to thank you for coming in," he said abruptly, rising from behind his desk and extending his hand to shake. "But an emergency has just come up on-site that I need to deal with."

Dave trailed off mid-sentence and looked confused for a moment. Marc hadn't even bothered to pretend to get a phone call or an e-mail before speaking, relying on the half-witted giant not to notice.

Dave recovered quickly from his confusion and rose from his chair. When he shook Marc's hand, he did so with a force that would have been crushing if Marc hadn't been ready for it. The two men locked gazed for a moment.

"So, I'll be hearing from you?"

Marc gave him a professional smile, "Sure. We've got to talk to some more candidates, but we'll let you know."

Dave released his hand, "Cool, bra. I look forward to your call." He ducked going through the door on the way out.

Angela almost collided with him on her way into the office. She had a folder in her hand, but held it absentmindedly as if it were of no importance, "Please tell me you're not planning on hiring that unpleasant young man."

Marc raised an eyebrow. Angela always let her feelings be known on potential hires, but rarely so directly or immediately, "I ... haven't decided."

His assistant's face scrunched up in a fierce look. If Angela had chosen to be an actress, she could have spent her entire career playing duennas and stern nurses. Built like a fire hydrant, she barely came up to Marc's shoulder, even with the tight bun of hair on top of her head. To Marc's employees, she was a perpetual chaperon and strict taskmistress. As soon as she found anyone misbehaving in any way that hurt productivity, she lashed into them with her sharp tongue. Equally fluent in English and Spanish, she rarely failed to heap on the most abuse in the language her target knew less of. It could be quite impressive.

If she didn't periodically turn that tongue on Marc with equal ferocity, she would be the perfect assistant.

"If you want to hire someone to be useless, you should hire one of my Mexican nephews. They can be useless for half what you'd have to pay that white boy to not do the same job."

"I'll ... keep that in mind," Marc offered, wincing inwardly. He was never sure what Angela had against Mexicans. He was pretty sure she was a full-blooded Mexican herself, but he'd never worked up the nerve to ask. She'd always spoken so disparagingly of her "Mexican neighbors," "Mexican relatives" and "Mexican husband."

Angela continued to glower at him. He waited for her to speak. When she didn't, he pointed to the folder in her hand, "Is that something I need to look at?"

She glared at the folder for a second, "No." Then, she whirled and left, slamming the door behind her with an air that made Marc wonder how long he was grounded. For the moment, it served his purposes, though. He sat down and called his brother.

When Todd answered, Marc said immediately, "There's got to be another way."

"You met the prodigious son, I take it?"

"That had to be the dumbest, most obnoxious person I've ever met," said Marc. "I can not possibly hire him. Let's find a different way to get on his father's good side."

"What did you have in mind?"

"I don't know." Marc scowled into the phone, "A direct campaign contribution, maybe?"

Todd sighed and explained slowly, "Assistant district attorneys are appointed. They don't have campaigns."

"Shit." Marc rose and paced, "Does he want to be DA?"

"If he does, I'd save your money. John Canyon has the job sewn up pretty much for life." Todd sighed again, "How can you have been doing business in this county for ten years and not know these things?"

"I'm really not interested in politics," Marc answered. "They were always your thing."

"And it's about time you started pulling your weight. You can't do business forever without playing ball." Todd snapped. Then, more soothingly, he added, "You'll see. Life is much easier with the right friends."

"All right." Marc sighed after a long pause. "You play golf with this guy. What does he want?"

"He wants his useless son to be less useless," Todd said immediately. He sighed, "He also wants to be a cop. You have any police contacts I don't know about?"

"No," Marc admitted, hearing defeat in his own voice.

"Then hire his kid. Put him somewhere he can't do much harm. You must have something like that. You're the only contractor I know who doesn't have somebody's useless kid working for him."

Marc was sitting in the living room, seething and holding a glass of scotch he hadn't sipped from in over an hour when Tamara let herself in the front door, backpack over one shoulder. She stopped mid-stride when she saw him, "You're home early. What's wrong?"

He looked up and sighed, "Nothing."

She placed her backpack next to the living room table without taking her eyes off of him, skepticism clear in her expression. Marc considered how he must look, brooding and scowling in the corner. He'd even sounded like a moody teenager, "Just a bad day at work."

She circled around behind his chair. A second later, her hands were on his shoulders, thumbs pressing into his trapezius exactly where his stress lived. He sat more upright, surprised both by the gesture and its effectiveness. Reaching up, he stroked her wrist, "Thank you."

"So, what happened?"

"I..." He felt a sigh escape him, "It's complicated. I had to hire somebody I really didn't want to today."

She didn't answer right away, massaging his shoulders with mechanical efficiency. Finally, she asked, "Is it because of ... us?"

"I..." Marc frowned thoughtfully, "Why would you ask that?"

"Well, you're the boss," said Tamara. "You don't have to do anything you don't want unless there's a law or you're in trouble. Right?"

"Uh..." Marc shook his head, "Actually, it's not that simple."

"So, this isn't about what we're doing?" Concern tinged her voice.

"No," Marc decided on the spot. "This is just ... a dirty place to do business. Every contractor in the county has at least one politician's worthless kid on his crew somewhere. It's just ... what you have to do."

Tamara leaned over his shoulder, breasts pressing against the back of his neck, "So, why not do business somewhere else?"

Marc considered the question. He'd grown up here and never really decided to go into land development. His success often seemed more a function of luck than anything he'd done to get there, "I'm not sure it's better anywhere else."

Her hands rested on his shoulders, no longer moving, "We've got almost an hour before you have to go pick up Adam."

He placed the glass on its coaster, "I stopped drinking like an hour ago. I don't know why I was still holding that."

Tamara nodded and stroked the side of his neck, "Good. I think I can do a better job of relaxing you than that drink anyway."

He smiled, "You can. That was really nice."

She came around the front of his chair where he could see her, arms clasped behind her back in a gesture of innocence, navy blue tank top and white shorts exposing long, tan arms and legs. As he watched her, she sank to her knees, "That's sweet. But, my hands get tired a lot faster than my jaw."

"I really appreciate this, Mrs. Schell." Marc took Adam from the buxom woman's arms.

"Please, call me Laura. And, I don't mind at all." She offered the baby a finger, which he gripped and shoved in his mouth, "He's getting really big."

"Yeah," Marc answered. "The pediatrician says he's too young for energy drinks, but he just really seems to love them."

It seemed to take the woman a moment to decide he was kidding. Then, she laughed harder than the joke had deserved and laid a hand on his chest, "You are funny."

Marc glanced at her hand. The diamonds from her twinned rings gleamed up at him. He glanced into the minvan where her own son sat in the back seat watching a DVD and rocking back and forth at an alarming rate. He was shouting the words to what sounded like the theme of the cartoon.

Marc didn't know much about Laura Schell except that she lived a couple of houses down and had been Laura Cordoba, a brunette from out of town when she married Arnold Schell six or seven years ago. In the intervening years, she seemed to have become blonder and acquired a faintly German accent since then.

"We should set up a play-date for them sometime," offered Laura, not removing her hand.

Marc frowned, "Your son is ... five?"

When she nodded, he frowned, "I think Adam might be a little young for play dates yet." He couldn't imagine leaving his son unguarded around a hyperactive five year-old.

She looked past him, "That's too bad. You have such a nice big yard and a high fence. I could let him run around back there without worrying he'd take off into the woods like he's always trying to do at our place. I keep telling Arnie he should rig up a harness."

Marc smiled, unable to tell if she was kidding. For all he knew, harnessing your child and letting them run wild in the back yard might even be considered good parenting these days. Kim had been the one to read all the books and articles about what was in vogue for parents this season. He'd just hoped to temper the most ridiculous ideas.

"Well," said Marc awkwardly. "Thank you again."

Laura withdrew her hand finally, "You have my number."

He watched her drive off, cradling his son against his shoulder. He hadn't been oblivious to the subtext of their conversation, just surprised. Laura Schelle was an attractive enough woman his own age. And Marc would hardly lose sleep over cuckolding Arnie Schell, who he remembered as a moody punk who had once given a friend of his a wedgie bad enough that he'd had to be taken to the hospital. He just didn't understand why Arnie's wife would have any interest in him, considering they'd known each other for less than five minutes. He walked back to the house, shaking his head.