Free Dial Me for Murder by Amanda Matetsky

feet and began guiding him to the front of the workroom for his hat, muffler, and jacket, Mario snapped out of his trance. I’m talking far out! He jumped up from his desk and followed us down the aisle, screaming his head off and yanking on the back of my sweater like a two-year-old in the throes of a three-alarm tantrum.
    “Where do you think you’re going?” he wailed, grabbing a handful of gray angora and pulling so hard I stumbled two steps backward. “Lenny can’t leave! He hasn’t finished pasting up the boards! And the messenger’s coming to pick them up at five!”
    I tore away from Mario’s grasp and spun around to face him head-on. “Shut up, Mario! And keep your grubby hands off my clothes. Lenny’s too sick to work. He shouldn’t have come in today at all. I’m going to help him downstairs now and hail a cab to take him home. You’ll just have to finish the damn boards yourself.” I turned back to Lenny, took him by the arm, and continued steering him toward the coat tree.
    Mario and Mike didn’t make a move or say a word. They were shocked by my forceful behavior, and—to tell you the truth—so was I! As the only woman on the staff, I was accustomed to being submissive and servile— not strong. And I certainly wasn’t used to calling the shots. I realized my newfound power had a lot (okay, everything ) to do with the the fact that Crockett and Pomeroy weren’t there, but it felt really good to be assertive, and I decided to savor the sensation as long as I could.
    After getting Lenny into his cap and jacket and wrapping his muffler around his skinny neck, I put on my own jacket and grabbed my purse out of the drawer. (I couldn’t take the chance of leaving it—or, rather, the list —unattended, plus I needed money for the taxi.) Then I escorted Lenny out of the office and down the hall to the elevator.
    He protested all the way, of course (Lenny’s fear of elevators was all-consuming), but I knew he was too weak to walk down nine steep flights of steps. When the elevator doors opened, I pushed him inside, pinned him to the wall with my shoulder, punched the DOWN button, and held his hand tightly until we reached the ground floor and he stopped whimpering. Then I piloted him across the lobby, maneuvered him through the revolving glass doors to the street, bundled him into a cab, and gave the driver my last two dollars.
    It was while I was standing there on the sidewalk—waving good-bye to Lenny and sticking my empty wallet back in my purse—that I saw Brandon Pomeroy hurrying up the block. Poof! My new sense of power disappeared in a cloud of smoke. I ducked back in the lobby and snagged the first available elevator, hoping I could make it back to the office, hang up my jacket, hide my handbag, and be safely seated behind my desk before the feces hit the fan.
     
FOUR THIRTY CAME AND WENT, AND THERE was still no sign of Pomeroy. I couldn’t imagine what had happened to him. After all, I had seen him marching up the block toward our building and, by all appearances, he’d been determined to get here in a hurry. And that was over half an hour ago! So where the heck did he go? Did he have another appointment? If so, it must have been extremely important, because Pomeroy would never, under normal circumstances, let an art or editorial deadline slip by without seizing the opportunity to whip the slaves.
    Mario didn’t finish all the paste-ups on time, but after he realized that Pomeroy wouldn’t be coming in to harass him, he didn’t care anymore. He just plopped the boards that were complete on my desk, telling me to check to see that all the titles, blurbs, captions, copy blocks, and photos were in position, then package the stuff for the messenger and call the printer to arrange for another pickup tomorrow. Then he snapped his fingers at Mike—who jumped to attention like Sergeant Bilko—and the two of them swiped their coats off the tree, waved bye-bye, and left.
    Ten seconds later