The Grub-And-Stakers Move a Mountain by Charlotte MacLeod, Alisa Craig Page A

particular employee didn’t keep his mind fully occupied with the construction business.
    By now her canvas hamper was almost full, her mop trailing an impressive agglomeration of fuzz, her dusters thoroughly begrimed and her face no doubt the same. She was tired, fed up, and also puzzled. There were all those cars in the parking lot, but so far she hadn’t run into one living person except the watchman. The logical inference was that they must all be together somewhere, but where? Not in the conference room.
    She’d already cleaned that, or tried to. It appeared to be used mainly as a catchall for oddments like billheads, lumber, plastic moldings, the handles for about three hundred kitchen cabinets, half a sundial, two lobster buoys, the remains of a salami sandwich, somebody’s golf umbrella, and a plastic flamingo on a long green rod that was presumably meant to be planted in the lawn of somebody who didn’t know any better.
    There was one closed door at the far end of the corridor. Unless they were all down cellar inspecting the boiler, they must be behind that. So what should she do? Tiptoe past? Knock boldly?
    Or simply barge in and start mopping?
    Why not knock and then barge? That was what she was ostensibly here for, wasn’t it? Clutching her mop as a Roman legionary might have elevated his eagle, Dittany approached the fateful orifice. Somehow or other her feet showed a tendency to drag, though certainly not from the weight of her sneakers as there wasn’t all that much left of them. Her knuckles also showed a surprising reluctance to rise to the occasion.
    In plain fact, now that the moment of truth, if such a commodity existed at McNaster Construction, was at hand, Dittany was scared stiff. She stood there like Lot’s wife after that regrettable incident at Sodom, gritting her teeth and cursing herself inwardly for a poltroon, a caitiff knave, and a scurvy varlet. As she lingered, however, she gradually became aware that the door, like everything else McNaster built, was of shoddy quality and poorly hung. By straining her ears only a little, she could hear pretty much everything of the discussion that was taking place inside the room.
    “What do you think I’m paying you for?” somebody was demanding angrily.
    “Now, Andy,” somebody else replied in a tone that could best be described as unctuous, “we all know what you pay me for, and I’m sure everybody here would agree that I’ve always come through for you. But what you want now is simply too hot for me to handle. I could wind up being run out of Scottsbeck and disbarred for life. And if I was put in a position where I faced criminal prosecution, I’m sure you realize it wouldn’t be in my best interest to keep quiet. These people here in Lobelia Falls can’t possibly be quite such idiots as you seem to think they are.”
    “But you said yourself the trust could be broken,” McNaster argued. “Look, Charlie, I want that land and I mean to have it.
    You’re making a big song and dance out of a simple little deal.
    All you have to do is draw up the papers. Then as soon as Sam here gets elected to the Development Commission, he strongarms those other dodoes into passing an emergency ordinance and it’s in the bag.”
    “And suppose for the sake of argument Sam doesn’t get elected? Then I’d be left holding that bag you so casually mention.”
     
    “How the hell can Sam not get elected? Nobody’s running against him, and it’s too late now to file nomination papers. The election’s next Tuesday, for the cat’s sake! Sam’s a shoo-in.
    Right, Sam?”
    “Right,” said a voice Dittany knew all too well and would never have dreamed of hearing in these surroundings. “I’m in like Flynn. The only way anybody could vote against me now would be on a write-in ballot, and who’s going to bother? You know who turns out for these local elections, about six old diehards and the candidate’s relatives. Anyway, I’m a popular man.