82 Desire

is?”
    It didn’t look like anything much, but she had a hunch. “It must be a bug.”
    “Excellent, Ms. Wallis. Go to the head of the class. It’s a little receiver. You need to get that in his office somewhere.”
    “His office? I can get in his computer a lot easier than I can get in his office. How am I going to do that?”
    “Well, now. Here’s where you learn to be a detective. That’s gon’ have to be your problem—you’re the operative on the scene.”
    There was nothing to do but bull ahead. “Okay, I’ll figure it out.”
    “Good. Do it tomorrow and report in. How long’s the job supposed to last—the installation thing?”
    “Till the end of the week.”
    “Okay. Work out the week. If they extend the job, I want you to keep working.”
    “Is that all? Just install the bug? I thought I had to get into a computer.”
    “Be patient, Ms. Wallis. One thing at a time.”
    She searched out Fortier first thing the next day, finding, in fact, that his office was three or four doors from where she was working. Peeking in, she couldn’t see much, but the morning wasn’t half over before he was standing in front of her desk. “Hey there.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Russell Fortier.”
    “Talba Wallis.”
    He had a firm grip, as well he should. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with short brown hair like half the white men who worked in the building. His hair had golden glints in it, though, as if he spent time in the sun, and his skin was slightly weathered, in a pleasant sort of way. He wore a striped shirt, which was too stuffy for her taste, but otherwise she liked him. He didn’t seem the sort to take life too seriously.
    He said, “Is Robert Tyson around here? I’ve got to ask him something.”
    She was impressed that he had come for Tyson himself instead of sending his secretary.
    When he had gone, she asked Tyson, “What’s the story on him? He seemed kind of—I don’t know—human.”
    “Fortier?” he said. “Real good guy. One of the best.”
    She felt a qualm or two about bugging his office, but what the hell, a job was a job. She could do it after work if no one was around.
    When the time came, she left her sweater at her desk, took the elevator to another floor, went to the ladies’ room just to pass the time, went back, sneaked into Fortier’s office, and planted the bug, all in about ten minutes.
    She reported in that night from home.
    “Well, congratulations, Ms. Dick,” said Allred. “Good job.”
    “What now?”
    “Install those systems, baby. That’s all you have to do.”
    At the end of the week, the job was extended. Through no fault of their own, she and Robert Tyson and company weren’t done yet—several more departments needed new systems. She was getting to know the United building pretty well.
    At the end of the next, she still had a job. She’d been a United Oil employee about ten days—long enough to be joining in the office gossip—when Allred called her. “New assignment.”
    “Damn. I was just starting to feel at home.”
    “Good, because it’s there. I want you to get into Fortier’s computer.”
    “Piece of cake.”
    “I’ve got something for you. Can you come to the office tonight?”
    “I was going to paint my toenails.”
    When she got there, he handed over a list of names, none of which Talba recognized.
    “I want you to go into Fortier’s computer and see if you can find documents containing any of these names. Can you do that?”
    “Probably in about five and a half minutes.”
    “You’re pretty cocky.”
    “Evidently you don’t have Windows 95.”
    “Are you kidding? I still use a manual typewriter.”
    “Windows 95 has a ‘Find’ command. Kind of takes the challenge out of it.”
    “Okay, okay.” Allred sounded grumpy. “Can you copy the documents?”
    “Will they fit on a disk or do I need my Zip drive?”
    “Needless to say, Ms. Nerd Queen, I haven’t the least idea what a Zip drive is.”
    “Never mind. How long might these documents be?”
    “How should I know? I haven’t stolen them yet.”
    “You mean I haven’t.”
    “My guess is, they aren’t long. We’re probably talking about a hundred pages or less.”
    “No problem. Disk it is.” But she made a mental note to take her Zip drive just in case.
    “You sound pretty damn confident.”
    “I told you. I’m good.” The only hard part would be getting into Fortier’s office, and she’d already done it once. All she really had to