From the Corner of His Eye

work, phoned a locksmith to change the locks at his house. As a cop, Vanadium might have access to a lock-release gun that could spring the new deadbolts as easily as the old. Therefore, on the interior of the front and back doors, Junior added sliding bolts, which couldn't be picked from outside.
        He paid cash to the locksmith, and included in the payment were the two dimes and the nickel Vanadium had left on his nightstand.
        Wednesday, with a swiftness that confirmed its eagerness to make a deal, the state supplied records on the fire tower. For five years, a significant portion of the maintenance funds had been diverted by bureaucrats to other uses. And for three years, the responsible maintenance supervisor filed an annual report on this specific tower, requesting immediate funds for fundamental reconstruction; the third of these documents, submitted eleven months prior to Naomi's fall, was composed in crisis language and stamped urgent.
        Sitting in Simon Magusson's mahogany-paneled office, reading the contents of this file, Junior was aghast. "I could have been killed."
        "It's a miracle both of you didn't go through that railing," the attorney agreed.
        Magusson was a small man behind a huge desk. His head appeared too large for his body, but his ears seemed no bigger than a pair of silver dollars. Large protuberant eyes, bulging with shrewdness and feverish with ambition, marked him as one who'd be hungry a minute after standing up from a daylong feast. A button nose too severely turned up at the tip, an upper lip long enough to rival that of an orangutan, and a mean slash of a mouth completed a portrait sure to repel any woman with eyesight; but if you wanted an attorney who was angry at the world for having been cursed with ugliness and who could convert that anger into the energy and ruthlessness of a pit bull in the courtroom, even while using his unfortunate looks to gain the jurors' sympathy, then Simon Magusson was the counselor for you.
        "It isn't just the rotten railing," Junior said, still paging through the report, his outrage growing. "The stairs are unsafe."
        "Delightful, isn't it?"
        "One of the four legs of the tower is dangerously fractured where it's seated into the underlying foundation caisson-"
        "Lovely."
        "-and the under girding of the observation platform itself is unstable. The whole thing could have fallen down with us on it!"
        From across the vast acreage of the desk came a goblin cackle, Magusson's idea of a laugh. "And they didn't even bother to post a warning. In fact, that sign was still up, inviting hikers to enjoy the view from the observation deck."
        "I could have been killed," Junior Cain repeated, suddenly so horrorstruck by this realization that an iciness welled in his gut, and for a while he wasn't able to feel his extremities.
        "This is going to be an enormous settlement," the attorney promised. "And there's more good news. County and state authorities have agreed to close the case on Naomi's death. It's now officially an accident."
        Feeling began to return to Junior's hands and feet.
        "As long as the case was open and you were the sole suspect," said the lawyer, "they couldn't negotiate an out-of-court settlement with you. But they were afraid that if eventually they couldn't prove you killed her, then they'd be in an even worse position when a wrongful death suit finally went before a jury."
        "Why?
        "For one thing, jurors might conclude that the authorities never really suspected you and tried to frame you for murder to conceal their culpability in the poor maintenance of the tower. By far, most of the cops think you're innocent anyway."
        "Really? That's gratifying," Junior said sincerely.
        "Congratulations, Mr. Cain. You've had a lot of luck in this."
        Although he found Magusson's face sufficiently disturbing that he avoided looking at it more than necessary, and though Magusson's bulging eyes were so moist with bitterness and with need that they inspired nightmares, Junior shifted his gaze from his half-numb hands to his attorney. "Luck? I lost my wife. And my unborn baby."
        "And now you'll be properly compensated for your loss."
        The popeyed little toad smirked over there on the far side of his pretentious desk.
        The report on the tower forced Junior to consider his mortality; fear, hurt,