Louisiana Bigshot

but he was still between her and the desk, and she was ready to leave, thank you. No point sticking around for more; she wasn’t going to get it.
    People were starting to crowd in the door, coming to her aid.
    Instead of going forward—what she really wanted to do—she shrank back against the wall, covering the lower half of her face with her hands. “He groped me. He came up behind me and…”
    Calhoun just stood there with his mouth open.
    Talba spoke in a small piteous voice. “Could someone call the police? Please?”
    Calhoun said, “I didn’t… I found this woman…”
    “I’ve been at a battered women’s shelter. I prayed to the Lord to give me a good job…. I thought I was so lucky….” She stared at the two people now in the room with her and Calhoun—both women, one black, one white, and neither, thank God, Margaret Neuschneider, who was blessedly at lunch. She didn’t have to fake panic; she felt it.
    “Omigod, I’m so scared!” Every word of
that
was true. “Oh, Lord, when am I gon’ be delivered?”
    For a moment, she thought she’d gone too far, but the white woman fingered a little gold cross she wore at her neck. The black woman, sixtyish and stout, wearing a business suit and glasses, opened her arms, giving Calhoun a nervous little glance over her shoulder. She said, “You’re all right, baby. Come on now, you’re all right.”
    Talba hugged her, closing her eyes, as if she
had
been delivered.
    Calhoun was starting to recover. He said, “Young lady, would you mind answering one question? Just what were you doing in my office?”
    Talba, released from the older woman’s hug, stepped back once more, putting a hand on her breast. “He’s scaring me. He’s scaring me again. Call the police! Please—won’t
somebody
call the police?”
    Calhoun started backing down. “I don’t really see any need…”
    “I’m sorry.” Talba passed a worried hand over her face. “See, I’m on medication. At the shelter we… One of the things they teach us… is call the police first and let them ask the questions… I’m just so… I really need to… Look how I’m shaking.” Talba raised a hand for all to see. “I forgot my medication… It’s for the panic.” She turned fearfully again to the older woman. “Can you… I’m afraid to go near him… Can you…?” She cut her eyes at Calhoun long enough to see that his anger was giving way to something else—fear, she hoped. Who knew? Maybe she’d hit a nerve; maybe he had a reputation for this sort of thing.
    “All right darlin’. I got you.” The woman inserted her body between Talba and Calhoun, put an arm around her shoulder, and led her past Calhoun, her face half-turned in his direction, giving him a kind of half-dirty look. Talba let the woman lead her back to her workstation, where she picked up her purse. She sat for a moment rubbing her face, shaking her head, trying to regain her composure. “I think if I just… Would you mind showing me the bathroom?”
    Talba prayed for two things: that the woman wouldn’t come with her; and that Margaret Neuschneider wouldn’t come back from lunch. She sure didn’t want to have to come up with an explanation for being in Calhoun’s office. There was nothing on the disk she’d dropped. If she could just get out of here without getting searched, she was home free.

Chapter Twenty-Seven
    “What’s your name, child?”
    “Claudia Snipes. What’s yours?”
    “Suzeraine Thompson—you want me to call you a doctor or something?”
    Talba made a show of indecision. “No. No, I think I’ll be fine if I can just wash my face and take my pill. And get back to the shelter.” She jerked her head toward Calhoun’s office, worried that he might try to call security.
If he does,
she thought,
I can keep begging them to call the police. If worse comes to worst, I can call them myself. I just can’t get searched, is all.
She said, “I have to get away from him. I have to go home and pray; and talk to my counselor. And see if I can get the good Lord to help me come to terms with this.”
    She stood a little shakily, and caught the desk for support. “But I don’t really feel so good. Where’d you say the bathroom is?”
    “Come on. I’ll show you.”
    A kind-hearted woman, dammit.
But she forced a weak little smile. “Thanks, Suzeraine. I really appreciate it.”
    Surely the mile they made you walk to Death Row couldn’t be as long as the one to the ladies’