Louisiana Lament

vigilant.”
Defensive,
she thought.
Like some gander or drake or billy goat.
All males were the same, as far as she could tell.
    “Well, be extra vigilant.” That was all she could do, and she knew it. The man wasn’t going to go out and buy a gun.
    She barely slept, worrying about him and Miz Clara; and Audrey and Angie. Even worrying about Eddie. Man wasn’t half as tough as he thought.
    Hoping Miz Clara hadn’t discovered she was missing a wig, Talba got up the next morning and put it on, along with the rest of the outfit she’d brought for temping. The effect was highly satisfying. A perfect Claudia Snipes.
    If she could just remember to quote the Bible now and then, she could fool her own mama.
    She called in sick again and then consulted her notes. She was to report to one Margaret Neuschneider, to work the firm’s computer help desk (the regular person being on vacation, and Philip, the temp Currie’d sent to replace her, being a noted non-people person). If someone had a problem, it was Talba’s job to fix it—for instance, ran into a snag with a Power Point presentation, or hit the wall trying to create a database. She could shine at that, and the beauty of it was, there were long periods when no one had a problem, leaving her more or less to herself. The downside was, the make-work in between consisted mostly of helping the secretaries input data. Boring almost beyond comprehension, but who cared? Like every other employee, she lived for the lunch hour—though for a slightly different reason.
    She managed to sneak around on her bathroom breaks enough to figure out where Calhoun’s office was. The good news was, he wasn’t in today. The bad was, there was no way past his assistant, Barbara Jo, who sat in a little anteroom. Talba introduced herself to her, said she was the new temp; talked about the weather. You never knew who might be good to know.
    And as Barbara Jo left on her way out to lunch, Talba sang out, “Have a good lunch now. See you later.”
    Barbara Jo made a face. “Actually, I’m going to get a mammogram.”
    It never hurts to be nice,
Talba thought.
Miz Clara would be right proud of her little girl.
She figured it would take at least an hour to get a mammogram.
    After a decent interval, she sneaked into Buddy Calhoun’s office, intending a thorough search of his private files. She’d done this before, with other people, and always been lucky. There was always the chance she wouldn’t be lucky sometime. But mostly, just around the office, people weren’t all that careful about their passwords. And Talba was well armed—she had the names of Calhoun’s wife and children and dog; his birthday; his wife’s birthday; and she could always guess at the year the computer system was installed. If he didn’t use the name of some long-dead favorite retriever, she figured she’d get in.
    She looked at the pictures on his desk—mostly of his children, not the wife. And mostly of the daughter, not the sons. Okay, that one first. She typed in “Sarah.” And bingo, she was in. Still lucky.
    Her fingers started flying. There were letters here and memos—maybe something good. She put a disk in and started making copies. She wasn’t about to read through all this stuff.
    Follow the money,
she thought, and she looked for financial records. Ah—a file called Campaign Expenses. This one she did glance over, and there was one very interesting entry—“Stan Underwood, $10,000.”
    “For services,” the spreadsheet said.
Every campaign needs services,
she thought and she copied the file immediately.
    She reached in her pocket for another disk—one copy for herself and one for Eddie, she thought—and was about to insert the disk when the door opened. She found herself face to face with Hubert Calhoun, AKA Buddy. The candidate himself. Livid.
    Talba struggled to maintain her cool. “Oh, you scared me,” she said, and closed the file. “Almost finished.”
    “
What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
    She looked him right in the eye, making her own eyes wide with amazement. “Excuse me?” She paused a moment. “I’m a temp; checking your e-mail program.”
    He dropped his briefcase, strode toward her, and grabbed her arm, startling her so badly she dropped the second disk. Involuntarily, she screamed, just a loud piercing shriek, and then, thinking about it, a much louder “Help!” Maybe she could put him on the defensive.
    It partially worked. He let go of her arm,