"It's okay," Crystal said quickly. "I wasn't crying. I've got allergies. A Sudafed should fix me up." She gave her boyfriend a worried glance, then nodded Dodge toward the plant's entrance gate. "Don't be late for work on my account."
"Do you have some Sudafed? Because I'll be happy to go get some for you."
"I've got a box in my desk drawer, thanks. If you're late, they'll dock you."
"Well, you would know, Miss Payroll," he said in a teasing voice.
She gave him a tremulous smile. Franklin Albright was all but snarling.
Dodge stared him down, trying to look like a geek trying to look tough, then ambled off in the direction of the gate, shooting one final glance at them over his shoulder before entering the plant and thinking, Hee-hee.
"Sure enough," he told the other members of the task force during their meeting that evening, "ol' Franklin was waiting for me when my shift ended. He accosted me just outside the gate."
"Define accosted," the captain said.
"Grabbed me by the shoulders and backed me into the fence. I made a stand, but not too much of one. I didn't want to let him know that I could have laid him out flat if I had wanted to."
"What did he say?"
"He told me to stay away from Crystal."
"What did you say?"
"I said I'd do what I damn well pleased."
"Then what did he say?"
"He said I could do that, sure. If I wanted my head ripped off and used as a urinal."
"Franklin's got a real way with words, doesn't he?" one of the other officers quipped.
"Did you find out why she was crying?"
"Over lunch, she told me that she'd brought up the subject of matrimony again, and Franklin had said no, no way, no way, Jose. I lent her a sympathetic ear, told her he wasn't just ugly, he was stupid."
"How'd she react?"
"She laughed. She thinks I'm funny and sweet and brave for standing up to him. But she warned me against waving a red cape. She said he has a temper, as well as a knife. I told her I wasn't afraid of him." He shrugged complacently. "I'm her hero."
"But your cover is blown."
"By playing Sir Galahad? Hardly."
"But now y
ou're in Albright's sights."
"As a complete schmuck who has designs on Crystal. If he gets wind of my prying now, he'll figure I'm just trying to move in on his girl. If I was prying for no apparent reason, that would have bleeped on his radar screen and caused him to be suspicious."
"So where'd you leave it?" the captain asked.
"Yeah, you haven't explained how your face got messed up," another officer observed.
"Franklin thought we'd reached an understanding. He poked his finger in my chest and said, 'You're not going to talk to Crystal anymore, right, Marvin?' And I said, 'Sure, okay, because I can screw her without talking.'"
"Holy--"
"You didn't."