4.
The day came that Cerise Chimera began her work with the department. Kris Fulton made a point of walking her around the floor and introducing her to everyone. Carl Wilson smiled, but quietly waited and watched, wondering if she would live up to her reputation and be unable to perform the technical duties of contract work. Almost immediately he discovered that Cerise was personable, friendly, and gracious. Muy amable. Against his own suspicions, he began to like her. Carl even found himself in the strange position of defending her to people in the department who made vicious comments to him.
One man, in particular, Ernest Phillips, had previously worked under her in the City Attorney's office, and was very bitter about her coming on board. Terrified, in fact. Carl's ex-wife had told him of Cerise's attempts to discipline Ernie, and remarked that she should have fired him for the way he had been screwing up. Ernie had left criminal files stuffed into back drawers of desks, mis-filed active cases in the closed-case room, sent incomplete cases over to court, and permanently lost other files which had to be re-opened and re-created from scratch.
One incident had led directly to Ernest's being forced to transfer or be terminated. It was alleged he had deliberately hidden a criminal file, the absence of which had almost allowed the release of a defendant with multiple prior assault convictions. Fortunately for Ernie, a booking clerk at the jail recognized the defendant and held up his release until a complete rap sheet was ferreted out of the computer data base.
Carl could not bring himself to mention these things now to Ernie, but in his own mind he kept taking grains of salt with every hostile remark Phillips made about Cerise. "She dresses like a whore," was Ernie's favorite criticism, and he went into great detail about her flimsy scarves, low-cut blouses, short skirts, and high heels.
One man's whore is another man's fashion model, Carl thought to himself. But he only said, "Oh, Ern, I see streetwalkers every day from my bus on El Cajon Boulevard, and they dress way more radically than Cerise."
But he wouldn't let up. Finally Carl asked him not to tell him any more. "We have to work with her, Ernie, so I think we'd better just let it lie."
"But she cheated you out of the promotion, Carl!"
"Not her, Ern. If anyone cheated me, it was the system. Besides, I don't think she'll be around very long."
Ernie Phillips brightened with that remark, and pressed for more, but Carl refused. "It's just a feeling I have. Nothing more."
After meeting Cerise, and watching her move around the office, Carl decided she was really very attractive. Dark, smooth skin, with shapely legs, nicely coiffed hair, and something he always appreciated in women, just the faintest touch of make-up and perfume. The only drawback in his book was that she seemed a little too enthusiastic, almost compellingly eager. Having been warned by his ex-wife that Cerise was perhaps administratively incompetent, Carl suspected her zeal might be a mask for feelings of insecurity and worry.
He did not blame her for taking the job; she was doing exactly what he would do in her place. His opinion was management had been mistaken in selecting her. Carl's intuition told him Cerise was going to leave within six months. He was, however, certain that Laura and Kris would never, ever admit they had erred in selecting her. As is usual in civilized society, management spews out a load of positive thinking and lip-service about "honest communication," but they never admit their mistakes in the open. Everything stays behind closed doors.
Only in rumor, raising its head during quiet, personal lunch-time conversations with individual buyers, did Carl hear the stories of events that lay drowning beneath the waves of official silence.
Of gas masks that the FBI discovered had been stolen from a local military base and bought at discount by the City for the Police SWAT team. Of the deputy fire chief who demanded a cellular phone, wrap-around stereo CD, and a moon-roof, in his patrol car (he did get the phone). Of the print services manager who was bribed with cash and golfing vacations. Of construction projects that collapsed, walls that fell over, substandard scaffolding that folded in upon itself, paint that washed off of walls, electrical wires that corroded inside buildings, plastic pipes that crumbled, cheap import raincoats that dissolved in the rain, and....