True to her word, Rose went to visit Jack’s boss early that afternoon. Tommy and Helga dropped her off, but had to return to Masline shortly after that. Rose assured them that it was no problem, since the agency was only three blocks from Elias University and she thought that she could easily walk back, even with her crutches. Helga was a bit skeptical, so Rose finally reassured her that if she needed a ride, she would call her roommates.
After Tommy and Helga left, Rose made her way into the office. The Messner Agency was located in the middle of a shopping center, not far from a supermarket and a drugstore. One of the front windows was broken and had been boarded up and covered with a beautifully painted poster advertising the agency. Inside, a row of chairs formed a barricade around a dangerously broken section of wall and ceiling. Looking around, Rose made her way to the receptionist’s desk.
The receptionist wasn’t happy to see her. Engrossed in a romance novel, she barely looked up when Rose approached her. After Rose had said "Excuse me" several times, the receptionist finally looked up, glaring at Rose as though she was imposing on her.
"What?" She set her book aside in annoyance. Things had been slow since the earthquake, and she had been taking advantage of the lack of work.
"Can I please speak to the manager?"
"You mean the owner?"
"Whichever. I need to speak to one of them."
"There’s just an owner here, and some employees. We don’t have a separate manager."
"Fine." Rose sighed. "Let me speak to the owner, then."
"Do you have an appointment with him?"
"No. I’m here on behalf of one of his employees—"
"We’re not hiring right now."
"I’m not looking for a job. I want to talk to him about someone who already works here."
"But we’re not hiring." The receptionist gave Rose a blank look.
Rose sighed in irritation, wondering if this woman was really that dumb, or if she was trying to get her to leave. "The person I want to talk to the owner about already works here. He’s already been hired." She spoke slowly, trying to get her point across.
"I’ll call Mr. Messner."
"The owner’s name is Mr. Messner?"
"Yes, James Messner. That’s why it’s called the Messner Agency." She gave Rose a look that spoke volumes about her opinion of Rose’s intelligence. Hitting a button on the phone, she waited a moment, then spoke to the person on the other end of the line.
"Mr. Messner, someone wants to see you about a job." Rose rolled her eyes and shook her head. Her message hadn’t gotten through at all. "Yes, I told her we aren’t hiring, but she says she wants the job of someone who’s already working here."
Exasperated, Rose grabbed the phone from the shocked receptionist and spoke to Mr. Messner herself. "Mr. Messner? I’m Rose DeWitt-Bukater. I’m here on behalf of one of your employees, Jack Dawson, who was supposed to start work a week from Monday. No, I don’t want his job. I don’t have that kind of artistic skill. First cubicle on the left? Thank you."
Rose hung up, ignoring the receptionist’s glare. "Thank you. Now I have an appointment." She swept past her as gracefully as possible, heading for James Messner’s work area.
"Mr. Messner?" She looked through the entranceway.
"Miss DeWitt-Bukater. Come in."
He was more formal than most of the people Rose was used to. Clearing a pile of papers from the top of his desk, he gestured to a chair.
Rose sat down, looking around the small space. Works-in-progress and advertising papers and posters covered the walls. Rose saw one hand-drawn picture with Jack’s initials in the corner.
"What can I do for you?" Messner asked, smiling politely.
James Messner was a tall, slender African-American man in his late fifties. His graying hair was neatly clipped, and he sat with a straight but relaxed posture. His fingers were stained with red and black ink, and his suit jacket was tossed carelessly over the back of his chair.
"I’m here about Jack Dawson, who was supposed to start work a week from next Monday."
"You said that. Is there a problem?" He rubbed his temples. "He’s not in trouble again, is he?"
“You mean…um…like when he was a teenager?”
He nodded.
"You knew about that?" Rose wasn’t surprised, but she did wonder how is was that employers kept coming up with supposedly sealed records.
"It’s amazing what you can find with a background check. I decided to give him a chance because he hasn’t been in any trouble in almost four years."
"Well..." Rose hesitated, trying to decide whether to tell Messner about Jack’s getting arrested the previous Sunday night, then decided that he’d eventually find out anyway, and she might be able to convince him that Jack hadn’t actually done anything.
"He did get arrested on Sunday night, shortly before the earthquake, but it was all a misunderstanding. My ex-fiancé framed him for stealing my engagement ring."
"Framed him, huh?" Messner raised an eyebrow at her.
"Yes. I saw Cal—that’s my ex-fiancé—slip the ring into Jack’s pocket," she lied, hoping she could keep her story straight. "Then Jack and Cal got into a fight, and the cops showed up. Cal told them that Jack had stolen the ring, and Jack offered to let them check his pockets. Of course, they found it, and Jack was arrested."
"What were they fighting about, and why didn’t you say something when the ring was found?"
"Uh...I think they were fighting over me—Cal made a nasty remark about me—and the reason I didn’t say anything when the ring was found was because I was too shocked to speak up."
"So Mr. Dawson is in jail."
"No, actually, he’s in Memorial Hospital. He was released after the earthquake struck, probably because the jail was in a brick building and there was a fire in that section of town. We met up again, and as we were heading for a safer part of town, Cal showed up and pulled a gun on us. We ran, and Cal shot Jack. We hid from him between two buildings, which collapsed on us. While we were climbing out of the rubble, a piece of concrete hit Jack on the head, giving him a skull fracture. He just came out of a coma last night."
"Is he in the secure ward of the hospital?"
"No, he’s in intensive care. Trust me, he’s not going anywhere. He has a broken leg, he’s still weak, and he can’t even sit up by himself. He’s not an escape risk. But I think that Cal is going to drop the charges."
"Oh? And why is that?"
"Cal is in jail on suspicion of attempted murder and embezzlement. Have you heard of Sun Titan Industries?"
"Of course. We’ve done advertising for them."
"Cal was the CEO."
"Caledon Hockley?” He raised an eyebrow, looking at her somewhat disbelievingly. “That’s hard to believe.” He shook his head. “Except the embezzlement part."
"That doesn’t surprise me either. But as to the rest—the attempted murder—I know he’s guilty. There’s nothing like having someone aiming a gun at you to convince you that they’re up to no good."
“How do I know you were engaged to Mr. Hockley? How do I know you’ve even met?”
“Our engagement was announced in the newspaper last June, and I worked part-time as a secretary for him for a while. Sun Titan Industries can confirm it.”
He steepled his fingers, still skeptical, but willing to give her benefit of the doubt. He could always check her story later. "But what makes you so certain he’ll drop the charges against Mr. Dawson? He may well try to convince the jury that he was justified in shooting a potentially dangerous criminal."
"He’ll drop the charges. There’s enough evidence of what he did that if he presses charges, he may wind up in more trouble than he’s already in."
Rose wasn’t so sure that her statement was true, but she did know Cal well enough to know that he wasn’t stupid. Quick-tempered and violent, yes; stupid, no. She had already learned that he was in Southwest County Jail in Murrieta, the closest correctional facility that was still fully intact, and she intended to go up to visit him before the weekend was over. Cal was already in enough trouble for attempted murder and embezzlement; she didn’t think that he would be willing to risk a greater chance of conviction or a longer prison sentence by allowing his abuse of her to be known. She would exchange her silence for Jack’s freedom.
Rose looked up at Messner. "I was wondering if you could possibly hold the job open for him. The doctor said he should be okay—there doesn’t seem to be any permanent damage—but he’ll probably be in the hospital for a few weeks. And there’s no way he can go back to his old job working at Sunpeak—the building collapsed, and there’s no telling whether they’ll rebuild or not. He hated that place anyway."
"Yes, I’m familiar with Sunpeak. Long hours, substandard pay, equipment older than most of the employees—their reputation precedes them. One of the people who works here right now was a former employee, and he has said that even the employment agencies speak poorly of that company. I doubt there’s many people in the area who would work for them unless they were desperate for a job, or masochistic. The only people they seem to have any stability with are those who have few skills and can’t find jobs elsewhere, those with difficulty finding other jobs—like Mr. Dawson—and college students, who want to pay for their education and avoid too many extra loans."
Rose laughed. "When I interned as a secretary for Cal, I had to accompany him there a few times, and that place is truly awful. No one really wanted to stay there. I was glad to end my internship—it meant I didn’t have to visit there anymore."
Messner glanced at his watch. "It’s about one o’clock, and that’s when I usually take my lunch. I will consider your request to keep the job open. I’ve seen few artists as skilled as Mr. Dawson, and he’s talented both in handwork and computer art. If he recovers enough to work, and if he doesn’t wind up in prison, the job’s his."
"Thank you, Mr. Messner. I’ll tell him what you said."
"Is he allowed to have visitors?"
Rose shrugged. "They’ve allowed me in, as well as his roommates. I don’t know if that’s how they usually do things or not, but with everything in chaos since the earthquake, a lot of rules have been pushed aside."
"I’d like to tell him myself that the job is still there for him and see how he’s doing." He got to his feet and moved around the desk, heading for the entryway of the cubicle. Rose followed him.
"Where are you parked?" he asked her, as they stepped outside the office. The receptionist had quickly hidden her book when her boss had walked by.
"Nowhere. My car got destroyed in the earthquake. I’m just three blocks from my dorm, so I can walk."
"How would you like to come with me to Memorial Hospital? You seem to be spending a great deal of time worrying about Mr. Dawson, so I’d imagine you’d probably like to see him now."
Rose thought quickly. She had promised Jack that she would be back to see him in the afternoon, although she’d been thinking of returning later. Still, this way she wouldn’t have to pester Michelle for a ride.
"I can drop you off back at your dorm later. Elias University, right?"
"Right." Rose made up her mind. She’d go with him to visit Jack now, even though she probably wouldn’t be able to visit as long as she would have liked. Jack seemed to need rest now more than anything anyway, so it was probably better if she didn’t hang around too long.
"Okay. Let’s go see him," she said, and followed Messner to his car.