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                                                CHAPTER TWELVE
                                        Empty Blessings

1:15 p.m.

Joe had gotten in to see three attorneys, two in Encino and one in Pasadena. All three showed an interest in changing detective agencies. All three used Steiger. The feeling of accomplishment was starting to settle in. Joe hadn't felt this positive about going on his own in the month since he'd left Steiger.

If he could P.R. as well as he did today, he'd have twenty, thirty attorneys calling for work by the end of three months. He'd be making twice what he made at Steiger's. Walking into his office, Joe was calmed by a joyful, free emotion.

In the center of Joe's office on the floor was the stack of six files. The ominous shock of this tiny stack of files was that Joe's office was otherwise empty.  The waiting area was empty. Leah's office was empty. The supply room, empty. Pictures were gone from the walls; there wasn't a single piece of furniture in the place. The computer, the cross-directories, everything that had been in the office three hours ago was gone. Except the files. Laying atop them was a note written in Leah's looping hand: THE WHOLE DAMN CASE IS CLOSED!

Joe kicked the stack, sending files sliding across the littered carpet. Fist to the door, he banged it open and headed down the hall. At the Valley Girl Frogurt Emporiums' offices, he hesitated. Then he went in.

Pink everywhere. The walls, trim, decorations and some of the chairs and couches were upholstered in pink. Pictures of Leah's three storefront frozen yogurt shops, bearing the face of the grinning Valley Girl logo licking a pink frozen yogurt cone on the windows, hung like jets in formation on the wall between the waiting area and Leah's personal office. Her door was closed.

No problem.

He pushed open the door with such force that it banged the wall and caused an Escher print to jump off it's nail and crash to the floor.

"Uh...," a soft voice said from his left, "you can't go in there." In a space behind a portable divider sat an Asian woman in her twenties with short black hair and sleek stylish glasses. Too late, though. He was in the doorway. He zeroed in on Leah. She was comfortably seated in a high-back chair behind a large black desk. Hatefully, she looked up at him and pursed her lips.

"I'll call you back, Peter," she mumbled into the telephone, "he's here."

Joe vaulted up onto her desk, sending two pictures and a metal cup holding pens and markers flying into the wall behind Leah. He gazed down on her.

She looked up at him. "Get off my desk!"

"Where's my office?"

"Down the hall," she answered snidely.

He kicked the telephone. It shot across the room, jingling, the receiver and cradle separating in flight like the space shuttle and its rocket booster. Leah jumped.

"Get the hell off my desk!" Leah commanded.

Joe walked to one end of the desk, paused, then flicked the calendar off with his shoe. Leah's anger turned her face red.

"I'm warning you," she snipped.

Joe pushed a picture off the desk. Leah lunged for it. She missed.

"Stop it!"

He tapped her paper clip holder, spilling paper clips onto the floor.

"Jenny!" she called to her Asian secretary. "Jenny! Call the police!"

Joe grinned demonically. "By the time they get here, you won't recognize the place. Unless, of course, you tell me what you did with my office."

"Jenny! Call the police!"

"I'll give you the same three hours to get everything back–every pencil, every directory, every single little thing."

"It was all mine," she said stubbornly, folding her arms. "I paid for it! Are you calling the police, Jenny?"

From the waiting area, Jenny replied: "Yes, ma'am!"

"What makes you think it's yours?" he said, calmly bashing a small brass picture frame, glass flying, the picture inside fluttering down to the carpet.

"That was my mother!" Leah screamed, jumping to her feet. She socked Joe square in the groin with an uppercut. The pain was instantaneous. He doubled over, gasping for air, and delicately climbed down off the desk. "Get out! Get out, damn you!"

She stared at him, out of breath. Wracked with pain, he could barely move. The pain turned to fury. He considered tearing the place to pieces. She looked scared. She swallowed, backed away from her desk and pointed a finger at him.

"That...that was my attorney on the phone. He knows you're here. You better cool it, Joe, I mean it. This is crazy."

Joe grunted. "Where's my stuff?" he said quietly, trying not to disturb his balls.

Leah was silent.

Joe panned around the room, searching for something, something valuable, a precious thing Leah treasured. His eyes stopped at a table against the wall which held a dozen ceramic figurines of little girls in a variety of pastoral poses.

"No, Joe. Don't." She quickly moved between him and the figurines. "I've collected them since I was a kid." Joe feinted to the right. When she darted that way to block, he swung around her and grabbed one of the statues. He held it up out of her reach. "Joe!" He skipped out of her way and grabbed another. She got the idea. She snatched the rest of them, clutched them to her breast. Her hard expression of determination melted like...like her damn frozen yogurt, and she looked on the verge of either crying or screaming.

Joe didn't care. "Where's my stuff," he said again.

She didn't respond. A glance to the figurine.

Joe spun around like a pitcher picking off a runner at first base and threw the shiny white statue. It shattered against the wall, a puff of dust accentuating the burst.

"No!" Leah wailed. "No!" Horror and grief appeared on her face and she turned to Joe as if he'd just bashed a baby's brains against her wall. She could only stand there, staring at the spot where it had disintegrated against the wall, and clutch her figurines.

Something shameful burned in Joe's throat. His anger sizzled away under a spray of emotion that surprised him. Instantly he was sorry he'd destroyed the statue. But it was too late. He'd fallen into the deep end of his vindictiveness. Sorry was worthless.

Without a word, Joe handed the other figure to Jenny, who'd come to Leah's door, and he left. From the hall, he heard Leah loudly crying and cursing him. He felt like he was drowning. He breathed deep and headed down the hall.

He was almost to his office when suddenly Leah charged after him, stopping a moment to slip off her high heels. She took one shoe in each hand, the spiky heels ready for attack.

Joe wanted nothing more to do with this woman and trotted down the hall for the elevators. She slipped and fell. Swearing and crying, Leah got to her feet and kept coming after him, faster, the shoe raised threateningly, a look of wild, murderous intent gnarling her tear-drenched cheeks.

Walking backwards, Joe called: "I'm sorry, okay?"

She threw a shoe; it missed him.

Joe wanted to get away from there. He needed to think–this was too crazy. He turned and ran down the hall to the elevators and punched the button. Leah kept coming.

Come on, come on, he urged the elevator. Whistling came from a door at the end of the hall. Joe glanced away from Leah to the whistler. Robby came into the hall swinging a set of keys around his finger.

"Hi, Mr. Cox!" he greeted. "Got my own keys and everything!"

Then he saw Leah charging Joe. The elevator doors slid open; Joe rushed in. As the doors slowly closed, Leah reached the elevator and managed to spit through the crack. A glob of snotty stuff slap-landed against his chin. Behind her, Robby curled his lip in disgust.

Then silence. He wiped off the spit as the elevator dropped slowly. Joe watched each light come on at each floor: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The doors opened. He cautiously emerged, looked each way. Where do I go? I got no office, no partner, no reason to stay. This is what I wanted. No partner. Might be a blessing.

The door beside the elevator leading to the stairs burst open. Leah, her hair in disarray, toes poking through her nylons, sweat beading her brow, leapt into the foyer with her spike heeled shoe ready for action. She panted heavily. Bubbles of white spit formed in the corners of her mouth. She looked rabid.

Do I run? Or talk? His question was answered: she charged him. He hardly believed he actually ran away from a five-foot-six inch maniac armed with a shoe.

It took three blocks to lose her. He doubled back to the alley and descended into the subterranean garage in his building.

As he sat his butt behind the wheel of the BMW, he checked the driveway ramp for the Jewish Kamikaze in his rear view mirror–no sign of her–slammed the door, and started the motor.

Joe glanced in the mirror again. A pair of bare feet, nylons bunched around the ankles, slowly descended the ramp. He gunned it, backing from his space and screeched to a stop. That got Leah's attention.

"I'll kill yoooooouuuuuuu!" rang through the garage.

Joe believed her. He looped the BMW around the end of the aisle for the back exit. Leah sprinted through the cars to head him off. She reached the exit before he did, daringly planting herself in the BMW's path. Joe gripped the wheel, aimed for her–she wasn't moving–but at the last moment cranked the wheel to the left, ripped up the emergency brake and whipped the car's tail around in a tight 180 reverse. He glanced in the rear view mirror. Leah had started for him. He slammed the shifter into first gear, sprung the clutch and screamed the tires all the way up the ramp. The BMW took air over the sidewalk and landed hard in the number two lane of Ventura Boulevard in front of a guy with a big middle finger driving a red Ferrari. Joe blew the yellow at Petit Street, zipped to Balboa in time to pop it into fourth, and, doing a clean seventy-five, shot into the heart of Encino.

"That was bitchin'!" a voice exclaimed in the back seat.

Joe spun around so fast he left his eyeballs on the road. Robby's grin seemed purposely exaggerated–a dare; a dare soaked in fear. Joe down-shifted, slowing the Beamer to a safer speed and wrenched them to a stop at the curb in front of a record store.

"What the hell are you doing?" Joe bellowed.

Robby shrugged, swallowed, scrunched up his mouth. "Nuthin'."

Joe's anger steamed through his teeth. He seethed, unable to express himself. Women and kids! In a moment he found words. Calmly, narrowing his eyes for effect, he said:

"You're stupid, right? That's it, isn't it? You're just stupid. You have to be. Right? I mean, I told you I didn't want you around. Not in those words maybe, but most kids would've got the point. Not you. No. You're too stupid. Didn't I make it clear this morning?"

"Yeah, but–"

"Thought so. So what the hell are you doing in my back seat–besides nuthin'?"

"Waiting for you."

"Hiding from me, you mean."

"I wanted to help you."

"Help me what?"

"Maybe I won't tell you," Robby sniped. "I wanted to help, that's all, and you get mad at me for no reason."

"No reason. I think I'll pants you and through you out on the sidewalk."

"You don't scare me."

Joe lunged over the back seat, grabbed Robby by the belt and pulled him up to the seat with enough force to squeeze a good grunt out of him. Robby's eyes grew big. He swallowed noticeably. Joe knew he was scaring the kid, but–he didn't have time to finish his thought.

"I know where she hid your furniture!"

Slowly, Joe lowered him to the floor.

"Tell me where you live, kid."