"I'm not telling you until I get the keys to the Omni." So I hung up and called the Metro Police, who told me: on the shoulder, westbound lanes, Revere Beach Parkway, near the bridge over the Everett River. Due to be towed at any moment. I hung up when they asked for my name, grabbed my toolbox and headed out.
Gomez heard the wrenches crashing against the insides of the toolbox, fired the last half of his whole-wheat croissant into the "noncompostable nonrecyclables" wastebasket, where it belonged, and intercepted me at the top of the stairs. "Got a job?"
"Sure. What the fuck, come on."
A lot of people out there simply adore GEE. One of them had donated this car to us-in fact, she'd done better. In Massachusetts, the insurance can run way over a thousand of Saint Nick and an address at the North Pole, stuffed my Santa sack full of GEE leaflets, and we blew right past
Gomez; he was really in the Christmas spirit. We hit on an Untergruppen-secretary who passed us on up to an Uber-gruppen-secretary, then three floors up to a Sturmband-secretary, then ten more floors on up to Thelma, the Ubersturmgruppenfuhrer-sectetary, and that poor lady didn't even blink. She led us right into Corrigan's office, the place we'd been trying to penetrate for three months, without even the courtesy of a nasty letter.
"Ho ho ho," I said, and I was sincere. "Well, Santy Claus!" said Corrigan, that poor jackass. "What you got there?"
"I've got a surprise for you, you naughty boy! Ho ho ho!" In die corner of my eye I could see beams of high-energy light sweeping down the hall as the Channel 5 minicam crew stormed past Thelma's vacant desk.