Stone Rain by Linwood Barclay Page B

they weren’t dropping off buns or meat or frozen fries or any shit like that. They’d drop off packages, and then later, someone else would come by and pick up the packages. And Mrs. Gorkin, the lady who ran the place? She didn’t think this was weird or anything.”
    It sounded as though I’d gotten him out of there just in time.
    The following morning, after another frosty evening with Sarah, I put in a call to the city’s health inspection department from my desk in the Home! section. I got, much to my surprise and in clear violation of my preconceptions about civil servants, a woman who said if I gave her enough details, she could probably find the health inspector responsible for the part of the city where Burger Crisp was located. I waited, hearing her tap away on a keyboard in the background, and then, “That would be Brian Sandler. Let me put you through to his extension.”
    A few seconds, a ring, and then, “Sandler.”
    I identified myself, told him I was calling from the
Metropolitan
but left it a bit murky as to whether this was a personal call or he was being interviewed for a story, and quickly told him what had transpired the evening before. Said at least one person, according to my son, who worked there, had come back to the restaurant complaining of food poisoning. That the owner, and her daughters, were not particularly open to discussing any possible problems with the menu. There was the matter of the baseball bat, for example.
    “That all seems kind of amazing,” said Brian Sandler. “I know the place you’re speaking of, that’s Mrs. Gorkin’s place, she runs it with her girls. Any time I’ve been in there, it’s always seemed pretty shipshape to me.”
    I thought about the overflowing trash cans, the general appearance of the joint. Even before finding out there might be an actual health problem, the place looked a bit dodgy. If Paul hadn’t been working there, I doubt I’d have gone in. And now there was this other stuff, this business of dropping off packages, other people picking them up.
    “Seriously?” I said.
    “I’m looking at their file here, and they have a passing grade, Mr. Walker. I’ve been in there personally. Nice people.”
    “Mrs. Gorkin?”
    “You mentioned your son works there?”
    “Well, not anymore. Not since yesterday.”
    “Maybe you need to look into that. Getting fired, he might have had an ax to grind, you know?”
    “No no, you see, that happened after the other thing. Look, we saved some food from there, so that you could test it. We put it in our fridge as soon as we got back home and—”
    “I tell you what. I’m heading out this morning, and I’ll drop in, see how things are at Burger Crisp and I’ll get back to you.”
    “Fine,” I said, and gave him my number. “Could you call me this afternoon and let me know what you find out?”
    “I’ll get back to you,” Sandler said, in what I thought was a pretty noncommittal way, and hung up.
    That’s when I realized Frieda was standing behind me.
    “How’s it going?” she asked. “With the feature?”
    I sighed. “It’s coming along. Look, I’ve had a few things going on I just needed to deal with, but don’t worry, you’ll get your story.”
    “Because the thing is,” Frieda said, almost wincing, like it was hurting her to tell me this, “they want, well, I think Mr. Magnuson wants me to do a performance review on you. To see how you’re doing here.”
    “A performance review. Frieda, it’s my second day on the job. How on earth can you be expected to assess my work for a performance review? I haven’t turned in a single story to you yet.”
    “Well, that’s certainly true. But if Mr. Magnuson wants me to do it, I’m not going to tell him no. But I don’t want you to feel under any pressure. This would be a chance not only for me to tell you how you’re doing, but a chance to tell me how you feel things are going, whether you have any issues you want to raise, any