I found Rose at the metal lockers, pulling out a blue smock and hanging up her coat. The inside of her locker was pasted with Bible verses. Her lips were moving, perhaps in prayer, and I waited for her to finish before tapping her shoulder.

She looked at me, surprised and pleased. “You got here early! You can talk to people before Mr. Zamar shows up.”

“Someone else was here early, a youngish man. I didn’t get a good look, but maybe in his early twenties. Tall, but his cap was pulled down too low for me to see his face. He had a thin mustache.”

Rose frowned in worry. “Some man was here trying to do something? It’s what I said, it’s what I tried to warn Mr. Zamar about. Why didn’t you stop him?”

“I tried, but he was too fast for me. We could call the police, see if he left fingerprints—”

“Only if Mr. Zamar says it’s all right. What was he trying to do, this man?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know that, either. He heard me and ran off, but I think he was heading for the stairs down to the basement. What’s there, besides all the fabric?”

She was too upset to wonder how I knew about the fabric in the basement, or to question where I had been when the intruder heard me. “Everything. You know, the boiler, the drying room, the dry-cleaning room, everything for running the factory, it’s all down there. Dios, we can’t be safe now? We have to keep worrying is someone in here planting a bomb in the morning?”

9

The Fog of…What?

“Business is full of risks. I can handle this fine without you butting in.” Frank Zamar’s stubby hands moved restlessly over his desk, like birds uneasy about landing on a branch.

“According to Rose, you’ve had quite a history of sabotage in the last few weeks: rats in the heating ducts, Krazy Glue in the door locks, and now someone breaking in at six this morning. Aren’t you worried about what’s going on?”

“Rose means well, I know she does, but she had no right to call you in.”

I looked at him in exasperation. “So you’d rather let your plant go up in smoke than figure out who is doing this, or why?”

“No one’s going to burn up my plant.” His square face sagged around the corners; the bravado of his words wasn’t matched by the worry in his eyes.

“Do you have the local gangbangers so pissed off at you that you’re scared to report them? Is this about ‘protection’ payoffs, Zamar?”

“No, it damn well isn’t about paying protection.” He slapped the desk for emphasis, but I wasn’t convinced.