He narrowed his eyes and stuck out his lower lip, ready to be plenty mad. Before he could decide to do anything really violent I ducked behind him and vaulted up onto the platform. He started after me, but his size and his work boots limited his agility.

I looked around for someone to talk to, but the platform was empty. Only a forklift with a crate on it suggested that someone might be loading—or unloading—the truck.

I didn’t wait for my friend to join me but sprinted along the lip of the dock until I came to an open door going into a long hallway. Here I did find a small cluster of men, all in shirts and ties, deep in conversation. The bosses. Just what I wanted.

They looked up at me in surprise. One of them, a youngish guy with short brown hair and tortoise-shell glasses, took a step forward.

“You lost?”

“Not exactly.” I caught sight of a long tuft of prairie grass stuck in the tongue of my right shoe and wondered how much more debris I was carrying. “I’m looking for someone who might know something about an old Diamond Head employee. Either the shop steward or the plant manager.”

Just then my trucking friend came pounding in. “Oh, there you are,” he roared, a world of menace in his tone. “She came sneaking around the back of the place just now.”

“She did?” The spokesman turned back to me. “Who are you and just what do you want?”

“I’m V. I. Warshawski. And I want to speak either to the shop steward or the plant manager. Despite what Bruno here says, I wasn’t sneaking around. But I spent a frustrating forty minutes trying to find you from the road and finally had to come on foot.”

No one spoke for a minute, then a second man, older than the first speaker, said, “Who are you working for?”

“I’m not an industrial spy, if that’s what you’re wondering. I have only the dimmest notion of what you make here. I’m a detective—” That brought a quick outburst from two of the group. I held up a hand. “I’m a private detective, and I’ve been hired to find an old man who used to work here.”

The older man looked at me sharply for a minute. “I think I’d better talk to her in my office, Hank,” he said to the brown-haired man. “You go back to the truck, Simon. I’ll make sure she’s off the premises when she goes.”

He jerked his head toward the end of the hall and snapped, “Come on.”