The Concrete Pearl (2 page)

“We got OSHA,” he said. “Goddamned surprise inspection.”

Tommy was dressed in his usual uniform of a clean Hanes all-cotton T, husky Levis and a pair of worn Chippewa work boots he bought back when I was still in pigtails and braces. His straight blond hair was styled like someone put a bowl over his head, trimmed around the rim.

“I hate Mondays,” I spat. “How long they been here?”

“Ten minutes, give or take…Pulled up right behind me.”

“They show I.D. or badges?”

He tossed me one of those over the shoulder glares he does so well.

“Listen Spike, OSHA don’t need no stinkin’ badges.”

I slapped the equalizer onto the desk, pulled a hanky from my back pocket, and soaked it with spring water from the cooler. Wiping off my face and arms, I joined Tommy at the window.

Here’s the deal: OSHA, or Occupational Safety and Health Administration, had become a real thorn in my thong ever since the beginning of last year when my professional life started caving in. In less than six months time we had a mason who lost his left eye when a defective hammerhead shattered in his face. Then there was the carpenter who lost his index and middle fingers to a table saw. To add major insult to serious injuries, one of our laborers managed to break his back when he fell
ass backwards
off a baker’s scaffolding after drinking a quart of beer for lunch.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

I was also being harassed by a former Harrison Construction pro now turned chief OSHA agent for upstate. Like me, the fiery red-haired, take-no prisoners Diana Stewart had been one of Albany’s first female project managers personally trained by my father. You’d think a little sentimental leniency for “old time’s sake” might be in order here. But the not so distant memory of the good old days wasn’t enough to stop “the Tiger lady” from picking on Harrison Construction like we were OSHA’s public enemy number one, hitting us with three major fines for all three jobsite accidents.

Taking into account the civil lawsuits on behalf of the injured workers plus the six-figure OSHA fines, I now found myself staring down a sum total payout just short of two million large.

Options.

I could either file Chapter Eleven. Or I could streamline the Harrison operation to just a fraction of the support staff it once employed and simply subcontract out any other required work like electrical, heating, plumbing, and asbestos removal.

In the interest of preserving the house that dad built, I chose the second of the two evils. About ten months ago I started digging out of my financial cave-in by letting the entire office staff go, laying off the fulltime project managers, field supers, masons, carpenters and laborers we kept on staff twenty-four-seven, fifty-two weeks a year.

Everyone but Tommy, that is.

I even rented out the North Albany office building that had been in the family for decades.

What the company de-evolution came down to was this: me, A.J. “Spike” Harrison acting as owner, project manager, field supervisor, plus the all important health and safety officer. As for my new Harrison headquarters? It consisted of a single-wide Williams Scotsman construction trailer located a hundred feet from the PS 20 downtown Pearl Street construction entrance. It wasn’t much, but at least the firm started by the late great John Harrison some fifty years ago was still alive, if barely.

“Lock the door,” I said.

Tommy did it.

Peering out the trailer window, I made out two men, both dressed in jeans so pressed you could see the creases in the seams. Anal retentive types. OSHA standard issue polo shirts, hardhats and safety goggles. No doubt the toes of their polished work boots were protected in construction site-mandated high-strength steel.

The tall one situated on the left held a clipboard while the shorter one on the right gripped a Geiger counter-like testing apparatus.

“Am I the health and safety officer for Harrison Construction, Tommy? Are we not in total safety compliance for a change?”

“Total compliance ain’t ever good enough. You of all people gotta know that.”

Tommy’s comment smacked me right upside my hard head.

The summer I turn sweet sixteen I beg my dad to let me work in the field on a real construction job. Nice girls don’t work on jobsites, he argues. Nice girls answer the phones, type up the bills, make the coffee. But I stubbornly twist his arm until it nearly snaps off. I’m a tough girl, I tell him. I can take it. Against his better judgment he gives in, if only to get me to shut up about it. But I’m not on my first jobsite for more than an hour when I step on sixpenny nail that’s sticking up vertical from out of a torn-away floorboard. The steel spike impales itself through my right foot. An overnight hospital stay and numerous tetanus shots later I become the proud owner of a new nickname: A.J. “Spike” Harrison, pigheaded female heir-apparent to the Harrison Construction fortune.

The now oxygen-masked OSHA team slipped inside the school. As if on cue, the fax machine and office phone exploded to life. I sat down at my desk and picked up the phone.

“Harrison!”

“Ava Harrison, please,” said the woman caller.

Ava…

Up went the red flag. Not many people referred to me by my formal name. Only bill collectors or one of several lawyers trying to sue my size seven glutes.

“Ms. Harrison is not available at the moment. Can I take a message?”

Eyes locked on Tommy. He gripped a hot-off-the-fax printout in his thick hands. He held up the new pages to my face. The letterhead on the top page said OSHA in the same big black letters as the van outside the school entrance.

“I’m calling on behalf of Diana Stewart at Albany OSHA,” the woman said. “Please make certain Ava Harrison returns Ms. Stewart’s call as soon as she receives this message. It’s of the utmost urgency.”

I hung up without a goodbye.

“Let’s start from the start,” I said. “We’ve got two OSHA agents crawling inside our shorts. And far as I can tell nobody seems to be hurt; no limbs severed, no heads rolling…Can you please tell me what the hell is going on?”

Before Tommy could open his mouth, a bullhorn-amplified voice shook the trailer. I shot up out of the swivel chair and went to the window. The student body of PS 20 was being led in an orderly but rapid fashion out the main entrance and side doors of the old school.

Tommy brushed up against my shoulder.

“This is what I know so far,” he stated. “Indy test reports for the third asbestos removal are in and they are no damned good. Tests show the school’s inside air all filled up with asbestos fibers. Way off the charts.” Cocking a thumb over his shoulder. “Those two OSHA stiffs out there think the joint is contaminated…Christ Spike, what if all those kids been exposed all year long?”

Maybe I should have seen this coming a long time ago. Back when I subcontracted a local asbestos removal outfit for a district-funded rehab that just
had
to remain “occupied” by students and faculty during construction. Dumb need-for-speed architecture and engineering move if ever there was one.

Making the “occupied jobsite” situation even more tenuous, the subcontracting firm in charge of the removals, A-1 Environmental Solutions, was run by a man I’d known for most of my life. A tall, country club-bred rocket scientist who went by the name of James Atkins Farrell, or “Jimmy” for short. While Jimmy had nearly flunked out of high school, he had somehow managed to make a fortune as a “hazardous waste removal” subcontractor. Asbestos removal was one of his specialties. It wasn’t anything to mess around with. If even tiny traces of the microscopic fibers contaminated the air, lives could be at risk. In the case of a school, very
young
lives.

“Total exposure,” I exhaled. “That’s what the Tiger Lady is thinking…Total exposure, another huge fine, the death of Harrison Construction, my dad rolling around in his coffin.”

I sat back down at my desk, shot a glance at the Subcontractor/Material Supplier telephone listing tacked up on the wall over the phone. I found the office number for Analytical Labs, the independent testing company hired by the school to oversee Farrell’s removal operation. Since the school’s interior air quality was their business, it was possible they’d have an explanation for the surprise OSHA inquest.

I punched the number into the phone and waited for the connection.

When a machine clicked on, a voice said, “
You’ve reached Analytical Labs of the Capital District. We’re either away from our desks or conducting field tests. Please leave your name, number, and the reason for your call and we’ll return it as soon as ...
”

I hung up.

Time to go directly to the source.

I looked up the number for Farrell’s A-1 Environmental Solutions, dialed the number and waited for an answer. But all I got was an automated operator telling me the number was out of order or temporarily disconnected. I tried the same number again, connecting with the same computerized operator. Looking back up at the listing, I found Farrell’s cell phone and dialed that. I was immediately transferred to his answering service.

Sitting back, I whispered, “Where in God’s name are you Jimmy?”

I got back up and took another look out the window.

The taller of the two OSHA agents had the bullhorn pressed up against his mouth. He was shouting, his tinny voice piercing the paper-thin trailer walls. He was trying to speed up the student evacuation. The short guy pulled off his oxygen mask and started approaching the construction trailer.

I turned back to Tommy.

“I need you to hold OSHA’s hand for a little while…baby-sit them.”

He shot me a quick look.

“Where you goin’?”

“Something’s not right,” I said. “We’ve got an asbestos contamination and now Farrell’s phone’s off the hook.”

“He ain’t here either and neither is anybody from his crew.”

“Which is why I’m going to take a drive over to his office, grab him by his towhead, and drag him back here…I won’t be gone for more than forty-five minutes, an hour at most.”

There was a hard knock on the trailer door.

“This is an OSHA inspection. Please open up.”

The voice was deep, insistent.

Tommy grabbed his belt and hiked his loose blue jeans up over his beer belly.

“It’s your call, Spike,” he said. “Do I let them in?”

I heard sirens.

Tommy and I both turned to face the window. A cop cruiser was pulling up. Right on its tail, an ambulance. Holy Christ, were the school kids already being laid waste by the asbestos leak? A third van pulled up. This one bearing the call letters U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – Air & Hazardous Material Division.

“Ava Harrison, we have orders to shut down this project due to unsafe conditions!” the OSHA agent persisted.

“They’re red-flagging us,” Tommy said. “Shutting us down…You still think it’s a good idea to go after Farrell?”

I pulled out my beat up Blackberry and dialed A-1 Environmental for one last time. The same automated message system told me the phone was out of service. I tried Farrell’s cell again. Straight to Verizon voicemail.

I took a quick look around the trailer.

On the drafting table beside my desk sat Tommy’s hard hat and safety goggles. His Carhartt overalls hung by a nail hammered into the trailer wall. I made my way to the overalls, started slipping into them.

“Whaddaya you doing?!” Tommy barked.

Through the window I saw a uniformed cop approaching the door. Now dressed in the too big overalls, I slipped on the hard hat and pulled the plastic goggles down over my eyes. The locked door knob trembled.

Tommy bit down on his bottom lip. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking about my hard head.

“Wait a second,” he insisted, crossing the narrow space and reaching down into the wastebasket. Pulling out a spent toner cartridge, he ran his hand over the powdery ink end. He slapped some of the powder onto my face.

“There…Spike is a guy.”

“Like dad always wanted.”

“What if you get through? What do I say?”

“Tell them I’m getting my hair colored.”

“They ain’t gonna believe me.”

“Okay, then tell them the truth: that I snuck out of here in disguise to track down the asbestos removal contractor who may have contaminated a school filled with three hundred little kids.”

Tommy wiped his sweat-beaded brow with a beefy forearm. I knew he needed a drink. Make that two of us.

“You’re playin’ private dick again,” he said. “Goin’ after Farrell like you used to go after laborers who split town on payday.”

I nodded.

Another wrap on the door.

Tommy rolled his eyes.

“Go now,” he said. “Out the overhead door in storage. Nobody will see you if you go now.”

Grabbing my equalizer from off the desk, I hiked it through an interior door that led directly into the storage portion of the construction trailer. I stepped over a collection of coiled hoses, over a Black and Decker generator, over a couple of taping compound buckets. Reaching down, I pulled open the overhead door, jumped the three feet to the packed gravel floor, then double-timed it across the site to the construction lot where I’d parked my Jeep, the words “Harrison Construction” proudly emblazoned on the side panels.

Somebody left their business card on the windshield.

It was held in place under the wiper blade. I pulled it free, got behind the wheel, and dropped the card into the empty console cup holder, unread. Then, stuffing the equalizer under the bucket seat, I fired up the Jeep.

Pulling out of the lot onto Pearl Street, or what was better known around town as the
Concrete Pearl,
I put the “pedal-to-the-metal.”

I did not look back.

Nor did I remove the goggles or hardhat until the Jeep was way out of range of OSHA’s sneaky, probing eyes.

Chapter 3

I pulled into a convenient store parking lot, drove behind the brick building, and parked the Jeep between the “Free Air” hose to my left and a smelly blue dumpster to my right. I sucked in a deep breath and peeled my fingers off the steering column.