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firecrackers, and she sure wouldn't be sitting on them.
    She stomped inside and glared at BooBoo, who ignored her while he washed his paws. "A task force," she growled. "I'm not unreasonable. All he had to do was explain, in a calm voice, and I'd have been glad to put off mowing until later. But woo, he'd rather make an ass of himself."
    BooBoo looked at her.
    "Ass isn't a swear word," she said defensively. "Besides, it isn't my fault. I'll let you in on a secret about our neighbor, BooBoo: Mr. Perfect, he's not!"

  
CHAPTER FOUR
    Jaine managed to get through the weekend without another confrontation with her jerk neighbor and was at work fifteen minutes early in an effort to atone for her Friday lateness, even though she had worked overtime on Friday to make up for it. As she stopped at the gate, the watchman leaned out and eyed the Viper with disapproval. "When're you going to get rid of the piece of junk and buy a Chevrolet?"
    She heard it almost every day. This was what happened when you worked in the Detroit area in anything remotely connected with the automotive industry. You had to show brand loyalty to whichever of the Big Three directly or indirectly employed you. "When I can afford it," she replied, as she always did. Never mind that the Viper had cost the earth, even though it was used and had over fifty thousand miles on it when she bought it. "I just bought a house, you know. If my dad hadn't given this to me, I wouldn't be driving it."
    That last was a direct lie, but it tended to get people off her back for a while. Thank God no one here knew who her father was, or they would have known he was a Ford man through and through. He had been insulted when she bought the Viper and never failed to make a few derogatory remarks about it.
    "Yeah, well, your dad should have known better."
    "He doesn't know anything about cars." She tensed, expecting lightning to strike her dead for that whopper. She parked the Viper at a back corner of the lot, where it was less likely to get dinged. People at Hammerstead joked that the car was being shunned. She had to admit it was inconvenient, especially during bad weather, but getting wet was better than letting the Viper get injured. Just driving on I-696 to get to work was enough to give her gray hair.
    Hammerstead occupied a four-story red-brick building with a gray arched portico and six curving steps leading up to impressive double doors. That entrance, however, was used exclusively by visitors. All the employees entered by a metal side door with an electronic lock into a narrow, puke green hallway, on which were the offices of maintenance and electrical, and a dark, dank room labeled "Storage." Just what was stored there, Jaine didn't want to know.
    At the end of the puke green hallway were three steps that led up to another metal door. This one opened onto a gray-carpeted hall that ran the length of the building, front to back, and off which offices and other hallways branched like veins. The two lower floors were reserved for the computer nerds, those strange and irreverent beings who talked in a foreign language about bytes and USB ports. Access to these floors was limited; one had to have an employee's access card to get into the puke green hallway, then another to enter any of the offices and rooms. There were two elevators, and at the far end of the building, for the more energetic, were the stairs. As she entered the gray-carpeted hall, a large hand- lettered sign caught her attention. The sign was posted directly above the call buttons for the elevators. In green and purple crayon, outlined with black Magic Marker for emphasis, was a new company directive: EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, ALL EMPLOYEES WILL BE REQUIRED TO TAKE A COMBINATION OF GINKGO AND VIAGRA, SO YOU CAN REMEMBER WHAT THE FUCK YOU'RE DOING.
    She began giggling. The nerds were in fine form today. By nature they rebelled against authority and structure; such signs were commonplace, at least until someone in