about this is strange. What does she want you to do?”
“Walk her to her car after work.”
“That’s it?”
“A couple nights a week I’m supposed to park my car outside of her condo, just in case Carol Conroy drives by.”
“So far this sounds pretty innocent.”
Yeah. It was innocent. I wasn’t a male prostitute. I didn’t want to think of what I was. I just wanted the bonus. Ten grand. Pretty sweet.
“So that’s it? Park the car outside her place?”
“Hey, James, it’s not like I’m going to be sleeping with her. And we’re not going to the movies or holding hands. After all, she does have a boyfriend.”
“Ah, yes. The head honcho. The much talked about, seldom seen, Sandy.”
I could hear the heels clicking in the hall. “Cool it.”
She walked back into the room, Sandler Conroy nowhere in sight. “Sandy says he’s sorry you had to see what happened.”
James nodded. “He’s sorry?”
“He feels bad that you guys were here to see it. That’s all.”
“What else?”
I could see tears welling in her eyes. “There is nothing else. Okay? The installation will start Wednesday and whatever you need, get in touch with me.”
She turned and hurried out of the room. I could hear gentle sobbing as she walked away.
“She and Sandy must have had words.” James pointed in the direction she’d gone.
“It would seem.”
“Something a good boyfriend would have picked up on.”
“Drop it, James.”
He didn’t say another word as we left the building. If he had, I might have decked him.
CHAPTER SIX
A t seven the next morning I was in Michael’s office. Michael, director of Jaystone Security’s Carol City office. The lowest of the low, and a far cry from the splendor of Ralph Walters’s office. Michael’s tiny, closet-sized office was drab, sparsely furnished, and dreary. No artwork on the walls, cheap wallpaper that was peeling in the corners, a gray metal desk, and a ratty cloth office chair that showed major signs of wear. But at least he had an office. I, on the other hand, got to file my paperwork in the room that doubled as the reception area. As if we had customers who walked in and needed to be recepted. As if. Worn, soiled carpeting, a build-it-yourself desk that was falling apart, a big computer that was built during the Dark Ages, and a desk chair with wheels that had frozen probably ten years ago.
“A suicide?”
“You saw it on the news, Michael.”
“But, Skip. You found the body. That can’t be good.” He sat behind his tiny desk and shuddered.
“For me. For the company, for the situation it means nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, as long as we still have the order.” Mr. Bottom Line. As long as we still had the order. Maybe the company was going to buy him a new desk chair with the profits.
“We do. We still have the order.” I prayed we did. I needed that order worse than Michael did.
“Skip, you have one supervisor for the project.”
“James Lessor.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He frowned. He’d met James and obviously didn’t think much of him. “I’m not entirely happy with that choice, but I guess we’ll deal with it.” Michael shuffled papers on his desk. “But we need two. The contract calls for two. It’s a bull-shit position. Any ideas of who could do it?”
“You’ve got the installers?”
He nodded. “We need a second supervisor. It’s a gopher position, Skip. You’ve been on these jobs before.”
Actually, I hadn’t. The few sales I made were mostly residential. Selling safety and security to people who had very little to secure. And when I did sell to businesses, they usually needed one or two door detectors and maybe a window sensor. Hardly any reason for a supervisor.
Michael looked past me, shaking his head. “What did it look like?”
“What did what look like?”
“The suicide.”
“You don’t want to know.” I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. The gory, blood-stained desk and carpet and the side of the man’s head with a hole in it.
“No. I don’t.” He looked back at me. “We need another supervisor. Simple stuff, really.”
“I can do it. I’ll be the second supervisor.”
“No. You’re in charge of the project.”
“But I could-”
“No, Skip. Regulations call for two supervisors, and one person in charge of the project.”
“So what’s my title?”
“Person in charge of the project.” Michael shrugged his shoulders.
Great title. I squinted my eyes and gave him a questioning look. So if I could figure a way to also be supervisor, I could make an additional twelve bucks an hour.
“And, no. You can’t be both.”
The son of a bitch was on to me.
“My title is really Person in Charge of the Project?”
“Sure. Why not?”
I shook my head. “I might know someone.”
He looked up from his gunmetal desk in his tiny cubicle office. “That would help. As person in charge, it’s going to be your job to find that someone. And if they screw up, as I feel certain your roommate will, it’s going to fall on your shoulders.”
The guy was a prick. “This man I’ve got in mind, he has his own business. He’s obviously good at management, and I think he’d work well in this environment.”
“Bring him by tomorrow, okay? I’m going to need to at least meet him.”
I was faking it. I had a vague idea, but who knew? The guy might be legit, he might be a fake.
“Michael, I’ll have him here tomorrow morning. You’ll be in till noon?” He had a habit of scooting by eleven thirty. You’d never see him the rest of the day.
“Um, yeah. You get him here no later than noon, okay?”
“Sure.”
I didn’t know what time he woke up, but I was going to pound on Jim Jobs’s door tonight until he finally answered. There was no way this job was going to get away from me because of a missing supervisor. I didn’t know Jim Jobs well, but for what this position called for, anyone could do it.
Hell, I’d hired James hadn’t I?
CHAPTER SEVEN
S ure, I should have contacted someone I knew. This was a job that was paying me a fortune, and I should have approached it with a little more responsibility. However, in my defense, I am not a responsible person. In my short life, I’ve come to accept that fact. I think I’m stuck in an immature, irresponsible lifestyle, and I have to be
