Chapter 1
Sam Charles walked into the office and headed down the hallway. Walking into Katie's office, he grabbed his overnight faxes from his bin and said, "Morning!"
Katie looked up from her desk and smiled. "Good morning to you." She stood and leaned forward over her desk, passing him a note. "Derrick wants you in his office as soon as you came in."
Sam took the note and scanned it. "Wonder what I've done now?"
Katie laughed and said, "I'm sure it wasn't good."
Sam left the office and continued on to his own. Dropping his briefcase on his desk, he shrugged off his jacket and took off his hat, then went back out. Going upstairs, he went down the hall to the executive offices. Derrick Busby's door was open, and he saw that Derrick's brothers, Jack and Billy, were also present. The three were talking about Derrick's newborn son. Sam entered and flopped down on the couch next to Billy. "What's up?" he asked.
"Little Derrick has got some sort of bug," commented Billy. "He's not feeling too hot."
"That's too bad." Little Derrick was Sam's newest nephew, Sam being brother-in-law to the three other men. He had married their oldest sister years ago, long before he had joined the firm. "He getting enough to eat?" he asked innocently.
The room exploded in laughter. Lonnie, Derrick's wife, was a small girl, small everywhere except in her bust size, which was astonishingly huge. When not pregnant she was easily a DD cup; when pregnant and nursing, she grew at least a couple of cup sizes larger. Sam had never seen a woman with bigger tits, even in the porn movies he had seen, and had never been able to understand how she never toppled forward onto her face. What she did to a swimsuit or a tight sweater had to be seen to be believed.
While Billy and Jack struggled for their breaths, Derrick grinned. "He's very well fed, thank you very much."
"Glad to hear it."
"Christ, you'll never be able to wean the little guy," said Jack. "He'll be the fattest baby in the world!"
It took a couple of minutes more for the room to settle down. Sam contemplated the other two wives. Noreen, Jack's wife looked like a centerfold from the neck down, and a horse from the neck up; he could never decide what he would do if he woke up next to her one morning with her on his arm, chew his arm off or close his eyes and screw her. Billy's wife, Kathy, was Noreen's cousin and was the real beauty of the family. She had modeled in her teens, and childbirth had simply added some pounds in all the right places. What she ever saw in Billy was a mystery to Sam. The man was very rough and crude, while she was quite refined, but they got along famously. Once, at a party, Kathy was wearing a long denim skirt with snaps up the front, and had commented that the room was warm. Billy, reclining at her feet, had reached up and ripped the snaps open almost to her waist. Everybody had laughed, but Sam had been surprised by the explicit way Billy displayed his wife, and by the fact that she didn't seem to mind or cover herself up afterwards.
"Any reason you can't go down to the Oneonta office this morning?" asked Jack.
Sam eyed the others curiously. "Not particularly. Why?"
Derrick answered the question. "We want you to audit them."
"Paperwork or payroll? Both?" Derrick nodded, and Sam continued, "I'm a few weeks early on the paperwork audit, but at least a month behind on payroll. I doubt if Clark will even notice. What's going on?"
Jack said, "We're letting Clark go. I'll meet you down there and tell him it's not going to work out. I want you to see how bad the mess is."
Billy interjected, "You've wanted him gone all along anyway."
Sam made a wry smile and nodded. Since first meeting the new manager he had thought him to be a walking nightmare. A few months into Clark's reign, he had gone to Derrick and told him what he had witnessed so far, but his comments had been neither requested nor desired. Sam shut up and let the numbers do the talking for him. The last quarterly audit had been an unmitigated disaster, the lowest ranking in company history. Now it looked like the others had woken up.
"So who's taking over down there?" Sam already knew the answer to this one as well.
Derrick pointed at him and said, "You are. How much time can you put in down there? Jack will backstop you, and Dickie, too, if needed."
Sam rubbed his face. He had been expecting something along these lines. He had started with the company in sales, working his way up to Sales Manager in the flagship Saratoga office before being fired and reassigned. The recession hadn't been his fault, but Big George, his father-in-law hadn't cared. It had taken his sons buying him out to resurrect his reputation. "I can't see where I can put in more than three or four days a week. How long is this going to last?"
Jack said, "Six months, maybe more, maybe less. Through the winter, at least. I'll fill in the other couple of days. We'll have to see about hiring another Sales Manager. In the meantime, you need to clean house and start over again from scratch. The only people left are Margie and a new secretary."
Sam thought it over. Margie Jackson was one of the top salespeople for Busby Housing. It would be a start, at least. He glanced at his watch and stood up. "Give me ten minutes and I'll be on the road. I'll be down there no later than 11:00. Give me an hour to finish the audit before you show up." Jack nodded and the meeting broke up. Sam stopped as he left the room and turned back. "You know, I was talking to Lee on Sunday, and I mentioned just this very possibility."
Nobody said a word. Lee had been Sam's wife of 17 years, Big George's daughter, and the other's sister. She had died four years ago, and Sam visited her grave every Sunday, to sit and talk.
***
"Hello and welcome to Busby Housing. Can I help you?" asked the secretary when the tall, slim, and older man entered the sales office. He was carrying a briefcase, so he wasn't a customer, and Tina Lawson figured him to be some sort of salesman. She had only been working for the company for a few weeks now, it being her first job since graduating from Delhi Tech's secretarial program.
"Hello. My name is Torquemada and I'm the Grand Inquisitor," said Sam, smiling. Tina gave him a funny look, so Sam wrote off the attempt at humor. "Who's working today?"
"Mister Hobson is on the phone and Margie is out with customers. Can I help you?"
Sam ignored her and moved into an empty office, setting down his briefcase and tossing his coat and hat aside. Reaching into his briefcase, he pulled out a list of names and handed them to the mystified secretary. "My name's Sam Charles, and I'm down from Albany to do an audit. I'll need these files, please. What's your name?"
"Tina. I'm Tina Lawson, Mister Charles. Do you want these all at once?"
"Just call me Sam, Tina. Mister Charles lives in Atlanta with my mother, Mrs. Charles." Sam gave her a disarming smile, then sat and began setting up his audit. After a few minutes, Clarke Hobson got off the phone and came in and greeted him. As Sam had predicted, the man was so clueless he didn't even realize that an audit wasn't scheduled. Clarke left him and Sam found himself helping Tina find the files. Things were incredibly disorganized and Tina, though bright, had never been properly trained. 'Another thing to take care of.', thought Sam.
Sam was busy for almost a full hour auditing the files and payroll of the small office, with Tina scurrying around looking for files for him. The results were even more depressing than before, being significantly lower than on the previous audit, which Sam told Jack as soon as he arrived. Jack simply nodded in despair and went into Clarke's office, shutting the door behind him. Tina glanced at Sam several times from her receptionist's desk, but Sam gave her nothing more than a poker face. Fifteen minutes later, Clarke stormed from the office, and Sam stood and went into the now vacated Manager's office. Jack gave him a brief rundown, then led the way back into the lobby.
Margie and Tina were talking in a low whisper and looked up as the two men came in. "Clarke is no longer with us. Sam is going to be the new Sales Manager, at least until the Spring. Margie, you've known Sam for a while now, but I don't think Tina's had the pleasure yet. Sam, this is Tina Lawson. Tina, Sam Charles."
Both women shook Sam's hand in congratulations. Tina said, "We met this morning, during the audit."
"Well, you've seen his good side then. He's usually much nastier," joked Jack.
At Tina's worried look, Margie laughed and patted her arm. "Don't listen to him, Sam's a real sweetheart," a comment that brought forth considerable laughter from both Sam and Jack.
At Jack's command, Tina ordered several pizzas and soft drinks, then he and Sam listened while Margie explained what had been going on during Clarke's tenure. Tina had been aware of some of it, and told what she had seen, some of which had seemed rather strange and not entirely legal. Sam and Jack gave each other several looks implying 'Thank God we got him out of here before he could do some REAL damage!'
Finally, Jack and Sam worked out a schedule for covering the office, and Jack left. Sam stayed behind, moving his belongings into the Sales Manager's office and finding out more about the Oneonta situation. At 4:00, Tina clocked out, and Sam sat down in Margie's office. "So, what's the new girl like?" he asked.
"Tina? She's OK. Clarke hired her about three weeks ago after he fired that barmaid he had originally hired." Margie filled him in on the personnel that Clarke had hired, a drinking buddy and a barmaid. Sam had met them both and agreed with Margie's descriptions. "She just graduated from Delhi Tech. I think you got to her before any of Clarke's bad habits rubbed off on her," she said with a smile.
"Damn long drink of water. Good looking, too," Sam commented.