I had known Tammi Taylor for almost 10 years now. We had both come to EroTech at about the same time and had had assignments that required us to work together many times. I really liked Tammi. She was intelligent, hard working and had more than her share of competitive blood. A very attractive, fortyish, mid-level department head, she had developed a reputation for competence and honesty. Married with two children, she had amazingly managed to become upwardly mobile in the company without having to put out for every regional manager that she had been assigned to.
This is not to say that Ms. Taylor is a prude. I knew her well enough to know that she had a very healthy libido, but she never let it get her in trouble with anyone at EroTech. I made my run at her early on. However, my seemingly relentless assaults were met good humor and more than a little teasing. I wish I had $5 for every time I had left her office after hours or her hotel room on the road with a stiff aching cock, but somehow feeling good about her, and about myself. Eventually, we became good friends.
Last week, I got an unusual call from Tammi. I hadn't heard from her in a while, but I didn't think that was too unusual. She had just been promoted to Head of Accounting at our Little Rock Office. She had been sent there to "clean house" and I knew that she was going to be very busy for a while. When she called, she asked if I could meet with her over the weekend. I kidded around about what she might have in mind, but then I realized that she was pretty serious.
"I need your help, Sean," she said, "I'm finding some stuff here I don't like and I need someone I can trust to go over it with me. Sort of make sure I'm not seeing things, you know?"
"Sure, Tammi," I assured her, "I'll get a flight tomorrow afternoon."
"Thanks, Sean," she said noticeably relieved, "I really appreciate this. I owe you one. But, I'll come up there. I'll explain when I get there, OK?"
"Sure, no problem," I said, "Can I set up anything for you, hotel?"
"Yeah, can you get me a suite at the Hilton?" she said and then added, "with a Jacuzzi! I'm going to need all the comforts I can get."
"Sure thing, Madame Executive," I teased.
"And I'll be on Delta Flight 69 getting in there at 3:45," she said seriously, "Can you pick me up?"
"Sure thing," then thinking out loud, "You have your reservations already? Hmmm… The lady is pretty sure of herself, isn't she?"
She chuckled softly and then said quietly, "The Lady knows who her friends are, Sean. Thanks. See you tomorrow."
When I picked her up at the airport, she was even more attractive than the last time I had seen her. We hugged and she gave me a peck on the cheek. "You're looking mighty good for an "aging" executive, Sean" she teased squeezing my arm. Mmm… that remark went right to my cock!
"Well, than you, Ma'am," I said and then smiling at her, "You still do it to me, you know?"
She laughed and gently punched my arm. "You're incorrigible, you know that!" she said with mock incredulity. "Which reminds me, I'm not taking you away from Karen and the boys this weekend am I?"
"Karen is visiting her mother in Bakersfield for two weeks," I explained, "and both the boys are away at school. I've been a bachelor for a week now."
"Oh, great…" she said exasperated.
"What?"
"Nothing…" she replied flippantly.
"No, no. Come on! Don't do that nothing thing!" I said sounding too much like and irate spouse.
"Oh, OK. Well, Sean…" she said looking at me with that how-can-I say-this-without-you-getting-mad look, "It's just that I know how you get when you are, shall we say, 'deprived'?"
"Oh, that..." I conceded, "Look, Tammi, I know you came here for my help on something serious. There is no way I'd take advantage of that... or you, under these circumstances, OK?"
She looked into my eyes and smiled. "I'm sorry, Sean," she said and kissed me on the cheek again.
"Hey," I complained, "with all this kissing and that perfume you're wearing, you're not making it easy!"
"Down, Rover!" she said as she turned and headed for the taxis.
When we got to the hotel, she checked in and then we arranged for me to come back over to her room at 9:00 the next morning. She would spend the evening getting all the materials laid out to make it easier for us to review.
When I got to her room bright and early on Saturday morning, I couldn't believe how much paperwork she had laid out for us to review. But characteristically, she had it well organized and we started to work. The issues here involved the possibility of phony inventories and bills paid for services that we never rendered. The way we approached this, Tammi would present me with some irregularity that she had found and I would play the devil's advocate, trying to explain it away or minimize its importance. At first everything seemed normal, or at least explainable, but soon a very consistent pattern began to emerge. Whoever was doing this was very good, but not quite good enough.
By 2:00 in the afternoon we had proven the fraud and narrowed the suspects down to three people, but it wasn't until about 6:30 that I could say to her, "It's Thompson, your warehouse manager. See here, he's been double billing these service accounts, probably with their cooperation, and ordering inventory through a dummy corporation, pretending to take delivery and then billing Erotech."
"You're kidding!, she said, "Can he do that?"
"He's doing it, Tammi!" I explained, "It's all right here."
"Wow," she said still dazed, "All the time, I was looking for errors from sloppy accounting practices, which, by the way, was very common when first got to Little Rock. But, Hell, this is fraud!"
"As a rough guess, I'd say he's taken in about $500,000 so far this year."
As I looked at Tammi, I could see that she was very visibly relieved. She had been carrying all this inside, not knowing how it would turn out. It was still bad, but it was not her fault and she could now begin to deal with the problem. She got up, came over to me and gave me a big hug. "Thank you, my friend," she said quietly, "Thank you so much!"
"Hey, what are friends for?" I said smiling. "Listen, I don't know about you, but I'm getting hungry. What do you say about some dinner?"
"Sure," she agreed, "Where's a good place?"