"Ready to get back to the grind?" Grant asked when Penny arrived at work.
"Yes, but there's something that you should see," Penny replied, smiling. "Come with me," she said and led him to the boiler room that was unusually abuzz with whispering. "Amy, do you have a minute?" she asked.
Every head in the room turned as Amy got to her feet and went to see what Penny wanted, Grant's jaw dropping when he saw that she was wearing a pale-green blouse that did nothing to hide her breasts, her large cherry nipples clearly visible, and a short skirt and sandals, the nails on her long straight toes painted a matching green.
"Well, I'll be damned!" Grant finally managed to sputter. "What prompted this?" he asked.
"Finally feeling appreciated," Amy replied, smiling. "As long as I feel appreciated, I'll dress more appropriately."
"Well, you...you look great," Grant said. "I'll make sure that you continue to feel appreciated."
Later that afternoon, Penny placed a large envelope on Grant's desk that had come by special courier.
"These are the men that our client's wife is seeing," she explained, smiling as Grant looked through the material.
"This is perfect," Grant said, sitting back and smiling. "I think that it's time for me to give our client a call."
For the first time in almost two months, Penny didn't go flying. She felt as though something was missing from her life, so accustomed had she become to flying every day, if not in actuality, in the simulator.
"Looks like we're going to Arizona," Grant told her towards the end of the day. "We've got seats on the 6:30 flight tonight, so you'd better get home and pack a bag. Figure on 2-3 days."
With the time zones taken into account, they arrived at the Phoenix airport just after 9:00pm after a 41/2-hour flight. They saw a uniformed man holding up a sign with STUDDER on it and approached him, Grant introducing himself.
"Mr. Walker had something to take care of, but he will be at the resort by the time we arrive," the man explained as he led them to a white Rolls Royce Phantom limousine.
"This is something else," Penny said as she looked around the interior of the limousine, all done in white, the seats soft tuck and roll leather, the carpeting plush sable. There was even a bar and a small refrigerator, in addition to the 36" QLED television that was folded up against the roof.
"Someone likes their creature comforts," Grant said.
The ride was only 20 minutes, arriving at the entrance to The Canyon Suites at The Phoenician. When they went to the reception, they were informed that Mr. Walker had reserved the Presidential Suite for them and that he was awaiting them in the J&G Steakhouse for dinner. They were given their room keys and their bags were taken by a bellhop, another one escorting them to the dining room where they were shown to a table on the window overlooking the Sonoran Desert.
Don Walker was a big man, almost as tall as Grant, with long, wavy greying hair and ice-blue eyes. He was dressed all in white, from his cowboy boots up to his shoestring tie, which had a beautiful turquoise clasp holding it.
"Don Walker," he introduced himself as he got to his feet. "Sorry about the late dinner. I hope that you're hungry."
"We are," Grant said as he shook hands. "My co-counsel, Penny Lane."
"Like from the Beatles?" Don asked, his blue eyes sparkling and a friendly smile on his craggy face as he gently shook Penny's hand. "Magical Mystery Tour was my favorite album."
"That's me," Penny said, smiling and immediately liking him.
"The kitchen's about to close, so we'd best order," Don said as they sat. "They'll give us a bit of leeway - they know me - but I don't like to take advantage. What do you drink?" he asked. "I'm a red wine man myself."
"I prefer white ones, sauvignon blanc if they have it," Penny said.
"Bring a bottle of the best sauvignon blanc for the lady," Don told the server who was standing by.
"That would be the Cade, from Napa Valley," the server said.
"You drink red wine or would you prefer something else?" Don asked Grant.
"Red wine is fine," Grant replied.
"A bottle of the Domaine Serene Evenstad Reserve Pinot Noir," Don told the server. "We'll order the food when you bring the wine."
"Well, how much of a pickle am I in?" Don asked.
"That depends upon what we learn when we interview each of the 10 men," Grant replied.
"How are you going to do that without tipping our hand and letting Betsy know that I'm looking into her?" Don asked.
"You're going to announce a company-wide new security system," Grant replied. "In the announcement, you'll explain that one salesperson to be picked at random from each dealership will be vetted under the new security system's protocols. In actuality, you'll privately tell the managers of the 10 dealerships that we're really interested in who that salesperson is going to be."
"I assume that none of the 10 are aware of the other, so we'll have them all gather at the same time, each one going through my interview," Grant continued. "The interviews will be videotaped and they will be told that there will be no repercussions if they answer the questions truthfully, even if their answer might put them in a bad light. Failure to answer questions truthfully will result in immediate termination."
"How are you going to know if they're telling the truth?" Don asked as the server returned with the two bottles of wine.
The two bottles were opened and poured, then they ordered, Penny ordering the shellfish platter with half a chilled lobster, two oysters, two clams, five jumbo shrimp, and four mussels, and also the tuna tartare with avocado, spicy radish, and ginger marmalade, and the crab cakes with avocado, cucumber, lime, and crystalized ginger.
Grant ordered the same seafood platter, crispy calamari with a rosemary dipping sauce, and the sautéed Dover sole, while Don ordered the foie gras terrine with a ginger jalapeno-apple compote, black truffle French fries with black garlic aioli, parmesan, and truffle ketchup, and a 12oz filet mignon, rare with a warm center.
"To answer your question, one of my people gave me this little toy called a voice stress analyzer," Grant said when the server had left the table. "If someone lies, it will be obvious."
"A lie detector?" Don asked skeptically.
"In so many words, yes," Grant replied. "It measures stress in the voice. Unless they've been trained, people who lie have stress in their voices that this particular device can detect. I'll explain that it's being used, what it does and how, then demonstrate that it actually works before commencing the interviews. Then we just need to see what we learn. I'm optimistic because each of the 10 dealerships involved were acquired after your marriage. That raises all sorts of red flags for me. I don't believe that it's coincidental."
"I see where you're going," Don said, nodding. "Smart. Good plan. But you're saying I can't fire any of the sons of bitches?" he asked.
"Each one of them is either the top salesman or the second best at their relative dealerships," Grant replied. "Do you really want to fire them?"
"Hell, yes, if they've been fucking my wife," Don replied heatedly. "Sorry about the language," he said to Penny.
"They'll just move to one of your competitors and sell cars for them," Grant pointed out. "And you can be sure that they'll talk about their experiences working for you. I doubt that they'll be very complimentary if they're fired. Don't fire them and make them understand that their continued lucrative employment depends upon them not speaking about what has happened should be enough to stop most of the talk. You save yourself some embarrassment and keep the employees that are making you the most money. It's nothing more than a practical, sound business decision."
"When you put it like that, you're right," Don said, shaking his head, clearly not happy.
"And if and when you do succeed in divorcing your wife, do you really think that any of the affairs will continue?" Grant asked. "Even without conducting the interviews, I'm fairly certain that each affair is a calculated part of a plan. The interviews will either confirm that suspicion or they won't."
"Well, you know your business better than me," Don said. "You should for what you charge."
"My fee is cheap compared to what I'm going to save you," Grant said. "You make approximately $2 million profit from each dealership each year. If you lose 15 dealerships to your wife in a divorce, which is half of the 30 that you've created since you got married, that would cost you $30 million a year in lost profits. Paying me $10 million is a bargain. I should charge you more, base it upon how much I'm saving you."
"Point taken," Don said. "I'm a car salesman. Bargaining is in my blood. No offense intended."
"And none taken," Grant said. "I'm glad that we understand each other."
The food arrived and the talk switched to more mundane matters, Don talking about how he built his business from humble beginnings and with hard work. They were having dessert, cheesecake with cranberry compote and quince sorbet for Penny and Grant, while Don ordered the warm chocolate cake with caramel ice cream, along with snifters of Louie XIII cognac.
"You know, I wouldn't mind if she was fucking some guy on the side," Don exploded, pent-up frustration boiling over. "God knows I've had my share of women on the side over the years. But it boils my blood that she'd do it with my salesmen. That's god-damned insulting."
"Hopefully we'll learn why when we conduct the interviews," Grant said. "There's no upside to this kind of a situation. Broken trust is a hard thing to swallow. You're only human and you have feelings and an ego. Being upset is understandable. Maybe when you learn why things got to this point, you'll feel better, though you might feel a whole lot worse. Just keep in mind that at some point, it will be over and you'll be able to take control of your life and start to heal. It's an ugly lesson."
"How do you see these kinds of things, Miss Lane, being a woman?" Don asked.
"It's Penny and I'm the last person that you should ask that question," she replied, laughing. "I've never had a boyfriend, never plan on marrying. When it comes to sex, my bible is variety, the more the better. There's no way I could ever be faithful to any one person, so I'm not even going to try. I get all of the emotional support that I need from my family and a few close friends. I don't need to be married to get it and I wouldn't want to ruin some guy's life by attempting the impossible."
"Well, I'll be damned," Don said, then smiled. "I appreciate that kind of honesty. Men of the world should be rejoicing knowing that they've got a chance to experience your obvious charms. You're about as beautiful a woman as I've seen."
"And you, sir, have a silver tongue," Penny said. "But thank you for the compliment."
"Tomorrow morning, Penny will provide you with the new security system announcement to send out," Grant said. "I will be putting together the list of questions that I will be asking in the interviews. Once the announcement is sent, you can then call each of the dealership managers in question and have them send the salesman that we're interested in asking questions of for interviews the following afternoon. I should be able to conclude the interviews in a few hours. Then we'll see what we've got and plan further."
"Okay then," Don said, getting to his feet. "Until tomorrow morning."
"Thank you for dinner," Penny said as she got to her feet. "It was very nice and you're good company."
"I appreciate that," Don said, surprise on his face. "You make it easy. I can see why she's your right hand."
