SOPHIA:
What an opportunity. I thought that Alex had outdone himself when he gave me the job at Jewels in Vegas, but now he has gone beyond all reason. He has more faith in me than I ever had in myself. The only sand in the oil was the other redhead, Muriel.
I thought I was competitive, but she writes new rules on the concept. We played miniature golf at Alex and Inez's. I can't call it a house, more like an estate, and Muriel was scheming constantly to undercut other players. Working with her will not be fun. We were going to share an apartment, but I nixed that idea. If I should find a man I am interested in, I don't need her insulting him. Muriel is a hard-core lesbian and would prefer that she not have to see men at all. I hope she can get past that enough to do her job because Alex needs our help.
After looking around on Google, Muriel and I decided to base our office out of Texarkana. It was as depressed as the rest of Texas and Arkansas and we should be able to set up there with little effort. We had planned to set up in a business park, but Alex told us to buy or lease a building in the old downtown area instead. His idea was that we could get more square footage for less, and the owners would be ecstatic at the offer and help us a lot more than the office park would. He also liked the idea of revitalizing towns and restoring some dignity to the city centers. The other advantage to Texarkana was that it was within a short helicopter ride to the main factory. We were supposed to use Grier Barringer's technicians when we investigated prospects, and this way it would be easy to get them. Alex's last admonition before we left was that quality was more important than production. If a company could not give us good products, then they couldn't work for us at all. That is why the tech's had to go with us before a contract could be signed.
It only took two days to find a building on Broad Street that could be remodeled to our needs and it would be ready for us to work out of within a week. Muriel and I found apartments just around the corner from the new office and had already moved in. Within the lease agreement for the office was the stipulation that A&C wind turbines would be set up on the building. There would also be a sales office on the first floor with the electric meter for the building as a prime advertisement. The tech's from the factory were supposed to set them up. They were also going to put a camera and monitor to show the meter on the building next door. That building had the same owner, and was vacant. Our usage was expected to be less than that of the vacant building. If it got a tenant the difference would be even more dramatic.
Muriel and I were about to be immersed in the hunt to find personnel. We would need a minimum of five people each, and three more to man the store. We each would need a PA, and one other to go along on our trips to the plants. Add in the technician and we would have four people on every trip. We each needed three people to man our offices while we were out on the trips. Just because we were out of the office, didn't mean the search for more companies would stop. They might be able to find more places in the areas we would be in to look at. One of those three would need to be a manager type, and two technically able people to man the phones. The store would also need a manager and two tech folks for sales. Once we hired this workforce, they would all need to go to the factory for orientation, so we needed to find them quickly.
Muriel set up shop in an employment agency just down the street from our office to look for the PA and managers. I was going to work from the government employment office to find the worker bees. We didn't want to put ads in the paper or online unless it was necessary, although I put in one on Craig's for my PA without telling Muriel. The other managers, okay, but I don't think I trusted the dyke to find me a good PA. I needed someone I could work closely with, not another feminazi like Muriel. She was so lezbo that she didn't even get hot for Alex, now that is warped.
The Employment Commission was very helpful and gave me a room to use to sort through applications. Their computers were ancient by current standards, but they were able to match my criteria to some degree. What distressed me was the huge number of single mothers looking for work. They were distributed pretty evenly between white and black, and I was tilted toward hiring at least two of them for the office. Obviously they would not be able to travel with me.
One young woman caught my eye. She had worked as a machinist in a small job shop in Arkansas. She was twenty-two, black, and had two small girls. I put her folder to the side as a good possibility. The next one I found was just about to graduate from a vocational high school as an electrician. He would prefer not to relocate, but didn't mind travel.
I decided to interview both of these, and see if they knew anyone with the same interests who needed work.
I called the woman, Loretta Swan, first. She said that she would not be able to see me today because there was no one to watch her children. I asked their ages, and when she said 3 and 4, I told her to bring them along. It would still take her an hour to get here. While I waited, I called the young man and got his voice mail. It explained that he was in classes and would call me back after 3.
While I waited for Loretta, I checked my email and saw that I had several replies to my ad already. I had just posted it last night. One was an older man living in the Atlanta area. His resume said that he had managed an auto parts store that had been bought out. He was now working in another store in sales and wanted something better. I considered him for the management of my office while I was gone, but I needed to check with Muriel before I answered him. She was supposed to be finding managers. After all, that was what she did in New York. The other was a 40 year-old woman working in Shreveport. Her resume was interesting. She had worked at so many different jobs that I had to wonder what she was really looking for. From her records she had been a secretary, court recorder, personnel manager, and her current profession was listed as real estate agent. It gave a daytime phone number for her, so I decided to try it.
"Delancey and associates, may I help you?"
Susan Chatham please."
"This is she, Ma'am. How may I help you?"
"That's pretty risky isn't it? Giving your present boss's office number on a job application?"
"It's not as bad as it sounds, Ma'am. Delancey is my father and he's only keeping this place open until I find something better. As soon as I move on he'll close down. Real estate in this economy will get you broke real quick. Dad rode the boom and is now going to retire on the bust. Is this Miss Morgan?"
"Yes it is. You answered my ad for a personal assistant. From your job record I can see that you have quite a bit of diversity, is there a good reason why you can't seem to keep a job?"
"That's a fair question I guess. Out of college I worked as a secretary and committed the ultimate sin. Tom Chatham was a smooth talker and my boss. I married him and left my job. When he started the affair with the new secretary two years later I saw the writing on the wall and divorced him. I then got a job as a court recorder, but budget cuts and computers took that job away. I was working in personnel for a medium sized company after that, until the boss got too friendly. I didn't think his wife would like it and informed her of it. His name wasn't on the pink slip, but it should have been. Since then I have been trying to keep dad's place afloat. I almost made a profit last month."
"You sound interesting enough that I would like to meet with you Susan. Can you make a trip to Texarkana? The company would take care of expenses. I like your voice and your sense of humor, and I think we could do well together."
"That shouldn't be a problem. I can catch a flight to Dallas and a commuter plane from there. How soon do you want me there?"
"Tomorrow would be great, but whenever you can make a connection will do. If you work out at all we can fly you back to home from Johnson Creek, you'll have to see the factory. Call or text me with the connection time and I'll have you met at the airport."
As I clicked the phone off, I heard children's voices in the hallway. I got up to make sure that Loretta could find the right room. I saw them walking down the hall and the children were speaking without being loud and rowdy. Loretta looked like a beach ball with legs. Her face was pleasant though, and she was wearing a loose dress and brown loafers. The girls had a much lighter complexion than their mother. One was a small version of her, and the other was almost as tall as her mother and slender.
"Hello. You must be Loretta. Come on in here, my name is Sophia."
"Thank you, Ma'am. These are my daughters, Lonnie, pointing at the tall girl, and Lana. My family always gives girls names starting with L. My mama Lawanda says I should be thankful she didn't go with the African names like her mama did." She turned to Lonnie, "You girls sit over here with the colorin' book and be quiet for a bit." She turned back to me, "Will that be okay, Ma'am?"
"Yes, that will do fine. Please call me Sophia, I've never been a madam, although I did work in a strip club."
"Ooh, I bet the men paid good to see you dance, Sophia. How did you get this job?" She obviously expected me to have slept my way to the position.
"It's a long story, and I will tell you sometime if you work out. I wasn't hired to dance at jewels though, I was the accountant. This company is called A&C Genitech. Do you have any idea what we do?"
"No, I've never heard ... wait a minute. Aren't they the folks that came up with the new wind generators?"
"That's us. I am setting up an office here in Texarkana. My main focus will be to find companies to make the components for the generators. The factory cannot keep up with the orders and we need help. The jobs I am looking to fill are as counter help in the store or working on the phone talking to companies that might be able to make parts for us. Your resume says that you worked as a machinist."
"No Sophia, I worked as a machinist's helper. The machinist set up the machine, and I watched it work. I kept the bar stock going and cleaned up when it was done. I also had to keep an eye out for bad parts and problems with the machine. I liked the job and wanted to work up to being a machinist, but the shop had to cut back on personnel so they let me go. Does your company need anyone for that kind of job?"
"Oh, here it is, machinist's helper, and no, as far as I know the factory is full up on people right now. There is expansion going on though, so in 6 months or so there could be openings. If you can do that job, you should be able to handle this one as well. What I have in mind for you is to man the counter in the store. You won't have to handle any money. Since the factory is so far behind, all you will be doing is taking orders and answering questions, and I expect there to be a lot of questions. Home Depot is taking care of the money, delivery, and installation. We will train you and give you a booklet to work out of. I want our people to have enough technical background to be able to understand the basics of the system."
"That sounds easy enough. Would I be able to trade over to something else when there are openings?"
"Yes, you can. If you want to go to school for a better job, that can be taken care of as well. Do you have someone to watch your children while you are at work?"
"My neighbor and I trade off right now, but she wouldn't be able to watch them full time."
"Would you be willing to use a day-care facility, or would you rather hire a relative or something like that? We would help you afford it whichever you choose. They are such beautiful girls, and so well behaved."
"I have a sister who could use the money, and she would take good care of them. What kind of salary are you talking about for counter help?"
"Right now we are looking at $25,000 plus medical, dental, and partial childcare benefit. All we ask is that your sister make out a weekly or monthly receipt for the childcare, we will pay half of it as long as it is reasonable. Are you interested?"
"I'd be crazy if'n I wasn't. When could I start?"
"You will start on salary tomorrow. I'll need you to come in to the office and fill out the paperwork as well as get used to the place. Does your sister watch any other children?"
"Just her baby boy, that's why she needs the money. Why?"
"We were thinking of turning the third floor of the building into apartments for me and my partner, Muriel, but I don't think I want to live that close. What if we turned the third floor into a childcare facility, do you think your sister would be willing to run it for us?"
"How many kids we talkin' about?"
"I'm not sure. It just seems to me that if a facility is available, more single moms could work for us. If there aren't enough kids to justify the facility, she might be able to take in kids from workers nearby. I think we would look for a maximum of ten kids. Any more than that would be too much to deal with."
"She'll do it or tell me why not. When would this start?"
"Not for a couple of weeks at least. I have to get the third floor converted first, and get the legal team doing the paperwork to get it approved. In the mean time I have more people to interview and hire. Next week I'll take you and the other new hires down to Johnson creek to see the factory. I wish you could meet Alex, but he and his family are taking a vacation in San Francisco. Maybe I can get him to come up after we get in operation. Thank you for coming in Loretta, I'll see you tomorrow at 314 Broad Street, let's say at ten. Will you be there?"
"Hell yeah. I'm looking forward to it."
No sooner had I walked Loretta and her children out than my phone rang. It was the young boy I had left the voice mail with. He said that he could not make it to an interview this afternoon, but as long as I was willing to fill out some paperwork for the school, he could be here tomorrow. I thought about it for a bit, and then told him to show up at the new office at nine in the morning. I should have time to talk to him before Loretta showed up.
After taking care of that, I said the hell with it and headed out to my rental car. On the way home I called Muriel to see how she was doing.
"Muriel, how goes it?"
"Damn, Girl. We should have settled for someplace with more to offer than beer drinking rednecks. I've already had to drop three prospects for flirting with me. I think I may have an office manager for me and a possible store manager. There are a couple of girls I like for PA. I'll get them down here and let you take your choice. How did your day go?"
"I interviewed a good possible for the store and another who might travel with me. I think I found my own PA though. I know you were supposed to be looking for one, but I put an ad in Craig's list before we had decided that. I got a couple of good prospects from it and one will be coming up for an interview. I was thinking of the other as my manager, but I'll take a look at what you have before I talk to him."
"That's okay, they have to match with you not me anyway. I'll just take the best of the two for my PA. Are you going to go anywhere to eat dinner?"
"I liked that steak house we went to the other day, I'll probably just go there and then on to the apartment."
"Okay, I'll meet you there in a bit."
I headed on over to the steak house. My phone rang just as I was getting out of my car. "Hello?"
"Miss Morgan? This is Susan Chatham. I can be at Texarkana Regional at about eleven, tomorrow morning. Will that be good for you?"
"That will be fine Susan. I'll make sure that someone is there to meet you. I have a couple of interviews to do in the morning, but if I can make it I'll be the one there. I really look forward to meeting you, Susan."
"And I would like to meet you, Miss Morgan. Until tomorrow then."
I saw Muriel drive into the lot as I got to the door. We had identical Ford Focuses ... Foci? From the rental agency, but mine was blue while hers was red. I waited for her in the lobby.
Five minutes later Muriel swept in like a conquering queen. Her body was no larger than mine, how the fuck did she pack so much attitude in there? On my own I was confident enough, but around her I felt like a shrinking violet. I know that Alex wants us to work together, but I'm just as glad that when we get this thing organized I'll probably be dealing with her no more than once or twice a month. She didn't say anything until after we were seated and looking at the menu.
"Tell me about this PA you think you found, Sophia."
"Middle aged divorcee with a varied work experience. I was attracted to her sense of humor and easy open manner. She sounds like an aunt I used to like a lot. She'll be here tomorrow morning at about eleven."
"Why would you want someone that old? We need energetic young people to work for us. She'll probably try to take charge after a couple of weeks. She'll think she knows more than you."
"Come on, Muriel. She probably does know more than I do about this shit. I have no idea why Alex chose me to do this, but the last thing I am going to do is to prove him wrong. I need someone working with me to get the job done. That is all that matters."
"Oh get real, Sophia. Alex Andrews is a scab living on my cousin's brilliance. He chose you so he could get you into his bed. You don't have any special skills. He probably expects you to fail and come begging to him for another chance. He's no different than any other dick with legs."
I was shocked at the level of disgust I heard from this woman. Alex had given her a chance to become very successful based upon the recommendation of her relatives, and she talked about him like that.
"What is wrong with you, Muriel? If Alex wanted me in his bed all he would have had to do is ask. He could have had any of us while he was in Vegas, but he didn't. I was very happy for Inez, but I was envious of her too."
"Well, then. If the guy is such a saint, why is he boffing that other girl?"
"Because Inez insisted, that's why. Brenda and Diane want children without the complications of marriage, and Inez is willing to loan them Alex because she trusts him. I can understand it too; his love for her is in his eyes every time he looks at her."
"And as for Alex leaching off your cousin. That is just horseshit. I looked at the contract they have, and Crom is getting very rich and keeping all of the credit for his inventions. Alex is taking care of the manufacturing and marketing, all Crom does is invent. Alex could have easily taken advantage of him, but he hasn't. Crom will actually be getting more for each sale than Alex will."
"Say what? Ingemar gets more than Andrews does? Why would he do that?"
"Because he is a nice guy. Take the damned blinders off, Muriel. Look at Alex as he is, not as you want him to be. Crom told him that you were a go-getter and would do what the company needed, and Alex hired you based only upon that recommendation. Are you going to do the job, or should I tell him to find someone else?"
"Oh, I'll do the job. It should be very interesting, but I'm going to watch out for your Alex to show his dark side. I know that he will at some point. No one is as good as you seem to think he is."
Our dinner arrived before she could say anything else. I asked her about the people she was considering hiring and told her about the two folks I had coming in to the office tomorrow. I asked her to take care of doing paperwork for Loretta, and maybe for the young man if he seemed promising, while I went to meet Susan. It seemed that she had discounted any applicants who weren't militant homosexuals. I refused to judge such things in my people. If they were gay, okay, if they were straight, that was okay too.
When we finished the dinner, I said goodnight to Muriel and went to find my bed. She said something about a bar she had heard of, and maybe finding some company. With all the bars and clubs I had spent so much time around in Vegas, I wished her luck, and hoped that she didn't find trouble instead.
Muriel:
That Sophia was such a weak sister, I was going to roll over her so easy. By the end of the second month, Andrews would have me in general charge of the whole operation and Red would have to go back to the strip clubs to find a job.
One of my friends in New York had mentioned something about a club here in Texarkana, of all places. I googled it, and after driving around, I finally found it. I decided after about ten miles that the Garmin in the rental would help a lot. When I walked in, I realized that it was not what I had in mind. I was the only female in the place. I beat a hasty retreat and went home. It had been almost a month and I was getting a little twitchy. Maybe another time. Too bad Red wasn't inclined that way, although I wasn't fond of redheads myself, I found them to be too tempermental, heh, heh.
There was a nice little diner down the street from our apartment building and Sophia and I usually started our day there. I was alone this morning and wondered if she was upset with me for some reason.
I walked around the corner toward our office about eight-thirty and got a huge surprise. There was a small crowd of people standing on the sidewalk in front of our building. They had signs and were loudly yelling at someone in the window. When I got closer I saw that it was Sophia they were yelling at. She may or may not have been upset with me, but the way she was standing there with her arms crossed tapping one foot told me that she was mad as hell at somebody. My bet on the prime candidate was a fat guy holding a sign that said "Geniyechch, pollution by proxy". He was giving Sophia a raft of shit in a very loud voice. What in the hell caused this? The systems A&C were building were the greenest technology to come down the pike in a long time. Someone must be causing agitation for his or her own reasons.
I decided to take the bull by the horns and walked up to fat and rude. "What are you doing here and who sent you?"
"Can't you read Bitch? We're on to your evil plans and we aren't going to let you get away with it."
"What in the bloody hell are you talking about? Someone has filled your head with nonsense." I looked around to see if anyone was a little more rational than chubby, and saw a young man looking very nervous near the edge of the group. "Are you here with them?" I asked him.
"No, I was supposed to meet a Miss Morgan here at nine. Are you she?"
"No, she's the very irritated young lady in the window. Why don't you go on over to the door and she'll let you in." I looked around and saw a cadaverous college aged girl holding a sign and yelling about saving the whales. What the hell that has to do with us, I have no idea. "You there. If I can show you that we are harmless, can you convince the rest of these morons to leave us alone?"
She looked startled, "Do you mean me?"
"Yes, you. If I show you what we are doing, will you tell them?"
"Yes, I will. But we have had some very bad information about you at Greenpeace."
"Screw that, come on inside with me and I'll give you the rundown."
I grabbed her arm and headed toward the door. Sophia was waiting for me with the young man standing behind her. Fat and ugly tried to step into my way, but I trod down on his instep, hard. He gave way and I pulled stick girl in behind me. Her sign wouldn't fit through the door and she had to drop it. Sophia closed the door and locked it.
"What did you bring her in for? I was about to call the police to clear these idiots away."
"Don't do that Sophia, the police probably won't be able to do anything. Idiots have as much right to free speech as someone who actually has something to say. What is your name, Miss?"
"I'm Angela. What are you going to do to me?"
"I'm going to educate you, nothing more. I think I have a good idea who is behind this little demonstration and you won't want to be associated with them. As far as I know, the only enemy A&C has is the power consortium. Do you really want to stop green power in favor of coal and nuclear power?"
"What? No way. Can you prove that your company is environmentally safe?"
"Easily. Come over here and take a look at this meter. The one on the left is the amount of power this building is using. See how slowly the wheel is turning. Now here to the right is a screen that shows the meter from the vacant building next door. You can see that its wheel is moving faster than ours, with almost nothing drawing power. We have lights and air conditioning and appliances going too. The only difference is the two wind turbines on the roof of this building. There isn't even much of a breeze this morning. Come on upstairs and I'll show you the units."
I led the beanstalk toward the rear of the building. One of the preparations we had had done was to make a walkway out onto the roof for just this purpose. Not all of the interior work was done yet, but the factory techs had been here yesterday getting all this ready. We passed Sophia and the young man sitting over to the side talking. God, I hope she doesn't intend to hire a man to work here. They're nothing but trouble.
There were people working on the second and third floors putting in plumbing and painting and such. We had to step around some of them. The units on top of the building were special. The fans were the standard grey vertical barrels mounted on poles to get them above the nearby rooflines, but the generators beneath them were encased in Plexiglas instead of the normal aluminum. The fans were turning slowly in the slight breeze.
"Here is what A&C produces, Angela. We make these generators at our factory in Texas. If you look at the shaft coming down from the fans you'll see that they match up to a series of gears before turning the generator. There is a power distribution box hooked from there and the thick cable goes down to connect in after the electric meter you saw downstairs. What the meter shows is how much power we are drawing from the city. Now where is there any pollution here?"
Angela looked up at the two fans turning above us and then down to the generators on the roof. She looked back and forth a couple of times, then over at me. "Is that all there is? How do two of these make such a difference?"
"Because we have a tame genius named Ingemar Cromberg, my cousin. These two units provide more power than a dozen of the old style would. Ingemar devised a method of making generators that is so much better than what came before that we have enemies who want to shut us down. They gave your group false information to try and slow us down. Even our factory produces less pollution than most others of its type. We recycle almost everything and safely dispose of what we can't reuse. Let's go back downstairs and I'll show you some pictures of the factory and a brochure on what else we are offering."
We ran into Sophia and the kid on our way down. She was leading him up to the roof for the same show I had given Angela. Damn, it looks like she is going to hire him. From the way he was looking at Sophia I doubted that he was gay.
There were a bunch of brochures on a table near the meters. I showed Angela some of the info on the factory, and gave her a couple of fact sheets about power saving with our household units, and a price sheet produced by Home Depot.
I let her out the door, and there was a fat black girl waiting to come in. Angela ran over to Mr. big and ugly and waved the papers I had given her in his face yelling at him. The other protestors gathered around them as I let the black girl in.
"Hello, I'm Loretta Swan. I'm supposed to see Miss Morgan this morning."
What in the hell is Sophia thinking? I guess this tub of lard could work the phones, but there is no way she could be smart enough. "She is upstairs with someone else right now. Can I help you?"
"I don't know. She said something about filling out some paperwork."
Oh crap. This is the one she had already hired and wanted me to get signed up. We had a folder with applications for insurance and all the other shit the government makes us fill out. I asked tubby to sit and went to get it. By the time I got it Sophia and the kid were back.
"Muriel, this is John Manning. He is going to travel with me and my PA. I see you have already met Loretta." She turned to address the black girl, "are your girls with your sister, and what did she say to my proposal?"
"Yeah, Linda is watching them for me, and she wants to meet you sometime to prove that I ain't lyin'."
Sophia turned to me, "I want to turn either the second or third floor into a daycare. If we hire three or four young mothers it will be cheaper to have in house daycare than it would be to subsidize their expenses to send the kids elsewhere. Loretta's sister would take care of the kids. I know the idea was for us to have apartments here, but I don't think I want to live that close to work."
I had to agree with her about that, but a daycare? Breeders all around me? "I don't see how you are going to get Andrews to go along with that one, Red. The permits alone would be a nightmare."
"Weren't you paying attention, Muriel? Inez put in a huge daycare center in the factory and told me that she wanted one in every place we have people working, as long as it was feasible. She knows how much trouble it is to have a job with kids. Hey, how did you get rid of the crowd?"
I realized that the noise out front had quit. I looked out and saw the last of the protestors walking away. "The truth shall set you free," I said. "That's all I did. I showed Angela that she was being duped by the power companies and she convinced them to leave."
"Good job. Can you get these two signed up for me? I need to get out to the airport to meet my other hire. Don't you have anyone coming in?"
"Oh yeah, the gal I was thinking of for manager is coming in at two."
"Did you even consider a man for any job? Damn it, Muriel, get your head out of your crotch. We need people with some amount of technical experience and it doesn't matter what they look like or who they want to screw. Loretta here was a machinist's helper and John is studying to be an electrician. All either one of them will need is a little work to be able to do a good job for us. Am I going to have to hire everyone, or can you be professional about this?"
The more she talked the madder I got. By the time she was done I was ready to rip her head off, but just then there was a loud crash behind me. I turned around and saw fat and ugly running away, or maybe I should say "waddling" away. There was a large rock on the floor inside of the broken front window.
I was still trying to work through my mad, so I didn't react very fast. Sophia already had her phone out, calling 911 I guess.
"Muriel," she said. "Call the insurance company and the contractor. As soon as I talk to the police I have to leave or Susan is going to think I forgot her."
"I know that guy," the tub said next to me. "I see him all the time at the day labor area. He does a lot of picketing and such for the unions. I'm pretty sure the police will know him too, he's been arrested for this kind of thing before."
I dug in my purse to find the number for the insurance agent. John said something about getting a couple of the guys that were working upstairs and took off. Sophia walked out while talking on her phone, leaving me with tubby. I found the number I was looking for and got her on the phone. The police arrived while I was talking to her. A big black officer came in the door Sophia had left open.
"Are you the party that called?"
"No, that would be my associate. She had to go pick someone up at the airport. She'll be back as soon as she can. As you can see, our window was broken. There were protestors out front this morning and one of them threw the rock before he left. Loretta here says she can identify him."
The officer looked over beside me then, "Hello, Loretta. What are you doing here?"
"Getting a job where I don't have to give head to anyone to keep it. Bigsbee threw the rock, Sid. Causing trouble on somebody else's dime again I bet."
The big cop looked around, "What the hell is this place and why would Bigsbee picket it?"
I stepped back into the conversation at this point. I had to revise my opinion of Loretta. Maybe she would be good to have around if the cops liked her. "A&C Genitech makes generators to a new design and the power companies are afraid that we are going to take away too much of their profits. My cousin assures me that they will be better off in the long –run, but they are afraid of us. As far as I know that is the only enemy we have. As you can see, we are just getting set up and don't expect to be open until next week. I guess they are trying to scare us. I can't think of anything they could hope to accomplish, all we are is a sales and contracting office. We won't make anything here."
"Okay, I saw some guys putting turbines up in back the other day. Is that the kind of generator you are talking about?"
"That's one of them. Ingemar says the principles apply to all types of electrical generation though. My job is to get companies that will help build some of the other designs. How would you like to have a flashlight that doesn't need batteries and can shine after only a minute or two of squeezing a handle?"
"They got those out already, and they aren't worth the money. Wind a crank for five minutes to get three minutes of weak light."
"Ours will shine brightly for an hour or more with less work on your part. As soon as I get someone to produce them, Ill provide one for each patrol car you have. Just catch this Bigsbee person and find out who hired him."
"You don't have to do that, Miss. We'd do that anyway just to make sure no one threatens little Loretta here." He turned to Loretta, "Next time I see that asshole that married my sister I'll slap him again. I'll be damned if I know why sis keeps him."
"That's alright Sid. I'm doing okay, 'specially now as I got a job. Tell the ass that he can come by and see Lana whenever he wants, she wants to talk to him."
"Okay, Child. You take care now, hear?" He looked back at me, "We'll get him ma'am. We've had altogether too many run-ins with that dumb ass. If we can find who hired him, we'll get them to pay for the window. Maybe I can get the judge to put that as a condition of bailing him out of jail? Let me have your number and I'll call when we get him."
I gave him one of the cards I had just had printed up yesterday, and he walked on out of the store.
John was back down with a couple of the workers by this time and they were cleaning up the glass. I turned to Loretta, "His brother-in-law is the father to your kid?"
"My youngest. I got no idea who Lonnie's dad is. I got rufied at a party along with a couple of other girls. Sid's brother-in-law is a cop too and that is how I met him. He helped me get through the rape and the birth of my girl, then sweet-talked me into bed. I didn't know he was married, until I showed up at the station to confront him and met Sid."
I really had to wonder what kind of man would want to screw a tub of lard like this. Her face was pretty enough in an "Aunt Jemima" kind of way, but damn she was round. Oh, well. Who can understand testosterone and how it clouds men's little minds?
I got Loretta and John back into the paper work while the workers cleaned up from the busted window. I was thinking very strongly about lunch when Sophia came in and dumped a big bag of Subway on the table. Behind her was what was probably her PA applicant. Now I knew Sophia wasn't cut out to make it in business. This woman looked like a clapped out lounge singer. Her bleached blond hair was teased into a ball around her face, her eyebrows were over-plucked and drawn on, and she was rubenesque sliding into fat. She was wearing a low-cut white blouse with frills at the sleeves and neck, and a pleated gray skirt with dark hose and three-inch heels. Her face was attractive enough though I guess. Add that to a good-sized set of hooters and the way the heels gave her legs good definition and somebody would probably bed her. By the way they were talking, I just knew Sophia was going to hire the floozy. Red was so screwed. I was going to have her job sooner than I planned.