“Pauli, I was supposed to model the shoes, and I did that. Then you asked me to sell them, and I did that. Now it looks like I need to find someone to make them for you, and I am going to do that. I need the Gulfie, and I am not giving it back. I will call you tomorrow.”
“Marcie, you are not very respectful, but you are driven. I will not ask for my plane back. We will see what you can do.”
She flew back to the USA. They landed in Minnesota on a runway covered with ice. Les smiled. “I have lots of runway, so I don’t really need the brakes, which is a good thing, because they wouldn’t do anything.” Will and Marcie went to meet Bill Carthage, of Carthage shoes, a firm known mostly for work boots.
After brief preliminaries, Bill told them what they needed to know. “I can make a first class pair of work boots to retail for about $100. I can make women’s shoes to retail for $300 pretty easily. This is a union shop, and we will not be the low bidder. On the other hand, those union workers are the best in the world. I will put the men and women on my shop floor up against Italian workers, or anyone else on the planet, and we will kick their ass. They cut with pocket knives in Italy. We use a numerical control laser that scans the leather with ultrasound to detect defects in the material. We have access to the finest quality materials, and that is all we use. If some chick breaks a strap on her shoe, we will replace it. We stand behind our product, and it’s easy because we don’t sell crap in the first place. We’re going to spend 100 or 200 on tooling to get this going. If Phillipa does not want to put up the change, I’ll figure the whole thing was nonsense anyway. If I have to think turning out his entire line, we would be looking at more like a million. This place can turn out about a million pairs of boots a month, not that it is doing so today. I’ve got laid off workers, workers who want overtime, workers who don’t but will work it anyway as a favor to us. I’ve got people who want in who would be good workers. This is Minnesota, Mr. Ames. We work in this state. We can sketch a contract right now if you like what I am saying.”
They did so, and Will went back to the car to call Pauli Nathan Phillipa on a secure line. “Did your check on Bill Carthage?”
“He has a very good reputation.”
“Well, we may be out of the problem.”
“What is it, in brief?”
“He wants you to put 100 or 200 into tooling. He has the labor. He thinks he can do the prices easily. He is promising top quality materials and workmanship. He strikes me as authentic, if a little abrasive and abrupt.”
“He is a Midwestern American. You can hardly expect him to be an old school gentleman of your sort.”
“Let alone yours, Pauli.”
“I consider you my equal in every way, Will. Would you like to negotiate the contract for me?”
“I don’t think. I don’t know enough to take on such a large responsibility. I’m really a criminal lawyer, you know.”
“My experience has been that one is best off to give responsibility to the trustworthy, and they generally find themselves able to do what they say they are not good enough for. Why live a wasted life, to be a defense lawyer or a DA when you could be Rembrandt?”
“I would get someone like Gabriel Herzog for the contract.”
“I’ve known Gabe for a very long time. Will, I would recommend him to Marcie, but I’m not sure I could trust him, whereas, I could trust you without question.”
“You sound like you don’t like Marcie very much.”
“If your impetuousness permits you to reach my age, you will understand that I love Marcie very much, but however much one loves his wolverine, he keeps his fingers clear of her teeth.”
“I could sketch a contract for you.”
“Will, just draft it. Bill isn’t going to rip me off. I could send my wolverine after him. UCC the hardware, of course. Cost plus, naturally. We will expect to audit expenses, of course. I will have it reviewed by people with twice your ability and a fourth of your honor. You still have a month before you become an employee of the foolish state. You should consider again. I would pay you far more than you will receive from those ingrates. I will also pay that nice young lady you so wisely put a ring on more than she makes for the same ingrates. She can trot about with you, and keep up your appointment book, carry spare batteries for your cameras, carry your cell phone and tell people ‘B’wana he no home.’”
“She might want to earn her pay.”
“In my experience, you can never have too many Marines watching your back.” “She isn’t a Marine.”
“Then I will get her a carry permit, and she can haul around some limited portion of your guns.”
“I’ll do a first draft of your contract. Cost plus 10 on the shoes?”
“I’ll go 20 if you need that to get his signature.”
“You will finance tooling but you will have a UCC on all of it.”
“That is what I said.”
“An audit firm like, say, Hendler, Kates and Krilby will receive all the major financials, and then copy it to Bill?”
“I would like that. You have a little barracuda in your blood. Do we need anything as mean as Leanne Landis Hendler?”
“Lelan thinks so.”
“Of course she does, my adorable little attack dog. She smelled blood or money in the water. Retain her. If nothing else, it’s one less shark with ethical freedom to bite me.”
“Well, I think I have some direction.”
“You do, my barracuda. Now then, you know we get lots of shoes returned that there is really nothing wrong with?”
“I guess it is a curse of the industry.”
“Well, we need to sell them, is the thing. You see, if you sell something, the IRS, bless their hearts, let you write off your losses. But if you don’t show how you took a loss, it gets complicated. I would like to take $100 off your bill for some indeterminate quantity of size 8 women’s shoes for your wife. Just a bunch of junk, returns and seconds. She will probably donate most of it to a thrift shop.”
“We donate everything we can’t use to thrift shops. Never throw it away.”
“I was thinking of sending a box to the car lot. What size does Marie wear?”
“Seven.” “Now, there is demurrage on the box. You’ll have to empty it and call in, or you’ll get billed for it.”
“We can handle that.”
“See what you can do with Bill. Fax me when you get done. Call me any time if you need to. My staff will wake me up if you want, otherwise they will take messages or whatever.”
“Later.”
* * *
Will worked out the deal with Bill, who was mostly into ‘reasonable’ and that sort of thing. Bill would charge cost plus 15, and Phillipa would make most of the profit at all of the risk. Phillipa would finance tooling, and take a UCC filing on it. Bill announced his return policy. “A dissatisfied customer could return anything, any time, and get a refund of whatever she asked. I’ll fly her up here first class and kiss her feet before I will have her unhappy with Carthage.”
They finished a draft contract, faxed it to Phillipa, and the plane took Will and Chrissie to Oregon. Chrissie went to the DA office.
Will went to his office, and there was a lovely young lady in reception. She had curly blonde hair with little blue ribbons in it, and lapis earrings. Her lips were done in red gloss. She wore an elegant gold and lapis necklace, a crème silk blouse, and a dark grey suit. She had iridescent silver stockings and black high heeled open toed Phillipa shoes with cute little ankle straps.
“You must be Will. I am Poquita.”
“Wow. Last time I was here, we had this chick called Pokes. She was good, but she looked pretty cruddy, really.”
“Well, she is gone. Poquita gets attention from the men. And she is even better than Pokes was. Of course much more elegant.”
“A lot sexier, too. It’s as if she had some kind of advisor, like maybe the top supermodel in the world.”
“It might have happened like that.”
&
nbsp; “What is the original name?”
“Polkadot.” “Which you like as much as eating moldy dog food for breakfast?” “Almost that much.”
Well, we have an office policy that any receptionist who has a dumb name can get it changed for free. She has to go to documents motions name change, and open that.”
“Now she has to type the old name there, and put Poquita on that line there. Then she prints all this, and calls Sharon.”
Sharon came in, looked at the documents, and signed. “File this one. Put this one on the bulletin board where the clerk tells you to. Sharon will need this one when she goes to court. The judge will sign it without caring about it, and then you will take your copy to DMV and get a new driver’s license, and you will be legally Poquita. But you might as well change it all. How about Poquita Isabelle Salazar-Santa Clara? Of course it’s a lot of typing unless you have a macro.”
“So elegant. I don’t, I can’t…”
“How about Poquita Medina Rojas de la Santa Cruz?”
“I’m typing it in. Will they really let me?”
“Most likely yes.”
Sharon went back to her office. Poquita grabbed Will by his hair and kissed him. “You are so great. If she ever leaves you, I am next in line.”
“Flattering but improper, and I’m too old for you anyway.” “Nobody who makes my panties wet is too old.”
“A girl as pretty as you, especially after your makeover, does not need to chase an old married guy. You look so nice. You’re a must have girl. Pick a nice guy out of all the ones who shake when they look at you.”
“Yes. Sir.”
“Girlfriend, if I was still a Marine officer, and you were an enlisted chick looking at the bars on my collar, you could call me ‘Sir.’ Since that is not the case, get used to the idea that we are equals socially. In formal circumstances, it would be fine for you to call me ‘Mr. Ames.’ Otherwise, I’m just ‘Will.’ I am not better than you.”
“You, Sir, are so much better than me that it takes my breath away.”
“God Damn It!” He swatted the wall, and walked into his office. Sharon followed him and closed the door. “What did she do?”
“She says I am better than her.”
“Oh, well, it always pisses me off when someone says that.”
“It’s all this elitist stuff”
“Let me check on her.”
She went to the front, and saw Poquita at her desk, looking very unhappy. “Poquita, it isn’t you. He has PTSD. Little things can light him off. And he gets inappropriately angry.”
“He’s like an angry lion.” “Yes, he is. But he is not angry at you.” “Who is he angry at?” “I don’t know.” “He’d better not fire me. I need my job. I didn’t do anything bad.” “He isn’t mad at you.” She went back to Will’s office. “You scared Poquita.” “I’m sorry.” “Apologize to her, or forget it.” “I will try to both.”
“Doug did a sort of press conference and we are not getting a lot of calls.”
“Can Poquita go to the DA office?”
“Yeah. Someone can answer the phone. This office is kind of scary. I thought I was ready.”
“You are but you need to get in the water is all.”
“You’re going to run the DA office and travel the world with Marcie.”
“That’s right.”
“How can you do that, and is it fair to the people?”
“If the people don’t like it, they can diselect me. The way I can do it is, I will lead, not administrate and not manage. The office has administrators and managers. I will leave them to do their jobs. I’m not going there to try cases or tell someone how to sharpen pencils.”
“What are you going to do, as little as possible?”
“Close. I will create a drama free workplace where honest, hard working prosecutors can produce. I will eliminate the unethical, and have good solid juniors sift out the crap and dump it. I will create a place where honor and integrity are the norm, and let honorable people of integrity do their jobs without interference. We will punish the inconsiderate, help the foolish to understand how they hurt people, and incapacitate the truly evil. I will let the best rise to the top, dump out the bad apples, and let the angels fly. I will not run for governor or the supreme court.”
He went back up front. “Poquita, Sharon says we can do without you here, so you’re going to the DA office to be signed in. I’m sorry I fluffed your feathers. I am probably nowhere near the son of a bitch I seem.”
They headed for the DA office.
“Will, I don’t think you are a son of a bitch.”
“I hope you are right.”
“I heard what you said to Sharon. I have great memory and hearing. That’s about it.”
“I think that is just the beginning of what you have going for you, Poquita. I think you are a powerhouse. I also think you have it in you to live life according to the virtues, which is the only thing that counts. I think you can steer between Scylla and Charybdis.”
The road was icy and cruddy, the wind cold and full of ice.
“I wouldn’t know how to steer right now.”
“You don’t do anything suddenly on ice, is the main thing.”
They pulled into the DA office. They went up the elevator, and Will carded them in. They walked down a quiet hallway to an office with the lights on. “Jane, can you put our new receptionist on the payroll?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“That will be Will.”
Will went to his office. The wall of respect had been cleaned and repainted. Doug had already taken all his stuff home, and was using an office down the hall. Where the wall of respect had been there were six 150 gallon aquaria, two high. One of them was being filled with a hose. A small scruffy looking man was dumping gravel into another tank. The doors to the cabinets under the tanks were open, and there were power strips there with things being plugged in.
“It looks pretty good, Quint. How about my fishes?”
“Your green severums and black mollies are coming. The small community fishes, of course, no problem. The large community tank, we have a huge eel and a pleco. The crawfish will not be a problem. The discus we will need a very stable tank before we put in two thousand dollars worth of fishes, so I am planning to put feeder guppies in it to condition it. I have all your heaters, under gravel filters and power heads. I figure on putting all the stuff in, running it for a week, then draining them and refilling. To get the dust out.
They started putting in under gravel filters, heaters, and power heads. “Are you on the clock, Poquita?”
She nodded.
“Help us unpack all this stuff. Quint, tell her your phone numbers.” Will unpacked some power heads and strung their electric lines. Quint rattled off numbers but bristled as she smoothed out the gravel in a tank. “Are you listening or what?”
She repeated the number and went back to smoothing the gravel.
“She has near total recall, Quint.”
“She has near total recall, Quint.”
12/45’s. They draw 1.23 amps. Your truck license is 231 GBC. I will memorize a page from the phone book and bet you a thousand dollars that I can memorize it in two minutes, and recall any number on it.”
“So you are a genius.”
“No. That would be Will. I’m the hard drive. I can remember the data but I don’t know what it means. Will has to keep asking for the figures, but he knows how to use them. He knows how to use spectrometers, interferometers and tensiometers but he can’t remember his own phone number. He could tell you what a neutron capture cross section is, but maybe not the zip code for his house.”
Quint told her the numbers, the office address, and some other stuff. Steve the Mouse came in. “Let’s go to your office.”
They left, a big guy and a little guy. Steve was 4-9, and one of the best administrators and managers in the legal world.
They sat in Steve’s office. “Steve, I need you here. You are not going to quit a
re you?”
“Not wanting to.”
“Well, here is my big picture. The man on the ceiling tiles looking at every p and q is leaving. I will be flying up in the stratosphere with the Bravo Five Twos, and I will not tell you how to do your job. You will be almost the DA. We will trash our junk, like marijuana possession. Do infraction treatment, or just don’t charge. You know what we can do.”
“Some of those are people we have real problems with, but it was all we could get.”
“Get them for what they really did, or trash it. No dishonest prosecutions. No hypocrisy. I want you and your crew to be proud as hell of our office. We want the serious bad guys, and we will take out the ten worst once a month until they are gone. If they are cops or judges, they kicked the wrong dog. I’ll bite their fucking leg off.”
“You won’t leave us on a limb?”
“I will not. You do what you think is right, after careful consideration. If you become corrupt, you’re more screwed than Linda Lovelace, but the difference is, I think Linda is pretty fun.”
“We might make some enemies.”
“So? I bet Osama bin Laden didn’t like me. You get crossed up with anyone for doing the right thing, and the big kitty cat comes out to cover you. Blood, guts and fur on the Serengeti. I expect loyalty up, but I also expect loyalty down to be demanded, and it will be there.”
“I like what I am hearing. I hope that will be true in the future.”
“I expect to be respected, because I expect to earn it.”
Steve nodded, and Will left.
* * *
Will went to the front office. “You don’t need to be at the desk after 5, Poquita. You may choose to be from time to time, but you are entitled to go home.”
“Can I see your fish tanks?”
They walked down to his office.
Quint was filling and setting up tanks. “Poquita likes fishes.” “I want to get a 400 for you to put in reception. Malawi cichlids. We’d landscape it in rocks, of course. This is what I would like to do there. She can mix the Epsom salts and all for the water. We could do it in salt water, but that would require personal attention from you or me.”
In Love and Law Page 11