Henry: The cars will be here at our facility in the States in a day. Once there I have a mechanic friend do all the detailing. We’ll remove and replace tags as usual. Grills will be replaced too as always.
Carmine: Okay when can expect these. I need them immediately.
Henry: Since you need them urgently, it will cost you an extra $3500.00 each. I need to pay customs on the dock for rush.
Adam looked over at Jeanette and shook his head in what looked like total disgust.
Carmine: Same account for the extra money?
Henry: Yes, the 35222651 455236425 account. They’re waiting for the wire to push it through.
Adam did some scribbling and gave the paper to Doug. Doug looked it over and started typing something on his laptop.
Carmine: Now?
Henry: Yes. I need to make arrangements as soon as possible. Going to the dock to meet with customs. So as soon as the money is in the account, I can make the transaction.
Doug gave Adam a piece of paper.
Carmine: Wiring the money in now.
They waited for about five minutes.
Henry: Good. I will contact you when all transactions are done and the cars are ready to ship.
Carmine: Will look out for your email.
Henry disconnected.
“Unbelievable,” Jeanette shook her head. “This racket is so sophisticated, yet too easy for anyone to do.”
“Yeah, that’s the scary thing,” Doug said. “Anyone with the right equipment, the contacts and bribe the right custom agents, anyone can do this.”
“Did I do good on this? Nothing should have tipped him off?” Adam asked.
“Perfect. Just like the other transactions. Now we need to follow whomever Henry sends to the docks to give the money to the customs agent. We’ll have surveillance. We want any and all pictures.”
Jeanette’s cell vibrated. It was Renee. Adam’s stuff was on the auction. She was contacting Noah too.
“Your stuff made it to the online auction,” Jeanette said to Adam.
“Great, now let me see where the actual order is. Did she double it, cancel it or backordered.”
Adam started typing frantically again. He then studied the screen.
“Back ordered!”
“Come on, we’re not done yet, but almost there.” Doug said, shutting down his laptop. “Tell me what Laura says when you get back to the office. I need to go and get men on the field.”
“Bye Doug, and thanks again for all your help,” Jeanette said.
“No prob. Like I said, just like old times.” He patted her on the shoulder and winked. He then left the restaurant.
Jeanette leaned back in the booth and began finishing up her pasta dish.
“So you and Doug go way back,” Adam said, sipping his soup. It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah, during our mafia investigations.” She sipped her soup too. “Yum.”
“You dated him?”
Jeanette laughed, almost spitting out her broccoli and cheese.
“Well, I guess your relationship with him was joyful,” Adam said, looking disgruntled.
“Adam, Doug is gay. He has no more interests in me than the man on the moon.”
“Oh.”
Jeanette saw his face turn beet red.
They returned to the office about ten minutes apart. Jeanette noticed Laura rushing getting her purse and other things together.
“Hey Laura.” Jeanette said causally.
“Oh, hello. Back from lunch?”
“Yep. Oh, I need to order some special items, you have time?”
“Uh…no, in fact I’m late for an appointment as it is. Leave it on my desk and I’ll get to it as soon as I return.”
“Okay.”
Jeanette watched her as she flew down the hall. Strange. She headed to Adam’s office, but he was already walking out. He pointed to her and to Sam’s office.
She did a quick turn and headed that way.
Once in the office, Adam entered and closed the door.
“Got some news?” Sam asked.
“Oh yeah,” Adam said, nodding. He went over in great detail his transaction with Henry and mentioned about his stuff showing up on the online auction.
“In fact, as soon as I arrived back from lunch, Laura informed me that my stuff was back ordered and didn’t know when it was coming in.”
“This is just….”
“Unbelievable,” Jeanette finished. “Wait!”
“What?” Adam leaned over in his chair.
“Laura was rushing out of here like a bat outta hell. She could be—”
“The customs contact,” Adam finished.
Jeanette went for her cell and dialed Doug.
“Hello.”
“It’s Laura, she’s heading to the dock, she left about fifteen minuets ago.”
“Damn. What’s her car look like?”
“What’s her car look like?” she asked Adam.
“A red Ford convertible, license plate 5J2k00V.”
“I heard him. I’m on it.” Doug disconnected.
“Wow, you knew that off the top of your head.’ Jeanette mused.
“It’s my business to know the cars, I assign parking key cards to some people.”
“Ahh.”
“I’m gonna need a drink after this is all over,” Sam said.
***
Adam walked Jeanette to her office. They went in with Adam shut the door behind them. “I’m with Sam. I could use a stiff drink.”
“This job has been full of surprises.”
“I hope not all bad,” Adam said, coming to her side.
“No,” Jeanette said, moving in closer to his body. He loved the warmth she gave off. He bent down and kissed her forehead.
“I can’t wait until this is over.”
“We don’t have to wait long.”
As if on cue, Jeanette’s cell rang. She answered. “Hello. Great! I’ll tell them. Right.”
“Was that Doug?” Adam asked, taking a seat at her desk. He looked at it for a moment remembering that first day he had her on it—literally.
“No that was Renee. She and Noah bought all the stuff you ordered from Laura.” She smiled
“Great. That’s two things down. The stuff you ordered and my stuff. Now these cars,” Adam said stretching.
Jeanette cell went off again.
“Hello. Oh great!” She looked over at Adam. “Doug spotted her, they’re at the docks now. They’re taking pictures.” She returned back to her phone. “This is great, we’ll get them yet. Okay, see you then.”
“Going good.”
“Yep. He said all they have to do now is track the cars from the shop where it’s changed, to the dock where it will be shipping from.”
“They are going to go down big time,” Adam said, slapping his hands together.
“I wonder how many more people are in this. It can’t just be Henry, Laura and Miriam,” Jeanette said, rubbing her chin.
“Well besides the foreign buyers of the cars on the other end, the custom officers, I don’t know. But you’re right; it has to be more people involved.”
It was the end of the day. Laura arrived back at the office. She went over Adam’s order and told him that the vendor said that they ran out of inventory.
Whatever. All he and the rest where waiting for were the arrival of their stuff to the post office mailboxes that Doug provided. That was tangible, proof positive evidence.
“Let’s go back to your house,” Adam said. “I want a complete tour.”
They packed up their things and went to Sam’s office. Sam waved them in. They shut the door behind them.
“Are you two going to be together this evening?”
“Uh…yeah, “ Adam said.
“Good. I just spoke with Renee and Noah, they are at her place. I’ll go over there. Doug doesn’t want us so spread out just in case this all comes down tonight.”
“You think they’ll be able to catch them
this soon?” Jeanette asked.
“I guess. All they need to see is that it’s our cars and them start making changes. It takes no time. Once the cars leave the garage….” Sam shrugged.
“Sure. A crime has already been committed for ordering the cars under false pretenses. On top of that, making changes to them,” Adam said.
“Yep. Okay you two go to whoever’s house and stay by your cells.”
“Will do.” Jeanette said.
They walked out of the office and toward the bank of elevators. “So much for having a romantic evening at my place,” she said.
“Tell me about it.”
Jeanette cell rang again. “Wow, busy night. Hello.”
“Got word the cars are in a shop called Pete’s Auto Detail. They’re working on them now,” Doug said.
“Someone there taking pictures?”
“You betcha! Where will you be tonight?”
“Adam will be at my place. Sam is going over to Renee’s and Noah will be there.”
“Great, talk to you later.”
“What’s going on? Sounds like we’re even closer to getting them.”
They reached the parking area. “They did. They see the cars getting detailed as we speak.”
“Man, they don’t waste time.”
“Well, remember, you alias buyer wanted the cars as soon as possible.”
“Humph. If only we could get some of our supplies this fast.”
They got into their respective cars and made their way to Jeanette’s.
After she fed Oscar, they ordered dinner out. “I love this Japanese place. Real authentic for take out,” Jeanette said, as she grabbed more napkins.
“You know, I never had Japanese food.”
Jeanette nearly dropped her tray. “Wait, not even sushi?”
“Well, yeah that, but you know how that is. I mean stuff like this.” He pointed to the grilled curry prawns and the squid teriyaki. “What do you have there?” He looked over at her plates.
“Oh we’re gonna share. This is Tatsuta Age and Buta Kakuni. Deep fried chicken and pork simmered in sake and soy sauce. Then of course we have these various vegetable dishes, Edamame, seasoned Japanese soybeans. Goma Ae, that’s cold spinach with sesame sauce.”
“We got a lot to choose from, I will say that.”
“Want to make sure we fortify ourselves for the evening.” Jeanette chuckled. “This looks like a long stake out.”
They were about to attack their second dish, when Jeanette’s phone rang. “Hello.
“We got them!”
Epilogue
Adam and the rest headed to an onsite F.B.I office. It had been two days since they caught the Black-market Office Supply Gang, which Jeanette dubbed them.
Renee, Noah, Jeanette and Sam brought all the things they ordered off the online auction sites. It matched the orders that were placed recently. They also had office supplies from months back that they were able to confiscate in the past few days.
When all totaled going back a year and half ago, the company had lost over one million three hundred thousand dollars.
The only reason the missing funds where not caught sooner was because they found out that there were some vendors on the take also.
They were right, there were more people involved in this. Twenty-two people total. Laura, Henry and Miriam were flunkies compared to the others they caught.
He and Sam didn’t even want to see Laura. Miriam and Henry just arrived this morning from Alaska and Paris. They went straight to jail. They had nothing to say, except they wanted a lawyer.
What Doug and the other agents he had working on this concluded, was that this wasn’t a woman scorn type of thing that got out of hand.
Now it was fortunate that they could turn the attention to Adam and his IT crew, and made it look like him and the whole IT department, but they decided on this big time stuff on their own to cash in on some extra funds. Adam was just convenient.
Doug came into the room where everyone was. “Well, this was a very interesting case. I must say.”
“I have to give most of my thanks to Jeanette however,” Sam said.
“But Doug—”
“Doug and Renee and Noah never would have come into play, if you hadn’t thought of it. You knew there was something more to this. It wasn’t just stolen supplies,” Sam finished.
“She is right. You always had that women’s intuition,” Doug said.
“So what’s our next step?’ Sam asked.
“File the appropriate charges,” Doug said, taking out some paper. “And we have a lot of them. Embezzlement, wire fraud, grand theft, just to name a few. They will be going away for a long time and depending on what each person did and how deep they were in on this, we’re looking at between ten and thirty five years in federal prison,” Doug said.
“Wow!” Adam said.
“I want to bring all chargers.” Sam said, adamantly.
Sam was never one to pull punches, Adam mused.
“You got it. You know this would normally take months. But since it is a federal case, justice will be swift. The fact they were selling cars to Saudi Arabia has raised a lot of eye brows,” Doug said.
“And I’m sure some faces were made too,” Jeanette said.
Everyone laughed.
Adam passed Jeanette the humus, while Noah got up from his seat and allowed Renee to sit down after coming back from the restroom.
“I must say, this was more interesting than spying on cheating spouses through rose bushes,” Renee said.
Jeanette chuckled. “Hmm. I think that would be thrilling.”
“Nah, you see one spouse sneaking to meet in coffee shops, you’ve seen them all.”
Everyone at the table laughed.
“I’m glad that Jeanette decided to take Sam up on her offer. Besides, who knows more about our messed up books than the person that helped cracked the case of all the missing supplies,” Adam said.
“Hear, hear.” Everyone raised their glasses.
“I’m also taking Adam up on his offer.”
“Oooh,” Renee purred.
“So, you’re willing to give the relationship a go?” Adam asked.
“Yes. I can see for myself that the Strathmore brothers are men of honor and do good by their women. Besides, I know who to get to check on you if I have any doubts,” Jeanette said chuckling as she took a sip of her wine.
Everyone laughed and began digging into a well-deserved Mediterranean feast.
THE END
My name is Stephanie Williams. I am a native to Los Angeles, born 48 years ago. I am a full-time home business owner in the export/import trade as well as a contract Purchasing Agent for a medical facility. I enjoy opera, classical music and am a huge history buff. Reading is my passion and it is not unusual for me to read a book a week, whether it’s War in Peace or short stories of Poe and of course romance and erotica. I’ve traveled extensively and it's not unusual to find me celebrating Christmas in the Land Down Under with a Shrimp on the Barbie. To learn more about me and what I’m up to, Visit me atBlog: http://missstephaniewilliams.blogspot.com/
Blog: http://stephaniewilliamsauthor.wordpress.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StephanieWilli5
Facebook: http://facebook.com/StephanieWilliamsWriter
Other books by Stephanie Williams
Your Local Handy Man
Northern Exposure (Book Two The Three Sisters Series)
Skinny Dipping
From Phaze Publishing
ModelMisbehavoir
Friends Upgrade
From Decadent Publishing:
House Arrest
Detention
For Research Purposes Only
It’s a Jungle Out There
Love, Transylvania Style
Under the Tree
The Landscaper
Love They Neighbor’s Nephew
Cabin Fever
Coming Soon
Lectures In Discipli
ne
Office Play: Freaky Geek Series Page 26