Otter Under Fire

by Dakota Rose Royce

  “Please give me their names so I can thank them personally.”

  “I understand numbers; I do well with finances, financial planning and accounting. Ledgers and numbers are my world; its people I don’t understand.”

  “Well I can certainly help you to become more professional and attract a decent number of clients, but you understand it’ll be expensive. I would have to start from scratch with you.”

  “No problem, I can afford it. If you can build my business up, I can pay you.”

  “But you haven’t had a steady client in months.”

  “I don’t have to work. I’ve done my own financial planning and investments; I have enough money to live comfortably the rest of my life.”

  “Really,” Tempest was impressed despite herself. The woman couldn’t be more than 35 years old. “So why work at all?”

  “I need to work on accounts. I’m bored with travel and sightseeing and all that useless stuff. I was brought up to be industrious and work for a living.”

  “Indeed,” Tempest tapped her fingers on the table, deep in thought. “You could go work for an accounting firm,” she said slowly. “Not that I’d pass on a lucrative account, but any number of financial institutions would love to have a qualified person such as yourself working for them.”

  “There are better tax breaks for doing the same work, and I don’t have to get permission to use the proprietary software I designed. The problem with owning your own company is the state of Arizona only allows you to have a business for a certain amount of time without making money. I’m only 8 months away from the deadline and I’m getting a little desperate.”

  Tara leaned forward with excitement burning in her eyes. “Listen, you say that if I follow your program and run my business and marketing exactly how you say--then you guarantee I will build my business.”

  “Yes, that’s what I’m saying.” Tempest said.

  “And I’m saying that if a potential customer follows my program and sets up their finances the way I tell them to, they will be able to build their net worth beyond what they thought possible and may be able to retire earlier than they expected.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll start,” Tempest said in satisfaction. “This is good, very good. “ She looked at Tara. “You have to understand that we will need to change your image to be a bit more professional.”

  “I’m ok with that. I don’t care what I wear.”

  “So why do you dress like this?”

  “It’s what my Mama told me I should wear.”

  “Your mother told you to wear that dress for a business meeting?”

  “Oh yes,” Tara nodded vigorously, “I’ve learned to listen to my mother. Mama raised my sister and me by herself. When the school told her that her girls were smart and would go places, she worked two jobs to get the money to make sure we got a proper education. Stripping and dancing at two different clubs. She was one of the best back in the day.”

  “So you take her advice on how to dress.”

  “Nobody knows people and situations like Mama does. She has a real knack for polite society.”

  “So what does your sister do?”

  “She’s a doctor here in town.”

  “That’s really nice; it sounds like your mother did right by both of you. She won’t be hurt if you wear something more conservative instead of what you have on now?”

  Tara looked down at herself. “Oh no, she’ll be fine with it. I can give this back to her, since it’s hers.”

  Truckload after truckload of metal rumbled through receiving while the furnaces shot flames to the ceiling. Lathes screamed and mills hummed as Otter moved in tandem with the hungry machines. She paused a moment to look at a part, check a schedule, ask a question—then back to the rhythm she spun. A consultation with Gonzo or an e-mail from a customer would send her hurling back out to the sweltering shop floor as she directed traffic to another machine, to another department or off to shipping to be trucked to the next destination. She met with Defray, gave him her plans and schedule, compared them with his, got a grunt and a nod and she was out to the floor again to sign paperwork and send it to the office for shipping tickets.

  Clark had pulled in extra sales that week, Otter thought as another truckload of castings pulled up. She paged Ron Defray out to receiving to show him the latest delivery.

  “Three more truckloads,” Otter shook her head in wonder, “I think Clark is trying to kill us.”

  “You got to strike when the steel is hot,” Defray said looking at the packing slip. “You know how it is.” He twiddled with the bullet casing hanging around his neck, sure sign he was calculating a schedule.

  “Yeah, I do,” Otter said, “but he promised everything in two weeks. That’s wild stuff.”

  “Yeah, well it’s a new customer. We’ll get it done, don’t worry.”

  “If you’re sure…”

  “I’m sure, and I’m always right,” he flashed his shark grin at her. “Speaking of Clark, do you know where he went? He disappeared kind of suddenly.”

  “Haven’t a clue,” Otter shook her head, “I got the impression it was some kind of religious retreat that came up unexpectedly.”

  “He didn’t say where?”

  “He’s not in the habit of confiding in me. All I know is he cancelled a meeting we had with the GM and the boss and said he’d be back Tuesday.”

  “Hmmm, strange,”

  “Yeah, well it’s Clark,”

  “Good point,” Defray picked up his clipboard. “Now I need to get back to the fabrication department and check on some stuff. My gout is acting up today and it won’t be long before I’m chair bound.” He strode away, a slight limp in his step.

  “You have anyplace special you want these?” Raymundo asked as she watched Defray make his way across the open compound toward the fabrication department.

  “Nah, stash them out on a storage lot,” she said, “We won’t get to them for a couple days.”

  Raymundo gave a shrill whistle to the forklift operator, “Hey George! Take it to lot 34, all of it.” George nodded and drove toward the back storage lots and Raymundo made a note on his map. “You got it boss lady.”

  “Thanks man,” she turned and went to her office. By the end of the day the shipments were made and industry continued to spin on its axis. The city’s garbage trucks would be repaired with the parts that Otter marked for shipment, a child would get her leg braces and a jet on the tarmac at the airport would get its replacement piece.

  One special part that she ran through on an expedite[4] as a favor to a regular customer got out early enough to repair a helicopter that was shipped overseas on time. Two weeks, later it was the vehicle in a daring rescue of 3 British citizens and an American, proving that a stone dropped in a pond can have far reaching ripples indeed.

  When Otter got home, the foreman for the crew working on her waterfall was waiting for her. He was a bull of a man, almost totally gray with big bushy eyebrows and hands like hams. They walked back to the pool together.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you,” he said as he rummaged in a pocket.

  “It’s going to take longer to get finished, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s those dragons you have on either side of the fountain. They are a problem.”

  “They were all plumbed and ready to install when you got them,” Otter said, “I checked them myself.”

  “Yes, yes they’re plumbed, but the problem is the spray out of their mouths. You want the water to go down into the pool and we have to make a special fitting for the nozzle to fit into.”

  “And this is going to cost…”

  “About a thousand extra,” he pulled two tubes of plastic out of his pocket and presented them to her. “We had to have these made special in a machine shop.”

  Otter quirked up an eyebrow at him as she viewed the plastic in his hand.

  “There are complicated angles in there,” he said defensively.

  Otter
took the tubes and looked down the center of each one. They were three inches long with a hole bored through the center, ending in a slight angle--she would give him that. About fifteen minutes on a CNC mill including programming and she could have made them at no cost.

  “A machine shop made these, huh?”

  “Yes, a professional shop. When you have something custom made, it costs more.”

  “Well I manage a machine shop, and we’re not only professional, we’re Aerospace approved.” She looked inside one of the fittings again. “If a shop is charging you $500 each for these, you are getting seriously ripped off. Send me some prints and I’ll get you a quote.” She handed him her business card. Funny, she had never thought to give him her card before.

  He looked at her in shock.

  “I could program these in my sleep,” she assured him as she handed back the pieces.

  Her cell phone rang and she saw it was a call from work. She spent the next five minutes re-routing the schedule around a broken furnace. When she hung up he had gone. He had probably gotten tired of waiting.

  It was strange, but the fountain foreman reminded her of Ron Defray.

  Ice cold cinnamon tea hit the spot when Otter got out of the pool that evening. Tempest had brought home subs and salads and was setting them up on the patio table. Since it was already early September, it was the time for living outside. From September to May, the weather would be perfect for eating and playing outside. Sad kitties lined up against the patio door because they weren’t a part of the food and fun. Otter waved to them, took her seat and looked out toward the pool.

  People in cooler climates laughed when Phoenicians talked about cold weather, but after Labor Day the pools started to get too chilly to swim in without some way to heat the water. Otter was designing a solar water heater so they could swim year round, but she hadn’t put it together yet.

  “What I don’t understand,” Tempest said as they sat down, “is why you guys keep employees that are such dickheads.”

  “Because they are good at their jobs,” Otter said as she helped herself to some pepperoncini. “Ron Defray is one of the biggest jerks you will ever meet, but he really knows what he’s doing. He’s arrogant, insulting and self-centered, but I know that he will drive himself hard to get the work out. He screws me over on the machines and furnaces because someone asked him for a favor and he likes to look like he’s in charge, but he will also work overtime to get some big job out because I’m down to the wire.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “It’s complicated, sometimes I do, and sometimes I definitely hate his guts. It depends on the day.”

  “What about this other guy, Clark?”

  “Sometimes he’s a bigger jerk than Defray. He’s pompous and self-satisfied. Of course he and Defray hate each other.”

  “Are you sure he’s a Mormon? Mormon’s are usually nice.”

  “Yeah it baffles me too.”

  “And is he good at his job?”

  Otter thought for a moment. “A couple of years ago, he was working on the floor as a shift lead and I really didn’t like him then. I definitely would have said he was terrible at his job. If there was something screwed up, Clark or one of his people was behind it. I’d bitch about it, but he’d just give me that superior, dopey grin because he knew there wasn’t much I could do about it.” She bit into her ham and turkey salad and chewed thoughtfully. “And when he did inspection he was a total flyspeck inspector.[5] I couldn’t get anything shipped.”

  “What fun,”

  “And then he got sick, really sick. Everyone thought he was going to die.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He got some form of lung cancer—and the guy doesn’t even smoke. We lost touch with him for about a year and then he showed up at the shop. He said he was in remission.” She spooned some kind of healthy broccoli and raisin salad on her plate. “Clark was physically weak; he wouldn’t have been able to work on the shop floor, so the boss offered him the sales position that just came open. He could work at a desk and he had a flexible schedule. He took the job.”

  “Sad day for you,”

  “You know he blossomed in that position and really hit his stride. I realized I had never appreciated him before. He knew the processes and was able to do pricing and quoting like nobody else. He had run a lot of those parts and materials when he was working on the floor. He really became a company asset. This is a good thing because I have to work with him more than I used to.”

  Otter sighed and said: “I should write a book about assholes. Oh and speaking of assholes, let me tell you about the fountain guy.” She told Tempest about the plastic tubes.

  “You know, sometimes people just suck.” Tempest said when Otter was finished. “You know darn well he wouldn’t have pulled that if a man had been there.”

  “True enough, but I think the shock did him some good.”

  “It must have felt quite satisfying.”

  “It did. I just hope he finishes the fountain in the time he promised.”

  “While we are talking about assholes, I have a story you won’t believe.” Tempest told Otter about her financial planner in the skimpy outfit. Otter choked on a slice of tomato.

  “And there is one thing that is just bugging me now.” Tempest said.

  “You want to know how to make your asshole blue.”

  “Not only that, but I’m also wondering what other colors they have.”

  The sound of motorcycles roared up the street and ended in front of their house.

  “Oh no, they’re early!” Tempest jumped up from the table.

  “Who’s early?”

  “Oh my motorcycle club, we’re going up to Jerome for the Labor Day weekend. Would you mind cleaning up?”

  “Not at all, since you brought home the food.”

  Tempest flashed Otter a grin as she ducked into her room. It was only a matter of a few minutes and Otter heard the big motorcycle in Tempest’s garage roar to life.

  Otter had her own plans for the evening. Shortly thereafter, the leftovers were in the fridge and the kitchen was clean. She got herself changed into a sparkling dress and dancing shoes and headed out for a night of Salsa at a new club over in Glendale.

  Otter squinted out into the back yard. “I need a boyfriend who likes to dance,” she said.

  “We’ll just add that to your list,” Susan said, sipping a frothy orange beverage that Otter whipped up. They were having Sunday brunch on the patio overlooking the pool and unfinished waterfall. Susan Kincaid was petite, blond and deceptively cute. When she was not wearing her uniform, nobody would guess that she was a sheriff’s deputy, a k-9 officer and a black belt in a myriad of martial arts. Susan’s dad worked at AzTech and her husband was a programmer for the city. She and Otter met and became friends at one of AzTech’s Christmas parties.

  Duke, a beautiful German shepherd and Susan’s canine partner was running around the yard and splashing in the pool with joyous abandon. His black and silver fur gleamed in the sun as he pounded around the yard and streaked toward the water in the doggy equivalent of a cannon ball. He then crawled up the steps gave them a goofy grin and did it again.

  “Well it’s a pain to go dancing by yourself. I try to take a date, but it isn’t always possible.” Otter shook her head.

  “You could take Duke.”

  “Very funny,”

  “I bet he could do it. Sometimes I think that dog is smart enough to drive a squad car.”

  Otter laughed a little. “Now that I think about it that would be kind of fun. At least it would be for one evening, until he busts someone in the building for possession.”

  “He’d probably clear the floor,” Susan agreed. “We’d have to shut the place down. That would be a pity since it sounds like a lot of fun.”

  “It is. At least I enjoy it.”

  “Speaking of dates and dancing, I was wondering if you would consider going on a blind date.”

  “Can he d
ance?”

  “He’s tall, he’s nice, and he’s smart. I don’t know if he likes to dance or not.”

  “What’s wrong with him? Is he a cop?”

  “There is nothing wrong with being a cop,” she said pretending to be insulted, “And no, he’s not a police officer. He works in the coroner’s office. He said it turns a lot of women off when they find out what he does. I thought that since you’re smart and find just about everything interesting, you wouldn’t mind.”

  “And what prompted you to get a date for this nice guy who works in the coroner’s office?”

  “He’s a friend. I’ve actually known him for years. He asked if I knew anyone intelligent and nice who wasn’t clingy and had an interesting career of her own. Those were his words exactly, and a little exasperated at that.”

  “It sounds to me like he’s just had a bad breakup.”

  “No, I think it’s just been a series of disappointing dates.”

  “OK, sure, why not? I dated an intern for a while in college; he took me to an autopsy on our first date.”

  “Omg, did he really? What did you do?”

  “At first it was a little awkward, I was dressed up in a dress and heels, but I was fascinated.”

  “What was the cause of death?”

  “Gunshot to the chest,”

  “Gruesome first date,”

  “It was, but like I said, I found it very interesting.”

  “Well I don’t think Joel will do that to you.”

  “That’s comforting. I just hope I’m not one more disappointment to him. Maybe he’s just too picky.”

  “I don’t think so. Just give it a try and if it doesn’t work, you did me a favor.”

  “I really like the part about you owing me a favor.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll text him your information and he can get in touch with you.”

  “Works for me,” Otter said, “so his name is Joel?”

  “Yes, Joel Buchanan,” She tapped a message out on her keypad and set her phone on the table, “and now I’m going to finish this nummy breakfast.”

  “You’re in law enforcement; I don’t think you’re allowed to use the word ‘nummy’.”