Opening the Door

by Michael Roberts

  I usually have to remind her that I have to get started on my routine of counting what was on the shelves first before moving to the storage units from hell. Beverly also calls me every morning to check that I am all right. She knew about the baby being born and wants to make sure that I am not being “dumped on” too much. I tell her that I am fine of course. But it is nice to have a boss that cares about me for once.

  One day Beverly “happened to be in the area” and stopped by around one. She brought me a sandwich from Subway and a big bottle of water that she insisted I drink so I won’t get dehydrated. I am not used to working for people like that. She is a very special person.

  * * *

  Watching Sarah work with a single minded purpose brought a great deal of satisfaction to Beverly. Something that working this account was not doing. Three months ago this had been a thriving part of Mr. Kostas’s company and now it was steadily losing money, even with sales being up and labor costs staying the same. This branch of his company would be out of business soon if the problem couldn’t be found. The owner, Mr. Kostas, was a long time old client, one who had stuck by her when things had turned bad and she knew she owed him for that. Added to this of course was the professional pride of being able to pinpoint the problem. The opportunity of putting Sarah in these stores was a stroke of luck. While it was unlikely Sarah would find anything, at least her being here would eliminate several possibilities. Because right now she didn’t have a clue as to the cause.

  * * *

  After three days of crawling around dirty storage sheds in the daytime and logging in plenty of computer time at night I was due for a break. Unfortunately Beverly wanted me to go over some paper work for the Spartan’s Automotive account, mostly receipts and invoices from their vendors. Lots and lots of invoices. Ann still hadn’t told me what the story was for next Saturday, only that we were going out someplace with dancing and alcohol. (How someone, who makes her living dancing, can want to go out and do more dancing on her night off is beyond me) I am not so much with the dancing part. However I could use more than ‘just a couple’ of drinks at this point.

  Also, something about the invoices from Spartan Automotives was bothering me, but I couldn’t quite figure it out. Maybe I was trying too hard.

  Ann came over to my place early Friday morning while I was getting ready to head for Beverly’s office and finally let me in on the plan.

  She was trying really hard to sound ecstatic when she told me “We are going to “The Alley” on a double date with Bobby and Jeff!”

  “Who is Jeff and why would I want to go out with him?”

  “He’s Bobbie’s cousin and will be visiting from New York. All you do is study and work, you need to go out and let loose a little. Come on it’ll be fun.” She was using that pleading voice that I always give into.

  “I’m not 21 and don’t have any ID to say otherwise. Why would they let me in and what exactly is “The Alley”?

  “It is in Newmarket Square. There are two parts to the club and we will be going to the Reggae side. Cindy is working there and Phil and Dave are at the door. I told them we were coming and they said just to walk up to the front of the line and they will let us in.”

  “You seem pretty confident that I would go along with this.”

  “Of course you’ll come. Otherwise I might get into trouble.” How anyone like Ann who is so sexy and hot can put on an innocent little girl type face and pull it off is beyond me. “Besides how often am I off on a Saturday night?”

  “Whatever. You know how I feel about Bobby, and if his cousin is anything like him then I am going to kick him to the curb with a quickness.”

  “Just give him a chance. How bad can it be?”

  These are, of course, the famous last words that are always spoken right before everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

  Finishing up the main storage had taken me almost three days. It is very frustrating trying to count things when people are constantly ‘straightening up’ the inventory. It occurred to me on the second day that this wasn’t just business as usual for them. There was a definite pattern to their methods. When I was getting ready to move to another section they would always be there right before me to ‘straighten and organize’ it to ‘help me’. I noticed that I seemed to be counting somethings more than once too.

  I marked the outside on some of the cases on the sly, then noticed them again in a new location. When I finally got done I reported this to both Beth and Beverly. Beth did not seem to be overly concerned and said it was probably an “honest mistake”. Beverly seemed to agree with her so I thought it wasn’t a big deal. Beth was going on about her new granddaughter and said that her daughter would be out of work longer than she had originally thought.

  Her niece was going to be taking over to help her. She thanked me profusely for everything I had done. I went back to the desk I used and set up my laptop to catch up on my lessons. I was deep into a macro-economics lecture when Beth left.

  That’s when Beverly called me into the office and told me to sit down while she grilled me on their set up and how the place operated. I felt like I was in a stereotyped police interrogation room with no time for commercial breaks or a lawyer. Then she asked a question that surprised me.

  “If you were there, how would you steal from them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes you do. How would you do it?”

  “Not sure I know what to say here.” Not feeling very comfortable where this is going.

  “Up until three months ago the company was making money. I know because I helped them with some accounting difficulties back then.” Difficulties? That is a term people use when things are on the shy side of legal. This is not what I expected.

  “There’s no one else here. Just you and me.” Damn that woman has a flat ass stare. ‘Alright’ I thought, ‘if this is what you want to hear.’

  “Something changed three months ago. What was it?” I am going to give this my best shot, and if she kicks me out because she thinks I have the back ground and thoughts of a thief, then so be it. “Did they change supply vendors and are the people working at the main place connected in some way to those vendors?” Deep breath. “They obviously knew what to rearrange to hide missing inventory and they all worked together to do it. Items are delivered in large quantities to the main warehouse then are sent out as needed to the smaller stores. All records of what is sent to the smaller stores are kept at the main location, that way they can share the shortages and do not have a finger to point to any particular person or place. The key is that there must be a shortage coming in. The only way they could make any skim on that is if they had a good deal with the vendor. Otherwise what would be the point?”

  “All of the deliveries are checked in with their bar codes.”

  “Who assigned the case quantity to the bar codes? Is it a vendor’s download or is it done in house?” I am on a roll so I may as well keep going.

  “If a case of 10W-40 motor oil is checked in with the account saying it has 18 units inside it and there are actually only 12 units, on paper no one will be the wiser because no one opens the case to physically count them. The people there know what is going on. They make money from the deal or they wouldn’t keep doing it. When one of the smaller stores sends in an order everything is done by in-house e-mail and the warehouse puts the individual pieces in some big blue plastic totes for delivery.

  I watched them. They are neither systematic nor orderly. They create chaos so it will be harder to verify what comes in. They probably add things that were not on the original request as “honest mistakes”, that way things are constantly being scrambled coming in or going out. They only short the orders by a little bit on each one, that way a ‘small’ mistake doesn’t raise any red flags.” (Well, here’s where we see if I still have a place here.) “Anyway that’s how I would do it.”

 
“Prove it.”

  “I would have to go there and pull the cardboard boxes the stuff comes in out of the dumpster and scan the bar codes to see what it shows.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Guess I am still here.

  We drove there to the store in her Lexus and pulled around back where the cardboard dumpsters were. Regular dumpsters have lids you can crawl into from the top when the side doors are locked, but cardboard ones have a spring lid that only opens when a truck is holding it upside down. The side doors to the dumpster were padlocked. Some employees there were more than a little hostile and rude to us. Things were getting ugly when the owner, Mr. Kostas, walked outside to see what the problem was.

  Beverly said she wanted to check something and needed to see the empty boxes in the dumpster. She and Mr. Kostas stared at each other for a minute then he told one of the guys to open it. His flunky said that no one knew where the keys were and the dump truck was on the way there now, so there wouldn’t be time to find them.

  That was a mistake.

  The old man straightened up and gave him a look that would have blistered paint, saying “Bring me a set of bolt cutters, NOW!” He personally cut off the lock securing the door.

  Of course I was the one who had to crawl in to get out the boxes I wanted. Lots and lots of boxes. I especially wanted the ones that they had been shuffling around on me. Since I had earlier thought I would be working in the office I had worn a nice pleated navy blue skirt and was not happy about getting something oily on it, but work is work. I was also scared.

  This entire thing was based on my idea so I had a lot riding on it. Beverly was putting a lot of trust in me and I did not want to let her down. I was somewhat less than graceful getting out of the dumpsters side door. Oddly enough I remember thinking that Ann was going to kill me for ripping the sleeve of the new blouse she had helped me pick out last week.

  Beverly asked for the hand scanner to check the bar codes. The employees were reluctant at first but the old man looked at them, growling out something in what I guess was Greek. They did as he ordered. Finally looking cowered, someone handed a scanner to Beverly. The first two boxes showed nothing wrong. My heart was in my throat. The next one showed an incorrect quantity like I thought was happening. Then another and another, and another. Mr. Kostas’s face kept getting darker and darker as his anger began building up. I was glad that it wasn’t directed at me. I looked around and noticed that the warehouse crew seemed to be disappearing and moving away from the area.

  The thought hit my mind. ‘Not feeling too guilty now are you boys?’

  I noticed Beverly was looking at the old man with no expression on her face so I tried to do the same. With a visible effort he managed to pull himself together before exploding. Full props for his self-control. His asked us into his office, a small place with a wooden desk that was made before I was born. It was over flowing with loose paper work and files, the type of office you would expect to see an older man have. Although odds were that he knew where every single letter and document was at a glance.

  He offered us coffee which we politely declined as well as cookies that he said his granddaughter had just made last night. Then he asked us to explain everything to him and to keep it simple so that he could understand it easily.

  The thought was screaming in my head that ‘I call BS! This old man is no one’s fool and knows much more than he lets on. Anyone who cannot see that is an idiot.’ But I kept a straight face and tried to mimic Beverly’s tone and demeanor on our (my) idea of the how and why. He was thanking her for helping him when she stunned me by giving yours truly full credit for figuring out what had been going on. I am not used to getting the credit for doing things right, only the blame for everything, and everyone else’s mistakes.

  When we were leaving I asked a young scared looking receptionist for a plastic bag. All three of them looked at me with puzzled expressions until I explained that I had oily grease on me and didn’t want to stain the upholstery in Beverly’s car. Mr. Kostas immediately reached for his wallet and said he needed to reimburse me. I refused saying it went with the job, but thanked him.

  After all if I am going to be ‘pimped out’ by Beverly I didn’t want my “Pimp Momma” getting mad at me. Obviously I didn’t say that out loud. (So very few people appreciate my finely developed sense of humor and wit.)

  The plastic bag was laid out neatly on the seat so there was no stain mishap on the way back to the office. Neither one of us said anything while Beverly drove back, it is nice to be with someone who doesn’t feel as if she has to fill every minute up with talk. This was not an aspect of accounting that I had thought would happen. I don’t think that it usually does. When we got to our building she surprised me by locking the door behind us and motioning me into her office telling me to have a seat.

  “What did you learn from this?”

  I had to think for a minute not to sound trite or flippant. This is one of the important life lessons that she is taking the time to teach me, and I need to learn it. Just not sure how to say it.

  “Everything, in every way, checked out and looked good. All of the numbers matched.”

  “True.”

  “Numbers do not always reflect reality. Just having the right numbers doesn’t make it so.”

  “Never trust everything you see. Even salt looks like sugar.” Now she is giving me that quiet little smile she has as if she is thinking of something funny but doesn’t want to share the joke.

  “Is he going to call the cops? Will someone be arrested, and do we have to testify?”

  “No, to all accounts. He will get compensation in one form or the other. He always does.”

  “What will happen to the people involved?” Not sure I wanted to ask this question. This is starting to seem too much like Savannah.

  “That is not a concern for either one of us is it?” She looked me dead in the eyes, neither one of us blinked or looked away.

  “No Beverly, it’s not.”

  “He might be embarrassed by the whole thing and he is a sweet old man don’t you think? So we probably shouldn’t mention this to anyone. Anyone at all. Agreed?”

  ‘Sweet maybe, scary as hell when he gets mad – definitely.’

  “Of course not Beverly. In fact just consider it forgotten.” Yep, just like Savannah.

  “Take the rest of the day off. You will have a check deposited into your personal account on Monday. Have a good weekend and try to relax. Monday we start again and I want to see how your course work is doing.” I simply nodded and got up to leave.

  “See you Monday Beverly. Thank you for everything.”

  “See you Monday. Say ‘Hi’ to Ann for me.”

  I was almost home before the thought hit me. I have never told her what my personal account number was. I smiled and thought to myself. ‘It would not pay to cross or underestimate this woman. I am glad she is on my side.’

  Of course this thought was immediately followed by, “I am one step closer to being ‘The Perfect Employee’.”

  Chapter Two

  I used the weekend to catch up with studying and gossiping with Ann. Sometimes our friends live for drama. It’s like a steadily evolving soap opera. And I wanted to catch up on every body’s lives. Between my doing school assignments, and working for Beverly part time during the day, and with Ann working mostly at night, she and I had some serious catching up to do.

  Part of the good news we shared was that Cindy and Phil were an ‘item’. Those two have been dancing around it since I’ve known them. They seem to have been destined for each other. Good for them.

  Ann also mentioned that she and Bobby were having some problems. He is getting a little too controlling. My back was to her while I was dicing onions for the chili we were planning to cook so she couldn’t see me. This is good because my knuckles went white while gripping the knife handle.


  “In what way?”

  “Oh, just little things. No biggie” she said. Then followed hesitantly by “He doesn’t like the way I dress when I am not working.”

  I began to concentrate on breathing normally and keeping my voice level.

  “What else?”

  “He keeps hinting that he should move in over here so he can look out for me.”

  I have flashes of red behind my eyes.

  “He asks a lot of questions about you too.”

  “Such as?”

  “Just the usual. Where are you from? What do you do for a living? Things like that.”

  This will have to be dealt with.

  “So what did you tell him?” Please, please, please not too much.

  “Only that you are from down south somewhere and you work for someone as a receptionist and that you are going to school for something.” (Breathing easier now.) “I don’t know why he is interested in you. Maybe he is trying to set you up with his cousin. We kind of had an argument about it the other night.”

  “What happened?”

  I could see she was feeling uncomfortable and probably wished she hadn’t brought it up. Too late for that.

  “He doesn’t like that we hang around together so much. The other night I caught him going thru my phone looking at my old texts. Not just yours, but everybody’s. He said he was sorry, it was just that he was worried about me and wanted to protect me to make sure I was alright.”

  It is becoming harder to sound rational and sane now.

  “What is he protecting you from?”

  “Not sure. Maybe myself. He says I need to make better choices in life and hang around with a better class of people.”

  I think I feel a drop of blood from biting my tongue.

  “People like Rico, Phil, Cindy and me?” I cannot explode now, Ann needs me and I have to be very careful how I handle this. “I know they fired Bobby from bar tending at the Oasis in Ocean View. Something about stealing tips from the waitresses. How is he earning a living now?”