by C. J.
“Baby, the only reason we threw this stuff together was that we realized we’d be screwed if we didn’t present something to the board on Monday. As usual, we panicked and did something irrational, but then something unbelievable came about. If we had gone about it the correct way, we would’ve just come up with another face cream just like the other hundreds out there. I know the timing sucks, babe, but I don’t know if the formula would’ve cured your dad’s cancer or prevented your mom’s stroke. Oh, God, I am so sorry. I loved them too, you know,” he whispered while creeping into the room.
Maggie’s arms started to shake, and then the pressboard crashed to the floor, splintering and shooting out plastic screws. Danny tiptoed closer to Maggie’s back and slowly and carefully wrapped his arms around her waist. She body stiffened, and then leaned back against Danny.
“We don’t know anything about this stuff, plus we don’t know if the vial you gave me held ingredients that made this whole thing work. The timing of this sucks, but would you have given it to your parents, not knowing what it might do or if there will be side effects? For all we know, we may be sitting time bombs, and it will be a horrible, eye bleeding death for all of us,” he whispered into her ear while stroking her hair.
“Do you really think we are going to die a horrible SARS-like death?” Maggie asked, turning to face Danny.
Danny took a deep breath, I think it’s a distinct possibility.” Then he pushed her up against the study wall and gave her a toe-curling kiss that seemed to last forever.
“That’s why I love you, Danny, when the chips are down you finally come clean, and give a girl hope of a horrible pain riddled death.” Wiping away tears, she held his hand as they began to head downstairs. “You know, that was one of your better kisses, I think I had a little O there.”
Danny stopped in mid-stride, picked Maggie up, said “Forget the little O, let’s go for several big O’s,” and ran into her bedroom.
“Hey, Romeo, if you drop me again you’re a dead man.”
Kevin had run through his second page of possible names for the new formula when the thumping started again, this time with added moaning. “Oh God, she’s killing him,” Kevin muttered and ran for the stairs. Halfway up, though, he stopped, realizing, “Oh, she’s killing him in a good way. If only more of us could go that way.” He turned and headed back downstairs to resume the name list. Through a window, he saw a large pile of debris outside in the backyard and decided to investigate. “Ah, I see Maggie finally found a way to get that old computer desk out of the study.” He began putting the pieces into a neat pile as the thumping and moaning continued from the window directly above the scattered pieces of cherry wood pressboard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SUNDAY PASSED AT MAGGIE’S where she, Danny, and Kevin worked on the upcoming interview with Mr. Millwood, from which they hoped to gain the most sympathy and time off from Lexi Corp.
“Listen, it’s not like you guys have to make a lot up. You were in a building with a crazed psycho who was shooting at you, not to mention spending an inordinate amount of time with the Tweedles. That alone should get you several months on a shrink's couch courtesy of Lexi Corp.’s employee assistance program. When you are with Millwood...” Maggie began.
“That’s Mr. Millwood,” corrected Kevin. “No one would ever say anything but Mr. Millwood, and possibly add “sir” before and after his name, both to his face as well as behind his back.”
“Right, ‘Mr. Millwood’ then. When you are with Mr. Millwood, just go back in your minds when Suzanne was shooting at you and how you felt when it was happening. You should have no problem getting time off. If Mr. Millwood objects in any way, just casually mention that over the weekend, you spoke to your cousin Samuel, who is a lawyer, and he counseled you in the area of worker’s compensation. Don’t go into any details. Just sort of let it hang there, and I bet Mr. Millwood will come around with a sufficient amount of paid time off.”
“Who the hell is cousin Samuel, the lawyer?” asked Danny.
“You know Sammy. Cousin Sammy. We last saw him downtown at the bookstore when we were doing research a couple of months ago.”
Danny looked at Maggie open-mouthed. He shut it, opened it again, looked like he was going say something, stopped, and then finally uttered, “My cousin Sammy? The one who had to take the bar exam like ten times because he kept having panic attacks during the testing process? That Sammy?”
“Yes, Mr. Millwood doesn’t have to know what a live nerve ending Sammy is. Just call him Cousin Samuel and if Mr. Millwood gets too nosy, tell him that Sammy has been successfully practicing law for several years.”
“He’s a lawyer for old people, for God’s sake. His clients keep dying off. I swear he haunts retirement homes. He’s like the bad joke regarding an ambulance chaser, only he chases old people after they’ve gotten out of the hospital and are recovering from their stroke or massive grabber.”
“Sammy’s a trust attorney. Don’t look at me like that, it’s a legitimate thing. “Granted, I did see him handing out his business card at a family restaurant once around 4 p.m., during the early bird dinner hour,” Maggie said. Mr. Millwood won’t know what type of lawyer Sammy is unless he’s got a great, great, great aunt who has Sammy as a client.”
“Okay, I guess we can handle that. We have to stay strong though. I swear Mr. Millwood has superpowers.”
“Not strong. Remember, shaky and weak, just strong on the inside but weak on the outside. And if Mr. Millwood had superpowers, you two would’ve been found out as frauds a long time ago.”
“True,” said Danny, he then turned to Kevin and held out his fist. “Weak on the outside, strong on the inside.”
Kevin bumped Danny’s fist and repeated. “Weak outside, strong inside.”
“That’s my boys, I’m so proud,” Maggie sniffed, pretending to wipe a tear from her eye.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AS WITH MOST THINGS in life, the expectation of the event was much more of an ordeal than the actual occurrence. Kevin and Danny arrived at Lexi Corp. first thing Monday morning and were told Mr. Millwood had been at the company all weekend and was still busy organizing the lab areas that had been damaged by Suzanne and the Tweedles.
They were ushered into the Human Resources office of Suzanne’s replacement, Priscilla (Prissy) Hopkins. Danny and Kevin thought the room was empty until Priscilla moved forward from the gray wall next to her desk. To Danny and Kevin, it looked as if she emerged from the wall.
Priscilla was tall and rail thin with ash blonde hair piled on top of her hair, which appeared to have been either shellacked or sprayed with several cans of hairspray. She was either a tight-faced 30-year-old or a facelifted 60 something, for her face was entirely smooth and shiny like a doll. She also had doll-like features including a small button nose and round, almost pure black eyes. Today she was wearing an ash gray suit that blended with her hair and nearly made her invisible. She wore almost no makeup, and all her jewelry was light colored as well, beige earrings and white bracelets.
Danny’s first thought was if Priscilla got caught in a snowstorm she would never be found. After speaking with her for a few minutes, he also realized that falling into a snowdrift would be warmer than cozying up to Prissy.
Kevin was used to seeing every female staff member at Lexi Corp. fully made up since there were free samples aplenty and massive product discounts. He couldn’t place what was wrong with Priscilla until he, realized she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Wow, that’s probably against company policy. Section 5, Line 3: “All female employees must wear every type of Lexi cosmetics possible at all times or employee will be terminated immediately.”
“How are we today? Did we get enough to sleep last night? I hope we’ve been eating,” she said, speaking as if they were slow and slightly deaf four-year olds.
Danny broke through this stream of idiocy by asking for a glass of water, which temporarily derailed Prissy’s ramblings.
“Oh yes, of course, where are our manners?” she said, and asked one of her underlings via the intercom system to “fetch some refreshments for our guests.”
Danny turned to his friend and, attempting his best Mickey Mouse impression squeaked, “I left mine out in the parking lot. Where did you leave yours, Kev?”
After a brief pause, Kevin responded with a passable imitation of Goofy, sotto to Danny. “Hmmm, I know I had them when I left the apartment, but shucks, after we had breakfast at Cubby’s I, think I lost them.”
Priscilla, who was highlighting papers while muttering to herself, suddenly said forcefully, “All right then.”
Their giggles turning into surprised yelps, Danny and Kevin shot bolt upright in their chairs.
Priscilla continued. “What we have here is the paperwork regarding your extended leave. Do you know what that means, Danny, Kevin?” Without letting either of them answer, she continued in the same demeaning, condescending tone. “These papers,” she said while waving them like bait before Kevin and Danny, “allow you boys to take a break from that awful, awful incident that happened a few days ago.”
“How much of a break?” they chorused.
“Three weeks paid through our employee assistance program,” Priscilla read off one of the forms, smiled and then quickly pushed the papers in front of Kevin and Danny, along with two pens that miraculously appeared in her hands.
“Wow, how did you do that? Did you see that Kev? Those pens just came out of nowhere.”
Priscilla just smiled again and inched the papers and pens closer to Danny and Kevin. “Just something I picked up over the years, nothing special really. I’ll show you after you sign.”
Danny was signing and initialing madly while Kevin was going over his papers line by line.
“There’s no need to go over anything. It's just standard human resource paperwork allowing you the time off. Just bookkeeping really,” Priscilla intoned and smiled again. Kevin began to loathe and fear that smile, thinking, I swear if she smiles once more I’m going to scream, then her jaw will unhinge, and she will swallow me whole.
Danny, however, smiled back at Priscilla and asked, “So how do you manage that trick with the pen?”
Before Priscilla could answer, Kevin interrupted and pointed to a section on his form. “This says we can’t hold Lexi criminally or civilly liable for what occurred on Friday. I don’t think I need to remind you that it was one of Lexi’s employees who went all freaky and started shooting up the joint, and I don’t think I need to remind you that employee was from your department. What kind of screening process do you guys have anyway?” Kevin knew this might be a slippery slope, but he was livid Lexi’s HR thought they could just slide this clause right past them. “I think we should have your cousin Samuel look at these papers before we sign, Danny. He’s a lawyer and will be able to advise us on the best course of action.”
“Oh yes, of course, Samuel, he loves contracts. Absolutely tears them apart. Legally I mean.”
“Well, that’s all fine and good for Mr. Montgomery but, you, Mr. Kensington have already signed and initialed the forms which are now legally binding.” And out came Priscilla’s reptilian smile again.
“Well, actually I tried to sign the forms, but your magic pen ran out of ink, so all I managed to do was crease the paper a little,” Danny informed, after which he and Kevin executed a high five and a low five.
Priscilla leaned forward across the desk, without a trace of a smile in evidence, and said in a small, quiet voice, “Now listen to me, you two little lab rats, I will not be fucked with and certainly not in my own office.”
Before Danny could get out the brilliant comeback forming in the back of his brain__, I bet you’ve never been fucked, let alone in any office __Priscilla’s door opened and in strode Mr. Millwood.
Priscilla was so startled she let out a, “Who the hell is interrupting my meeting?” before actually seeing who had entered.
“I apologize for not knocking. That was incredibly rude of me, Miss Hopkins, however, your response could have been a mite more civil.”
Priscilla jumped up from her chair as if she has been goosed and simpered to Mr. Millwood, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Millwood. You caught us at a very tense point in the meeting. I do apologize for my behavior.” She then scampered over to the far end of the room to get a chair for Mr. Millwood. As she fussed about Mr. Millwood, asking if he wanted tea or coffee, Kevin and Danny exchanged a glance, and then Kevin looked pointedly in the corner of the office near Priscilla’s desk.
Danny casually got up and stretched, picked up his copy of the form and wandered over to the corner of the office where an industrial shredder was located. The paperwork was sucked in with record speed and disappeared almost immediately. Priscilla whipped her head toward the shredder at its sound, and saw a completely signed form disappearing into the shredders rotating jaws.
“Cool. We have got to get one of these, Kev.”
“Just what do you think you are doing, Mr. Kensington?” bellowed Priscilla. Unfortunately, she forgot she was hovering around Mr. Millwood and shouted this into his ear.
“Sit down and plant yourself, Miss Hopkins!” thundered Mr. Millwood.
“Actually it’s Mrs. Hopkins. I don’t know why everyone makes that mistake.”
“Just sit down. I thought this was very simple. Have these two employees take some time off and get them any help they require through the employee assistance program. If this is too difficult a request, I can ask Mr. Crimp to get someone else.”
“No, Mr. Millwood, there’s no need to go over my head and bother Charles. He is a busy man and doesn’t need to be bothered with such trivial matters.”
“Then why did Mr. Kensington just shred this trivial matter?”
“If I may, Mr. Millwood?” interjected Kevin.
“Yes, please go ahead.”
“We both are happy with the time off that was offered, and she did offer us use of the assistance program. However, neither of us felt comfortable with the section about not holding Lexi Corp. criminally or civilly responsible for what occurred with Suzanne, sir. Not all that much time has passed and while physically we were unharmed, I know I haven’t been sleeping well. I can’t speak for Danny.”
“I’m sure the nightmares will end eventually, sir,” Danny sighed.
“Lexi Corp. certainly doesn’t want to pressure you into anything you don’t feel comfortable with. So why don’t you take the three weeks off with the understanding that you will see someone from the assistance program right away and then again before you return to determine when you are to return to work. Does that seem fair? And you can see anyone you choose and as many times as you like. When you both feel mentally up to par, you can return to work. Before you sign the agreement you can, of course, have legal counsel look it over.”
“That seems fair to me. What do you think, Danny?”
“Works for me. If we needed extra time off, say another week would that be all right sir? The labs are going to take a while to get back in order anyway, sir.”
“You drive a hard bargain. Four weeks and by the time you get back you will have a new workspace and equipment. I expect big things from you gentlemen. I’m sure Priscilla will revise the documents according to this new arrangement and to your satisfaction. Please wait in the outer office and help yourself to coffee in the meantime gentlemen.” Mr. Millwood rose and gestured toward the door.
Danny and Kevin attempted a casual yet confident walk to the door and almost made it. But, in trying to exit at the same time, they had a minor scuffle in the doorway before squirting out the other side. Checking that the coast was clear, they immediately pressed their ears to the door. They heard a faint growl that sounded like it was coming from Mr. Millwood, and a high pitched whine.
“Does Hopkins have a cappuccino machine in there?” Danny whispered to Kevin.
“No, I don’t remember seeing one. I’m always on the lookout for a nice one, so I think I would�
��ve noticed.”
“Well, either there’s a miniature steam engine in there, or Hopkins is in full groveling mode.”
“Uh-oh, I don’t hear anything. Either she groveled herself back into Mr. Millwood’s good graces, or he killed her and stuffed her body into that super cool shredder,” Kevin whispered.
As if they were in a potato sack race, they moved as one, bolted for the coffee pot and poured coffee as fast as possible. Just as Kevin was giving Danny second degree burns on his wrist, Mr. Millwood exited Hopkins’ office with documents in hand.
“Ms. Hopkins will be occupied for the remainder of the day and asked me to pass these on to you for your signature. It’s the revised version of the first contract you viewed. I’m sure you won’t fail to sign this version, hmm?”
Millwood placed the contracts in front of Danny and Kevin. Under his steely gaze, they read the paperwork and then exchanged each other’s contracts. After determining that they both read the same and didn’t contain any surprises, Danny and Kevin signed the documents and handed them back to Mr. Millwood.
“Thank you, gentlemen. See how painless things can be? I’m sure you are eager to leave this building and its memories for now. After a well-deserved rest, I’m sure you will return refreshed and will have put this horrible experience behind you. Good day.”
“Yes, thank you, sir, Mr. Millwood, sir,” Danny said with Kevin echoing his thanks.
Outside Lexi Corp. Danny realized he would’ve had second-degree burns on his wrist from the scalding coffee Kevin had poured on him had it not been for the formula. He was about to give Kevin a thumping for that when he said, “I wonder why they let us go without asking us about the fabulous formula we were going to present today.”
“Well they know everything blew up and it will take ages to get back to the presentation stage.”
“Still we were supposed to have worked on that formula for months so wouldn’t we have memorized some of the ingredients and know approximately how it was made?”