10. Right Time To Strike
RIGHT TIME TO STRIKE
“Can I help you?”
Fletcher looked at the guy in front of him on the doorstep of the garage apartment in the Bronx. Rick Majors.
He’d looked into the dude last week. Didn’t find a lot.
High school education, multiple dead-end jobs, married three years. His wife was an LPN at a nursing home and was five months pregnant.
The dude hadn’t been kidding when he said this was the best job he’d had. Paid the most, best title, and let him sit at a desk.
“Yes. You showed up at Westerly Consultants over a week ago, harassed and frightened the staff.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? I get canned and express my disapproval and she sends what, some rent-a-cop over here?”
There were few things that could push his buttons, but that was one.
He smirked. “That would have been you seven years ago, but not me.”
Rick’s jaw dropped. “How do you know that?”
“I know a lot more than you want me to.”
“I can’t believe this. What is she going to do? Have me arrested? Put some restraining order on me because I showed up there once?”
“No. I’m here to tell you that once is it. You had your moment and make sure that is the last of it. If you want to get another job in this area, if you want to keep your record clear, you’ll heed my warning.”
“Or what?” Rick asked. “I’ve lost everything, you think you can make it worse?”
He laughed. A short dry sound. “You don’t want to find out.”
“I bet Michael sent you and not that consultant bitch. No way she’d know anything about me. Is this a warning for me to shut my mouth? Or is it from Henry? I don’t plan on saying anything. I don’t even know anything.”
Fletcher lifted an eyebrow. He was ready to defend Paris, but this guy was just spouting out words in anger and frustration.
Might as well listen to what was being said.
“What makes you say that?”
“They are all a bunch of assholes riding on a power trip. They hire people who don’t know shit at a cheap rate and think it’s going to help them grow.”
Not that he could see.
Or maybe that was how they started, but with what Rick was being paid, it didn’t follow along that path.
“Are you so sure of that?”
“Yeah. Once they found people who actually worked all day and didn’t goof off, we made more.
It was a scale. I worked my ass off to make more.
I got promoted. I can’t make that anywhere else.
It’s like this carrot that got dangled in front of us.
Some took a few bites and stopped, others made a meal out of it. ”
“Like you?”
“I took my job seriously. Over a hell of a lot others, so I shouldn’t have been fired.”
From what he’d heard from Paris last week, it appeared one full division was let go, not really cherry picking the worst employees.
Not usually the way things were done either, especially since that division seemed to hold their own and a major part of the business revenue.
There wasn’t much he could say to the guy or offer.
Short of talking to others who were let go and getting the side of a disgruntled employee, this conversation needed to be over.
“Whether or not you should have, I’m not here for that reason. Any contact with Westerly Consultants in the future on your end will only result in your life being even more miserable.”
“Are you threatening me?” Rick asked. “You think I’m going to talk about what I found out? Is that it?”
“And what did you find out?” He was pretty sure Rick was blowing smoke up his ass, but he’d dismiss nothing.
“Nothing,” Rick mumbled. “Heard loud and clear.”
“Remember that.”
He turned and walked away. It wasn’t as if the guy could or would do anything about it other than run his mouth.
He hadn’t given his name. He hadn’t said where he was coming from. Rick even guessed it might have been his old employers.
Which meant he needed to look into them a bit more than what was on the surface because something wasn’t adding up.
“How did it go?” Braylon asked him hours later when he returned to the Carlisle offices.
“I’m meeting with West in an hour to brief him.”
Braylon grinned. “And I’ve got to wait until then?”
“Last I checked, you might be his brother, but he’s both of our boss.”
“Fair point,” Braylon said. “I’ll be in on the meeting. Just didn’t know if I needed to be prepared for anything extra.”
“No. But there should be a new driver starting this week. I cleared someone, West approved, and they are meeting with HR tomorrow, I believe.”
“Good,” Braylon said. “Not that Lily is in the office with the baby coming soon. There is no reason for her to navigate the crowds, and being down a driver, she’s not walking as much.”
The driver they had now was being used by West more than anyone, but he’d noticed that Braylon, Nelson, his wife Kenzie, and Laken often were getting rides to meetings rather than a taxi or Uber.
“We’ll be back up to speed soon.”
“And I’ll wait until our meeting then. I’m going to assume nothing serious?”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” he said.
Braylon left and Fletcher went back to digging into MHT Services. The company was struggling, but many did. So he turned his attention to the three owners and their lives.
It was probably nothing, but he didn’t work on “probably.”
When he walked into West’s office an hour later, he had his laptop with him and moved to the table off to the side to set it down.
West got up from the chair he was in to the side and joined him at the table.
“You must have something,” West said. “Braylon is on the way. He already told me he went to see you.”
“I didn’t tell him anything.”
“He whined about that,” West said.
There was some humor in the guy’s eyes, but not much. He’d seen touches of personality here and there, but more often than not, around employees, West was like a brick wall.
Unmovable unless he wanted to move, and difficult to read.
“I’m here,” Braylon said. “Shit, you’ve got your laptop. You do have something.”
He didn’t think he was that predictable. But it was not like he did much around here that caused him to bring his laptop with him to meetings.
“I met with Rick Majors this morning. More like had a chat with him on his front stoop.”
“You finally got to him?” Braylon asked.
“He lives in a small garage apartment in the Bronx. His wife works close by; he was the one taking more time to come into the city for work. I’ve been watching their patterns for a few days and knew when she left. He was still home so I knocked.”
It wasn’t always what he liked to do, but he’d done it enough in his life. Stake out a place to find out the right time to strike.
Though this was hardly striking anything in his book.
“And?” West asked.
“I told him he had his moment and it’s done. He didn’t ask who I was, just what I was doing there. At first he thought Westerly Consultants sent him.”
“Did you confirm or deny it?”
“I didn’t even reply, and moved on. Then he talked himself out of it and said it had to be MHT. He had an earful to say about them.”
“Most disgruntled employees do,” Braylon said dryly.
“Exactly. Not much of what he said jived, but not a big deal. Said they were hired cheap, then the carrot was dangled to work hard to make more.”
“That’s a common enough practice,” West said.
“I didn’t think much of it. Was Rick right, could there have been worse employees than him that could have been fired? Most likely. Paris had said that Debra has been reaching out a lot trying to figure out how to handle things.”
“I thought their contract was done,” Braylon said.
“I think it is now. They had some time left for follow-up, but I haven’t talked to Paris since last Monday.”
“She’s been out of town,” Braylon said. “She came back on Sunday night.”
He knew. He’d asked Molly, who was much more willing to volunteer that information.
“I looked into MHT last week. The company itself has been struggling for about a year. They probably should have had someone come in long before now. But it was a sudden drop in revenue, almost overnight.
“Not unheard of,” West said.
“No. But Rick made a comment that he wasn’t going to speak about what he saw.”
West lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t suppose he said much more?”
“Nothing more than he thought Michael sent me there. So this afternoon I dove into the three owners.”
Braylon grinned. “Did you find anything?”
“Not as much as I’d like. I haven’t had a lot of time.”
“But something if you’ve got your laptop,” Braylon said.
“Michael looks to be going through a divorce. A nasty one. It’s going to cost him. Or he’s worried that it is. He lived a pretty lavish lifestyle prior. I’m sure his two co-owners might not be so thrilled about that.”
“So he needs things to turn around to pay for it?” Braylon asked.
“Could be. Todd seems pretty dull and boring. Nothing standing out there. Henry, I’m still working on him. He seems to have the most assets. The most investments and cash too.”
“He’s the finance person,” West said. “Could be he’s just the only one smart with money.”
“That’s most likely the case, but I’ll keep checking.
There could be nothing and it’s over with, but I’d rather be prepared.
I can send you the report on the owners, but the one thing I wanted to show you and not send just yet is something on Michael Mahoney.
” He turned his computer around. “He’s got a juvenile report.
Little bit of a temper, assault. Had a few domestic calls from the wife and then no charges. ”
Braylon got up and looked at the screen over West’s shoulder. “Why couldn’t you send this to us?” Braylon asked.
“Because of who sent it to me.”
He still had contacts doing him favors. He wouldn’t put them at risk.
“Got it,” West said. “Keep this in mind if we need to, but whatever they are doing in their business is no concern of ours.”
“If you were going to buy it, it would have been,” Braylon said.
“Were you interested in it?” This was news to him.
“I always hear what Paris and London have to say when they are going through something like this. If they feel as if a company might be interested, I can look into it. As part of the recommendations she threw out there selling was an option. I looked over what she had and it didn’t appear to be profitable enough for me. ”
“But I’m sure you could turn that around if you wanted to.”
“Always,” West said. “But I got the vibe early on from Paris that she didn’t care for the owners. Normally that’s enough for me to walk away unless there is a major return, and there wouldn’t be. Not quickly.”
“And if they are doing something shady, or someone is, that’s all the more reason not to sell,” he said.
“Could be.”
Fletcher stood up and reached for his laptop. “That’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll keep looking into them to be prepared, but nothing more than that.”
“It’s probably over,” West said. “The security cameras are installed. The wall and steel door are being put in this coming weekend.”
“I’m sure Paris is just thrilled with that.”
“She doesn’t have a choice,” West said.
He was positive few argued with West.
“If there is nothing else, then I’ll get back to it.”
He walked out and returned to his office to dig some more, just to give him something more interesting to do.