Barbara waited. If it was this hard for him to ask, maybe it would be impossible for him to fire her if she said no. He swallowed again and looked at the floor as he spoke.
“I gotta let you go,” he said.
Barbara grunted as though she’d been struck in the stomach. She gripped the edge of the counter.
“It is for my nephew,” he said, still unable to look her in the eyes. “My wife, he is her sister’s boy. He is useless bag of shit his father says, but...” He shrugged. “I am sorry.”
“I understand,” Barbara said, fighting back tears, her throat tight. “He’s family.”
“My wife,” Mr. Seropian said, “she says to give you two weeks of pay and nothing more. I will give you two weeks of pay and two weeks more of pay in money so she will not know.” He meant cash.
“Thank you,” she said. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Please,” he said, finally looking at her. “You are a fine woman, a good woman. I think you are very, ah, fine. But my wife...” He shrugged with his hands, said, “I mean to you nothing disrespectful,” and returned to the back of the store.
At three o’clock Barbara went to Mr. Seropian’s office to collect her paycheque, to which he’d added two weeks’ severance. He also gave her an additional two weeks’ pay in cash from the metal cash box he kept in the bottom drawer of his desk.
She folded the cheque around the cash and zipped the thin packet into the pocket of her purse. “Do you want me to work till the end of the week?”
“I am sorry,” Mr. Seropian said, shaking his head. “I wish you good.”
When she left the store, she almost got on the wrong bus, the one that would have taken her east along Hastings to Burnaby. A hollow feeling of panic clawed at her. She’d been through this before, many times, but it had never frightened her quite so much as now. She had enough money to pay another month’s rent and that was it. She couldn’t afford to fall even one month behind. Maybe she wouldn’t be evicted right away, but it would be very hard to catch up. She could call Kenny or Ellie, she knew, but her son and daughter weren’t really any better off than she was. Kenny, thirty-two and manager of a Radio Shack store in Calgary, had two kids and a mortgage and he and his wife, Arlene, who worked part-time in a beauty salon, were barely getting by themselves. Ellen, thirty, was divorced with three young children and an ex-husband who didn’t make support payments. Barbara knew too well what raising a family on your own was like.
The man who’d claimed to have been a friend of her husband’s, he’d offered to help her find a job. She wasn’t sure why, but she was uneasy about accepting his help. There was something about him that made her nervous, uncomfortable. Not that he’d put any conditions on his help. At least, not yet, she told herself. There were always strings attached. Nothing came for nothing. Nothing good, anyway. In any case, she had thrown away the slip of paper on which he’d written his telephone number. Maybe, though, if the trash hadn’t been taken out, she could still find it.
There was someone else she could call, but she knew she could never bring herself to do it. He might have been willing to help her, for old time’s sake, but the price would be much too high.
“Bill, have you got a minute?”
“For you, Charlie, anytime. What is it?”
“There’s something I think you need to see.”
“Well, don’t just stand there with your mouth open. Show me.”
“Yes, sir. These are copies of requisitions submitted over the last five months by Del Tilley. This one’s for video surveillance cameras, monitors, cabling, as well as for installation of same. Here’s one for motion sensors and infrared detectors, another for personal mobile communications devices, one for a digital camera and additional memory cards, and one for four microcomputers, networking hardware, and various software. They all have your signature.”
“I see that.”
“These are the purchase orders issued by the purchasing department, and these are the shipping documents and invoices from the supplier, a company called Advanced Security Systems.”
“It’s a whack of money, I’ll grant you, but I approved Tilley’s proposal to upgrade security after that woman from accounting was assaulted in the garage and half a dozen cars were broken into and vandalized. Mine was one of them. So was yours, as I recall.”
“Yes, it was.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Well, as near as I can tell, very little, if any, of the equipment was actually delivered.”
“Go on.”
“I tried calling the supplier, but all I got was an automated call answering system that informed me all their representatives were busy and to either leave a message or wait on the line. It then put me on permanent hold.”
“You didn’t leave a message, did you?”
“No, of course not. I didn’t want to tip off whoever is behind this scheme that we’re on to him. And I think we both know who that is.”
“Humph.”
“Sir, I’m going to initiate an internal audit of the security department budget to see if there are any other discrepancies.”
“Fine.”
“I would also like to check out Advanced Security Systems, to see if it exists at all. I suspect, however, that it’s a fiction. And I think we should run a background check on Del Tilley.”
“All right, do it.”
“Perhaps Mr. Schumacher—”
“No. He’s busy. Go outside. And don’t go through purchasing. Do it on your own.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Christ, how long did he think he could get away with this? And for what? Not much more than he takes home in a year, for crissake. What a bloody moron.”
“Yes, sir.”
On the way home from his errand in Burnaby, Shoe stopped by the False Creek Harbour Authority marina where he’d moored the Princess Pete. He’d stayed friends with Jimmy Young, the marina manager, who always seemed to be on the lookout for help. Shoe had spoken to Ms. Oswald in Hammond Industries’ personnel department, but the only jobs open required computer skills or accounting experience.
Shoe and Jimmy jawed for a bit. Jimmy was enthusiastic when Shoe told him he’d decided to retire come the New Year. “I’ve been looking for a fishing buddy who doesn’t talk too much,” he said.
“I don’t fish,” Shoe said.
“Learning to fish is easier than learning to keep your mouth shut,” Jimmy said.
“The reason I came by was to speak to you about a job.”
“You seem to be a little unclear on the concept of retirement, my son.”
“For a friend,” Shoe explained. “You’re always complaining about not being able to find office help. Are you still looking?”
“Patsy seems to be working out okay,” Jimmy said, speaking up slightly for the benefit of the young woman sitting in front of an ancient IBM PC. The monitor bezel was patched with duct tape. “I could use some help in the store, though. Send your friend around.”
“I’ll do that,” Shoe said. “Her name is Barbara Reese.” Jimmy gave Shoe a card and they shook hands.
Shoe was five steps outside the door of the marina office when he turned around and went back inside. Jimmy’s eyebrows