Chapter 86: First Visit to Office

Monday, June 7, 1971

Our offices were on the thirty-fourth floor of the Alliance Tower, next to the Renaissance Building on Park Ave. Stylish, without being too lavish. I thought they were comfortable without being ostentatious. Jeannie Petrowski had been my grandfather’s secretary for over twenty-five years. After he passed away three years ago, she had wanted to retire. But Wally and Harrison had talked her into staying.

Catherine led me straight to Jeanie’s office, near the corner, entering without knocking.

“Good morning, Catherine,” said the older woman. “I didn’t realize you were here.”

“We just arrived. I came straight to your office, without stopping at mine. You said you needed to see him,” Catherine explained curtly.

Jeannie looked at me, waiting.

“Your Highness, this is Mrs. Jeannie Petrowski. She was your grandfather’s ... ah ... secretary for many years. Jeannie, this is my grandson, His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Michael Wagner,” she said eloquently, using my full title.

I knew it was Catherine’s way of taking a jab at Jeannie. I could have sensed the tension in the room, even without being an Empath.

“Oh, my! Prince Michael? Shouldn’t I bow or something? I wasn’t prepared to meet Royalty this morning, ah... ‘Your Highness’?”

“Michael will do just fine,” I said extending my hand. “The only person I make call me ‘Prince Michael’ is Grandmother. Especially when she won’t let me stay out late on a school night!” I quipped.

Jeannie chuckled and Catherine smiled.

“I need to go to my office, Michael, so I’ll leave you with Jeannie. She can show you around. We have a meeting with Wally in thirty minutes,” she reminded me. “Can you show Michael where my office is?” she asked Jeannie.

“Of course. I’ll have him there in time for your meeting. Good to see you again, Catherine. I must say, you’re looking well. Your trip to Colorado must have done you some good,” Jeannie sniped back at Catherine.

On the surface, the words were innocent enough, but I was scanning them both, and I saw exactly what they were feeling towards each other, so it made their lies civil, but immaterial.

“Well, I’ll see you in thirty minutes, Michael,” Catherine said turning to go. “It’s good to see you again, Jeannie.”

Jeannie Petrowski was sixty-two years old, and had worked for Wagner Industries since 1942. She was born, Jeannie Leigh Grantham, in 1909, in the small township of Irvington, New Jersey. After high school, she married Jonas Petrowski, an automobile mechanic. They were living with his parents, saving to buy a small home near the garage where Jonas worked, when the market collapsed in ‘29. The small garage closed two years later, and Jonas was out of work. Times were hard, so Jeannie joined the workforce, as much to escape his parents’ now very crowded home (Jonas’ brother, along with his wife and their two kids had also moved back home), as for the much needed money.

She found a job as a secretary, at a plant that made parts for the wheel assemblies for trains. After ten years, Jonas died. The day before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Her husband had never gone back to work, drinking himself into an early grave.

Jeannie decided it was time to move on, so she moved to the city. New York was bustling with the news that America was going to war. She applied at several companies and found a job in one of grandfather’s small transportation companies, working her way up to office manager by the end of the war.

One day, Grandfather noticed some difficult invoices she had managed to get processed through the bureaucratic War Department. He investigated and found Jeannie was particularly efficient at handling bureaucracy. This was just what he needed to help handle the burgeoning company he now found himself at the helm of.

From the end of the war, until he died in 1968, Jeannie Petrowski had been his ‘girl Friday’ handling anything and everything he threw at her as Wagner Industries grew.

She was now, one of the company’s most senior employees, with more power and knowledge than anyone.

“Are you really a Prince?” she asked me.

“Yes ma’am,” I replied without offering any other explanation.

“Well, I’m sure there’s a fascinating story there, but since we’re pressed for time, let me show you to your office,” she said leading me out of her office and around the corner to a pair of ten-foot high, carved wooden double doors.

Using a key she had in her hand, she opened one of the doors and stood there.

“After you, Your Highness,” she said, in a mocking tone of voice.

I stopped before entering and looked her in the eye. “That’s not necessary Mrs. Petrowski. A title is utilized as a sign of respect. And since you have none, please don’t bother!”

“Oh!” she said. My rebuke catching her flatfooted. She was not used to having her manners or her authority questioned, much less corrected. And by a teenager!

“I’m sorry, SIR! I meant no disrespect,” she said, appropriately humble. She was a master manipulator.

“All evidence to the contrary,” I replied.

I was almost as old as she was, and armed with superior knowledge. In a few weeks, I would own fifty-seven and a half percent of the company’s shares, which meant I indirectly signed her paycheck. Of course, since Catherine has told me Jeannie wanted to retire, I had already decided to help her reach her goal.

I stepped into the office and paused, as the echoes of the room reverberated against my empathic senses. Jeannie had the good sense to remain silent as I glided around the room, as if examining it closely. Actually, I was absorbing those vibrations that were present, as I picked up, examined, and replaced various items, souvenirs, and awards that my grandfather had collected over a second lifetime.

As I neared his big leather chair behind the massive desk, the echoes became particularly strong. I sat down and closed my eyes, as I let them wash over me.

“Mr. Wagner?” Jeannie said hesitantly.

I opened my eyes, and turned my head to look at her.

“I’m sorry, but you’re supposed to be in Catherine’s office for a meeting shortly, and there are some things you need to see first. They’re in the folders in front of you,” she said.

I opened the first folder and there were four company credit cards. An American Express Gold card, a BankAmerica Card (later to be known as ‘Visa’), a Master Charge (MasterCard) and a Diners Club card.

“If you’ll sign each of the pages at the bottom, you’re all set,” she said.

So I did, using the pen that was in the holder on the desk. Then opening the second folder, I saw a sealed envelope addressed to Michael Gregory Wagner, III.

I opened the wide center desk drawer and pulled out the silver letter opener that was laying there. I had no idea it would be there, but it seemed like a good hunch at the time. I could see that Jeannie was disturbed.

Slitting the envelope open, I extracted the single sheet of paper. It said simply: ‘State out loud, the last names of the four Presidents of the United States, to follow Johnson.’

I looked at Jeannie arching my eyebrows.