Chapter 6

After breakfast, Tom and I waited long enough to be sure Mary was at work, and then we left to visit Mary’s neighbor. A few moments after Tom knocked on the neighbor’s door, I saw the front window’s curtains being pulled open an inch or so. Just enough to peek out and see who was there.

A rather elderly woman was looking out at us, so I said, “We are friends of your neighbor Mary. This is her Uncle Tom, and I am his friend Sam. I saw you checking to see what was going on last night, and we thought you might be able to answer some questions about Charles Stafford.

Whatever I said, must have been the right thing. She released the curtains and started unbolting her door.

“Come in, gentlemen. I’m Amy Stafford, or just Amy, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that Charles Stafford and I are related. We aren’t!”

As Tom stepped in, he said, “It’s nice to meet you, Amy. I’m Mary’s uncle, Tom King, and this is my friend Sam Hall.”

“It’s nice to meet you gentlemen, also. Please have a seat, and what can I do for you?”

Tom responded, “I’ve met Charles Stafford, and I don’t like him. During supper last night, his name came up. Mary wouldn’t give me any details, but it seems like she ended, or is ending, her relationship with him; although I think he may be causing her some form of difficulty.

“I would be happy to listen to anything you might know about Charles. If you believe it’s appropriate, I’d like to hear anything you may know about his relationship with my niece.”

“Oh, my! That covers a lot, and it may not be right for me to discuss some of the things I know, or at least, what I suspect.

“First of all, my family is a small branch of what many call the Archer Family. We aren’t close to them, but the relationship is valid. Charles Stafford claims to be related to my family and thus related to the Archer Family, but from what I know, that is not true. Granted, he shares my family’s last name, but he and his family have absolutely no relationship to the various branches of the Stafford Family that I belong to. I talked with our family Matriarch, and she researched the lineage of his family. She could find no relationship to our family tree, and she could not connect his family to the Archer Family, either.

“I suppose it is possible that one of his family members is or was married to someone who is related to the Archer Family, but that doesn’t mean his entire family has a blood relationship with the Archers, which is what he has implied.

“I don’t go to bed until late at night, and his voice is very loud and penetrating. Since the wall between our apartments isn’t soundproofed, I hear almost everything he says to Mary. Unfortunately, my hearing isn’t what it used to be. I can clearly make out his tone of voice, but the words don’t come through clearly some of the time.

“He spoke to her in what seemed like a polite and respectful manner when they first started seeing each other. Lately, he has been shouting in a loud, angry voice. When he gets angry like that, his voice has an accent that makes his words difficult to make out.”

“Thank you, Amy. That helps a lot. Have you talked with Mary about Charles?”

“I did, several weeks ago. All she would say is that Charles is having problems at work, and they were overflowing into their relationship.

“I told her, ‘that’s not right.’ A man should deal with the source of his troubles without taking his anger out on others.”

“Mary agreed with me. She said before she made any decision, she would have to think more about how he was handling his problems; especially the way he was venting his anger at her.”

Tom said, “Thank you, Amy. I appreciate your telling me this. Sam and I will look into this further, and then decide the best way to deal with the situation. Please don’t mention we were here to Mary. I think she wants to handle things herself, and that’s fine with me. But, I want to be prepared if I have to step into this.”

Tom and I stood to leave, and we both said goodbye to Amy. She was a nice old-school lady, and hopefully, we wouldn’t need to bother her further.

As we settled into our hover car, Tom asked, “What do you think, Sam?”

“Something is not right with this. We need to learn more about his problems. He doesn’t know me, so perhaps I should arrange to run into him somewhere like a bar. Many people open up to strangers when they are drinking, and they tell them things they wouldn’t tell friends. Do you have his address? If not, we can stake out Merchon Manufacturing, where he works. Do you know what type of car he flies?”

Thankfully, Tom knew the general area where Charles lived. A quick check of the Comm Book, filtered with an area limitation, brought up only one Charles Stafford.

Tom comm’d Mary, and asked her out for a private dinner. Maybe, she would be more forthcoming with details of the problem she was having with Charles if I wasn’t there. Me, I got cleaned up for a night on the town, and had an early supper. I was parked down the street from Charles’ house a little before Tom and I thought he would get off work.

Sure enough, after about forty-five minutes, a hover car settled in his house’s landing area. A tall, arrogant, athletic looking man exited the car and went inside. Well, maybe my feelings for Mary were leading me astray about him being arrogant, but, he was tall and athletic looking.

Two hours later, Charles exited the house and got into his hover car. When he lifted off and headed toward the center of the city, I was just two cars back and below him. Most of what you see in movies is worthless. Occasionally, something like how to follow someone without being detected is useful. Charles finally set down in the landing lot of what looked like an upscale nightclub. I kept going, and a minute later I circled back and set down in the landing lot.

I was right about the place being an upscale nightclub. Inside, the temperature was regulated so the patrons wouldn’t become overheated from dancing, and the lights in the booth area were dimmed for privacy. I readily recognized it as a fancy hook-up place, so I settled on a bar stool that was three stools from Charles. Sitting closer to him would have been too obvious, since there were a lot of open stools.

Once I had given the bartender my drink order, I turned toward Charles, but kept turning so I could examine the dance floor and booth area. Of course, I planned it that way, so my movement would attract Charles’s attention. A moment later, I turned back to face the bar, and Charles again turned his head toward me.

Now that he was aware of my presence, I tried to engage the bartender by asking him a couple of questions, in a fairly loud voice. Fortunately, the bartender was too busy to talk. So, I picked up my drink, and quietly started to sip it. The drink was quite good, but expensive compared to the prices in Teal’s bars for the same thing.

It wasn’t more than two minutes later, that Charles engaged me in conversation.

“I overheard you asking about when things would become more exciting. Tonight is usually a slow night, but things do pick up a bit around nine-thirty, and my friends call me Charles.”

“Thanks, Charles. I’m Sam. I’m new in town, and I heard this was a good pick-up bar.”

“That’s true, Sam. Most of the women who frequent this nightclub are high class ladies, who are out for a bit of fun, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s what I heard. Have you lived here long?”

Charles motioned for me to join him. As I moved to the stool next to him, he said, “I was born and raised here, Sam. Except for a short time at University, I’ve lived here all my life. Where are you from, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Well, I was born on a backwater planet called Everett, but once I attended the University on Vora, I decided to not return except for a visit with my family.”

“Vora, eh! I heard that is an exciting place, much more exciting than Jebel.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know that personally for I was one of those studious students who had their attention focused solely on learning how to manage a company. Recently, my company offered me a large promotion and salary increase, if I would accept a transfer here, and I just arrived yesterday.”

“Oh, so you’re a real newbie. If this is your first night on the town, maybe I should show you around. If things don’t pick up here shortly, there is another club a short distance from here that usually has a good bit of action. Not as classy as here, but even though it is not as nice, it’s not bad either.”

“Alright, Charles. In the meantime, let me buy you a drink, and you can tell me about some of the nice places to visit here in Jebel.”

Charles had a real good tolerance for alcohol, up to a point. Beyond that point, he became a very sloppy and friendly drunk. All I did was feed him drinks and bring up a variety of topics. He dumped everything you could possibly think of about every topic I mentioned. My asking him about a wife or girlfriend really set him off.

I was drinking also, so I don’t remember most of what he said about Mary, but my recollection is, it wasn’t nice. The few comments that I do remember had to do with her being a Woman, and Women were not capable of understanding the real world problems that a Man must deal with in the corporate world.

A question about what types of problems he was referring to got me everything that Tom and I needed to know about the problems that provoked his anger toward Mary.

At some point in our conversation, Charles and I went to a second hookup club. He had accepted a ride with me when we left for the second place. That hookup place was where I had been able to get him to really talk about Mary and his professional problems. Unfortunately, the amount of alcohol I had consumed meant I didn’t remember all of the details.

By that time, I was pissed! I told him I had to visit the men’s bathroom, and headed that way. A short distance and a quick turn later and I was headed for and out the front door. I was too drunk to control my hover car, so I let the automatic pilot do the flying back to the hotel’s landing lot. Before going to bed, I put two Feel-Good pills on the nightstand. I would need them in the morning!

Tom and I were to meet in the Hotel restaurant at eight, for breakfast. The Feel-Good pills helped my hangover immensely. I was feeling a lot better without the aching head and upset stomach I had woke up with. Tom was already at a table when I made my way into the hotel’s breakfast area.

“Morning, Tom. Give me a moment to go through the buffet line, and then we can talk.”

As I sat down at the table, Tom asked, “Well, did you learn anything last night?”

“Yes, and I think it’s why he is treating Mary so poorly. Unfortunately, between the alcohol and not really understanding the things he was talking about, I only have a general idea of what his problem is at work.

“The way Charles tells it, someone in purchasing made a mistake about five years ago, and bought a very large amount of an expensive material called Transfutor that is rarely used by Merchon. Apparently, small amounts of the material are added to plastic to increase its strength without making the plastic brittle. Anyway, this material has been sitting in a warehouse taking up space that is needed for storing other materials.

“About a year ago, Charles’s company accepted a manufacturing contract to produce a large volume of some product, which I never heard of, based on their having a large supply of Transfutor in stock.

“I think Charles was grandstanding to impress his boss, but around six months ago, he sold the overstocked Transfutor to a competitor at a slight profit without going through the company’s normal disposition process. He also failed to determine whether the company had any plans for using the material. If he had followed the normal disposition process, the material would not have been disposed of because a large amount of Transfutor was needed for the contract.

“The material is difficult to obtain in bulk, and it’s going to be extremely expensive to obtain enough for the contract in a short period of time. Of course that assumes the material is available for purchase, at all. There is a late delivery penalty in the contract, and it currently looks like the company is going to be very late in delivering the product.

“Charles’s mistake is not only going to cost Merchon Manufacturing a lot of money in material acquisition and storage costs and contract penalties, but the production line scheduling also has to be rearranged. They can’t make the product during the time frame currently scheduled due to the lack of this material, so production will have to be pushed back. The other products can’t be advanced to fill the gap, because the material delivery schedule for those products can’t be moved up. That means one of the company’s production lines is out of operation for more than a month. When the company gets the material Charles sold, the company will have to work extended shifts on all of its production lines to clear a production window for the product and that means a lot of overtime pay.

“As a result of Charles’s mistake, his boss and the company’s senior management are all very angry with him. According to Charles, he is on his boss’s shit list, and there appears to be no way to get off that list. He has been told to just do his job until the company can fix all of the problems he caused, and then they will decide what to do with him.

“From what Charles said, what he did is going to be very bad for the company. Senior management doesn’t want word of what happened being leaked to the public and their stockholders. Charles thinks they are keeping him around to use as a scapegoat, in case the problem can’t be fixed. Personally, I think Charles is right, but I wouldn’t use the term scapegoat for he is the cause of the problem, not management.

Tom asked, “And if they can fix the problem?”

“Charles says there is no way to fix the problem, but they hope to minimize the impact on the company. He’s hoping they can cover it all up and if so all they will do is demote him. But ... he is also afraid they will just quietly let him go for cause with no severance pay, no benefits, no retirement, and worst of all a bad reference for future employers.”

“Hmm, it sounds like Charles is shoulder deep in shit, and sinking fast.”

“Yeah, Tom. That sums it up nicely, and personally, I don’t think it could happen to a more deserving person.

“I think he doesn’t want Mary to know how stupid he was, and that he will probably get fired because of it, and that is the reason he is treating Mary poorly. What about your conversation with Mary, Tom? Did she tell you anything further about the problem she is having with him?”

“Yeah, she did explain a little more about it.

“She said Charles started acting strangely a month or two ago. When she asked him about it, he told her he didn’t want to talk about it. When she pressed him, he got angry and told her she wouldn’t be able to understand even if he did explain it to her.

“That made her mad, and a little over two weeks ago their talks became arguments, or perhaps screaming matches would be more accurate. When they had one of these talks before going out, he would go home and she would go to bed and cry. She keeps asking him what is going on, and he tells her to forget it. Their relationship has been declining for over a month, and a couple of days ago, they had another major fight about his failure to communicate with her. Now they aren’t even talking to each other.”

“Sounds like he’s an idiot, Tom. What do you think we should do?”

“I’m thinking that it might be a good idea for you and me to monopolize Mary’s time. If she is with us constantly, Charles won’t be able to patch things up. However, from what Mary said, things are way beyond the point of simply patching up a little crack in their relationship. She sees it as a major chasm with them being on opposite sides of the gap.”

“Okay, but I meant specific things for us to do.”

“Well, yes, Sam, I do have few specifics in mind. Mary got tired of talking about Charles. To be truthful, so was I. She changed the subject to you. I think she likes you, Sam. I’m hoping that maybe you might be willing to take her out to dinner, or something, and get her mind off Charles. After all, she may not be Miss Multiverse, but she is pleasant to look at, she has a nice personality, and she can hold up her side of a conversation.”

I sat there for at least two minutes trying to figure out what to say to Tom. I wasn’t going to lie to him, and I really didn’t want to put my feelings into words.

“What’s the matter, Sam? Is taking Mary out a problem for you?”

“No, Tom, it isn’t that. I’m not sure how to say it. I do like her and I do want to take her out. I was thinking the other night about a conversation my roommate and I had while at the University.

“We were talking about women in general, and he told me that someday I would meet an average woman. At first I would accept her as just a friend, and then start asking her out to dinner. He told me that before I realized it, I would be asking her to marry me.