Chapter 5

Week 2 - Friday

I was out of my room by a little after six, and availed myself of the hotel's continental breakfast. It wasn't much, but I wasn't all that hungry. I was on the job site by a little after seven, and I found Fred Bateman in his trailer.

I introduced myself and Fred seemed really pleased to see me. "You're the first vice-president that's ever been on one of my installations," he said with a big smile.

"I take it Pete wasn't big on visiting sites," I said.

"I've worked for Belding for ten years, and I never even met Pete. I think I've seen Gene at a site twice, during that time."

"Well, you'll be seeing me a lot more often than that. The reason I'm here today though is Jim Belmont. We've been getting a lot of complaints about him, and I thought I'd check them out for myself."

"Well, I've complained to Gene several times, and to my boss. I know my boss has passed the complaints on to Gene and even to Pete, but nothing has ever come of them."

"Okay, day before yesterday, Gene tried to get hold of Belmont all day. Belmont told him yesterday morning that he had been in the frozen foods section all day."

"Bullshit. I had two men in that area all day. I made half a dozen trips into the area myself, checking on my men. Belmont was not in that area."

"Do you have any idea where he was?"

"Probably out screwing himself blind. He's been at this site for two weeks and I heard him bragging to one of the men that he's screwing four different local girls, already. He'll be here another eight weeks or so, and if he can be believed, he'll have been with eight or ten women before he leaves."

"Jesus! I know morals have changed over the years, but that doesn't seem possible."

"You know, I actually believe him. He makes each of them think he's going to be the manager of the new facility. He chats them up for weeks before he gets here, and he makes them think he's fallen in love with them before he even meets them. Then, when he does meet them, he makes them think they're the only one he's seeing. He's a real bastard."

"Does he brag about this to you?"

"No, but he does to a couple of the guys who work for me. One of the guys has been with me a lot of years, and he passes it on to me."

"When do you expect he'll get in?"

"Oh, it'll be another hour and a half or so. He usually passes through around nine o'clock. If you weren't here, he'd be gone by ten."

I had to laugh. "He may be gone by ten, anyway. If he can't come up with a better story than being in frozen foods all day, I'll fire his sorry ass."

"You know, I think I'm going to like you," Fred said with a grin.

Fred was right. Belmont came wandering in a little after nine. He asked Fred if he needed anything, then he asked me who I was.

"I'm Ed Delany," I said. "I'm the vice-president of engineering at Belding. I came out here, just to talk to you, Mr. Belmont."

"Uh, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"I wanted to talk to you about your absences from the job site. I understand you were not at the site on Wednesday and you were gone most of the day yesterday, as well. Please don't insult me by saying you were in frozen foods. Fred had men in that area all day, and no one saw you there at all."

"Well, uh... I was, uh... I was in my hotel room making some changes to the PLC software. I worked all day, both days there. It's much more comfortable working in my room because I have a nice chair and a desk to work at."

When Belmont had come in, he was carrying a notebook computer. "Is that the computer you were working on?" I asked.

"Uh, yes."

"Plug it in and turn it on for me, please."

Belmont started to comply then asked, "Why?"

"I just want you to show me what you were working on."

"Okay."

When the machine had booted up, Belmont started to start the PLC programming software, but I stopped him. "Let me see if I remember how to do this," I said.

I started the program and called up the revision history. I think Belmont knew right away that he was dead meat. From what I could see, there hadn't been any changes made to the program in the last two weeks.

"Mr. Belmont, according to this, you haven't made any changes to any of the modules in this program in the last two weeks. Do you care to comment?"

"No."

"From what I've heard, your conduct has been reprehensible. It's bad enough that you have been cheating the company. What you have done to the women you are dating is something you should be horsewhipped for."

"What I do away from the job is none of your business," Belmont said defiantly.

"Yes, but being away from the job site when you're supposed to be here, is my business. I can't do anything for the women you have duped, but I can fire your ass. I want your company credit card and ID card, NOW."

Belmont fumbled in his wallet and gave me the cards. "You will be on a flight home this afternoon, or you will have to find your own way home. You will be out of your hotel by noon, because we are calling the hotel and telling them the company will not pay for anything after noon. We will call the car rental company and tell them to report the car you have as stolen if it hasn't been turned in by 5:00 PM today."

"You bastard!" he said.

He started to pick up the notebook computer, but I stopped him.

"This computer belongs to Belding. You no longer work for Belding, so leave it alone."

"There are some personal things I need to take off of the computer."

"Just leave them. We'll have someone wipe out anything that doesn't belong there."

"But..."

"I don't want to hear any more from you. I want you off of the site, NOW."

Belmont glared at me and for a moment I thought he was going to attack me. Then he saw that Fred was on his feet and was watching the proceedings closely. He turned and stomped out of the door.

"Well, that went well," Fred said with a smile.

"Yeah, just peachy," I said. "Can you make it without an engineer on site until Monday?"

"I've made it without one for the last two weeks. Three more days will be a piece of cake."

"Okay, can I use your phone to call in? I need to make some arrangements."

Fred handed me the phone and I dialed the office. I talked to Brenda first and asked her to take care of the hotel and the rental car. Then I asked her to put me through to Gene.

"Hello, Gene. This is Ed."

"Hi, Ed. Where are you? I asked Brenda a while ago, and she said it was confidential."

"I'm in Phoenix. I just fired Jim Belmont."

"What? Now just a damned minute!"

"Gene, don't make things worse for yourself than they are. I decided I wanted to check things out personally. In the two weeks Belmont was out here, he spent less than ten hours at the site. When I confronted him about it, he said he'd been programming in his hotel room. I checked his computer, and none of the PLC files had been changed in the last two weeks."

"Well, that still doesn't give you the right to go firing my people without even telling me."

"I'm telling you now, Gene. I'm also telling you I think you've been covering for him. If you want to get through this, and keep your job, you'll do exactly as I tell you."

Gene paused for a long time. Then he said, "Yeah, go ahead."

"I want another engineer here at this site by Sunday evening. He will be able pick up the company computer with the PLC files Monday morning at 7:00 AM, from Fred. I don't care who you send, but he had better be competent. You need to tell him that he is to be physically present whenever Fred is on site."

"Okay."

"Monday morning, you and I need to sit down and have a talk. We need to figure out a way to ensure that something like this isn't going to happen again."

"Okay, Ed."

Week 2 - Saturday

The trip home seemed longer than the trip out had. I was mentally exhausted when I finally got home, so I collapsed early.

Week 3 - Monday

Gene stuck his head in my office before I had even managed to sit down.

"I have a meeting with Jim Shear in a few minutes. We'll talk after that," I said.

Gene nodded and took off. When Brenda came in, I said, "Let's get some coffee."

When we were seated at my table, I asked, "You didn't have any problem cutting off Belmont's hotel or rental car, did you?"

"No. Belmont must have called Gene, because he came around, bitching about it though. He said Belmont couldn't get a flight until the next day, and was going to have to pay for a hotel."

"He's lucky I didn't cancel his ticket," I laughed. "Belmont's a real piece of work."

My meeting with Shear started out better than my meeting with Gene at least. Brenda and I started going over his personnel with him and since he had a lot fewer people than there were in Mechanical or Controls, it went a lot quicker.

"Have you been looking for new people?" I asked.

"I've put out some feelers, but I haven't gotten any response yet. I did want to talk with you about Missy Gerard though."

"Okay. How's she working out?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I don't think Missy is going to work out for us."

"What seems to be the problem?"

"Well, she is a personable young woman, but she's a little too pushy for our department."

"For example?"

"Well, I started her off looking at our service manuals and some of the schematics of some of our proprietary hardware. She immediately wanted to start making changes to things."

"What kind of changes?"

"Well, for one thing, we have a relay board we've been using for ten years. It's nothing fancy, but it does the job it was designed for. Missy thinks we should redo it using solid-state relays."

"Okay, Jim. What is your objection to that?"

"Well, as I said, it does the job it was designed for. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. For another thing, solid-state relays are more expensive than mechanical relays."

"Okay, Jim. I know solid-state devices are more expensive, but they last about ten times as long. They're also just about as easy to replace as the mechanical ones. Did Missy give you a reason she thought it should be redesigned? Has she been offensive in some way about this?"

"She hasn't really been offensive. She says she talked to purchasing and they say the relay we currently use is being discontinued. There is another relay we could use if the one we use now is discontinued, but she just won't let it die. She's the same way about this fiberoptic crap. I told her there was no way we were going to go to that, but she won't let that drop either."

I sighed. "Jim, where I worked before, I proposed going to fiberoptic devices. I worked for over a year before I finally convinced my boss that fiberoptics was the way to go. Now I'm in a position where I can dictate where we go. I hope I don't have to resort to that. Why don't you give a listen to what Missy has to say? Have her prepare a justification for their use, and then the two of us can go over it."

Jim sneered, and then he looked me directly in the eye and said, "I should have known you'd take Missy's side in this."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked as calmly as I could manage.

"Well, everyone has seen you having lunch with her. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on between the two of you."

I was angry, but I could see Brenda was close to a boil. "Just what do you think might be going on between the two of us?" I asked.

"Well... You know... She's your girlfriend."

"Jim, I'm trying very hard to control my temper here. What I do with my life and with whom, is none of your business. For your information, Missy is not my girlfriend. Even if she was, it wouldn't be any of your business. I have a folder that has to be three inches thick with the information I gathered when I was trying to prove to my boss that fiberoptics are the way to go. I'd show it to you, but I don't have to justify myself to you. I'd suggest you leave my office right now. If I personally hear, or if I'm told by others that they've heard you say anything derogatory about me or Missy Gerard, you'll be fired so quickly you won't know what's happened to you."