Chapter 16: A Call From The Kalinin

I was up in the Sales Centre watching another auction. Some of the women that had taken longer in orientation were now ready for market. Brian was convinced that prices were starting to rise. I still wasn't convinced. I looked around the room; it didn't look like there were too many buyers to me.

I saw that the first lot onto the platform was to be Julia. I'd seen her, after she'd got over the punishments for her escape attempt, being trained to play her part in the auction. Brian was evidently keen to show that he could drive up the prices by getting the girls to pitch themselves better. This time he'd set up a big video projection screen at the back of the stage.

I watched from the side of the platform as she came on stage, teetering in high heels, bottom swaying in a very short tight skirt and her ample tits straining to burst out of a crisply starched white blouse. With a brown manila folder in her hand, her long hair pulled tight back from her face into a pony tail and a pair of glasses perched on her nose she looked the archetypal secretary.

A murmur ran around the buyers. It was as much, I thought, surprise at the fact that, while she wore the collar that marked her out as sale stock, she was neither shackled nor gagged. I guess it could have been appreciation.

"Welcome lot number 06/086," Brian said in an oily tone. "I understand that you wish to apply for the job of personal secretary to one of our audience today. I see that you've brought you application folder."

"That's right, Sir," Julia responded. "I'd make a very good, very personal, secretary."

"Well, please take a seat. And face the camera, won't you? I'd like everyone to be able to see exactly what you have to offer."

Julia sat herself down on a high stool in the centre of the stage. The screen flickered into life and her face was projected up on it. The image was six feet high or more, you could almost see the individual grains of mascara on her eye lashes as she batted them at the camera. She crossed her legs and then gave a giggle as she tugged ineffectually at the hem of her skirt in an attempt to keep it some sort of order. I could see some of the buyers in the audience leaning forward with interest.

"Now," said Brian, beginning what was evidently a pre-rehearsed interview, "I'm sure you like to tell us about your capabilities. Your office skills and so forth. What are you like behind a desk?"

"I'm very efficient, Sir, always happy to put in long hours and make sure my boss is happy," she smiled directly at the camera.

"And how about on top of one?"

Julia appeared embarrassed, "Well Sir, I am sure that I have never had any complaints in that direction either."

"How about your typing skills?"

"I'm quite proficient."

"And you find you can manage to see the key board underneath those tits of yours?"

"Really, Sir. I'm not sure that's the sort of question I anticipated at this interview." Her prim response was greeted with a quiet ripple of laughter form the audience.

"You understand I must have the answers to these questions though," Brian said sternly. "Now let's talk about time management. Very important for a secretary you'll agree?"

"Yes, of course."

"Well perhaps you'd tell me how much of your working week you routinely spend fucking with your boss."

"Goodness. What sort of question is that?" Jules appeared to become flustered. She fanned herself with her application form. She licked her lips as the camera zooms in on her mouth and reached behind her head to free her hair from its pony tail. She shook it loose. A vaguely appreciative grunt could be heard from the audience. I had the impression that while they were amused by the display, some of them felt it was all going on a bit too long. Julia looked up at the camera and gave it a knowing smile. "Well," she said, "I've never refused if my boss asked me to take a few things down."

Brian continued with his patter. "I see," he said. "And the quality of your work?"

Well," Julia said, "of course I make mistakes the same as anyone else. But I've always felt that the best policy is to make a clean breast of it." With that she quickly unbuttoned her blouse and her bra and took both of them off, continuing to sit perched on the stool with her tits naked for the whole audience to see. There were some grunts of approval and a few coughs. The bidders were clearly appreciative but somehow it all seemed to have fallen a bit flat, though you could hardly say that for Julia's chest.

"There you are gentlemen," Brian concluded. "Let's hear your bids for this piece. Can I suggest $80,000?" The room fell quiet. No one responded. "$70,000 then? $60?"

"40," came a call from one side of the room.

"45," responded another. The room was quiet again.

"Surely we can do better than that?" Brian chided. "Excellent secretarial skills and other useful attributes as you've heard. Any more? Is that really all?" He looked almost irritated with the bidders sitting in the hall. I could see that they didn't like that. "Very well then. At $45,000 — it's you sir, in the corner. No more? At $45,000 then. For the final time. $45,000 in the room. Sold!" He brought his gavel down with an abrupt tap.

Jules looked disappointed as two guards came on to remove her from the platform. Brian did nothing to hide his sense that she hadn't reached her potential price. Julia looked upset and confused as she was hustled from the stage. The audience simply returned to studying their sales catalogues. "Funny idea, that," I overheard one of them saying to a colleague. "I mean quite amusing and all but it didn't seem to have much to do with why we are all here."

Immediately after Julia came Caroline, the girl I had seen being abducted on video when I'd first visited the Prep Centre. "Lot number 05/209," called Brian to the audience. He seemed to sense their impatience and was now trying move things ahead. "I have several commission bids for this lot..." I looked at the catalogue. Sarah wasn't on the list. Brian had been adamant that she'd have to be fully prepped before he'd even thing of including her. I think Freddie thought he was being a bit ungrateful given that he'd just been trying to help him out. I wasn't bothered; it just gave me a bit more time to think of an excuse to hang on to her for Harry.

All Spice had been through Orientation swiftly. The Kalinin had asked us to "leave the rough edges on, that way my son will learn the quicker what it is to manage his wives". Rick had shipped them up to the Kalinin after only five days. A week later I picked up a call from the Kalinin on my mobile. "Mr Lawrence," he said. "I wanted to tell you how pleased I was with the merchandise that you supplied recently. It certainly conforms to my expectations."

I made some remark about being pleased to have been able to help and hoping that his son was pleased. The Kalinin enthused some more and then went on, "I think I mentioned that I had some other business that I thought you might be able to help me with. I was wondering if you could stop by at a convenient point. Give my PA a call, Clegg's got her number."

I called Clegg. "I thought you'd like to know the Kalinin of Kushtia wants to talk about some further acquisitions."

"Good," said Clegg, briskly. "Maybe your ideas are working out." He gave me the number I wanted. "Those five singers were a good piece of work," he said. "The snatch squad said it all went very smoothly."

"Well, the Kalinin says he is pleased anyway."

"Yes, he called me. His little lad is happy as a pig in shit and the Kalinin reckons he'll be so busy with the five of them that he won't have time for some of his other, more expensive, hobbies. Oh, by the way," I knew now that these throw away lines from Clegg were usually anything but, "how's the video coming on?"

'The video' was intended to give Clegg's clients a briefing on our new direction. "We start scripting next week."

"So, not actually started yet?"

"Well sort of. We know who the script writer will be at least. In fact I'm just going over to sort out a meeting with her now. Just to make sure that she gets her mind around the idea of working for us."

"Ah," said Clegg, perceptively. "Not actually a willing participant."

"Not entirely, no. Well, not at all." I said, thinking of the pick up we had planned.

"Good, good. I can't stand the idea of paying writers. Sounds like you're on the right track. Keep me up to date, won't you?"

"Yeah, sure," I said. Then remembering I'd agreed to try to keep Sarah out of the auction catalogue, I thought I'd broach the subject with Clegg. "Oh, one other thing, I need a red head for the video, I think. Can I use the one you saw in Harry's office? It would just save picking up another one. I don't want to increase stock for the sake of it."

"No, fair enough," said Clegg. "It might be worth hanging on to her anyway if the Kalinin's son has a taste for that sort of thing and Brian's not getting such good prices at the moment. You'd better have her earning her keep, though. She might as well go back to Harry's office, if he still needs someone."

"Fine," I said. Harry would be happy that we wouldn't have to let Sarah go for a while at least.

I called the Kalinin from the cab as I headed up to Euston for the train north and the meeting with our script writer. The Kalinin's PA suggested we got together on the Friday. That was fine by me. She gave me a location in North Wales. For the time being I had other things to do, I had a writer to recruit.

From one of the organisation's white vans, I watched the video feed from the flat. It was great the way that the snatch teams could get surveillance stuff in place now. I could tell Rachel Kernow was thrilled. For the first time in her life, she was thinking, there was a chance that she would get some recognition for what she did. Actually she probably felt it was really recognition just to be nominated. "Best TV or Video Script by a New Author"; even being on the list was a step in the right direction. And you could see that she really thought she had a chance of winning and even if she seemed determined to have a fantastic evening.