Chapter 4

Sarah Perkins was on the phone, "Don't even think of going over there Friday. You've cut the cord, moved out, and are living alone. It might be some kind of setup. Is your wife usually that friendly?"

"No, I thought the note was a little strange too."

Sarah asked, "You didn't give her your telephone number or tell her where you live, did you?"

"No to both, Ma'am. You said that I should stay out of sight and communication."

"Good boy, find some old women to ravish and have a good time. Just stay away from her or that guy."

"I'll do that. I guess I should keep this phone with me."

Sarah said, "Probably, but if it doesn't have voicemail, I'll just keep trying. No reason to be a slave to the thing. Just make sure you check in with me every day for a while. I want to hear from you to know you're all right."

"Thanks, Sarah, I have a line on a job, so I might be able to pay you."

"I like the way you think, Mark, but you can't afford me. Besides, I'm getting a kick out of working your case against a conniving female. Talk to me tomorrow afternoon. See ya."

I was sitting there thinking whether I had left any trace of where I had gone. I thought of the newspaper and worried whether I had put it away and walked over to the Bronco and saw the classified section folded up on the passenger seat. I was fine. My Yahoo profile didn't have an address. I should just go get a P.O. Box. I might do that.

After a shower and decently dressed again, I drove over to the golf cart plant. I went to the service desk and asked, "Are you folks looking for someone to work on warranty golf carts?"

The lady behind the counter looked at me over her reading glasses and said, "Who's asking?"

"My name is Mark Robins. I heard earlier that you might need someone."

"Where did you hear that?"

"I'm not trying to name drop, but it was at Steve Sharp's place."

The lady said, "I saw you on the patio for lunch. You were helping some old folks fix their cars, right?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Do I look like a Ma'am?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Christ, my image is going to pot." She stood up, and shit, she was tall. She stuck out her hand and said, "I'm Crystal, I'm the overseer of these businesses back here today. Somebody else will be here next week. I'm moving to Hawaii with my husband."

"I'm sorry to hear you're leaving S&S."

"Who said I'm leaving S&S. We're going to start a new company over there. We're opening an airport, maintenance facility, charter service and pilot training facility." The big tall lady said this happily.

"Well, good luck. Do you have a place for me?"

"Steve said I should interview you for my job. He said we might have a place for you in the R&D shop too, but right now, today, he said that you should go back to that work bench over there and fix those two golf carts. The write-ups are on the clipboards on the seats. Fix 'em and we'll talk. I'll be here until the guy that works the service desk gets back from lunch. He had to go to the dentist and everybody is busy. Go fix those two carts."

I smiled at the directness of the big lady. She said her name was Crystal. Well, she made everything she wanted you to do crystal clear. I chuckled at my own mental joke.

The first write up was for an intermittent starter. I pulled the dash loose and checked all of the contacts then pulled the engine cover and checked the wires from the battery and to the starter. A terminal was loose so I tightened it and found the nut was stripped so the bolt wouldn't seat. I pulled off the bolt and nut and hunted on the bench for a matching set. I found a set in a bin and put it on. I used some Loctite to keep it tight and closed up everything. Since this was a warranty job, I found some cleaning equipment and cleaned the cart up quickly.

The next cart said the manual shifting was difficult. I played with the gearshift lever and thought it might be loose. Getting at the linkage was difficult. I pulled up the rubber floor mat and unscrewed the access panel. Ray Charles could have found this problem, another loose nut. This was the exact same size as the one that failed on the other cart. I didn't even try it. I found another set, tested the bolt and nut, and put it on with some Loctite. After screwing everything back together, I took the cart for a little spin around the yard then back into the shop. It worked fine now. I cleaned up the cart, filled out the worksheets on both forms, and took both bolt and nut sets up to the big lady who was still there.

I handed her the work orders and said, "You had a common problem. On both carts, you had a bolt and nut set fail. You're getting some bad hardware. Both nuts are stripped out, so that means that the metal isn't tempered right or the threads are too shallow. You would have to see the specs and check them with some instruments to know what the problem really is. Anyway, you might be able to live with the problem if you add some Loctite during manufacture on all of these sets. That should stop them from vibrating loose."

Crystal looked at me real hard, then at the two sets. She walked over to the carts and looked at them. She asked me, "Did you see the sign over the door?"

I looked at it and it said, "Is it perfect?" I said, "No, Ma'am, I missed it."

"Cut the Ma'am crap, will ya? You did a good job. Those signs are how Steve Sharp expects everyone to work and how he expects his products to be. Go back to manufacturing and find where these two items are and pull a hundred each. I'll call the engineer and get his specs, and the buyer to see where they came from. Go."

I didn't have anything else to do so I went into the manufacturing area and walked around to a parts area where there were bins of nuts and bolts. There was an exploded view of the basic cart with arrows pointing at the various nuts and bolts. I looked at the linkage set and got the two numbers then went to the correct bins. I used two carry around parts bins and counted out a hundred of the bolts and a hundred of the nuts. I carried them back to the big girl who was on the phone.

When she got off the phone, she handed me some sheets of paper. "These are the spec sheets for the nut and the bolt. Take these sheets and the hardware over to the R&D shop. Ask for Dennis to help you. Analyze these and report what you find. Oh yeah, this is going to take more than today. You'll make engineer wages while you're working. Go do it."

I really like that babe. I'll bet she gets a lot done.

As I was walking out she said, "Take that cart by the door. That's mine. You can use it while you're on this project. If you stick, I'll get you one of your own."

I drove slowly over to the R&D center and parked where other carts were parked. Inside, I asked for Dennis and was introduced to a young man in a white coat. I explained the problem and what Crystal needed. He groaned and said, "This is a big job. It looks like a hundred each right?"

I nodded.

He pointed at a rack of white coats and said, "Put a coat and some gloves on. We'll do this right. We'll have to analyze the steel. Everything over there is supposed to be eighteen percent stainless for durability. These don't look it, but let's melt it and find out."

"Here, let's begin by measuring the threads on this bolt and then the nut we're going to melt. Use this instrument. I'll show you how to do it as you'll have to do a hundred of them. Then I'll show you how to do the nuts. See these little sheets, write your findings of each nut and bolt and put the item on the sheet of paper. The QC people will come and interpret the data."

We worked steadily until five and Dennis said. "The bell's ringing. Come on, time to go. If you have your car over at the plant, take whatever cart back and take your car home. I'll follow you and bring you back for your cart. Crystal likes anyone working on a cart project to be riding around in one. Let's go, we need to hurry so we can go get a beer and I can get home to my lady."

We buzzed over to the cart plant, where I picked up my Bronco and drove home, with Dennis following me. As soon as I parked, I got in his cart, going back to the plant. I drove the cart with "Crystal" painted on the overhead canopy back to the big house with the patio.

I was staggered by the quantity of people milling around on the patio. Martin had a couple of guys out in the yard between the patio and his trailer playing horseshoes. This was amazing. There were people and kids everywhere. Dennis said, "Come on in, I'm gonna have a beer then go meet Marie at home. I'll see you in the morning. Tell Crystal we're better than halfway through. We're making good time."

I walked into the patio area and was again surprised that there was air conditioning in the screened in area. I saw Steve and Martin up at the bar, so I went up there and said hi. Steve showed me where the frosty mugs were and said, "Grab a mug and pour a beer. You'll be rated on the head."

A big tall guy said, "We try for about a half to a three quarter inch head that mounds over the top of the mug."

Steve said, "Tiny, this is Mark Robins, a new park resident. Mark, Tiny, the CFO of all of S&S. The guy next to him is Henry, second to Tiny and also my brother. That's his wife, Nancy, over there talking to my sister, Susan. Oh, you'll meet them all in time. Don't be bashful and stay for dinner, it's always a great feast."

I talked to a bunch of different people about all kinds of things. Crystal came up and asked how I was doing on the project. I told her Dennis said we were about half done. Crystal poured herself another beer and got Steve's attention, who was next to me. She said, "Mark did a couple of warranty projects and found a problem with a nut and bolt set. I've got Dennis and him doing an analysis of the product to see if they are to spec. You should have seen his two warranty carts. When he was done, I watched him clean them up so they looked like new. He did all that and didn't even see our signs yet."

Steve slapped my back and said, "That's great, Mark. We do always try to do our best. Since Crystal's leaving, I don't want any fall off in quality. Perhaps you're the guy to follow her."

I said honestly, "I don't have the knowledge to lead all of the different venues she works with. It would take me years to learn all that. The guy that I saw working all over today was that guy; I think his name is Kevin, standing over there next to your sister, Susan."

Steve smiled and said, "That's very astute. I agree with you, but we needed someone to compare with and really don't have a lot of strong leader prospects in this area right now. We have a bunch of great workers, just not enough leaders."

Crystal said, "Mark is going to be a good man, but he'll have to decide whether he wants to work full time or not. He might be another geek for the R&D group. He's right about Kevin, Steve. It's just like I told you before when you came up with the idea of sending Bear and me to Hawaii. The man for the job is under our noses. I think the parts manager for the three stores is the guy to take Kevin's place and the mechanic we hired last year, Frank, is the guy to move up to parts manager. You see, there are leaders out there." She turned back to me and said, "What's it gonna be, Mark, want to get into R&D of the truck and cart business or putter around in your garden?"

Steve laughed, "She never has minced words, Mark."

"I gathered that today when she never asked me anything, she just kept saying go do it. I like that in a person."

A smiling Crystal said, "Glad you didn't say you liked that in a babe, or I'd have to go get my whip."

Steve and I laughed and I said, "How about I finish this project, wander around the park and fix all the old folks' cars that need fixing, then play with a few ideas in the R&D center? I can do some part time stuff for whoever needs the help to earn a couple hundred a week to supplement my Social Security. If you guys would allow me that kind of freedom while I'm handling some personal stuff, I would be in your debt."

Crystal said, "Tell you what, come by the cart shop every day or every other day and take care of some of the warranty stuff that's dropped off. That's worth a lot to the field guys so they don't have to work on them in the evenings or the weekends. You can go with the repair trucks when we go on site for a big deal repair promotion. They all have a lot of fun on those gigs and I'm sure you'd love it. That should earn you more than enough to keep you going."

"What do you say, Mark? Do you want to be a part of S&S?" Steve asked, while taking my mug for a refill. "We're a pretty neat group to be around."

"Sounds like what I'm looking for. Thank you, both of you."

When supper was served, I was sitting next to Martin and Glenda, and across from a guy named Abe, and his wife, Alice. Abe was some kind of mechanical genius who had been important when the company started out, and had remained important even though he was well past retirement age. As we ate, Martin was telling Abe that I had repaired a couple of cars for the older residents. Abe said, "If you have a minute, could you look at my pickup. It's a Ford with the small V-8. Every time I stop for a stop sign, when I start out, the truck chokes and stutters, then takes off. I've checked everything I can. I used to think I was a decent mechanic, but this has me baffled."

"If you checked all the obvious, it can only be a couple of things; a stuck PCV valve, a cracked distributor cap or one with a high lobe, a fuel filter, or a vacuum hose going to the automatic transmission. Those are cheap fixes, but each one of those can cause you a lot of petty grief."