Chapter 47

Steve

Monday mornings are always fun. Everyone is getting started on a new week, with new energy, new ideas, and new motivation. My first task was to return a stack of non-urgent calls that had come in the previous Friday.

The first was that the St. Louis cart plant was concerned their production was not keeping up with orders. The easy solution was to ship the extra production from Florida since the local plant was working at less than sixty percent capacity. I think the St. Louis plant manager wanted to expand, but keeping local people working was important too.

Then there was the Chicago RV store and maintenance facility that was experiencing unexpectedly increased maintenance business. I asked if they could use any of the mechanics from the rebuild shops as it was looking like they might have to lay some off. Again, better to keep people working, even if in different areas.

Abe was excited that Chance and Jeff were meeting with some military contractors about supplying bodies for their utility vehicles. They were planning another demonstration out at the bombing range. Jeff was concerned about transportation and wanted me to get it scheduled.

Tiny, Abe, a couple of field techs, and a couple of sales techs had left last night for Las Vegas and Reno to begin directing how to get the two new distributors and dealerships into S&S condition. Tiny wanted me to look over some figures he had prepared. He wanted to know if I might want to open a manufacturing plant at the Las Vegas location, since they had a lot of land at that facility.

Phil and Judy wanted me to call them in Hawaii, where they had been setting up a small sales office that would market all our products, as well as the charter services. Phil had an idea he wanted to run past me. I would have to wait till around two in the afternoon since we were six hours ahead of them.

I did have a conversation with Gene who was elated that his two cars came in first and second in Sunday's race. Anyone could have heard the excitement in his voice. He wanted to rent the "Andies" again to make his cars perfect for next Sunday. Gene told me, "This time the request isn't coming from me. It's coming from the crew chief and his crew. The girls helped them so much the last time that they want to put them on permanently. The girls keep refusing, but they tell me there are others who may want to travel with us. Tell me; are there really others that are that good?"

"There are, Gene, but they are even stranger than Sandy and Mandy. I have a group of four that come as a package. They are sisters and brothers that have married and become a group, if you know what I mean. Then we have two groups of gay guys that are really good, but in one case, the two guys are a little aggressive. You'd have to have an armed guard around them most of the time. We have a very militant couple of ladies that are great mechanics, but short of people skills. You know me, Gene, I hire perfectionists and they blend in here."

Gene said, "The girls told me I should raise my own mechanics. They told me to have my guys bring on a couple of guys fresh out of tech school, and teach them race cars. They said that would serve me well in the future. They also said they could intern at your place. I guess I'll have to try that."

I was having a cup of coffee while talking to Ruth about Tiny's trip. She mentioned that her, now expanded, personnel staff had come up with some problems with some of the employees out there.

"Steve," Ruth began, "I have four people whose social security numbers are no good. These aren't the usual Latinos, but Caucasians with bad information. There are a couple of men and a couple of women of Hispanic descent that need green card help, but the four I'm talking about just don't exist. This is a major problem. Are they hiding their identity for a criminal reason? Are they a plant from another company to find out how we operate? What should I do, Steve?"

I sat back thinking about the problem. "The easiest way to handle it would be to dismiss them immediately. Even if they are key people, we don't want that sort of element around. Reporting this to local law enforcement probably isn't the smartest thing either. How about calling Wanda, give her the names of the four people and let her give the information to the FBI in Vegas. Let's do this, too. Go through the folks in Reno real quick to make sure all their numbers match. That way if some have the same problem, the Vegas office can coordinate with the Reno office."

Ruth was nodding and asked, "Is this something you should personally go out there for?"

"Hmmm, I could, there isn't that much happening here right now. I could show up and not make any waves while Tiny and Abe lead the refurbishment. Want to come? You could begin working on the four Latinos that are going to need help. This way you can better determine their value."

Ruth smiled, "Good deal. A freebie vacation to Vegas with the old man. Tiny will be happy I showed up."

I called out to the airpark to see what aircraft I could get. DeDe told me, "If you're flying it yourself without a right seat, you can have the Citation or a King Air."

"Give me the Citation, it's a little faster and I don't need a lot of room."

DeDe said, "You should look into a CJ4 or another Embraer. Both are faster, with longer range, and they are rated for single pilot. The Embraer is pretty efficient too. You'll have to do a study."

"I think Tiny and John are working on that DeDe. Surprisingly the Learjets are pretty efficient, but they do require that second pilot. We're working on getting ours approved for single pilot operation. The main thing is that we have enough aircraft and pilots for what we need right now."

DeDe laughed, "If we run out of aircraft, just about anyone around will rent us a plane. We're the only ones flying lately."

I said, "We can all thank Tiny for that. He figures costs and knows how to make everything fit to be profitable at affordable charter rates."

Kathy answered at home, so I told her what I was doing. I asked her if she would put a suitcase together for me. I told her that Ruth was already heading home and doing the same.

On the way home, I swung by Chuck's new place to see Juanita and Mercy. There must have been thirty or forty cars in the street and driveway. When I entered the front door, there were two smiling oriental ladies with cleaning materials in their hands. I asked them, "Do you know where Mercy Sharp is?"

Both bobbed their heads and one said, "Yessie, Missy Mercy is in big room by kitchen."

Walking past the formal living room and dining room, the fancy décor didn't give the place that soft of an appearance. The rooms were beautifully furnished and decorated, but too fancy for me. When I walked into the kitchen and family room, I knew where people would always congregate. This was my type of room. The kitchen was on one end, with a big bar and eight high bar chairs. Across from that was a rather large table with sixteen chairs, and then the huge family room. This was furnished with a couple of couches, big, comfortable looking chairs, tables, and lamps, but on one wall, was a huge television that had to be at least six feet wide and almost that tall.

A bunch of women were sitting around a chair grouping, looking at samples of something. I spied Mercy and went to her. Juanita saw me and stood up for a hug, then Mercy did the same. Mercy said, "The girls are picking out their personal room's bedspreads and rugs. They are really almost done decorating already."

I told Mercy about going to Las Vegas and she almost immediately frowned. "Be careful, Steve, I don't feel good about something. Is Chuck going with you?"

"No, I'm going with Ruth. Tiny and Abe are out there already, and we're going out to check on something. Is Sue around?"

Mercy said, "She's upstairs, but I think you should get Chuck to go with you."

"Oh Mercy, this is just a check it out sort of thing. I'll be fine."

Mercy smiled and asked, "Can I go with you? I want to practice going to a casino."

"Sure, you can come, Mercy. I'm not going for fun though. We'll have to make time to go to the strip."

We both went upstairs and found Sue helping direct some of the décor installers. She was with a diminutive black lady that was introduced as Tiani's mother. Sue listened to what I was going to do, but was looking directly at Mercy the whole time. She asked, "Do you want me to come too?"

"If you want to, but Ruth and I are going to check something out."

Mercy said, "I'm going with him, he'll be fine with me."

Sue nodded and pulled me down for a kiss and hug. She said, "Be careful out there, and don't get involved in something that is more than you can handle."

As I rolled my eyes, Sue snapped, "And don't roll those eyes at me. You know what I mean. Just be careful."

Mercy came with me to the house and quickly packed a suitcase. I went into the bedroom and pulled my Glock from the closet gun safe. I took both loaded magazines, thinking that Mercy had spooked me a little. I did put my clip-on belt holster and gun in my travel bag and headed to the patio.

Mercy came out and asked me if I had brought some nice clothes. When I said, "Sure, some almost new jeans," that didn't cut it. She said, "Get some of those dressier western cut pants you have, and bring a sport coat. We need you to look sharp, you know, sharp Steve Sharp."

I pulled a couple of pair of the pants she talked about off hangers and brought the sport coat that went with everything and took them with me. Mercy was going through my bag and replaced everything, putting the pants into the bag so they wouldn't wrinkle.

Ruth was ready and the three of us headed to the airpark.

The Citation was fueled up, ready to go. We were planning to stop in Amarillo, Texas, as with any headwind, the range of the Citation wasn't far enough. We could stop in Houston, but Amarillo would be faster and had cheaper fuel right now.

Mercy observed me going through the startup and takeoff, then went to the cabin to talk with Ruth. The two did bring me coffee, and when I announced we were descending for Amarillo, Mercy came up front to be with me for the landing.

While I refueled, the girls went into the operations building to use the restroom and found some sandwiches. I used the facilities too, then we were soon on the last leg to Las Vegas. I'm glad we had stopped for fuel, as we did fight a headwind almost the whole way.

Las Vegas has a continuous stream of limos that go between the airport and the city. It's only a ten to fifteen minute ride to the strip, but we needed to be on the north side of the city, so we rented a car, and with the help of the GPS, drove to the dealership.

Tiny and Abe had workmen and employees cleaning and painting. Tiny had electricians hanging additional lights, and workers on high lifts cleaning and painting the ceilings and high walls.

Abe was working with some men, tearing down an old generator. As I passed by, he said, "There is a fortune in generators and compressors sitting out back that we can rebuild. We might have to open a small rebuild shop out here."

The field sales techs were working with some girls they were training as customer sales people. They were using Phil's and Judy's techniques to begin canvassing all the old and existing customers in the area. It looked like the place was underway to become one of our shops.

Ruth had found a harried administrator that told her, "I do everything right now. I handle all the receivables, payables, personnel, payroll, and until earlier today, all of the order entry. Thank you for taking that from me. Unless I can get rid of some of these other responsibilities, I think I'm going to resign. This has become more than I can do."

Ruth assured her, "I will make sure you don't have to do everything. You might have to help with payroll and personnel, but coordinating everything that goes to accounting and handling coordination between sales and service is a big enough job in itself. Come help me with something before we get too far."

Ruth and I took the harried lady to the former owner's office and Ruth asked, "Can you get the personnel files for these four men?"

The lady left and returned with some file folders. Ruth began looking through them asking some questions, "They look like they all came here about the same time. Did they come together?"

"No, they showed up a day or so apart. We needed drivers at that time and Jess, the former owner, hired them."

Ruth said, "I see where you ran their names and social security numbers through the local police department. Do you do that with all employees?"

Mary, the admin lady said, "No, but since these were going to be driving, I wanted to know if they had a decent driving record."

"Are they out making deliveries now?" I asked that, thinking I could talk to them when they came in at night.

"Three are, but one took off today for a doctor's appointment. He should be in tomorrow if you need to see him."

"Who handles the delivery schedules?"

"That's Jorge," Mary said. "He's the one out by the rear door where the on-site mechanic's room is."

Ruth pulled her notes and said, "You know Jorge is an illegal don't you? We have to get him a green card if you think he's worth keeping."

Mary was surprised, "No way, the man has a social security card and number. How did you find out he was an illegal?"

"If you run them through the feds, they will confirm the social security number and name, as well as the current address for the person. You have three others, a guy and two women. We won't fire them, but if they are worth keeping, we will make an effort to get them legitimate. We'll sponsor them if they are of good character."

Mary said, "Jorge is very conscientious. He's here early every morning and keeps track of all of the field men and drivers. He's been doing a good job for over two years."

Mercy was with Ruth and me, just observing and jotting notes on a steno pad. When Ruth and I sent Mary back to work, Mercy told me, "She suspected Jorge, but she didn't want to lose a hard worker. She doesn't like those four men, but doesn't want to say anything. I think you should talk to Jorge."

We walked back to where Jorge had a desk with a stack of work orders on it. He was scheduling deliveries for the next day and shaking his head. I introduced myself and he said, "This is difficult today because we have someone out, and the three who are out, are taking a long time for deliveries. They should have been done by two and it's already getting close to four. They must have had bad traffic or problems with customers. If we're behind today, it'll be worse tomorrow, as it's going to be a heavy delivery day."

There were pictures of men up on Jorge's board, so I asked him, "Are any of these the three men who are slow today?"

He said, "Yeah, I should use them to throw darts at."

"Can I have these pictures?"

Jorge grinned and said, "You can, but I have good ones in the drawer. I use the picture so I remember the gringos' names. No offense meant, but these four guys drive me nuts as they are always switching around between trucks. The pictures help. I put the pictures up on the routes they are on so I know who is where."

Jorge gave me pictures of the four drivers without me asking for the fourth man's. I sent Ruth in to evaluate how we should bust up Mary's job, and I took Mercy out to the car and called information to find the FBI office. With the help of the GPS, Mercy and I quickly arrived at the Bureau office. I spent several minutes explaining what I knew and what I needed to know. The agent was blasé telling me, "We're not employment counselors. You know if you don't like someone, you should let them go."

I said, "Please, look into this, as something is wrong that four men should come to our offices about the same time and none are who they profess to be. I'm sure if I asked my friend, Chuck Johnson, he would find a way to investigate these."

"Then you should ask this Chuck Johnson, I'm not your nanny."

That pissed me off. With Mercy's hand on my arm, I used my cell and called Chuck. When he answered, I asked, "Are you still sort of the supervisor of the Bureau offices, as well as the Marshal's offices?"

"Yes, but only when needed. I don't try to do the direct supervision thing any longer. The regional agents do that now. What's up?"

In front of the agent, I explained, "I'm at the Bureau office in Las Vegas with what could be a problem with four employees here. The local agent, ah, Agent Jim Winfield, doesn't think he should be my employment office."

Chuck laughed, "What kind of discrepancy do you have?"

I said, "Ruth came up with these four that really aren't the people for the names and social security numbers they gave. She also has four in Reno with the same problem."

Chuck said, "Is the agent in front of you? If he is, put him on."

I handed my cell to agent Winfield and waited.

The agent listened for a couple of minutes and was about to say something, but the longer he listened, the darker his face became. When he handed me the phone back, he was pulling out an investigation form. Chuck told me, "I think the man will begin an investigation. I will speak to the regional agent in Reno and have him coordinate. It sounds strange to me, too. Be careful, Steve. Do you want me to come out there?"

"No, Chuck, we'll be okay, I just want to make sure of what's going on in my own places."

Chuck said, "Put Mercy on."

"How did you know she's here?"

"Just put her on."

Mercy listened and said, "I'm prepared." A minute later, she said, "He is too, but not right this minute. I will, Chuck."

She handed the phone back to me and Chuck said, "Just be careful. Listen to Mercy if she gives you a warning. Remember, I'm just a few hours away if you need me."

We gave the agent all of the information for both locations and watched him write a note and fax all of the information to his regional agent in Reno. He said he would begin investigating the men this afternoon. We exchanged cell phone numbers and we left.

Mercy said, "I'm not sure the man will really work on this problem, but the regional will. He will demand answers from the local agent."

Back at the dealership, we watched as the three drivers came in, turned their delivery records in, and left for the day. I did notice that they didn't use a time card. When I asked Mary about that she said, "Those four never will fill out a card. They just write it in every week instead of doing as I've asked."

Mercy and I walked back to Jorge and asked, "Do they leave early often?"

Jorge said, "They leave when they come in. If they stay, they are very disruptive, so it is better they leave. They won't do anything else or work with any of the other men."

"How about showing me the trucks they use. Do you have a mileage log? How about estimated distances between stops."

"They won't match if you're going to check. They must go a long way for lunch or something. They always have a lot of extra miles at the end of the day."

"How come you let them get away with that?"

"Ah, did you see them? They are big men. They told me when I asked them that it was none of my business."

"Jorge," I asked, "Can we find other delivery drivers?"

He laughed, "In this economy? Las Vegas is desperate for jobs. The unemployment out here is terrible."

I smiled, "Start looking, I'm not happy with what these men are doing."

Jorge looked worried, "You are not that big. Those men are mean. I know they have beat up one of the men when he questioned them on something."

"What did he ask them that made them mad?"

"I don't know. It's better to keep to yourself with men like that."

I motioned for Jorge to come close. "I know you are an illegal that works hard and tries hard to do a good job. Ruth is going to work getting you a legal green card. I don't approve of you being an illegal alien, but you're working for me already and you try hard to do a good job. We'll get you taken care of."

Jorge's face went through surprise, fear, apprehension, then relief, as I talked with him. He began shaking my hand continuously until I patted his hand and said, "We'll get it taken care of, Jorge. Just keep doing a good job. Let's look at those trucks real quick."

The big delivery trucks were pretty standard and had the ability to pull a trailer, compressor, or generator. I looked through the cab and the covered cargo area, but found nothing unusual. Mercy was looking with me and said, "These trucks are not very friendly feeling. They really feel evil for some reason."

I said, "Let's go to Radio Shack and pick up some GPS cell phones, or maybe we can get the FBI to loan us some tracking devices."

Back inside, I called the agent and asked him if he wanted to put a GPS tracking device on the trucks, but he said he didn't have any reason to do that yet.