Luck of the Draw

Chapter 39 - Juggling Plates

It had taken Carly all afternoon to drum up the courage to call Sally, and she made Mickey stand beside her at the telephone for moral support.

"I'm really sorry, Miss Hundwinter, I've tried and tried but nothing seems to work properly. It's too big a scope for one spice combination."

"First of all, Carly, it's Sally when you're talking to me. We're friends beyond this business arrangement. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Right, now I might just have the very thing... or should I say, person... to help with your dilemma. I'm with a very obliging and eager gentleman at the moment named Richard Korvak, who happens to be a very competent biological and chemical engineer. Give me a few minutes and I'll call you back. I have to explain our requirements to Richard."

Mickey watched her hang up. "What did she say?"

"She's going to call back. She has some chemist or something with her, I was too nervous to pay attention. She says he might be able to help."

"There you go. A chemist might just be the ticket."

Moments later the phone rang and Carly answered, listening without speaking. She hung up and blew out a breath.

"What?"

"This Richard guy is coming over tonight to talk with me and see what I've managed up to now."

"So we have until tonight then."

"For what?"

His eyebrows wiggled and he ducked a punch in the arm.

!!!!!

Richard felt drained and sucked dry as he lay on the satin sheets in Sally's love cave. His arrival and introduction was a blur of images of her greeting him in her Japanese kimono. A hasty assembly in a massive glass atrium with a tray of drinks and munchies, as she described them, and a lightening, verbal tour of her call from Dwarf, which led to her offer of accommodation for services to be determined at a later date.

Sally found the whole concept of becoming the haven for escaping NaturGro personnel more than amusing; she saw a huge advantage for her own ambitions. When she told him about her association with Malcolm and Barklay and what her plans were for the club, Richard felt the ground shifting beneath his feet, and his head rang with the cacophony of impossibly confusing information.

Barely recovering from what followed, he was now reeling from his further conscription into a seasoning project she described among a flurry of silken sheets and demanding acrobatics.

"You'll like Carly. She's a very bright young lady with a natural ability when it comes to the spice business. I'm more than confident that the two of you should be able to come up with what we are trying to achieve."

Richard gasped a breath and tried sitting up. "I'm not sure how all this is working... I'm not quite sure of anything..." His dazed expression sat on his face like a slapstick cream pie.

"Dickie, it's simple. I'm hiring you as my personal chemist to assist another person whom I've employed. You will receive a generous salary and can stay here until arrangements can be made at the hotel."

"Here?" He croaked.

"Of course. All my employees get the full Sally Hundwinter hospitality."

"God help them." He sank down under the sheet.

"You start tonight, Dickie, so better get your list of things you'll need ready. And if you look in the closet in the room I gave you, you should find something suitable to wear until we can get you to the store."