Employee of the Year

Chapter 2 - The Executive Parking Space

Wednesday, June 15. The day after the murder.

That night I couldn't sleep a wink. Every time I closed my eyes I was back at the station looking Detective Kowalski in the face. I was listening to his insults and accusations and threats.

All my life I've been taking crap from guys like that in some form or another.

In the morning before Suzy woke up, I started flipping through the phone book for lawyers. And after hearing how much they run per hour, I changed my mind.

Why should I have to hire a lawyer? I thought. I haven't done any thing wrong. I haven't been charged with any crime. But in my heart I knew these weren't good reasons. The real reason was that I didn't have any money. I'd gone back into debt getting ready for the baby, thinking the Employee of the Year Award was right around the corner. Now I knew the prize money wouldn't come until this whole crime got sorted out—if it came at all.

Sometimes the best plan is to sit and think. Sometimes, no matter how much you want to look outside, the surest answers to your problems are buried somewhere in your head.

With everything I'd seen in the past year at Passion

I must know something that could lead me to Roland's killer. The award was the thing that linked us together, so that was an obvious place to start.

It was Gina Hill who first told me about Employee of the Year. If the detectives started prying into my connections with the murder victim, the logical place to start was when I first set my sights on the award. Gina turned me on to the whole idea of going after the big prize.

She was the agent in the cubicle next to me when I started at Passion. She showed me the ropes. She told me who I needed to be nice to in Procurement to get one of the new headsets so my ears wouldn't be ringing. She told me who to ask for in Computer Support when my screen froze and I couldn't bring up the next customer. She gave me words of wisdom on the company cafeteria: the cooks did Mexican just fine, but on days when the special was Chinese or Italian, it was best to stay away.

Gina was a pretty one, with smooth skin, jet-black hair, and full lips that sometimes knocked me off balance when I talked to her. I love my wife and would never cheat, but that doesn't mean I can't get tingly and tongue-tied in the presence of another woman.

Gina was different from the other girls in the call center. Even though the dress code was casual since we were hidden in cubicles, she always had an Italian blouse or a nice black suit from one of the high-end shops at the Galleria.

The other thing about Gina was she was smart. Most of the ladies on the phones never read anything other than People magazine. Gina always had a copy of Fortune lying around.

I knew she came up through the same beat-up neighborhoods and brain-dead schools that I did. She wasn't going to let that stop her. She took classes at night way over at Cal State LA. She was determined to get her degree and make something of herself.

I remember going to see her graduation ceremony when she got her BA down at the Staples Center. The mayor himself showed up and handed out diplomas. Afterward, she showed her picture on stage in cap and gown with Villaraigosa. She said the photo was her most precious possession.

Gina used her brains when she was working the phone. She learned about persuasion in a training class she took a couple years back. They taught her something called the Hierarchy of Needs, a guide to how the mind works.

The way she explained it, every person was climbing a ladder in life. The lowest rung of the ladder was the basic needs like food, clothing, and shelter. After that came safety and security. The next rungs were more advanced. They were the social needs: a sense of belonging, love, acceptance and friendship. Then a few steps farther up the ladder were the needs connected to self-esteem and accomplishment.