Employee of the Year

Chapter 10 - Office Romance

Jaime came by. It was the first time that I’d seen since the Cultural Outreach blowup.

“I have to thank you,” Jaime whispered.

“For what?”

“You really helped me out with my son. The S Gang leaves him alone now.”

“It was nothing. Just make sure Flytrap gets his money or his free gardening or whatever you negotiated with him.” I saw no need to tell Jaime that I’d agreed to make a monthly payment out of my own pocket as well. I would take care of my end. It was a good investment, paying off Flytrap and the S Gang to stay away from Hernando. Jaime and I would always get another chance to do more work and make more money. Hernando would never get a second chance to grow up and make the right choices about becoming a man.

“It’s not just what you did for my son,” Jaime continued. “It’s the way you kept quiet about what happened here at work.” He was talking about when he attacked Mauricio. I knew that Jaime was the one who told Father Javier about Mauricio’s secret past. “If the company found out I was involved in what happened…”

“They are not going to find out. You don’t have to worry about that. I know how to keep things quiet when I have to.”

“You’re the only one in this company that I trust,” Jaime said. “That’s why I have to tell you something I saw something last night. I don’t think I was supposed to see it.”

I let him continue. If he was this eager to confide, then I wasn’t going to stop him.

“Last night my team, we finished cleaning the call center and went up to the sixth floor. Then I realized that I forgot one of the bottles of soap, so I came back down here. A man was in your boss’s office.”

“A guy in Lenny’s office? What was he doing? Did he steal something?”

“I don’t think so. He just went in and took a photo off the wall, the one where your boss dressed for sports. Then he just put it back on the wall.”

“That’s it?”

“I guess so.”

“What did this man look like?”

Jaime frowned. “He was kind of fat and he had blonde, wavy hair. He looked like a one of those guys I see at the beach when I take my family out to Venice, the kind of guy who used to surf but drank too much beer and now he’s too big to stand up on the board.”

Only one man I knew fit that description: Sampson, the guard who gave me such a hard time when I had my car in Executive Parking. Sampson was part of Charlie Park’s security team.

“What do you think it means?” Jaime asked.

“I’m not sure. But if it means what I think it does, we’re going to stay out of it.”

“OK. I just thought you should know.”

“I’m glad you told me. But we’re not going to get involved, Jaime. Let’s pretend you didn’t see anything and that we never had this conversation.”

“OK.”

My next training session with Teresa was the following afternoon. I was scheduled to go over some of the computer procedures with her and also see if she needed advice with the calls. Her machine had a bunch of problems with the software installation, and this was slowing her down. Once again Roland parked his chair right on the edge of her cubicle. I asked him if I could speak with him alone.

“Listen,” I whispered when I had him in the break room. “Lenny doesn’t want you over there working with her. He gave you a separate assignment.”