In The Company of Deceit

Chapter 3 - Sob Stories

Mickey Wireton had run a keen eye over the woman that stayed outside the diner at their last stop, thinking he might attempt an introduction at the dinner stop. The light brown hair tied back with loose strands around the face gave her a warm, sexy appearance, the kind that turned Mickey on. As well, she had a body that held its own against his fantasies.

He particularly liked women that wore the loose skirts, and tops that drifted off one shoulder; maybe when they stopped for their next meal. He tipped his hat up and looked out at the night sky, figuring there was no point just staring at his own reflection. He lowered his Stetson again and closed his eyes; Mickey immediately saw the unwelcome images that had driven him to take the first bus he could get from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

The two men had exited the car and come up to him, one on each side. Mickey stood with his back to the building wall, his hands partially raised in supplication. They told him to get into the car and he began to argue, claiming he hadn't done anything wrong and he was just a small nothing in their business.

They didn't ask again and hustled him forcefully into the back seat, slamming the door and driving off. Mickey huddled in the back, aware that these men weren't open to excuses or arguments; he was going to get a lesson... or worse. The whole thing had been a series of stupid moves and mistakes from the start.

Hooking up with Doreen and her pot head boyfriend, for what she vowed was a cakewalk that actually turned into a disaster, was his first error. The second was not just walking away when things went south, and last letting himself get caught by the very people they messed with. It had only been a matter of time.

Doreen worked for a pimp named High Hat, a mean, evil looking little black man that wore yellow gold jewellery on every finger, wrists and around his neck. She came up with the grand scheme to have her zonked out boyfriend steer johns to her room and then Mickey would barge in and threaten the hell out of them, clean them out and they would split the takes.

Not telling High Hat that she was doing all this on the side, led to a very nasty meeting, when one of the johns happened to be a High Hat employee checking up on Doreen's falling income. She finished her career with a scar that ran around her cheeks and chin like some gross smile. Her boyfriend had his tank filled with so much drug that his head exploded and Mickey hit the bricks at Olympic speed... with the money.

The car turned into the warehouse area near the shipyards and Mickey saw his future in wide screen 3-D unless he acted. As the car slowed to take another turn he kicked open the door and rolled out onto the pavement, coming to his feet in a dead run.

The bus hit a pothole with a jarring thud, and Mickey's eyes popped open, erasing the images in his head. He sat up and stared at his face in the window, the expression of fear remaining. He cursed silently and resettled himself by mentally counting the money sitting in the backpack over his head.

Virginia Stahl finally closed her laptop and set it on the seat next to her shoes, then lay back against the headrest with an unsatisfied sigh. Nothing seemed to work the way it was supposed to any more. The agency had stopped calling in the models because of the designer's tantrums over tardy suppliers, and all the travel and booking arrangements she had been working on had to be put on hold or cancelled.

Nobody appreciated what she had to do to keep contacts amenable to the special requirements she was asked to provide, it was a thankless position. It had seemed the perfect transition from her own career as a model when she found she was no longer on the A list of the sought after. Over her years in the business she had cultivated many friends in the travel and hospitality industries and turning from model to facilitator was a smart move.

Success came quickly, and she soon learned that she could make more money, have more time for her own interests, and attract a more discerning class of admirers. Not quite at the top of her game but close, she brooded, over this silly tantrum in the middle of one of the biggest shows of the year. If it had to be rescheduled she might as well throw in the towel; her contacts had already set their own schedules for delivery.

She glanced out the window seeing only the reflected interior of the bus and thought, how appropriate. Everything had turned back on her. The enraging incident of her Mercedes engine bursting into flame and not being able to get hold of her service people, was topped only by the fact that she was stranded at a filthy roadside service station that had never even seen her car model let alone be able to offer assistance.

The best they could do was to put out a sign asking the next bus to stop, and she could pay her fare to wherever it was passing. A bus! She sucked her teeth and considered the mischievous elves that had put her in such a position. The bus hit a pothole and her head bounced up slightly. She could see the young man in the Stetson ahead of her sit up and stare at the window, wondering if his world was as out of whack as her own.

The pothole jarred the seat that Benjamin Hagen occupied, and he dropped his pen into the aisle. Cursing softly, he set aside his briefcase and papers and leaned way out, stretching his fingers until he grasped the pen and then struggled to regain his balance. He gathered the papers again and jogged them on the lid of the case.

His eye fell on the paragraph that he had written, and he stared without comprehension at the words. In his mind he rehashed his last seven years of loyal service to the company he was employed with, assuming that service would be rewarded come bonus time, only to find he had been displaced by a young, smirking snot that couldn't sell drugs to a junky.

He had been reassigned to an area around the old Mormon Trail that needed his product line like the residents needed a Gideon Bible. To cap it all off, after only six months in the new area, he received notice that due to insufficient sales the company was considering closing that district and his services would no longer be required.

They didn't even have the decency to call him in and do it face to face, and they had the gall to tell him to ship his samples back as soon as the official written notice was received, stating they would deduct the shipping costs from the final pay cheque to be deposited in his account.

He blinked and reread the paragraph he'd written telling Empire Sales and all their management, shareholders, employees and their spouses or partners, exactly what they could do with their final pay cheque, and presumed shipping costs. Benjamin had used, sold and given away the tea boxes until there were none left, and he was happy to inform the company of that fact.

As a parting shot he also informed them that whichever of their team was so stupid, as to expect sales of tea in Mormon country, should be publicly horsewhipped by the cheated shareholders. Now, would he have the guts to send it? He closed the briefcase and shoved it aside, facing forward with a trembling lip.

Glancing at the woman across the aisle, he let his mind indulge a brief fantasy to assuage his crippled ego.