Taking Stock Read online

  C. J. W e s t

  Taking Stock

  22 West Books, Sheldonville, MA

  www.22wb.com

  © Copyright 2007, CJ West

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to the following address: Permissions, 22 West Books, P.O. Box 155, Sheldonville, MA 02070-0155

  The following is a work of fiction. The characters and events are of the author’s creation and used fictitiously. This book in no way represents real people living or dead.

  Cover photo and design by Sarah M. Carroll

  Author photo by Gloria West

  ISBN10: 0-9767788-1-5

  ISBN13: 978-0-9767788-1-3

  Other Books by C.J. West

  The Randy Black Series

  Sin & Vengeance October 2005*

  A Demon Awaits November 2008

  Gretchen Greene March 2010

  Standalone

  The End of Marking Time Late 2010

  * Brad Foster meets Charlie Marston, the hero of Sin and Vengeance, mid-way through this book.

  Acknowledgements

  As I write novels I am forever grateful for the opportunity to research so many facets of life in this world. It is exceedingly interesting to learn about different professions, cultures, and life situations and I am greatly indebted to those who spend so much time sharing their life experience with me.

  Special thanks to George Devin a seasoned internal auditor and audit manager for his help with Herman, Sarah, and Stan. He helped me understand their profession and how the personalities of real-life auditors relate to their successes and failures.

  Thanks to Monique Houde, author of Blinded by Love, for her help understanding the ramifications of domestic abuse and how it impacts the lives of people real and fictional. Erica shares traits with many successful women as she strives too hard to become all that her mother was not.

  Thank you to my pre-release readers Paul Babin, Jady Bernier, and Jay Brooks. My utmost thanks to my wife Gloria who still manages to get excited about my work somehow.

  Dedicated In Loving Memory to:

  Edgar L. Martin, Sr. 1921 – 2006

  Mildred E. Martin 1922 – 2007

  Chapter One

  A single monitor glowed among the racks of black cabinets abuzz with the stirring of three hundred tiny electric fans. The server farm was hard at work crunching the day’s results down into thousands of reports for the investment managers to digest the next morning. The people who attended these machines and the $44 billion they guarded had long gone home. The constant drone of the two-ton compressor and the fans blowing cold air beneath the floor drowned out any sound beyond the glass walls and left him completely isolated in this narrow walkway between cabinets. His early fears had been replaced by a polished routine, a well-rehearsed alibi, and a knowledge that very few people remained in the office this late at night.

  The machine finished its work with spectacular results, but this was not the time for celebration. Calmly his fingers tapped on the keys and the machine went to work erasing every trace of his work here tonight. Seconds later, the CD ejected and he slipped it into his bag. He arranged the server desktop the way he had found it, locked the glass cabinet door and slipped to the end of the row. There against the wall he watched for movements in the myriad reflections. He waited and listened nearly a minute before slipping down the ramp and out the door.

  The cubicles beyond were silent, office lights switched off.

  He eased down the hall ten feet to the security room door, slid the key into the lock and slipped in, gladly out of sight again. He’d be done in another few minutes. Very few people had access to this room, and those who did rarely stepped inside. Another series of cabinets lined two walls. These were filled with wires rather than computers. The single PC monitored the comings and goings at every entrance the company controlled. A few doors, like the one to this room, operated with keys, but most required a plastic access card. When someone opened an electronic lock their identity was captured here. He scrolled down the list looking for the problem he’d found several times before.

  Here it was again.

  She couldn’t enter nineteen and then get up here to twenty-two ten minutes later. None of the exits downstairs had been opened in that time. A few clicks and the evidence of her visit to nineteen vanished. It would be impossible to know who passed out the doors when she eventually left; impossible for anyone to piece together what he’d done.

  He turned to the VCR and ejected the tape. The one he replaced it with looked old enough to have been around a few months. It had, although everything on it had been erased, just as the one in his hands would be before he returned it to the stack.

  The monitor on the wall showed an empty computer room then several dim hallways around the building. She was there somewhere and it would be just his luck for her to get her face recorded coming in rather than out. Damn workaholic. If he was lucky, he’d get out before she left nineteen. The last thing he needed was to bump into her as he left the room. If the bitchy do-gooder got suspicious, getting in and out would be a nightmare and the whole thing would come to a halt. He couldn’t afford that.

  The computer didn’t record his exit from the security closet. The only evidence he’d been there was in his black leather bag and that would be short-lived. He strode briskly for the lobby, far too intent for the hour. Alerted to his presence in the hall, the motion sensor unlocked the door with an audible click. The tiny electric device hummed as the latch was held open for him. The security computer logged an exit that could only belong to Erica Fletcher.

  Down the elevator and into the Boston spring air he went.

  Chapter Two

  In two strides, Gregg’s footsteps on the industrial carpet faded into the cacophony of perky, placating voices. Tones of assurance and stability emanated from the fuzzy gray cubicles that stretched to the glass-encased horizon. Marissa watched dozens of sleek black headsets bob confidently. Unseen fingers clicked plastic keys to contact the electronic oracle on the twenty-second floor. Marissa’s new computer screen and matching perfect-bound manual seemed mystical indeed. Four days training with Gregg had passed quickly. Calls had been answered, customers appeased, but somehow it had been surreal with Gregg at arms length. Alone now the LEDs on her phone lay dark, waiting for a multi-tentacled machine to decide it was time for her to join the clamor of forced-smiling voices, time to deliver efficient and caring servitude, time to prove she could earn her own way.

  The red light flashed silently at first then was joined by a buzzing that sent her hands grasping for the receiver. Lifting it didn’t stop the noise. Finally, she remembered to flip the switch that activated her headset.

  Fumbling, heart racing, she paused a bit too long after the line came live. “Thank you for calling Boston Financial Services. My name is Marissa. How can I help you?” She forgot to identify herself as a member of the client services group. Whoever reviewed her tapes would catch such a basic mistake on her first call.

  “I’ll be amazed if you can, but you can give it a try. This is Hank Johnson and I have a problem with an order I placed on December twenty-eighth.” The gravelly, rumbling voice conjured an image of a large, powerful man.

  “Can you describe the problem for me, Sir?”

  “Glad to,” he spat. “Your company’s cheating me. Actually, my wife convinced me to give you one last chance. Honestly, I don’t see how you can straighten this out short of admitting you’re thieves. When you prove me right, I’m moving every
cent to Fidelity.”

  This had to be a test. Someone from client services, a supervisor or a manager, was hiding in another room and playing angry to see how well she could handle a difficult call. She vowed to shine.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Sir,” she answered evenly. “Let’s walk through your order and figure out where we’ve gone wrong.”

  He plunged in without a second’s hesitation. “I moved ten thousand dollars into your Penguin Small Cap Growth Fund. I bought it at nineteen point two five.” He spoke calmly, his anger bubbling beneath the surface.

  Marissa wanted to ask for the ticker, but didn’t dare interrupt. The other CSRs would have known it offhand.

  “I’d been watching that fund for months and when it finally dropped below twenty, I placed my order.”

  “Ok.”

  “Not really. My statement shows the shares were priced at twenty-three point five. I never would have paid that much. I won’t stand for this. I want the shares I have coming or you’ll hear from the attorney general.”

  She’d heard the numbers, but his hostile intonation of ‘attorney general’ chased them from memory. Down by her mouse were several blank sheets of scratch paper. She should have been using them to make notes. She glanced up at the idle computer screen as time ticked by. Mr. Johnson was waiting for a reply. He wouldn’t stay quiet long.

  Marissa quickly searched for an account with the last name Johnson. There were several screens full. She asked again for his first name, Hank, and found two Hank Johnsons. She asked where Mr. Johnson lived, Marlborough, and found no Hank Johnson there. Confused, she felt the heat building in her cheeks, a bead of sweat forming under her bangs, unsure what she had done wrong. When Mr. Johnson rudely suggested she could find him easier with his account number, which he rattled off from the printed statement in his hands, his information flashed up on the screen. The account owner was Elizabeth Johnson of Marlborough. Hank was listed as joint tenant. Each mistake, each delay, brought a harsher tone to Mr. Johnson’s voice as if her uncertainty were a mask for the company’s unwillingness to help him. If this were a training exercise, she’d failed. Unfortunately, the dread she felt affirmed that this was more important to Mr. Johnson than a mere exercise.

  Seconds passed as she stared at the screen.

  There was no transaction on December 28th, but there was a transaction for the 29th. Marissa reviewed a purchase of PSCX, the mutual fund Mr. Johnson was referring to.

  “Are you still with me?”

  “Yes, Sir. I was just reviewing your purchase on the twenty-ninth.”

  “Damn it, I didn’t purchase anything on the twenty-ninth, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for the last five minutes. What’s wrong with you people? This is so simple. How can you get it so screwed up?”

  “Sir, I see a transaction on the twenty-ninth. You purchased four hundred twenty-five point five three shares.”

  Johnson hollered so loud Marissa yanked off her headset to save her eardrums. Whatever he said next was unintelligible with the headphones in her outstretched hand. He was still ranting when she re-fitted the earpieces over her ears. “…believe you can actually say that to me with a straight face. I have proof that I called on December twenty-eighth at two o’ seven precisely. If you can’t get that through your head, I’ll fax you my phone bill so even you can see it. I know how simple you are over there!”

  The transaction on the screen showed the time of Mr. Johnson’s call as 3:45 p.m. on the 28th, well after the three o’clock deadline for mutual fund orders. She was certain he was mistaken. This was the most common problem new customers had. They placed an order after the trading deadline and were annoyed when they were given the following day’s closing price. This should have been a simple problem. It would be for a seasoned CSR.

  “Sir, it seems you placed your order after our trading deadline.”

  Johnson exploded. “Aren’t you listening? I did no such thing! I placed this order at two o’ seven! What part of that don’t you understand?”

  “Sir, our system shows–”

  “I don’t give a damn what your system shows. I placed this order at two o’ seven and I can prove it. Your firm owes me three thousand dollars and if you can’t get that through your head, I’ll sue you along with your slimy, thieving company.”

  Marissa stared at the transaction on her screen knowing that if she didn’t come up with some sort of answer, Johnson would start yelling again. She’d felt so proud at the beginning of this day, her last day of training, the day she would receive her first real paycheck. This job hadn’t impressed her parents or her college friends, but Boston Financial Services was a real company. Coming to the thirty-story building in a suit each day had buoyed her pride. An hour ago, she’d thought she was going somewhere, but now she stared numbly at her screen, terrified to speak, unsure about the problem she faced or what to do next.

  Johnson lit into her again and she felt a tear inching its way toward the microphone. Strangely, the tears protected her against the stream of insults screaming over the line. Letting go of the professional status she’d been clinging to somehow gave her immunity. She asked him to hold on for her supervisor and set the headset down on the desk, dabbing her eyes as she stood up. She wandered through the blurry maze of gray cubicles to find Gregg.

  An hour before, she was eager to win his approval and build from there toward affection. The half-dozen years between them were never a concern. Now she’d be glad for him to save her from the angry man on the phone so she could go back to being the young girl he supplied with fatherly advice.

  Chapter Three

  When Marissa stood up the voices around her dropped to a murmur in respect for a wounded comrade. She retreated from the frenzy of the front lines, fighting to cover the signs of defeat. She refused to dab her eyes as she walked, crumpling the tissue deep inside her fist instead. She refused to sniffle or convulse under the weight of the tears she held back. They all knew. Had they expected her to wash out after ten minutes? Had they heard her fear over the low partition walls? Did her frustration and anxiety clang over the reassuring voices of the veterans? She wondered if this would be her last day at BFS.

  The people behind the disapproving glances were no more to Marissa than the churning masses that bustled down the sidewalks. Gregg was the only person that mattered. He was the perfect intersection of potential friend, boss, and wistful after-hours companion. She hunched in his doorway with her eyes on the carpet and waited for him to finish his call. Everyone here seemed to be on the phone constantly.

  The high partitions of Gregg’s cubicle made a U shape against the wall of glass that ringed the office. Far below tiny cars and people hurried along under a crystal spring sky. Gregg was secluded from the chaos inside and out. Even standing he’d be barely visible to anyone among the low warren of identical desks beyond. The only person who could watch Gregg work was Jane Wheeler, a manager whose cubicle also abutted the glass and opened toward Gregg’s. Her slow polite nod held more compassion than she’d felt from anyone she’d passed on the way here. Maybe compassion came with the position or vice-versa.

  Once Gregg saw Marissa’s face, he abruptly ended his conversation and left his chair. Her makeup was a disaster, but Gregg was at her elbow and there was no place to turn except back through the maze of prying eyes. She wasn’t eager to make that walk alone just now.

  “Tough call?” he asked without prompting. “Can I help?”

  “He’s holding for you.”

  Gregg reached for a notepad. “What do I need to know?”

  She related the few details she could remember. An experienced agent would have come with the facts, but Gregg didn’t mind. His eyes held no disappointment for her failure just minutes after being left alone. He made no complaint about the sparse details she offered. He listened calmly, thoughtfully and when she was done, he led her back to her desk.

  Gregg took her chair, put on the headset he wore around his neck, and p
lugged it in. He muted Marissa’s headset and handed it to her, tethering her to the conversation, but requiring nothing except that she listen. There wasn’t room for a second chair and her skirt wouldn’t allow sitting on the desktop. She stood silent and tall amid the cubes like a lone sidewalk tree attracting the attention of every dog that passed.

  Gregg began in a strong, soothing voice, “Good morning, Mr. Johnson. Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Gregg Turner, a client services supervisor here at BFS. I understand you’re concerned about a recent transaction. I want you to know I’ll do everything I can to help.”

  “I’ll believe that when I’ve got my money back.”

  “Before we get to that, please help me understand something?”

  “Why not?” he scoffed.

  “Our records show that you spoke to one of our brokers on December twenty-eighth at three forty-five p.m. Marissa tells me we’ve got it wrong. Can you tell me how you know?”

  “I told your girl already. I have my phone bill in my hand. I called you at two o’ seven and believe me I wasn’t on the phone with you until three forty-five. The call lasted six minutes and change.”

  “My apologies if we’ve made a mistake, Mr. Johnson. Would you mind faxing that bill to me? That would help speed this along.”

  With a few well-chosen words, Gregg turned the hostile maniac into a rational customer that was still displeased, but cooperative. The man that drove Marissa out of her cubicle on the edge of tears was no challenge whatsoever for Gregg. He instructed Mr. Johnson to fax in the phone bill and he did as asked. As they waited, Gregg printed a few pages of the Johnsons’ account information and signaled Marissa to fetch them. By the time she returned, Gregg had logged their call into the system and was out of the chair waiting for her.