‘Julius Distribution, Port Bellingham,’ he said. His voice had a trace of an accent. Sounded Middle Eastern but please, let’s not get into racial profiling, all right?
‘Cargo?’
‘Toys. Bats, balls, dolls.’
‘Your paperwork, please.’
‘Sure,’ he said. He ducked in, leaned back out, handed the papers down to her, and then — son of a bitch — he let them go, obviously on purpose. The papers fell to the ground and as Tanya bent down to pick them up she was sure she heard the driver say two words, the first being ‘dumb’ and the second being the n-word, that nasty n-word that she wasn’t going to allow any male fucking driver to use in her presence, and she stood up, glaring at him. Tanya Mead had been with the US Customs service for three years and she loved her job and took it seriously, and the fuck she was going to let anybody push her around.
She smiled sweetly up at the driver. ‘All right, pal. You and your friend get out of the truck. Hope you don’t have dinner plans tonight, ‘cause for the next few hours your ass and his ass and this fucking truck and all its cargo belong to me.’
Also in Memphis, Randy Tuthill was in his small backyard, his head buzzing a bit from the beer and the strange and wonderful thing that had just occurred. A while ago he’d been at the union hall, going through the hundred thousand or so details that had to be taken care of just before a job action, when his wife had called. ‘You need to come home, right now,’ Sarah had said.
‘Why?’
‘Don’t ask why, just do it,’ she had said.
‘Are you okay? Is it about the boys?’ And his heart had almost seized at the thought of something happening to Tom and Eric, their young bodies burnt or shattered or blown up or—
‘The boys are fine. I’m fine. Come home now.’
‘Look, babe, I’ve got so many—’
‘Randy Buell Tuthill, you’ve known and trusted me for years, so trust me on this,’ she had said. ‘You need to get home. Now.’
Sarah had hung up the phone, Randy had sworn and hung up his own phone, and he had left, and less than a half-hour later he was home, smelling the barbecue out back, Sarah meeting him with a cold Coors, and then shoving him out the back door.
And there, standing in Randy’s backyard like nothing had happened, nothing had changed, was the General himself, with a barbecue apron wrapped around his torso and a set of tongs in his hand, and he had said, ‘Hungry?’
‘Damn straight.’
‘Feel like eating and straightening everything out?’
Oh my, a long pause there. Randy thought of the guys and girls back at the union hall, depending on him and the contract-negotiation committee and the strike committee and the relief committee, and Randy knew what was proper and what he should do, and what he should do was politely excuse himself and say, shit no, General, we’ve gone too far. We’ve got to do it by the book.
So he had looked at the General and had said, ‘Pass over those tongs, General, ‘fore you burn up my backyard. And then, yeah, we’ll eat and straighten everything out.’
Which is what they had done. It hadn’t taken that long and both he and the General had to make some phone calls to head off certain things, but it had taken place. There wasn’t going to be any strike.
Now, the barbecue eaten and the beers drunk, and Sarah having shuffled them off to the flagstone patio, Randy sat next to the General, cigars and cognacs in their hands — just like the old days! — and listened to the hum of the night insects out there in the brush.
Randy said, ‘Okay, I’m sure I can get this deal through. Question is, how about you?’
‘What do you mean?’
Randy laughed. ‘Word out on the hangar floors is that shiny new CFO of yours has your balls and checkbook in his back pocket. You think he’s gonna let this deal go through?’
‘It’s my company,’ Bocks said.
Randy sipped from the cognac, taken out only on very special occasions. He would have preferred another beer but cognac was what they had drunk during previous successful contract negotiations, and he wasn’t going to spook the tradition. ‘Beggin’ the General’s pardon, but it isn’t just your company. It belongs to stockholders and mutual funds and your board of directors, and I’m wondering what they’re going to say when they see what kind of deal we reached. They might even force you out in a month or two.’
‘A month or two?’
‘Shit, yes,’ Randy said. What the General said next chilled him right to the core.
‘A month or two… that’s plenty of time. After a month or two, they can do what they fucking want.’
Randy whipped his head around to look at his boss. ‘You feeling okay, General?’
‘Feeling fine. Why you ask?’
‘Christ, what you said right there, makes it sound like you don’t expect to be around in a month or two. Like you got cancer or something. You sure you’re okay?’
‘Had a company physical last month. I’m all right, Randy. Just like you. And how’re those boys of yours?’
‘Both fine,’ Randy said. ‘Eric is assigned to a maintenance wing out at Lakenheath. Tom…well, he’s a disappointment. Not following in dad’s footsteps.’
The General chuckled. ‘Randy, you old fool, the boy’s flying a KC-135. He’s doing fine.’
‘Shit, yes, but a pilot? Only thing a pilot is good for is taking a perfectly maintained aircraft and screwing it up somehow.’
They both laughed at that. The cognac and beer and full barbecue were settling in, and Randy looked at the tiki torches flickering in the yard that Sarah loved, and thought about what had happened, how everything had just come together, right at the last minute, and Christ, it had looked like a strike was going on, something must have happened, something must have—
Oh.
Shit, yes.
That’s what.
Damn.
‘General?’
‘Yeah, Randy?’
Randy’s fingers were tingling some, holding the cigar and the cognac glass. ‘This settlement — what happened?’
‘Happened? Decided to settle it, that’s all.’
Randy let that comment sit in the air for a moment, and said, ‘Sir, no offense, but that’s a load of shit. You came here and we have a settlement and for that I’m damn proud for what I did for my union, but you got practically shit from this agreement.’
‘You complaining?’
‘I’m observing, sir. That’s what I’m doing. And what I’m observing is that we were about an hour away from a job action and something got under your ass to make you move. Something that made you come to my house and get some-thing settled out real quick.’
‘I just didn’t want a strike, Randy.’
‘Yeah, but that could have been settled last week or last month. General, seems to me that you got a hell of an incentive to keep AirBox flying. An incentive coming from DC or Langley.’
‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Sure you do. Look, most of AirBox is ex-military. We know the score. We know how to do our jobs and keep our mouths shut, and we know that sometimes favors get done. Small favors, big favors. And the fact this strike’s not gonna happen — some big favor is coming due, right? A favor that needs AirBox up and running. Am I right?’
The General took a leisurely puff from his cigar, looked up at the darkening sky, and said, ‘Randy?’
‘Sir?’
‘Next couple of weeks…I’m going to need your crews working their best. Oh, I know they always work hard, but this is going to be an important time. I’m going to need a hundred and ten percent effort. Our airfleet… there’s going to be some unanticipated but very important installation work that’s going to be scheduled over the next fourteen days. About thirty aircraft are going to be retrofitted, and don’t ask me why, or what for. I’m just going to need to have it done. No arguments, no discussions, minimal paperwork. It just has to be done, Randy. Got it? It just has to be done.’