Never Again, Seriously

by Forrest Steele

  Chapter 4

  The inventory on the books had swollen because of the phony purchases added, but the true amount of company-owned goods remained level. This disparity presented a problem, but Jake covered it by moving customer-owned goods out of their segregated wire-fence enclosure into the section for company merchandise, just before an audit. He did this at night, when he was at the company alone. This way, Global Source Enterprises appeared to own enough physical inventory to match his manipulated figure. Later, he had to put the goods back in the customer section.

  Global Source handled many millions of dollars in merchandise every month, earning small margins on high volume. Jake chose the highest-value merchandise to shuffle around, to minimize the number of boxes. In a few minutes on the forklift, he could move a dozen pallets of gray-market perfume or lab instruments, goods easily worth $2 million.

  So far, he detected no signs his manipulations had caught anyone’s attention. Until the auditor left, his nerves would thrum. If she raised an alarm, he could end up in big trouble.

  The ringing phone interrupted Jake’s thoughts. It was José Colón, the warehouse manager. “Mr. Foster, I need to talk to you about something confidential. Will you meet me in the parking lot at break time?”

  “What’s up, José?”

  “Like I said, something confidential.”

  “Will this take long?”

  “No, just a few minutes. My truck’s by your car.”

  “Okay, José. I’ll be there.”

  What could he want?

  At three o’clock, Jake walked toward his Mercedes. Aware he was leaning forward over his feet, he straightened and lengthened his stride.

  José headed from the warehouse in the direction of his truck. Short, with an oversized head and broad shoulders, he had a small paunch above his low-slung belt. His jeans were tight across heavy thighs. Past his prime.

  The truck was a black four-wheel drive Ram 2500 with crew cab and four doors. Such a huge vehicle was a common-enough conceit in Miami that Jake had never understood. José gestured. “Like my truck? I see you’re giving it the once-over. I have a friend with a vegetable farm, and I help him on weekends. In case you were wondering.”

  “I wasn’t.” Jake glanced back at the company building. A thin shadow at a window, possibly a person, vanished before he could focus.

  José nodded, casually stepped forward, and pulled a cigarette from his pocket. He lit it and took a deep drag. The exhaled cloud hung on his pockmarked face before trailing away. A wisp remained for a second on his thick, carefully trimmed mustache. His face bore no expression. Except for the two of them, the lot was empty of people.

  Standing before Jake, José surveyed the lot, hunched his shoulders, then lowered them. He said, “I hate to ask you this, but I got nobody to turn to. I owe money to some bad people.”

  Jake waited.

  José wiped the back of his hand across his brow. “See … I need a loan of $10,000 to get back on my feet.”

  Jake cleared his throat. “José, people say you gamble a lot. I’ll bet you owe more than ten. Are you thinking you can cover your debts by winning?”

  José took a last pull from his cigarette, eyes almost closed, and flicked the butt to the asphalt. Crushing it with his toe, he mumbled, “I’ve done it before.”

  “You’re not being realistic. Isn’t there something else you can do to raise money?”

  “Well, I got a few other things going. I wouldn’t need the loan for long.”

  Jake stared.

  José studied the pavement before raising his eyes to Jake’s face. “Listen, I want to talk to you about something else.”

  He cleared his throat. “Lately, I been seeing some weird overnight movements of customer inventory. Why would boxes of merchandise go outside the cage where we secure customer-owned goods and then go back in? That’s not supposed to happen. I can’t find any paperwork on it.” He studied his shoes. “I been thinking of talking to the accountants about it, but I don’t want to be the one that puts anybody in trouble.”

  Panic roiled in Jake’s chest. So this is it. “What are you talking about?”

  “Just what I said. The inventory movements are out of whack. It makes me think something is wrong. I’m thinking I should go ahead and report this, so I don’t end up looking bad. You don’t know anything about it?”

  Jake closed his eyes and ducked his head, a wild rushing sound in his ears. Time stretched and warped as images of his past and imagined future shimmered. He had the sensation of being glued in place while trying to run. He opened his eyes. Through a red film, he saw José’s lips moving but could only hear the whoosh in his ears. As if from a distant radio station, José’s voice, almost inaudible, rose and fell again, all the while threading through a barrier of static.

  “Hey … you hear me … know anything … you all right?”

  José’s face was inches from Jake’s nose now. “I said, are you all right?”

  He found the presence of mind to lie. “Migraine. Give me a few minutes.”

  “I’ve got some bottled water in a cooler. Wait here.”

  When he returned with the water, Jake drank half the bottle. “Thanks. I’ll be fine now.” He took a slow, deep breath and exhaled. “Listen, José. I don’t know what’s got you thinking something is wrong. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for what you’ve seen. I’ll investigate and tell you what I find. It might take a few weeks to get to the bottom of it, but —”

  José turned toward the loading dock and stepped away, shaking his head.

  “Wait.”

  José turned back but remained fifteen feet from him. Jake said, “Don’t involve anyone else. You can help me by reviewing the paperwork on file. It needs to be in order, so we might have to fix it, if you understand me.”

  A flat grin. “Oh. I understand, all right.”

  Jake ignored the grin. “Would you do this?”

  No answer.

  “As far as your financial problem goes …” Jake hesitated, then continued. “I can come up with the $10,000 tomorrow. Meet you at the Walgreens around the corner from the company at seven a.m. Don’t gamble it. Just pay them and find other sources for the money you still owe.”

  José’s dark eyes flashed, but he smiled. “I understand. I think we can work together. Okay if I call you Jake?”

  Back in his office, Jake stared at white clouds scudding across an azure sky. He mentally kicked himself for not being able to control his moment of fear in the parking lot. He could handle José, but he needed to take a lesson from that encounter. Be ready for anything. Stay cool, and if confronted, deny, deny, deny, as Bill Clinton supposedly said. In his mind, he replayed José’s question. “Okay if I call you Jake?”

  Indeed.

  Colón didn’t know much, but he knew enough to try blackmail. He acted like a man who thought he was setting the hook on a big fish. If Jake paid, he had to be ready for José to come back for more.

  He had moved $1 million out of Global Source Enterprises. After setting up an account for Royal Trading, his dummy supplier, he’d created a few other phony vendors to spread the purchases around in smaller amounts. Sizable bills payable would certainly attract attention—better to make a bunch of small ones. He thought his original estimate in the Miami Beach bar conversation was about right. He could stretch the embezzlement to $2 million. He needed to move faster.

  Arthur Temkin, the company’s chief financial officer, appeared in Jake’s doorway. “Mr. Foster, do you have a minute?” A yellow pad in one hand and a mechanical pencil in the other, he scanned the office with his bright eyes until Jake motioned him in. Temkin closed the door and sat. He started to speak, with no pleasantries. “You have two unfilled positions on your staff. I’m removing them from next year’s budget, so you can’t fill them.”

  Jake relaxed his
posture and hoped Arthur hadn’t picked up on his initial fear he’d been discovered. “Leave them in, Arthur. I’ll discuss it with Malcolm.”

  “Good luck.” Arthur’s speculative gaze lingered on him for an extra second. Jake smiled, and Arthur rose to leave. Jake gave him a small wave and returned to his thoughts.

  He’d been booking nonexistent sales to reduce the ballooning book inventory. He reversed these transactions after each month end and reinstated them after the financials were printed. Traces of these entries are still in the system. If someone looks, they’ll find them.

  Standing at the window, he gazed at Colón’s truck, wondering what to do about him. He knows for sure, now that I’ve agreed to pay. This is trouble.

  His energy drained. A dense fog rolled into his mind. His newfound confidence dissipated. The dread that pursued him through life was back. In a vehicle with bad brakes, he crawled up a mountain incline, knowing the peak and the descent were coming.

  Hiding the irregularities became more difficult as the fraud grew. Jake not only needed to create more accounting entries and false shipping documents, he also had to doctor the detailed inventory record at each month end to match the actual goods he’d temporarily moved in. Then, at the beginning of the next month, he had to make sure the customer-owned stuff was always put back in the proper section. Keeping track of all this was complicated. One error could start an investigation, and he’d be caught. I’ve created a house of cards.

  Willis stuck his head in. “Meeting’s starting.”

  Jake rushed to the conference room. His knuckles scraped against the doorframe, drops of blood seeping out of the scratch. He slipped into his seat, the injured hand on his knee under the table. With a stray napkin, he pretended to dab the corner of his eye, then used it to apply pressure on his injured hand. When he stole a glance at the napkin adhering to his skin, a faint spot of blood seeped through it. Not too bad. This would stop in a minute.

  Willis conspicuously eyed the table above Jake’s concealed hand. Jake stared him down.

  Malcolm Weaver read out the highlights from the month’s financials before asking each department head in turn to share current concerns and issues.

  When it was his turn, Jake said, “We’re down two employees from the recent personnel cuts. Arthur said the open positions shouldn’t be filled. We’re working hard to catch up on routine work, but we’re deferring a few projects, such as cleaning up the files on maintenance expenditures.”

  Malcolm’s attention had wandered to the window.

  Jake spoke with a hard edge in his voice. “Here’s one example, Malcolm. Arthur reversed many entries from maintenance and posted them to look like increases in equipment. It’s going to be slow, detailed work to document reasons why they’re not shown as operating expenses, which, as you know, reduce reported profits. As it stands, the files invite questions.”

  “Work smarter and get it done.” Malcolm’s tone matched Jake’s.

  Jake became conciliatory. “Your call, of course. I’m just recommending we put all our documentation in order, so everything looks clean, routine work included.”

  Malcom glared. “Okay. Just do it.”

  “You mean, fill the positions?”

  “What the hell else could I mean?”

  “Sorry, sir. Thank you.”

  Malcolm seemed preoccupied, hadn’t smiled at anyone today, even though this month’s numbers were favorable on the surface. Malcolm’s uneasy about something.

  Malcolm gazed at Jake’s hand, which he had forgotten about and had put back on the table. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  Jake ignored the still-shiny dot of blood on one knuckle and forced himself to smile at the other department heads.

  “No problem. Skin gets thinner as we age, doesn’t it?” Jake dabbed at the dot again.

  Malcolm stood, ending the meeting. “Oh, by the way, Jake. The auditor wants to meet with you this afternoon. Said she needs to go over a few things. These people are so detail oriented.” He walked out.

  Back in his office, Jake held a tissue on the dot, waiting for the blood to coagulate. He sighed. This was becoming thorny. José Colón’s barefaced extortion. Strange behavior from Malcolm. Now the bank’s auditor wanted to meet with him.

  Chapter 5

  Jake strode into the conference room. He’d met Sharon Scott before, during her previous audits, but never stopped to focus on her. Seated before him, she appeared to be in her midforties. She wore a dark blue tailored business suit and a white blouse, with a blue and coral scarf to match her earrings, setting off her reddish-golden hair. Classy. Well-proportioned.

  Jake liked what he saw.

  She wore no rings.

  Jake gave her his open, friendly smile. “Hello, Sharon.” He pulled a chair away from the table and somehow, while maneuvering around it, caught the edge of his sole in the carpet. Off balance, he swung his hips to the side to avoid ending up astraddle the arm and dropped into the seat, leaning to the side.

  The area around his hipbone hurt where it had bumped the chair’s arm. He’d have a bruise.

  Sharon’s oversized glasses magnified her wide eyes. She pressed her lips together in a half smile, eyes twinkling. “Mr. Foster, I wanted to talk about how the warehouse inventory is physically controlled. Also, the purchasing and shipping procedures. Would you spend a moment with this flow chart and give me your thoughts?” She pushed a hand-drawn eighteen-by-twenty-four-inch-chart toward him.

  Her southern-accented voice sounded rural … give me your thawts?

  Here we go, he thought. The flow chart itself presented no problems, but if she tried to verify the control steps shown, there would be trouble. Anxiety rose in his chest, a feverish rush.

  Jake took a deep breath and let it out, pretending to consider the chart, trying to slow his racing mind. What if she wanted to review the nonexistent credit files on these new fake customers? He’d have to make some files—quickly.

  No way could he anticipate all she might ask. Because of the number of tasks on her standard checklist, she wouldn’t have enough time to uncover the shuffling of inventory on this visit, even if she found some paperwork issues. She’d just put them in her report and expect a written response. A former auditor himself, he knew the dance.

  He should alert Colón to expect her, make sure he’s ready.

  Sharon sat back, studying Jake’s face. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”

  Jake shook his head. Did I? Can’t let my mind wander like that.

  She pointed at the chart. “Some of the invoices for purchased goods show no receiving evidence in the file. I need to go over those with you.”

  This was what he feared. His tongue felt too big, and his mouth tasted rank. “Sharon, we’ve been having some problems with the clerk who handles that. She quit yesterday because I gave her a final warning about coming in late.” He coughed. “Let me take a list of the invoices and do some research. Can I get back to you about this tomorrow?”

  She nodded and smiled as she met his eye and handed him a card. “Here’s my cell number. Call me if you think of anything you’d like to talk about. Anything at all.”

  Jake eyed the card and tried to keep his expression neutral. I’ve got to make up those documents in a hurry.

  The irony was he had already done so as part of creating fraudulent invoices, but the clerk had put them who knows where before she quit. Any documents he produced now were going to receive extra scrutiny; they would require careful preparation to make them convincing.

  Jake was getting cornered, bit by bit. At least he had time before she could find anything truly suspicious, if he covered his tracks well.

  Sharon Scott watched the last of the colors fading in the sunset from her tenth-floor hotel window. Darkness unfurled, revealing the brightening city lights of Miami, extending for miles. Thinning rush hour tr
affic headed west on the 836. Lights from approaching airplanes homed toward the airport, about a minute apart. The stacked procession would last another hour. This aerial chain always intrigued her, made her think of warplanes. A minute didn’t seem like much time between these huge, heavy machines. It looked dangerous.

  This was the best part of her day, standing at the window in her clean, complimentary, white terry robe, taking in the city.

  She stretched, sat and rubbed her feet, and gazed out the window. Not bad for a country girl from Ray City, Georgia. Underneath her wonder at the experience of luxury, she felt a twinge of guilt. Like she didn’t deserve this.

  She knew she did deserve it; she had worked hard for it.

  Her cell phone rang. Her sister’s low-register tobacco voice said, “Sis, how you doin’?”

  Sharon sighed. “Hi, Rachel. Same old stuff. You doing all right?”

  “They was a small fire … don’t worry. It made a hole in the carpet is all. Made me cough a few days, but I’m okay now. The cats took off when it got smoky, so none a them was burned or nothin’. They come back the next day.”

  “I’m glad it wasn’t worse.” Sharon stood and paced.

  Her sister’s voice took on a hollowness. “I ain’t got the money to fix it. Would you send me a few hunderd—”

  Sharon cut her off. “Of course. You’re my baby sis. Only thing is I’ll need to send a check directly to Bailey’s Carpet for the repair, for my taxes. Have them send me a quote.”

  Rachel answered, “Umm … okay. I was hoping you’d help me with a couple hunderd for myself too. My check won’t come for a few days …”

  Hoarse with exasperation, Sharon said, “Rachel, we’ve talked about this before. I don’t understand how you can run out of money unless you’re back into drugs. You don’t want money for drugs, do you?”

  “It ain’t like that. Please, I need some help. I wisht you’d come back here and live with me.”

  “Rachel, I love you. I don’t want you to think I’m hard-hearted, but I’m done with Ray City. Besides, Ray City has no jobs for me. I want you to leave there and live with me. I can help you get job training, and you can find a job somewhere.”