The Eavesdropper

by Edward Trimnell

  “You’re here at Sid’s behest, aren't you?” I asked.

  “‘Behest’?” Donnie repeated, confused.

  “You’re here because Sid told you to come. Isn't that true? Tell me.”

  Ignoring my question, Donnie brandished the golf club and eyed my flat-screen television, which sat on a little stand in my small living room. The TV wasn't much; it was a five-year-old model. But it was the only TV I had.

  “Man, think about what this golf club could do to that television. I feel like taking a swing, you know?”

  I started looking around the room for anything I might use as a counter-weapon to the golf club. Then Bethany intervened.

  “Donnie,” Bethany said, touching his arm. “We’re here on business, remember?”

  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.” Without relinquishing the nine iron, Donnie sat down on my sofa. Bethany sat down on the same piece of furniture and scooted herself close to him.

  “Have a seat, Frank. We need to talk.”

  I was about to order them out of my apartment again. But they were here now, and apparently with a very specific purpose in mind. So maybe it would be better to hear them out. Moreover, Donnie held my sole offensive weapon, so what choice did I really have? I suppose I could have called the police, but then we would have gotten back into that whole plausible deniability thing.

  “Okay,” I said, sitting down on the worn recliner that faced the sofa. Say your piece. And then I want you both to leave.”

  Donnie tapped the business end of the golf club on the floor. “All right then: I believe you had a little talk with someone last Friday, and you were supposed to do something, as in: getting the hell out of the company. You’re still coming to work everyday at Thomas-Smithfield, and someone wants to know why.”

  “So you’re here for Sid, is that it?”

  Bethany said, as if by rote: “We didn't say anything about Sid.”

  No doubt Sid had coached them to say that. He didn't want his name brought into the conversation. Plausible deniability.

  “Okay,” I said in a tone of mock patience. “You don’t have to say ‘Sid’ if you don’t want to. But since all of us know that you’re here because Sid told you to be here, maybe you can pass on a message for me. Tell Sid that if someone is to quit the company, then he can quit as far as I’m concerned. You can also tell him that I’m not afraid of him.”

  I would have expected Donnie to scoff at my bluff (which was, I had to admit, just a little over the top), to remind me that Sid, as a senior manager, could eventually have me fired if he wanted to. But Donnie’s response was something else. It was automatic, but it wasn't like Bethany’s denial about Sid being behind all this. Donnie’s words didn't sound coached or rehearsed.

  “Oh, so you're not afraid of Sid? Well, good for you. Neither am I, for that matter. But Sid isn't the one you need to be afraid of.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Donnie looked down at the carpet, as if sensing that he had said too much.

  “Never mind.” He looked back up at me. “You had your chance.”

  Donnie stood up, and pointed the golf club at me.

  “If that’s your answer, then fine, I’ll pass it on. Just remember, whatever happens, that you were given a final chance—a final final chance. And you turned it down.”

  Bethany fixed me with a stare that made me even more uncomfortable, and said, “Don’t say that nobody told you.”

  Assuming—for whatever reason—that she might be the more reasonable of the two, I looked at her for more of an explanation. She returned nothing but a tight, mirthless smile.

  “Come on, Bethany, we’re done here,” Donnie walked over to my front door, Bethany in tow. On the way out he turned to me one last time and shook his head as if he were disappointed.

  My front door closed behind them now, I realized that Donnie had taken my golf club with him.

  No matter: I still had a bag full of them.

  Chapter 37

  In addition to looking for the “paper trail” that would tell me what I was dealing with, I also had to find out exactly who “Ellen” was—the Ellen whom Sid had spoken of eliminating.

  I was narrowing down the original list of eight Ellens.

  I had already removed Ellen Watson, our admin, from consideration. A closer examination of the remaining Ellens allowed me to remove several more.

  Ellen Adams was a short-term college coop in one of the logistics groups. She had just started her internship this month, and she would be departing at the end of April. Given the time frame and the limited nature of her position, I couldn't believe that she could have involved herself in something that would incur Sid Harper’s ultimate wrath.

  Ellen Burnside was an admin in the general affairs group. Her group handled corporate travel arrangements, and other miscellany. Again, it was difficult to conceive a scenario that would place her at odds with Sid.

  Among the remaining group of five, none really stood out as obvious. But I was focused on Ellen Trevor for obvious reasons that were far from scientific: I had been interested in Ellen Trevor, aka the Brown-Eyed Girl, before any of this had occurred.

  The day after the unexpected and unwelcome visit from Donnie and Bethany, I encountered Ellen Trevor where I always had—on the elevator. I was riding down to the first floor, heading to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee.

  “Hi, Ellen,” I said, gratified that I could now address her by name.

  She seemed surprised, though not unpleasantly.

  “Oh, hi—”

  “My name is Frank. Frank Joseph.”

  She exited on the second floor.

  “See you later, Frank Joseph.”

  A smile, a break in the ice.

  On the way back from the cafeteria, however, I encountered a less welcome presence on the first floor: Anne Hull. She had apparently been heading to the cafeteria, too.

  “I was going to send you an email,” Anne said. “But since you’re here, I can just tell you: We need to talk.”

  I had completely forgotten about Anne Hull, and my two previous meetings with her.

  “Talk?” I asked, as if the word were an item of vocabulary from a foreign language. “What about?”

  “It isn't the sort of thing we should discuss out in the open,” she said. “Is your calendar free at one? Can you meet me in my office?”

  “I can be there.”

  “I’ll see you at one, then.”

  Anne continued on without the formality of a goodbye. There are many rules of corporate life. One of the most axiomatic ones is that an unanticipated summons from human resources is almost always bad news—even under normal circumstances. Since my circumstances of late were anything but normal, I knew that my 1:00 p.m. meeting would not be pleasant.

  Chapter 38

  When I dropped by Anne Hull’s office at 1:00 pm, I could tell by the set of her facial expression and body language that she was going to stick it to me. I didn't know exactly what was coming, but I knew that something bad was coming.

  And of course Sid would be behind it all.

  “You said you wanted to talk to me?” I asked.

  “Yes, I do. And based on what I’ve heard, I think you know why you’re here. You’ve been busy, from what I hear.”

  “Don’t tell me Sid confessed,” I blurted out. It was a reckless gambit, totally unlike me, under normal circumstances; but the circumstances of recent days were far from normal.

  Was there a chance, maybe, that Sid had given up? Maybe there was. His behavior last week in North Carolina might have been interpreted as instability. He was certainly reckless.

  “What?” Anne was puzzled. “Why would Sid confess anything? This meeting isn't about Sid—this meeting is about you.”

  “Yeah, me.” I should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

  “There have been a lot of complaints about you,” Anne said. Then she began to recite a laundry list: “Insubordination, hostile work env
ironment, even sexual harassment. Your job performance also leaves much to be desired of late, according to the report I received.”

  I couldn't resist laughing aloud. “You’re kidding, right? And who told you this, Sid?”

  “Of course I talked to Sid Harper,” Anne shot back. “He’s your manager, after all. But this isn't only Sid. There are statements from your immediate coworkers: Donnie Brady, Bethany Cox, and Ellen Watson.”

  I should have seen that coming. There were four of them—and one of me. Four against one, and I had no counter-proof, no witnesses in my favor.

  Perhaps I could have reason in my favor, then. I could easily imagine that Bethany Cox would trump up some kind of a sexual harassment beef, and Ellen Watson would charge me with general hostility. But…Donnie? The guy who had barged into my apartment and threatened me with my own golf club?

  “What did Donnie Brady say against me?” I asked.

  “Well, you do seem to have anticipated this,” Anne said. “That speaks volumes.”

  I inwardly cursed. I should have played dumb. Everything you say can and will be held against you in the court of HR…

  “According to Donnie Brady, you’ve been engaging in bullying.”

  I knew this wouldn't help my case, but I laughed again.

  “Me? Bully Donnie Brady? Have you looked at the two of us? The guy has like four inches of height and about forty pounds on me.”

  “That doesn't mean anything,” Anne said. “Anyway, the purpose of this meeting is to inform you that you’ve been officially placed on a personal improvement plan.”

  A personal improvement plan. That was yet one more corporate term that didn't mean what it said.

  As Sid had suggested during our confrontation in North Carolina, managers at Thomas-Smithfield weren't permitted to fire employees at will. That was the way it worked at most large companies. The legal environment of twenty-first-century America was simply too litigious. Even though Ohio was technically an employment-at-will state, a disgruntled ex-employee could easily tie up an ex-employer in the courts for months. This was especially true if the fired employee was a woman, gay, disabled, over fifty, or a member of a racial/ethnic minority group. But even a straight youngish white male like me could make trouble with the right lawyer.

  As a result, a firing had to be preceded by a series of progressively escalating steps. The exact sequence varied, depending on the individual manager’s preferences and the behavior involved; but the basic principle was always the same: for every firing, there must be a paper trail that establishes due process.

  The personal improvement plan was one of the most extreme measures. Despite the innocuous-sounding name, it basically meant that you had thirty days to show marked improvement, or you’d be out on the curb. Terminated—or “eliminated” as Sid Harper would say.

  In reality, the personal improvement plan was a signal that you’d be fired in thirty days, if not sooner. It was the company’s way of saying, “quit now, to save yourself from being fired.”

  Moreover, there was nothing for me to improve. Everything that Anne Hull had just described was a complete fabrication. This was yet another sign that Sid was now pulling out all the stops, attacking me from multiple angles.

  Chapter 39

  Another Friday. I was holding the line; I hadn't fled from the company. But with Sid’s personal improvement plan in effect, none of that mattered. Sid wouldn't have to threaten me with violence, he could simply fire me—all perfectly legal and by the book.

  I continued to search the files and the databases for any irregularities. I couldn't find anything amiss.

  I thought about approaching Ellen Trevor out of the blue, regarding the conversation I had originally overheard—the conversation that had started all of this. But without some indication of what Sid and the others were hiding, I had no context in which to place the implied threat. Nor did I have any way of extrapolating that Ellen Trevor, staff accountant, was the real target of the conspiracy. It might just as easily be another Ellen—maybe even an Ellen who didn't work at Thomas-Smithfield.

  I had nothing.

  And then, just when it seemed that I would never have a break, the break came, though I didn't put the pieces together right away.

  Ironically, I wasn't even digging when I came across the files for a supplier called the “Jones Company”. I was doing work for my job—the job that I’d liked—for the most part—and had been grateful for prior to last week.

  I needed to look up a purchase order from six months ago for one of my suppliers: Jonas Precision Components.

  At the far end of the third floor was the purchasing file room. This was where we kept all the hard copies of the purchase orders, going back three years. (After three years, they were moved to an offsite storage location, or “archived” as we said.)

  The files were stored in alphabetical order. I flipped through the files for the supplier firms that began with Jo-. Jocan Industries, Jollett Incorporated. Jones Company.

  I reached for the Jonas Company file and I grabbed the wrong one by mistake. The Jones Company.

  This filing system, which was straight out of the 1980s, was more than a little cumbersome and inefficient. The files were tightly packed, and it wasn't uncommon for them to be a little out of order.

  I was about to replace the Jones Company file in the filing cabinet drawer and grab the right one. But then I noticed something about it.

  Did I mention that these purchase order files were usually thick? They included not only printouts of the purchase orders, but also copies of all the paperwork that goes along with a multimillion-dollar order: engineering studies, plant inspection reports, etc.

  But the Jones Company file contained only printouts of the purchase orders themselves, printed on the ultra-thin pink paper that we used for that purpose.

  I flipped through the purchase orders. The Jones Company was a new supplier: The first order was issued the previous August.

  Unusual. The Thomas-Smithfield purchasing department was nearly fanatical about paperwork and documentation rules.

  I looked at the top of the purchase order. The buyer on the purchase order was “Donnie Brady”.

  I still didn't know exactly what I was looking at, but something told me this purchase order wasn't quite…right. And it was more than just the lack of supporting documentation in the file.

  Most of the mass production components we bought had long, technical-sounding names: solenoid valve, actuator, exchange spring magnet, etc. But the components listed on this purchase order were simple alphanumeric combinations:

  1234-RST

  1445-RSO

  1666-TSV

  This looked like something that you would come up with if you tried to make an item number up from thin air, using random, generic codes. Gibberish, in other words.

  Again, very strange, but still inconclusive.

  The information for the Jones Company was listed at the top of the purchase order, too. It was a PO box in Indianapolis, Indiana.

  Unusual. Manufacturing companies often had multiple facilities. But they didn't typically use PO boxes for business correspondence. PO boxes were for individuals, micro-businesses, and…

  Shell companies, I thought.

  There was a phone number on the purchase order, too. I knew that this was a required field when you set up a supplier in our supplier database. You couldn't create a supplier file in the database without a phone number. The area code of the phone number was 317. I knew that this area code included the Indianapolis metropolitan area.

  I jotted down the post office box and the phone number in the little notepad that I habitually kept in my pocket, and I made my way back to my desk. Donnie and Bethany had obliged me by going on one of their work-avoidance excursions. Ellen was busy talking on her desk phone. The few snippets I caught suggested a call of a personal nature.

  I didn't want to use my personal cell phone for the call. I lifted the handset of my desk phone. I knew tha
t on the other end of the call, the number would show up as the main number for the Thomas-Smithfield headquarters building, not my personal extension.

  I dialed the number for the Jones Company. The phone rang four times before it was answered by a male voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “Uh, is this the Jones Company?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Could I speak to Mr. Tanaka, please? In the sales department.”

  A pause. Then, at length, a reply, sly and with a hint of surliness.

  “There’s no one named Tanaka here. Who is this?”

  “What does the Jones Company manufacture?”

  Another pause.

  “Hey, who is this?”

  I affected an intonation of surprise.

  “Whoa. You know, I think I might have the wrong number. I’m looking for a Jones Company in Tennessee.”

  “This isn't Tennessee,” the man said, without a trace of humor.

  “Sorry to disturb you.”

  With that I terminated the call. My call might have triggered a bit of suspicion, but I believed that the borderline rude middle-aged man would chalk it up to what I had represented it to be: a simple wrong number.

  After that I turned to my desktop PC. I launched the web browser and went to Google. I typed “Jones Company, Indianapolis” with the post office box number and zip code and pushed the search button.

  As Google so often does when confounded, the search engine returned a list of results that were rough approximations of what I was looking for. Had there actually been a Jones Company with that post office box in any online directory, it would have been at the top of the search results.

  This might be a significant development. Maybe. Clearly the Jones Company in Indianapolis was a shell company. But there might still be a reasonable explanation. Manufacturing companies sometimes outsourced their sales functions to independent sales rep firms. Most of these companies were large enough, at least, to have dedicated administrative staff to answer the phones. But they were occasionally one- and two-person operations.