Chapter Twenty-Three
Highway to Hell
It must have been the crazed look in my twitching eye or the volume at which I screamed the request, but Chuck actually ran after me. We burst full speed into the parking lot, jumped into Bucket Deux and left a patch of Goodyear’s finest smoking behind us as we peeled out onto the four lane road in front of the plant.
“Whoa, cowboy. Take it easy. What, did you get your results from the free clinic?”
“Real funny, Charles. Damn, I know why the plant blew and who did it.”
“We have terrorists in North Carolina and now you’re Jason Bourne?”
“Yeah, we got ourselves a one hundred forty pound bespectacled numb nuts moron terrorist that is probably hauling ass to the airport right now.”
“Elwood????”
“Yeah, Elwood.”
I went quiet for a minute as I downshifted and fishtailed around a twenty-five mile per hour curve going about eighty.
“How could Elwood blow up the plant?”
“Elwood didn’t exactly blow up the plant. But it is his fault. Remember when you said he was updating the Manual of Authorities?”
“Yeah, that was such a shit job, no one else wanted it. Watch out! Geez, Mick, slow it down a bit. Anyway, he seemed to kind of enjoy it. But how in God’s green earth did that cause the plant to go up?”
“Apparently, he gave himself procurement authority for raw materials and informed all our suppliers.”
“Shit! I should have looked at that closer. I thought it was just for office supplies.”
“Yeah, well, in one of his dumbass cost saving moves, he took it upon himself to order X-100 mix and have it packed in X-400 barrels. We’ve been unknowingly loading some of that into the X-400 reactor for the last month.”
“What? That will eventually gum up the reactor so bad that it…”
“Will go boom?”
“Yeah, shit!”
“Hang on.”
I quickly swerved to pass a slow moving dump truck. Since there was an even larger dump truck coming the other way, I cleverly executed the maneuver on the right shoulder creating a cloud of gravel, dust, cow dung and possibly a Re-Max sign. I exhaled when the front tires found pavement again. Fortunately, we were in our lane, going in the right direction and had not merged with either dump truck.
Chuck was clenching his teeth and looking as white as a virgin sheep in a blizzard but still managed to squeak out a rather high pitched, elongated “Shhhiiiiittttttt!” He lowered the window and took a big gulp of air. I just hoped he didn’t decide to toss his cookies down the side of my fine ride.
“I think I see his taillights about a half mile ahead. Call Earl and tell him to get in touch with Will. If Will can block Seventy-Four before he reaches Highway Forty, we will have this little fucker hemmed in.”
“I, ah, I can’t do that, Mick.”
“Why the hell not? I’ll call him myself.”
I managed to pry my cell phone out of my jeans while keeping the Beemer on a somewhat straight path.
“Don’t make that call.”
“This is no time to be giving me a safety lecture on cell phone usage while driving. We got one shot at this.”
As my thumb started to make contact with Earl’s speed dial number, Chuck suddenly yanked the phone out of my hand and threw it out the window.
My shock and anger combined with the front right tire dropping off the roadway caused me to stomp on the brakes. I stopped counting after the third time the car spun. The Z4 wound up about ten feet off the road barely missing a sixty foot pine. We were overlooking a hundred foot drop into the valley inches in front of the grill.
As I pried my white death gripped knuckles off the steering wheel, Chuck softly said, “Mick, there is something you don’t know.”
“I know my size eleven’s about to go up your ass.”
“Easy, Mick, I’m still your boss.”
I took a deep sigh and calmed a slight bit (blood pressure dropping from one eighty to maybe one sixty-five).
“Ok, what? Why are we letting this little piece of crap obnoxious MBA moron get away?”
“Because that little obnoxious MBA moron piece of crap is The Shareholder’s nephew.”
“WHAT?”
“Look, I was sworn to secrecy. He thought putting Elwood here would give him some much needed real world experience. Apparently the kid was brilliant in business school but got missed the day God installed the common sense gene.”
“So blowing up our means of sustenance is part of his goddamn training program?”
“No, no, no. No one knew he was going to be that big of a moron. And didn’t I tell you to teach him how the plant worked?”
“Hey. Don’t try to lay this on me. I told him exactly how the plant worked. You never knew if that idiot was listening to you or reviewing the tax code in his head.”
“Yeah, sorry Mick. He was pretty squirrely. Let’s go back now and start rebuilding. I’m sure The Shareholder will take care of Elwood in the appropriate manner.”
“Will he hang him up by his nads and force him to listen to Milli Vanilli’s Greatest Hits?”
“Probably not.”
“Can you at least make me one promise? No more MBAs?”
“You got it, dude.”
“Oh, and I’m turning in dent repair, car detailing, a new cell phone, and several packages of BVD’s on my next expense statement!”
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MBA - Moron$ Ba$ and A$$ Page 24
