DC&H

"There is more good news too. Kathy told me that she is getting a promotion tonight because of her work on the National Pharmaceutical deal. I understand that Kathy, Mr. Bartlett, Mr. Hanson and Mr. Benson are meeting upstairs tonight to sign the contract. Isn't that great?"

More applause.

"Oh God, please stop," I heard Kathy say. She had stopped about ten feet from me and slowly sat down on the floor.

Assholes number one and two were livid, Benson almost looked amused.

"This evening started off so strangely that I thought I would share it with you. When I got home from work tonight I found my loving wife in the bathroom getting ready to shave and I don't mean her legs or arm pits."

There was some laughter from the crowd but most people were now sitting in stunned silence.

"We had a little argument about it. She told me it was supposed to be a surprise for me and I told her not to do it. I won that argument or at least I thought I did. Now I realize that she wasn't shaving for me she was doing it on orders from Jack. Kathy was just in the little girl's room and I believe she shaved herself while she was in there. Now all of you are probably wondering why Jack Hanson would tell Kathy she had to shave her pussy..."

There was an audible gasp when I said that. Kathy was now lying on the floor crying and most of the guests were staring at me as if they were watching a train wreck. There were only two assholes now. It looked as though Benson had skipped out. Hanson's face was bright red and he was shaking. Bartlett was walking toward me as if he thought he could make me stop.

"The reason Kathy shaved her pussy is because she was to be a gift to Mr. Benson tonight and Mr. Benson wanted her pussy to be hairless. It seems that your company management thinks it is good business to encourage its employees to have sex with potential customers to win contracts even if it destroys a marriage."

Now Bartlett was right in front of me and he tried to take the microphone from me. I pulled the mike away from him and turned it off.

"Listen asshole, you try to grab the mike from me again and I'll drop you like a bag of rocks. Come to think of it I may do that anyway."

Bartlett backed away from me and looked over at Hanson. While they looked at each other I turned the mike back on.

"One last thing and this is for Bartlett and Hanson. I will be filing a lawsuit against this company for what you did to my marriage and I am sure I will get a nice settlement. Part of that settlement will be that you two assholes and anyone else involved in the mess will be fired. Good night everybody and enjoy the rest of your party."

The room was dead silent as I set the mike down and walked over to where Kathy was laying on the floor and I squatted down beside her.

"Kathy."

She looked up at me with tears running down her cheeks.

"Fred. I am so..."

"Kathy, don't say anything," I interrupted. "Do you think you'll get that promotion now?"

I stood up and looked around. People were staring at us but when I looked back at them they turned away. I looked down at Kathy one last time and then I left the room.

I had picked up my coat and was walking across the lobby toward the door when Hanson stepped in front of me.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" He asked.

"Yes," I said. "I fucked you before you and DC&H could finish fucking my wife and I hope I cost you millions. I would hate to think that we all went through this for a few hundred thousand dollars."

"You're going to pay for this." Hanson said.

"Actually, I think you will be the one who pays for this," I said. "Along with my law suit I am going to have a discussion with the SEC. I think they might be interested in the way this company has been doing business."

I turned to leave and Hanson grabbed my arm.

"Just a minute, I am not through with you yet," he said.

I brushed his arm away.

"You touch me again and you won't be walking when you leave here tonight," I said.

I could hear him muttering profanities behind my back as I left.

When I got home I went straight to the liquor cabinet and got a bottle of scotch and began to slowly drink myself into oblivion. I believe this was the genesis of my nightmares. I was on my second drink when I spotted something blue sitting in one of the big potted plants on the kitchen floor. I got up to see what it was. It was a blue plastic case and it was pretty well hidden under the foliage of the plant. I knew what it was as soon as I picked it up and when I opened it I confirmed my suspicion. I remembered something dropping out of the bathroom wastebasket Monday morning. I had looked all over the kitchen for it but never thought to look in the flower pot. I went back to the sofa and put the case on the coffee table next to the scotch. I filled my glass and took a big gulp. Then I picked the case up and opened it again. As I stared at it I thought to myself "It's fucking full, none missing."

I put the case back down and poured another drink. I don't know how long I lasted but I woke up on the sofa in the family room at nine o'clock Saturday morning. The scotch bottle was nearly empty, my head was pounding and my mouth tasted like shit. I stood up and felt dizzy for a minute. My stomach felt like it was in full rebellion against me.

I started the coffee maker and went off to take a shower. When I went upstairs I noted that there was no sign that Kathy had come home and I really didn't expect that she would, either because she was afraid to face me or because she was pissed that I had fucked everything up at DC&H. I wasn't exactly sure if I cared either way.

The shower helped. I felt a little better. After two cups of coffee, scrambled eggs and toast I sat down on the sofa in the family room. I sat there trying to think about what my next move should be. It broke my heart to think about how much I had loved Kathy. I wondered how she could have done this to us? I couldn't believe that her ambition was so strong that she would agree to have sex with a customer to win a deal. As if that wasn't bad enough, she was willing to shave her pussy for him too. She was willing to do this because Jack Hanson told her to do it. I doubted that I would ever be able to forgive her for any of this but I knew that I would have to give her a chance to explain herself if she wanted that chance. I just couldn't walk away without at least hearing what she had to say but I would not pursue her to ask for an explanation. I figured that if she didn't feel the need to try and explain her actions to me then I really didn't need to know why. The why would only be important if she wanted a second chance with me.

I couldn't think of anything to do other than to wait and see if Kathy tried to contact me. I began to wonder where she had spent the night and then I remembered the way she looked when I left the party. I felt a little guilty about leaving her on the floor that way. I realized that I should have brought her home with me. I wasn't real proud of myself but I had been hurt and angry and felt no sympathy for Kathy at the time. The more I thought about that the worse I felt and the more I wondered where she was staying.

I was still sitting on the sofa at eleven o'clock when the phone rang. I assumed that it was Kathy calling and I debated on whether I should answer. I picked the phone up on the sixth ring.

"Mr. Alpin?"

"Yes."

"This is Special Agent Mark Walker of the FBI," the voice on the phone said. "Is your wife with you?"

"My wife is not home," I said.

I wondered why the FBI would want to talk to Kathy.

"No problem. It's you I want to talk to," agent Walker said.

"Me?" I asked. "What's this about?"

"I would rather not discuss this over the phone," he said. "Can you come to my office this afternoon?"

"I guess so," I said. "Where are you located?"

Agent Walker gave me directions to his office and I agreed to meet him there at two o'clock that afternoon. After the call I tried to figure out what the FBI would want with me. The best I could figure is that it must have something to do with one of the cases I had worked on recently. If that was the case why couldn't he tell me what he wanted over the phone?

Over the years I have often had to talk to different law enforcement agencies for cases I was working and it never bothered me but for some reason this invitation to talk to the FBI had me a little worried.

At 1:00 I dressed in jeans and a sweater and headed into town to meet with Agent Walker.

I left my car in the parking garage across the street from the high rise office building in downtown Indianapolis, which housed the FBI offices. I took the elevator up to their seventh floor office and gave me name to the receptionist.

"I am here to see Special Agent Walker," I said.

"Have a seat and I'll let him know you are here," she replied.

I only had to wait two minutes before he came into the lobby to get me. Unlike the expensive Armani suit he had been wearing the night before, Special Agent Walker was wearing blue Dockers and a white oxford shirt with no tie.

"Mr. Alpin, thanks for coming in," he said. "Please follow me."

I follow him into a conference room and as I sat down Agent Walker offered me a cup of coffee, which I accepted. He poured two cups from the coffee maker on a table in the corner and handed one to me. He took a sip of his coffee and then sat down across the table from me.

"Should I call you Special Agent Walker or Mr. Benson?" I asked.

"Why don't you try Mark,' he said, "and may I address you as Fred?"

"Fred will be fine."

"I guess you must be pretty confused right now," Mark said.

"Yes, I am but I think I am starting to get a picture of what's going on," I said. "I take it you were working under cover as Mr. Benson."

"That's right. I am counting on your discretion to keep anything I tell you here confidential," he said.

"I think you probably know that I am an investigator myself and understand confidentiality," I said. "I am still not sure if you are friend or foe. I hope you can explain all this to me and how my wife got involved in this mess."

"I will tell you what I can and will answer any questions as long as they don't jeopardize our investigations."

"Okay, I'll listen to what you have to say but I have to tell you that I am really pissed that my wife was used the way she was. This mess has probably ended my marriage," I said.

"Things may not be as bad as you think," Mark said. "Let me just put you in the picture and then you can ask your questions."

"That's fine with me," I said.

"Earlier this year the Security and Exchange Commission contacted the FBI," he started. "They had received some disturbing information about the business tactics of DC&H from someone inside the company and asked that we investigate the allegations. After following up on the information given us by the SEC we found enough evidence to justify further investigation. I can't tell you about our investigations other than to say that it was decided to do some undercover work."

Mark got up and began to pace around the room as he talked.

"We had found out through our investigation that DC&H had been trying to get National Pharmaceutical interested in a merger. Mr. Benson had spoken with one of our agents and indicated that he was concerned with DC&H's tactics. At that point we found out that no one from DC&H had met Mr. Benson so with his cooperation I took on his identity and began negotiating with DC&H. I was able to convince Mr. Hanson and Mr. Bartlett that I was Mr. Benson and I led them to believe that I was interest in their ideas for a merger and might be willing sign a contract for them to handle the merger. When they began to drool over the millions of dollars they thought they would make off the deal I started acting reluctant. I told them that I wanted to talk to some other firms before I made a decision. The idea was to see what tactics they would use to try and get me to sign a deal with them."

"So you asked for my wife?" I said.

"Not exactly. On my first visits to the offices of DC&H I was introduced to your wife as I was escorted to the conference room to meet with Bartlett and Hanson. I told Hanson that I would really like to talk to Mrs. Alpin.

"His response was 'She is quite attractive, isn't she?' I agreed with him but that wasn't why I had asked to see her."

"Why did you want to see her?" I asked.

"I told Hanson that because she was head of the accounting department I wanted to talk to her about the financial condition of the company I was supposedly planning to merge with. The real reason was that your wife was the insider who contacted the SEC with concerns about how DC&H was doing business."

"So Kathy knew that you were working undercover for the FBI?" I asked.

"No, she didn't. I couldn't tell her," Mark said. "The information she sent to the SEC indicated that the company's problem involved people higher up in the company than Bartlett and Hanson. She had implicated the company president, and the CEO. I didn't know if I could trust her given that my assignment was investigating Bartlett and Hanson. I couldn't be sure she wouldn't blow my cover to protect them."

So, Kathy had blown the whistle on the company execs. I didn't know what that meant to me. If she didn't know that Benson was a fake, was she planning to have sex with him at the party? I had questions I wanted to ask Mark but decided to wait till he finished to see if I would get any answers in what he was telling me.

"As I was saying I had indicated to Hanson that I might back out of the deal so he asked me what it would take to get me to sign with DC&H. I asked him what he had to offer. That's when Hanson said, "I noticed that you thought Kathy Alpin was pretty hot. How would you like to get a piece of that?" I was surprised at that. I expected him to offer me a bribe. I had to see where this would lead so I told him I might be interested in that but I didn't commit. This next part may be difficult for you to hear but it is important to the story."

"There is nothing you can say that would be any more upsetting than what I have already been through," I said.

"Okay then. I waited a few days and then met with Hanson again. He asked me if I thought over his offer. I asked him if he meant by his offer that he would arrange it so I could have sex with your wife and he answered in the affirmative. I didn't want to act too anxious so I said that I was definitely interested but still wasn't sure if she would be worth it. Hanson assured me that she would be worth it and then said she has a bald pussy. 'Wouldn't you like to fuck a bald pussy?' he asked me."

"So you never suggested that you wanted Kathy to shave her pussy?" I asked.

"No. Since I hadn't planned on having sex with her that thought never entered my mind. I still wasn't even sure how Hanson could promise to deliver on his offer so I asked him how he would get a married woman agree to give herself to me as payment for signing a contract. 'You let me worry about that. If you want her she's yours, bald pussy and all.' was all Hanson said."

"That son of a bitch," I said. "Who the fuck does he think he is?"

"He is one sleazy bastard. The more he talked about me having sex with your wife the more excited he seemed to become. I got the feeling that he wanted me to accept his offer for more reasons than to get me to sign the contract. I let him go on for a while and then asked him when he could arrange for me to get together with your wife. He immediately said that we would do it during the company Christmas party on the twentieth."

"So you were going to go through with it? I said. "You were going to have sex with my wife just to keep your undercover investigation going?"

"No. I had no intention of having sex with your wife," Mark said. "First of all it would be unethical for me to do that and second, I was almost positive that the room where I was to meet with your wife would have hidden cameras and microphones to record the action. This was to be more than just a sexual favor to get me to sign the contract. It was also designed to give them material that could be used to black mail me."

"How were you going to get out of it?" I asked.

"I planned to balk at the last moment and say that the circumstances were not right. Then I was going to say that I would be willing to close the deal but that Mrs. Alpin would have to join me in my hotel room after the party. Then once I had her alone I was going to identify myself and bring her down here to be interrogated. We planned on arresting Bartlett and Hanson today. We thought that by this morning we would have enough evidence to indict them both.

"Then last night you walked up to me and introduced yourself and said that you were with security. The fact is that I knew who you were and I was afraid that you knew what was going on and were a party to it. I wasn't sure which side of things you were on until you got up and made your speech."

"Oh shit," I said. "I hope I didn't fuck up your investigation but I couldn't stand by and just let my wife give herself to another man as part of a business deal."

"I understand," Mark said, "and you didn't really do any damage. You actually saved me from having to deal with the meeting I was supposed to have with them at ten o'clock last night. I was able to leave with my cover intact so that I could talk to Hanson again this morning. He made me a large cash offer to sign today. I told him I would meet him in his office Monday morning and when he hands me the money we will arrest him and shut down the operations of DC&H while we do an in depth investigation of every deal they have been involved with for the last three years."

"I still don't know where Kathy stands in all this," I said.

"Your wife was trying to do the right thing by blowing the whistle on the company," he said. "As for her part in the offer made to me I suspect that she was being coerced by Hanson. He may be black mailing her somehow."

"Was there any mention of your using a condom?" I asked.

"Yes. Once I agreed to the deal Hanson made it very clear to me that Kathy insisted that I would have to wear a condom. 'We wouldn't want to get the poor girl pregnant now would we?' Hanson said."

Now I knew I was going to have to find Kathy. I now wanted to hear her side of the story. She was not completely innocent in this mess but there were extenuating circumstances.

"That is really all I can tell you right now," Mark said. "Do you have any more questions?"

"Not right now."

"Good. Again, I have to remind you not to discuss any of this investigation with anyone. I would ask that you not tell your wife anything yet. Wait until when we have Bartlett and Hanson under indictment before you tell her this was all an FBI sting operation. That should only be a couple of days from now. We'll want to talk to her then anyway."

I agreed to not say anything about the investigation and then Mark told me he would call me and let me know when I could tell Kathy about the FBI sting and then he said that they would probably want to depose me to get my side of the story. We shook hands and I left the building.

When I got home there was a message from Kathy asking me to call her. I called the number she left and a woman answered the phone. I asked for Kathy.

"Who should I say is calling?" The voice asked.

"Tell her it's her husband," I said.

Kathy's voice sounded nervous when she came on the line.

"Where have you been?" She asked. "I have been calling all day."

"Not all day," I said. "I was home until one o'clock this afternoon."

"Oh. I guess that's about when I started calling you."

I wasn't going to make this easy for her. She was going to have to show me that she was ready to tell me what was going on. So I remained silent.