Bad Girl Pt. 02

Jane presses the button to lower the projection screen and turns off the lights. Mom uses her laptop to send the video to the overhead projector. For two hours, everyone watches the FBI interview between Agent Wilson and Bill. He describes with amazing details what happened to him, from the invitation to the humiliation, to him being sent home.

I heard Vickie sobbing, but as the screen went up and the lights came on, she's a ship wreck.

Jane adds salt to the wounds, "Do you understand what you did to him now? Do you understand how much he loved you? Personally, I think it's hopeless, and I'm not even sure you deserve a shot at him."

Connie sits quietly, loving the way Jane is making Vickie sweat and feel the pain. Now we will learn what this girl is made of and if she is, indeed, worthy of my son's love or not.

Sophia thinks as she sits, content to watch the proceedings. Connie and Jane are doing precisely what Sophia needs. My daughter is getting a full dose of the issue. She will be sour and moody for a while, but she needs to understand what she's up against. That movie of the FBI interview was perfect. Bill talked with so much raw emotion that it had to eat her up inside. How does she get him back? Will she ask for help? Who will she ask? This is the stuff they should have on TV. Bah, nobody would believe it.

Vickie wants to run after Bill and cuddle with him like they used to do. She thinks that would make everything better. I have hurt him so badly, and I don't know what to do. Do I want our moms conspiring to meddle with our lives? YES! They're my only hope. Without this plan, they hatched up; he won't talk to me.

Jane sits back lazily, thinking, "Bill will be hurting tonight, and I'm going to cuddle with him, and then let him have his way with me, and that will make him feel better. Hehe, I certainly don't mind him fucking me either. Nobody fucks near as good as he does. He is The Beast; I mean The Best.

I'm sitting in the park, wondering what I should order for lunch. Pastrami or corned beef?

+++++

The following Monday, 9:00 am. There is a knock at my door.

This is odd; people know to just knock once and then come in. Kim doesn't have anything on my schedule.

I yell out, "Come in."

The door slowly opens. Fuck me. It's Vickie.

Meekly she tells me, "Your mom scheduled me in your office on Monday and my office on Friday. I'm here to start work."

With a measured voice, trying not to sound like a jerk, "Have a seat."

She moved quickly to the chair I pointed at and sat down. Her purse is close to her like I might grab it.

I start to say "Hi," but she cuts me off.

She is near tears yet is angry as she goes off, "YES! I fucked up! I know! Your mother, my mother, Jane, they all told me how fucking stupid I was. I admit that I was. I was addicted to sex. I needed it yet got no satisfaction from it until you came along. For four months, I resisted going to NSA. Then I broke down and went once. With people like me, it broke me. The club feeds my addition. Like crack, I needed more and more.

"Getting you interested in that lifestyle would have kept me going. Eventually, even that would not have been enough. I knew many of the women that had money and points were mean and hated men. They would beat them, and the men took it because they wanted points. I knew any woman at work would want you. I was right; they loved the idea. They were going to, well, you know. I wanted it to be good for you. I wanted you to join me. I saw what I wanted, not the type of man you really were.

"Your mother made me watch the FBI interview." I wince my eyes and face; ouch, that had to hurt her. "Talk about a punch in the gut. I realized what an awesome guy you were, and that I threw it all away. That brought back a lot of pain for me. Once I woke up at the hospital, they told me enough about you that I knew I had lost you.

"That was the first step to my recovery. My disease is like alcoholism; there is no cure. You can lessen the symptoms; I am on some drugs to help, but one act of sex with a stranger, and I am right back. Yeah, that makes it hard to date. You and I both know why we're here. Our mothers conspire for grandchildren.

"You have the whole world to pick from. I only have you. Anyone else, I might go back to that dark hole I was in. That will never happen. I understand your hate for me. I gave you a hundred reasons to hate me. Therefore, I won't push you. I won't beg or even suggest anything. I have done enough to you for a lifetime. I know that you still hurt; you're not dating. I do hope that I can get you dating someone. You deserve a family and children. That's it, that's my story. Now, what did you want to ask?"

I sit stunned. What do you say to that? I mean, what the hell?

I do remember my question, "I was going to ask you, before that twenty-minute speech, do you still take a bit of cream in your coffee?"

She sits stunned, unable to speak. She nods her head yes.

I'm about to call Kim in, but she barges in with a cup of coffee for her. She is laughing her ass off.

I look at her with a confused expression.

She hands the coffee to Vickie, and she calms down before she can say, "You hit the comm button; I heard everything. I just thought it hilarious that after her long-winded apology, all you can do is ask if she still likes cream. I got her coffee last week, she does. Hit the button again, sweetie, and I will leave you all alone."

Vickie looks at me, "I don't understand at all what you did. How am I going to implement this on our side of the world?"

She is a client, I set her at ease, this is what I do well, "First, I am going to help. Do you understand what we are even doing?"

Vickie sighs, "Mom said that we combine groups, so it's more efficient. The same work has to get done, so how can combining them help?"

This is going to be more complicated than I thought; she's lost.

I start, "Ok, you have what, 160 companies, right?"

She corrects me, "173."

I continue, "Every single company has an IT department. They have a CIO, a director for servers, software, networking, security, programmers, and other specialists like databases and storage. You have specific software, help desk software, Office, Exchange, and several others in that application group. Each of those has a manager and then workers that do stuff. Some people might support several pieces of software in a smaller company. With me?"

Vickie answers, "Yes. So far."

I add, "Ok, I remove all 173 CIO's and replace them with one. I replaced 173 server directors and replaced them with one. The guys doing the work, none of them get replaced. As you said, I still need them to do the work; I just need fewer managers."

I see understanding in her eyes.

I continue, "Now, because we have fifty guys doing Exchange (email), they aren't doing other things; they know it better and are more efficient. It's like a factory; you simplify the work, and people are more productive."

Vickie is frustrated, "It's still the same amount of work, though."

I reply, "Yes, but because they know the software better, they can solve the issues faster."

She looks at me like a deer in headlights, "It's still the same work."

I stand up, "Leave your stuff here and follow me. You need a lesson in making cars."

I almost laugh as she looks at me like I'm an alien. I take her hand and drag her through the office. Everyone stares at me. I don't care. We are at the far northwest corner of our floor. They are redoing an old server room and making it into some offices and a conference room.

I announce, "I need some help. I need a nail, a standard screw, Phillips's screw, and a star screw started in a 2x4. They need pilot holes so Vickie can finish the job. The foreman, Rick, comes over and does as I say. He drills four tiny holes, then starts a nail and three different screw head types.

I tell Vickie, "I want you to hammer the nail in, then use the same three screwdrivers he did to screw in those screws. I will time you."

She misses the nail, hits it, bends it, straightens it, and then concentrates and hammers in the nail. Now she fumbles with the screwdrivers and screws in the, well, screws.

I say, "A minute thirty-two seconds."

I tell Rick, "I need twenty nails pilot holed and started like you did the last one."

He did as I requested.

I smile, "I want you to hammer the nails. No time limit."

It takes a while, but she hammers in the nails. She got better at it.

I tell Rick, "This time, I need just four."

He sets them up, and Vickie is smart enough to hammer in the four nails.

I look at her and smile, "Thirty-eight seconds. That's almost a minute faster. Why? You had practice and did the same thing repetitively. If you did 1000 more, I bet you're under ten seconds. At one time, cars were made by hand. All 10,000+ parts of a model-T were made by one person. You had just four; imagine 10,000. He made a factory so that he had hundreds of people, each doing one thing. Some things were purchased pre-assembled. Otherwise, he would have had 10,000 people working for him. Instead of taking months to make a car, they were cranking one out every 93 minutes."

I take her hand, thank the guys, and guide her back to the office.

Vickie is flabbergasted, "I see it now. This is big. I mean, really big."

I smile, "Yes, it is. It doesn't matter what my mother is charging your mother; it's a steal. She will easily recoup the savings in months and will be doing this for decades. So, you see why they are thinking of merging these two companies? Even more savings."

Vickie asks, "So why the favorable business discounts? Why should we buy from you? Why should you buy from us?"

I reply with a smile, "I want to buy copper. I know of five vendors. One of them is your mother. Because there are so few sellers, the prices tend to be very competitive. It's an essential commodity; your copper is no better or worse than your competitor. With our agreement, if everything else is equal, I will buy from you. That helps your company. Now one of your companies wants my laser jet toner cartridges. They're the same price as the five others. You buy from us. We both paid a fair price, yet we both ended up with a sale that we might not have received before.

"If I am more expensive or my quality is inferior, you don't buy from me. This might sound like baby carrots, but with the size of all our holding companies combined, that's a lot of extra sales going to us and not our competitors."

Vickie sits amazed, "How did you come up with this shit?"

I chuckle, "Mom. In my first year, she sent me out to whip our companies into shape. I went to each facility, looked around, asked questions, and looked at budgets. I noticed we spend a crap load of money on management. Adding efficiency worked wonders."

Kim sticks her head into my office about noon, "Lunch is here."

I look at her, "I didn't order lunch."

Vickie looks at me, "I told her I would pay for our lunch today."

That made me mad. She is trying to buy me and throw gifts at me. My veins are popping as I turn red.

Kim is scared.

Vickie looks at me, "Oh, grow up, you baby. I can't buy you, and you're worth too much God damn money. Take a pill and eat your Katz Pastrami."

That deflates me.

Kim meekly places Vickie's sandwich in front of her and then mine in front of me.

She stops at the door as she's walking out; I look at her, she wants to say something, she smiles big, "I like her."

Vickie spits out sauerkraut at her comments and laughs her ass off.

At 5:00, Vickie is ready to go home. She picks up her notepad, pen and thanks me for my time. She walks to the door, opens it, and Sophia, mom, and Jane are right by the door. The entire office is crowded behind them.

Sophia says with a straight face, "I wanted to see if I was taking home my daughter or having you arrested for murder."

Vickie returns her comment with a straight face, "Sorry to disappoint you. However, I did get a lesson on how to screw today."

Her mother's jaw drops to the floor. The office is silenced. I laugh a hearty chuckle. Sophia and Vickie leave. Mom and Jane are furious with me. I explain to the entire office my lesson with screws and nails. Mom and Jane both hug me in the back of the limo on the way home.

Chapter 9 -- Agent Mark Johnson -- FBI

A month later, I am called to the front door, and Agent Mark Johnson from the FBI is here to see me.

The door is open. In my driveway are four blacked-out Suburbans. They're sitting low on the tires; these are the armored versions. I know agent Johnson; he interviewed me and was somehow involved with Sophia.

I chuckle, "Dropping off or picking up?"

He sternly asks me, "May I come in?"

This isn't a social visit.

Mom and Jane are by my side as I usher the agent in and close the door.

Agent Johnson starts, 'Thirty minutes ago, six heavily armored gunmen breached the Simmons household. Sophia is in surgery now. They think she will make it. Vickie isn't safe at home, and I have no place to put her. If you're half the man I suspect you are, I can't think of a safer place for her. Tomorrow morning, we can upgrade your security to the maximum there is. We will station agents around the property.

"They killed my men; if they find her, they may try again. They were both targeted; Vickie was upstairs, and we got them before they got her. I hate endangering you; I don't know what else to do at this hour."

I ask, "How long do you need us?"

He looks at me pleadingly, shrugging his shoulders, "I, I don't know."

Mom surprises me, "Bring her to me."

A scared Vickie is brought in with two men holding her. She is nearly frightened to death. She jumps at me and holds me tight.

Agent Johnson tells me, "Your ENTIRE kit from your Seal days was locked up in a warehouse. It will be here within the hour. I will stay here until it arrives. Is there anything else you need?"

My jaw hangs open. Every weapon I am proficient with. Every special piece of equipment like night vision, knives, pistols, fully automatic assault rifles, and a sniper rifle, plus my camouflage, black out for my face, boots, and black hat.

I am serious when I ask, "I have no idea where they are, but any of my old team would be a welcome sight. I will pay whatever's needed."

He just nodded. Vickie is shaking like a leaf. Mom reaches for Vickie, but Jane is forceful. She takes Vickie's hand and leads her upstairs, I would hope, to her room. Mom follows them up.

Agent Johnson says, "They're motivated. They will find you. I'm going to lose more men." He turns sad. "I will do what I can to get your whole team here. Get some sleep. They took a beating; it will take a few days to find you and plan another hit. Close all drapes and no going near an open window. Oh hell, why am I telling you? Good luck."

He and his buddies leave. Ok, they drove off.

I head to mom's office and call our 24x7 security company. I explain what I want, and that money is no object to make it happen tomorrow, and I want it all live by sunset.

I am tired, I go up to bed. Oh shit, my light is on. Fucking Vickie! Nope. Mom, Jane, and Vickie are all in my bed, worried and waiting for me.

I explain the rules, no leaving the house, no open drapes, and no standing in open windows. We work from home.

To cheer them up, I announce, "I have already called in the security changes I want; it will be done by sunset tomorrow. A squirrel won't shit in our yard without me knowing it. They are trying to recruit my old unit, and they are getting my old Seal kit. That's all my weapons and equipment I ever needed as a Seal. My bag showed up while I was on the phone. That was complements Agent Johnson. I'm officially a badass again."

I look. All three of them are wearing teddies.

Jane giggles, "It's all I have. Deal with it."

Mom turns off the lights. Vickie is shivering behind me. Jane is behind her.

Jane whispers, "Vickie, relax. There is no safer place on the planet than with my brother. Get some sleep, and tomorrow we will have an update on your mother."

+++++

I am up at 6:00 am. I quickly shower and make myself breakfast. I don't expect anyone up for a while.

The security installers are at the front door at 7:00 am sharp. The FBI has checked all the installers, and they will add additional cameras, motion sensors, and night vision capabilities. The central controller is getting a significant upgrade. We now have two security guards monitoring the equipment as it comes online.

3:15 I get the first of several surprises today. Juan and Jose, they're brothers, show up at my front door in their old uniforms and their Seal kits. We hug hard and catch up on their lives. Over the next four hours, four more guys show up. Only Big Mike isn't here; he took his own life fighting PTSD.

Mom, Jane, and Vickie all like the guys and make them feel welcome. Vickie has her eyes on Jose already. He always was a ladies' man. It also proves that Vickie and I are done. Somehow, that hurts me. It shouldn't. I have no right. We aren't dating. This is the final seal; we are done.

I go check on the installation while everyone else chats. They are discussing some of what we did, and I want no part of that. They aren't dumb, no operational details, just the type of work we did, especially my part as their leader. That's all behind me, I run many companies, and I am currently a consultant and an advertising executive. I am NOT that man anymore.

Two hours later and mom comes looking for me. Dinner is ready. Mom grabs my arm; she wants to talk. We move to the stairs, where she speaks softly.

Mom whispers into my ear, which tickles me, while holding me and saying, "They know about you and Vickie. I told them. Vickie is being friendly, but she isn't giving any signs of wanting a guy. I would show thigh, unbutton a button, remove my bra, but I don't even smell that she's aroused. Relax, they're here because they love you, and you saved their lives several times. They feel they owe you. Now come on, and let's eat."

Dinner is quiet until Jose has something to say.

Jose is bashful, "Bill, I had no idea you are so rich. I mean, this is an amazing place. My whole apartment isn't the size of your garage."

I am quick to kill that, "Oh no, I'm not rich. Yes, I have a trust fund, but I have never touched it. I had my own place and then lived with Vickie for six months. I had a good job and lived off my own money. This is my parent's place; I am here until I get my own again."

Mom clears her throat, "That isn't exactly true anymore. When you started working for the family, you hit a clause in the corporation where you become an equal owner with Jane and me. You have boatloads of money."

Juan says, "Damn, bro, can I get a job? I hate making fries for the King."

Jose is flipping burgers, JR delivers packages, Seth is a bus driver, and Chad works at the big chain store in the shoe department.

Juan continues, "What you offered me for this, it's more than I will make in a year."

I look at mom, "I will use my trust fund. I will hire anyone that wants a job to work here on our security team. Starting salary, six figures."

Five forks drop to the table. Each is in shock, their numb. I feel awesome. I wish three others were here.

Vickie has been calling Agent Johnson hourly for an update. He calls back now to say she is doing well and may leave in a few days. She hands me the phone.

Agent Johnson tells me, "Don't say anything. We have noticed an unusually high amount of service vehicles in your area. We're tracking every lead. I will keep you updated. Bye."

Everyone is staring at me. I pause to think of my options. My five friends aren't worried; they have seen this a hundred times. It's the other three that are stressed.