I walk though the door and start to tap dance.
Two days later, an audit team from headquarters arrives at the plant. The team is headed by the division's assistant control- ler, Neil Cravitz, a fiftyish man who has the most bone-crushing handshake and the most humorless stare of anyone I've ever met.
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They march in and take over the conference room. In hardly any time at all, they've found we changed the base for determining the cost of products.
"This is highly irregular," says Cravitz, peering at us over the tops of his glasses as he looks up from the spreadsheets.
Lou stammers that, okay, maybe it wasn't exactly according to policy, but we had valid reasons for basing costs on a current two-month period.
I added, "It's actually a more truthful representation this
way,"
"Sorry, Mr. Rogo," says Cravitz. "We have to observe stan- dard policy."
"But the plant is different now!"
Around the table, all five accountants are frowning at Lou and me. I finally shake my head. There is no sense attempting to appeal to them. All they know are their accounting standards.
The audit team recalculates the numbers, and it now looks as if our costs have gone up. When they leave, I try to head them off by calling Peach before they can return, but Peach is unexpect- edly out of town. I try Frost, but he's gone too. One of the secre- taries offers to put me through to Smyth, who seems to be the only manager in the offices, but I ungracefully decline.
For a week, I wait for the blast from headquarters. But it never comes. Lou gets a rebuke from Frost in the form of a memo warning him to stick to approved policy, and a formal order to redo our quarterly report according to the old cost standards and to submit it before the review. From Peach, there is nothing.
I'm in the middle of a meeting with Lou over our revised monthly report early one afternoon. I'm crestfallen. With the numbers based on the old cost factor, we're not going to make our fifteen percent. We're only going to record a 12.8 percent increase on the bottom line, not the seventeen percent Lou origi- nally calculated.
"Lou, can't we massage this a little more?" I'm pleading.
He shakes his head. "From now on, Frost is going to be scru- tinizing everything we submit. I can't do any better than what you see now."
Just then I become aware of this sound outside the offices that's getting louder and louder.
Wuppa- wuppa-wuppa-wuppa-wuppa-wuppa-wuppa-wuppa.
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I look at Lou and he looks at me.
"Is that a helicopter?" I ask.
Lou goes to the window and looks out.
"Sure is, and it's landing on our lawn!" he says.
I get to the window just as it touches down. Dust and brown grass clippings are whirling in the prop wash around this sleek red and white helicopter. With the blades still twirling down to a stop, the door opens and two men get out.
"That first one looks like Johnny Jons," says Lou.
"It is Johnny Jons," I say.
"Who's the other guy?" asks Lou.
I'm not sure. I watch them cross the lawn and start to walk through the parking lot. Something about the girth and the strid- ing, arrogant swagger of the huge, white-haired second man trig- gers the recollection of a distant meeting. It dawns on me who he is.
"Oh, god," I say.
"I didn't think He needed a helicopter to get around," says Lou.
"It's worse than God," I say, "It's Bucky Burnside!"
Before Lou can utter another word, I'm running for the door. I dash around the corner and into Stacey's office. She, along with her secretary and some people she's meeting with, are all at the window. Everybody is watching the damn helicopter.
"Stacey, quick, I need to talk to you right now!"
She comes over to the door and I pull her into the hallway.
"What's the status on Burnside's Model 12's?" I ask her.
"The last shipment went out two days ago."
"It was on time?"
"Sure," she says. "It went out the door with no problems, just like the previous shipments."
I'm running again, mumbling "thanks" over my shoulder to her.
"Donovan!"
He's not in his office. I stop at his secretary's desk.
"Where's Bob?" I ask her.
"I think he went to the men's room," she says.
I go sprinting in that direction. Bursting through the door, I find Bob washing his hands.
"On Burnside's order," I ask him, "were there any quality problems?"
"No," says Bob, startled to see me. "Nothing I know about."
"Were there any problems on that order?" I ask him.
He reaches for a paper towel and dries his hands. "No, the whole thing came off like clockwork."
I fall back against the wall. "Then what the hell is he doing here?"
"Is who doing here?" asks Bob.
"Burnside," I tell him. "He just landed in a helicopter with Johnny Jons."
"What?"
"Come with me," I tell him.
We go to the receptionist, but nobody is in the waiting area.
"Did Mr. Jons come through here just now with a cus- tomer?" I ask her.
She says, "The two men in the helicopter? No I watched them and they went past here and into the plant."
Bob and I hustle side by side down the corridor and through the double doors, into the orange light and production din of the plant. One of the supervisors sees us from across the aisle and, without being asked, points in the direction Jons and Burnside took. As we head down the aisle, I spot them ahead of us.
Burnside is walking up to every employee he sees and he's shaking hands with each of them. Honest! He's shaking hands, clapping them on the arm, saying things to them. And he's smil- ing.
Jons is walking with him. He's doing the same thing. As soon as Burnside lets go of a hand, Jons shakes it as well. They're pumping everybody in sight.
Finally, Jons sees us approaching, taps Burnside on the shoulder, and says something to him. Burnside dons this big grin and comes striding up to me with his hand extended.
"Here's the man I especially want to congratulate," says Burnside in a growling kind of voice. "I was saving the best for last, but you beat me to it. How are you?"
"Fine, just fine, Mr. Burnside," I tell him.
"Rogo, I came down here because I want to shake the hand of every employee in your whole plant," growls Burnside. "That was a hell of job this plant did on our order. A hell of a good job! Those other bastards had the order for five months and still couldn't get it down, and here your people finish the whole thing in five weeks. Must have been an incredible effort!"
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Before I can say anything, Jons jumps into the conversation and says, "Bucky and I were having lunch today, and I was telling him how you pulled out all the stops for him, how everybody down here really gave it everything they had."
I say, "Ah... yeah, we just did our best."
"Mind if I go ahead?" asks Burnside, intending to continue down the aisle.
"No, not at all," I say.