Sara Paretsky - Fire Sale

Aunt Jacqui stood up, but dropped her binder in the process. Some of the papers fell out and fluttered to the floor, three landing under Grobian’s desk. Billy picked up the binder and put it on her chair.

“Oh, dear,” she murmured, her voice languid, almost liquid. “I don’t think I can crawl under the desk in these clothes, Billy.”

Billy set the faxes on top of her binder and got down on his hands and knees to fetch the scattered pages. Aunt Jacqui picked up the faxes, riffled through them, and extracted a dozen or so pages.

Billy scrambled back to his feet and handed her the sheets from her binder. “Pat, you ought to make sure that floor gets washed more often. It’s filthy under there.”

Grobian rolled his eyes. “Billy, this ain’t your mother’s kitchen, it’s a working warehouse. As long as the floor doesn’t catch on fire I can’t be bothered about how dirty it is or isn’t.”

One of the truckers laughed and cuffed Billy on the shoulder on his way out the door. “Time you went on the road, son. Let you see real dirt and you’ll come back and eat off Grobian’s linoleum.”

“Or let him wash it,” the remaining driver suggested. “That always makes dirt look good.”

Billy blushed but laughed along with the men. Pat chatted briefly with the last driver about a load he was taking to the Ninety-fifth Street store. When the man left, Pat started to give Billy an order to go down to the loading bays, but Billy shook his head. “We need to talk to Ms. War-sha-sky, Pat.” He turned to me, apologizing for my long wait, adding that he’d tried to explain what I wanted, but didn’t think he’d done a good job of it.

“Oh, yeah. Community service, we already do plenty of that.” Grobian’s frown returned. Busy man, no time for social workers, nuns, and other do-gooders.

“Yes, I’ve studied your numbers, at least the ones you make public.” I pulled a sheaf of papers out of my briefcase, spilling the flip-flops in their plastic bag onto the floor.

I handed business cards to Grobian, Billy, and Aunt Jacqui. “I grew up in South Chicago. I’m a lawyer now and an investigator, but I’ve come back as a volunteer to coach the basketball team at Bertha Palmer High.”

Grobian looked ostentatiously at his watch, but young Billy said, “I know some of the girls there, Pat, through our church exchange. They sing in the choir at-”

“I know you want money from us,” Jacqui interrupted in her languid voice. “How much and for what?”

I flashed an upbeat, professional smile and handed her a copy of a report I’d created on By-Smart’s community actions. I gave another set to Grobian and a third to Billy. “I know that By-Smart encourages grassroots giving at its local stores, but only for small projects. The Exchange Avenue store gave out three one-thousand-dollar scholarships to college students whose parents work in the store, and the staff are encouraged to serve in local food pantries and homeless shelters, but your manager over on Exchange told me Mr. Grobian was in charge of larger giving for the South Side.”

“That’s right: I manage the warehouse, and I’m the South Chicago-Northwest Indiana district manager. We already support the Boys and Girls Clubs, the Firemen’s Survivor Fund, and several others.”

“Which is great,” I said enthusiastically. “Profits for the Exchange Avenue store last year were a shade under one-point-five million, a little less than the national average because of the bad economy down here. The store, as far as I could tell, gave away nine thousand dollars. For fifty-five thousand-”

Grobian shoved my report aside. “Who talked to you? Who gave out confidential store information?”

I shook my head. “It’s all on the Web, Mr. Grobian. You just have to know how to look. For fifty-five thousand, the store could cover the cost of uniforms, weight equipment, balls, and a part-time coach. You’d be real heroes on the South Side, and, of course, you’d get a substantial tax benefit from it as well. Heck, you might even be able to supply weight equipment out of old inventory.”

All I really wanted from By-Smart was a coach, and I figured for about twelve thousand they could get someone to commit to the job. She (or he) wouldn’t have to be a teacher, just someone who understood the game and knew how to work with young people. A graduate student who had played college ball would be good; someone who was doing a degree in sports management and training even better. I was hoping if I started with four or five times what I wanted, I might at least get a coach.

Grobian was still mad, though. He tossed my proposal into his wastebasket. Jacqui, with another of her languid movements, slid her papers toward the trash. They fell about a yard short.

“We never give that kind of money to an individual store,” Grobian said.

“Not to the store, Pat,” Billy objected, bending over to retrieve Aunt Jacqui’s papers. “To the school. It’s just the kind of thing Grandpa loves, helping kids who show enthusiasm for improving their lives.”

Ah: he was a Bysen. That was why he could set up meetings with beggars even though he was inexperienced and had a boss who didn’t want to hear about the matter. That meant Aunt Jacqui was a Bysen, too, so I didn’t have to keep playing twenty questions with her.

I smiled warmly at Billy. “Your grandfather went to this high school seventy years ago. Five of the girls on the team have parents who work for By-Smart, so it would be great synergy for the store and the community.” I winced at hearing corpu-speak fall so effortlessly from my lips.

“Your grandfather doesn’t believe in giving that kind of money to charity, Billy. If you don’t know that by now, you haven’t been listening to him very hard,” Jacqui said.

“That’s not fair, Aunt Jacqui. What about the wing he and Grandma built on the hospital in Rolling Meadows, and the mission school they started in Mozambique?”

“Those were big buildings that have his name on them,” Jacqui said. “A little program down here that he won’t get any glory for-”

“I’ll talk to him myself,” Billy said hotly. “I’ve met some of these girls, like I said, and when he hears their stories-”

“Large tears will fill his eyes,” Jacqui interrupted. “He’ll go, ‘Hnnh, hnnh, if they want to succeed they need to work hard, like I did. No one gave me any handouts, and I started out the same place they did, hnnh, hnnh.’”

Patrick Grobian laughed, but Billy looked flushed and hurt. He believed in his grandfather. To cover his confusion, Billy started sorting out the papers that Aunt Jacqui had dropped, separating my proposal from several sheets of fax paper.

“Here’s something from Adolpho in Matagalpa,” he said. “I thought we agreed not to work with him, but he’s quoting you-”

Jacqui took the papers back from him. “I wrote him last week, Billy, but maybe he didn’t get the letter. You’re right to point it out.”

“But it looks like he has a whole production schedule.”

Jacqui produced another dazzling smile. “I think you misread it, Billy, but I’ll make extra sure we’re all clear on this.”

Pat pulled my report out of his trash. “I moved too fast on this one, Billy; I’ll take a closer look at my numbers and get back to your friend. In the meantime, why don’t you go out to the loading bays, make sure that Bron at bay thirty-two has taken off-he has a tendency to linger, wasting time with the girls on the shift. And you, Ms.-uh, we’ll call you in a couple of days.”

Billy looked again at Aunt Jacqui, a troubled frown creasing his smooth young face, but he obediently got up to go. I followed him from the room.

“I’d be glad to get you any other information you want that might help your grandfather make a decision about the team. Maybe you’d like to bring him to one of our practices.”