Robert Asprin - M.Y.T.H. Inc In Action

I nod to Bee, who hands the guy the papers for the shipments we have selected. Like I say, we'd been expecting them.

The guy looks at the list he's holdin' like if s a road kill.

"Just like that, huh?" he sneers. "Don't you wanna talk about our haulin' rates?"

"No need for that," I shrugs. "I'm sure you'll charge us a fair price."

"You are?" he sez, squintin' suspicious-like.

"Sure," I sez, givin' him my best collection agent's smile, "especially seein' as how the rates is gonna be reviewed ... and if they look outta line, there's gonna be an investigation,"

"An investigation," the driver sneers. "We get Royal investigations all the time ... and we ain't changed nothin' yet. If they give us too much grief, we just threaten to shut down haulin' all over the kingdom."

"We wasn't talkin' about no Royal Investigation," Nunzio sez. "We was thinkin' of another judgmental body."

"Oh yeah? Like who?"

Nunzio winks at me, and I take a deep breath and give it my best shot.

"Don ... de don don. Don ... de don don Bruuuuuce!"

Though my singin' voice is not what you would call a real show stopper, the guy gets the message. His smile droops, and he swallows hard ... but he's a fighter and tries to rally back.

"Yeah, okay, so you get our 'special' rates. Just don't expect any express delivery."

Now it's Nunzio's turn to show off his grin.

"Friend," he sez, "if we wanted efficiency, we wouldn't have sent for the teamsters."

"What's that supposed to mean?" the guy bellows, gettin' back some of the color he lost when we mentioned Don Bruce.

"Just that your normal delivery schedules will suit us fine," I sez, innocent-like. "Know what I mean?"

"Yeah ... well ... I guess that's settled," the guy sez, lookin' back and forth between Nunzio and the men. "We'll go ahead and get started."

As he is goin', I find I cannot resist takin' one last dig at him.

"Say, Nunzio," I sez in a loud voice. "What do you call a teamster in a three piece suit?"

"The defendant!" Nunzio shoots back just as loud.

This humor goes right past the others in the crew, but the driver gets it. He breaks stride, and for a second I think he's gonna come back to "discuss" it with us at length. Instead, he just keeps on goin' and contents himself with slammin' the door for his witty response.

"You know, Guide," Nunzio sez, goin' back to studyin' his cards, "special rates or not, eventually we're going to have to pay these jokers ... and we do not currently have access to the funds we are accustomed to operating with in M.Y.T.H. Inc."

"Relax, cuz," I sez, seein' the current bet and raisin' it, "I got an idea for that, too."

I have a chance to try out my plan that afternoon when a shipment arrives from one of our suppliers. I wait until the unloadin' is almost complete, then amble over to the driver.

"Say ... you got a minute?" I sez, friendlylike.

"Okay," the driver shrugs. "What's up?"

"Well," I sez, lookin' around like I'm expectin' a cop, "I got some information you should pass back to your outfit."

"What's that?"

"There's a rumor goin' around that the queen is callin' for an audit on military spendin'," I sez. "Somethin' about a lot of our suppliers chargin' us more for supplies than they do civilians."

"An audit?" he repeats, suddenly lookin' real nervous.

"Yeah, scuttlebutt has it that any outfit caught gougin' extra profits out of army contracts is gonna get shut down and their entire inventory confiscated by the government."

"Is that legal?"

"Hey, we're talkin' the queen here. If she sez it's legal, it's legal."

"When is this gonna happen?"

"Not until next month, the way I hear it," I sez. "I just thought you might like to know a little in advance. You know, so just in case any of youse guys' prices should need some quick readjusting youse could do it before the audit started."

"Hey thanks! I appreciate that."

"Yeah? Well, let your management know about it and see if they appreciate it, too. If they do, then maybe it would be a good think if in addition to adjustin' their prices, they made a little refund to postdate the price change ... like maybe you could drop it off here when you make your next delivery?"

"I'll do that," he sez, noddin' vigorously. "And thanks again. We won't forget you."

Things went pretty smooth after that. We only had to plant our audit rumor a couple times for the word to spread through the suppliers, and soon there was a steady arrival of "refunds" ... more than enough to pay off the teamsters. What's more, Bee's plan for reorganizin' the warehouse worked well enough that we ended up havin' a fair amount of leisure time each day, which we devoted to sharpenin' our Dragon Poker skills ... as well as to our new hobby: Creative Supplyin'.

This pastime proved to be a lot more fun than any of us had anticipated, mostly because of the rules we set for ourselves. Since we agreed to only botch up one out of every ten orders, we have a lot of time to decide exactly which orders will get botched up and how. You see, to keep ourselves covered, we decide that it is best to switch items that either had identification numbers close enough to each other that the error would seem like a simple misreadin', like a 6 for an 8 ... or that were of a similar nature or appearance so it would just look like we pulled the wrong item, like sendin' summer weight uniforms to an outfit requestin' winter weight gear.

My personal favorite was when we sent several cases of Propaganda Leaflets to an outfit that was desperately askin' for toilet paper. It seemed somehow appropriate to me.

Like I say, it was a lot of fun ... so much fun, in fact, I had a sneaky feelin' that it couldn't last. As it turned out, I was right.

The end of the festivities came when I got an order to report to our commandin' officer.

"Stand easy, Sergeant Guido. I've just been reviewing your unit's efficiency rating, and from what I'm seeing, it looks like it's time we had a talk."

I am more puzzled than nervous at this, as we have not been forwardin' the required copies of our paperwork ... mostly because we have not been fillin' out the required paperwork at all. This is confirmed by the officer's next words.

"It seems your squad is not overly fond of filling out the supply forms required by regulations, sergeant."

"Well, sir, we've been pretty busy tryin' to learn the routine. I guess we've gotten a little behind in our reports."

"'A little behind' hardly describes it," he sez, tightenin' his lips a little. "I can't seem to find a single form from your supply depot since you took over. No matter, though. Fortunately there is sufficient cross-reporting to give me an idea of your progress."

This makes me a little uneasy, as we have figured there would be several rounds of requests and admonishments on our negligent paperwork performance before any attention was paid to the actual performance of our jobs. Still, as I am not totally unaccustomed to havin' to explain my actions to assorted authority figures, I have my alibis ready to go.

"Are you aware, sergeant, that your squad is performing at ninety-five percent efficiency?"

"Ninety-five percent?" I sez, genuinely surprised, as our one-in-ten plan should be yieldin' an even ninety percent.

"I know it sounds high," the officer sez, misunderstandin' my reaction, "especially considering that sixty-five percent is the normal efficiency rating, even for an experienced supply crew. Of course, a practiced eye can read between the lines and get a pretty good idea of what's happening."

"Sir?"

"Take this one shipment, for example," he sez, tappin' one of the sheets in front of him. "It took a shrewd eye with attention to detail to spot that this request for winter weight uniforms was actually several months old, and to realize that substituting summer weight uniforms would be more appropriate."