Otter Under Fire (2 page)

Tempest had one passion and that was her belief in the American Dream. She was not only interested in it for herself, but for every American who had any merchandise or a service to be sold. Tempest’s company, Blackthorn Marketing was an immense well of creativity and innovative, yet irritating jingles which made her clients some of the most successful people in the country.

“So what did you do with your weekend?” Tempest asked.

“I set up a booth at the arts and crafts mall,” Otter said as she rummaged through a drawer for a fork, “to sell some of the jewelry I made the past few months. Ran that most of the weekend, had a date that was ok, put some notes together for a meeting I have with Clark on Friday, nothing really exciting.”

“How did you do at the fair?”

“Sold most of what I had.”

“Good job,” Tempest sipped her margarita and savored the first taste. “Ah, this is great. Can you make me some of that?” she pointed to Otter’s plate.

“Got you covered,” Otter was already pulling a cold plate out of the refrigerator and arranging salad greens on it.

Deftly weaving around the cats, they went out on the patio to enjoy their dinner.

“You know what you need?” Tempest said, propping her chin in her hand.

“What would that be?”

“You need some excitement in your life.” Tempest had a certain missionary zeal in her eyes that Otter knew well.

“I’m not going with you to that bar again,” Otter said firmly, “they shot at us.”

“That was just a misunderstanding,” Tempest said sipping on her drink, “and they didn’t really shoot at us, it was more of a warning.”

“Still…”

“They didn’t get word we were invited. It’s an easy enough mistake to make.”

“Right...”

“And you made friends with that biker, the one with all the tattoos and the funny teeth.”

“Steel teeth, they were made of steel.”

“Well you seemed like you had a lot to talk about.”

“Turns out she’s a welder and she’s going to plasma cut and weld the components to the new gates to our back yard.”

“You found the only metal worker in that whole building. I am impressed.”

“And her boyfriend is a glass blower and an artist. He designed her tattoos, based on a Mayan frieze found in an ancient temple. That’s how I started talking to her, the artwork was beautiful.”

“Anyway, it’s not about that bar. I think you need to expand your horizons.”

“I don’t see why, right now my life doesn’t include clients who have fist fights at tailgate parties.”

“They weren’t my clients, those were customers. I told you the food was so good we’d sell out.”

“The food was pretty good.” Otter conceded.

“And they paid for all the damages.”

“That’s true.”

“And they hired my clients to do several big banquets for them. Turns out all three of them were looking for a good catering company.”

“Just like instant karma.”

“But you, you spend all your time working.”

“I do not.”

“Do too.”

“I make jewelry and art.”

“Working,”

“I go on dates.”

“With men you know from work.”

“But still, I go out.”

“I’m sure you manage to get work in there somewhere.”

“I went shopping last week.”

“For new work boots,”

“And a new dress,”

“For a charity ball for work,”

“So what and why are you picking on me? You are just as bad, maybe worse.”

“But I do exciting things in my career.”

“Well I think a charity ball where the mayor and the governor are coming is a pretty exciting thing, but you have a point you want to make. So what is it?”

“You could take up skydiving or hang gliding.”

“Give it a rest, Tempest; that’s more of your style and you know I’m not that crazy.”

“Or maybe you should try online dating or try some new experiences. I just think a little exhilaration would make your life more fun.”

“Are you trying to rope me into trying out one of your new customers?”

“Possibly, I’m hoping you can go help me check out some of my potential clients later this week.”

“I can probably do that.”

“And maybe we can figure out how to bring more excitement into your existence.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Otter said, and finished her drink. “Besides I have all the excitement I need having you for a best friend.”

Early mornings sucked, Otter thought as she got into her car the next day. Her working days had started somewhere between 4 and 5 am for years, but it was still tough to get up and get moving. One day, she promised herself, she was going to start drinking coffee. As it stood, the only caffeine she drank was Tempest’s favorite brand of diet cola, because it was the only soda Tempest allowed in the house. Tempest, however, didn’t have to get up before dawn. She called Annie as she backed out of the driveway. She and Annie had been commuting partners and coworkers for a little over 5 years.

Annie nimbly leapt into the car, belying her nearly 60 years. She was married, had four grown children, grandchildren and a pack of dogs. Still, with all her life experience, Annie had a certain childlike quality to her. A bit like the years never left their wearing impression on her psyche.

“Wasn’t yesterday great?” Annie said leaning back in her seat.

“What was so great about yesterday?” Otter asked as she put the vehicle in reverse.

“It was our first day under a hundred since May twenty-fourth.”

“It was ninety-nine,” Otter said, “That hardly counts.”

“And it’s supposed to be ninety-seven today. I just love fall.”

Otter snorted. “If you can call it that,”

“You also missed all the fun yesterday,” she told Otter as she buckled her seatbelt.

“What fun would that be?”

“Oh there are all kinds of rumors flying through the shop,” Annie giggled. “Word is that Ron Defray is being moved from the production manager position.”

“Oh great, now he’ll be more of an asshole than he is now.”

“It gets better, the boss made a special place for him to get him out of the mainstream of the shop.”

“That’s usually a sign he’s about to get his walking papers. He’s not totally stupid. I’m sure he’s figured that part out.”

“Well there are all kinds of speculation on who will replace him.”

“No doubt, probably one of the shift supervisors, I’d vote for the second shift guy myself.”

“Rumor has it that it could be you.”

“No, it won’t be. First of all, I don’t want it.”

“You know that won’t matter.”

“Secondly I would like to think that the boss doesn’t hate me that much. You know they only give that position to someone he plans to fire in a couple years. Remember the production manager we had before Defray?”

“Yeah, Bill, the guy who never lived up to his resume. He kept thinking he could talk his way out of all of his screw ups.”

“And he lied to people.”

“He tried to place the blame on everyone else when something went wrong.”

“You remember when he blew up that furnace?” Otter asked. “He put parts in there full of oil. Number one item on the ‘Things you are Never Supposed to do With a Furnace’. Then he told the boss that Gonzo did it. Gonzo wasn’t ever there that day.”

“Well they got rid of him.”

“Do you remember how much Chuck our general manager at the time really hated that guy? After they fired Bill, he had the guys get a forklift and take Bill’s old desk out to the parking lot and set fire to it.” Otter laughed a little. “I always admired Chuck’s forthright approach.”

“Well you always knew where you stood with him.”

“I wonder what he’s doing now.”

“I heard he moved to Montana after he got out of the burn unit.”

“He wasn’t the brightest bulb on the chandelier.”

“Or maybe Wyoming...”

“Could be, I don’t know. Anyway whoever gets that position is looking to be out the door in a couple of years. You can bet on it.”

“That’s not true,” Annie said confidently. “Jose is still there.”

“Well Jose is more of a fill in production manager; he does the job for a few months while they are looking for someone. He’s never been official. Besides if they were looking at me for the job, someone would have approached me by now and mentioned it--long before they would start working on shifting Ron Defray.”

“You could be right.”

“I am right; I’ll bet you a dollar right now. They’ve already talked to someone. They just haven’t made the announcement yet.”

Otter hit the ground running. Arizona Techno-Thermal was a 24/7 operation. Affectionately known as AzTech, it was a major player in the aerospace industry of Phoenix and always busy. She started making the rounds to all her departments, checking that schedules were being followed, machines were operating correctly and product was getting shipped.

“Where you been Mee ha
[2]
?” Gonzo asked, waggling his thick black eyebrows at her. “We missed you yesterday.”

Juan Gonzales was a short, compact master of his job. He moved tons of different metals, loaded machines and ran furnaces with amazing efficiency, making it look effortless. She knew she could count on him to keep a tight schedule and get material moving through the process quickly. She couldn’t remember when he had started calling her mee ha, and always had a feeling she secretly amused him. Still he was a professional and he would do nearly anything she asked.

“I got to see a pour over at the steel mill.” She told him as they walked out to the shop floor. “They have a new recipe that they’re pretty excited about.”

“Ah yes, I heard. My cousin, he works over there. They think there will be a lot of money in this.”

“They could be right. They haven’t run all the tests on it yet, but it might be something special if it does everything they want it to.”

“More amazing things were happening here. I hear you might become a big shot
jefe
[3]
.”

“Nah, not me, I’m already a supervisor over the best department—what more could I possibly want?”

Gonzo laughed. “You should go for it, Mee ha. You could do it.”

“No, I haven’t been here long enough. You could do it; you would be very good at it.”

“No, I like where I’m at right now,” he said seriously. “Too many hours for that position, you’re on call 24/7.”

“True enough. I’d like to think I have a life outside of work,” Otter said, thinking about what Tempest had said the night before.

“At work, you tell me what to do, at home my wife tells me what to do,” Gonzo grinned and waggled his brows at her. “I have women running my life.”

Otter snorted out a laugh. She sincerely doubted anyone could make him do anything he didn’t want to do.

“You could maybe want to do some work around here,” Ron Defray said from behind them, “Try to earn your paycheck instead of standing around here talking.”

“Ah Ron, it was only a matter of time.” Otter said as she turned to him. “Nice of you to drop by my department and say hello,”

“The boss told me to see that you get your machines running first thing this morning, Mackenzie, makes up for lost time yesterday.”

“I sincerely doubt he said that, Defray, but I’ll check with him when he gets in.”

“You need to acknowledge that I’m your boss.”

“You know, by happy coincidence, I don’t. Michael promised that you would never be my boss in any way. It’s the reason I have the strength to come to work in the morning.”

“You’ll be singing a different tune someday soon, Mackenzie,” he said with a sneer, playing with a bullet casing he always had on a chain around his neck. “And then you’ll see what it’s like to have a real man in charge.” He was the size and height of Gonzo, but flabbier with a bit of a belly where Gonzo was all hard muscle.

“Yeah, that will be a revelation, but someday isn’t today,” she said.

“You’ve always had a smart mouth,” he said, “but I’ve just been promoted to ‘Special Assistant to the President’, “He preened a little. “It’s the next step toward being the general manager.”

“We already have a general manager.”

“Yeah, but you know what happens to those guys, they don’t last long. I’ll be next.”

“Congratulations.” Maybe he was that stupid. Or more likely blind.

“I’ll be able to control more this way.”

“Don’t you have a time clock to haunt? First shift is about to come in and I know how you like verbally assaulting everyone as they punch in.”

Defray glanced in the direction of the beckoning time piece. “We’ll continue this conversation later.” He turned on his heel and marched off.

“Watch out for that one, Mee ha, he’ll slit your throat if he gets the chance.”