Going Down (24 page)

Always, always be prepared when you walk into a meeting. I knew something wasn’t right. I sat down and looked at Al; he was flipping through some papers. After a minute or two, he dropped the papers on the desk. “Shit,” he said and looked at me. “Tell me about your trip to
Bandexx
, Zack. How did they receive you?”

“I thought they were very receptive to the proposal, they didn’t ask many questions, but I got the feeling that they were interested. You saw my presentation, Al. I don’t know why—.”

Al held up his hand to stop me. “That’s not what I’m asking you, Zack. I’m sure the presentation went fine. What I want to know, Zack, is how they received you. Unfortunately, I think you know where I’m going with this.”

“Unfortunately, I do.”

“I talked to Dean Cabot this afternoon. He said that his board simply wasn’t impressed with your presentation.”

“That’s bullshit, Al, and you know it!”

“I know that, Zack. I know your presentations are always excellent.” Al got up from behind his desk and stared out the window. “I knew that something was wrong when he said that they were still interested in doing business with us.”

“What!”

“Yeah,” Al said, turning to face me. “Dean said that they would welcome the opportunity to listen to our presentation again. Perhaps I could send another salesman that would be more to the boards liking.”

“Don’t send any more niggers out here, Al, and we can do business.”

Al smiled and laughed a little. “He didn’t come right out and say that, but that was the point I got from it.”

“I don’t believe this.”

“I’m sorry, Zack—sorry that things like this still go on. I hate to do this to you, Zack, but I’m turning the account over to Ben. I’m sending him out there in the morning. You’ll still get the commission for the sale if it goes through, plus a percentage of the future sales. Turn all your
Bandexx
materials over to me and we’ll brief Ben on it.”

“Yes, sir.” I stood up and stared at Al for a second or two, then I started for the door. I was beaten, all the way around, I was beaten. “You’ll have the materials and my resignation before I leave today.” And closed the door behind me.

I sat in my office, separating what was mine from what was theirs. What was worth keeping and what I was trashing. I typed up my resignation and was about to call Angelique and break the news to her, when Ben appeared at the door. “Mind if I come in?”

“Not at all, Ben, come on in. The
Bandexx
materials are over there on the desk,” I said, without looking at him.

“Zack, I wanna say something to you. It’s probably gonna sound like a credit to your race speech, but I’m gonna go with it anyway,” Ben said and he sat down. “When you started working here nobody thought you would last a week. Hell, we even started a pool on how long you’d last.”

I looked up and smiled. “How long did you think I’d last, Ben?”

“Seven months, twenty-three days.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Don’t be. All you did was come in here and out work and out hustle, every swinging dick in there. Earned everyone’s respect.”

“Who won?”

“Al. The day he hired you, he told me that one day you would give me a run for my money. And I’ll be damned if you didn’t. He saw something in you none of the rest of us saw. I didn’t think you would. I couldn’t see past your color. And I’m ashamed of myself for that.” Ben stood up and extended his hand. “I respect what you’re doing here. But I wish you would reconsider, Zack. Be a shame to lose you because of some peoples ignorance.”

I stood up and shook Ben’s hand. “You’re right, Ben: It did sound like a credit to your race speech,” I said with a smile. “But I appreciate you saying it. I learned a lot from you and Al. And honestly, knowing that I earned your respect means a lot to me. But it’s time to move on. I couldn’t respect myself if I stayed.”

As far as business goes, these last few weeks have been pretty good, if I had to say so myself. With
Tyhedra’s
help I’ve been able to make so many new contacts, and most of them, I feel confident, will eventually turn into clients. The only weak spot that remains is
TMG
and Ivan
DeVito
.

In spite of
Tyhedra’s
direct involvement in the account, it still remains a problem. I have to say this about her: Tyhedra knows her stuff. The training that she gave Kim on the reporting functions was exemplary. Kim feels more confident about her position and I believe she has gained a lot from
Tyhedra’s
poise and professionalism. Each morning she attends the meeting, whether I’m there or not. The other managers seem to have accepted her and feel a lot more comfortable about coming to her with their issues, instead of waiting until I get there.

The only sour spot was Ivan and those reports. He insists on reviewing them daily, and only with me or Tyhedra. As I expected, she had Ivan eating out of her hand, but it’s become a problem because it is taking too much of her time.

“Chris, I know I said I would work with Ivan until he gets comfortable addressing his issues with Kim, but he just doesn’t seem to want to move in that direction,” Tyhedra said to me on our way to see a client that we planned to joint venture with.

“I know, Tyhedra, but please, try to hang in there a little longer.”

“You don’t understand. I make an appointment with him to do a review. First, he keeps me waiting for no less than thirty minutes. Then when he does get around to it and finally calls me and Kim in, it’s the same thing every time—he’ll ask questions, and I let Kim answer every one of them. I have to say, she’s getting good.”

“I think so too. I’d like to get them to the point where she takes over this account in more of a supervisory role and I hire somebody to do her job.”

“I don’t know when that’s gonna be.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Ivan. After she answers his question, he’ll make some notes and move on to his next point. I let her run the whole show. Unless he asks me a direct question, I don’t say a word. Not one word.”

“I know where this is going, but go on.”

“Then Kim asks if he has any more questions; he says no and we get up to leave. Then he says, ‘Tyhedra, there’s something I need to ask you. It will only take a minute.’”

“And it never takes a minute.”

“No!” Tyhedra said much louder than she needed to. I could tell Ivan was getting to her. “All he wants is to ask the follow up questions that he could have and should have asked Kim. And that’s another forty minutes out of my day.” Tyhedra folded her arms across her luscious chest and pouted for a few seconds. “And you know I blame you for this, don’t you?”

“Me? Why me?”

“Because you dragged me into this. I’m at the point right now where I’ve finished his system review and he was satisfied with that. I billed him for my time and they paid my invoice. And by the way, I billed them for the time I spent on your evaluation and for training Kim.”

“Thank you. I had noticed that I hadn’t gotten an invoice from you. I appreciate that.”

“No problem. But you owe me one. Anyway, like I said, I’m ready to walk away from it now.”

“Why don’t you just bill him for the time you spend with him?”

“Because he is so annoying and the way he looks at me makes my flesh crawl.”

“Good reason.”

“I think it’s time we pop the tittie out of his mouth.”

“What do mean by that?”

“Let Kim go in there by herself.”

“I thought about that, but all he’ll do is call me.”

“And when he does, you give him your firm voice and explain to him that you have completed your contractual obligation to me and
TMG
, and refer him to me if he has any questions.”

“Then he’ll start blowing up your phone.”

“You let me worry about that.”

“Consider it done. As of tomorrow, Kim is flying solo with Ivan.”

The rest of the day went over great. When we got to the client that we had planned on joint venturing with, he was in such bad shape that he was ready to sign a contract right away. Tyhedra broke out her laptop, drew up a contract, printed it out, and we had a deal. After that, we followed up on a few more promising leads and decided to call it a day.

“I don’t know about, Chris, but I am starving,” Tyhedra said and we drove away.

“I tell you what: since I owe you one, why don’t you let me cook you dinner tonight?”

“You can cook?”

“Yeah, trust me. I’m really good at it.”

“Okay, you’re on.”

I stopped and picked up a bottle of wine and headed for the house. While I prepared our meal, Tyhedra made a few phone calls to follow up with some of the potential clients that we didn’t get to that day, and made appointments for the rest of the week. Then she wandered into the kitchen I told her what we were having. “Well, I just hope you like it.”

“I’m sure I will. Since you did the cooking, the least I can do is serve,” Tyhedra suggested.

“Don’t let me stop you,” I said, and took off my apron. I got out two glasses and a corkscrew, and left her to her work. I went in the dining room, lit a candle, and dimmed the lights.

When Tyhedra came out of the kitchen, I was seated at the table. “Dinner by candlelight. Nice touch,” she said, and placed the food I cooked in front of me.

We discussed business and sipped
Pouilly-Fuisse
wine over dinner. After dinner, we finished the bottle of wine and talked. To that point, most of our conversation had been about business. Mostly we talked about me and the things that I wanted out of business and life in general. When it came time to move on to talking about her, Tyhedra quickly changed the subject. I know some people don’t like to talk about themselves, so I didn’t make an issue of it.

Tyhedra held up her glass. “I propose a toast to our new joint venture.”

“To us,” I said, and our glasses came together. Some of it spilled on her jacket. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. We both stood up at the same time and bumped into each other. The wine in my glass spilled on me.

“I should do something with this before it stains,” Tyhedra said and began unbuttoning her jacket. I stood there frozen as she looked in my eyes and slowly unbuttoned each button. Tyhedra wore only a black lace bra under her jacket. I slipped her jacket slowly off her shoulders, allowing it to fall to the floor. I paused to admire her beauty. Tyhedra took a step closer and unbuttoned my shirt and ran her hands across my chest.

I ran my fingers through her hair and began kissing my way down to her neck, and then biting her gently on the shoulder.

“Ahh,” Tyhedra moaned. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “You should take that off,” Tyhedra slid my shirt off of my shoulders.

I ran my tongue along the lace of her bra while I reached behind her back. I unhooked her bra and slid it off of her arms slowly. I stopped for a moment to admire her body. Her breasts were firm, and her nipples grew harder as I ran my tongue across them. I pulled down the zipper on her skirt and eased it down as Tyhedra wiggled her way out of it. She kicked out of the skirt. Her panties were black lace to match the bra. “You are so beautiful,” I said, and dropped to my knees.

“Thank you.”

I ran my tongue along the edges of the lace and down the inside of her thighs. Tyhedra held my head in place as I ran my tongue up the seam of her panties. Tyhedra moaned quietly as I slid them off.