The Trouble Way (25 page)

“Well, Dwight, unfortunately that is not what some of the customers think. And, unbelievable as it may seem, there may be one or two employees who would steal from the store also. We had, as you know, over sixty-thousand dollars in invisible waste this past year due to shoplifting and such. But, we’ll be covering that in another meeting. Thank you for your input, Dwight.”

“
What do you think? Better with a mustache or no?” Dwight said to Linda and Ann, as they stood examining Dwight’s smiling face on the second photo that the Ms. Becky, tacked on the bulletin board. “Nah,” he decided, “once was enough.” They turned and walked away, leaving it unmolested.

“
Nice little speech there, Dwight … velly convincing,” Linda said with an exaggerated Asian accent, and the three shared a good giggle.

“
Dwight, I’m expecting the DM soon, possibly this week or early next.” Mr. Hedd had pulled Dwight aside and was giving him a few additional instructions on how he wanted the stockroom prepared for the visit. “Get the aisles cleared and all the boxes off the sales floor that are not actively being worked on. Oh, yeah, I want you to take charge of the exterior. Be sure we don’t have any weeds growing out of the cracks, especially around the downspouts. Ol’ Braunswine has a particular aversion to weeds. Must be the military background.”

“
Yes sir, Mr. Hedd, will do.” Dwight made notes as Mr. Hedd gave him additional instructions.

“
Write off some vegetation killer and spray it on any green you see coming up around the building.” Mr. Hedd pointed out a growth near one of the downspouts near the receiving door.

“
One more thing, Dwight. I noticed some rat scat around the pallets of dog food.”

“
Scat, what’s that?” Dwight asked.

“
Rat feces,” Mr. Hedd said.

“
Feces?” Dwight looked at Mr. Hedd.

“
Feces, Dwight, feces … rat shit,” an exasperated Mr. Hedd said.

“
Must be another ‘requsite education problem,” Dwight said.

“
Pardon me?”

“
Oh, nuthin’,” Dwight said.

Getting back to the problem at hand, until we can contact the exterminators, I
’d like you to set a few rat traps and see if we can eliminate the problem before it gets out of hand.”

“
Yes Sir, I’ll get right on it.”

“
Oh yeah, another thing, there are several fluorescent bulbs out over the Cafeteria. Grab some from the fixture room and replace them as soon as you get a chance.”

“
I’ll do it first thing in the morning, if that’s alright, Mr. Hedd. I’m about at the end of my shift for today. I know you don’t like overtime.”

“
I’ll okay the overtime this one time. It’s important, Dwight. Don’t delay on those traps. While I’m thinking of it, get some rat poison off the shelf too and put that around where you see signs. That could end up to be a real problem if the county health department happens to inspect anytime soon. We’re due for an inspection and I sure as hell don’t want a varmint problem. They could close down the cafeteria if they found rats in the stockroom or something. Worst case, they could close the entire store if they find we have a big problem. Especially where we store food or candy. Do a thorough inspection of the pet food area, too, both on the sales floor and in the stock area.”

“
Will do, Mr. Hedd.”

“
Ol’ Braunswine is the only varmint problem I can handle at the moment.” Mr. Hedd smirked. “Keep that to yourself, Dwight.”

Dwight went to the garden shop and grabbed a spray bottle of vegetation killer and glanced around near the grass seed display. Sure that nobody was observing, he took his box cutter and sliced one of the wild flower seed bags and scooped a handful and put it in his vest pocket. As he left the garden shop, he walked by the indoor plant display. Satisfied he was alone after a quick glance around; he tested his vegetation killer on a beautiful display of indoor plants.

We’ll see just how potent this stuff is.

From there, he went to the stockroom where he recorded the markdown for the vegetation killer, knowing Mr. Hedd would check. He purposely neglected to include the damaged bag of wild flower seeds he sliced open on the markdown sheet and opened the roll-up receiving door and walked outside.

He gave Mr. Hedd the high sign with the vegetation killer spray bottle when he notice Mr. Hedd taking a smoke break near the pallets of bag goods next to the garden shop. Once out of Mr. Hedd’s sight, Dwight continued his walk around the entire building spraying mostly where there were no weeds and not spraying where there were. He sprinkled wild flower seeds in random cracks in the cement.

That should give old Braunswine enough weeds to shove up his ass in about a week or two.

He nearly laughed out loud when he thought about telling Lindy of his new “get
The Man
,” scheme.

That should add a bit to the maintenance expense account. Fuck me once, shame on you, fuck me twice, it
’ll cost ya … I am not a cheap fuck.

“
HOLY SHIT!” Dwight recoiled from the sight of rat trap. He looked around. There was nobody to hear him. There at his feet was the carcass of an enormous, black rat in the trap he had set the night before. When he checked the next two traps, there were two more monsters, as big as armadillos. He put on a pair of work gloves and collected the traps. He wasn’t about to handle them so he tossed the rats, traps and all, into the dumpster. Then, he had a thought, grabbed a small black plastic garbage bag and using a stick worked one of the animals out of its trap and dropped it into the bag.

Dwight, you are one
sly sonofabitch.

Dwight stuffed the garbage bag behind some boxes and went about his business of running the stockroom. When there was a break in the deliveries, Dwight went to the
fixture room and pulled out a box of four-foot fluorescent lights from the rack, stuffed the plastic bag with the dead animal into the end of the box and took it to the cafeteria.

Alice, the cafeteria manager, her hair plastered to her head in sweaty ringlets by the health department
’s requisite hairnet, was hovering near the steam table. Her hands on her hips, impatient toe tapping, school principal style, waiting as the steam table filled with water, prepping it for the lunch meal.

“
Hi, whatcha doin’ Dwight?”

Dwight had a tall stepladder and was positioning it in front of the counter in the serving line.
“Replacing a few of your burnt out light bulbs, Alice. Hedd’s orders.”

“
Well, it’s about damn time, they been burnt out for several weeks. Don’t be long now, we’re setting up for lunch,” Alice said, then turned and did the wet-tile slip-shuffle toward the kitchen.

With the ladder set up, Dwight grabbed the black trash bag from the light box and mounted the ladder.

Alice stopped before she got to the kitchen, turned and looked up at Dwight. “What’s in the garbage bag, Dwight?”

Dwight was halfway up the ladder and turned to look over his shoulder at Alice, at the plastic bag, then back at Alice.
“Keep your voice down. It’s poison,” he whispered. “Don’t want the entire store knowing we have a rat problem, especially the health department. Hedd says if they start nosing around and find a problem, the cafeteria could be shut down. Said he found feces.”

“
Okay,” Alice whispered back. “My lips are zipped.” She went through the door and stuck her head back out. “What’s feces?”

“
Rat shit.”

“
Ahh.” Her head disappeared back into the prep room.

At the top of the ladder, Dwight reached up and slid the ceiling tile back and shook the contents of the bag onto the top of the adjacent tile, directly over the serving line then replaced the tile and descended the ladder, rolled the bag into a knot and jammed it into his hip pocket. The
“rat poison” was already beginning to ripen.

“
Still working on the lights?” Alice winked at him. She was carrying a heavy serving pan of instant mashed potatoes. She placed the pan onto the steam table. “I hope it won’t take much longer, we’re going to be serving in about twenty minutes.”

“
Yummy, ten gallons of instant mashed potatoes, that looks mighty tasty,” Dwight said.

“
Don’t be a smart-ass, Dwight,” Alice said smiling up at him.

“
I’ll be done in a flash, just two more lights and I’ll be outa here and I’ll leave you to your gourmet potatoes. Shouldn’t be more than five minutes, ten, max. If it takes me more than twenty minutes, call the cops.”

“
If I were twenty years younger, Dwight, I’d give you a run around the old steam table.”

“
I bet you would, Alice.” And under his breath, “I bet you were one fast babe.”

On his way back to the stockroom with the ladder, another thought occurred to him. He put the ladder away beside the roll-up door and then pulled the chain and opened the roll-up.

With gloves on, Jake retrieved the two rattraps and shook the critters into another black plastic garbage bag. He made a quick scan of the stockroom and confirmed he was the sole worker there and went about his business, confident he had not been seen. He made one stop at the candy stockroom and one more in the cafeteria stockroom.

When he finished, he went to the garden shop and picked up four traps, deliberately neglecting to record them on a store use markdown sheet. Walking the stockroom, he selected locations along several outside walls, baited and armed the traps, and placed them in likely varmint runs next to outside walls and close to exit doors. He put two near the pallets of dog food in one of the auxiliary stockrooms where he had seen signs of varmints. He planned to put containers of rat poison in hard to reach places on the high stock bins where dog food and wild birdseed pallets were stored and above several ceiling tiles near the main office. To increase his chances of luring more animals, he scattered some dog food pellets along with the poison around the area. Dead animals would be nearly impossible to locate in those areas; exactly his objective.

“Dwight, what brought you out tonight?” Linda said after she opened the door.

“
I thought I’d check out what the little people are doing tonight. Sorry I didn’t call but I wasn’t near a phone.” Dwight walked into Linda’s apartment and made himself at home. “If this is a bad time, I can leave.”

“
Nah, it isn’t a bad time. It’s nice to see you.”

“
Care to go have a beer or something?”

Within a half hour, they were cruising up Delridge Way looking for a place for a drink, settling on a hole-in-the-wall bar about a mile from Linda
’s apartment.

“
Did you hear the latest? Ol’ Braunswine was in today and he informed Mr. Hedd that I had way too much help in receiving and they cut my help by twenty hours. They moved Candy to the cosmetic’s department and they’re not replacing her hours. So, I have to get twenty hours more work out of my crew. I’m down to three people. Not that Candy was much help anyway but she did do something. And she has a cute ass.” Linda gave him a slap on the arm.

“
I asked Mr. H if I was going to receive a bit more pay for the additional work I would obviously be required to do.”

“
How did that go?” Linda asked. “I’m guessing, not good.”

“
You know what the bastard said? He said with Braunswine as a DM, there were exactly two chances of anybody getting raises while he is in charge and they’re both zero. Then the bastard laughed. I’m telling you Lindy, they are going to be damn sorry they ever fucked with ol’ Dwight Hutton, and you can take that to the bank and earn interest on it. I’ve got a few things in the hopper. I don’t want to tell you, just in case. Just stay tuned to this station for the next several weeks. When you see the feces hit the fan, you will know Dwight has been on a secret mission.”

“
Feces. What’s feces?”

“
Shit Lindy, it’s shit.”

“
Oh ... why didn’t you just say shit? Sometimes I don’t know what you are thinking. Usually, though, it turns out to do with toilets or shit. I think you have way too much time on your hands, Dwight.

“
Educated people don’t say shit, they say feces.”

“
Whatever. Just be careful and don’t do anything you will regret. I’m sure it was Ms. Becky who recommended Candy to the boss for transfer,” Linda said.

“
Not to worry you’re cute little round ass, Lindy, I’ve got the situation under complete control. There are exactly two chances they are going to fuck ol’ Dwight over, and they are both zero.”

“
I sure hope so. I’d sure miss you if you got fired. On the subject of Candy, she’s a world-class ass-kisser and has Ms. Becky’s ass covered in lipstick. Ann filled me in on Candy and her lying-ass ways.”