Wild Fyre (8 page)

This lunch took place back before iPads and decent cell phone screens, so for a demo Michael had this little device with a screen on it. I guess it was a DVD player. It showed a woman spinning open the table to grow it to the bigger size. It still think those tables are incredible, but see one for the first time and it’s like magic.

Bert nodded and complimented Michael on his execution. They discussed the origins of the design and how he had improved it. I guess because Michael started to get into technical secrets, Judith began to look a little itchy. She pulled out a briefcase and produced NDAs—non-disclosure agreements for me and Bert to sign. In case we were out to steal secrets, I guess.

I didn’t have a problem signing, but Bert crossed out a few lines. He explained himself carefully. Apparently there were some clauses that might prohibit him from building things that he already had experience building. It made sense to me. He and Michael struck an agreement and they signed. Only Judith looked nervous at all.

I had a nice lunch. The others didn’t each much. They were too busy talking. Fortunately, our table was fairly isolated from the rest of the diners so it was quiet.

If he had incurred any ill will over the NDA, Bert won them back with his idea. I didn’t entirely grasp his concept, but apparently Bert came up with a way to marry the sections of the table together more securely, so the surface would appear more flat. Michael mentioned it was an unsolvable issue, but with a couple of pen sketches on the back of the NDA, Bert solved it. He was in. Michael offered to bring him into the manufacturing process and then phase him into sales and marketing as production stabilized. Bert loved the idea. Apparently, he gets bored and prefers shifting responsibilities. I thought Bert’s need for change would be a red flag to a small business owner, but Michael smiled.

Honestly, I was already beyond worrying about whether Bert was a good fit. Michael should have been able to evaluate him now that they had met in person. I was already counting the commission I’d get from this placement. He was offering Bert my idea of a fortune.

When we stood, everyone shook hands and smiled. I didn’t like the way that Bert showed his shovel-teeth to Judith, but Bert wasn’t my problem.
 

The next day I got a letter from Mr. Bert Williams. It included sincere thanks for my “vision” and a thousand in cash. The bills were weird. I took them to the bank at lunch and handed them to the cross-eyed teller. She pronounced them old, but valid, and deposited them into my account. When I was walking back to my office, I had the urge to call up Michael and call off the deal. He could still hire Bert if he wanted, but I didn’t want a commission from that placement. I’m not sure if things would have gone better or worse if I’d made that call. On one hand, he might have stopped the hiring process. On the other, it might have been used as evidence that I knew something was wrong. I didn’t call.

Two weeks later, after Bert started work, Michael sent me an effusive letter. He talked about what a great fit Bert was—how all the yachting folks took to the old man, and how the engineers and craftsmen worshipped him. He said in the letter that he was tempted to pay my whole fee upfront, but he didn’t. Successful businessmen have an instinct that steadies their hand even when it doesn’t silence their pen. He paid me the advance and promised to pay the rest on the day Bert’s probationary employment period ended.

I moved on to other things. I’d already started to specialize somewhat in software engineers. Up until then, I liked working with a variety of skills. I guess maybe I got tired of all the effort involved. Software engineers and IT folks are fairly easy to understand.

The newspaper was where I first heard that things had gone horribly wrong, but I got all the clear details from the lawsuit against me. Fortunately for me, Michael did not focus his lawyers exclusively at me. I would have been made destitute. Michael put most of his attention to a civil suit against Bert himself. The second-string legal team came after me. They wanted me to settle and admit malpractice. One legal firm owned by a friend of mine offered me a cheap defense team and I decided to fight.

A number of local recruiters actually contributed to my defense. They didn’t want a precedent set where an employer would sue the recruiter every time a new employee didn’t work out. It was helpful.

We went before the judge.
 

The following is the best, corroborated account of what took place in the last week that Bert worked for Michael…

CH.6.Bert ()
 

{

 
Bert0();

/*****

J
ULY
, 2006

M
ICHAEL
WALKED
into his shop with a smile. He liked to come to work and find people already working and excited to accomplish something that day. He joined his drafter, Tien, who was hunched over plans with their newest co-worker, Bert.
 

Bert came up to speed quickly and asked all the right questions. He locked-in to areas of the plans where there had been long debates before a solution came. He was challenging their assumptions and validating their decisions, and Bert did it in a casual way that didn’t seem to irk the other employees.

“How’s it going, guys?” Michael asked.

“Bert’s thinking we should redesign the locking mechanism,” Tien said.
 

Bert didn’t say anything. He leaned closer to the plans. They had one light table in the shop. Bert clasped his hands behind his back and leaned over it.

“Why’s that?” Michael asked. He asked the question towards Bert, but after a few seconds, Tien answered.

“The swing of the part is on an arc, but the slot for the catch is linear. He said it should be a sweep,” Tien said.

“Ah, I see,” said Michael. “Bert, the slot is linear because it tightens as it closes, see? That brings the gap in tight by slowly decreasing the radius.”

Bert exhaled and continued to stare down at the plans.

“Bert?” Michael asked.

At this point, Bert had been working in the shop for a few weeks, and Michael was starting to feel like he had an understanding of the way the man communicated. His silence wasn’t dismissive. It represented deep concentration. Michael waited a full minute before prompting him again.

“Bert, do you see why we did that?”

“It isn’t right,” Bert said.
 

“Pardon?” Michael asked. He looked over to Tien—the young drafter looked equally perplexed. Michael had heard what Bert said, but the older man suddenly had an accent.
 

He sounded like British aristocracy when he repeated his statement, “It isn’t right.” His hard enunciation chopped the ends of the words. His breath smelled of old sour coffee mixed with black licorice.
 

“Could you explain why?” Michael asked.

“I shouldn’t be required to,” Bert said. He walked away.

After Michael watched Bert exit through the side door to the alley—the place where some of the workers went out to smoke—Michael turned to Tien.

“What was that about?” Michael asked.

“I don’t know. He’s been saying stuff like that all morning. I even showed him the prototype and how it works. He shook his head and went back to looking at the plans,” Tien said.

“I’ll go talk to him,” Michael said.

When Michael pushed through the door to the alley and walked out into the morning sun, he found Bert over near the dumpster. Bert looked like he was smoking a cigarette, but as Michael approached, Bert took another nibble at the thing in his hand and stuffed it in his pocket. He was still chewing when Michael walked up.

“Hey, Bert,” Michael said.

Bert nodded.

“How are you today?”

“Fine,” Bert said. It didn’t sound like a British accent.

“Are you excited about watching the base being assembled tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a suggestion of how we can improve that mechanism you were looking at?” Michael asked.

Bert frowned and shook his head.

“Because if there’s a better mechanical approach, I’d like to know it before we have two dozen of those catches fabricated.”

Bert didn’t answer. Michael could hear him breathing through his nose. He almost expected steam to start to plume from Bert’s nose, like a cartoon bull.

“Bert?”

“It will suit,” Bert said. These were the three words that Bert used as his stamp of approval. He would review something, nod, and say, “It will suit,” when everything checked out to his satisfaction. When he said it this time, it sounded like a concession.

“Seriously,” Michael said, “I only want the best. Any time you see something that even looks remotely substandard, please come right to me.” As Michael spoke, he put a hand on Bert’s shoulder and began to walk the older man back towards the door. The wind gusted a little in the alley and Michael smelled a wave of musty decay. Michael wrinkled his nose and figured the smell was coming from the dumpster. He led Bert back inside.

Craig had just fired up the band saw as they walked in. The dust collector started and the door closed hard behind them from the vacuum created by the device.

“I want to talk to you about finishes,” Michael said. “Do you have a minute for that?”

“Certainly,” Bert said. “I’ll be right there.”

Michael continued on to the finish room while Bert veered off to the right. Michael figured that Bert was headed for the bathroom. He pulled the door shut to the finish room and walked by the interior windows to the far end. Some of the workers called his room the fishbowl because of all the windows that looked out to the rest of the shop. When you worked in this room, with the windows at your back, you always felt like the rest of the shop was watching you, like you were in a fishbowl.

Michael stopped at the far end, where samples of wood with different finishes had been hung to dry. Their tables had to be beautiful and durable. Those two properties were difficult to achieve simultaneously.

Michael was looking at piece of glossy teak when he heard the commotion.

He looked through the big windows and saw everyone running towards one end of the shop. As Michael watched, Tien pulled open the door to the big freezer and grabbed the cooler kit. Michael broke into a run.

Michael saw Craig sitting on the floor. Two of his co-workers were helping Craig hold his hand above his head and blood was dripping down Craig’s arm. Tien was picking through scrap wood below the bandsaw. There was blood on everything.
 

Michael instantly felt sick to his stomach, like someone had punched him hard in the gut. He glanced around and didn’t see anyone on the phone, so he pulled out his own phone and called in the emergency. While he talked, he hit the big breaker that shut off all the equipment. The door to the alley slammed shut.

“We’re going to take care of you, Craig, you’ll be fine,” Michael said, kneeling in front of the man. He couldn’t stand to look at Craig. The big man’s face was tracked with tears and he was moaning. The two people holding up Craig’s arm—a young woman who mostly did sanding and finishes, and the guy who hauled stock and scraps—had their hands clamped tight around Craig’s hand and wrist, trying to stop the blood flow.

Michael backed away and walked to Tien, who was at the shop sink.

Tien’s hands were working quickly.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re supposed to wash them. I know I’m supposed to wash them, and there’s a picture of washing them on the box. See?” Tien said. His voice pulsed with uncertainty. He shivered out the words. He held three of Craig’s fingers.

“How many?” Tien asked, his question was a whisper. “How many?” he yelled.

“Four,” the woman yelled back. “Well, three and a half.”

“I only have three,” Tien said, looking up at Michael. He held up the three fingers. “Maybe this is two and a half. I don’t know.”

They looked up as they heard the approaching siren.
 

Tien opened the gauze and wrapped the fingers. He stuck the big ball of gauze into a plastic bag, sealed it, and put that all in the cooler. He added cold water up to the line.

“That’s right, right? Is that right?” Tien asked Michael.

Michael nodded.

“Wait, where’s the other finger?” Michael asked. His brain was catching up to reality.

“I don’t know,” Tien said. He sounded mad. “I looked all around the table. You look.”

“Dust collector,” Michael said. His shop had a powerful dust collection system. Keeping sawdust out of the tools kept the workspace cleaner, made it easier to keep the finish room dust-free, and it helped keep the blades of the tools sharp. It was so powerful that if you dropped a pencil, it might disappear down the hose before you could grab it.

Michael jogged to the room. The collector had shut off with the rest of the tools. Michael unlatched the big canisters and pulled them out. Thankfully, the collectors had been emptied recently. Only one canister had any sawdust, and it was only a quarter full. Right at the top, he saw a red clump of sawdust. Michael thrust his hands in. They came back with sawdust and fragments of wood, damp with blood. He kept feeling in the sawdust.
 

“Did you find it?” Tien asked from the doorway.

“Not yet, but it has to be here,” Michael said.

He reached the end of the clump. The rest of the sawdust looked clean.

“I don’t understand,” Michael said.

“What?” Tien asked. “I think the ambulance is here.”

“Oh shit,” Michael said. He looked at the handfuls of bloody sawdust he held and realized that the fragments weren’t wood, they were flesh and bone. The impeller of the dust collector—the big fan blade that created the vacuum—had ground up the finger into bits.

“What?” Tien asked.

“Nothing,” Michael said. “Get that cooler to Craig. Make sure it stays with him from now on.”

Tien ran towards Craig.

Michael dismissed the rest of the staff while Craig was loaded into the ambulance. He wrote a note and taped it on the door for anyone who hadn’t shown up yet. He didn’t find Bert. He figured Bert must have stepped out and returned to find the shop empty. Michael went to the hospital to wait for the results of Craig’s surgery. He called his lawyers first and then his insurance company.