Bill stopped just short of the stairs leading up to Scott’s office. Scott was a decent enough boss, understanding all too well the intricacies of trucking, especially from the driver’s perspective, having driven over a million miles in his driving career. He’d seen everything from the worst pileup in Wisconsin during mid-February, halting him from getting a massive transformer to South Dakota. Sixty cars, four buses, two oversized loads, and four pickup trucks were damaged in the accident. Thankfully for Scott, he slowed down miles before coming up over the hill and potentially slamming into the other damaged cars. A Honda Civic slid out of control, hitting the first bus and causing it to jackknife. The first oversized load hit it hard, pushing the bus and the Honda off the highway and blocking every lane. Scott might have lost his life if he hadn’t anticipated the impending accident. As it was, many of those drivers lost their commercial driver’s licenses for failing to avoid the collision. It was shortly after one more close call, like the Wisconsin accident, that made him think running a shipping company was better than driving. And he was right. The business’s success was due to the safe drivers and rarely, if ever, drivers taking shortcuts unless those shortcuts were legal.

               Scott looked downstairs, standing up to see why Dale stomped up the stairs. He couldn’t see Bill on the landing, but if Dale was giving chase, it was easy to see why. Scott knew that Dale and Bill didn’t see eye to eye. Dale tried cutting corners. “Saving the company.” At least, that’s what he would tell Scott. But every time Dale attempted to do that, it cost Harris Trucking more than double what it potentially would’ve saved them. Bill was a fantastic driver, the best in the company, so Scott allowed him to come right into his office without knocking. Bill was the only person, the only driver, that could do that. The exception was Gina, Scott’s receptionist and personal assistant.

               Finally catching up to Bill, Dale put his sweaty, meaty hand on his shoulder, wheezing. “Just. Wait. A minute. Bill.” Redness and sweat oozed from Dale’s skin, staining his button-down shirt in all the typical spots: pits, the middle of where his chest once was, his waddle of a neck, and a trail down his back. “Scott. Doesn’t. Need to know. About this.”

               “Scott doesn’t need to know about what, exactly, Dale?” Scott stood outside the office on the second-floor landing.

               “Scott. Do you have a minute?” Bill asked. Knowing the answer, he started to climb the stairs.

               “For you, Bill? Of course I do. Dale, I expect an explanation,” he pointed at the stairs. Dale knew he’d have to climb them and explain what the disagreement was, but Bill would be able to talk to him before Dale could make it up the one flight of stairs. 

               Scott said, “What can I do for you, Bill?” The door shut behind them, Dale still working on climbing up the third stair.

               “I’m taking a load of God-only-knows-what to Danville for Helping Hands, and Dale won’t tell me what’s on the load. What gives? What’s on that trailer? From the axles, it looks more than a little overloaded.”

                “Bill, you know we don’t overload you. It’s not good business.”

               “Yeah. I know you don’t overload us. But Dale sure the hell does. Just last week, Dale tried that same crap with me. Tried to make me leave, signing off on the invoice, and you know, as well as I do, that our trailers won’t carry much over 28,000 pounds.”

               “I don’t know anything about that,” Dale piped up. He opened the door, and the smell of his sweat, like the inside of a junior high locker room, hit both men. Scott knew about the condition of Dale’s heart, so he didn’t allow him to smoke the cheap cigars in the warehouse anymore. Thankfully the stale cigar smell wasn’t on his clothes anymore. His cardiologist made him quit. It was either stop smoking or have another heart attack. Dale chose to quit smoking the cigars. “I gave him the copy of the invoice,” he pointed at Bill.

               “Yeah. This invoice?” Bill pulled it out of his pocket. It almost tore into pieces, still partly damp from Dale’s sweat. “The invoice that I can’t read? Except for the delivery address, of course. I can read that.”

               “Bill, you may be overreacting,” Dale said calmly, sitting on the folding chair beside Bill. Between the floor’s creaking and the metal chair buckling under his weight, it was a wonder that Dale didn’t crash through the floor. Scott grimaced, watching him sit down, his fat rolls wrapping around the sides of the chair. “If you look right here,” he snatched the invoice out of Bill’s hand, ripping it, “it’s clear what’s inside the trailer.” The larger piece was still in Bill’s hand. “Oh great, Bill. See what you did?” Dale waved the small portion of the invoice in Scott’s face.

               “Gina,” Scott said into the phone on his desk after pushing the interoffice com button, “Bring me a copy of the Helping Hands invoice scheduled to ship to Danville.”

               “Yes, Mr. Harris.” Less than a minute later, Gina came in, holding a fresh copy of the invoice and tracking numbers for the load. “Here you go, Mr. Harris.” Bill smelled the faintest scent of Poison on Gina. It was the same scent Michelle wore when she wore perfume. It was light, flowery, and a bit spicy, but better than the smell emanating from Dale.

               “Thank you, Gina.” He handed the invoice to Bill. Dale attempted to snatch it from Bill’s hands, but Bill was too fast, holding it as far from the fat man’s pudgy fingers as he could.

               “Scott. Did you know we were transporting industrial magnets?” Bill knew what the magnetics in a CAT scan was like, and traveling with them in a tractor-trailer? That was asking for trouble. “You do know that there is a high likelihood of the brakes locking up due to the metal in the pads, right?”

“Yes. Which is why I agreed to the contract with Helping Hands. They will not do that.”

               “How can you be sure?” Bill asked.

               “Because he’s the freakin’ boss, that’s why,” Dale said out of the corner of his mouth.

               Bill gave Dale a sideways glance, almost rolling his eyes.

               “No. Because I was assured that it wouldn’t.”

               “By whom, exactly?” Bill questioned.

               “Emily Von Otto.”

               Bill knew Emily, but until that moment, he had no idea that she was involved with Helping Hands or that it was her brainchild in the first place.