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“Well, some of Weed’s ideas were harebrained examples of utter idiocy that — ”
“ — that turned out to sound darn smart when I waved my cast-iron skillet around and made you two open your ears.”
Marycouldseeitallincrystalcolordancinginfront of her eyes. She could make readers see it too, she was sure of it. Trust and respect. Achieve those, and magic happens.
“What did you do? How did you change the business?”
Van thought for a minute. “We did a bunch of things, some big, some little, some downright revolutionary,” Van finally said. “Weed and I and the committees we set up, we all agreed we weren’t going to compete on price. No matter how little we charged, someone somewhere would charge less, and down the tube we would go.”
“We were all for working hard,” Weed said, “if the bosses let us work smart enough to keep our jobs and get a good buck for them.”
“You find a lot of ingenuity and experience on the shop floor if you look for it,” Van said. “And we did. Although we had to look ridiculously hard for it in some directions — ” Van looked Weed’s way.
“Good one against me,” Weed said as he whammed Van on the back to congratulate him.
“We had a mass meeting, all our own people, from the chairman of the board to the janitor,” Van said. “Weed described everything he’d found out about the problems at Battleford.”
“IbetyouendedupknowingmoreaboutBattleford than the owner did,” Mary said.
“We’re still working through all the ideas,” Weed said, “and we’re still getting more every day. Mind you, half of ’em don’t work.”
“The one we started with sounded at first like nothing to speak of,” Van said. “It wasnothing to speak of at first. We sell a lot of parts to Battleford. Basically, we figured out we could put two of those parts together before we shipped them. Battleford saved a lot of money on their processing. So we jacked up our price on those parts. Win-win. Always the best kind of business deal.”
“Bossman here wanted to bring in one of them robots to put the parts together,” Weed said. “How was that gonna save our jobs? We durn near had a wildcat strike of our own, and I was durn near the first one out the door.”
Van gave Weed a near-salute. “I did a tom-fool job of explaining this thing. Of course everybody was suspicious and scared. And it was a gamble, I admit. Everything in business is.”
“We did a lot of jawin’ about it,” Weed said, “but eventually we decided we’d take the gamble too. Then some of their guys came over here one night and got to talking with our guys — ”
“You got to carousing together one night,” Lola Rose corrected. She fluttered her eyelashes at her husband. “Sweetpea, remember that second honeymoonwepaidforattheGrandHyattfromallthebeer these guys drank?”
“You mean from the meaningful, lubricated communication,” Van said.
Weedslappedhiskneewithagrin.“Ilikethesound o’ that better. Anyways, we figured out the new process was so fast and smooth Battlefield didn’t have to stockpile parts any more. They could call us and we’d deliver stuff just in time to go straight onto the line.”
“They saved a fortune on warehousing,” Van said. “We hiked our price again and all of us still saved money.”
“You can bet we’re looking for a share of all that money the next time contract negotiations roll around,” Weed said.
Van laughed. “Yeah, well, you’re all going to be shareholders now. If you want to take the money out of one pocket … ”
Weed cursed with a grin. “I keep forgetting that.” He soon sobered. “We don’t put those shares into our hot little pockets until the new partner comes on board. How’s that deal comin’?”
MarywonderedwhetheranyoneelsecouldtellVan was squirming behind his poker face. To her surprise, he glanced at her, and paused. He half-shrugged his shoulders, then rubbed his forehead and let all his concern show.
He turned to face her straight on. “Do Weed and I take this conversation outside, or do you keep this off the record until I say go?”
It was a tough question. The employee takeover was in trouble, she could now tell that much. All her instincts said this was news. Still, she didn’t know much yet, certainly not enough to write a story. And she suspected the deal could fall apart if word got out at the wrong time. That would destroy a lot of lives.
This mattered too much to her. She could hardly think about her answer professionally when her heart was screaming, “He trusts me! He trusts me!” Besides, curiosity was killing her, and she wouldn’t find out a thing unless she promised silence.
So, she crossed her heart, hoped not to die and committed herself to secrecy until Van released her. Here too trust went both ways. She had to believe Van would release her from silence when he could.
“Weed? Are you okay with her promise? Gus? Lola Rose? You’ve been in on all of this from the beginning. You’ve got a lot at stake too. If the plant closes, you’ll lose so much business you’ll probably have to fold too.”
All four stared at her, unnaturally quiet, looking for any sign she didn’t understand what this meant.
“The publicity would do us a lot of good if this book ever came out,” Weed said. “Van’s word is almost good enough for me, but ma’am, I have to ask you directly, do you understand that the wrong words in the wrong ears at the wrong time would put a lot of people out of work, hurt a lot of husbands and wives and children too?”
