Great Exploitations(12)

He wore tight polos to show off the biceps he worked out five days a week. That explained why Mrs. Tucker’s bruises went deep and hung around longer than most. He drove a Corvette—yes, a red one—played poker on Friday night with his “buds,” and played eighteen holes of golf on Saturday. On Sunday, he religiously rose early and went to church with his wife, and sometime after, he religiously struck her across the face for drying out the pork roast, or undercooking the haricot vert, or making the custard too soupy. Mrs. Tucker’s notes were detailed in a way I’d never seen. She was taking it seriously, at least five steps more serious than any of my other Clients. If she could do that, I’d step my serious scale up five steps, too.

From the amount of time Mr. Tucker spent at gentlemen’s clubs, he could have a regular customer punch card. Though she couldn’t prove it, he’d had a handful, if not a small army, of affairs with employees, friends’ wives, prostitutes, and quite possibly a couple of neighbors.

As stereotypes went, Mr. Tucker threw the general curve by several points.

After spending the majority of the night perusing the file, I got up early to send Henry a quick email to let him know I needed a week to wrap up something before I could start at Callahan Industries.

Not even two minutes after hitting send, his response pinged in my inbox:



Vacation requests already? What have I gotten myself into? Have fun wrapping whatever-that-something-is up. -HC



Henry didn’t have a clue what he’d gotten himself into. Not a clue. That was my first thought after reading his reply. My second was to let a smile creep out right before I hit reply.



How’s it going on the other side of the world?



Before I could type anything else, I rushed to slip on my heels, grab my purse, and head for the door of my hotel room. Another ping from my laptop stopped me. I should keep going and check it later. My focus needed to be on and stay with the Tucker Errand, not exchanging pointless emails with Henry.

I hurried over to check my laptop. My focus wasn’t as ironclad as I’d always believed.



Let’s just say I’m going to need another Guinness the instant I step foot on U.S. soil again.



Poor Henry. The days where his infectious smile and shrug could fix just about any problem were over . . . and what was I doing thinking Poor Henry? If that wasn’t the last time I put those two words together, I would wrap a rubber band around my wrist and snap it each time I even thought about pairing Henry’s name with the word poor.

G had booked another penthouse for me, so after making my way down thirty floors, I stepped out of the elevator and headed for the rental car that was already waiting for me at valet. My car was nice, but not as nice as I was accustomed to. That was because I was about to go shopping for a really nice car at a nearby car dealership.

Tucker Automotive Group.

Yes, the abusive bastard had named his company after himself. Not exactly the surprise of the century. Or even the hour.

According to Mrs. Tucker’s notes, Mr. Tucker didn’t work directly with the customers anymore. He mainly stuck to running the business and screwing the conveyor belt of young assistants he had rotating through his office. But he made an exception for clients who were deemed “high profile”—aka wealthy ones shopping for cars in the six-figure range—or customers who were . . . of the XY chromosome and genetically blessed.

My plan was to shop those high-ticket cars from the get-go to alert the big man that a deep-pocket customer was on the lot . . . and I might have worn a skirt that was shorter than the typical one, a pair of heels higher than the average pair, and a blouse a bit tighter than most. Basically, if he didn’t get the message that a high profile customer was there, I hoped he’d catch the other message.

I pulled up to Tucker Automotive to find a semi-sized sign with the tagline Shop the rest, then come visit the best alongside a photo of Mr. Tucker himself. I resisted the temptation to plow my rental car right through the billboard and proceeded to the parking lot. After I finished the Errand, if I still wanted to destroy that monstrosity, I could. That wasn’t exactly the way I was hoping to catch Mr. Tucker’s attention.

A small herd of salesmen in white dress shirts and red ties stood around the main building when I pulled up. I’d no more than put the car in park and every one of them was staring at me as if they were ready to pounce. I was contemplating how to steer clear of the rabid white-shirts when a flashy red sports car pulled into the spot beside me. A flashy red Corvette.

Bingo.

If that was a sign as to how the rest of the Errand would go, it would be a breeze. As I slid out of my car, I grabbed my purse, gave my hair a quick rumple, and played oblivious to the man crawling out of the hard-to-miss car beside me. I started up to the main building, but before I’d gotten to the curb, a low whistle came from the turd of a human to my left.