In case you are wondering, we have water pressure back and the shower was glorious. Lots of neighborhood anger about the folks who decided to cause issues with the waterline when event was getting ready to start their days but that can’t be helped. Luckily I wasn’t friends with them before so no change for me. I’m just happy the pressure is back. I do suspect one of the angrier neighbors might start questioning permits soon though. Gotta love the neighborhood drama. Even when you avoid your neighbors, it will sometimes find you. For now, timers set and let’s jump into the morning prompt.
I think I would need to think about this a lot more before I did anything with it. It isn’t an instant, I need to find a story line for this scene,’ but it might be useful down the road.
Wednesday, September 16th: I hope you don’t mind waiting.
“I hope you don’t mind waiting,” she said nervously. Dan looked for a name plate on her desk but saw none. She hadn’t given him her name but for now, that was fine.
“Not at all,” he said. He could see the waiting room was full. He took out his phone, as many waiting already did in order to pass the time. He took a seat that was out of the general crowd and clicked on his camera. He took a picture of the secretary, and then several more as he settled himself.
He had a lot of practice making it look as though he was pulling up his e-mail or a game to pass the time. And once he had images of everyone in the room on his phone, he did pull up his e-mail. He listened to the crowd as he discarded the inevitable junk mail. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
No one was saying anything that gave any indication there was something he should know. No one seemed overly worried. They were all waiting for their turns to go into one of the inner offices and conduct whatever business brought them here today. Many had files of paper with them. A few had laptops or simply flash drives.
‘All the things you’d bring to an accountant to help you with a tax problem, an audit or even the end of year accounting.’ Most of the people around him seemed lost in their own little worlds.
He still kept his ears open but turned his attention to the few e-mails he needed to actually read through and think about. Even the ones he needed to think through didn’t require much of a response, at least not an immediate one. They were things he needed to think about before formulating a response.
Even with the thoughts in his head, he ran out of e-mails before his turn was called. He switched into a game he kept just for these occasions. As many in the room were already playing various games it let him blend in. Since he didn’t really care about his score or if he left a game in the middle, he could play it and still pay attention to the crowd.
As he played, he wondered how many of them knew about their accountant’s sideline. A quick glance over the room, a mere sweep of gaze around before he dropped his eyes back to his phone made him think few if any had any inkling.
‘Or their covers are far better than mine,’ he decided.
He was willing to concede that the nervous man in the corner across from him was probably doing something dicey on the side as he kept alternately clutching and patting the file box he held. Dan suspected it had more to do with a minor cooking of the books on his end rather than the full out gambit the office was running.
The phone rang and the secretary answered it.
“Evans, Wallas and Thrushmore,” she answered. “How may I help you?”
She listened for a moment, nodding. “Of course, Mr. Thrushmore,” she said. “I’ll check.” She stood and walked to the filing cabinet efficiently excavating a file from it’s confines. Dan used her movement as an excuse to look at her, the glance was brief and he wondered if she was in anyway involved.
Ten til Midnight 