Expense Account - Chapter 3

The holidays found Blair home from San Francisco. His parents’ house was bursting at the seams with all his siblings, their kids, and pretty much the whole extended family. They lived just outside Burlington, and an early snow had made it a picturesque event. Icicles drooped from gutters and trees alike, the sun splashing little rainbows throughout the house for the wee ones to gleefully chase from room to room. The smells of the season, slow roasting turkey that was already oozing stuffing, oatmeal and raisin cookies and apple pie wafted through all the corners of the house. Blair, sunken comfortably in an oversized recliner, was watching the New England Patriots kick the crap out of the Detroit Lions with his father.

Strolling into the room wearing an apron with the name Harrod’s emblazoned across the front, Blair’s mother Alice smiled at him and asked, “Honey, can I get you another Bloody Mary?”

“Absolutely Mom. You’re a saint."

“You know Blair,” said his father Ned, “you’re more than welcome to stay for a while. The apartment downstairs is just sitting there collecting dust.” Lowering his voice, he continued “your mother refuses to go down there since your grandfather passed.”

Not wanting to let on that his employment had been less than graciously terminated the week prior, Blair let the offer pass with a smile and a nod.

Christmas dinner at the Fields household was an event more than a meal. Starting just after six, and usually lasting until at least midnight, it was a food orgy of Caligulan proportions, and everyone knew to wear their loosest fitting clothing. During the second of seven courses, Blair fell into a conversation with his brother-in-law Lucas, the blue collar warrior of the clan.

“So Luke, Lanie mentioned that it didn’t work out at the hardware store…” said Blair casually.

“Len’s an asshole!” was the loud reply from Lucas as he thumped his fist down on the table, unaware of his surroundings.

“You hush your mouth,” scolded Alice.

“Sorry ma.”

“I was about to say,” continued Blair, “that she said you lucked out with your new gig.”

“It’s a freakin’ warehouse job.”

“But she said the money and benefits are great.”

“Suppose that’s true. Got one in the car. Want to check it out?”

“One what?” asked Blair.

“You’ll see,” replied Lucas, with a drunken, impish grin.

Once dinner was finished, everyone pitched in to clear the table and as the dishes started piling high, an assembly line formed, ravenously devouring the stack of china. As he dried his hands, Angie, another of his three sisters, took Blair by the arm and pulled him aside.

“We have to talk about Mom and Dad’s fiftieth.”

“Hope you’re not looking at making it a big deal,” replied Blair.

“What are you talking about?” replied Angie, clearly aghast.

“Don’t tell them, but I got fired last week.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Blair could see Lucas motioning him into the garage.

“Look, we’ve got like six months. Let’s talk about this later with everyone.”

Blair slipped away without further comment and skulked into the garage. The side door was already open and he followed the footsteps in the snow to the driveway where Lucas was already rutting around in the trunk of his late model muscle car.

“Check this out,” said Lucas, tossing a pistol-sized black device through the air. While Blair examined the object, Lucas brought a half-smoked joint to his lips and used a cigar torch to light it in the mild, but blustery night air. Finding the power switch, Blair was surprised to see the small device light up and an LCD spring to life with Lucas in its crosshairs.

While holding the smoke in his lungs, Lucas managed to blurt out an, “easy Buddy,” warning. Alas, the warning came too late and a broad swath of lightning- blue electricity sprang forth, knocking Lucas clear off his feet and over a snow bank. Blair stood stunned in the silence, wondering how he was going to explain to Lanie that he’d killed her husband.

“Packs quite a punch, don’t it!” came Lucas’ voice from out of sight.

“You okay?” asked Blair timidly.

“Hell ya,” was the confidant reply as Lucas struggled his way through the snow. “It’s non-lethal, or so they say. Did hear that a guy in the test lab shit himself.”

“I still don’t…”

“Got a video recorder, a GPS, wireless connect and even a finger print scanner.”

“But what’s it for?”

“Cops. I met our Florida rep and he says that they can’t make ‘em fast enough.”

With his interest piqued, Blair spent the rest of the evening trying to extract what little Lucas could remember about the company. What he did manage to glean was that United Optics was a relatively small company of under a hundred people, that they had developed a new kind of palm sized stun gun called the G-Pulse that was much easier to use than traditional models, and which, most importantly, they sold directly into local police departments and dispatches, not through massive procurement departments and other layers of self justifying management types.

Blair had returned home for the Christmas holidays each and every year. He would always stay in his old room, despite the lumpy single mattress, enveloped in the protective bubble that his mother and father unknowingly provided. The family was very close. He had three sisters and a brother, and was conveniently sandwiched in age between them.

He’d moved to Boston in 1991 for college, accepting a track scholarship at Fisher College because they were only ones offering. His four years had proved uneventful, and he was a solid and consistent ‘C’ student, never having found a passion for any particular subject. He’d obtained a liberal arts degree which he could also list with a communications minor.

Sales had ended up as his career out of sheer desperation. After a year of pimping adult diapers to small-town municipal hospitals, the only thing he’d come to appreciate was that the sales process had a substantial subjective and human component to it. You could win by being the most persuasive, not necessarily the best.

Blair spent the last five years of the millennium hopping from one company to the next whenever it involved a raise in pay and a relocation package. He’d peddled office supplies, insurance policies, and even farm equipment at one point. The Target Account Selling or TAS course that he’d taken had served him well in understanding that it didn’t matter what you were peddling. The only relevant thing was the process.

In the latter half of the big bang days of the Internet, when anyone with a pulse could and would be hired in or around Silicon Valley, he took a position with StorEngine Systems selling software packages for backing up computer hard drives. While the pay was good, in relative terms he’d been making more and living better in Omaha.

Back, in San Francisco after the holidays and with a lot of spare time on his hands, Blair started researching United Optics and this G-Pulse further. What he discovered was that this was much more than a simple stun gun. The device also had a small, gyro-stabilized camera, a GPS, and some very smart software that provided a full-on video and location based usage history, invaluable in an evidentiary capacity. Prosecutors from across the country had already entered G-Pulse logs and video into court records with pretty stunning results, and as a result, fewer and fewer police officers had to appear in court, especially in the more minor cases.

His other door had just opened.

Blair especially liked working for smaller companies because they had invariably not spent the time to establish elaborate corporate rule books or hire teams of forensic accountants to review expenditures. It tended to be more of a common sense driven approach, and all you needed to understand were the basic tolerances that senior staffers had for business related costs, to know what you could get away with. For you see, in addition to being a crafty sales person, Blair was a master of the expense account.