Undeliverable (19 page)

“Is that little monster here already? She wasn’t due until tomorrow.”

Ben propped himself up against the wall, interrupting Sylvia’s view of the shelves. “It would have been nice if you had told me I was going to have company in my warehouse.” Sylvia stuck her tongue out at him and turned to head out to the bullpen for her first cart and Ben followed, unwilling to give up the conversation.

“I was going to tell you today. They must have sped all the way down from Minnesota.”

Ben frowned, wondering why there was no mention of them in Mrs. Biun’s notebook. More likely he had just missed the reference. “They come every month? With the auction stuff?”

Sylvia snagged their first cart of the day and turned back to the warehouse, only to find her path once more blocked by Ben. She made shooing motions, and he grudgingly stepped aside. He didn’t really like surprises, particularly ones where someone was infiltrating what he now thought of as his space. “Only if they’re bringing down a particularly large load or something valuable. Jeffrey emailed me last week to let me know they were coming.”

“And you didn’t tell me then, because…”

She stopped him before they reentered the warehouse. “I don’t like her. I was hoping they’d cancel, but they didn’t, and I was going to tell you, so don’t give me that.”

“But why don’t you like her? She seemed pleasant enough, if a bit task oriented.”

“Watch.” Sylvia pushed open the warehouse door and pushed the cart in.

“Hey! Hello, Tanya, Jeffrey. You’re here early!” She left the cart at the desk and wandered over to the auction bay.

The man looked up from the vase he was holding. “Next up, 06-08-30-45. Good to see you, Sylvy. Been a couple months.”

Tanya ignored them. “Check.”

“Yeah, Jeffers, not since you brought down that load of jewelry in May.” Sylvia was inching closer to the boxes holding the auction items.

Tanya moved herself so she was between the boxes and Sylvia. “Jeffrey, next item please.”

Jeffrey rolled his eyes and pulled the next one out of the box, reading off the label.

Sylvia made another move towards the boxes and around the overweight woman, but she moved again to keep herself between Sylvia and the boxes. “Tanya, darling, what’s new with you? What did you bring me this time?”

“Nothing to play with, if that’s what you mean. I’ll thank you to keep your grubby mitts off the merchandise this month, thank you.”

Sylvia gave an abbreviated bow. “As always, Tanya. A pleasure seeing you again.”

The older woman rounded on Sylvia and Ben, and she stuck a finger into Ben’s face. “You’re new here, so I don’t expect you to fully understand things. But this child needs to be blessed. She hasn’t been to church since her sainted grandmother went to the home, and she simply will not listen to her elders, who know better about these sorts of things. You keep her away from valuables and you keep her away from me; unless of course she decides to become a proper young lady, stop dressing like a girl who can’t make up her mind if she’s a boy or not, and attend church to figure out where she is in this world.” She turned back to Jeffrey. “Next item.”

Jeffrey’s back was carefully turned to Tanya as he struggled to contain a laugh and the next call number was muffled through his clenched teeth. Sylvia simply bowed again to the woman’s back and retreated to Ben’s office.

She hoisted herself up to sit on Ben’s desk, legs swinging. “See? And her rants never make sense, either! One day I’m the child of the devil, the next I’m a tramp, and she always thinks I’m going to steal her auction items.”

“What happened to make her think that?”

“One auction, a glass unicorn that was up for sale was broken between one day and the next, and I tried to tell her that we get birds in here all the time and sometimes they knock things over, but she wouldn’t believe me. And since I was the one to try and explain things, I was the one who got the blame. Personally, I don’t think it was birds; I think it was Jillian. She likes unicorns and sometimes comes in to look at the shelves to see if there are any there. But it could have been a bird.” She scuffed her shoes on the carpet. “Stupid old cow.”

Ben sighed at Sylvia’s cross expression, already familiar with how much ill it bode. “How long do I have to put up with this feud?”

“They’re only here for a day, usually. They’ll unload their stuff and then they leave, so just today. Thank god.”

Ben was thinking the exact same thing, though he had to admit, Tanya’s wrath was highly amusing, if almost insensible. Sylvia jumped off the desk and stomped out, muttering something about shredding and Tanya’s face.

After he had been entering data for about twenty minutes, Tanya and Jeffrey came around the corner and presented themselves at Ben’s desk. “All present and accounted for. Everything should already be appearing on the inventory for the auction this month.”

Ben carefully minimized the search window he had open to the long list of green trucks. “Thanks. Say, do you guys stick around for the night on these runs or do you head straight back? Quite the long drive.” Ben leaned back in his chair, stretching his tall frame as best he could in the cubicle.

Jeffrey opened his mouth to say something, but Tanya overrode him. “Not this time. We’ve been asked to hang around and help you with the inventory of your warehouse.”

Ben’s chair straightened with a thump and he frowned. “That whole long-term storage thing? Sylvia and I finished that this weekend; we have a list of everything that appeared to be missing.”

Tanya propped her plump arms on her hips and turned to survey the warehouse floor. “That’s a good start. Obviously we’ll need to double-check your work, make sure you didn’t overlook anything while we inventory the entire rest of this rat maze.”

Ben was sure he couldn’t have heard right. “The whole warehouse? Why? They didn’t tell me that the whole thing needed to be inventoried, just the long-term storage.”

Tanya shrugged. “Who am I to argue with the anonymous voice in my email? It said to hang around down here until the auction and get the entire warehouse inventoried. That leaves us nearly four full days, maybe even staying through Friday if we don’t quite finish up. Apparently there are concerns about some missing items.” The way she said this last part made it blindingly clear who she thought the culprit was, and the suspect and her pigtails were currently shredding up a storm in the sorting bay.

Ben rose to the defense of his absent coworker. “There are a couple hundred missing items in the long-term storage bay that I’m sure Mrs. Biun took with her as she left. The rest of the warehouse should be pristine. Or at least everything since I got here. I can’t vouch for any work preceding my tenure.”

Tanya patted him on the arm. “Hush now, no one’s calling you into question. This happens every ten years or so to each warehouse. I’m due in about four years myself, if the pattern holds true. Guess they decided with the changing of the guard here to hurry things up a bit. Don’t worry, when my time comes it’ll be you who gets to do the violating.” She smiled, but it slid off her face too quickly to be sincere and she turned to Jeffrey. “Are you ready to get started? I want to get going on this.”

Without waiting for an answer, Tanya turned and strode into the warehouse. Jeffrey looked at Ben and shrugged, conveying an abashed apology for their intrusion, before following his boss to the back bays. At that point, Sylvia brought in a cart for his attention.

“I actually ran out of shredding to do. Could have sworn there would have been more backed up what with our inventorying and all.” She noticed the frown on his face and followed his gaze to the back of the warehouse and listened to an echo of the Minnesotan accent. “They still here?”

“Yes. And they’re going to be here for a few days, at least.” Ben started unloading the cart onto his desk, making a tower out of the trays.

“What? Why?” she hung off of his shoulder. “Can’t you make her go away? Please?”

Ben shrugged her off and settled into his chair to start the entries. “You seem to get along with Jeffrey fine. Can’t you just ignore her?”

“I can try I guess.” She paused and straightened her cap. “So, why are they going to be here longer than their usual drop off?”

“They have apparently been assigned the undesirable task of inventorying the entire warehouse. Top to bottom. Every item.”

“Shit.” Ben raised an eyebrow at her strong language. “I mean, that has got to suck, royally.”

“I figure they’ll be in and out before the actual auction hits, and then they’ll be gone. It’s not like there’s going to be anything really missing in here anyway. Except for that stuff that was in the safe that we already reported.” Sylvia was now standing at the edge of his office space and staring into the warehouse. He had a sudden flash of concern about what else might be missing in the warehouse. “Right, Sylvia?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, right. Is there anything I can do for you that is not in the warehouse?”

Ben struggled not to laugh as she nearly vibrated with discomfort. “Sure, why don’t you go see if the sorters could use a hand, or the readers even? You keep saying how much you’d like to eventually be one.”

“Thanks.” She scurried out, throwing one last glance over her shoulder. Ben could understand her not liking Tanya if all their interactions went the same way, but this excessive dodging of the pair from Minnesota was starting to get, well, entertaining, if he was honest with himself. He turned back to his recording and shelving, having to go and fetch all the carts himself as Sylvia didn’t show her face in the warehouse for the rest of the day. There was about an hour left at the end of the day that he spent chasing down more items for auction and doing a little research.

At five, Tanya and Jeffrey showed no signs of slowing down, so he wandered over to them. They had barely taken a lunch break.

“Hey.” The steady rhythm of their back and forth paused and Tanya glanced over at him before picking up her patter where she left off. “I was just, uh, checking to see when you guys were going to be headed out tonight.”

“Benji, we have a whole warehouse to inventory before the end of the week. We’ll be here a while; 07-04-18-76.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets, nose wrinkling at the diminutive. “It’s just Ben, thanks. What time did you get here this morning anyway?”

“Around six, why?”

“Just thinking you are gonna wear yourself out if you keep working like this.” That, and he didn’t particularly want to leave her alone in the warehouse. Despite the fact that if there were items missing it wouldn’t be his fault, he sincerely wanted to be here to oversee their work. But at the same time, he was feeling the pull of his wall of information, which felt sadly neglected after his busy weekend.

“Well,
Ben
, if you weren’t so used to the southern easy way of life, you’d be used to the kind of hard work we can do if called on. Jeffrey, check?”

Jeffrey waved the sheaf of papers he was holding at her. “Check.” He turned to Ben. “And if you saw the rat hole we are staying in down here, you’d want to spend all your time here as well.”

“Jeffrey, you hush. We are government servants and must use our expense account wisely.” She turned on Ben next. “These shelves are an absolute disaster.”

He crossed his arms defensively. He was starting to understand why Sylvia had made it a point to avoid the warehouse today. “Well, it’s not like I shelved any of it. I’ve been here less than a month.”

Tanya shook her head sorrowfully. “It’s that dratted Sylvia girl, I know it is. No good role models in her youth, bet you ten to one. She’s trouble, she is.”

Ben stood a little straighter. “Hang on, now, she’s been nothing but helpful since I started here. She’s the very spirit of helpfulness.”

“She’s a damned menace is what she is.” Tanya slammed down her list to emphasize her point.

Ben was furious now. “Do you have any proof of that?”

The woman stood on tiptoe to get in his face. “Besides her trashing my auction items, you mean?”

“I asked for proof, not conjecture,” Ben snapped.

“Not yet, I don’t, but don’t you be surprised when I come up with more stuff missing than can’t be accounted for. She’s a sticky-fingered little wretch, and she should be put back in her place. Or fired, better yet. She’s utterly incompetent.” Jeffrey opened his mouth and then thought better of it and returned to peering through his sheets of paper, ostensibly counting the number of items left unaccounted for.

Ben was furious. Here he was confronted with a woman who obviously had no familiarity with logic, and for some unfathomable reason she had determined to hate Sylvia. “Fine then, I’ll keep her out of your way while you’re here. But don’t expect me to boot her entirely from the warehouse as I need her assistance in finishing the preparations of my own auction items as well as logging the daily intake. Who, by the way, is covering your job back in Minnesota in your rather sizeable absence?” He regretted the crack as soon as he made it, but he hadn’t been able to help himself.

Tanya gave him a black look and took a step towards him, raising her hand.

Jeffrey stepped between them finally. “It’s a huge job, no question. We have some trainees and interns who are working on things and sending daily reports. Also the readers know to check in on them from time to time.”

Ben waved his hand dismissively. “Well, good. Wouldn’t want you to get behind while you’re trying to prove we’re all dishonest crooks down here in the South.”

Having calmed a bit, Tanya replied, “No one is implying you are crooks. We are simply looking for inefficiencies, discrepancies, and the occasional incompetence. It has nothing to do with your honor. You’d think it was precious to you southern gentlemen.”

Ben threw his hands in the air in frustration and strode back to his desk. It appeared that Tanya was a woman it was very easy to make an enemy of, though he wasn’t sure how Jeffrey had survived as long as he had. Some miracle of willpower, Ben assumed, or lack of personality. He wasn’t quite sure yet. Regardless, he hurried out of the office, eager to be away from the harridan and back home with the comforting stacks of reports waiting for him on his desk.