Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Several thousands of dollars worth of supplies were missing from every other job despite the fact that they apparently paid for it.
It was starting to fuck with Malachi’s head because if there was anything Chip loved—money topped the list. Profits were getting flushed down the toilet with every incorrect invoice that came out of the hardware store Chip exclusively used.
Because he had a friend there. Of course. A guy that liked to make deals, as Chip would say, but Malachi couldn’t find where that shit added up at all. To him, it just looked like they kept getting bent over and fucked without lube
“Today would be nice,” Malachi hollered across the modular office.
It shouldn’t take the man five minutes to exit his office from the other side of the twenty-foot long modular building. It moved from job to job on the back of a transport driven by Chip’s nephew, so Malachi had become comfortable inside it over the years.
Chip moaned and groaned something about not wanting to move his ass. Malachi went back to the rough books they’d been keeping. As the head of the crew, he kept track of things from one job to the next, on top of supervising the guys throughout projects. They could do most contractor work—from taking a home build through framing to finishing and more commercial work.
Like their current job.
The old firehall had been purchased to renovate into a call center. One of many new call centers that had popped up in the province over the past handful of years. Malachi didn’t see the appeal in dealing with customers day in and day out while sitting in a makeshift cubicle next to fifty other people doing the exact same thing. However, he could turn the open spaces with framing and drywall into a converted office building.
Just as soon as Chip let him know that cheque came through.
Chip lumbered his way to the far end of the modular where Malachi kept a small desk in the corner of the open space. He also had the only window on his end—Chip had a larger one on his side for a good view when he faced it toward the job.
Never failed.
In Dickies overalls—similar to Malachi’s—and buttoned up plaid rolled at the sleeves to his elbows, Chip lifted his reading glasses to his dark hair and rubbed at his eyes. Blinking a few times, he barely scanned the invoices Malachi had laid out on the table in a neat little row.
“What made you pick up on it this time?” Chip asked.
Not the question Malachi expected. It sounded like Chip already had knowledge of the fumbled invoices and books.
“You knew the numbers for this job weren’t good?”
“What do I have to tell you to get you to stop asking questions?” Chip asked Malachi instead of answering the obvious. “The company credit card in your wallet will get you the load of drywall you need, won’t it?”
“What?”
Chip didn’t blink. “I thought the question was simple.”
“I mean—”
“Take the rest of the day if you need,” Chip interjected, waving back at the opened door of the office leading to the parking lot outside. “Start the job tomorrow or the next day. You’ve got the cards and accounts to get the supplies.”
Yes, and whatever else they came up short on with this goddamn job. Just like the last one ... and the one a time or two before that. The credit card and accounts open across the Miramichi for Malachi to use didn’t fix the main problem, though.
“Why am I the only one who gets bothered whenever I find where Sam’s fucked you out of money? Again, man,” Malachi pointed out.
Just for good measure.
“Ferguson is—”
“Taking you for a ride, Chip.”
Chip sighed, his frustration writing heavy lines over his features as he scowled down at the invoices. “Where are the truck records?”
Malachi slapped a hand against his thigh. “I don’t know! Why the hell would that even matter?”
“If the weight logged in the truck matches the invoice, maybe we need to start looking somewhere else for the problem,” Chip suggested.
Malachi couldn’t get that to make sense, either.
The two truckers—who owned their eighteen-wheelers and contracted them out to Chip’s company when needed—they used were required by law to keep log books regarding their loads and hauls. Everything from the weight of the contents in the truck to the length of the trip, and hours awake at the wheel, had to be recorded. If the trucks were a certain year, they came equipped with a digital log book, but theirs were not that new.
Chip’s driver’s, including his nephew who did most of the hauls from job site to job site, kept paper logs.
In the trucks.
“I can’t exactly go get the log book out of Natty’s truck, can I?” Malachi asked regarding Chip’s nephew who had hauled the load of drywall to the site that morning because the order had finally come in. “He’s dropped his load for the day and is heading across the Renous for a load he’s hauling for somebody else.”