Aunt Jacqui stood up, but dropped her binder in the process. Some of the papers fell out and fluttered to the floor, three landing under Grobian’s desk. Billy picked up the binder and put it on her chair.
“Oh, dear,” she murmured, her voice languid, almost liquid. “I don’t think I can crawl under the desk in these clothes, Billy.”
Billy set the faxes on top of her binder and got down on his hands and knees to fetch the scattered pages. Aunt Jacqui picked up the faxes, riffled through them, and extracted a dozen or so pages.
Billy scrambled back to his feet and handed her the sheets from her binder. “Pat, you ought to make sure that floor gets washed more often. It’s filthy under there.”
Grobian rolled his eyes. “Billy, this ain’t your mother’s kitchen, it’s a working warehouse. As long as the floor doesn’t catch on fire I can’t be bothered about how dirty it is or isn’t.”
One of the truckers laughed and cuffed Billy on the shoulder on his way out the door. “Time you went on the road, son. Let you see real dirt and you’ll come back and eat off Grobian’s linoleum.”
“Or let him wash it,” the remaining driver suggested. “That always makes dirt look good.”
Billy blushed but laughed along with the men. Pat chatted briefly with the last driver about a load he was taking to the Ninety-fifth Street store. When the man left, Pat started to give Billy an order to go down to the loading bays, but Billy shook his head. “We need to talk to Ms. War-sha-sky, Pat.” He turned to me, apologizing for my long wait, adding that he’d tried to explain what I wanted, but didn’t think he’d done a good job of it.
“Oh, yeah. Community service, we already do plenty of that.” Grobian’s frown returned. Busy man, no time for social workers, nuns, and other do-gooders.
“Yes, I’ve studied your numbers, at least the ones you make public.” I pulled a sheaf of papers out of my briefcase, spilling the flip-flops in their plastic bag onto the floor.
I handed business cards to Grobian, Billy, and Aunt Jacqui. “I grew up in South Chicago. I’m a lawyer now and an investigator, but I’ve come back as a volunteer to coach the basketball team at Bertha Palmer High.”
Grobian looked ostentatiously at his watch, but young Billy said, “I know some of the girls there, Pat, through our church exchange. They sing in the choir at—”
“I know you want money from us,” Jacqui interrupted in her languid voice. “How much and for what?”
I flashed an upbeat, professional smile and handed her a copy of a report I’d created on By-Smart’s community actions. I gave another set to Grobian and a third to Billy. “I know that By-Smart encourages grassroots giving at its local stores, but only for small projects. The Exchange Avenue store gave out three one-thousand-dollar scholarships to college students whose parents work in the store, and the staff are encouraged to serve in local food pantries and homeless shelters, but your manager over on Exchange told me Mr. Grobian was in charge of larger giving for the South Side.”
“That’s right: I manage the warehouse, and I’m the South Chicago–Northwest Indiana district manager. We already support the Boys and Girls Clubs, the Firemen’s Survivor Fund, and several others.”
“Which is great,” I said enthusiastically. “Profits for the Exchange Avenue store last year were a shade under one-point-five million, a little less than the national average because of the bad economy down here. The store, as far as I could tell, gave away nine thousand dollars. For fifty-five thousand—”
Grobian shoved my report aside. “Who talked to you? Who gave out confidential store information?”
I shook my head. “It’s all on the Web, Mr. Grobian. You just have to know how to look. For fifty-five thousand, the store could cover the cost of uniforms, weight equipment, balls, and a part-time coach. You’d be real heroes on the South Side, and, of course, you’d get a substantial tax benefit from it as well. Heck, you might even be able to supply weight equipment out of old inventory.”
All I really wanted from By-Smart was a coach, and I figured for about twelve thousand they could get someone to commit to the job. She (or he) wouldn’t have to be a teacher, just someone who understood the game and knew how to work with young people. A graduate student who had played college ball would be good; someone who was doing a degree in sports management and training even better. I was hoping if I started with four or five times what I wanted, I might at least get a coach.
Grobian was still mad, though. He tossed my proposal into his wastebasket. Jacqui, with another of her languid movements, slid her papers toward the trash. They fell about a yard short.
“We never give that kind of money to an individual store,” Grobian said.