Working for Heat - Volume II, Page 3

businessmen, or at least he wished they were real businessmen. He stood up and went straight to Mr O’Donnell.

  ‘Do you really think we sell potatoes, here?’ his tone was not angry, but rather disappointed. But William’s question was met by an empty gaze from Mr O’Donnell’s green eyes. ‘You really have no idea, do you?’ The little Irish man did not speak a word. William left the room and as the door was closing, a low mumble, with a very strong Irish accent came from within.

  ‘Potatoes?’

  ‘Potatoeees!’ the rest of the group agreed.

  William proceeded to the garage in the vain hope that his driver, Ben, so fully aware of his company’s policies, would be waiting for him there, but all the CEO’s parking spaces were empty, ‘RESERVED’ written in gold paint on all of them. He tried phoning, but couldn’t pick up signal from there. As he turned around to use the elevator, he heard a car skid, almost hitting him. It was his car. He cringed in fear for a very brief moment, but it was long enough for the driver to mock him about it.

  ‘Scared you, hmm?’ said the beautiful, ginger, tattooed Kathryn. ‘Hop in cutie.’

  ‘You almost killed me…’ William replied, not angrily, just stating a fact as he got in his car, ‘again…’ he added.

  ‘Well, nobody ever wins anything with an almost, right? Well perhaps those Everybody Wins a Trophy Race. Gosh, I hate those.’

  William laughed.

  There he was, as furious as a hellhound (one that was forced to work in dog food commercials, instead of harvesting lost souls), and Kathryn still managed to make him smile and laugh, despite almost running him over.

  ‘So, Kat, how did you find my car?’

  ‘I was going to surprise you,’ she smiled to him. ‘Being your first day and all, when I saw a crazy, short man singing I’m a Champio–’

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My driver.’

  ‘You have a driver? Ohhh, well, he shouldn’t have been cleaning your car then. I thought he was stealing it or something. So I just took the wheel and drove away.’

  ‘You stole it, then?’ William gave a chuckle.

  ‘Technically, I was picking you up, and rescuing your car. After all, it’s only theft if the owner presses charges, right?’ she winked. William was in a better mood now and he was about to speak when his phone rang.

  ‘Hello?’ he answered, on the other side there was a man shouting desperately about some crazy tattoo girl stealing his car.

  ‘Calm down Ben, I–’

  ‘I’ve been trying to reach you, sir, but you’re cell phone was dead, she just–’

  ‘Ok, ok!’ William finally managed to interrupt poor Ben. ‘The crazy girl is my friend,’ he winked at her. ‘I’m in my car, right now.’

  ‘You’ve been kidnapped sir?! No need to panic, if you have been kidnapped just say you want French fries for dinner, we’ll start the alpha plan immediately.’

  ‘The alpha pla–’

  ‘No sir, don’t repeat it, they will understand. Just say f-r-e-n-c-h f-r-i-e-s, sir.’

  ‘I haven’t been kidnapped Ben, she is my friend, and I’m in the car willingl–’

  ‘You’re not driving are you sir?’

  ‘Err… no.’

  ‘Uh, thank the gods. We wouldn’t want that…’

  ‘Company policies’ William said at the same time as Ben.

  ‘Yes sir! That’s right, good to see you’re starting to get the hang of it and to be completely honest, that would have been worse than you being kidnapped, after all, we do have the alpha plan for that.

  ‘See ya Ben.’

  ‘But sir…’

  ‘Bye Ben,’ and William hung up. ‘Apparently my company has some kind of protocol for when I get kidnapped. Don’t know if that’s good or bad,’ and they both laughed.

  After some miles, a lot of ‘Watch out’s’ from William and a lot of ‘you worry too much, I had it under control’s’ from Kathryn, they finally drove through William’s front gate and it started raining heavily. They ran for the house, as Kathryn always said, which annoyed William quite a bit; there are some people that sometimes just forget they are indeed wealthy, and that not everybody owns a 20 acre estate.

  ‘Hello Master William, how was your day?’ asked a very grey-haired butler in a monotone.

  ‘Mediocre, mediocre…’

  ‘Hello Alfred,’ said a very wet Kathryn, dripping water all over the place. ‘Sorry about this, Alfred,’ pointing to a small puddle of water around her feet. The butler sighed audible and answered her.

  ‘No problem Miss Kathryn.’

  They went upstairs, to William’s room and Kathryn started opening and closing drawers, leaving a bit of a mess on her wake. William was seated and was turning his console on.

  ‘Mike and Frank are already online, don’t these two ever work?’

  ‘Yes, that’s nice,’ said an absent-minded Kathryn, she had gone through all of his drawers and left a panoply of clothes to show for it.

  ‘Where are my PJ’s? Seriously, I think your butler hates me, he keeps losing my pyjamas.’

  ‘He doesn’t lose them, he probably just puts them on one of the guest rooms.’

  ‘Well, I still think he hates me.’ She was now holding one of William’s pyjamas, a grey one with the batman logo on it.

  ‘Probably does. You keep calling him Alfred.’

  ‘I do.’ She smiled as she took off her wet clothes and was putting on William’s pyjamas.

  ‘And you know that is name is Johnson Wilkinson.’

  ‘I do.’ She smiled even more. ‘That’s what makes it so funny.’ She kissed him on the forehead, took away his controller and gave him some dry clothes. ‘I’m probably in your will, but it would be a pity if you died of pneumonia.’ William change clothes and put on his headgear to play.

  ‘They’re inviting us,’ said William.

  ‘Hi Frank, hey Mike.’

  Kathryn grabbed William’s microphone, ‘Hello boys!’ From the other side, Kathryn could hear laughter and a couple of ‘whoa’ and ‘Go, Will! You old, sly rat…’

  ‘Oh, shut up guys’ William snickered.

  ‘So ‘der kino toten’, or ‘five’?’

  ‘‘Five,’’ said Kathryn immediately. ‘Don’t feel like going to the cinema today,’ she laughed.

  ‘The presidents it is.’

  After a few hours of the boys swearing at Nazi zombies and making bad movie hero punch lines, and Kathryn screaming ‘dogs,’ and then imitating the sounds of a machine gun with her mouth, Frank was the first causality. Something about not being able to arrive late at his job.

  ‘But aren’t you doing voluntary work, Frankie?’ asked Mike.

  ‘Yes, and your point being?’

  ‘Well, I could arrive late, but who knows what dire and perilous events could unfold.’

  ‘You’re a lawyer, not a nuclear physicist.’

  ‘Even so, better not risk it, and it’s not like I have your job Mike, where you could sit all day playing around and still get paid.’ Mike had to wait for a few seconds to let the laughter die down a bit to answer back.

  ‘It’s not my fault I work in a company where most of the people think computers are some magic device, or that a gnome does all the work inside the motherboard. Not to mention, when I say motherboard, they all look through the window the see if there’s some kind of UFO… unbelievable.’

  ‘At least one of your CEO’s doesn’t think your company is selling vegetables…’ William sighed.

  ‘That’s good, too,’ Mike laughed, ‘but seriously whenever there’s a network problem, I just say there’s a gnome strike and that I have to whack one or two back to work.’

  ‘So you say you whack gnomes on your job?’ asked Frank, not playing but still hanging around. Kathryn picked up William’s head speakers.

  ‘Uhh, nice innuendo F. Yes, Mike? Do you whack your gnomes at work very often?’ she giggled.

  ‘Bah, just come and revive
us, dear Nixon.’

  ‘Not my fault I keep getting Nixon and you keep dying boys.’

  Frank left and the three kept playing a few more hours. Eventually William and Kathryn were the only ones playing.

  ‘Damn, it’s almost six. I better get some sleep, not that I really want to.’

  ‘Yes you better, otherwise you get all cranky,’ Kathryn said while taking his controller away.

  William went to sleep.

  Next morning, William got up and Kathryn had already taken a bath. He didn’t know whether she had gotten any sleep or not and was always afraid to ask. He had no idea how she slept so little and could always be in such a good mood. She was wearing only a t-shirt, one of William’s of course for, in her own words, the evil butler kept losing her clothes.

  ‘Did you go downstairs in just that?’ asked William.

  ‘Yes!’ she gave a big smile.

  ‘Did Johnson see you?’

  ‘I made a point of it, it’s funny to see Alber–’

  ‘Johnson,’ William corrected.

  ‘Albertson,’ she said. William gave up and she continued, ‘avoiding looking at me, but still being able to serve me breakfast. Breakfast for two.’ She pointed to the tray next to his bed. A knock on the door interrupted their conversation.

  ‘Come in Johnson.’

  ‘Would rather not master William. I’ll just leave lady…’ he cleared his throat. ‘Miss Kathryn’s skirt here. Oh, and Master William, Ben Monroe, your driver, is waiting for you.’

  ‘Thank you Johnson,’ said a sad William. Ben reminded him that he had to go to work, and not only was he not in the mood, but he was incredibly sleep deprived. Eventually, after Kathryn was fully clothed and William finished eating breakfast whilst complaining, they went downstairs. Before they went out, William grabbed Kathryn’s