“I said, ‘Make it sooner.’” I stare into his eyes until he looks down.
“Yeah, sure,” Reid mumbles and then looks back up, faking a smile. “Sure, boss! We’ll have it done tomorrow.”
“Where’s Kate?”
“Front desk, last I saw her.”
I find my great aunt behind the counter of the title agency, taking applications for passports from some family planning a trip to Toronto. I wait impatiently until she’s done, and we move into the closed office behind the counter.
“Give me this month’s numbers,” I say briskly. “Just the passports.”
“Three hundred twenty-seven, last I counted. That was earlier this morning.”
“Why the drop?”
“We still have a week left in the month,” Kate says. “A lot of orders show up toward the end, mostly from Eastern Europe. I did hear the orders
from Cincinnati arrived late last night, but I don’t have the counts. Antony said he was pretty happy with the numbers, but I didn’t get the details yet. It all went to the warehouse.”
“Antony said there were more licenses than expected.”
“The Georgia and Indiana ones, yes.”
“They’re cheaper.”
“Easier to fake.” Kate shrugs. “Too many changes, especially with everyone wanting the newer versions with the higher security on them.”
“They’ll have to buy the guaranteed counterfeits, then. I’m not going to put up with anyone bitching that what they paid for is only going to work for a few more months. We should probably stop taking orders for the cheap ones and push people to the others.”
“People will bitch.” Kate looks out the office window at the line forming at the counter.
“Not if they know what’s good for them. Anyone looking knows our documents are the best.”
“It does help to have all the state’s equipment working for us,” Kate says with a snort. “Is there anything else, Nate? I need to get back to the legal customers.”
“Come by tonight with all the document numbers,” I tell her. “I want a comparison going back six months.”
“It might take me a while to get that together,” she says. “I can do it, but we’re open until seven tonight, and I probably won’t make it to the house until after nine.”
“That’s fine.”
I make my way back to the car and head to the warehouse behind the lodge. When I arrive, Antony is leaning against the loading dock, smoking and flipping through his phone.
“Good news, boss,” he says when I get out of the car.
“What’s that?”
“The orders from The Natti are almost twice what we thought they might be.”
“It’s a good start, that’s for sure. Kate said the overall numbers are down though.”
“I don’t think they really are,” Antony says. “It’s just because we moved everything this week, and it hasn’t all been accounted for. I gave Reid a lot of shit for it, and he’s going to make sure the numbers are accurate before the day is done.”
“He’s got a lot to do. Is he handling his new responsibilities well?”
“For the most part, yeah. He doesn’t know as much about the document shit as he does about real estate, but I think he’ll catch on soon enough.”
“Let me know if he doesn’t.”