Louis walked in the newsroom with Carmen, Max and Dan trailing closely behind him. He clapped his hands and
the room quickly became quiet.
“All right, listen up people,” Louis began and explained, without going into any detail at all, what he needed. “I need to know what connects these three companies and I need to know yesterday, so let’s all get on it,” Louis said, and the newsroom immediately became alive with activity.
But then Louis had one more thing to say.
“And people.”
The activity stopped.
“This is more than just another story. Carmen is putting her life on the line, so let’s make sure we get this right.” Louis paused. “What’s everybody looking at me for?”
And just as quickly, the buzz of activity resumed.
It was about an hour later when Lacara came in Louis’s office carrying a handful of papers.
“What you got, Lacara?” Louis asked.
“Milton Petty.”
“Who’s that?” Carmen asked.
“He’s what ties it all together.” Lacara laid the papers out on Louis’s desk. “All of the companies involved are owned by a number of shell companies, mainly for tax avoidance purposes, but,” she flipped a couple of pages and pointed. “But if you look here, you see that they all have the same parent company. MP International that is owned by Milton Petty.”
“Good,” Louis nodded. “Good stuff.” He turned to Carmen. “Get started on this.”
“Yes, sir,” Carmen said, and stood up.
“This is good work, Lacara,” Louis said.
“Thank you.”
“I can’t take all the credit. Sheila did most of the leg work,” Lacara said.
“You just walked it in here,” Max whispered to Carmen as they left the office.
“Be nice, Max. Lacara works hard.”
“Lacara is a power-hungry suck up,” Max said.
“Anyway.”
“What are you going to do now?” Max asked.
“I need to talk to Milton Petty,” Carmen said and began looking around the newsroom.
“How you gonna do that? If he’s our guy, you’re the last person he’s gonna wanna talk to.”
“I guess I’ll just have to be where he’s gonna be and bum-rush him,” Carmen said and then she saw the person she was looking for.
“How you gonna find out where he is?”
Carmen looked at Max. “Does Carolina ever tell you that you ask too many questions?” Carmen asked, and walked off.
“No. She’s too busy asking me questions for me to get a question of my own in,” Max said.
Carmen approached the desk of Sheila Grant, who had done what Lacara called ‘the leg work’, which everyone knew meant all the work.