VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [88]
“Salute.”
“Cheers,” said Murphy, with a lack of enthusiasm.
• • •
The following morning Murphy telephoned Jayro Pepps at Oakton.
“How is everything?” asked Murphy.
“Oh … all right. The kanbans are mostly in place now, and Final has gone to this, what they call, one-piece flow. And I have to say it is pretty slick. Once we got enough out of Godzilla to make it worth the while.”
“Uh-huh. That’s the way it’s always been, Jayro. Anyway, I have some interesting news.”
“What’s that?”
“Jayro, you know how production approvals from Rockville usually come in fits and starts? You know we’ll get five or ten in one day? And then we might not get anything from Rockville for three or four days, maybe even a week or more?”
“Yeah.”
“You remember how the salesfolks always wonder why it takes so long for some of their orders to get into the production queue?”
“I don’t have to remember, Murph. It goes on all the time.”
“Well, I now know why.”
“Is that a fact.”
“Yes, and next time some sales guy yells at us because some hot order isn’t in production when it’s supposed to be, if it involves carbon fiber, I know exactly which pile to look in to find it.”
“Pile of what?” asked Jayro.
“Yes, exactly,” said Murphy. “I will explain next time I’m back in Carolina.”
Murphy Maguire understood that in order to have influence, one must have rapport. And to have rapport required an extension of goodwill.
Therefore, Murphy ventured out, driving his Chevy Suburban into the vastness of the metropolitan Washington, D.C., retail experience. Ultimately he found and purchased the equipment for his tactical olive branch, his pacific Trojan horse: a WSM smoker. This was not his preferred sort of barbeque smoker, but it was a cute little black barrel thing that would do the job and would fit on the microscopic porch of the company-rented town house where he resided while in Rockville. And so on Monday, there were ribs.
Murphy came into a 3:00 p.m. meeting with Sarah Schwick, Joe Tassoni, and a few others, holding a platter covered with heavy-duty aluminum foil. It caused a stir. As he unveiled the ribs – which he had kept in a cooler until a few hours before, when he had gone to the parking lot and placed the foiled slab on the dashboard of his Suburban, parked with the windshield at southern exposure, so as to heat them to perfection in the bright hot sun – there were gasps.
Joe Tassoni uttered most of his compliments in Italian, a testament of his appreciation. The others, between bites of the succulent meat – crispy at the edges yet moist inside – also raved. But Sarah would not partake.
“Sarah, have a few,” Murphy offered, holding the patter toward her.
“No, thanks.”
“Are you sure? Joe likes ’em! And I do believe Joe knows his food!”
“Um, Murphy, I’m Jewish,” Sarah said.
“Oh?”
“And I don’t eat pork.”
“Oh.”
“And I’m also vegetarian,” Sarah said.
She might just as well have said she was from a different galaxy. Murphy attempted to smile politely as he withdrew the platter.
“But I do eat cheese,” Sarah said, as if in consolation.
“Yes, so do I,” said Murphy. “I like cheese.”
“And I like spicy,” she added, “especially hot Thai food.”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever had any,” said Murphy.
The following week Murphy appeared with two platters, both with small, round, tempting morsels.
“What are these?” asked Sarah.
“ABTs,” said Murphy. “They’re kind of an appetizer in the barbeque world. And I made two kinds, regular and vegetarian.”
Joe Tassoni immediately reached for one of the “regulars,” which consisted of a jalapeño pepper stuffed with cream cheese and a small amount of sausage, then wrapped with bacon secured with a toothpick.
“Splendido!” said Joe, delivering his blessing and having another.
With some trepidation, Sarah reached for the veggie variety, which substituted seasoned bulgur wheat for the sausage and a brined, hand-roasted sweet red pepper for the bacon. Into her mouth went the ABT, and a second later her small brown eyes became enormous behind the outsize lenses of her glasses.