“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?”

The voice leapt from the receiver. Roberta held it away from her head. Everyone in the front office stopped what they were doing and stared.

“Hello, Emma,” Roberta said as calmly as she could.

“HOW THE HELL DID YOU SCREW UP THE PLAYER OF THE YEAR AWARDS?”

“Sorry, Emma, they can’t hear you on the pitcher’s mound, could you shout a little louder?” That brought a smothered laugh from the office staff.

“Listen,” Emma said in a slightly less vociferous voice, “I don’t like getting insulting memos from the Commissioner’s Office, so you fix this, got it?”

“We’re on it.”

“What’s wrong with you people anyway? It’s a simple fucking award. How’d you manage to screw it up?”

Roberta looked around the Bulldozer front office. The GM’s office was empty. The Assistant GM’s office was empty. The manager had an office down in the clubhouse, but it was still empty too. Though Roberta had heard the new manager was on his way. Meanwhile, she was running things, former personal secretary to the Asst. GM. And she had a staff of three, including a newly hired assistant and an intern in the mail room.

“How could you fuck up something so simple?” Emma asked again.

“Well,” Roberta said finally, “we’ve had other problems to solve.”

“Like what?”

“Like …,” Roberta considered telling Emma Span, the spokeswoman for the Bulldozer Owners’ Consortium, the whole story, but she decided against it. Didn’t figure a woman living in Brooklyn could do a damn thing about it. “Like no cash,” she said finally.

“No cash? What does that even mean?”

“No money on hand,” Roberta explained slowly. “The team is effectively broke.”

“My team ain’t broke!” Emma’s voice was rising again. “There’s twenty-some million in cash and forty-plus in the bank. What do you mean ‘nothing on hand’? You couldn’t have fucking spent all that—if you did fucking spend it, I’ll fucking—”

“We didn’t spend it. It disappeared.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Roberta could hear crashing sounds, then a dog yelping. Finally, Emma’s voice returned, ice cold and controlled. “What. Did. You. Do?”

Roberta took a deep breath. “Paid for the trades you approved, then requested a transfer of funds from the bank to our credit account. The bank declined the request, so we contacted our accounting firm: Allen, Koolchuck, Goode & Soldwell.” Roberta paused.

“So? What’d they say?”

“Not a damn thing. They went out of business.”

“WHAT!?” Emma was screaming again. “They can’t do that! We’ve got owners in that firm!”

“Yup,” Roberta said, and waited.

“Connect me with Koolchuck or Soldwell. They’ll know what’s happening.”

“Gone.”

“WHAT? They’re owners. Find ‘em!”

“All the owners have left town, closed down their businesses, packed up their families, and … disappeared.”

“No way! You can always reach Soldwell. Or Allen. Wait!” Roberta waited. “Didn’t you say Goode was one of the names in the accounting firm?”

“Yup.”

“David Goode? Our former manager?”

“His uncle, I believe, was the accountant.”

“So get hold of David and find out what’s going on.”

“David’s disappeared too. The police have been looking for him, but no luck.”

“The police? What the fuck is going on out there?”

“Don’t know. They wouldn’t say, except that they wanted to question him.”

“He’s not just sequestered out there in that fucking trailer of his, is he?”

“Nope. No one home.”

“You checked?”

“Personally, Emma, last night. What little David had in that trailer has been packed up and removed. Got a For Sale sign on it.”

“So who’s selling it? They’ll know where he is.”

“No realtor, no name, not even a phone number.”

Roberta could hear Emma breathing deeply, thinking presumably. Then a quieter, but still very tense Emma’s voice said, “That makes no sense. Right? You see that? If you’re selling, you leave a contact name or number. You sure you didn’t just miss it?”

“Certain, Emma. David is gone. The owners are gone. The money is gone.”

“I don’t fuckin’ … Shit. I’m gonna have to fly out there, aren’t I? You’re sure there’s no other owners around, hiding out in town somewhere?”

“If they’re hiding, they don’t want to be found.”

“Right. Okay. Well. Tell your travel secretary to book me on a flight tomorrow and I’ll—”

“We don’t have a travel secretary.”

“What? Someone else quit? You can’t even keep the fucking office running?”

Patiently, Roberta explained, “No one got paid this month. The bank reports there’s no money to pay salaries going forward. So, some quit, some just haven’t bothered to show up. There’s three of us here. That’s your office staff.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll see what I can do when I get there, just book me a flight.”

“No money, Emma. No credit line. You’ll have to book your own flight.”

Something else crashed on the other end of the line. The dog yelped again. Roberta could hear Emma’s voice trying to sooth the dog, then a long silence, before Emma returned.

“Okay. Listen to me. First, you call the bank. Get a statement of when and how the money was withdrawn and who by, then—”

“It’s confidential.”

“What’s confidential?” 

“Who withdrew the money. The bank won’t tell us, we asked.”

“Do I have to do everything myself? Jesus H.—listen. You listening, Roberta?”

Roberta tried not to let her anger seethe into her voice. “Yes, Emma. I’m listening.”

“Okay, good. Now, I’m going to have to come out there and straighten this out. The bank manager will damn well tell me who withdrew our funds because I’m one of the owners, right? So, you just get me an appointment with the manager tomorrow afternoon, as late as possible. Can you manage that?”

Roberta looked around the office. Mail room intern Dennis Rae had stopped sorting mail. A couple letters had slid out of his grasp as he listened to the phone conversation. Roberta’s assistant, Denise Stevens, stood with her mouth and eyes wide open. As much for them as for herself, Roberta collared her anger and spoke as calmly as she could. 

“Emma, you’ve got three volunteers here in the office right now. Nobody’s getting paid. As soon as this phone call is over, we’re closing up the office for the day. I’ll meet you at the airport tomorrow and we can sort out what’s what then. But—” she spoke quickly to cut off Emma, who she could hear was about to say something, “you’ll have to book your own flight and call the bank to make an appointment yourself.”

“Why you little—” 

“Careful, Emma, we’re not your employees right now. Understand?”

Roberta could hear Emma stutter, then edit whatever she was going to say. “Well, we will see about that. Tomorrow then. I’ll email you the flight info.”

Roberta waited a moment and when Emma didn’t say anything else, she said, “Tomorrow then,” and hung up, gently. She looked at her fellow former employees of the Yuma Bulldozers and shrugged. Denise smiled and silently applauded Roberta. Dennis wasn’t sure what to do, so he finally bent over and picked up the mail he’d dropped.

The last thing Roberta did before closing down the front office was to remove the large ring of keys from the GM’s desk drawer.

“Just might need those,” Roberta thought to herself.