Kamla Grissom’s heels echoed across the empty lobby of Pacific Motors Acceptance Corporation. She paused and checked her watch against the clock high on the far wall. Below the bas-relief corporate slogan “PMAC – Relationship Banking,” the company clock ticked over to 4:35AM. Kamla was late.

A door opened to her left and Kamla heard the contralto of her supervisor, Melinda Garcia. “Relax, the meeting is cancelled; you’re early, not late.”

Kamla tugged her blouse down.  “What happened to ‘mandatory and essential’?   Starting work every day at 5AM to handle credit decisions for east coast dealers is tough enough, does he know how hard it is to make a 4:30AM meeting?”

“Sorry Kamla, the boss called only a few minutes ago, by then you were in the parking lot.  What’s wrong with your blouse?

“Damn cleaners, Melinda.  I pay twice as much to get my cotton Liz Claiborne blouse laundered as a man pays for a cheap K-Mart shirt, and they shrink it.  No time to change.  The great man give a reason for canceling?

“Not a one, and probably rolled back over after he called.  I think we can count on having the lunch schedule disrupted. If ‘El Supremo’ wakes up by then, I mean.”

“Melinda, if I accidentally back over our boss in the parking deck, will you get his job?  You’re twice as smart as he is on his best day.  You never override my credit decisions, and the finance managers all know better than to call you after I turn them down.”

Melinda pinched the dimple on Kamla’s left cheek. ”Oh baby girl, you are so sweet when you talk stupid.  It’s a man’s world, Kamla.  Drop an anvil on one coyote’s head and another takes his place.  When a woman reaches the glass ceiling she doesn’t bump against it; she spatters like a bug on a windshield. Speaking of the weaker sex, do you have a new boyfriend?  The mailroom delivered a very non-businesslike package to your cubicle Saturday.  What gives girlfriend?”

“Probably another bribe from one of the dealerships, Melinda”

“Those guys never learn do they?  Can I see what you got though?  My curiosity is killing me.”

“Melinda the cat,” Kamla observed. “Sure, we have a few minutes to waste, courtesy of upper management.”

Kamla’s cubicle was festooned with photos of finance managers, managers with their families, managers with their car dealership owners, and even one photo of a finance manager and his dog.  That photo came after she admitted to her client she had a soft spot for puppies.  These men knew Kamla had the power to make or break a car deal and went to any length to gain her good will.  Finance managers even had seminars about this sort of thing, usually called something like “Building Rapport with Lenders – The Path to Prosperity.”  Kamla and Melinda called it “Sucking Up for Success.”

The long white box from the mail room lay on her desk, one end covered with stamps.

“Think it might be a bomb?”  Melinda asked.

“The return address is to Long-Ridge Motors in Americus, Georgia.  It’s just another ‘rapport builder,’ Kamla said as she slid her letter opener along the edges.

“Well, open it Kamla. Whatja get?  Oh, wow that’s…ugh. Kamla, that’s kinda disgusting.  What exactly is it?”

“It started out to be flowers.  Good grief, look at the date on the postmark, Melinda.  This bouquet was mailed last Tuesday.”

“Someone really knows how to win a girl’s heart, Kamla.  What’s the card say?”

“Your Secret Admirer,” Kamla read. “This has to be from Dale Plunkett, the finance manager at Long-Ridge Motors.”

“Oh, I’ve talked to the guy before.  How’d he ever get a manager’s job?”

“His brother-in-law owns the dealership.” Kamla said.

“That explains it.  Gotta run, phones start in five minutes.  See you at lunch, if we get one.”

A phone line was already blinking. Kamla decided to make the best of a bad day and start early.

“Pacific Acceptance credit department, Kamla speaking.”

“Kamla!  Hey, I’m glad I got you early.  I got a deal I’m stuck on.  You’re the only human bean in the world that can hep me.”

“Dale?  Slow down, I can’t handle that South Georgia accent this early in the morning.  By the way, did you mail me a bunch of stems and twigs last week?”

“I sent some flowers, if that’s what you mean.  Percy, my brother-in-law, ah, I mean Mr. Ridge, said he used to send his credit buyers flowers when he was a finance manager.

“Dale, I guess you never heard of FTD, did you?  Haven’t you ever sent flowers to your wife?”

“FT what?  You women are all alike.  I gave my wife a top of the line Procter-Silex steam and dry iron for her anniversary last month.  Did I get thanks?  No siree.  The way she acted you’d a thought I’d forgot it again.”

“Sorry Dale, didn’t mean to sound ungrateful.  The twigs are very nice.  What can I do for you?”

“Kamla, I delivered a car Saturday and this morning a fax tells me the computer turned the deal down.  I need you to get me an approval.  The customer’s name is Stovall, Brian and Shelia Stovall.”

“I’ll check, Dale.  Please hold.”

Brian and Shelia Stovall had a less than stellar credit history.  The credit report Dale submitted showed no previous car credit, and they’d lost a house to foreclosure, the credit death kiss.

“Dale, do you want the bad news, or the worse news?  These people never paid for anything.  They even lost their house. You expect me to grant credit under these circumstances?”

“Look on the plus side, Kamla.  Brian got hisself a promotion to foreman and makes good money now.  Shelia told me she’d bought a car on credit before, why it don’t show on the report is a mystery, but I believe her, and the house foreclosure was a double wide with bad plumbing.  The dealer took it back with no hard feelings, but the bank still reports it as a foreclosure.  I can get a letter on that.”

“Dale, I have to work with what you send on the application and credit report.  You don’t have squat.  Why not try a local lender?”

“Can’t do it Kamla, I’ve got to have the special PMAC rate to swing the deal.  Come on, hep me out and I’ll send you some of them FBT flowers you like.”

“No more flowers, Dale. If I find a way to approve this deal you need to buy me a Caribbean cruise.  Hang on while I try another credit reporting bureau.  You say Shelia had a car loan once?”

“That’s what she said. Say, while you look that up let me ask you something.  Are you any kin to that writer over in Mississippi, the Grissom that writes them lawyer novels?

“No, different spelling.  Why do you ask?”

“Well, I’m taking a writer’s course.  Percy, uh, Mr. Ridge has been talking about retiring and selling the dealership.  If he does I’m out on my butt. I need something to fall back on.  Besides, if I had the money my wife spends on romance novels, I could retire.  She says women need an escape.  Do you think that’s true, or should I write a western?”

“Dale, you are one lucky fellow.  I found Shelia’s car credit. She paid off a Ford under her maiden name.  I can get you an approval if you make Shelia the buyer and Brian the co-buyer, and I have to have that letter about the mobile home.  But, to answer your question, we sure do. After putting up with men like you all day, an escape sounds much better than a cruise.”

“Kamla, you’ve made my day.  I promise–no more flowers.  I’m gonna make you the hero in a story.  Heck, I’ll make you royalty.  How does “Duchess Kamla” sound?”

“It’s ‘heroine’, Dale, and after doing all your credit research for you I’d think you could make me at least a princess.”

“You’re a peach, Kamla.  Soon as I figure out how to go about it I’ll write you into a story.”

Kamla rang off in time to take an internal call from Melinda.

“Take your break early, Kamla.  The meeting is on again for 8:30, and that will have to double as lunch time.  The boss is buying, do you want your rubber chicken on white or whole wheat.”

“Order me what ever you’re having, Melinda.  I’ll break at six-thirty if that fits.  By the way, the “dead flowers walking” did come from Dale Plunkett.”

“New suck up seminar making the rounds?”

“Nope, Percy Ridge told Dale it was a good business trick.”

“A wink is as good as nod to that ole boy.  See you at the meeting, Kamla.”

Kamla transferred her calls at six-thirty and headed to the break room, still struggling with her shrunken blouse. “Damned dry cleaner,” she muttered as she turned the doorknob.  “Plunkett’s wife is right, we both need an escape. I just hope she isn’t counting on Dale to deliver it.”

        * * *

The tent flap closed behind Kamla with a whisper.  Smoking torches illuminated the interior; twilight was as good as darkness in the Normandy winter.  Kamla cursed the armorer as she tugged the armholes of her leather cuirass.  The armor had been her brother’s.  Kamla ordered it cut down, altered to supposedly fit her smaller frame.   She hoped it would serve her better against Norman arrows than it had the young prince.  It was unlucky armor, but it bore her father’s crest. 

“What do you have to report, Captain of Guards?” Kamla asked.

“The Norman army is camped across the river between the two fords, Kamla.  They can attack from both now that the water has receded. Our scouts counted their campfires, and we are outnumbered at least three to one.  My men captured a spy who swam the river. After I torture him tonight I will have more information, but the other captains agree with me that it is time to retire to our ships.” 

Kamla studied Otho carefully.  In the days since her brother made him captain he had grown far too close to the men.  Grumbling and dissention followed him like froth behind a longship.  Otho had been with the prince when he fell- it was not only her armor that was unlucky.

“Were you this familiar with my brother, Guards Captain?  Did you not give him his titles?  Did he allow you to call him by name only?”

“Your pardon,‘Princess’.  No matter what I call you there are decisions that must be made.  What are your orders?”

Otho’s question dangled like bait in a trap. This insolent, and probably treacherous, captain was exactly right. Decisions must be made.  Kamla made her first one.  “Bring me this spy, now”

At a sign from Otho two guards left the tent and returned dragging a Norman youth between them.   Kamla inspected him the way a butcher might inspect a side of beef.  He was well favored, standing tall between his captors.  Likely the son of a nobleman, his breeding was not disguised by the commoner’s rags he wore.  Kamla could sense his fear, but not see it.  This man would yield only blood to Otho’s torture.  She touched his tunic, damp, but not sodden.  The left side of his face was swollen and beginning to purple.  Not taken easily.  She must commend the scouts who captured him.

“You are a dead man Norman.  You can tell me what I want to know, and I will give you the dagger, or you can resist and the big fellow over there will start heating iron for your flesh.  Answer me now!  Beg me for a quick death!”

For answer the Norman spat in Kamla’s face.  The guards crushed him to his knees, ready to kill him for his insolence.  “Wait!” Kamla screamed.  Her hands moved swiftly as thought, the left snapping his head back while the right filled with her dagger.  Instantly, the blade was at his exposed throat drinking a drop of Norman blood.  Now she saw fear in his widened eyes, now he knew the meaning of death.  Kamla bent over him as he drew what he knew to be his final breath.

Never changing her expression Kamla kissed him fully and firmly on his mouth.

“Take him to the river,” she told his guards. “Let him choose a ford.  If he pauses, or looks back, fill his body with arrows.”

“A strange way to interrogate a prisoner, Kamla.  I doubt the men will appreciate this gift of life you gave a spy.” Otho said, his trap now closed.

“The men will understand I am the surrogate of their king.  Yes, I gave this Norman his life. I also gave him a story, Otho.  I intend to die in battle and spend eternity among the heroes and warriors of Valhalla.  There I will hear my name on the lips of his grandchildren.  This story will not die with me, or with this Norman.  Your story, Otho, ends now.”  Her blade struck upwards, sliding easily between his ribs just as her father had taught her.  Otho was dead before his body touched the ground.

“Wilderic, you are Captain of Guards now. Will you hear my orders?”

Wilderic looked down at the body of Otho then stammered his answer. “Yes, yes I hear and will obey, my princess.  What are your orders?”

“Otho was a fool and a coward.  The river has been down all day, but the Normans have not attacked.  They wait to gather strength.  They might have enough men to attack across one ford, but not two.”

“But, Princess, we counted their fires…”

“One Norman may tend many fires.  We came by ships that cannot be concealed, so they know our strength by counting them, yet they have not attacked.  They have not attacked, because we are the strongest.  They sent the spy not to find our strength but our weakness.  We can’t defend both fords; the spy will tell their chief that our men are divided.  Assemble the men at the ford the spy did not choose.  He would have gone directly to his chief–their strength is with the leader.  Two hours before dawn send skirmishers across to kill the sentries.  There will not be many.  Once across the river swing widely toward the other ford, the Normans are assembled there.  I will keep forty archers on our side of the strong ford.  The Norman army must then choose death from your spears, my arrows, or Odin’s water.”

“I understand and will obey, Princess Kamla. Are there any other orders?”

“Yes,” Kamla said, looking down at Otho. “Throw this carrion into the river.”

        * * *

Kamla Grissom, credit analyst for Pacific Motors Acceptance left the break room a few minutes early, refreshed, ready for the rest of her day, and perhaps ready for much more.  She still had time for a personal call to an FTD florist.  Blood red roses, she thought, two dozen should be sufficient, Mrs. Plunkett deserves that much.

# # #

Ray Busler of Trussville, Alabama, sometime writer.

Photo credit: Terri Malone