was a small round table in the center of the room. The bookshelves were filled with white binders. Each binder had a name printed along the spine.
“These are the client books,” DeShawn said with a wave of his hand. “We’ve tried to talk Sadie into going paperless, but she wants to keep these.”
“Wow. That’d be a huge job to transfer all this to computer,” Wyatt said. He was slightly stunned by the number of books.
DeShawn crossed the room and began to pull binders from the shelf. “We’ve got a pretty easy day today. It’ll be good for your first full day.”
They sat together at the small table and DeShawn opened a binder. “Every morning, you see who’s on the schedule and pull their books. All the information you need is in here. Name, address, contact number. Any special requests will be here.” He turned a page and pointed. “See, for example, this is an elderly couple. We moved their cleaning day to coincide with the recycling pickup day because they have trouble getting the full bins out to the curb. We do that for them.”
“That’s a nice touch,” Wyatt said.
“It’s more than a touch. Sadie expects this. It’s part of what sets us apart. Anytime a client asks for something extra, we do it, every time if needed. If we see something like this we’re supposed to offer to take care of it.”
“Great.”
He had no idea how cleaning services were usually run, but he could imagine this individual attention was rare.
“So we get the books, go over them to remind ourselves of anything extra to do and we take them with us so we can update them. There’s a cleaning log here where we log time in, time out and the date. Also, anything unusual goes here. Any new requests or needs are put at the bottom of the special requests list. Got it?”
Wyatt nodded. “Seems straightforward enough.”
“Questions?”
Only about a hundred, Wyatt thought. “I’m still a little concerned about the whole ‘guys cleaning your house’ aspect of this. I know about the behavioral contracts, but there’ve been no problems, have there?”
DeShawn shook his head as he stood and gathered the day’s books. “It’s a thing with some of the newer clients. Most of the people who’ve been with Sadie for years know it’s all about the job we do, not who’s doing it. It’s an attention-grabbing gimmick, nothing more. Our service is beyond excellent. Now, come on and let me show you how to properly clean a house.”
Wyatt, who had been cleaning house since he was twenty and his mother became ill, was a bit offended by that...until they started. He’d known the work would be mostly physical: mopping, sweeping, vacuuming. He wasn’t prepared for the military-level precision with which DeShawn went through a house. He could clean a house twice as well in half the time Wyatt could do his own home.
By lunch, Wyatt was beginning to wonder what he could report to Marcus. Every client they’d seen so far had been an elderly couple. Surely they weren’t buying drugs or sexual services. Even the idea that Sadie was running the cleaning service as a front to some criminal business was hard to believe. Front operations were usually poorly run. Most attention went to the criminal activity as it was the more lucrative. Fronts were only that—fronts, barely functioning covers. The Cleaning Crew was no front. It was a thriving business.
“So, how’re you liking it so far?” DeShawn asked over lunch.
Wyatt smiled at him. “It’s good. Pretty much what I expected.”
“You’re picking it up very quickly. Better than most, trust me.”
“Probably the military training. I like order and plans.”
DeShawn’s eyes lit up. “You were military?”
“National Guard.”
“Did you get sent over?”
“Two tours in Afghanistan.”
“Can I ask you some questions?”
“Sure.” He braced for the usual questions from young men who thought war some exciting real-life version of the video games they’d grown up playing.
“I’m thinking of joining after I graduate next year. I can go in as an officer but I can’t decide which branch. The air force appeals to me, but with my engineering degree, some have said the army might be best. What do you think?”
Wyatt dropped the french fry he was holding. Whoa. Okay. This kid was serious. “I’m not an expert on all the different branches. I was in the Army National Guard. There was a demand for engineers. Mostly for rebuilding. What do you want to do with your degree? Say you enlist, do your twenty years and retire. What experience would you want to have to transfer to a civilian job?”
“Structural engineering.”
“So compare what’s available in each branch to what jobs are comparable in the civilian market, and go with that.”
DeShawn lifted his hand. “Boom! Right to the center of it. Thanks, man.”
Wyatt did the fist bump thing and grinned. This made him feel a little better about the whole undercover-and-lying thing. He’d maybe helped this guy. “Let me ask you a question now.”
“Shoot.”
“Sadie said everyone went out with a partner. But you don’t. Neither does Josh. Why’s that?”
“There are only a few of us who go solo. The ones who’ve been here the longest. We have the older client lists. The clients Sadie had back when she worked alone. Before there was a Crew.”
Wyatt nodded. That wasn’t going to help him much. He needed to get in with the newer clients and newer employees. See what was going on with them. He gathered up the remains of his lunch and followed DeShawn to the trash bin. This is only day one; give it some time.
They finished up just after three and headed back to the office. Sadie was in the back room, filling out the next month’s calendar when they went in to put the books away. Wyatt felt his heart rate amp up a few notches at the sight of her. The jeans and T-shirt hugged her curves and her hair was down, loose curls spilling to the center of her back. She turned and smiled as they walked in.
“Hey. How’d it go?”
“Good job with this one, boss.”
Sadie’s gaze moved to him and he felt every inch she looked over. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Picking it up so fast, he probably doesn’t need a full two weeks. In a month, he’ll be ready to go solo.”
Wyatt grinned at DeShawn. This was good. Yes, take me off orientation early. Put me on a team with one of the new guys. “It helps when you’ve got a great teacher.”
DeShawn held out a fist and Wyatt bumped it. “Tomorrow.”
“How’s Julietta doing?” Sadie asked after DeShawn left. “I’ve been thinking about her. Is she okay after what happened?”
Wyatt
