Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 01 - Flapjack Read Online Free PDF Page A

ass job, but who wants that stability.  I don’t want to leave this parking lot until I have a yes or no.  The time is now,” Galveston pressed me.
    “ You sound like a timeshare salesman.”
    I thought about it for a minute.   I believed Galveston when he told me he was terrible at the financial aspect of running a business.  I knew this already from our work at “la Technologies”.  He made me feel needed and I could get whatever his idea for a business was off the ground, probably with one hand tied behind my back.
    “ I already have our first client lined up,” he said smugly and I took another moment to think about his proposal.
    “ An investigator,” I thought.  I had no clue what that entailed, but from his stories I believed he did.  The thought of working longer at Tesla sent shivers down my spine.  I could always get a job at the local McDonalds if it didn’t work out.
    “ Oh, what the hell,” I told him quickly.  “How tough a business could it be?  Alright, you’ve got one month, no longer.  I’ll see it through and if I’m not completely satisfied, you’ll pay me.  Deal?”
    “ Done,” Galveston said rather gleefully.
    I nodded.   I couldn’t believe what I had agreed to, an operation with no business plan, no real customers, and no product.  But the stories had intrigued me, and Galveston’s confidence overrode all my uncertainty.  Still I felt like a person who had just been sold an elixir from the traveling medicine man.
    “ Alright,” Galveston said as he got in the car, rubbing his hands together.  “Let’s go quit our jobs.

-Chapter 6-
     
    Quitting was going to prove even easier done than said. 
    “ I’ll do the quitting for us.  This is your first lesson on my side of the business.  Always have an out.  I have all the ammunition we’ll need, just let me do the talking and you wait here.  Give me ten minutes.”
    I gathered myself outside, sitting on a brick wall, shaded under a poor excuse for a tree.   Exactly ten minutes later, Galveston returned with a manila folder in one hand and a box in the other.
    “ What’s the story here?” I inquired skeptically.
    “ I simply put our conditions and terms of voluntary termination from the company on the table,” he said.
    “ English please,” I replied. 
    He paused as if giving some great dumbed down version.
    “ We are quitting effective immediately, no questions asked.  We wanted a check immediately for our pay.  Stan had five minutes to get the said checks, or I was going to post the pictures of his carnal affair with Belinda on the internet, along with a friendly email to his wife explaining where her husband had been during those long late hours of work,” Galveston said smugly.
    H e pointed to a white envelope in his hand.  “I said these would never see the light of day.”  He handed me the envelope and I nervously ripped it open and peered inside, holding the corners back, expecting sickening and horrendous photos.
    “ Oh my God,” I exclaimed, turning it upside down and shaking it.  Nothing came out. 
    “ You blackmailed him?” I said loudly, shoving the envelope back at him.
    “ Again, the voice.  Didn’t your mother ever tell you to use your inside voice?  You have a lot to learn about discretion.”  He scolded me like a child, grabbing the envelope from me, crumpling it up. 
    “ I call it non-factual persuasion.  Technically, yes, it is blackmail, but that’s not the point.  I stitched everything up in a short amount of time.  You’re not very observant, are you?  Those two couldn’t keep a secret if their life depended on it,” he instructed me.
    “ How did you know?”
    “ I didn’t know 100 percent.  Have you ever heard of Occam’s Razor?  In a nutshell, if there are a number of explanations based on the evidence you have, most likely the simplest explanation is probably the correct one.  How many bosses leave the office four or five times each morning