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

to talk to the secretary, when they just as easily could use the intercom?  How many bosses lean over their secretary’s desk, touch their arm, and help them with their email?  How stupid do you have to be to not figure out email after a two year tutorial?”
    “ But to want Belinda?  Even for Stan, that’s pretty low,” I replied in disgust.
    “ Don’t ask me why or how, please don’t make me even conceive the two of them doing anything but slopping hogs after work.  I don’t know, but the signs were there.  The little glances, the little laughs, plus I saw both of their cars parked at the motel down the street,” he laughed.  “I kind of put it together.”  He handed me a piece of paper from the box sitting on the wall.  “Cash it in good conscience.  You have received lesson two in simple observation and part of lesson three in gentle persuasion.”  I reached for the paper slowly, still in a state of shock and now fully unemployed.
    “ I would hate to see your non-gentle persuasion,” I said as we walked back to his car.  I realized I had exited a terrible situation and entered into a terrifying unknown.

-Chapter 7-
 
    I still did not know what my new job truly was or what business plan I would need to implement.  For someone who viewed risk as an extremely predictable, well thought out plan, this all proved disconcerting.  But the sense of excitement was definitely there, and it was tough to quell.  I was moved forward by stories of clandestine meetings and international intrigue.
    Our new business would be a kind of private eye firm, but since neither of us was licensed, we couldn’t call it that.  Instead, we would operate in the same smoky arena of the consultant in which Galveston had been involved before.
    Galveston would get the clients and do the investigations or consulting.  I would handle the business side, the contracts, the expenses, and the bank account, while Galveston would educate me as a junior consultant, slash, investigator.
    During our meeting it became evident that while Galveston knew everything about investigating and sleuthing, he really knew nothing about business.  He was shocked at what we needed to do to potentially make a profit, and the luster of the idea began to wear off.  We had limited funds, but Galveston ensured me we would have clients.  They might not be clients as wonderful as we wanted, but they would be money paying clients nonetheless.
    But I vastly underestimated my role in the business.  Galveston wanted to involve me in investigations immediately.

-Chapter 8-
     
    Our first month of employment together would prove to be uneventful.  No clandestine meetings or international intrigue.  There wasn’t even national intrigue, but I decided to stick with it despite depleting all of Galveston’s savings.
    We set up shop in Galveston’s spacious one bedroom pad, complete with a 70’s era couch, a slow computer, and a refrigerator filled with old mayonnaise, pickles, and milk from the Reagan administration.  It was like two college roommates deciding to go into business together, selling bellybutton lint, because not everyone had some.
    We started with simple background checks, employment histories, and driving records.   It helped keep us solvent and in business, but it wasn’t breaking the bank.
    Our first big job was through a contact Dan had at an insurance brokerage firm.   Galveston had met this man through casual conversation about cars at a local tire store.  He was a lead underwriter at an insurance company and spoke of his frustration about possible insurance fraud.  The underwriter was convinced that one of the claimants they had made payouts to was faking a worker’s compensation injury, and due to a pending lawsuit was costing the insurance company hundreds of thousands of dollars.  No one could prove that this guy was faking, but they were convinced he was.
    We’ll call the guy Rick, because that was his name.
    “I