Two and a half hours. Two. If you give me Ramirez from the dayshift. You've got him. Thank you.
He turned and walked back to dock 3. Behind him, he heard the executive begin to say something. He heard Victoria's voice. Quieter now. Answer something clipped and final.
He didn't hear what she said. He picked up his tools and got to work. It took him 93 minutes. When the dock came back online and the first truck pulled in and the system ran clean, there was a quiet satisfaction in Darius chest that no version of a spreadsheet could have given him. This was the part of the job that had no audience the thing fixed.
The problem solved, the machinery doing what it was supposed to do again. He packed his tools, signed Ramirez off, and was washing up in the utility sink when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned. Victoria was leaning against the doorway of the utility room. Suit jacket still on, arms crossed, looking at him with an expression that was almost amused.
93 minutes, she said. I said 2 hours. I was conservative. You're always conservative in estimates. Yes.
She nodded slowly, looking at the tools laid out beside the sink. You flagged that system three times. Three times the repair was deferred. End of quarter budget, he said. Happens a lot, does it?
It's not a question, but yes, she was quiet. Then that document you saw the maintenance log system. What about it? Who sees those after you submit them? Operation supervised Baskam theoretically goes up from there.
Theoretically, in my experience, the word theoretically is doing a lot of work in this building. She held his gaze. There was something behind her eyes that he was starting to recognize, not anger. Exactly. But the particular stillness of a person taking a note in a very permanent place.
I owe you an apology, she said. You don't owe me anything. I didn't tell you who I was. You didn't lie either. You said you ran a company.
I let you believe it was smaller. He dried his hands and turned to face her properly. Why? She didn't answer right away. Because she said finally, I wanted one conversation where the person across from me wasn't thinking about what I could do for them.