Chapter 09

La Gorce looked directly at Scooby Doo, "Did your dog…?" His voice trailed off.

Shaggy, who for years had been preparing himself for moments such as these, looked quizzically back at him. "Did my dog… what?"

The older man shook his head slightly and smiled. "Nothing. The next guard is ready if you are."

Daphne lit up her beamer smile, "We're all set!"

When La Gorce stepped back out, everyone turned to Scooby. He looked back sheepishly and whispered, "Rit did ritch."

Shaggy dropped to his knees in front of his friend. "Be a dog. Be nothing else. Okay? You know how important this is.

Scooby laid down on the floor, "Rokay." And closed his eyes. Maybe pretending to be asleep would be safe.

A man in his mid-twenties came in next. He was about five-nine with a solid, muscular build. He obviously spent a lot of time at the gym. His hair was a very dark brown—almost black and had soft natural waves. His strong, aquiline nose gave him a handsome face. He reminded Daphne a little of Michaelangelo's David.

"Are you as model?" Tumbled from her lips.

He smiled a beautiful smile of perfect teeth. "You caught me. That's why I work the three-twelves night shift. It gives me time during the day to pursue modeling gigs."

"You're in your uniform but Sheila is on duty now." Fred asked the question while trying not to notice how much Daphne was noticing the attractiveness of the guard.

The guard's smile popped out again. "I'm scheduled for tonight. Ted said that I could go ahead and work through the afternoon until my shift started and bank some extra hours. Time-and-a-half comes in handy."

Daphne bounced a smile back at him. Velma almost needed sunglasses. Daphne offered, "Please, have a seat."

As he was sitting down, his shirt sleeves rolled up a little and Velma noticed tattoos on both wrists. After he was settled, the sleeves fell back down and covered them. "You have tattoos."

The smile again. He held his hands up and pulled the sleeves down. The word 'NEVER' was tattooed upside-down on his right wrist and the word 'NOW' was on his left. "Yeah, I got them a couple of years ago."

Velma pursued, "Do you mind telling us what they mean?"

"It's something I try to live by. When you're pursuing your dreams, you have to make every decisions as if it is 'now or never'. It sort of keeps me going."

Daphne was still holding her smile steady. "And, your name is?" She smoothly brushed an errant lock of hair into place over her right ear. Fred had studied body language on the internet and recognized the action of pushing her hair away from her face and neck as a sign of flirtation.

The guard seemed to recognize it, too, as he leaned slightly forward. "I'm Jimmy—Jimmy Epstein."

Fred jumped in, "How old are you, Jimmy?"

"I'm twenty-six."

"Wow. That's ten years older than we are."

Jimmy's body language immediately changed and he leaned back against the chair. Daphne's scowl at Fred lasted less than a second.

Velma knew that something had just happened and had no clue what it was. Shaggy knew exactly what had happened and didn't care. But he felt that somebody should say something, "How long have you worked here?"

"A little over seven years."

"How is the modeling thing going?"

"It's very competitive—even in a secondary market like DC. My agent finds me okay gigs but I'm not knocking on the door of the big time."

"Do you like working here?"

"Yeah, It's kind of perfect for me. I'm the team lead for Aegis. But, if the modeling gig ever hits the big time, I'll be gone in a cloud of dust."

Shaggy continued, "If you're site team lead, then what is Mr. Beaman?"

"He's National Geographic's head of security—our client. I'm the team lead for our company—Aegis Security."

Fred asked the next question, "What does a team lead do?"

"Not much more than the other guards. I do the shift scheduling and make sure that every shift is covered, like if someone calls out sick."

Daphne said, "That sounds like a lot of responsibility."

The smile came again, this time in a self-deprecating form. "Not really. If someone can't make a shift, they call our area manager. She's the one that actually finds a stand-in. It's just my job to get everything set up in National Geographic's computer system."

"Mr. Beaman doesn't do that himself?"

"Sometimes he does, but usually it's easier for me to do it. It's not hard. I can log into their system remotely and it takes about five minutes."

Velma took over, "Are you familiar with Douglas Chandler?"

"The ghost guy? Sure. That's why you're here."

"I mean the original Douglas Chandler."

"I am since this jerk started popping up pretending to be his ghost. He was some sort of nazi or something."

"Have you ever worked with the custodial staff when they're cleaning the server room?"

"Naw, that's a first shift thing."

"Do you know when it occurs?"

"No, I'm not responsible for that so I don't pay much attention."

"Wouldn't the team lead need to know such things?"

"My job is to make sure that someone is here and that they have the right access. What happens within the shift is the responsibility of the guard on duty."

"You were here when Mr. Beaman started."

"That's right."

"What do you think of him?"

"He's all right, I guess. A little overbearing at times but at least he's organized. The last one was disorganized and lazy. Caused all sorts of problems. I wasn't the team lead then. She regularly scheduled us for extra shifts and we would come in to find that we weren't needed. After they paid us four hours for nothing a bunch of times, National Geographic let her go."

"Are you the longest tenured member of the team?"

"Naw, that's Brad. He's been here twelve years. Good guy."

"Why isn't he the team lead?"

"He didn't want it. He said he noticed that everybody who got promoted got fired. He didn't want to worry about that."

"You haven't been fired."

His smile came back. "Yet."