Colm Brady

Fugg &Co.

Miss Kelly unlocked the doors of the office at 8.55 on Tuesday morning. If she opened them any later Mr. Fugg would imply that she was slacking. Any earlier he would suspect she was stealing stuff. There wasn’t a whole lot to steal in her workplace: A swivel chair with a squeaking castor, a Formica topped desk supported an electric typewriter and on the floor was a plastic plant in a bowl. Miss Kelly liked the plant, it didn’t rant or scream and it stayed precisely in the place she left it. She had always been known as Miss Kelly and in all of her 45 years not even her family dared call her by her first name. She thought the name so repulsive that it had scuppered her chances of marriage but most people agreed that the characteristic that achieved that was her voice. She had a bland monotone of a voice, a voice destined to make announcements in train stations or supermarkets. She had the look of normalcy in her youth but her delivery of even the happiest news made people downcast and eager to flee her company. She did a secretarial course with the nuns and the position of secretary to Mr. Fugg came vacant. There were dark rumours of why the previous girl had left but Miss Kelly was accepted. She was delighted to get the job but nobody could tell, she sounded like a foghorn that has just found out it has been made redundant.
Mr. Fugg hired her because she was plain, her tone didn’t grate with him as he hardly listened to her. He decided having an attractive secretary was a bad idea for two reasons. Firstly, every layabout that had occasion to enter the office would spend time joking and making sheep’s eyes at the help. He had caught the clients and even the postman dawdling by the reception and he disapproved of dawdling. Secondly, Mr. Fugg liked a nice sociable drink and like any man with a skinful he could succumb to certain urges. That was the reason the last secretary had left in a hurry, Fugg had stoked up on port at the golf club and meandered his way back to the office in his Morris 1100. The girl, what was her name? Anyway, the girl had smiled at him and one thing had led to another and she was gone in a haze of accusations. Back then he didn’t have to worry about facing an unfair dismissal claim but Fugg decided to pre-empt the problem and Miss Kelly got the job.
Miss Kelly checked her watch. It was thirty seconds before nine, her employer was running late. She plugged in the electric kettle beside her desk and mentally counted down to nine o’clock. Her desk had a low glass barrier and it was from behind this that she witnessed Fugg’s entrance.
He stormed in the door in a jowly mass of tweed and briefcase leather. Someone had taken his customary parking space and it made him hopping mad. As he hopped he composed a legal note for the owner of the interloping tractor. Without preamble he addressed Miss Kelly in his stentorian legal bellow.
“Take a note Miss Kelly.”
Miss Kelly grabbed a notepad and perched behind the glass divider, hanging on his every utterance.
“To the owner of this vehicle, no said vehicle. Please be aware that this space is reserved with the full weight of the law for the use of Fugg & Company. Kindly desist from occupying it in future. Fugg”
He nodded in satisfaction and gestured out the front door.
“I want it placed prominently on the cab of that machine.”
Miss Kelly nodded but knew in her heart that it would not work. Michael Harkin had a tyre yard across the road that was universally known in Dogtown as Rubber Mickey’s and he had no love for Fugg. Not many people did but Mickey had been the victim of his oratory skills in a court case and positively encouraged his customers to park in Fugg’s way. That was one of the things Miss Kelly admired about the man, he wasn’t afraid to express disapproval. As if to prove it he barked at her as he opened the frosted glass door to his office.
“Get the pledgings for the Turnip case sent out in today’s post.”
“Yes Mister Fugg.” She loved it when he was masterful, which was pretty much all the time, it was just a matter of degree. She lovingly recounted his movements as the door closed behind him. He hung his trenchcoat on the stand, extracted his sandwiches and dropped his briefcase on the floor by the desk. The board of Dogtown’s golf club looked down in approval from their image hung between the legal diplomas. She started annotating the documents for the case of a Mr. Walsh who was in the turnip harvesting business. He had an accident at work on a farm but Fugg had called the farmer a “Man of Straw”. Miss Kelly knew that this term was specifically assigned to people of limited means who were of no use to a man like Fugg. Her employer adored money and any means of its accumulation, it was his grail and his mission. The telephone rang.
“Good Morning, Fugg & Company,” she droned, “yes, I will ask Mister Fugg.” She pushed the one button on the phone whose symbol was worn from overuse, in Fugg’s office his telephone rang.
“Yes?”
“I have a call from Hickey Travel.”
Fugg started, he had a lot of Mister Hickey’s money invested in the bottom floor of a complex of apartments outside the town. He picked up the call.
“Fugg.”
He held the receiver away from his ear as Hickey became agitated. It was typical of the commercial classes to question professionals such as himself. He put on his best honeyed tone bordering on gruffness.
“Mr. Hickey, I can assure you your funds are perfectly safe.”
“Yes Mr. Hickey one appreciates that but the money is in escrow with our bankers.”
That was true if you extended the definition of safe to include Clint Duffy’s property development firm. He had to get this idiot off the phone.
“I am due in court, I will contact you forthwith.”
He hung up and dialled reception.
“Miss Kelly, I don’t want any further calls from Mr. Hickey.
“No calls?”
“At all Miss Kelly,” he said.
Fugg opened his briefcase and extracted the daily paper, a copy of Stubbs Gazette and the defamation case he had brought home last night. He dissected the documents with a fountain pen. The plaintiff said his client had accosted him after having visions of the Virgin Mary. In dry prose the file described that the defendant, a Mrs Mulligan, claimed the Madonna had imparted seven solemn secrets. The secrets were the humdrum revelations typical to such a case, the end of the world and destruction of communism, the usual stuff. In a break with tradition, however, the Mother of Christ had declared that “John Cleary is the spawn of the devil and overcharges for briquettes in his poxy smelly shop”. Now Mrs Mulligan had a history of envisioning deities but this was the first one that was so specific so she took up arms in a campaign against Mr. Cleary and his business. Fugg knew that unless they got a particularly pious judge Mrs Mulligan’s goose was cooked and he would advise her to settle the case. The main priority would be to make sure his own fee was paid first then the representatives of Cleary’s unfortunate enterprise would get their share.
He picked up the next file and rifled through it. His eye was caught by a bill to be issued and he picked up the phone.
“Miss Kelly, there are no expenses in this bill.”
Miss Kelly tried to argue but failed dismally.
“Yes, I know they are nuns but they have to pay my expenses, expenses must be paid. Miss Kelly, perhaps you would prefer to live in an Anarchy where expenses are not paid but I for one do not. That concludes the matter.”
The very idea of lowering ones tariffs for the religious orders, it was ridiculous. He picked up the phone and dialled.
“Ridiculous is what it is Mr. Duffy. How can one sell the bottom half of an apartment complex when there isn’t even planning permission for the top half? My patience is being tested Mr. Duffy.”
This Duffy character from the music industry was proving to be as slippery as any barrister. He spoke in aphorisms from the lyrics of country and western songs. He invited Fugg to mosey on over tonight to the saloon.
“I will, as you so quaintly put it, mosey over and you had better have a viable plan in place Mr. Duffy or I shall act forthwith.”
He hung up. It was nearly time to leave for district court. He heard the front door open and a familiar voice greeted Miss Kelly like an old friend. It was Thomas McIntyre who was universally known as Tommy the Trooper. He had made ample use of Fugg’s skills in his three previous worker’s compensation claims. There were only four major employers in Dogtown and three of them had hosted lucrative accidents for Tommy and his learned counsel. He drank all the money in a bacchanalian supernova that preceded his next job application. Employer number four, Dogtown co-operative mart, had a new manager who didn’t recognise Tommy and gave him a job. Within days Tommy the Trooper was stood on by a bull and he was keen to see Fugg to plot their campaign. To this end he was carrying a crutch and was limping spectacularly, when he remembered it.
As tempting as the McIntyre case was, Fugg really needed to get to court. He had to brief a barrister and of course collect some money on the steps. As he got up from his chair his phone rang and without thinking he picked it up.
“Miss Kelly, what is it?”
“There is a Mister Smith on the line, he wouldn’t say what it was about.”
Fugg answered thinking it was something to do with a golf scorecard he had handed in on Saturday. He had been manipulating his handicap of late but he was sure he could talk his way out of it.”
“Fugg.”
It became apparent that this was no Mr. Smith but the same Hickey under an assumed name. The devious bastard had caught him on the hop.
“It’s in escrow I can assure you my man.”
“Sue me, how dare you. You sue me, I am shocked. I assure you I am known as a man of the highest integrity, probity is my watch word you know.”
“Well go on then, I’ll see you in court.”
Fugg hung up and then picked up the whole phone apparatus and threw it through the frosted glass door leading to reception. He opened the now empty frame and nodded to a shocked Tommy the Trooper.
“Miss Kelly I will be out for the afternoon. And there will be no more phone calls.”
Miss Kelly didn’t even look up from her desk.
“Yes Mr. Fugg.”

posted by Colm Brady @ 8:44 PM