Folk Around and Find Out (Good Folk: Modern Folktales #2)(30)

And I promised myself that if he had questions after I quit, I wouldn’t respond with, “Figure it out, it’s self-explanatory.” I would make myself available to help. Whether he knew it or not, he was helping me find my cousin. And that’s what decent people do.

But I would have to corner him about the discrepancies before quitting. I needed my questions about income percentages and payouts answered so that I could fully set up the automations. I couldn’t do it if he wasn’t willing to help me help him.

On Wednesday, I arrived at The Pony slightly after 2:30 PM and almost plowed right into Hank.

“Oh!” I stepped backward, my bottom hitting the door and making it swing open again.

Hank turned and glanced at me, his expression morphing from surprised to something else to neutral in the blink of an eye. “What are you doing here so early?”

I thought about making some prickly rejoinder reminiscent of yesterday when I’d told him that since my hours were self-explanatory, I’d explained them to myself. Instead, because my time here was limited and I still felt a little tender toward him for being so kind to my kids, I said, “To set up FastFinance, I need you to log into your bank accounts, restaurant system, and credit cards to grant the program access. I’ll then import the data and begin categorizing it so we can automate payroll by next week.”

He seemed to lose his air of indifference as I spoke, and he nodded eagerly when I’d finished. “Okay. When? Is now good?”

“Now is fine.” I walked past him and toward my office. “Let me log in and we can get started.”

I sensed him trail after me, and my back straightened, a little shiver running down my spine. I hadn’t expected to see him so soon, nor had I expected him to be eager to upgrade to FastFinance. I’d planned to track him down later inside the club and had mentally prepared myself for an argument.

Since that wouldn’t be the case, I’d have to do something with all this excess fighting-energy. Maybe I’d do some pushups in my office after we’d finished.

I walked into the office and opened the laptop, quickly signing into the device and then running the FastFinance app, signing in there as well. I also pulled out the stack of payroll spreadsheets I’d printed on Sunday, a paper trail of contradictory payouts and percentages. Hopefully, I could leverage Hank’s interest in FastFinance to force some answers out of him. Once he did, I would thank him for his time and then turn the whole of my attention toward finding my cousin.

Hopefully by the end of the evening, I’d know where Heather was and how to contact her.

Hank wheeled an office chair through the door and sat next to me, angling his long legs to one side as I clicked through the screens necessary to link his other accounts. Hank filled in all the required fields to grant access, typed in the one-time password code when prompted, and that’s when I pounced.

Clearing my throat while we waited for the accounting systems to sync, I said, “I was thinking of going back through the last three years and assigning expenditures based on the categories defined in the spreadsheets.”

He glanced at me, looking genuinely curious. “Why?”

“Then you could compare year over year costs, see if what made money three years ago is still working for you. Or, conversely, see if something you’ve been buying for years is suddenly eating into your bottom line. It would help you maximize profits.”

“Makes sense.” Perking up, he nodded enthusiastically. “Actually, yeah. Good idea, that would really help. And you’ll still have payroll ready? Next week?”

“About that . . .” I cleared my throat again, hesitating.

“What? What is it?”

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but it appears Fred mishandled the payroll.”

Hank reared back. “What do you mean? He was skimming money?”

“No. I don’t think so. It looks like he was overpaying some of your contractors while underpaying others.”

“Are you serious?”

“Unfortunately.”

His eyes narrowed with plain suspicion. “How do you figure that?”

I explained to Hank how the percentages given to each dancer changed from week to week. I’d decided to approach the issue this way rather than ask him again for the breakdown. It seemed like Hank didn’t like to be asked for anything. He wanted me to figure it out.

My son Joshua was the same way. He never volunteered anything about his feelings. I had to make an assumption in order for him to confirm or deny it, but he never answered direct questions.

“I went back three months and they’re all over the place, and inconsistent. For example”—I picked up the last six payroll summaries and showed him my findings—“one week Tina is making twenty percent of her food bill and the next week she made five. It’s like he pulled the numbers out of thin air.”

“Jesus.” Hank’s eyes were rimmed with surprise as he picked up the sheets I’d printed.

I gave him a few minutes to study the documents before adding, “Unless this was purposeful, I can go back and straighten it out, but that means you might have to pay people for their lost income. And that might be—”

“Expensive.” Hank dropped the papers and leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees and covering his face. “Goddamn it.”