All It Takes

4.

"Derrick!" John exclaimed. Sometimes he wondered if Derrick was mentally stable.

"Yes, sir. We could just kidnap her and make her collect the amount we're offering and she won't even have to know it's us." Derrick continued his own twisted version of a game plan.

"Derrick." John called again, much calmer this time. "I think we need to get your head checked. Are you high?"

"I'm not, sir. I'm quite okay, sir." Derrick replied all to enthusiastically. "If you would just allow me, I'll call some guys, they will get the job done in less than..."

"Rick, man, shut up." John said. "To begin with, you have been calling me 'sir' since this morning and you look like you were chased all the way down here. Secondly, what guys are you talking about?!" He continued loudly, clearly getting rather annoyed. He gave him the look and Derrick burst into laughter. It was more of cackling than anything. But it was contagious.

John joined.

After five years of going through the highs and lows of the world of  business together, John and Derrick had become really close. Best friends, even. That was the one employee whom he meddled in his personal affairs, with permission of course and the one employee whom the look never worked on.

Derrick had walked into his office that faithful day wearing suspenders and carrying a file. John couldn't help but wonder if there was a time machine that transported someone into the wrong timeline and the person just happened to walk into his office or if his secretary had forgotten to inform him about his office being used as a setting for an episode of Blast from the Past. But after a few minutes of talking to him, he just knew he had to hired him and he requested he began work immediately. He had learned that day to try to never judge a book by it's cover.

Now looking at Rick sitting in the chair opposite his, spurting out nonsense, he thought about how he often wondered why he didn't give the remaining applicants a chance.

"Sorry, man. You were in boss mode and I didn't want to stop the flow." Derrick recounted, chuckling. "I said all that to lighten the mood. It seemed like you needed it."

"Fine. Maybe, I did. But you can't just go around talking about kidnapping people, Rick. Is that your solution to every problem?" John asked, worried that his friend actually meant it if he as much as gave it a second thought.

"No, man. Of course not. I will not be going to jail for that."

"Huh?"

"Chill." He cajoled between cackles. "I won't be going to jail at all."

John simply shook his head, amused. "What's the game plan, Rick? We need one before the end of this week."

"A whole week? Nah. Three days tops." Derrick said, already weighing different options. John suspected they'd have one before the end of the following day.

"Thanks, man. When is my meeting with Shanai Inc.?"

"1pm."

John grumbled, while Derrick laughed. The CEO of Shanai Inc. was a woman of her words. She had promised him in the last meeting that she would come up with new ways to make his job harder.

Why?

He'd probably never know, the woman was something else. But he rose to the challenge. Everytime.

                              °•°•°•°

"How dare you?"

"Who do you think you are?"