Hidden Sanity

Chapter 7 - Warning

Inside Alice's apartment, her phone rang. She was in the bathroom, brushing her teeth so she hurriedly finished her business in there and got out to answer the call. She grabbed her phone quickly.

"Yes, Joe?"

"Alice, are you home?"

"Yes. Hours ago. Why?"

"Nothing. I'm just worried."

"Joe, we just met each other lately. You can't be too worried."

"Right. Oh, by the way, I want to ask you something."

"What is it?"

"I saw Sir Jorge lately and he came in to the same building of your apartment. I just want to ask if you know where he lives by chance."

"He's living beside my apartment."

"Beside yours?!"

"Yes. Why?"

"I'm just curious. Wow. He's living beside your block. Isn't it awkward?"

"Actually, very."

"That's what I thought too."

"But yeah? You saw him lately? Thank God, he's back."

"Why?"

"There are a lot of calls to him that had been passed to me since I'm his secretary! That was a hell of a work he left to me. Did he tell you where he came from?"

"No. But he sure did look like he was in a bad mood when I saw him."

"Is...there...anything that happened?"

"I talked to him mentioning about what happened lately and checking him out for where he came from, but he neglected to answer any of my questions."

"Get used to it. He's normally like that. Quite unappealing to people."

"Really? How do you get on with Mr. Jorge? How do you deal with that kind of boss?" He asked with an irritated manner.

"I don't know" was the reply. "Sometimes he tells you to do something and then you get blamed for doing it."

"Like?"

"Like asking you to do so many tasks and then telling you that you were some kind of a work freak."

"Is he like that all the time?!"

"I've been working for him for so long. I get on like that. Like, 'okay'. I do what he tells me if I think he really means it and if I don't think so, then I wait and see."

"And what happens if you don't follow?"

"Then he yells at me. But I don't care. It means nothing. Yelling was his hobby." She chuckled.

"Is it like that with all the staff?" asked Joe.

"More or less. If you get used to it, you stay and you get on in the firm. And if you don't get used to it, then you leave or you get the sack."

"What an extraordinary way to run a business," said Joe. And Alice immediately jumped to Jack's defense. "He was a genius. He'd built up the business single-handedly. Well no, not exactly single-handedly. There'd been others at first, of course, they'd started the business. But Sir Jorge was the force behind its success. Kind of an amazing job he did there."

Joe asked further questions but Alice didn't know much more. Jorge Kione was a genius and therefore to be forgiven at everything. They kept coming back to that.

"And he's got the madness of a genius, I don't know how he does it but yeah," added Alice.

Joe longed to question her, but she was much too busy with the script she's making for the presenters next week. Now because Alice cleared Jorge's image to Joe, the whole scene had shifted completely. But Joe was still not keeping his eyes off their boss. Might be some kind of suspicion or jealousy.