Read Online The Doll Brokers by Hal Ross - Free Book Online

door and stepped into the hallway.
    â€œWait! Let me see if I can get you something special. Maybe … maybe have Ann approve a big, fat raise.”
    She stood there, feeling sorry for him, feeling sorry for both of them. “I don’t need a raise,” she said.
    â€œWhat do you need, then?”
    Slowly, sadly, she shook her head. “You figure it out,” she said, and she walked away.

CHAPTER 10
    â€œW hat does ‘tire down’ mean?” Jonathan asked.
    He had spent the last fifteen minutes with her Gameboy, and had gotten pretty good at dancing his fingers over the buttons, when the message ‘TIRE DOWN’ popped up.
    â€œYou’ve got a flat.” Ann kept her eyes on the window as the plane hurtled them back toward New York.
    â€œHow’d I get that?”
    â€œYou must have run over something.”
    â€œI did not.”
    â€œOh, for God’s sake, give it to me.” She turned from the window and snatched the toy out of his hands. “Was there a crash?”
    â€œNot involving my car. I’m a damned good driver.”
    Ann glared at him. “In
front
of you. Was there any debris on the track in front of you?”
    â€œIf there was, I didn’t notice.”
    She started working the buttons and handed the gizmo back to him. “There you go. You’re headed for a pit stop.”
    â€œI don’t want to go in for a pit stop.”
    â€œYou have a flat tire. You
have
to go in for a pit stop.”
    â€œThis is stupid.”
    â€œYou know, I’m starting to remember why I never liked you.”
    His attention was already back on the toy. “Why’s that?” he asked absently.
    â€œYou’re argumentative.”
    â€œNo, I’m not.”
    â€œEverything becomes an issue for you. Like the reason why you’re here and tracking my every move.”
    â€œThe doll’s a pretty big issue on its own, Ann.”
    She felt something boom behind her eyes. The headache didn’t start slowly and build. It was the kind that was just suddenly there, in full force. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. “What the hell am I supposed to do about this mess?”
    â€œAre you asking me?”
    â€œIt was a rhetorical question.”
    â€œI’ll make a suggestion anyway. Give Pat another chance.”
    She turned her head to look at him. “Damn it, why did he
lie
?” He’d told her that he’d gone to their own bank and three others, and that he had been refused by all of them. Ann had spent the remainder of the afternoon on her cell phone, calling the institutions herself, trying to pull off a miracle. One of them—Margin Savings and Loan—claimed that they had never even gotten a request from Pat. The officers at the two other banks had confided in her that Pat hadn’t been able to answer questions about the doll, and had left the impression that he himself didn’t think Baby Talk N Glow was going to fly.
    Jonathan turned the Gameboy off and gave it back to her. “Screw it. I don’t want to go to pit row.”
    â€œYour way or no way?” Ann put the game back into her briefcase.
    â€œTell me something,” he said. “Why’s our own bank being so difficult?”
    â€œBecause they’re stuck on our inventory situation.”
    â€œThe Moonlight Game business? I thought that was fixed.”
    She gave him an appraising look. “Osmosis again?”
    â€œSomething like that.”
    â€œIt was. Is.” Ann let out a throaty sigh. “Okay. Here’s the gist of it. When we bought that company out of Chicago, one of the key products was a successful board game called Moonlight that we could re-release every fall.”
    â€œThat’s good, right?”
    Ann rubbed her forehead and nodded. “In theory. But we’re dependent on three major accounts—Toys ‘R’ Us, Walmart, and Target. Last year, Toys