The guy at the counter was named Rick. He had been working that supply yard for fifteen years. He put the scanner down and looked at Vince.
Vince stopped smiling.
The number I had written in that email was a fake. Thirty eight thousand, two hundred and fifty. My real bid was forty one thousand. I had only ever typed the fake one into a single email, to a single person in my office. My office manager, Crystal. She had been with me three years. She did my scheduling, my invoices, my bids.
Vince had bid thirty eight thousand and fifty. Exactly two hundred under a number that did not exist.
I told him that. Loud enough for the counter. And then I said the one thing I had only found out the week before, from her own Facebook page. Crystal was his cousin.
Two years of being the guy who blames others when he cannot close, and the leak had been sitting at my own front desk the entire time.
Vince did not say a word. He left his cart in the aisle and walked out to his truck.
I went back to the office. Crystal was at her desk. I did not yell. I just put a printout of her email to Vince on her keyboard. I had found it in the sent folder of her work account that morning, forwarding my bid to him eleven minutes after I sent it to her.
She started crying. She said Vince had told her it was just to help family. She said he paid her a little each time. She said she did not think it hurt anybody.
I told her it cost me eleven jobs and two years. I told her she could pack her desk.
Then I called the homeowner on the forty thousand dollar remodel. Her name was Mrs. Carlisle. I told her the whole story. I told her I understood if she wanted to stay with Vince, but she deserved to know how his bid was made.
She was quiet for a long time. Then she said she did not want to hire a man who got his numbers that way. She asked me to come back out on Monday.
I did. I did the job for my original bid. She said it was the best money she ever spent.
Word gets around at a supply yard. Rick told a few people. They told a few more. Within two months, I had won back four of the clients I had lost. Two of them called me directly to say they were sorry they had listened to Vince about me.
I do all my own bids now. I type them myself, in my own account, and I send them directly to the client. Nobody else sees the number until the homeowner does.
Mrs. Carlisle sent me a photo of her new kitchen at Christmas. Her whole family was in it, making cookies.
She wrote on the back, worth every penny.