Andy Gets a Surprise

Richie was still plowing through the mail on his desk when he came across something that made him smile, "Miss Peeg, give Andy a call and see if he can run over for a minute."

He finished reading over the paper and moved to his file cabinet, bringing out the folder containing evidence of bad faith on the part of the garage, Colin’s assessment of the car after the accident and pictures he’d taken of Andy’s condition.

"Good morning again Andy. Go right in, he’s expecting you." Miss Peeg had a soft spot for Andy.

"You wanted to see me?" Andy said nervously.

"Sit down Andy…I think you might want to read over this," Richie handed Andy the letter from the garage’s insurance solicitor.

Andy read it through and looked up unsure exactly what it meant. "Um... what does this mean?"

"It means, Andy, that the insurance company for the garage that screwed up your car and almost got you killed has come to their senses and decided to settle out of court. It means you’re going to be getting a check . It's not as much as I’d hoped for if we’d gone to trial…but still a tidy sum."

Andy looked back at the paper and up again his eyes round. "For this amount?" he voice broke.

"Yep," Richie smiled, "you’re going to be a man of means…Andy Anderson!"

Andy’s hands started shaking his mind flying he could get a new car, they could furnish the flat, he could…"

"A piece of advice, Andy, before you go off on a spending spree…go talk to Max Skinner - he can take that money and make money for you…hell you may never have to flip another burger…"

"I could open my own restaurant…"

"You can do a lot of things Andy…go talk to Max first."

"I will…crikey! Thanks Richie…wow and I wasn’t even gonna bother with this…you went ahead with it anyway." Andy jumped up shaking Richie’s hand and almost stumbled out of the office.

Miss Peeg was smiling, "Now that is a happy young man if I ever saw one."

"Yeah, he’s damned lucky." Richie smiled and went back in his office.

Miss Peeg watched his back disappearing through the door and thought Andy was lucky he had somebody like Mr. Roberts that cared enough to see justice done for the poor boy. Damned lucky indeed. She walked over to Richie’s door.

"I wouldn’t call that luck, Mr. Roberts, I’d call that an intelligent use of resources of which I am discovering you are a master of."

"Why thank you, Miss Peeg." Richie smiled.