Recluse
03-16-2013, 02:08 PM
During the recovery and recuperation process, I've had the chance to do some more writing on the next upcoming book, False Gods, which is a financial/political thriller with a strong Bill of Rights base.
As with the first novel, Above Reproach, it starts off in Chicago--a town I've come to despise because Chicago politics and bully tactics have now permeated even the businesses headquartered there.
The company mentioned is actually a consortium of several companies, and I chose Chicago as the headquarters locale because this kind of mentality just seems to fit the place these days--especially with the Godfather running the Windy City with his iron fist.
So, here is the opening chapter to False Gods.
Enjoy
:coffee:
Chapter 1
SHE’D NEVER KILLED ANYONE BEFORE, but this wasn’t going to be just anyone.
Peering out of the stolen taxi cab’s windshield, Lynnette Trang tightened her grip around the steering wheel. Downtown Chicago was full of cops, on foot and in cars, and each time a police officer got anywhere near, her anxiety level rose. Any misgivings about what she had carefully planned during the preceding days were gone. Next to her in the bench seat of the ancient Crown Victoria was a picture, still in its frame. In the picture, Lynnette was clutching the arm of her husband and standing in front of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. In between the smiling couple was a teenage girl, their daughter. It was a rare vacation photo because such times had been scarce for this first generation American family whose parents had fled Vietnam after Saigon fell during the previous century.
A tear made its way down Trang's face as she recalled the memory of their daughter, then the more recent memory of her husband. Their ashes set in ornamental urns above the fireplace mantel. The daughter had become sick and her husband’s employer had slashed the health benefits plan at the giant retail pharmacy where he worked as an assistant manager. Along with drastically reducing the benefits, the employer had passed along the rapidly increasing cost of health care premiums to the employees. The Trangs had tried desperately to find the money to treat their daughter’s cervical cancer, but even in the generous Vietnamese community in which they lived, the recessed economy had caused everyone to suffer and there simply was no extra money to be had. There had been treatments, but not enough. There were specialists in Dallas and Houston and Baltimore, but the Trangs had no way of getting there—even with the charity transportation organizations. Skyrocketing fuel prices had cut the Angel Flight pilot squadrons in half and there was a long waiting list just to get on the roster.
It was an unseasonably cold September day when their daughter succumbed to the cancer at just sixteen years of age. So pretty, so smart, so full of life and promise and now she was dead. Lynette’s husband took it the hardest, feeling he had failed as a father in not being able to provide for his daughter. But then, just ten months after her death, he found himself downsized—laid off—from the giant retail pharmacy convenience chain that was, had been, his employer. He had worked for the company for over twenty years, starting as a cashier. When the company decided to restructure in order to pay more attention to Wall Street and their shareholders rather than their employees, raises became either insulting or non-existent. That first year of restructuring saw Trang getting a raise of less than four cents per hour. His healthcare premiums rose over seventy-five percent and his state income taxes also went up. Fuel and food costs were up. Everything was up except for his take home pay. And then came the day he was told the company no longer had a place for him.
He’d called his wife and told her the news, then wandered downtown Chicago in a daze. He missed his daughter, he’d let down his wife, he had no more money and he had run out of hope. When he saw a Chicago Transit Authority bus speeding up to beat the light at Michigan and Superior, without thinking, he simply stepped out in front of it.
* * *
Andrew Sterns was having a great day. He’d fled his headquarters corner office for a rare lunch in solitude on the Magnificent Mile in downtown Chicago. His national retail pharmacy’s stocks were up by over ten percent, the board of directors had approved another thirty percent raise in salary for him, and this year’s cash bonus promised to top fifteen-million dollars. Sterns had finagled the rules and appointed a voting board member, whom he paid under the table to be the deciding vote on matters of personal and financial interest to him. It was a rarely exercised option in the company’s charter and Sterns was the first CEO in the company’s history to use it. Throwing down his linen napkin and pushing himself away from the eighty-five dollar lunch that he would bill back to the company, he stood up and stretched.
The media had beaten the living hell out of him for his ruthless slashing of employees and benefits, but he no longer cared. He was now wealthy beyond any and all dreams he ever had—and was about to get even more wealthy. The latest round of layoffs and salary reductions were putting over seventy-five million dollars back into the general labor and compensation budget, of which he would take almost five percent in the form of an additional cash salary. Even better, he reminded himself, the new budget restructuring for the national chain’s store and pharmacy managers eliminated almost half of their bonuses and transferred the difference into the senior executives’ bonus pool. Imagine that, he marveled. You get a raise for slashing other people’s raises and a bigger bonus for raping other workers’ bonuses! Only on Wall Street.
It felt good to be alone and without any of the usual ***-kissing minions around. Only one person in the entire company knew where he was, and that was his secretary. Sterns pulled out his phone and gave her a quick call, assuring her that he was about to hail his driver and make his way back to the office. Efficient as always, Lori Trang promised to have all his messages waiting for him and reminded him of an operations meeting in the middle of the afternoon. Suppressing a grumble, Sterns assured her he would make it.
* * *
The text that appeared on Lynette Trang’s phone was simple: Be on lookout. He is leaving at any minute.
* * *
Donald Jackson took one last swig from the water bottle and tossed it in the trash. Seeing the CEO of his former employer leave the posh restaurant, Jackson fell in stride with the rest of the early afternoon pedestrian traffic.
Around the corner, Sterns’ driver read the text on his phone with a puzzled expression. Park across the street, facing opposite direction. Normally his boss didn’t like to walk a single extra step unless it was on the treadmill at the Skyline Executive Athletic and Fitness Club. Ignoring the honks of protest, the driver swung the limousine in a wide arc across the six lanes of traffic, pointing east instead of west. With the car in park, he sat back and waited.
* * *
Sterns looked around in annoyance. He’d told his driver to meet him curbside. Hearing a honk, the CEO looked around and saw his car parked across Michigan Avenue from where he was now standing. Idiot! Muttering a curse, he began to step off the curb when a blaring horn from a CTA bus caused him to jump back. The driver of the bus glared at the executive and pulled over to let off passengers. Sterns walked a few paces back and waited for traffic to clear. He was still steaming about his driver being parked across the street when he felt someone shove him off the curb into the street.
* * *
Lynette Trang was already accelerating as fast as the Crown Victoria could go when she saw Sterns stumble and almost fall, catching himself on the back of the looming Chicago Transit Authority bus, whose drivers and passengers were unaware of the drama rapidly unfolding behind them.
* * *
“Hey, watch out, *******!” the CEO snapped, putting a hand on the back of the dirty CTA bus and turning around to see who had pushed him off the curb. As he turned to look behind him, he saw an approaching yellow taxi cab. It seemed to be moving awfully fast towards him for as close as it—
* * *
Trang saw Stern’s eyes narrow, then open wide in fear. A split second later as the front bumper and grill of the stolen taxi crushed Sterns’ pelvis and midsection against the ten-ton bus, his body seem to bend and almost break and she saw his bulging eyes filled with terror only scant inches from her own on the outside of the now cracked and spider-webbed windshield. With no small degree of satisfaction, she watched the man gasp in agony, trying to scream but unable, then collapse on the hood, his intestines and spinal column crushed beyond any hope of repair.
Around her, people were screaming in horror while others had their cell phones out and were taking pictures. The bus driver, having felt the jarring impact, hit the emergency panic button to summon the police and emergency personnel and turned to check on her now panicked passengers. The limo driver across the street jumped out of the car and weaved his way through the traffic which was unaware that anything amiss had just occurred. Donald Jackson, who’d shoved Sterns into the street, walked by the scene, and upon seeing his former employer’s CEO undoubtedly deceased, smiled in grim satisfaction and continued walking west on Michigan Avenue while checking his watch. He had a job interview in another half-hour. Like so many others, after years of employment with the CEO’s company, he’d been downsized as part of the restructuring plan.
Inside the wrecked taxi, Lynette Trang’s expression remained neutral. She looked down at the family portrait on the seat, and with tender gentleness, held it up for one last kiss. Setting the picture down, she reached inside her purse for the cheap .38 Special revolver she’d bought off a street thug—handguns were illegal in Chicago—and placed the muzzle in her mouth, then squeezed the trigger.
* * *
The editorials and news reports of the grisly murder of CEO Andrew B. Sterns praised the man as a pillar of the community, a family man, a good Christian and a visionary in the business world. His work and volunteer efforts for the hometown politician who made history by rising from mystery and obscurity to become President of the United States was lauded by the President himself. Analysts from Wall Street praised the man for his daring and courageous decisions in expanding the business, and fellow business leaders mourned his passing.
However, of the almost two-hundred thousand employees still left in the company, few mourned the man’s untimely demise. Most considered it long overdue karma. Across the internet, more and more comments began appearing in the remarks and opinion sections of newspapers and television stations’ websites about the sheer hypocrisy of the man and his minions underneath. In the blogs, Facebook and Twitter, many even called Lynette Trang a hero for avenging the death of her husband and daughter, which the majority of readers laid squarely at the headstone of the now deceased CEO.
The previous day’s trading on Wall Street saw a sympathy bump in the company’s stock price. But in the following days, as the masses began speaking up, the stock price began to plummet. The company officials and board members weren’t the only ones fretting over this unexpected turn of events. Around the country, other CEOs and high-ranking business executives took notice of the increasingly ugly mood and began hiring bodyguards and increasing their personal and home security. They cancelled speaking engagements and luncheons and limited their face time to only the elected politicians they knew and trusted.
Wall Street began reflecting these changes, with downward spiraling stock prices. Inside the New York Stock Exchange, the major players were genuinely perplexed. They were the Gods, after all, Big Business, Big Government and Wall Street. They decided the economic fate of America, not the lowly workers. So why were the little people on a seeming exodus away from them?
It didn’t really matter, they all decided over hundred-dollar bottles of wine and two-hundred dollar dinners—entertainment they expensed or claimed on their taxes, or both. The people could try their own exodus all they wanted. After all, they, the Gods, were still the proverbial Red Sea but this time, there was no Moses.
END CHAPTER
As with the first novel, Above Reproach, it starts off in Chicago--a town I've come to despise because Chicago politics and bully tactics have now permeated even the businesses headquartered there.
The company mentioned is actually a consortium of several companies, and I chose Chicago as the headquarters locale because this kind of mentality just seems to fit the place these days--especially with the Godfather running the Windy City with his iron fist.
So, here is the opening chapter to False Gods.
Enjoy
:coffee:
Chapter 1
SHE’D NEVER KILLED ANYONE BEFORE, but this wasn’t going to be just anyone.
Peering out of the stolen taxi cab’s windshield, Lynnette Trang tightened her grip around the steering wheel. Downtown Chicago was full of cops, on foot and in cars, and each time a police officer got anywhere near, her anxiety level rose. Any misgivings about what she had carefully planned during the preceding days were gone. Next to her in the bench seat of the ancient Crown Victoria was a picture, still in its frame. In the picture, Lynnette was clutching the arm of her husband and standing in front of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. In between the smiling couple was a teenage girl, their daughter. It was a rare vacation photo because such times had been scarce for this first generation American family whose parents had fled Vietnam after Saigon fell during the previous century.
A tear made its way down Trang's face as she recalled the memory of their daughter, then the more recent memory of her husband. Their ashes set in ornamental urns above the fireplace mantel. The daughter had become sick and her husband’s employer had slashed the health benefits plan at the giant retail pharmacy where he worked as an assistant manager. Along with drastically reducing the benefits, the employer had passed along the rapidly increasing cost of health care premiums to the employees. The Trangs had tried desperately to find the money to treat their daughter’s cervical cancer, but even in the generous Vietnamese community in which they lived, the recessed economy had caused everyone to suffer and there simply was no extra money to be had. There had been treatments, but not enough. There were specialists in Dallas and Houston and Baltimore, but the Trangs had no way of getting there—even with the charity transportation organizations. Skyrocketing fuel prices had cut the Angel Flight pilot squadrons in half and there was a long waiting list just to get on the roster.
It was an unseasonably cold September day when their daughter succumbed to the cancer at just sixteen years of age. So pretty, so smart, so full of life and promise and now she was dead. Lynette’s husband took it the hardest, feeling he had failed as a father in not being able to provide for his daughter. But then, just ten months after her death, he found himself downsized—laid off—from the giant retail pharmacy convenience chain that was, had been, his employer. He had worked for the company for over twenty years, starting as a cashier. When the company decided to restructure in order to pay more attention to Wall Street and their shareholders rather than their employees, raises became either insulting or non-existent. That first year of restructuring saw Trang getting a raise of less than four cents per hour. His healthcare premiums rose over seventy-five percent and his state income taxes also went up. Fuel and food costs were up. Everything was up except for his take home pay. And then came the day he was told the company no longer had a place for him.
He’d called his wife and told her the news, then wandered downtown Chicago in a daze. He missed his daughter, he’d let down his wife, he had no more money and he had run out of hope. When he saw a Chicago Transit Authority bus speeding up to beat the light at Michigan and Superior, without thinking, he simply stepped out in front of it.
* * *
Andrew Sterns was having a great day. He’d fled his headquarters corner office for a rare lunch in solitude on the Magnificent Mile in downtown Chicago. His national retail pharmacy’s stocks were up by over ten percent, the board of directors had approved another thirty percent raise in salary for him, and this year’s cash bonus promised to top fifteen-million dollars. Sterns had finagled the rules and appointed a voting board member, whom he paid under the table to be the deciding vote on matters of personal and financial interest to him. It was a rarely exercised option in the company’s charter and Sterns was the first CEO in the company’s history to use it. Throwing down his linen napkin and pushing himself away from the eighty-five dollar lunch that he would bill back to the company, he stood up and stretched.
The media had beaten the living hell out of him for his ruthless slashing of employees and benefits, but he no longer cared. He was now wealthy beyond any and all dreams he ever had—and was about to get even more wealthy. The latest round of layoffs and salary reductions were putting over seventy-five million dollars back into the general labor and compensation budget, of which he would take almost five percent in the form of an additional cash salary. Even better, he reminded himself, the new budget restructuring for the national chain’s store and pharmacy managers eliminated almost half of their bonuses and transferred the difference into the senior executives’ bonus pool. Imagine that, he marveled. You get a raise for slashing other people’s raises and a bigger bonus for raping other workers’ bonuses! Only on Wall Street.
It felt good to be alone and without any of the usual ***-kissing minions around. Only one person in the entire company knew where he was, and that was his secretary. Sterns pulled out his phone and gave her a quick call, assuring her that he was about to hail his driver and make his way back to the office. Efficient as always, Lori Trang promised to have all his messages waiting for him and reminded him of an operations meeting in the middle of the afternoon. Suppressing a grumble, Sterns assured her he would make it.
* * *
The text that appeared on Lynette Trang’s phone was simple: Be on lookout. He is leaving at any minute.
* * *
Donald Jackson took one last swig from the water bottle and tossed it in the trash. Seeing the CEO of his former employer leave the posh restaurant, Jackson fell in stride with the rest of the early afternoon pedestrian traffic.
Around the corner, Sterns’ driver read the text on his phone with a puzzled expression. Park across the street, facing opposite direction. Normally his boss didn’t like to walk a single extra step unless it was on the treadmill at the Skyline Executive Athletic and Fitness Club. Ignoring the honks of protest, the driver swung the limousine in a wide arc across the six lanes of traffic, pointing east instead of west. With the car in park, he sat back and waited.
* * *
Sterns looked around in annoyance. He’d told his driver to meet him curbside. Hearing a honk, the CEO looked around and saw his car parked across Michigan Avenue from where he was now standing. Idiot! Muttering a curse, he began to step off the curb when a blaring horn from a CTA bus caused him to jump back. The driver of the bus glared at the executive and pulled over to let off passengers. Sterns walked a few paces back and waited for traffic to clear. He was still steaming about his driver being parked across the street when he felt someone shove him off the curb into the street.
* * *
Lynette Trang was already accelerating as fast as the Crown Victoria could go when she saw Sterns stumble and almost fall, catching himself on the back of the looming Chicago Transit Authority bus, whose drivers and passengers were unaware of the drama rapidly unfolding behind them.
* * *
“Hey, watch out, *******!” the CEO snapped, putting a hand on the back of the dirty CTA bus and turning around to see who had pushed him off the curb. As he turned to look behind him, he saw an approaching yellow taxi cab. It seemed to be moving awfully fast towards him for as close as it—
* * *
Trang saw Stern’s eyes narrow, then open wide in fear. A split second later as the front bumper and grill of the stolen taxi crushed Sterns’ pelvis and midsection against the ten-ton bus, his body seem to bend and almost break and she saw his bulging eyes filled with terror only scant inches from her own on the outside of the now cracked and spider-webbed windshield. With no small degree of satisfaction, she watched the man gasp in agony, trying to scream but unable, then collapse on the hood, his intestines and spinal column crushed beyond any hope of repair.
Around her, people were screaming in horror while others had their cell phones out and were taking pictures. The bus driver, having felt the jarring impact, hit the emergency panic button to summon the police and emergency personnel and turned to check on her now panicked passengers. The limo driver across the street jumped out of the car and weaved his way through the traffic which was unaware that anything amiss had just occurred. Donald Jackson, who’d shoved Sterns into the street, walked by the scene, and upon seeing his former employer’s CEO undoubtedly deceased, smiled in grim satisfaction and continued walking west on Michigan Avenue while checking his watch. He had a job interview in another half-hour. Like so many others, after years of employment with the CEO’s company, he’d been downsized as part of the restructuring plan.
Inside the wrecked taxi, Lynette Trang’s expression remained neutral. She looked down at the family portrait on the seat, and with tender gentleness, held it up for one last kiss. Setting the picture down, she reached inside her purse for the cheap .38 Special revolver she’d bought off a street thug—handguns were illegal in Chicago—and placed the muzzle in her mouth, then squeezed the trigger.
* * *
The editorials and news reports of the grisly murder of CEO Andrew B. Sterns praised the man as a pillar of the community, a family man, a good Christian and a visionary in the business world. His work and volunteer efforts for the hometown politician who made history by rising from mystery and obscurity to become President of the United States was lauded by the President himself. Analysts from Wall Street praised the man for his daring and courageous decisions in expanding the business, and fellow business leaders mourned his passing.
However, of the almost two-hundred thousand employees still left in the company, few mourned the man’s untimely demise. Most considered it long overdue karma. Across the internet, more and more comments began appearing in the remarks and opinion sections of newspapers and television stations’ websites about the sheer hypocrisy of the man and his minions underneath. In the blogs, Facebook and Twitter, many even called Lynette Trang a hero for avenging the death of her husband and daughter, which the majority of readers laid squarely at the headstone of the now deceased CEO.
The previous day’s trading on Wall Street saw a sympathy bump in the company’s stock price. But in the following days, as the masses began speaking up, the stock price began to plummet. The company officials and board members weren’t the only ones fretting over this unexpected turn of events. Around the country, other CEOs and high-ranking business executives took notice of the increasingly ugly mood and began hiring bodyguards and increasing their personal and home security. They cancelled speaking engagements and luncheons and limited their face time to only the elected politicians they knew and trusted.
Wall Street began reflecting these changes, with downward spiraling stock prices. Inside the New York Stock Exchange, the major players were genuinely perplexed. They were the Gods, after all, Big Business, Big Government and Wall Street. They decided the economic fate of America, not the lowly workers. So why were the little people on a seeming exodus away from them?
It didn’t really matter, they all decided over hundred-dollar bottles of wine and two-hundred dollar dinners—entertainment they expensed or claimed on their taxes, or both. The people could try their own exodus all they wanted. After all, they, the Gods, were still the proverbial Red Sea but this time, there was no Moses.
END CHAPTER