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1. Hack To The Chief
By Joel Brooks

2. Chapter One
The house was cool as though the fall air had come early, though it was only late
summer. A refreshing breeze was blowing in from the cooling fans set in place to keep
the control room from overheating. They were hooked in all over, with the little crepe
paper streamers Beatrice had taped to them during Stephen’s last birthday. South
Philadelphia’s premier underground online networking shark. He hated the word hacker,
as it had such close proximity to the word hack.
Yes, the Reed Street brownstone was a powerhouse of sick jokes and snark to
make them giggle as they blindfolded and fooled the world’s top companies online into

3. walking around with their shorts down. Stephen had bought it for a mere three quarters of
a million dollars when his first major residually signed client breakthrough happened. By
the time he got done sorting out all of the back door traces to avoid charges or bad press
for his client, he felt he had earned it.
Stephen was the guy who would turn you into a networking giant overnight. Other
“hackers” could offer you two million hits for two grand, but with their flimsy hierarchy
of programmers and programming, they would only fly under the radar for minutes.
Stephen believed in building quality stars from rare talent he sought out and handpicked.
A piece of the long term pie was his payoff, as it was a lot more than a onetime hack, and
in return, of course, for his silence.
Stephen had given birth to the idea during his summer before graduate school. A
friend from school who had moved to Amsterdam and ran amuck doing the craziest, most
ill sought out “shiznat” you could think of boosted his instant message social networking
account. For ten minutes, Stephen had two million plus followers. Though the account
was shut down for ten days, when it returned he found that some pretty heavy media
hitters were still lining up from his ten minutes of fame to follow him. This gave him the
idea of making “fixed celebrities”. I mean hell; Hollywood did it every day, didn’t they?
He spent the whole rest of his summer writing code to gain access to the entry
points and heavily guarded gates for the networking sites which would serve him the
most. When he found he was really good at it, he got himself fired from his summer job
to work on it full time. On arriving at graduate school, his list was near complete of
unlocked gateways to the stars. He would be making some of the brightest heavenly

4. bodies visible on Earth, and it struck him as an adrenaline rush for which there was no
substitute.
By spring break, he had built the code to support clients legitimately seeking long
term exposure and was set to build, preserve, and charge to no end. For so long as the
account was operating, Stephen would hold the key to the public eye as it had begun for
his starlets. He felt it was only fair to get paid as such. He had taken a starving artist and
propelled them into lavish comfort, and it deserved an agent’s fee if it was done with the
help of his work. That was an industry standard, wasn’t it?
Thus far Stephen had produced two top forty hits, three leading roles in major
films, and half a dozen independent film artists gaining great wealth through internet
exposure. He did not ask for the rights to their work, or a cut of their merchandise
proceeds. He charged a flat producers ten percent agency funding fee on any and all
profits made in their first year of success. From there, he would continue to collect on any
and all profits brought in from the sites which he affected, payable in quarterly
installments based on pay per click and view numbers with sponsored advertising and so
forth. Payments could be wired directly to his account in the Cayman Islands.
Yes, the control room was cool for September tenth, and he prayed that no planes
were headed for towers any time soon this year. The damned high alerts of nine eleven
took out some of his prospecting for near a whole week every year due to over
speculation as to the nature of his business. With half a dozen packages being signed
every quarter, he was busy tying up loose ends for older accounts. He employed several
workers to help out with the laborious tasks. “Code Demon” Patrick Wallace, and chain

5. smoker Beatrice “Butts” along with Michael Maynard worked alongside of him for
twelve hour days, four days a week with java boosts into their new turf.
As Beatrice crossed from the adjacent hall leading from the kitchen with a fresh
cup of joe, the sixty – one inch plasma screen which dominated the center of the cage lit
up with the days wired funds intake. Stephen had been in business for eight long years,
and there was always a strange and powerfully exhilarating feeling watching the influx of
money these days. Past due accounts figures flashed onto the screen next, having been
contacted and re-compiled by Patrick earlier, and he frowned. Over a million and a
quarter in outstanding payments from some fairly well known celebrities. How quickly
they forgot where they came from. They would test his patience to the limits, what with
all of the regular spot checking he had to do into their longer standing and therefore
higher risk accounts. They were all fucking ungrateful with their heads stuck up their
tanned asses, sitting in their spas and drinking bubbly until noon and lavishing hundred
thousand dollar credit lines for dinner wear on Rodeo Drive at dozens of shops. He
would issue them a round of statements, covered in their initial contract threatening to
publish the collected data from their various “adjusted” accounts over the years in his
service and release it to the entire network. With no way of tracking him down, there
could be no fallout. His name, address, phone number, and all of the other information
about him that would put him in danger had always been a very heavily guarded secret.
One such delinquent client who he had been forced to expose had attempted to
track him down, and had failed miserably. The accounts he affected for the clients were
all done in such a separate and unique way on each approach, that there was no way to
trace any other activity and even the F.B.I. had been stopped short of even having

6. rudimentary reason to research any further. His tracks were covered, and the client had
been sued by several of his online business partners for his fraudulent activities.
Hollywood didn’t want to give him a new part, and his block mall’s construction funding
had fallen short due to the lawsuits.
Yes, the press fallout alone would be enough to cover his losses in a sort of no
returns penalty clause. And Stephen found it was a sure fire hit using the story as a sales
tool for prospective clients. The big bang was easy to get, he let them know, but when
she’s offering breakfast you‘d better oblige and not take a dive.
“I will get you laid, paid, and made, but only in fair trade, “ he often said to these
teary eyed recruits “Don’t act like a construction worker and screw, nut and bolt and you
won’t get knocked out before your career is knocked up.”
Just as Patrick was sending the top sites attention data collected from the fresh
clients list for review by the team from his terminal set up on the south wing of the
control room cage, the screen went white and then the entire cage shut down.
“What the fuck?” Stephen yelled in disgust.
With the entire system rebooting, a fax transmission began coming in on the
mahogany desktop across the rooms’ strategically placed fax machine.
“Butts, can you grab that for me?” Stephen asked.
“Butts grab this! Butts grab that! I need to grab a butt right now too. And not
yours,” Beatrice said in exchange while retrieving the paper printing out of the machine
“what the hell?!”

7. “Insidious flirt,” Patrick shot back from across the room.
“Player,” Butts retorted.
“Don’t hate the game,” Patrick rebuffed.
“Uhh boss, I think you had better take a look at this, “ she said as she brought the
paper from the fax to Stephen.
The fax was a collage of magazine clippings arranged to form a sentence. It said,
simply put “Get ready for restructuring. And a main frame made for you anew. Cheers.”
It was just then that Stephen noticed the reboot was taking an extraordinary long
time. The internet activity monitor was lit up like a Christmas tree and there was data
flowing into the system. The lights in the whole house dimmed for a second before
returning to normal as Patrick tried desperately to get the remote mainframe access panel
open from boot mode to come up on his terminal. If he could open it in CDOS, he could
code his way into the other terminals to protect them. But he had to do it fast. He wasn’t
called “Code Demon” for no reason. Patrick could type at a hundred and fifty words per
minute at ninety five percent accuracy.
“Can’t alter the startup. The keyboard has been locked. It had to happen prior to
shutdown. Patty cakes, we are being hacked!”
“Fuck shit bitch!”
Beatrice gave him a dirty look.
“Watch your language, Patrick!”

8. “No, never mind. Tell ya later!” Stephen grumbled back at her.
“Dirtiest progression in the English curses vocabulary again?!” Patrick observed
from a prior conversation.
“Most definitely.”
Beatrice gave them both dirty looks.
“I need a bone and joint doctor.” Patrick remarked.
“So you’re referring to me as doctor now, that’s promising.” Stephen shot back.
“Stoner,” Patrick quipped.
“I resemble that remark.” Stephen admitted.
“You two are most definitely getting sicker by the minute. And check Mike
out…”
They all glanced over to the far wall lined with cabinetry Stephen had done in
Rosewood the prior spring that housed the original client contracts and invoices. They
were taking a risk keeping such record, and kept very close tabs on the originals returning
to the P.O. Box address by couriers as instructed to their full introductory package clients.
Michael was busy shoveling handfuls of paper into the paper shredder, which he
had pulled up to the first available filing cabinet.
“Michael, stop it!” Stephen barked out in alarm.
“They are on to us! I am not going back to prison! I am not!”

9. There were tears streaming down Michaels red and inflamed cheeks as he
windedly shoved a new stack until the shredder was at capacity into the machine.
Michael Maynard had done a four year stint in the big house after some innocent hacker
by standing into some wealthy weed connoisseurs bank accounts. The paranoid chronic
smoker had pressed full charges, though no money was taken and no data altered. So four
years of Michaels’ life had been spent trying to unwind the fatal anger of his wife, left
alone with a new infant in arms.
“Michael, just cut it out. There is more than you could shred in a day anyway. “
“But the early accounts had a legitimate e-mail of mine on them. It was the
oversight we noticed before we changed the filing codes and rules! I would be the one
going down, Stephen! Not fucking you!”
All five terminals reached the windows startup screen at the same time. Their
moment of untruth had come.
“Damn, this is the longest boot time in history. Should we check the server towers
out up on the the third floor?” Patrick asked in Stephen’s general direction.
“Fuck shit bitch!”
“Stephen, you are either losing it already, or lost it some time ago!” Beatrice
disgustedly observed.
“I know I’m mad. I’ve always been mad. You’d have to explain why you’re not
mad…”
“Shut up!” screamed Michael, now openly wiping his nose on customer invoices.

10. Finally the desktops appeared on the seven screens across the cage. As soon as
they appeared, the icons began to drag and drop themselves into a zip file program with
automatic e-mail send out to an unknown address. They were then deleting from the
system one by one via the trash bin that seemed to be on a cyclic empty.
“This fucker is fast!” moaned Patrick.
“Want to try remote desktop access on the Mac?” Stephen practically demanded.
“Absolutely.” returned Patrick immediately.
The laptop whirred to life under Patricks flying fingertips and went quickly to the
desktop. From there an internet browser opened without Patrick asking for it and the
address bar sprouted up a new ip address every few seconds until it seemed to lock onto
one long generated code. Then the browser opened four new tabs, all instantly going to
four new pages. They were all opening up Stephen’s private accounts to show him what
was going on that he could not otherwise access. A video chat window popped up with a
caller requesting that they pick up.
“Hell no, I don’t want to video chat with you assholes! How dare you show your
face as if what you’ve done is going to fly by me?” Patrick spat at the Mac, now opening
the Cayman’s bank account, the server front door for the system gateway code
generators, and simply Patrick’s car lease and client response e-mail account.
“Check the e-mail account.” Stephen ordered Patrick.
He was feeling tight in the chest, and wished he hadn’t let “Butts” smoke in the
day room that day. The dry acrid taste of lingering stale cigarette smoke made him dizzy

11. and nauseous for a second. He had to get a grip, and try and salvage what was left of the
hard drives.
“Know what?! Fuck it! Grab screw drivers, pull all the drives! All three of you!
Now!” he ordered, shouting so loud it echoed in the room.
He dove for a tool box that was kept under the mahogany desk, usually used to
clean cooling vents of debris and dust. Michael was the one typically in charge of
hardware maintenance, and he wished he would come to his senses. He was world’s
faster with a Phillips head than any of the other three.
As he began cranking on the tower of the center station with the screwdriver, he
happened to glance up at the sixty- one inch plasma dead center. The six other monitors
were all showing the same thing. Stephen’s e-mail account was opening and composing a
letter of confession while the attached files tab added file after file of damning evidence
of breaking and entering into some multi- billion dollar corporations systems.
That was it for Michael. He ran for his shoes and began frantically putting them
on. At this point, his panic made Stephen panic too. Stephen began talking a mile a
minute to remind Maynard of the nature of their groups need to know privacy privileges.
“Michael, this is not just our hacking crimes. We will be hated and hunted by
millions around the globe for exposing and exploiting some the entertainment industries
most loved names! It won’t all go down in your name. We can still beat this. There has to
be another purpose behind all of this! Don’t go making any drastic moves! We have to
stick together on this! We have your back, Mikey!”

12. “Fuck you! You got me into this!” Michael snarled back at Stephen.
Suddenly at full steam, Michael plowed through Stephen as if he were a physical
threat barring him from exit. Stephen bolted after him and to the front stairs of the
brownstone. He grabbed Maynard by the hood of his sweatshirt and pulled him close to
his face.
“Don’t be such a fucking coward!”
That’s when Michael did it. He sucker punched Stephen directly in the nose; a flat
hit that had it not been so quick and half cocked it would have broken the bridge. Stephen
was enraged, and through the open front door tackled him off of the stairs and into the
moist summer ground below, still wet from the morning’s rain. Michael landed in a mud
puddle that slid in from his wrist to his elbow. He pulled back his right to throw a jab at
Stephens face and grass and mud flew off of it in clumps.
Stephen watched with amusement as a whole grip of mud landed in Maynard’s
gaping mouth.
“Fucking mud mouth!” Stephen hit him with a solid left hook to the side of his
face most open to the walkway of the front of the house. He then clocked him the top of
his head, in that spot that throws your equilibrium o the crown of the head, immediately
dropping him back into the mud.
“Michael, you fucking leave now! Don’t come back! If I get hit, you get hit!
Remember that motherfucker. Just like this bullshit fight you started! Just like out here, I
go down, you get it worse! Get the fuck out!”

13. Stephen watched as Michael limped out the gate and onto Reed Street. From the
corner of his eye, he noticed a neighborhood patrol car coming from down the block.
Shivering with a cold chill of distaste for his present circumstance he briskly moved back
into the stone house that could afford him at least relative safety.
Making his way into the foyer off the main hall on the first floor which he had
outfitted with shelving to house his antique book collection, he retrieved the safe keys
from a bureau drawer of the dark teak oriental stand that he so often felt clashed with the
hallway paint. Moving aside Hamlet, and A Comedy of Errors, he pulled out a small
pistol with a box of shells hidden there.
The wind chimes hanging over the great oak front door creaked into life,
announcing a visitor. He had hated that damned doorbell ever since Patricia gave it to him
for their anniversary two years prior. He thought it added an air of airy mystical sound
that shouldn’t be surrounding his guests as they made their way into a very high tech
junkies abode. He couldn’t explain it, but that was how he felt.
Stephen put the gun in a drawer of the teak cabinet, and closed it in with the box
of shells. He then walked with heaviness towards the front door, starting to feel numb
from the afternoon’s events and wondering what could be next. He opened the door,
pushing the old fashioned brass thumb latch down and into place releasing the catch. The
door swung open.
“Hi, I’m Captain Wallace from your local patrol. Was in the neighborhood and
heard a complaint phoned in from your neighbors about a fist fight in your front yard
come in over the radio. Sir, do you have any idea what I am talking about?”

14. “No, officer. Must have been one of those afternoon bums coming from
McGreevy’s Pub with one too many pints in them.
“That’s what I figured, but I thought I saw you a few moments ago. Can you give
me a description?”
“No officer. But thanks for your help. I’ll let you know if they come back
around.”
Captain Wallace tipped his hat as Stephen closed and latched the front door,
exhaling heavily with a sigh. Thank God Maynard had parked nearby.
Mounting a set of freshly carpeted stairs leading to the second floor of his home,
he felt his mind grip for the bourbon on his nightstand. He had put the carpeting over the
natural hardwood floor to try and absorb some of the noise the control room so often
spilled over into the rest of the house. It had actually worked quite nicely. Besides, at
night he would remove his shoes and find furry comfort from the first floor almost all the
way to the master bedroom under foot. Thick, long vanilla shag with subtle speckles of
brown woven into the fabric that gave the appearance of sand in your toes.
As he swung down the corridor towards the master bedroom at the end of the
granite – tiled hall, he groped for his cell phone. It was right where he had left it, clipped
in the protective case that held it to his belt. He then felt in his back pocket for his tri-
fold wallet that held his money cards. The terminal downstairs had been showing
someone tapping into his bank account. There was over six million dollars in that
particular account. He had no I.R.A. and had never been too keen on investing, so he was
belly up on the cadaver table and being cut open at the throat.

15. Walking into the master bedroom he felt somewhat put at ease by the subtle décor
tempering his mental anguish. His clients were not being threatened without due cause.
Obviously he had made an enemy whom he had failed to predisposition before they got
outside of his sphere of influence. At the very worst, he had over two million dollars in
high Indonesian art stored in a warehouse in Germantown that he had bought for pennies
on the dollar. It had been his one reprieve, his in – case – of emergency business, and the
source of legitimate laundering for his money. The business did not turn over the stock as
his I.R.S. paperwork showed, but had the stock doctored to prove its legitimacy if needs
be. Now more than ever he needed to lean on that legitimacy as his other business came
tumbling down around him.
He picked up the bottle of bourbon from the nightstand that housed his brass
touch – lit reading lamp. Brushing its base, the light illuminated the cool now dimly lit
bedroom. He could see now that the bottle was nearly three quarters of the way full.
Stephen didn’t even bother with the clean crystal rocks glass that sat next to his alarm
clock. He twisted open the cap, and let the warm comforting liquid ease down his throat
in three long swallows. Immediately he felt less tense, and almost clearer and more able
to think through the mellow drama that was his current chaotic reality.
“Enough of that, “ he said to himself thinking he could top off the bottle with the
next swig.
As he sat down the bottle, returning it to its place next to his drug store bought
digital alarm clock, the case attached to his belt began to vibrate. Stephen detached his
cell phone and reached for the “talk” button on the smart phone’s lit up screen. He held

16. the receiver to his ear and timidly answered “This is Stephen.”
“Stephen! Andrew Carnegie here. Remember me?”
` “Not the Andrew from the china white hollowed Buddha imports deal? I suppose
you’re not here to make another offer are you?”
“If only life were as simple as that, Stephen. Hijackers killed that connect nearly
five years ago when I couldn’t get a bigger boat due to you refusing to cooperate. No,
Stephen I am your arranged go – between for the pursuers of your pain who penetrated
your previously pulp- fiction world today.”
Stephen would have been taken back if it hadn’t been for the previous experience
with Andrew. He was connected on many levels to large supply drug dealers in ports all
over the world. At one point, he had promised Stephen a half a million dollars per
shipment if he turned over his warehouse goods and allowed the drugs to be imported
with them once a quarter. Stephen was afraid of the three day turnaround removing the
drugs from the disassembled pieces and hollowed statues on his property with the
presence of so many inventory warehouse workers and the threat of long term
imprisonment. Too many witnesses to take the risk, he told himself. He declined, and
instead began moving in more imports for the books from his friend’s consorts in one
truck tariff free moves out of Texas under shell corporations he set up and sunk after the
buyout. Stephen had three dimensional carvings made for wall hanging that he procured
for eight dollars that would sell for eight hundred.
“Stephen I wanted to let you know that you have a choice in surviving this.
Follow the simple instructions I give you each day and you will be spared. I am sure you

17. are still licking your wounds, so I am going to give you time to collect your thoughts. I
will call again in the morning with instructions to guarantee your continued emancipation
from all of this at eight A-M sharp.”
The phone line went dead. Stephen hung up his phone and numbly replaced it on
his belt clip. If only it had been anyone but Andrew Carnegie, the soulless gambit who
had his own mother shot before she could testify against him in a money laundering trial.
Though her body had never turned up, and Andrew was set free of his charges, police had
continued searching for years. She had disappeared just days before the key- witness
testimony in the trial, and it had been a shot in the face to the justice system.
Removing the cards from his wallet to check his finances, Stephen made his way
into the master bedrooms private bathroom. One hand dialing account codes, the other
lining up toothpaste on his revolving toothbrush, he went through the throes of
desperation. He was hoping he had not lost all of his amassed savings.
Spinning the brush head over his teeth and tongue to remove the odor of the
bourbon, he painfully listened to the automated system in the Cayman’s read him a
balance of zero dollars and zero cents.
Just then Butts bounded around the corner from the direction of the adjacent
staircase.
“All of this going down and you pick now to brush your teeth?”
“Butts, they took me for everything in my bank account already. Six million
dollars, all gone.”

18. “Everything? You mean you can’t pay me tomorrow?”
“I am broke, B. Let me get one of your cigarettes?”
“Can’t. Just ran out and switched to the e– cigarette.”
Stephen put down his toothbrush, turning it off and carefully replacing it on the
charging dock, and switched off the bathroom light. Beatrice followed as he moved,
feeling a hollow shell of his normal self, into the hallway and back down the flight of
stairs and it’s sandy shag. On the way down the thickly padded stairs, Stephen’s phone
began to light up again.
“Oh no.”
He removed the smart phone awkwardly from his belt clip and prayed it was not
his demented torturer again.
“This is Stephen.”
“Stephen Bolsom? This is Home Access Security Gateways calling to say a silent
key point and video surveillance intruder alert has been triggered at your residence. Sir, I
wanted to call and see if everything is ok?”
“Yeah, no intruder here. Been having some internet connection problems that
might have set the damned thing off.”
“Good to hear sir. By company protocol police have already been notified and are
on the way to your home to do a routine face to face walk through inspection of your
home. They should be there in under ten minutes.”

19. Stephen’s face flashed a hot red, and he felt the sweat begin to pool on his
clammy stress taught furrowed brow.
“You can call them off. Everything is alright here.”
“Sorry sir, no can do. In person walk through inspection by authorities is
mandatory when an intruder alarm is tripped. I assure you sir; it’s all done for your own
safety.”
“Ten minutes?”
“At this point, they should be there in less than eight minutes judging by how fast
the dispatch responded sir. Would you like for me to stay on the line until the police
arrive?”
“No, that’s ok. I think I will go make them some coffee right now. Thanks for
your help.”
“No problem sir. We are pleased to be your premier home security company, and
look forward to serving you in the future.”
Stephen hung up the phone and removing the safe keys from his pocket,
immediately began barking orders to Beatrice and Patrick in the control room the three
were now standing idly in.
“Here are the safe keys! They are labeled by room. Take all of the drives and
disks and master invoice sets and get them in the fucking vaults! Do it now! We have five
fucking minutes until the police get here to do a home security inspection! Just do it
now!”

20. All three immediately began the clumsy and awkwardly slow process of gathering
the dismantled hard drives Patrick had removed and the stacks of client data in spindles
floating on work trays around the room and jogging with them to the three rooms that
concealed vaults in the floorboards, closet, and in the false cabinet. The master bedroom
held its safe behind a hidden latched shelving set at the back of the walk in closet. It was
the largest of the three, taking up nearly the whole wall. The guest quarters on the ground
floor held a medium sized safe under the Persian throw rug that was installed at the foot
of the queen sized bed. The third safe was a false cabinet in the wreck room that took up
most of the finished basement.
Gasping to catch their breath under duress all three moved silently near a decade’s
worth of indispensible codes and data that had protected them and paid them so well
from their scattered resting places around the ghostly quiet control room. Outside
somewhere in the distance down the street, a car alarm beeped its persistent and droning
alert. The neighborhood dogs howled from their gated entrances, begging to have their
ears given a reprieve from the loud car horn. Stephen’s cat, Tommy stood in the open
entrance way to the control room looking very confused, her hair bristling back from the
base of her stand offish raised tail.
“Shit! I forgot to feed Tommy! And give her medicine!”
Then it came, faster than what seemed possible. The whistling undertones of what
couldn’t have been a more foreboding front door chime announcing the arrival of the
policemen come to inspect.
Stephen quickly looked over the control room. They had about seventy- five

21. percent of the goods that were in need of lock and key put away. The room just appeared
to be a rich tech junkie’s work in progress, he told himself. Nothing to be suspicious of
here. Not with the breakers thrown and the business on the terminals obscured. The only
thing left to do was to stall the patrolmen while Patrick and Butts got the rest stored away
and concealed in the safes. Having three open safes in some sort of valuables transition
laid open would not be easy to explain away to police alerted of an intruder.
Beatrice and Patrick ran back into the control room for the final load of disks and
drives. The wind chime that was the mystical front doorbell insistently played its hollow
notes again reminding them of their conspicuous guests standing in wait on the front
stoop.
“Finish up. And hide the safes. I will stall them for as long as I can.”
“I’ve got to quit smoking.” Butts wheezed, bending over at the waist, trying to
catch her breath.
“You don’t finish in time, we will be looking at some prison time that will make
that easy.” Stephen warned.
Beatrice squinted and her mouth quivered as she took a measured puff of steam
from her e – cigarette, its electronic tip glowing cherry red. She tilted her head back and
released a cloud of nicotine saturated steam at the ceiling fan, simultaneously replacing
the item in her hip pocket.
“Ok Patty Cakes! Let’s do this thing!”
Patrick removed his coke bottle glasses and wiped them free of steam with his

22. gray cotton v- neck t- shirt. Holding them clasped by the stem between his thumb and
forefingers, he wiped beads of sweat already making him chilly in the autumn like air
from his worry lined forehead.
“Go team!”
They broke apart from their standing circle in the midst of the disassembled
control room, each holding their breaths as to what the next ten minutes would hold for
their fates. An unruly cop with a nosy disposition could prove to be quite the untimely
exposing factor to tip the scales on this ugly and subdued underground enterprise that had
for so long lain just under the authorities radar.
Hoping for a bored and calm “by the books” beat cop, Stephen walked calmly to
the front entrance of the hundred and fifty year old stone house, its floorboards creaking
ominously. Gathering his strength, and giving his disheveled hair a quick finger through
comb, he unwillingly opened the front door with a hollow click of the tarnished brass
thumb latch.
Two uniformed South Philadelphia police officers stood, their military issue black
work shoes giving a dull hazy shine in the September mid- afternoon sun streaming in
from overhead. Their badges read “Captain Wallace” and “Detective Patterson”.
“Hello, Mr. Bolsom? I know I was here about twenty minutes ago and I spoke to
you. I am Captain Wallace and this is Detective Patterson. We received an emergency call
from your home security system company about an intruder in your home sir? May we
come inside?”

23. “Everything is alright here, just a false alarm tripped off by some network
problems.”
“I hope so, sir. But to be sure, we need to do a walkthrough of the premise. You’re
not being held hostage by an intruder right now sir?”
“No, no, no. It’s just I’m in the midst of some sensitive electronic upgrading and
the place is a mess.”
“We understand, sir. I’m afraid we can’t leave without doing an inspection. We
are just doing our job. It’s for your safety, sir. May we come in?”
Captain Wallace right breast pocket began a medium pitched jangling ring,
vibrating the pens jutting from its buttoned enclosure. He removed a small flip cell phone
and said “Excuse me.”
Turning to the side and stiffly marching a few feet from off the front stoop, he
began a low conversation with the caller.
“May I come inside now, sir?” Detective Patterson persisted.
Captain Wallace paced a few steps further from the house, glancing back at them
and waiving at them to go on without him.
One down and one to go, thought Stephen. May I come out of this with my ducks
in a row?
Stephen backed away from the entrance, making way for Detective Patterson to
make his way into the house.

24. “Is this a Historical Society landmark, Mr. Bolsom?” the Detective asked in a
nasal and guarded tone.
“As of two months ago. Just finished the main parts of the restoration and
genealogy of the lineage of owners it has had over the past century and a half. Still
waiting on the contractor to come out and install the plaques.”
“Very nice. And how long have you lived here sir?”
“I have been bothering the haunts here for eight wonderful years, Detective. She’s
almost a decade into what retouches I felt I could afford and still keep her genuine,”
“Very nice.”
Taking an icy breath of air as he passed the dining room bay window with the
single room air conditioner blowing a chill from its slot in the outward hinging lower
pane placement, he ushered the Detective into the kitchen.
The kitchen was redone with an elongated counter stemming from the surface
element stovetop done with Italian marble now cluttered with junk mail and the random
assortment of temporarily discarded odds and ends it always attracted. In the center of the
room, a seasoned century old chopping block he used as a cutting board made of a thick
hard oak gave the room an antique country accent.
“Would you like some coffee, Detective? I can brew some up fresh in a jiffy! And
I think I may have some coffee cakes from the bakery left over from this morning’s
brunch if you like.”
“That would be nice, thank you Mr. Bolsom.”

25. Stephen thought this was all going too easy all at once. Alright, coffee and cakes
but don’t make him feel too much at home, he warily reminded himself. He pulled the
discolored yellow plastic air tight container that held the beans from its place on the
corner cabinet’s shelving. Spinning its interior rotunda, he removed a jar of ground
cinnamon to sprinkle over the brewing grinds. Hastily dumping an eyeballed amount of
beans into the grinder, their aroma lazily drifting from the off – yellow containers
interior, he slid the vertical latch and lever into place. A brief whirring sound filled the
space between him and the Detective as the beans were ground, spinning in a tight
concentric circle visible under the translucent lid of the grinder.
Placing a fresh filter into the coffee pots brewing grinds enclosure, he dumped the
contents of the grinder into it. Pressing an alternating knob on the stainless steel faucet
end and activating the water filter, he filled the coffee pot to twelve cups of water,
watching the softened waters air bubbles collect on the sides.
“Filtered water. Makes it better. You like cinnamon, Detective?” he asked,
sprinkling the cinnamon liberally over the awaiting grinds.
“Sir, anything after the stale bargain stuff my wife buys would do.” The Detective
answered with a smirk.
Stephen chuckled and poured he water into the coffee maker as he tripped the red
glowing brew button to stat the brewing process.
The Detective was meticulously inspecting the assorted collection of junk mail on
the counter. Grimacing and glancing at his watch, he removed an eight inch long, narrow
notebook with cardboard backing from his deep left breast pocket.

26. He began to jot what seemed to be some very thoughtful notes onto its faintly
gray lined top page, and Stephen wondered if he was making a grocery list.
Sliding the pastry box with its cream white tissue paper jutting from the sides
from off of the room centered chopping block, he careened the lid at an angle and offered
the Detective a cake.
“Don’t want to ruin my dinner, but then again I may as well leave that up to the
misses as well,’ The Detective quipped, grabbing a cake from the boxes interior.
The Detective’s radio fuzzed to life from its leather harness attached to his hip. He
fumbled around the awkwardly long rubberized antennae and removing it, held it to his
mouth to respond to the dispatcher.
“Yes, dispatch. Engaged in official inspection now at the Reed Street residence.”
“Very good. Radio when you are finished.”
“That’s a ten- four dispatch.”
A few brief silent moments that made Stephen wonder in hope if Patrick and Butts
were done passed as his hair stood on end on the back of his neck. Growing impatient,
Stephen went to the china closet and removed a ceramic handmade mug with “Know
Your .Biz” stenciled on it from the interior. Pulling the three quarters finished pot from
the coffeemaker, he poured the Detective a cup. Handing it to him, he spun the wooden
circular condiments tray on its axis to move the creamer and sugar in front of Detective
Patterson standing across the counter from him on the outer edge of the kitchen. Patterson
was still standing transfixed in his notebook.

27. “Here is the coffee. Creamer and sugar on the stand in front of you.”
“Thank you.”
He hastily added cream and sugar to his coffee and took a sip. His radio crackled
and Stephen jumped, growing more nervous about the control room and the safes by the
second.
“Mr. Bolsom, if it is alright by you I will bring this with me. May I continue the
inspection of the premises now, if you please?”
“Sure thing.”
Holding his breath the whole time, Stephen led him first into the guest room. The
Persian rug was in place, and no notes were necessary in Patterson’s pad. When a brief
wandering look at the four rooms on the first floor was complete, he led him to the
entrance of the control room at the foot of the staircase which led to the second and third
floors.
Detective Patterson’s radio crackled to life.
“Patterson we have a report of a car theft on Market near you. Can you proceed to
the call?”
“Wrapping it up here, dispatch.” That’s a ten- four. Give me about five minutes.”
Stephen grinned a stupid grin for a brief moment. The god’s were with him, if you
could call it that way after the series of events that had just befallen him.
Barely noticing the dismantled jumble that was the control room, they moved on

28. to the second floor. A brief two minute walk through to the entrances of each room on the
second floor seemed to quench the Detective’s curiosity, and he jotted a few final notes
into his book, and closed it after drawing a horizontal line across the page. He replaced
the notebook into his shirt pocket. Still shaky in the legs, Stephen plodded in front of
him, leading him away from the third floor narrow set of unfinished stairs which led to
the top floor rooms containing the server equipment. He held his breath as he led him
back down the stairs towards the first floor.
“Does this place have a basement?” Patterson asked impatiently.
“With a pool table. Would you like to see it?”
“I don’t think that will be necessary. We are all done here. Here is your coffee
mug.”
He handed Stephen the mug, drained of its contents.
Stephen held out his hand to shake the Detective’s leather gloved hand, and the
Detective made a fist.
“I don’t shake hands, sir. Too many people, too many germs. That will be all
thank you.”
He lightly bumped Stephen’s hand with a fist, giving a tired and subtle serious
smile and opened the front door.
Captain Wallace was in the street now, still chatting on the phone. He waived to
them as Patterson made his exit.

29. “Thank you, Detective Patterson.”
“Just doing my job,” he said plainly as he walked away.
Closing the door, Stephen felt a relieving rush of endorphins flood his senses
making him dizzy for a moment. Thank God for coffee and donuts, he chuckled to
himself. Too cliché.
“Is he gone?” Beatrice voice floated from the landing of the third floor staircase
down to the foyer.
“We are good!”
`With a galloping gait, she and Patrick came bounding down the stairs looking
pale and relieved.
“You can both go now. Wouldn’t want you to work any longer with no pay
tomorrow. I’ll man the helm and see what I can come up with.”
“Are you sure, boss? What if these kooks show up in person making demands?”
Patrick half heartedly answered, adjusting the tongue of his canvass skate shoes.
“They have arranged for next contact by phone in the morning at eight. I think I
am safe for now. I’m going to get drunk and hope this was all a nightmare when I wake
up which goes away. Go home, guys.”
“Call if you need anything,” Patrick put in with a worried glance.
“Yeah anything at all, boss.” Beatrice added, grabbing her purse from a chair
nearby.

30. After saying their brief goodbyes, Stephen wearily climbed the stairs and retired
to the refuge of the master bedroom and his bourbon. An hour later he was drunk and
crying. An hour and one minute later, he was asleep.
Chapter Two
At about seven thirty five in the morning, Stephen’s alarm clock rang its desperate
call for return to waking action. Doggedly fighting the daze of the bourbon from the

31. evening prior, he switched off its alert, which seemed to be rhythmically dictating the
pound of the blood rushing in his headachy hangover. His wrist hurt from where he must
have slammed its Rolex bearing weight on the antique ivory headboard in the middle of
the night. He glanced at the dial of the Rolex with a wince, reminding himself in its
sharply detailed diamond lined dials that today was September eleventh. Nice to know
that flags would fly at half mast on the day he rose to bury his old life.
“No time like the present to bury the past. Wish the hatchet stuck in my head
would detach.”
Sliding aside the crimson silk sheets and the thick down comforter, he squinted
across the room at his terry cloth robe, hanging from the back of his desk chair across the
room by the window. The weather, as it often did in Philadelphia had turned sticky, and
already seventy five degree farenheight humid morning air damp with dew moisture
greeted his naked form as he climbed from the bed.
Crossing the room, he gathered the robe about his shoulders and tied it off. At
least he wouldn’t have to explain this all to Patricia. She had broken off their engagement
two months prior when he had refused to turn off the backup taping of the bedroom home
security cameras while they were having sex. He was safe from intruders, and now safe
from an ugly prenuptial agreement that had been festering for a year. In fact, two weeks
ago she had asked for him to discontinue any further contact. She already had a new
boyfriend.
Making his way through the dimly lit north to south positioned hallway just
outside of the bedroom which never seemed to catch the morning light, he carefully

32. descended the stairs in his bare feet. Arriving at the foyer, he opened the front door and
stepped into the Reed Street morning outside. The next door neighbor was already at
work trying to reattach her rosebush to her front window trellis and gave him a strained
glance.
Remembering that he hadn’t picked up his late arriving mail from the day before,
he absently pulled the front door shut. The Inquirer was there on the straw woven
welcome mat in its dull light blue cheap plastic bag. He picked it up, and removed it from
its moisture protective sleeve. Scanning the front page with a frown, he regretted not
having taken any aspirin for his headache yet.
Then he saw it.
Across the walkway in the narrow patch of grass that was his front yard there was
a realtor sign stuck in the ground. A manila envelope was held to the post tied tight by a
plastic ring clasp. The sign read “Sold”.
“What the hell?”
Stephen rushed over to the sign to gather the envelope, feeling like he had been
kicked in the stomach. Opening its brass colored clasps, he pulled forth an immediate
eviction notice and the official deeds for the terms of the sale of his house as of
September tenth.
“What the hell?”
He hurriedly rushed back towards the house, dropping the envelope and papers on
the lawn. At the moment his pumice stone softened bare feet touched the brick cobble

33. stone walkway, the security system armed and locked the house down with three shrill
beeps and a voice alerting him “Alarm on. Residence secure.”
Desperately he tried to throw the catch on the front door and shove it open, but it
was to no avail.
Then his phone began to ring and the front pocket of his robe began pulsing
where from where he had placed it before leaving the bedroom upstairs. He pulled it out
and answered.
“You bastard! You sold my house!”
“Stephen, may I remind you that things could be a lot worse. We could turn all of
your company’s activities for the last eight years over to the F.B.I. and the C.I.A and put
you away for a very long time. Even better yet, we could simply end your life and make
your sad looking corpse disappear.”
“What do you want from me?” he gasped in a breathless exasperated tone.
“Well, for starters if you want to avoid trouble, you need to leave Reed Street. The
house is not yours, nor its contents and the authorities have been notified that you are
threatening to break in. They should be there in about five minutes or so.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Oh Stephen I am serious, and quite deadly. Get in your car and drive to the
downtown Hilton. There is an envelope waiting for you at the front desk with further
instructions. That will be all.”

34. The phone line went dead.
Stephen’s head was a clutter of jumbled and scared emotions. He was naked,
alone, broke and now homeless. All of this in under twenty – four hours since the initial
breach into his server and mainframe systems. He moved towards his Audi, wondering
how he was to drive it without the keys that should be in the crystal bowl in the foyer. His
phone vibrated in his hand. A text message had come through from Andrew’s number, a
Newark area code. It read: “The keys are in the center console of your car.”
Finding the doors open, he removed his gym bag from the backseat and slid open
the zipper. Pulling his workout warm up pants from the duffle, he slid them on under his
robe standing exposed to his watching neighbor in the street. He pulled an old t-shirt from
the bag, removed the robe and pulled it over his head. Placing his shower shoes on, he
threw the gym bag back into the back seat, noticing his old laptop lying in the passenger
side rear seat well.
Climbing in the car, he pushed the starter button and threw it into drive just as a
police patrol car came cruising up behind him. Peeling out with an angry shove of his
foot on the accelerator, Stephen fumbled for the navigation system controls on the screen
in the front dash. He dialed in the Hilton, downtown Philadelphia, and got the most recent
traffic alerted directions. Turning on KYW 1060am with a solemn indifference he drove
towards his mystery reservation listening absently to the morning headlines.
Saving the trip route, and exiting the navigation system, Stephen spontaneously
swerved just in time to pull into his old “cry over your beer and ex” haunt of a
neighborhood bar, Avenue One. This was the only thing that was going to get rid of his

35. nerves, and help him face the overall hangover that was his morning. Besides which, Tim,
the round the clock bartender was one of the most intelligent alcohol shleppers he had
ever met. How a guy with a Georgetown degree in History and English Literature ended
up shoving beers at drunks all day was a mystery.
The bar was dimly lit with already a half a dozen of the usual patrons seated
around the centered square bar watching Sports Center. Tim was dusting bottles and
sipping on a latte when Stephen entered. When he saw the shape Stephen was in, Tim
spoke up.
“You look awful. What happened? Did you marry her?”
“Even worse. I took it up the ass last night.”
“Please tell me she was cute.”
“Tim I got destroyed yesterday. Give me a double screwdriver with shot of
amaretto in it.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Shut up. You know I like amaretto.”
“No, that you got destroyed. What exactly do you mean by destroyed?”
While Tim painstakingly mixed Stephens drink, Stephen filled him in on the
events of the last seventeen or so hours. Tim’s eyes slowly grew more angry as he
listened, watching sip at his drink, his elbows resting on bar rags sitting on top of the
hardwood bar counter. Stephen told him about his warehouse, and openly espoused his

36. suspicions that they were going after that next.
“I’ll tell you Stephen, this is shit. Here’s what you do. Sell all of the warehouse
goods to one of those importers from the docks in one big lump. Move it quick like, you
know? Then you take all that money, launder it. Get it real clean. Cash. Untouchable.
Stuff it in your socks and use it to get through this. People might look at you kind of
funny, but it’s money. Need another? I mean it. You need to liquidate, man. It’s on the
house.”
“Yeah, I’ve got to shake my bourbon street headache still. Pour it up.”
“That’s why they call it Avenue One. Get it, have a new one? We’ll fix you up.”
“That’s the worst line I’ve heard in years.”
“Yeah doesn’t seem to go over with the ladies real well either. They all think I’m
trying to get em drunk to get in their panties.”
Stephen didn’t laugh. He wondered if he ever would again. Tim took the hint and
wandered off to let him chill out in his stuff alone for a bit and to wait on another sunrise
customer. When he came back, Stephen gave him fair warning.
“Tim, the police are going to show up some point when they recognize my car. I
am reporting it stolen and leaving it here. I figure if they find it and put it in the impound,
the repo man can’t get at it and I can hang on to it for less that way until I can come back
around for it.”
“Yeah, the police are around here all the time, no worries. I even run the line to
some of them on some games. You on the other hand don’t visit me enough. Go, ahead,

37. get out of here and report your scar stolen ya whacko!”
His headache greatly diminished, in fact with half a buzz from Tim’s stiff
cocktails, Stephen wandered out of the thick front door of Avenue One and back towards
his Audi in the small parking lot. A nearby sign read “no parking in rear” and Stephen
chuckled to himself about telling Tim he took it up the ass again.
He sank into the cushiony leather front seat of the Audi for what may be the last
time, and held his breath. He wondered what his life would hold from here on out.
“No time like the present to bury the past,” he startled himself by talking out loud.
He dialed nine – one – one and gave the vaguest report he could of a stolen Audi
from Reed Street to the operator. The operator took the details in a monotone and
disinterested tone, and with a bored voice reassured him that a police report would be
filed and they would begin searching for his car. He thanked her cautiously, and hung up.
He then dialed the number for his favorite local cab company and ordered a taxi.
Retrieving the in- case- of- emergency kit from his trunk, he went over its contents. Two
ten thousand dollar identity theft made credit cards, a fake I.D. and passport to match. He
packed the only money he had into a leather passport case with his fake credentials,
which he in turn packed into his laptop bag along with his laptop. A few short minutes
later, the taxi pulled up and he got in.
The taxi driver spoke up.
“Where to?”
“The downtown Hilton, please cabbie.”

38. “You can call me cabbie, just don’t call me crabby, or crappy, or pappy…”
“Just drive, please.”
“Testy, testy.”
The cab shuddered as it sprang forward towards the Hilton hotel.
“Do you have any aspirin?” Stephen asked.
“Don’t you think you should wait for the hangover at least?”
“Yes and no.” Stephen replied, irritated.
“Troubled by indecision? Yes and no.” the cabbie laughed back at him.
Great, a comedian for a cabdriver.
“Ok pal, take it easy. They give it up for a dollar and a quarter at the corner store
right down from your hotel. I’m fresh out.”
The rest of the ride went off more smoothly in relative quiet, Stephen thankfully
noted. Paying with his credit card, he tipped the taxi cab driver a flat five dollars and
climbed out of the cab in front of the Hilton. Nervousness gripped his guts as he realized
he was about to encounter the devil behind all of this again. The taxi pulled away as he
tried to get a grip on his senses, and push himself forward.
Reaching the front desk, he waited patiently to be noticed by the front desk clerk
whose name tag read “Thomas Seegerber”.
“Hello, sir. Can I help you?”

39. “Yes, Thomas. I have an envelope I was told waiting for me with you here.”
“Your name, sir?”
“Stephen Bolsom.”
“Ahh yes, sir, and here is your key card as well. You are in room 236. Enjoy your
stay!”
Stephen nervously fondled the relatively thin envelope in Hilton stationary and
the key card. Reluctant to head up to his room, not knowing who or what would wait, he
had a seat in the lobby and opened the envelope.
Inside, also on Hilton stationary was a note reading in neat print: “Stay here until
we tell you. Room service is covered. Use the terminal we left. “After that was a series of
pass codes for the “terminal” and the wifi connection.
Now fully decided that he was not staying, Stephen opened his laptop from out of
its enclosure in the case. Logging on to the Hilton wifi connection, he used a program to
get in to the back door of a local motel’s booking logs. He found a vacant room, and
marked it booked in their system. Closing the laptop, he walked out the front door of the
hotel and hailed another taxi.
A short cab ride later, Stephen arrived at his motel. After paying and thanking the
subdued taxi driver, he walked to the room number he had filled the motels system blank
in as booked. Removing a magnetic key card strip decoder from his attaché, he inserted
the card and watched as it decoded and unlocked the door to his room. Then, simple as
that, he walked into his new temporary residence, placing the “do not disturb” sign on the

40. doorknob on the outside for the maids to see.
Slinging the attaché with the laptop sleeve and his I.D.’s in it onto the nearby desk
chair in the dimly lit smoke smelling room, he noticed his phone was vibrating. It was
Andrew Carnegie’s number.
“What do you want?” he said, answering.
“Stephen, you are making this hard on yourself. We know you retrieved your
instructions, and then chose to leave. Where did you go, my dear boy?”
“I stepped out to have a drink.”
“Stephen, we have all that covered under your Hilton room service. We will play
your game though, for now. You have one hour to return to your room. However, in
return for your hostility, we have decided to take out a little more insurance. We are
taking the names and numbers and addresses of your dearest from your phone as we
speak. In case we may need to include them in all of our fun due to your games.”
“What?”
Stephen glanced at the screen of his smart phone. All of its contents and phone
records were pulling out of their files and emailing to an address he didn’t recognize.
“You mother…”
“Ahh Stephen. I will be in contact. Or we will find you and your mother very
soon if you refuse to comply. One hour Stephen. One hour. That will be all.”
The phone line went dead.

42. Chapter Three
Not figuring on being able to gain very much private access from his laptop or
phone anymore, Stephen had decided the following morning to pawn them in order to get
breakfast and a prepaid cell. The South Street Pawn Shop was his first order of business
for the morning, and promptly at nine am he checked out of his motel and headed for that
vicinity.
South Street, Philadelphia was already at nine am its usual swarm of tourists and local
hippies and artistic types hanging around where the climate matched their clothes, or lack
thereof. Today Stephen was not here to share in the local art flair however, and he briskly
walked into the pawn shop he hoped would take his wares on the corner. Inside, rows of
guitars hung lining the walls, with stacks of amps to match from poor musicians who had
lost their equipment to poverty brought on by some other vice.
“Can I help you? The store clerk spoke up as he approached the long glass
encased counter.
“Yes, I have two items to pawn.” Stephen replied, placing the laptop and his smart

43. phone on the counter.
The store clerk examined the laptop first, noting the serial number, and turning it
on and off to check for pass codes and to see if it was functioning. He then gave the
Android cell phone a once over.
“This still has service on it?”
“I’m getting it turned off today.”
“Ok, I will give you eighty five for both. You want to pawn, right, not sell?”
“Yeah. You got a deal.”
The necessary paperwork and thumbprints followed, and Stephen walked out with
his eighty – five dollars. This, he figured could cover a pre-paid cell under his alias and
his service, and some breakfast to get him going this morning.
The sunlight streamed in dusty particle filled rays through the dark wood paneled
blinds that lined Carnegies study. It was only at his modest home here in Newark, New
Jersey that he felt completely secure to go about the very underground deals that made up
his living. Unlike in the days of his youth that had built his reputation, he was now very
much a homebody. The fireplace had the leftover ashes still left in a pile from the night
prior when he had sat and mused at this latest deal on the chopping block over some fine
scotch from his collection. All of Andrew’s days spent naked in deals such as this coming

44. from the streets were only as comfortably behind him as his ability to deal adequately
with the current characters involved in the deal on the table. He needed to stay in constant
touch in order to navigate the trenches safely without having to do too much face to face.
As much as he wanted to hide inside of his nice suburban home and keep out of the line
of fire, it was a necessary evil at this point due to Stephen’s resistance for him to venture
out in order keep control over the very volatile tempo of the current mission. It was time
to negotiate his next venture to meet in person for this mess Stephen god – damned
Bolsom was creating. He tensed for the confrontation as his hand reached for the old
fashioned black rotary phone he had brought with him from his Los Angeles pad back in
the eighties. He had moved it from its perch on his armchair, and he swore “Damn it!”
It was a memento of his days as a heroine junkie that had ended his dreams of
becoming a Hollywood writer and began is lucrative middle aged criminal years. It was
slow on the uptake, just like him, and rang a fierce and barking ring as Carnegie was
known for as well by his affiliates on their many phone negotiations.
From his suede upholstered upright study chair with the eagle clawed legs, he
moved with increasing nervousness that took on more and more conviction in his
stomach towards the desk mid- room that held the rotary phone.
Flipping open to leaf through the large rolodex on reaching the desk, Andrew
looked up this most recent oil – tycoon he needed to reach. The man had proven too
power hungry to pass up the opportunity when Harry Sante had come calling. The ability
to reach inside of his competitors businesses undetected and resell the virus programming
to a friend of both had sold him immediately. And the chance to effect history in the

45. ultimate deal involving Bolsom had excited him, and closed the package for them all.
Andrew had come about being friendly with Harry Sante in a business sense when
Harry had emerged from Silicon Valley with a Department of Defense intelligence deal to
speak with the Navy about his newfound rich conglomerated business partners. These
people had a worldwide influence that was all too effective in altering government’s
courses. This type of influence was what had attracted Harry, a former Seal to make the
deal to get back his retirement benefits from the Navy in return for getting the thrill of
pressing on the many crowned heads to get much need intelligence in the industry.
Harry and Carnegie had met over a deal to move a financial sector attacking virus
to be used on an attack on the current Libyan regime to help move swiftly through what
the group hoped would change the powerful heads places in a great game of musical
chairs. It seemed this game was constantly being played in the areas tightening armed
forces, and the time was ripe. Andrew had made an offer for a businessman with whom
he had held opium dealings while sewing his oats in the Middle Eastern underground
community in D.C. Not that his oats needed sewing for Harry’s prime product. Sante was
known for having the best product at all times, and very few were even allowed to
approach dealing with him unless they were likely to put the product to use that matched
its potential. Carnegie, who had named himself in a fast Hollywood name change in the
eighties, had been so honored to sit at these negotiations. He felt his name was finally
getting its value that just as the turn of the century Carnegie power in the history books
had been rumored to have had its start in drug money later gone legitimate, so was he
following suit as he had planned. He savored the taste of it all in its sweetness as he
moved on to bigger and better gains.

46. Finally pushing the fog of all of this background intensity, Andrew dialed the
phone, reading the number aloud from his rolodex. The line rang, and it read an
announcement from a push button menu answering service.
“Goddamn it!” Andrew swore to himself.
He hated these stupid computerized answering services that were turning one –
man enterprises into a corporate mess of menu’s and complications. It seemed if you
wanted to sound legitimate, you assigned numbers to your various issues and had your
dinner dates call you at your office to get their panties hot. Not that they could get
through the maze of options to get through to you at your end to wind up in the sack talk
anyway, but it made a hell of an impression at least. Andrew patiently awaited the end of
the message that would tell him how to access his party without the use of dial tones.
Finally the message service machine ladies droning voice said “If you are on a rotary
phone, or if none of these options is suitable, please hold on the line and an agent will be
right with you.”
Andrew waited as the line clicked and began ringing another line. To his pleasant
surprise, the phone was answered by none other than who he sought: Abdul Rashaad.
“This Abdul, who am I talking to?”
“Abdul, Carnegie. Thought I’d do a fill in the blanks session. Let you know what
your boy Stephen is up to. This isn’t all going as planned. I need more from your end.”
“What you mean, not as planned,” Abdul responded with his thick Middle Eastern
accent “we take his money, his house, his files, his business, he will bow, no?”

47. “Well, according to our follow ups, he didn’t check into the Hilton and therefore
did not get the computer terminal left in the room for him to begin his work for us. He is
refusing to cooperate despite threats to turn him in for his severe white collar crimes. I
need you to turn up the heat on him and put a tail on him immediately.”
“A tail? You mean like having him followed around the clock? That will take one
of the Washington D.C. team members and I must have your absolute guarantee there is
no other way.” Abdul related, getting almost out of breath.
“Yes, he needs a tail. And we need to flush him to D.C. if that is where the team
has already assembled. This is imperative. Get him off of his turf, make him like a fish
out of water. No room to breathe. In fact, let him make his tail.”
“Make his tail?”
“You know, recognize the fact that he is being followed.”
“You want me to put a man on him in secret, but make sure he “makes” him?
What sense will that make in this plan of yours?” Abdul carried overtones of doubt into
his carefully annunciated reply.
Andrew replied.
“If he knows he is being followed it may scare him into accepting our
instructions. Nothing else so far has.”
“I see.”
“Yes, do it. That will be all.”

48. Andrew hung up the phone, wishing no further contact from his home office, yet
unwilling as of now to arrange the face to face meeting with this Middle Eastern rebel
stranger. Maybe it was just paranoia, but these international numbers showing up on his
phone bill could alarm homeland securities based on the damn loose surveillance allowed
now under The Patriot Act. Seemed they could pattern things based on data from your
accounts for virtually no reason but to be nosy. The less contact he had, the better.
Chapter Four
They were standing in front of ruined history, making history thought Abdul as he
rounded the curve in the road that lead to where the former Libyan wonder of the world
had been. Terrorists had destroyed the high art statues that had stood as tall as some
palaces with their missiles years back. These were the types of things this group of men
had agreed together to work to prevent, though their business was far from above board

49. themselves. They were vying to become a nuclear power, and to overthrow a U.S.
President by assassination, these things they could envision to the credit of their
backgrounds, not to destroy their local history. That would be a show of the kind of
ignorant power hungry tyrannical rule that they so simply with their newly acquired
wealth and influence, said they would demolish.
As Mustafa Senussi, and Ahmed Tiran walked carefully over their Libyan
brothers heritage, they listened to Abdul relate to them what they had been waiting to
hear. It was time for them to leave the country, and become involved directly in the divine
dance, the game that was afoot in Washington, D.C., in the United States.
“My brothers, “Abdul spoke with reverence to his partners in this venture “we
must now act quickly and with no hesitation. The enemy is afoot, and he is being tailed
by the tracers we have on him now to get at him in the midst of his raw and ignorant
greed. I am sending for two more to go from the group, unless you agree with me. It is
time for you to go, brothers. When this man reaches D.C. there will be the need for the
root of our power over here to be present. Regardless of the military strength we have
bought with this venture, we are the prime money behind this, and therefore will be able
to dictate the way in which things are happening the most easily.”
Mustafa and Ahmed both shook their heads in agreement. Mustafa spoke up, “
Yes, brother, we have made arrangements already to fly there via our private access jet
tomorrow morning. We felt the same thing was so very necessary at the very beginning,
and we both look forward to having you there as well with us to help as we take on the
role of preservers of our brotherhood.”

50. It was Ahmed’s turn, and he turned a shade of red as he began.
“Yes. I think too it will be all ready for us on the other side of this, without having
to be too close to the actual death we will cause. That I believe, should be left in the
hands of our militia men. It is an honor to do such a service for you, Abdul, in the face of
what you have done for our families.”
Abdul had taken them on at the beginning of his recent oil venture brought on by
his father’s death and his last will and testament betrothing him with much wealth. He
had felt them at the beginning to be the prime candidates to work the fields he wanted
worked, and had quite simply treated them both as if they were family from the
beginning, allowing them each to earn a substantial amount of money in his business
before turning them to his bigger plans for the group. He had been pleasantly surprised by
their grateful and indeed agreeable replies to his wants in the way of acquiring
governmental or political power. How else should they feel, they said, when in fact he
had treated them to a world of wealth they never otherwise would have found in their
paths. Their families, and they themselves owed a deep allegiance to Abdul.
“That is good, brothers. I will be following you on that jet as soon as the character
himself is in D.C. The one we have planned to be the fall man in the assassination. It is
essential that you get him to retrieve the documents for the reconnaissance of the nuclear
warhead as soon as possible. Our date is coming swiftly as a steed to his sire, and we still
lack the necessary plans to make the whole thing worthwhile. Though it will be nice to
see that tyrant of a U.S. President go away, saving a good many of our regional friends
and their families, it would all be a loss without the information to get at that warhead

51. and make the world tremble when they think of threatening us this way again.”
They all murmured in agreement to this as well.
“Good, then it is settled. Tomorrow, Washington D.C. as a force. In the future
perhaps we will be invited back to make the peace arrangements for our brothers with
Jihad’s supreme weapon in our hands. Hum d’Allah.”
“Hum d’Allah.” Mustafa agreed, thanking Allah for this.
“Hum d’Allah.” Ahmed agreed.
Chapter Five

52. Stephen was on his way out of Philadelphia, that much he had decided. As to
where he was going to go, he had no idea yet. He had bought a new prepaid cell phone,
and had used his fake credentials name and information for the account earlier that
morning. He felt naked without a laptop, and he cursed his decision to not get one for the
train ride to, well, wherever, earlier with his credit cards.
Exiting the Market Frankford line subway terminal and climbing the stairs, he
found himself arriving at thirtieth street station, which was a hub of activity as usual.
From this place buses, local trains, and trains going nationwide and further left on a daily
basis. He entered the old fashioned looking brass railed door, and gazed up at the
cathedral ceiling with its vast and awesome décor, and at the statues standing tall against
the incredible backdrop. He was going to miss Philadelphia.
Taking no comfort in his decision, Stephen forced himself on to the long distance
trains ticket counter, and stepped into line. It was then that he noticed him. The man had
been on the subway train with him, and had sat somewhere near to him. He had exited at
the same time, but then again, a couple dozen people had done so, so Stephen had
thought nothing of it. But now this Middle Eastern looking stranger was sitting huddle in
his overdressed overcoat and quite simply watching Stephen as he prepared to purchase
his ticket. Stephen looked directly at the man, and the man, turned away, fiddling
immediately in his pocket for his cell phone and drawing it out.
This strange game of cat and mouse looks continued on as Stephen awaited his

53. turn to buy a ticket. When the time came, he was feeling rather paranoid when the man
came closer and in fact got in line close enough to hear what Stephen was saying. If this
was a tail, he was most definitely not about maintaining any kind of secrecy about it,
thought Stephen. The least he could do was offering him a false hope by buying a ticket
to a place he never intended to go. What was that place?
“One one way to Baltimore, please?”
“Your I.D. sir?”
Stephen fumbled nervously for his credentials, hoping the ticket clerk would not
reveal the name on them, but was soon disappointed.”
“Mr. Lawrence? Timothy Lawrence?”
“Yes, ma'am.” He winced as he heard the ticket clerk give away what was his last
hope of maintaining any kind of steady source of money in his grasp.
“That will be a hundred and twenty five, sir? How would you like to pay?”
“Credit, please.” He noticed the man who he had thought to be tailing him
stepping forward into the ticket booth clerk’s window next to him as he handed over his
identity thieved credit cards to the ticket window clerk.
He thanked her quickly and moved away from the ticket window when his ticket
was printed and handed to him. He checked the time on his train. Damn, he had over two
hours to kill, pun intended. This was never going to do. He looked around for the man in
question, and saw him almost immediately leaving the ticket booth and maintaining a
loose distance behind him. He swore under his breath and did the only thing he could

54. think of. Making his way for the nearest exit to the subway terminal, he made a run for it.
It was late night in the wine cellar at Alberto’s for a small crowd that was
celebrating with Andrew. Amongst the local muscle that had graced his tables were Sam
Smalls, the local hit man legend, and Tom Sade, who was still waiting to be made.
Gathering up the rear of his local favorites were the man simply known as “Toots”,
famous for having sold more “flake” than he could ever have dreamed of under the
watchful eye of the NYPD back in the eighties, and the old legend that had brought the
notion of writing back to Andrew recently, his old buddy and NFL Hall of Famer, Reggie
Rawdell. Andrew was enjoying himself immensely, and didn’t even mind that the bill was
all going to his account for the party as he topped off the night enjoying all of the rowdy
memories he and his old buddies could remember.
“Remember when you and Toots thought that Tommy here,” Reggie grabbed Tom
by the shoulder “was going to take down your business for being on his turf, and you sent
Toots to hire a hit man. That hit man turned out to be Mr. Smalls here, and the beginning
of what could have been a very ugly masquerade for the two of you into real family
business. Lucky Sammy here has a brain to go with his bullets and cut you both in on a
deal of his with Tom instead.”
“You two were going to bump off whom?” Tommy fired off in Andrew’s direction
just to watch him squirm.

55. “Nothing like that, Tommy boy. Just business that was way out of date and got
settled just great. Just great.”
“Hey, salut!” Tom raised his half empty wine glass to the crowd and in his
booming voice demanded a toast.
“Salut!” they yelled back in unison, draining what was left of their drinks.
Andrew had spared no expense. This deal with Abdul was going to practically put
him in retirement if it went down as it was supposed to. There was no reason to spoil this
kind of occasion, it was after all his sixtieth birthday party. It was an age he never had in
his troubled youth dared to dream of living to, and he felt it was worth every penny he
could get to lure the best from his past into the fine wine cellar at Alberto’s. The wine was
flowing, and indeed the sentiment was that this party had been an overwhelming success.
“You telling me, you wouldn’t try it again if you thought it would be worth your
while, Andrew, ma boy?” Reggie half assed his words and then as if in mocking toast
“Here’s to Tommy’s death! Salut to that.”
Nobody laughed. Nobody really seemed to think it was a funny one at all, and
Reggie, despite his normally cool exterior began to sweat immediately.
“Hey, he left me everything. What with me being his best track to the inside and
all. Ain’t that right Tommy?”
“I did no such thing, “ Tom took no pity on him and his tasteless comment.
“He left everything to that hooker wife of his, and a good thing too cause I’m her
best regular!” Toots quipped.

56. Tom, being the character he was laughed once, twice and three times in loud,
short staccato bursts, and then stopped and looked at Toots deadpan.
“So you’re the punk been hanging around the back door waiting for table
scraps?!” Tom shot putted one at Toots, to which Toots responded “Hell ya! One hell of a
cook, your misses!”
Andrew remembered when he had first left Los Angeles and had taken his weary
and defeated game back to the east coast and had fallen in line with all of this gang. He
had wasted his time away in Los Angeles, getting heavy into drugs and wearily placing
all of his bets on his writing to make it in Hollywood someday. He was convinced that no
matter the amount of writing he wasn’t producing, that all of his contacts were selling
him short. He would write when he started getting paid, wasn’t that how it worked? How
was he expected to take all of his time writing when he wasn’t getting paid for it by
anyone? It was the biggest waste ever too, because God – damned Andrew could write!
He had written one screenplay, and one novel to test out his prowess in the late eighties
and had not gotten a single non – form letter reply from agents in response. That was
when he had stepped up his game and moved out of the shooting up his veins business
and into the shooting up his enemies business. He had proven to be very good at this, all
too good and though he had earned quite the reputation there in Los Angeles, found that
he couldn’t take all of the heat coming his way alone and moved back to the east coast.
“A Brooklyn original, born and raised, which almost wasted away in California.
You fucking queer. Why the hell you go down that road anyway Andrew? Just suppose
you had made it as a writer back then. What the hell kind of stories did you have to tell

57. back then as compared to the ones we got now, eh?” Sam Smalls called him out in his
boyishly simple and comfortably drunk way.
“That cruel mistress who took me by the blood and socked me full of mud at
every turn. I was hooked and sure she was my heroine, ma boy. To anyone who has been
there, it needs no more explanation. But who’s to say these stories will go to waste. What
with Tommy getting made, maybe I get an inside track to a deal or two after all, eh
Tommy?”
“You’re gonna get me made alright. Like in the sites of my last shooter. Speaking
of shooters, where is that round of Kamikazes I ordered?”. Tom replied half in jest in the
waiter’s direction.
The waiter, turned on an immediate heel and went for the stairs to go and fetch the
late and very much so coveted drinks by his severely inflating party check, and hopefully
tip as reward.
“Thatta boy!” Tommy yelled after him.
Andrew was at loss for words at Tom’s jest. It startled him almost, took him back how
much he still very much so held on to that writers simple dream of getting published
someday. He nearly teared up, he was so caught up in the sentiment, when Reggie let him
know “Andrew, don’t cry you old fart. He didn’t mean it, like I didn’t mean I would kill
the poor bastard.”
“It’s my party, and I will cry if I want to. You would cry too, if it happened to
you.”

58. “Speaking of which, where’s the music? This shit is like bad elevator music.
That’s the only bad thing I have to say about this place.” Toots remarked openly gawking
at the speakers in the corners of the room.
“Yeah, that’s what we need. Some good old Sinatra. When I was sixty, it was a
very good year. It was a very good year…” Andrew threw back, avoiding the teary eyed
scene altogether.
The very group who had nearly done him in at every turn, each and every one of
them, were making this one of the best birthday memories Andrew could remember, and
he was moved to thank them. Not that paying the bill for the entire party was not
thanking them, but after all, what were friends for but to ask what you got them for your
birthday, right?
Stephen made it onto the Market Frankford Line Subway seemingly unfollowed.
As he sped towards the downtown area, he did the next thing he could think of. He dialed
his ex- fiancée’s number. She knew more about him than anyone else, and God knows he
needed someone to confide in. Her line rang with a new ring back tone that was a song
about finding love after losing love. This was a good sign, maybe she hadn’t moved all
the way on yet.
“Patricia here!”
“Patricia, this is Stephen. You are never going to believe what is going on with

59. me.”
“Stephen, I thought I told you not to call. And what is with the new number
anyway?”
“Do you remember the old days Patricia? That Radiohead concert I took you to
where you said you fell in love? Or how I used to order a dozen purple roses every week
to your house because it was your favorite color? Vacationing in Cape Cod every
summer? Or how we met even?”
“Stephen, you got bit by your neighbors’ dog, and I was there at the hospital to
treat you. Hardly the most romantic of scenarios. Come on, Stephen , why all the sweet
talk? You know I have a boyfriend?”
“Yeah, so I hear. But the bittersweet tone in your voice says you are in for another
Stephen adventure. I have one I am on, as a very much needed point. I have some things
going on right now, Patricia that you would not believe if I told you.”
“Well, I hardly have the time to do a bunch of catching up now, Stevie boy
wonder. I have just gotten home from a seventeen hour shift and I’m late fixing dinner for
my soon to be arriving guest. You’ll just have to try me…”
“I will do no such thing. I hate to sound desperate, Patricia, but I have to see you.
I desperately need the ear of someone who really knows me, or I at least thought you did.
They have taken everything from me, Patty cakes. I am homeless and running about with
some stranger following me.”
“Oh God, Stephen. You and your dramatics. What happened to the Reed Street

60. place?”
“I can’t explain it all right now, but can I stop by? I have an AMTRAK ticket I
may or may not be using to Baltimore in two hours. Just for a few minutes. I swear I
won’t cause any trouble with your company.”
“Stephen, you never cease to amaze me with amount of trouble based on your
own irresponsible, see through procrastinating paranoia that you refuse to use as
incentive to take care of things properly. I will say that you can stop by, but…”
Stephen hung up and shifted uncomfortably in his subway car seat on the Market
Frankford Blue Line Subway as it tore into Penn Station. He was about to replace his
cheap new flip cell phone in his front shirt pocket, when it rang to life.
“Stephen, this Andrew. I have something to tell you. You are a wanted man in the
downtown area. I fear you have not been following our instructions, so we have taken the
time to give you some trouble. Got wind that you were headed to Baltimore? We won’t
be making that trip anytime soon, dear Stephen.”
“What the hell do you mean I am wanted?”
“There was a bank robbery in the downtown area just a few minutes ago and the
description of the thief was picked up by our radio police scanner patch specialist. It has
been altered, and boy do they know what you look like, you bank robber you! We saw
you duck into the subway, so we tipped them off to be on the lookout for you there. Don’t
be too afraid my boy, it’s only a questioning away from finding out it couldn’t possibly

61. have been you, but what else are we to do with you, Stephen? You won’t take direction
from the only place that is ever going to get you out of this mess intact, namely our boys
you left behind at the Hilton. We have a new plan for you. If by chance, you happen to
keep your freedom intact here this afternoon, we will have you out on a seven thirty train
to Washington. It’s time you get a lot closer to the sordid subjects of our unsightly
soiree.”
Just then Stephen noticed a transit cop eyeballing him as the train door began to
close on their most recent stop. The cop took a second look, and began to talk into the
radio attached to his jacket. He began to approach from the very rear of the adjacent car
slowly and steadily with eyes on Stephen, in his direction.
“Thanks for the tip, Andy. That’s just dandy. Just dandy, Andy.”
Stephen hung up the phone and darted for the closing door. He managed to jam
his foot in the closing automatic door before it closed all the way, and it faltered and
reopened. Stephen bolted off of the train, and as he did so glanced around to check on the
transit cop. The cop was now jogging towards the front of the car, and barking into his
radio.
“Penn Station! I’ve got him marked at Penn Station! He is off the train and on the
move!”
Stephen jogged into the dozen deep crowds of pedestrians walking up the stairs
towards the street. He saw a young boy in front him with his Dad, wearing a Boston Red
Sox cap two sizes too large for him. Stephen yanked it off of the young boy’s head as he

62. darted by and placed it on his head. If his head was all that was visible, that should throw
the cop off a bit. He heard the young boy start to shout “He took my hat! Dad! He took
my hat!” and he felt a pang of guilt. He stalled his progress and eyeballed the
approaching Dad and kid. He pulled a twenty out of his pocket and shoved it in the Dad’s
direction. “Sorry,”he barely managed to mumble to the tentative looking father and he
quickly turned and jogged forward again, getting lost in the crowd in front of them.
When he hit the street level, he saw what he needed. It was a five dollar
everything mom and pop shop that had raincoats in the window. It was indeed beginning
to rain. More than anything, he needed to change his appearance. He ducked into the
store and as quickly as possible ascertained that they had large blue slickers for five
dollars behind the counter. He waived a five at the store clerk, and quickly made his
purchase. Stopping at the door on his way out, he removed his trench coat and replaced it
with the slicker. Then dropping the trench coat into the wastebasket in front of the store
as he left, he saw the cops emerging from the subway terminal. They glanced his
direction, and looked right past him. It had worked! A wandering nearby bum began to
work over the trash can where he had left his London Fog, and his eyes grew large and
excited when he saw his score. As Stephen walked away, the bum was placing it on his
dirty barren shoulders, brushing aside his long tattered grey hair to place it there. He
tugged at his beard, and grunted a satisfactory sigh, and moved on.
Patricia lived near South Street in the Rittenhouse Square Condominiums. It was
a short walk away, and a walk through very untroubled streets where he would be less
likely to encounter a patrolling beat cop. As he made his way through the cold, wet
streets, he took the time to survey in his mind all that was in his check list of positives

63. and negatives. Positive, he was not yet being forced by Andrew and friends to do any sort
of hacking as he expected was going to happen certainly sooner or later. He was now
aware that the business has something to do with Washington D.C. He wasn’t sure if that
was positive or a negative. He was positively on the way to meet Patricia, and of that he
could neither be sure it was positively naïve or just an unsightly eyesore to think that she
would turn him away unhelped.
Finally after about a twenty minute walk roasting all of the alternatives for action
in the fire that lit his intellectually spunky nature, he arrived at the gate to The
Rittenhouse Square Condo’s. The doorman greeted him, and asked whom he was there to
visit.
“You don’t remember me? Has it been that long?”
“Oh, Stephen. I almost didn’t recognize you. Where did you get that butt ugly
slicker?”
“Yeah, caught in the rain unawares. I never carry an umbrella. Five dollar store.
Penn Station.”
“Are you two, a thing again? Or am I gonna have to make some arrangements to
have you placed on the undesirables list? You know I’d really not enjoy that. She knows
you’re coming?”
“Yeah, she knows I’m coming. Can you give her a ring and let her know I’m
here?”
“Certainly.” Paul, the doorman waved his hand over the massive phone with

64. hundreds of lines on it, and dialed up to five oh seven, Patricia’s home.
“Ma'am, you have a visitor here. Stephen I believe wishes to be let in?”
“Oh yes, this is Patty. Hey, is he drunk or anything?”
“No ma'am, he appears to be sober and sane to me. Can I send him up or do you
need more time? I know that you have company already.”
“Paul, you are too observant. What the hell you are doing making a living as a
doorman is beyond me.”
“Security. Security. That’s what I’m doing it for. Got to feed the kids somehow.”
“Yeah, I suppose you can send him up, Paul. But please, only if he’s sober.”
“You got it Miss Patty. He’ll be right up.”
Paul hung up the phone, replacing it on the ivory white cradle that held the
massive console next to it with the full listing of tenant’s condo extensions. He looked up
at Stephen and chuckled.
“I’m only supposed to send you up if you are completely sober. So tell me
Stephen, when’s the last time you had a drink?”
“Unfortunately, Paul my man, I have only wet my whistle with the rain so far
these past few hours. If you have any kind of spirits, I would be much obliged, though.
You carry a flask? I’m nervous, I mean I think she’s got her new boyfriend up there.”
“In which case, I need you to rescind your request and arrive sane and sober as

65. she intended. Now then, be on your way. Before she changes her mind, Stevie boy.”
“Thanks Paul. And here. “ He shoved a dollar into Paul’s awaiting hand.
“Ahh, tipping is a lost art. Thanks. Now I can hit the snack machine!”
As he nervously waited for the elevator to the fifth floor, Stephen rehearsed any
number of ways he could open conversation on arriving. He finally settled with “Old love
meets new. Why don’t we all have a few?” as being a must as far as ice breakers was
concerned if her new beau becomes too interactive. He just needed someone to know
what was going on. There had to be someone waiting to receive that phone call in case he
ran into the ultimate hard place. The one who could call all of his family and let them
know he was alright. Well, sort of alright.
He arrived at the doorway, and found it slightly ajar. He knocked lightly on the
door, swinging it a little further open as he did so.
“Come in, boy wonder. Boy do you have timing!”
“Hello?!” he walked into the dimly lit, as if in romantic protest, sitting room that
served as the oversized foyer to her candlelit dining room next to the kitchen. There was a
bottle of wine sitting on the table, and a man who looked about thirty in age and of Asian
descent seated on the edge of his seat with a flabbergasted look on his face.
“Forgive me, I fear I have no choice but to be so rude. Just glad you weren’t in the
nude!”
Patricia came into site leaving the kitchen, wine opener in hand.

66. “Did you just say you were glad we weren’t naked? Whatever happened to the
voyeur in you, Stevie? I thought you liked to watch everything dirty.”
“Did I ever make that impression a permanent one? Let me discount it as human
nature coming from the observation of one led by his penis player to another led by her
propensity for pleasure.”
The man looked even more uncomfortable now, and seemed on the verge of either
exploding or leaving.
“Stephen, this is Tam. Tam, Stephen.”
Stephen made his way closer to shake the man’s hand, but the Tam instead
grappled desperately for his wine glass.
“Stephen, Tam’s last name is Yu. He is best known credited for his work as a
Video Game Productions Manager on some very impressive stuff put together by
independent local teams of programmers who dare to bring their dreams to Tam to get
them on the marketplace. We met through your friend, Al Fisher who was trying that
night to recruit for Jefferson Hospital Physicians Pharmaceutical Education
Organization.”
“Ah, good old Al. He always did make a great matchmaker. Just not for the
Organization. Did he ever manage to get that FDA approval on his nationwide education
for physicians speaking tour? He had some pretty heavy hitters saying that if he got it
endorsed they would be lining up for the next few years. He could turn them out in a very

67. big money way! Oh sorry.” He realized too late that he was completely ignoring Tam,
who was staring blankly at the floor.
“So, tell me Stephen, before I get too tipsy on our second bottle of Chardonnay, to
what do we owe this visit today?”
“You’re a poet. I would love to just spill my guts, but I don’t know where to
start.”
“Start anywhere because I am only giving you ten minutes.”
“Can I get a glass?”
“Ask Tam, he bought it.”
Stephen looked Tam in the face, and saw the man look back for the first time ever.
Tam just shook his head lightly signaling “No.”, but Stephen was unsure if it was a “no”
to the wine or just a “no this can’t be happening.” Stephen decided to skip his old love,
new love why don’t we all get a buzz line and cut to the chase.
“Tam, do you mind if I take Patricia alone to the other room? There are some
things I think you would rather not hear.”
Tam waved his hand towards the other room as if to say, “Be my guest” and
nodded in the affirmative.
“To the bedroom, honey?”
“Stephen, behave. You are scaring my guest half out of his sexy mood I had him
in.”

68. They walked a short distance to the entrance of the bedroom, and Patricia eyed
Stephen warily. He thought for a just a minute that she had the buds of tears forming in
her eyes, but she seemed to shake it off and started in on him.
“If you are going to talk, talk. Otherwise please move on as I have asked you to
do and leave us be. I thought for a minute there, he was going to leave.”
“Patricia I am in big trouble. They sold my house out from under me, stole my
business. They almost got my car, but I reported it stolen.”
“Who are they? And how is all that possible?”
“I have yet to find out exactly who they are. I only get to talk to a go between by
the name of Carnegie. They reported me to the police earlier as matching the description
of a downtown Philly bank robber and had me hunted. They are not going to take no for
an answer. Remember what I told you about my business?”
“I remember it being the main reason I could never get comfortable with the idea
of having kids with you…” she looked towards the dining room, craning her neck as if to
say “was that too loud?”
“My business is gone. I am being blackmailed into working for someone else,
something involving D.C. My imports business so far as I know has not been touched,
and may be my only saving grace. They took six million dollars irretrievable from my
Cayman Islands Bank account. I am flat broke. Do you have any cash?”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Are you on drugs Stephen? Tell me you haven’t
turned to that?”

69. “No, Patricia. I am not on drugs. Like fifty would do me a lot of good. Right now
I have been robbed of everything and just needed you to know if I call and say to call my
Mom, or say, my sister, that you would have a better idea of what is going on.”
“A better idea of what is going on? Stephen as far as I know you are talking like a
crazed conspiracy theory nut who is about to start breaking the law because he thinks he
is being followed. What the hell is this all about?”
Tam entered the small space, surprising Stephen. He was a very well built guy,
and he could see where Patricia found him attractive after having led a life of liaison for
years with the soft and cushy Stephen, whose only six pack was the one in the fridge.
“Is everything alright, Patricia. If it is time for him to leave, we can do this now.”
When he spoke, he had a slight hint of an accent that betrayed an exterior
toughness that seemed to teem through him as he stared coldly straight through Stephen’s
extended arm.
Stephen put his hand on Tam’s chest to brush him off and help move him back out of the
room. Tam caught his arm, and twisted it behind his back as Stephen yelped in pain.
“What the fuck?! What the fuck are you doing?”
“That’s Mr. Yu, to you Mr. Bolsom. And I am asking you to leave. You are not
welcome here anymore.”
“Let go of me!”
They struggled moving back and forth for a moment as Tam firmly held Stephen’s

70. hand and left arm twisted behind his back so that he could not function other than trying
to regain its use. It had seemed all too easy to Tam, and this pissed Stephen off even
more.
“Let him go, Tam.”
Patricia crossed the room and pulled her purse from off of an adjacent shelf that
was next to where the flat screen smart T.V. sat in the living room slash sitting room a
few feet away. She pulled out a few twenties and approached Stephen.
“Stephen, take this and leave. I’m not saying you are not welcome. I know you
are in trouble. I am just saying that my life cannot revolve around you anymore. Please
obey my wishes and leave now.”
Stephen reluctantly received the two twenty dollar bills with his aching left hand,
and as he massaged them into his billfold, finally used his line.
“Old love meets new love. Fits like a glove. Why don’t we all get a buzz?”
Tam squinted in reply and said coldly, “Why don’t you buzz off?”
Stephen winced and sighed in a slightly stern way at the tired thought of refusing
and fighting the man. Paul would be so disappointed, and perhaps even the police would
become involved and he had other things to be concerned about besides his hurt ego. He
made his way for the door reluctantly, followed by a heated Tam who was very nearly
breathing down his neck the entire way.
“Easy there, Bruce Lee.”

71. Patricia made sad eyes towards him as he approached the door, and directed her
final comments towards him loudly as Tam closed the door blocking him from reentering,
“I’m sorry Stephen!”

72. Chapter Six
Stephen rode the elevator back down to the Rittenhouse Square lobby, where he
hung out with Paul and called a taxi. It was a lot more pleasant waiting inside, out of the
driving rain that fell on South Philadelphia with an unyielding promise of endless torrents
to come. When the cab came, he made his way out of the doors and said goodbye to Paul,
letting him know, “Keep an eye on that new boyfriend of hers. He is pretty moody and
got kind of unnecessarily physical with me up there. Nothing to go to terms about, but
still.”
Paul promised to keep an eye on things, and Stephen made his exit, dashing for
the back seat of the yellow cab waiting at the curb.
The cabbie spoke up “Bolsom? You Stephen Bolsom?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Where to?”
“30th
Street Station please. I’m in no hurry, but I’ve only got forty cash, so let me
know.”
“I tell you what, I stop the meter at thirty – five, my boss never knows any better,
we call it a deal.”
“Sounds good to me.” Stephen agreed, unsure of this cabbie’s creed. As long as he