Temptation's Prisoners

4. June 22

FOUR

JUNE 22

Paul and Beth Braddock sat on their back deck, drinking morning coffee and watching a hummingbird hovering by flapping its invisible wings fifteen times per second. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, the day they typically took a couple of hours for themselves before heading to work to dig their way out of the backlog that never seemed to diminish. Beth’s black hair shone in the morning sun and fell across her shoulders to frame her delicate features.

“Something is on your mind,” Paul said, observing his wife’s distant look.

She nodded and replied, “Jane is going to sell the brokerage. That means I get a new boss who isn’t also a friend, and commission deals get remade by the new management. I mean, it could turn out okay, I just don’t know.”

“This is actually a big opportunity,” Paul said, leaning back in his chair. “Are the four other agents staying with the brokerage?”

“Yeah, I think they are.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, “Wouldn’t you rather be a broker/owner than a broker/associate?” he asked, thoughtfully. “Let’s buy it.”

“What? The asking price is 1.6 million dollars.”

“We have $200,000 in savings and we finance the rest.”

“That’s our rainy day fund,” Beth replied.

“So if it rains, we’ll get a little soggy. In the meantime, this is going to be a dream come true for you.”

“Makes me more than a little nervous to think about investing all of our money,” she offered.

“I have a job and I think I’ll keep making money,” Paul replied with a shrug. “So, if it takes a while to get your new enterprise up and running, we should be able to keep eating.”

“Do you really think we could do this?”

“I have no doubt.” He smiled and added, “I also remember how you stood by me when I wanted to leave Dearborn and start Braddock and Mason. Now it’s my turn to support your dream.”

She leaned over and kissed him. “Have I told you lately that you are an amazing fellow?”

“I am, aren’t I?” he replied, grinning.

She shook her head and said, “I can’t believe it. I’ll call Jane and put in the offer, and then we’ll celebrate.”

“How would you like to celebrate?” he asked, grinning.

“How else—wine and nudity, of course.”

“Sounds perfect. Maybe we should start celebrating now and call Jane later,” he said with a smile.

June 24

Chris Mason pulled into her driveway at 7:30 p.m. She was exhausted after sessions with eight patients. She hit a button and the garage door opened, revealing Adam’s Infinity. She walked through the garage and into the house, making her way into the large kitchen. She dropped her purse on the granite countertop and walked towards the bedroom, unbuttoning her blouse as she walked, anxious to change into something casual.

As she walked into the bedroom, she saw Adam putting clothing into a suitcase on the bed. “I didn’t know you had a trip this week,” she said, surprise in her voice.

“Yeah, I have a client meeting in Vegas.”

“The same client you met with when you went last week?”

“No, this is a potential new client.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “When are you going?”

“Tomorrow morning early. I may be back tomorrow night or I may need to stay one more day. How was your day?”

She nodded. “Pretty good, actually. Some good sessions, including a new patient who is a pretty impressive character.”

“This is the part where I want to know all about it, but you can’t tell me,” he replied.

“True, but I can tell you that he needs help and I think I can help him. That feels good.”

He nodded silently, distracted by the process of packing. She pulled her jeans on and selected a comfortable top. He was still staring into his closet when she left the room to see what she could put into a salad for dinner. She wondered whether there had been a time when Adam actually listened to what she had to say. She concluded that there had been, she just couldn’t remember when.

June 25

Adam’s plane landed at McCarren Airport in Las Vegas just after 9:00 a.m. He took an Uber to the Mandalay Bay Hotel and checked in, and then made his way up to his room on the twentieth floor. He momentarily stared out the window at the monolithic hotels set back from the strip; massive structures surrounded by a flat and uninhabited area of desert that could be the Sahara. He left his suitcase unopened on the bed and made his way to the elevators. Once on the ground floor, he walked away from the lobby area and into the casino. He made his way to the cashier’s cage. He liked early mornings because there weren’t too many people gambling. It was still quiet, with only a half dozen blackjack tables operating.

Adam stepped up to the cashier’s window and said good morning to a woman of fifty with curly hair and a serious expression. He handed her a check for fifty thousand dollars and said, “This is for my account.”

She checked her monitor and replied, “Yes, Mr. Bertrand, it has been added.”

“Let me have twenty thousand," he told the woman on the other side of the cage, handing her an identification card. She nodded and turned away a moment. She returned within a few moments and handed him two racks, each containing one hundred, hundred dollar chips.

“Here you are, Mr. Bertrand. If you’ll just sign this slip in the lower left, you are all set.”

Adam signed and picked up the chips. He made his way towards the six blackjack tables operating at this time in the morning and selected a fifty-dollar minimum bet table where the dealer waited alone. He put two one hundred dollar chips on each of two circles on the table in front of him.

The dealer said “Good morning, drawing an obligatory, “Hello,” from Adam, and then he began to deal. Adam drew a seventeen on one hand and an eleven on the other. The dealer had a four showing and Adam put out another two black chips and went down for double on the eleven hand. The dealer put a three on Adam’s eleven and Adam grimaced, now hoping the dealer would break. The dealer turned over his other card and it was a queen. He had to hit that fourteen and maybe Adam could win this hand yet. The next card was a two, and now the dealer had sixteen. He had to break, he just had to. Adam waited expectantly as the dealer put down a three, giving him nineteen, and then scooped up all six one hundred dollar chips. It was just the first hand, Adam told himself, and he would turn it around. One hour later, Adam was down seven thousand dollars and feeling the pressure. He couldn’t afford to lose this money. This was supposed to get him out of a hole. He had to turn this around, so he would have to dig deeper into the client money he brought along to make that happen.

A man of about fifty, with dark, focused eyes and silver-grey hair giving him an air of nobility, sat at a slot machine behind Adam. He didn’t play the machine or even look in its direction. He sipped coffee and spent his time studying Adam Mason, the way a predator studies its prey. He saw Adam’s enthusiasm when he arrived, he saw the slow movement of Adam’s chips in the wrong direction, he saw the desperation on Adam’s face, and he saw the opportunity he wanted.

Two men walked into the park in Thousand Oaks and looked around in animated fashion. Jason Shepard smiled as he saw them acting so furtively, and waved them over to the bench where he was seated. Eric Nelson was a tall man with a short beard and thoughtful eyes. Ian Miles was of average height, with a stern and serious countenance, and big eyes that surveyed his surroundings. Both worked for Global Precision Corporation, and both were extremely nervous and felt like they were operating over their heads. Eric was employed as a senior accountant and Ian was Controller for Global, both reporting to the CFO. The two men had seen some irregularities in accounting and brought them to the attention of the CFO. The response was a short, harsh statement that they were wrong. They were then told that to raise the issue again would be to hurt the company and damage their own careers.

Knowing that there was something wrong with the corporate numbers, and not wanting to be fired for discussing the matter further, they had contacted Jason to investigate three weeks ago. Jason said, “Good afternoon, gentlemen.” They shook hands and then the two men took a seat on the park bench on either side of Jason.

Ian looked at Jason nervously and said, “You don’t think anyone will figure out where we are and who you are, do you?”

“You work in downtown Los Angeles. We are in Thousand Oaks, some forty miles away.” He grinned and added, “Although, you are both looking around as if you just robbed the treasury.”

Nelson looked worried. “The company is serious about this topic. If there is any indication that we have pursued the issue any further, we will be fired in a heartbeat.”

“I understand,” Jason replied.

“On the phone, you said you had what we needed?” Miles asked.

“Yeah. My research is complete, and we have them.”

“We do?” Nelson asked. “How?”

“There are emails that flowed between the CEO and the CFO identifying changes to the financials to increase income and decrease expenses to the levels you complained about.”

“How did you get to them?” Nelson asked, looking shocked. “The system secures and encrypts email.”

“It’s the kind of research that I do,” Jason said, smiling.

“So, what do we do?” Miles asked.

“You do nothing that will draw attention to yourselves. Put your head down and work hard. The authorities will be knocking in a couple of days, and your CEO and CFO will be at the center of their investigation.” Jason reflected a moment and then said, “My investigation also shows that the third member of the top management team, Executive Vice President Victor Redmond, learned what they were doing recently, but was not involved himself. Do you have any reason to dispute that?”

“No,” Miles said, “I’ve worked with Victor a long time and I think he is an honest guy.”

Jason looked over at Nelson, who added, “I don’t know Victor as well as Ian does, but I agree. I consider him a man of integrity.”

Jason nodded, and then said, “Okay, go to work, and don’t forget to be surprised when law enforcement shows up.”

The men shook hands. “Thanks for your work on this,” Miles said. “I know that the information that will come out is going to hurt company value, but not as much as it would if it were allowed to continue.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Jason said. “At this point, the corporate financials can be fixed and the company will likely survive. If this continued and the fraud grew in size, the share price might never recover. You guys did the right thing, and protected your jobs at the same time.”

Miles and Nelson stood and walked back towards the parking lot. Jason grinned as he watched them looking around furtively, drawing attention to themselves by trying so hard to make sure no one was watching. Jason walked in the other direction, now ready to arrange for the s**t to hit the corporate fan.

“Lombardi v. Mountain Digital Media,” Judge Stevens called out to the crowded courtroom, summoning counsel for the parties to be heard.

Paul walked to the counsel table and said, “Paul Braddock for the Plaintiff, Ms. Lombardi.”

“Marshall Wilson for Defendants, Mountain Digital and Stanton Bates, your Honor.”

“What do you want to do Mr. Braddock?” Judge Stevens asked, in a perfunctory manner. With thirty cases on his status conference calendar, he was resigned to doing what it took to keep them moving as quickly as possible.

“On behalf of Ms. Lombardi, we would like the matter set for trial, your Honor.”

“I take it you had no luck at mediation?” the judge asked, with disappointment in his voice.

“Correct, your Honor, no luck. But we will keep talking.”

“Mr. Wilson, you ready for trial?”

“As long as we set it after November 1, we will be fine, your Honor.”

“All right. Mr. Braddock, your estimate for trial is two weeks, correct?”

“Yes, your Honor.”

Judge Stevens looked at his monitor and said, “Trial is set for November 16 at 8:00 a.m. in this department. Readiness Conference is on November 9, at 8:30 a.m., also in this department. Please see that all trial and pre-trial documents are timely filed per local rules. Anything else, gentlemen?”

“No, your Honor,” Paul and Wilson both replied.

“Have a good day. The next case is Sanchez v. Parker.”

Paul drove back towards the office thinking of the preparation needed for the Lombardi trial. The jury instructions, trial brief, and exhibit books were all in the beginning phases of preparation, but there was a long way to go. Beyond that, the case was exciting. There were four co-worker witnesses to the s****l harassment, two of whom had already had their depositions taken and the depositions of the other two had been scheduled. The company’s investigator had never interviewed two of the four witnesses Jill had identified, and the defense was aware of that major flaw in their investigation. The upshot was that the investigation could be shown to be inadequate, and used to aid in the claims against the company rather than affording it any protection. There was the psychologist who would testify concerning the psychological injury Jill Lombardi suffered from over a year of harassment and being abruptly terminated when she filed a complaint. There was the harasser who denied everything after his own name and who would be thoroughly impeached as a liar, and there was an economist who would talk to the jury about the monetary losses Jill suffered as a result of her firing. Paul wished that the trial wasn’t almost five months away.

His phone rang and he hit a button on the wheel. “Hi, Beth.”

“We got it!” Beth replied, excitedly.

“Really? That’s amazing.”

“It is amazing. I still can’t believe it,” she said, in disbelief.

“So you are now officially going to be an ‘Owner/Broker.’

“Yeah, that’s right. Thank you so much for this Paul. This is beyond a dream for me. I’m still a little nervous about putting so much of what we have on the line to make this work, but it is incredibly exciting.”

“It’s definitely worth it,” he said. “No second thoughts here.”

“You are a wonderful husband,” she offered softly. “I am genuinely grateful.”