“Fuck your goals and objectives!” Mel shouted. “You’re destroying my property!”
Jim lit a match. He held it before his face, looked at Mel. “Get him out of here,” he said to the two goons. The men holding Mel moved him out of the room and Mel yelled and screamed, twisting in their grasp. Mel watched, horrified, as Jim tossed the lit match on his gasoline-soaked desk and it burst into flames.
“You will pay for this!” Mel yelled. He was yelling so loud it was hurting his throat, but he didn’t care. He continued to fight the two big men who dragged him down the hall into the living room.
Mary was standing near the front door, talking on a cell phone. She finished speaking, hung up, and looked at Mel. “A memo of today’s incident will be forwarded to Herb Enders, your supervisor—”
“I don’t care!” Mel shouted. “I quit! Do you hear me, I quit, and I not only quit, I’m going to sue your ass so bad you won’t be able to sell it in downtown Denver on a fucking street corner!”
Mary frowned as Jim entered the living room. The sharp smell of smoke filtered through to the living room and Mel felt his chest heave. The two goons maintained their solid grips on his arms. His right side burned from where he’d been hit. “Regardless, the appropriate disciplinary action will be followed up Monday morning—”
With a sudden burst of inspirational energy and fury, Mel lashed out with his right foot. It connected solidly with Mary’s stomach. She doubled over violently and gagged; Mel felt a momentary rush of glee at the sight of the Human Resources Manager doubled over in pain, and then he felt a crashing blow to the back of his skull that brought him to his knees. Another blow blasted into his back, between his shoulder blades, and he fell to the ground on his stomach, and then his body became a solid mass of pain as blows and kicks were rained down upon him.
“Enough!” The voice was sharp, commanding, and the blows ceased immediately. “Get him out of here!” Strong hands gripped Mel’s arms and pulled him toward the front door. Mel couldn’t see straight; he was nauseous, dizzy, a wave of terror and anger pouring through him simultaneously. He couldn’t tell what part of his body hurt most and he didn’t care. All he was aware of was being dragged out of his house, seeing the flames devour his office and destroy his property, his records, his business, his fucking house, and then he was dumped on his front lawn and the shock came, and like the waves of a giant tsunami it crashed into him harder and harder until he got hold of his senses five hours later at the hospital.
SATURDAY MORNING INTO the early afternoon was busy, to say the least.
After a breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausage, which Donald prepared at the stove, he took a quick shower in the master bathroom. He directed Jay to a bathroom down the hall and told him he could help himself. Before Jay showered, he told Donald he wanted to hide his car. Donald opened the garage door and Jay pulled the car he’d stolen in St. Louis inside, shielding it from public view.
Donald no longer felt nervous around Jay the way he did during his initial encounter with him last night. If anything, he felt nervous about what he was learning. He thought about this briefly as he showered, his mind tracing back not only on the events of the past few weeks since Michelle landed her job at Corporate Financial, but in the general climate of the business world in the United States and the world in general. It was true that business practices were less friendly to entrepreneurship and, in his opinion, were even in direct opposition to classic capitalism. What was happening now was corporatism pure and simple, where the corporate bottom-line dictated public and political policy, invaded personal lives, and influenced what one saw on TV or the radio, bought in the store, or dictated how health care was disbursed.
Jay’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “I’m done with my shower; mind if I hook my laptop to your phone line and check some things?”
“Go ahead!” Donald shouted. He finished his shower, rinsed himself off, and turned off the spray. He thought about the business world more as he dried off. He remembered his parents working at the same employer for well over thirty years. Both of them were recently retired and were treated well by their employer, a mid-sized financial planning firm that did business with banks. Donald remembered his mother telling him a few years ago during a family picnic that she felt sorry for some of the younger workers entering into the first stages of their employment at the company. “They’re doing away with so many benefits like retirement and health care for their retirees, I don’t know how these people are going to manage when they reach my age.” Donald wondered about that now as he dried off and headed into the bedroom to get dressed. Michelle had shared her past employment stories with him, telling him pretty much the same thing. And he’d heard similar anecdotes from friends and colleagues who suggested it was no longer really the company’s goal to simply do well in their business and industry. Businesses always had to worry about the bottom-line—that was common sense—but it was no longer simply acceptable to have a good year. You had to increase—in some cases double—your profits every year, year after year, which was a statistically impossible thing to do. And when these same companies did outperform, the profits were rarely reinvested back into the business for improved equipment, strengthening employee benefits and training, or distributing bonuses among employees. Instead, the majority of the profits were eaten away by excessive CEO pay and bonuses, as well as bonuses for other higher-level executives. Everybody else got a piddly two percent bonus, if that. And meanwhile cuts were made to benefits such as health care and retirement packages, and management was demanding not only higher performance, but longer hours from their employees. No wonder people snapped like that Victor Adams guy in California.
Donald got dressed in a fresh pair of blue jeans, a gray T-shirt he’d bought in Acapulco, Mexico, and white tennis shoes, and went into the living room. Jay was sitting at the kitchen counter dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt. His hair was slightly damp from his shower. He had his laptop out, a telephone cord connected to the kitchen extension. “Everything okay?” Donald asked.
“So far so good,” Jay said. He tapped a few keys, looking at the screen. “I’ve got my email forwarded to an offshore Internet account so they can’t trace my activity with my ISP. And I called Julie real quick, made sure she was okay. The feds have already tried questioning her, but she told them she has no idea where I am and that’s how it’s going to stay for now.”
Donald felt nervous. He didn’t like the idea that the FBI was looking for Jay. “So the feds are on to you?”
“Yeah, but I’m not sweating it.” Jay closed his Internet connection. “I’ve got shit bouncing off three different satellites. It’s going to take some crafty cyber-sleuth to track me down. Besides, I’m not on long enough to establish any kind of trace. Way I figure, I’ve probably been tracked as far east as St. Louis. The car I stole is one of hundreds that were stolen the day I landed in town, and it’ll take them awhile to even trace that. I want to ditch this car somewhere in the city, maybe even switch plates on it if I can. Can you give me a lift?”
“What do you have in mind?” Donald asked.
Jay gave him a rundown. Donald listened, trying to ignore the unease he felt. When Jay was finished, Donald said “I suppose I can take you into Harrisburg. There’s some rough areas there. If you can grab a plate there we can head back here, switch that plate with the one on your car, and then I can follow you to Philly.”