The Corporation

CHAPTER NINE

MEL HOWARD WAS sitting in the comfortable book-lined study of his home in Highland Ranch, Colorado that he shared with his wife, going through his accounting records for his new online book-selling business, when the doorbell rang.

Mel saved the excel file he was working on and rose to his feet. He stretched. He’d gotten up at eight a.m. this morning, made a pot of coffee, than gone right to work. He operated an online bookstore called Mel’s Books, and he specialized in used and new books, mostly genre fiction, but some non-fiction titles too, mostly true-crime related. He’d been dabbling in it off and on since he discovered eBay seven years ago, and last October Sue said, “You’re doing well enough on eBay and you find enough good stuff at all the flea markets we go to; why not open up an internet storefront?”

So he did.

It was tough starting out, and the business was beginning not only to pay for itself, it was showing a small profit. Sue was able to quit her job so she could take care of their son and daughter when they came home from school, and she used the time the kids were away to pack and ship orders. When Mel came home from his job as a Salesman for Wiedenhammer Products in Littleton, he devoted a few hours a night to the business. He also devoted weekends to it. Business was doing well; he offered free shipping on all orders, discounted new books, and supplied brodart bindings with all hardcovers. He was becoming one of the major independent internet booksellers without a brick and mortar presence.

Mel walked on stocking feet through the hallway to the living room. The kids were at soccer games this morning, which Sue had taken them to. Mel was going to take care of some business this morning—update the online databases, pack and ship some orders, pay some bills—and then he was done for the weekend. They had plans to spend the afternoon with Sue’s parents and go out to dinner that night at a local steakhouse.

In short, he was looking forward to this weekend.

When he opened the door he was surprised to see Mary Barnhill and Jim Fern, Human Resource Representatives from his employer, Wiedenhammer Products. They were flanked by two big burly guys he’d never seen before, dressed in suits. “Hey!” Mel said. “What brings you here?”

Without a word, they shouldered their way through the door and past Mel, who was taken aback by the sudden, bold intrusion into his home. “Uh… excuse me, but what the hell are you doing just barging into my house like this?”

They stopped and Mel saw that Mary and Jim were dressed in business attire—a dark suit and white shirt for Jim, navy blue suit for Mary. Jim carried a large canvas bag while Mary carried a briefcase. “We need to speak to you in your study,” Mary said. Without another word, she turned and headed down the hallway to the study. Jim followed her.

The two burly guys stepped up to Mel. “Please, Mr. Howard,” one of them said. He looked like he’d be a Navy grunt or a linebacker.

“Who the hell are you?” Mel asked.

Both men were wearing dark sunglasses; their features were stony.

“Mr. Howard?” Mary Barnhill called from his study.

Mel strode down the hall to his office, his sense of privacy violated now. He didn’t give a good goddamn that he knew Mary and Jim, that they worked for his employer—he wanted them the hell out of his house!

When he reached his office he saw Mary and Jim were waiting for him. Mary had opened her briefcase and taken out a sheaf of papers. “You signed a loyalty oath with us, Mr. Howard. You have violated this loyalty oath by operating a part-time business on the side that is in direct violation of Wiedenhammer’s stated goals.”

Mel started; he had no idea what the hell they were talking about. “What?”

“A loyalty oath to Wiedenhammer,” Mary explained. Mel saw that the papers she was holding up appeared to be Human Resource documents. “All employees signed them about six months ago, yourself included. Remember?”

Mel searched through his memory banks. He supposed at some point he signed some kind of paper—employers always required you to sign stuff; Policies and Procedures documents, Health Care information, Insurance papers, Non-Disclosure Agreements. It was all part and parcel for getting a job. But a loyalty oath? Mel shook his head. “Let me see that,” he said, reaching for the paper.

Mary handed it to him and Mel scanned it quickly. He remembered this now, but vaguely. His supervisor had placed it in his mailbox with a note: Something else we have to sign if we want to keep our jobs. Mel had scanned it quickly at the time, and he read it more carefully now. The heading of the document was Non-Competitive and Conflict of Interest Agreement, which had not raised any red flags for Mel. Non-Competitive and Conflict of Interest Agreements were standard operating procedure for most companies. They stated that as long as you were employed with whatever company you held a job with, you were prohibited from disclosing trade secrets or other secret information to competitors. You were also prohibited from engaging in business practices for your own financial gain within the same industry, which would put you in direct competition with your employer and which could, potentially, create a conflict of interest between employee and employer. It was a way for the company to keep their business practices and development secrets closed, which was understandable. Mel had quickly signed it and put it back in his boss’s In basket. He fostered no desires to work in the Plastics industry, which was Wiedenhammer’s market; they made plastic bottles for the pharmaceutical industry. He could not care less about plastic, screw-top lids, child safety proof lids, and everything that went with it. He had no interest in the product or the industry. He was a salesman for Wiedenhammer because he needed a job to pay his bills, mortgage, and to obtain medical insurance and retirement benefits. Aside from that, he had no interest in the industry his employer was involved in. He was working on Mel’s Books as a side business with the hopes of supplementing his retirement income when that time came. He loved books; loved the smell and feel of them, and as a salesperson he was good at selling them. It made sense to direct his interests and talents together.

Now he scanned the document again, trying to process the legalese. “What’s a loyalty oath? This is a standard non-competitive—”

“Paragraph eight, section two,” Jim said, quietly.

Mel flipped a page and found it. The sub-heading was entitled LOYALTY OATH.

Why didn’t I see this before?

He had gone through this document before; such a boldly stated sub-heading would have jumped out at him then as it did now, but he was certain—positive—it hadn’t been there before. He saw the scrawl of his signature at the bottom of the page indicating he had, indeed, signed the document. He read the paragraph in question.

What kind of bullshit is this? The way this is worded could mean…

Mel looked up at Jim and Mary. “What the hell is this?”

“You are a salesman for Wiedenhammer Products, Inc,” Mary said. “It is what you do. By engaging in your part-time bookselling business on eBay and the rest of the Internet, you are violating our Conflict-of-Interest policy.”

Mel felt his anger flare. How dare these… these morons barge into his house, on the fucking weekend and demand that he cease his business! What he did on his own time was nobody’s business—especially Wiedenhammer’s. “It’s Saturday,” he heard himself say. “And I’m in my own house. You’re trespassing. Get the hell out of here or I call the police.”

Strong arms grabbed Mel by each shoulder and he struggled as the two large men held him. “Get your fucking hands off me!” he yelled.

Jim opened his canvas bag and pulled out a gas can. He unscrewed the cap and began dousing the bookshelves and office furniture.

“Help!” Mel yelled. He struggled against his captors. Jim continued dousing the room with gasoline.

Mary stepped toward the hallway. “You leave us with no choice,” Mary said. “Quitting your position is not enough; terminating your position is out of the question. You are a part of the Wiedenhammer team now. We’re doing this for your own good.”

“I’m going to sue your company so bad, you’ll be homeless!” Mel shouted.

“You’re part of Wiedenhammer, Mr. Howard,” Jim said. He placed the empty gas can on the floor and extracted a book of matches from his coat pocket. “You can’t sue us.”

“Bullshit!” Mel yelled. He strained against his captors and received a sharp blow to his kidneys for his efforts. He doubled over in pain.

“You have violated the company loyalty oath,” Jim said, opening the book of matches. Mary exited the room and went down the hall to the living room. “For that, we must destroy your little side business, which is in direct opposition to Wiedenhammer’s goals and objectives.”

“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.”

“Cool.” Jay nodded as he unplugged the phone line from his laptop.

“But we have to think beyond today and making sure you haven’t been tracked here,” Donald said. “We still have to find out exactly what is going on, and make sure Michelle isn’t… isn’t going to get hurt.”

“The drive to Philly will help me think about that,” Jay said. He put his laptop in its carrying case. “We can talk about that on the way back here. Okay?”

Donald nodded. “Sounds fine with me.” It was the best plan they had for now.

MICHELLE HAD NEVER sat through such mindless bullshit in her life.

It was almost five p.m. and she’d been sitting in this meeting off and on now since eight o’clock.

When the hell is this shit going to end? she thought.

She was doing her best to look interested in what was going on. Sam was sitting next to her and Mr. Lawrence was directly across from him. Other members of corporate headquarters were there, and each officer gave a presentation to the executive staff of Red Rose Medical Insurance, the company they were in town to consult with. Michelle had been introduced to each Red Rose associate at a mixer during the lunch hour, and learned about the role she’d be playing in assisting them. It was normal everyday stuff as far as she was concerned. Dennis Harrington and Alma Smith were in attendance and they looked the same—vacant and glazed, like zombies. In fact…

When Michelle saw them this morning she paid attention to their mannerisms. She feigned listening to whatever presenter was droning on about corporate profits or whatever, and stole occasional glances at Alma and Dennis. They sat in rapt attention, as if soaking it all in. Her mind wandered, wishing she was back home where she’d be no doubt hanging out at her house over a leisurely morning pot of coffee and a book or magazine, maybe even a television show with Donald. Instead she was here, her entire weekend now ruined all because some suit she’d never met before had a bug up his ass about—

Her thoughts had been interrupted by Sam, who leaned close to her and whispered, “After the mixer today we’re having a private meeting with the people from corporate that I’d like you to be present at. I think you’ll find it quite interesting.”

“Great!” Michelle said, keeping the cheerful spirit in her voice.

Inside she was thinking, why the hell do we have to do this on a Saturday for God’s sake? Don’t you people have lives?

And now it was four hours after the mixer and the representatives from Red Rose had departed for the day. They’d reconvened in a smaller conference room and Michelle was introduced to several people from corporate. She smiled and nodded politely, repeating each name as they were introduced to her: Kevin Smith, Elliot Brand, Nick Dowd, Jim Andreas, Joe Carr, Gary Lawrence. When Michelle shook Gary’s hand she smiled. “Fancy meeting you again, Mr. Lawrence!”

Mr. Lawrence laughed. Sam was standing nearby. “I think we’ve got ourselves a winner here, Sam!”

Sam beamed. “I agree, Mr. Lawrence.”

Alan Perkins was in Chicago as well; Michelle saw him at the meeting and they’d acknowledged each other with polite nods from across the large conference table. After Michelle met the bigwigs of Corporate Financial, Alan approached and leaned close to her. “I see you got dragged out here, too,” he whispered.

Michelle laughed. “You can say that again!”

Alan grinned and made his way to the coffee pot as Sam returned from a brief conversation with Dennis Harrington and Mr. Lawrence, and began asking her about last night’s meeting.

And now it was closing in on five o’clock and Michelle was bored out of her mind.

The meeting had started with Sam welcoming Michelle to the group. “After careful consideration, I’ve chosen Michelle Dowling to head up the Building Products job. As you saw in the documents I sent to you all last month, Michelle possesses an impressive background and list of accomplishments from former stints at competing consulting firms. She did well in all her interviews, has exceeded my expectations at orientation and her first few weeks on the job, and I’m told she performed admirably this past week in El Paso. Results from last night’s meeting were very satisfactory to me. In fact, I’m so pleased with them that I’ve asked her to join us this afternoon to immerse her in our business, and I figured the best way to do that was to have one of these sessions with you, our corporate elite and our top performers.” Sam reminded Michelle of how a proud father would look giving away his daughter in marriage. “So… let’s begin!”

Despite that introduction, which originally made Michelle nervous, what followed was more of the mundane. Each executive stepped in front of the conference room and outlined specific guidelines and goals of each specific section of the business. While the meeting appeared to be directed to her, each presenter addressed the entire room. Everybody sat in rapt attention, including Sam Greenberg and the rest of the people from headquarters. Michelle tried paying attention, figuring there would be something she would need to know to perform her duties well, but as the hours wore on she realized that what was being presented was basically what she’d skimmed through in the employee manual. She struggled to stay interested, and during those moments her concentration from the presentation lagged, she at least tried to look interested.

And as the afternoon wore on and she grew more bored and fought harder to look interested in what was being said, she noticed that everybody in the room was sitting in rapt attention, listening to every word the presenter at the moment was saying.

At one point Michelle shook her head slightly to clear her mind. She’d caught herself slipping into a light trance. That weird tune that’d been floating in her head the night before resurfaced. It was soothing, intoxicating, and as she cleared the cobwebs from her mind she realized it was closing in on five in the afternoon and the presentation was nowhere close to finishing. She glanced covertly at the other people in the room. Nobody appeared to be uncomfortable or bothered that this meeting was taking so long. Nobody had excused themselves to go to the bathroom or attend to some other personal matter. At that thought, Michelle suddenly realized she hadn’t peed in hours. Her bladder felt heavy and full. She squirmed slightly in her seat and brought her legs close together. Nick Dowd was standing at the podium, going through a Power Point presentation. Michelle blinked. She didn’t remember when the overhead projector had been introduced to the meeting. For the first time, she realized the room was dark and everybody was still sitting upright like… like…

Like dummies.

A sharp pain in her bladder. She suppressed the urge to pee, glanced around quickly. Surely somebody should have gotten up before, she thought. Somebody getting out of their chair would have snapped me out of it, and I would have followed them but I didn’t because nobody’s gotten up yet to take a piss!

How is that possible?

There was a clock on the wall of the conference room, opposite the side Michelle was sitting at. She glanced at it quickly. Five o’clock on the dot. She’d been here for nine hours already, stuck in this place. What bullshit. She had to pee, and she didn’t care if Sam looked at her with disapproval.

She rose from her seat.

“—when funds are disbursed to these accounts they are held in suspension for two days, and then—” Nick said, then stopped as Michelle got up.

“Excuse me,” Michelle murmured politely. She attempted to squeeze past Sam’s chair.

A hand touched her arm lightly. Sam. “Where are you going?” He whispered. There was disapproval in his tone.

“Bathroom,” she whispered back.

Nick had continued on with his presentation. “…it triggers the system to apply a calculation that adds an aggregation to the formula, which in turn—”

“Can it wait?” Michelle understood the implications behind the question. Leaving the meeting to attend to personal matters? Don’t you realize how unacceptable to the company this is?

“No it can’t,” Michelle said, her voice lowered. “I don’t feel good. I’m feeling a little sick. I’ll be right back.” Without pausing to hear Sam’s answer, she squeezed around his chair and made her way quietly out of the room.

She closed the door softly behind her and the pain in her bladder hit her like a fireball. She walked fast down the hall toward the rest rooms she’d seen earlier that morning, not caring if she was reprimanded by Sam later that day or next week. What’s he going to do? Fire me for having to take a leak? If they don’t like it they can stuff it up their collective corporate asses and—

She burst into the ladies room and made it into a stall quickly, shut and bolted the stall door and shucked her slacks and panties down and sat down on the toilet and sighed as she released her bladder’s contents.

And she remained seated on the toilet, letting herself relax as she did her business, not caring if Sam or her colleagues got angry with her. For the first time, the past week’s tiredness and fatigue came upon her, settling in her shoulders, creating tension along the back of her neck. She leaned forward, eyes closed, and tried to relax. She would chill out just for a few minutes, give her body time to reorient itself, maybe call home real quick, then she’d go back. Doing all that would give her another two or three hours of energy, she was sure of it. Then—

The door to the bathroom opened.

Footsteps on the tiled bathroom floor.

Michelle looked up, panic flaring in her belly. The tread was not that of a woman. It sounded like the footfalls of a man wearing dress shoes.

The footsteps stopped in front of her stall and Michelle drew in a breath. She was confused, scared, not sure what she should do, when suddenly the door was bashed in, snapping the lock, and Alan Perkins was standing before her with a wicked grin on his face.