Carol Freeman sat in the waiting room of her doctor’s office trying to be patient. She wondered to herself why doctors even bothered to make appointments. The appointment time had very little bearing on how long you sat and how long you had to wait to be seen. She felt compelled to just leave. She had made the proper arrangements at work, but her fear of getting busted gravitated her to the seat.
Carol could not get a decent night sleep and had resorted to some creative problem solving. She was sick of spending her days in a sleepy fog, often forgetting to do the simplest things, followed by night, when her head would hit the pillow and the mental hurricane would begin. Ruminating the day’s problems, Carol would evaluate, analyze, resolve and re-invent. By morning, she was exhausted and the world’s problems were still unresolved. Carol had recently found someone with a small and unofficial stash and suddenly, her whole perspective on medications changed.
But now the state of Georgia required all workers to take random drug screens. Without an official prescription, a positive test for benzodiazepines would be grounds for immediate termination. And Carol knew better than to take other people’s medications. Had it not been for the desperation of being so sleep deprived, she wouldn’t have crossed that line. Now, that line was getting ready to bite her in the ass.
Carol heard her name being called, and stood to follow the nurse into the appointed waiting room. After being weighed and providing her arm for the nurse to cuff, Carol sat in the flimsy paper dress. She looked down at her small body. Her best current attribute was her tiny waist and thin frame. It was a battle she had fought all her life, cycling between a size eight and a size twelve. Her life’s mission was to stay thin, although there had been numerous times in the past when she had been on the losing side of that battle. Currently, she was a small person with a very large attitude. Carol could see her reflection in the waiting room mirror and gazed at her shoulder-length, curly brown hair framing tired blue eyes. Her youthful face was slowly fading and she could feel the weight of the world on her five foot two inch frame. Was the change in her appearance due to age or stress? She didn’t know the answer to that question, but hoped it was the latter. The alternative meant that her youth was coming to an end.
The opening of the examining room door startled Carol and she looked up to see a face she did not recognize.
“Carol Freeman?” the heavily accented Mediterranean doctor said. “What can I do for you today?"
“Is Doctor Wesley on vacation?" Carol inquired.
“No. Dr. Wesley left this facility and I am taking on his patients. I am Doctor Rami."
“Well," Carol began hesitantly. “I have been having a hard time sleeping and tried this medication, Valipene. It really helped and I was hoping to get some of my own today.” Carol could not help but notice the doctor’s demeanor change.
After a long hesitation, the doctor said, “Alright, but only enough for a few days.”
Carol was now becoming annoyed and told the doctor that her sleep problem had been going on for some time, and most surely would not go away in a few days.
After some additional infuriating conversation and unspoken suspicion on the part of Dr. Rami, Carol walked away with her prescription. Confused by the whole encounter, she wondered if the doctor had thought she was a drug addict. Knowing full well that she had no history of addiction herself or at any time had there been any in her family, Carol just shook her head. Jerk, she thought and left the building. She was going to sleep soundly tonight, and right now that was the only thing on Carol’s mind.
By the time she arrived at work, she had forgotten about the strange doctor. In fact, all of the morning’s events had disappeared. She happily walked to her office and thought for the first time in a while, Today is going to be a good day.
Carol picked up the messages left on her desk. When she saw the one from Buck Spears, she quickly turned and headed for the Center Director’s office. Heading down the long corridor, Carol’s thoughts creatively evaluated the possibilities. She had turned in the futile proposal, but who knows? This place never followed a logical course of action. When she reached Spear’s partially closed door, Carol knocked tentatively.
“Come,” the voice commanded. Carol entered the room and knew immediately from his face that all was not well.
“Did you tell one of my counselors that they could not leave at the end of the day?" Spears demanded.
“No," Carol said emphatically. “I merely inquired if she could interrupt her end of the day break to see a walk in."
Spears did not reply at first and glared at her. These encounters were happening more and more as Carol’s patience with what she perceived as lazy state workers was wearing thin.
“Carol," Spears sighed. “You have to use better tact. After all, you are a manager.”
An overworked one.
“But," Carol began.
“No buts," Spears interrupted. “I’m busy and there’s nothing more to say."
Carol looked at the Center Director. This had once been a reasonable individual. Now reason seemed to be replaced by hostility at every turn. Carol left Spear’s office fighting back the tears. When she made it to the privacy of her own, she let the tears flow. Never had she been so frustrated and felt so alone. It was as if the logical order of the world had been replaced with a new one that supported apathy and self-indulgence. She just couldn’t live in that world and was being beaten weekly for it.
Sam Reynolds had been working for Dominex Pharmaceuticals for the past five years in accounting. His recent promotion to Vice President of Operations had come two years ago when he had creatively saved the CEO’s proverbial ass. Mr. Charles Roman had an expensive lifestyle and this might have been his undoing. When the company’s upcoming audit would have revealed an unexplainable deficit, Sam’s ingenuity and the shifting of funds quietly made the indiscretion go away. The CEO recognized good work and employee potential. Now Sam was his right hand man.
Sam sat in a slightly smaller version of the office of the CEO. He had always been a stocky guy. His height of five foot ten did little to carry his extra weight. Furthermore, he had inherited his father’s early balding trait, and his receding black hairline continued to age the man. At the age of thirty-seven, he looked more like fifty. Sam knew he would never exude the corporate image and felt damn lucky to be where he was. With his own private secretary and big fat salary, Sam would go to the ends of the earth to protect his new status if need be. Today, the immediate problem did not require such travel, but it did require some quick maneuvers.
Several people had reported becoming ill after stopping use of the drug Valipene. These reports had made their way to the FDA and Dominex Pharmaceuticals was now being required to do some additional research on the effects of drug termination. Sam knew that a delay in marketing of the generic drug Suprame would create a financial burden the company might not survive. He shaped and re-shaped a paper clip in his hands as he worked the problem through in his head. He had to make this FDA requirement somehow go away.
In previous dealings with the FDA, Dominex had primarily worked with a very “receptive” officer. Bob Whitford had been the guy in charge of final approvals in Atlanta and had always been open to monetary gain. He had retired just prior to the final testing phase of Suprame. Everything that had been submitted up to that point had literally flown by the approval process.
When David Manning took over, he had become Dominex’s worst nightmare. He was a man of integrity. The man could not be moved by money, however he seemed to value the stability of his marriage. So, when Manning became the new figurehead in Atlanta, Sam took out an insurance policy, just in case. Well, the prior footwork was about to pay off. Sam reached for the phone and dialed a number he knew well.
“Rico," Sam said. “You remember those pictures you took of that guy from the FDA?”
“Sure," the man replied. “I didn’t know you could do that with Jell-O. He crumbled like a house of cards when he saw those pictures."
“Sure he did” Sam agreed. They had only used the photos as a warning. But the guy was either too stupid or too much of hero to take the bait. They had not been bluffing. Now it time to turn up the heat.
“So, what’s on the agenda for today?” the man inquired.
“Do you think you can find our Jell-O girl?"
“I think I can," the man stated.
“Good. And Rico," Sam added, “a lot is riding on this."
“Can I just rearrange his face?”
“No, leave the man’s face alone for the time being. Just set up a meeting place outside of here," Sam said and hung up the phone. The last thing they needed right now was a suspicious looking woman coming into the building. Sam allowed himself a moment of cocky revere. With his feet up on his desk, he leaned back and thought to himself how wonderful it was that pictures and negatives could be shred, but Jell-O girls never seemed to go away. Sam got to his feet and went to give Charles an update. But as he walked past the sixteenth floor elevator, the door opened. A beautiful woman emerged that Sam did not recognize. He watched her glide up to the office of the CEO, knock and enter as though she owned the company. This was clearly not a good time.
“Sheila," Charles said, almost as a song. “How was your day?"
“Long, Charlie," Sheila said flatly. She sat down in the chair facing Charles’s desk and removed her pumps. As she lifted each foot to give them a quick massage, Charles could not avoid noticing how her already short skirt rode to the top of her thigh. Charles got up and went to her, massaging her shoulders.
“What can I do to make you feel better?" Charles asked sweetly. This was exactly the question Sheila had hoped to hear.
“Sit down, Charlie," Sheila said. “I think I have the answer to that and maybe a whole lot more." During the next fifteen minutes, Sheila gave an impressive marketing proposal using charts, graphs and occasional cleavage. All but the cleavage was wasted on Charles, who only had one agenda. Sheila continued, despite the awareness that he really was not paying attention. “And in order to accomplish this,” she concluded, “I would have to be in a better position to oversee the daily workings of our department.”
“You want to be the head of marketing?” Charles asked in an amused tone. Sheila got up and put her arms around him.
“Don’t you think I can handle it?" Sheila purred, as she playfully kissed Charles on his ear. Charles was getting dizzy from the contact.
Never able to make a rational decision in the heat of battle, Charles said, “Okay, kid, but give me a few days. There’s a small matter of someone else currently occupying that spot.”
While a happy Sheila led a willing Charles to the couch, he thought, I’ll let Sam figure out how to pull that one off, and locked the door.
At the other end of the hall, Sam was just returning to his office when his phone rang. “Sam Reynolds," he answered.
“Jell-O girl’s name is Ann Boniture," the voice replied.
“Good Work, Rico," Sam said. “So where is she?”
“Still in town. At least she was last night."
“Well, let’s get a little bit better acquainted, shall we?”
Rico hung up the phone and tapped his index finger on the receiver a few beats. He was used to turning up the heat. The original blackmail had been used in the preliminary trials. At that point, Manning seemed to be on board. When the animal trials were approved, he had received the pictures and the negatives. Then he suddenly got a conscience.
Well, they were gone now. It would be almost impossible to lure Manning back into the same situation a second time. He had sworn off strip clubs. But the stripper still remained. He felt certain he could find a way to make this guy squirm at just the mention of her name. People conceded to threats when the implied consequences were ones that a person desperately wished to avoid. And he knew David Manning would die before he’d let his wife find out about what he’d done.
Rico locked the door of his dingy smoke-saturated first floor apartment. If things went well with Ann Boniture, his price would include a residential upgrade. In Atlanta, it was way past rush hour, a term that was becoming more and more redundant as the city had become a sprawling life force. People from all over the country were attracted here every year due to its mild weather and booming economy. Atlanta marched forward year after year, oblivious to recessions and unemployment rates. The result was a city that now stretched out for a one hundred mile radius and was continuing to expand every day.
Rico knew exactly where to find Ann Boniture. He had set the bait and taken the pictures that had subsequently been destroyed. He returned to the scene of the crime.
Ann Boniture was a career girl. Her current employment at the Blue Stallion as a dancer was only a short-term venture. Her lifelong dream was to get out of Georgia altogether and make it in Hollywood. She had saved an impressive amount of money, avoiding the drug trap. Ann lived a clean simple life, deviating only slightly when the proposition allowed her to add substantially to her bank account.
It was now 2:00 AM, and the few people remaining in the smoke-filled club were being asked nicely to adhere to last call. Ann gathered up her few belongings and began making her way to the door. It was late, and her level of fatigue made her the most extreme version of her anti-social self. So, when a vaguely familiar face asked for a moment of her time, she was more than a little resistant. When the man offered her a twenty-dollar bill, she slowed her pace and then finally said, “Okay, but please just a moment. I’m fried."
The man ushered her to a table and pulled a chair out for her. When they were both seated, Ann listened with partial patience.
“Do you remember a guy named David Manning?" Rico prompted.
“David Manning," Ann recited several times to herself. She couldn’t really place the name, and besides, at 2:00 AM, her brain was not functioning at its best.
“Pictures at the hotel," the man offered. “FDA."
“Oh yeah, now I remember," Ann said, cringing at the memory. “Not one of my finer moments."
“Well, it was a very productive moment," the man added. “And now my employer would like to offer you another, uh, business opportunity.”
Ann was now wide-awake and continued to listen.
“We want to know if you would be willing to go to his wife and, shall we say, share the details of that memorable night."
“I thought the pictures were enough and that this was over," Ann said.
“They were at the time. Now we need to engage this dude’s help again, and we think he probably won’t just offer it out the goodness of his heart."
“Fair assessment," Ann offered. “How much?" she added, always the accountant.
“My employer hadn’t actually gotten that far. How much do you need?"
“Twenty five hundred," Ann ventured. She knew that this “employer,” whoever he was, could easily fork out that much without a thought.
“I’ll check it out," Rico confirmed. Getting to his feet, he offered his hand in an informal agreement. Ann stood as well, and accepted the handshake. The man was quickly out the door, and Ann stood momentarily wondering how she could ruin someone’s marriage for twenty five hundred dollars.