by Adam Graham
McCall smiled. “So would you at least agree to an increase to a $54,000?”
“No! Uh, they deserve to be paid more than me.” Powerhouse rubbed his helmet. “Um, they don’t have as much control over their hours as I do, and they had to go to school.”
Pastor Jones put up her hand. “Powerhouse, I hear what you’re saying, but I’ve seen this before. Mr. Delaney and Mr. McCall are concerned about you and want to honor you. You need to honor them and their wisdom. It can lead to bad feelings if you don’t. I’ve seen it happen and we should avoid that. You could take a smaller increase. Something you’d be comfortable with.”
What would be enough to satisfy them? “I motion—”
“—you mean you move,” Barbara snapped.
The word “parliamentarian” in her title at his company just had to mean it was her job to be picky. Powerhouse grunted. “I move to increase my salary by $5,000.”
Naomi nodded. “Per year and starting in the next fiscal year right?”
“Sure.” So long as it ended this uncomfortable dissection of his worth.
Mitch Farrow leaned back in a steam room at his health club. His heart panged. He should be in Europe with Rosie. He shook his head. That would be giving up and admitting he couldn’t stop Powerhouse and save his daughter by securing the invasion of King Bel.
He hadn’t even had a good media attack on Powerhouse in days.
A leathery, graying man entered the steam room clad in a white towel
Where did he know this guy from? Farrow eyed the guy a second. Oh yeah, it was John Delaney, owner of Blue Cat Comics, Powerhouse Family Insurance, and a few other companies.
Delaney scowled at Farrow and flopped at the end of the bench farthest from him.
Farrow strolled over, settled beside him, and reached in his pocket for a cigarette. “Mind if I smoke?”
“I don’t care if you burn!” Delaney breathed in a chest-heaver. “I’m here for my health and don’t need to smell that junk. There are regulations.”
“Aren’t those for the little people?”
Delaney glared. “Maybe if I was a numbskull who thought it a good idea to put a cancer stick in my mouth.”
“Then why do you own stock in tobacco companies?”
“People can kill themselves if they want, just not around me.”
Farrow sighed. He didn’t need this. “What’s with your animosity?”
“I don’t appreciate your private eyes snooping around my kids’ lives. Yes, they’re as wild as I was at their ages, but I settled down when I was sixty-five and that’s that. My whole life’s an open book, so are the kids’. There’s nothing you can blackmail us with, so stop it, or I’ll make life unpleasant for you.”
As he had to deal with Varlock, life was already unpleasant. He cleared his throat. “I don’t—”
“—stand a chance of bulling me. You’re not the only one who can hire a private eye. I know who sent them. Further, if this were in New York, I’d have a one-word guess for how an unemployed journalist got a CEO job: mafia.”
Whoa. Delaney was way too close for comfort. “That’s absurd.”
“Really? You’ve got no business experience, and you’re in charge of the second most profitable corporation in the world. Dorado has great double digit revenue reports every quarter since the 1960s, so a trained monkey could do the business side of your job and still smell like roses. But why you? You’re a puppet on a string.”
“I could sue you for slander.”
“Only if I said it on the record. I won’t, anymore than I’ll publicly call it suspicious that Dorado Industries manufactured the Robolawyers that went on a rampage under the control of the Pharaoh when your name is Farrow.”
Okay, keep your cool, Pharaoh. “Should I expect a visit from federal stooges to discuss your fantasies, or from your boy Powerhouse?”
Delaney guffawed. “If the cops can’t see it on their own, I won’t risk embarrassing myself. However, should anything untoward happen to me, after my death, my lawyer will share my suspicions. Maybe, I’ve watched too many mysteries, but to me that’s how you smell, and I have a definitely rational reason to hate you, too. You’re messing with my big score.”
“Pardon?”
“I didn’t even get my net worth up to $200 million until I was fifty-five. I had to sweat for every penny. I’d barely made it to half a billion until I was conned into buying Ross Family Insurance by the crime boss who’d ruined it. Thanks to you, Powerhouse needed a liability policy. I sold him that policy for the price of his name. Now we’re seeing real growth, so I bought Blue Cat Comics, too, and now I’m raking in the profits from Powerhouse’s new family friendly line of comics that are bringing in thousands of new readers.”
“Is that a corporate sales talk or do you have a point?”
Delaney poked Farrow’s chest. “Someday, Powerhouse Incorporated will be a billion dollar property—and all mine. You’re doing your best to delay that with your slander and lies. You’ve cost me millions already through the efforts you’ve done to blackout Powerhouse’s achievements in the national media. By trying to ruin him, you’re trying to ruin me. That eliminates the possibility of friendly business rivalry and leaves only war.”
Stiffening, Farrow sneered. “Naturally, it’s about the Benjamins at Camp Powerhouse. Money is the true supreme god of every religion. Well, us atheists are sincerely concerned about relieving human suffering.”
“Who said I’m religious?” Delaney smirked. “My interest is financial, but Powerhouse? At the last board meeting, someone proposed raising his salary to $350,000, which is reasonable, and he fought it. He finally accepted a paltry $5,000 a year increase to $40,000. The guy doesn’t have a greedy bone in his body, but you’ll never read things like that in your rag.”
Farrow grinned. “Oh, I don’t know. I could surprise you.”
Naomi sat at the oak dining room table.
Dave had out his collector’s edition of Captain America: The Winter Soldier as he’d been reading it along with Derrick and James. The boys were wearing swimming shorts and t-shirts. Dave was in a Spider-Man t-shirt. “You boys still want to go to camp?”
“Yeah.” James nodded vigorously.
Derrick said, “About ten other guys we know are going.”
Dave glanced at Naomi’s frown and grimaced. “I need to be honest. I don’t like the idea, boys. Time together as a family is really important.”
James pouted. “But Dad!”
This was working splendidly. Naomi smiled. Dave had to play the bad guy, and she’d get the boys to stay home. Well, a little break would be good, just not all summer. “It’s okay, boys. We’ll have fun at home. Though, Dave, maybe we could send them to a two-week camp?”
“Sorry, honey, I was still thinking.” Dave cleared his throat. “Boys, your mom gave me this awesome responsibility of making such a big decision. So I researched the camp. Every review talked about how it built up your body, your character, and your faith. Your mother is always reminding me that our job is to help you grow into men. I prayed about it, then I flew out there and thought how much I’d liked to have gone somewhere like this when I was a boy. It’d be selfish of me to keep you from this great opportunity, plus we can have a week together as a family before school starts. So you can go.”
The boys cheered and hugged her coward of a husband. “Thanks! You’re the best, Dad!”
Naomi frowned and closed her eyes. Okay, so that’d backfired. He’d done what she’d asked and made an adult decision. It wouldn’t be fair now to complain that it’d differed from hers. She evidently hadn’t made it clear to him that giving in was unacceptable cowardice.
Why couldn’t mind-reading be one of their superpowers? His excuses for giving in sounded rational and unselfish, but didn’t he know their sons like she did? Surely he also well knew her precious little babies weren’t old enough to survive away from her for so very long.
Tears filled her eyes. Naomi dashed off,
half-blinded by the flood, but made it into their room and buried her face in her pillow, sobbing. That man sent her babies off to die in the woods, and it was all her fault.
The door opened. Dave entered. “Naomi.”
She wiped her face and sat up. “I hope you’ve thought of the fact sons of your CEO could be kidnapped by your enemies.”
Dave blinked. “I talked to Big Gray, and he said he can monitor them by satellite and can get to where they’re at from anywhere in the world.”
“Fast enough to prevent a kidnapping? Fast enough to stop a sniper’s bullet?” Naomi folded her arms. “Big Gray’s always off gallivanting, as if he didn’t like being around anymore.”
“He said that he’ll ensure, wherever he’s at, he can be at the boy’s camp in fifteen minutes using his airship.”
“That’s too slow. They’d be dead or vanished off the grid by the time he reached their last known location.” Naomi frowned. If she wanted her boys kept safe, she’d have to do it herself. “I could be there in five minutes.”
Dave raised his eyebrows. “Um, that’s three hundred miles away.”
And five minutes was still an eternity in a crisis. Naomi swallowed. “If we send them, one of us will need to go to the area and stay in a hotel.”
Dave nodded. “I understand how you feel, but they’ll be fine. I’ve read more comics books than you.”
“This isn’t a comic! It’s real life and far more dangerous.”
“Yes, I always take security into account. I just don’t like to have them obsessed with it. They know not to talk to strangers and to be safe in general, but I don’t want our sons to be constantly looking over their shoulders for a mob boss or a homicidal maniac in a costume. Their childhood’s weird enough already. Is total safety worth the price of a normal childhood?”
Yes, if it kept them alive to adulthood. Naomi glowered. Arguing was pointless. “I’m glad you care about it.”
She plopped on the bed. He cared enough to outsource taking care of their babies to their alien chef who couldn’t be bothered to come to their aid fast enough to stop the bad guys from kidnapping or killing her children.
“Um, honey,” Dave said.
Naomi frowned. “What?”
“What if I had an artificial tree in place to protect them?”
Naomi stared. “You want to send a tree to keep our boys safe? What could a tree do?”
“Now you’ve challenged me. Don’t worry, I’ll come up with something awesome for a tree to do to protect the boys.” Dave grinned. “I was thinking, with the boys gone for the summer, maybe we could take a trip. You’ve been wanting to go to Paris.”
France. She’d been dreaming of going back there since her junior year of college, only not as a bribe to get her to endanger her—well, maybe they could buy bus tickets in the boys’ name to another location, then have Powerhouse secretly drop them off at the actual campsite. Then the only way villains would know her kids were there was if someone at the camp talked.
Surely they wouldn’t. They’d be too well-trained on how to keep their campers safe from normal predators, like abusive ex-husbands who’d steal the kids to hurt their wives. “I’m listening.”
Dave hunched his shoulders. “Captain France has a penthouse in Paris that Powerhouse’s friends the Johnsons can use. He said we can see the whole city from up there.”
Turning him down would do nothing to keep her babies safely where Super Soccer Mom could protect them. She smiled. “When do we leave?”
Dave’s shoulders relaxed. “July 5. I’ll officially finish as the story editor on the comics I’m working on. After that, Mr. Delaney said I can take a couple months off.”
“Months off? I thought the position was only temporary?”
“So did I, but the sales numbers are so good, he wants to talk about an extension. He hasn’t given me a contract yet, but we could afford to send the kids could go to any college they wanted.”
Naomi swallowed. Why did she feel jealous of him being a corporate executive? She was the CEO of his corporation herself. Of course, she only had one full time and one part time employee, not a phalanx of creative talent.
“Anyway, I hope Paris is nice.” Dave opened his arms for a hug.
Naomi rushed into his arms. Paris would be great. Powerhouse would fly the kids safely to camp, and any would-be kidnappers would lose their trail at the bus the boys didn’t actually board.
Perhaps they could make it look like they’d sent the boys to stay with Miss Invisible in NYC. It’d be deceptive, but her kids’ safety came first, right?
Her phone buzzed. She retrieved it from her pants pocket and glanced at the message. Read this. Bad news. Jeff.
She pressed the link. It was a story from the Seattle Guardian.
The headline read, “With tight economy, Powerhouse gives himself a 14% Pay Increase.”
The accompanying picture showed shabbily dressed street people.
Naomi slapped her head. Someone on the board had talked to the press.
Mitch Farrow was in costume as the Pharaoh in his dimly underground office with the computer model that Apple was going to release in another six months. Dorado had its way of getting hold of these things.
Fournier and Varlock sat near him watching the TV screen of the local news station.
On the screen, Brent McCall emerged from the office wearing a spring weight suit and walked to the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen of the press, when Powerhouse heard the Guardian’s story, he at once offered to return the pay increase. Instead, I have given a $5,000 certified check to the Powerhouse Foundation. That’s where the vast majority of my client’s earnings go.”
Pharaoh snickered. “But he’ll get a nice tax write off for that.”
McCall frowned as he continued on the TV. “I hear this story originated with Mitch Farrow after an unguarded moment with a member of our board. The same Mitch Farrow wrote back in 2010, ‘You cannot underestimate the harmful degree to which corporations manipulate so-called ‘unbiased news’ from subsidiary companies to their own ends.’
“Of course, he wrote that when he was just a blogger. Now he is the one manipulating the news.” McCall looked from journalist to journalist and smiled like the barracuda he was. “Thanks to the allegedly scandalous pay increase, Powerhouse now earns $40,000 a year. Last year, we paid Powerhouse $35,000 for saving this city from the menace Farrow’s company created, repelling a national security threat, improving Seattle’s most desperate neighborhoods, staging hundreds of rescues, and apprehending thousands of criminals. Mitch Farrow earns a salary of $20,000 a day to help no one but himself. Which man is overpaid? Thank you very much.”
The Pharaoh leaned back in his chair and poured himself a glass of whiskey. He raised a glass to the TV.
McCall had done a good job slamming him. However, that simply meant not everyone employed at Powerhouse Incorporated was a gullible moron like their boss. Was he getting that desperate?
Varlock stuck his tongue out. “You’re the one who’s overpaid.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Varlock swished his tongue. “You made an awful error that has hindered even my brilliant plans. I shall go to my lair to escape what you Earthmen call, ‘the bad vibes’ here so that I can locate and correct your error and crush Powerhouse into the dust beneath my feet.”
With that, Varlock pushed himself up and strolled out the door.
Fournier pointed to his head. “Mr. Farrow, please take off the helmet.”
“This had better be important.” He removed the Pharaoh headdress and placed it on his desk. “Yeah?”
Fournier straightened his pink bowtie. “Sir, I’m staging an intervention with you. I’ve brought along everyone who cares about you.”
The Pharaoh glanced around the room. “You’re the only one here.”
“Sadly, yes.” Fournier stood and rested his hand on Farrow’s shoulder in an impersonation of the mythical beast known as a l
oving father. “I want to begin by saying I appreciate and respect you as a colleague. You’re probably the best crime boss I’ve ever worked for.”
“Flatterer.”
“However, your drinking on the job is beginning to concern me.”
“I never get drunk.” Here.
“Let’s see.” Fournier pulled out a device. “Blow into this.”
Farrow scowled but blew into the device.
The little screen displayed the results, 0.06 blood alcohol level.
Farrow smirked. “Told you. I’m not legally drunk.”
“But you are buzzed, sir. Something is bothering you, and I’m concerned it’s affecting your work. Is it your family? You mentioned they were ill. Why don’t you go visit them?”
Farrow scowled. His ex-wife and daughter had AIDS because he’d gotten a life-saving blood transfusion in Brazil. How could he face Rosie when it was his fault his precious little girl was dying? He clenched his fist and threatened to deck Fournier. “Mind your business or I’ll have you assassinated.”
“Sir, you might someday throw a punch at me without pulling it, but you only kill with hesitance, and merely firing me isn’t an appealing option.”
“If I bare my soul to anyone, it won’t be you. Now get out of here.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll be in my lab.” Fournier waddled out of the lair.
Pharaoh pulled a flask of whiskey out of his drawer and gulped until fire rushed to his stomach and the fear and stress were less overwhelming. Now he had to be over the legal limit.
Chapter 4
The Infamous Statue
Naomi stared at the handwritten letter in her hands.
Dear Mom,
Everything is great at camp. Having a good time.
Love,
Derrick
The letter from James said the same thing, only with his name signed at the bottom instead of Derrick’s. Naomi glanced at the page-a-day calendar and ripped off yesterday’s date to reveal today was June 30th. They’d been at camp for a month, and all the letters were the same.
