I am wondering if any of you would consider reviewing the book. It will be released on Amazon/Kindle on October 18th. I need reviews from regular folks posted to amazon on the release day, if possible. You get a FREE pdf, word.doc or .mobi (Kindle ebook file) copy and plenty of time between now and mid-October to read it. Let me know, friends!
In Chapter Nine we start flashing back a few decades to learn about Mike's not-so-perfect past, but these are a series of events which shape his future for sure, and without which his company ExitStrategy would never have come into being. I had some fun with this chapter and the next in regard to details about Indiana, Michigan, and so on. I also drop a few things in here that become important later on-- it's actually kind of fun dropping little clues in to early chapters which will help later chapters seem logical!
I also had fun naming the gumshoe PI Jussi Bendek, after the great opera singer Jussi Bjorling!
CHAPTER NINE
Mike Burgess, Fall 1980
Do a line, then I’m outta here. A raise and a promotion, piece of cake. Stop sharing me with Frigidaire, GM all the way now, baby. Today’s the day—I can feel it.
Mike Burgess trotted out of his Glencoe, Illinois, apartment and jumped in his car, a 1979 Oldsmobile 88 with the optional 260 Olds engine. He wouldn’t be caught dead with the Buick six-cylinder engine they were dropping into most of the 88s now. Mike had every possible option added to the car and it drove like a dream. He especially liked the headroom, since he could slide his six-foot-four-inch frame behind the wheel with ease. Mike had not only created the coolant system and heating/air-conditioning design for this car and every other GM car since 1972, but he also had a part in redesigning the assembly line it was built on.
Okay, looking good. Not much traffic. Get through this stretch past downtown and then drive like a bat out of hell through goddamn Gary, Indiana, stinkin’ armpit of the Midwest. Just zoom on past that stench from the steel mills. Then hit the Michigan state line—smooth sailing from then on.
A few hours later Mike pulled into the GM corporate headquarters parking lot with time to spare. He parked his car and strode on through the famous entrance doors, smiling and shaking hands left and right as he made his way toward the elevators. He was a big man with an equally large personality—people were naturally drawn to him. As he stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the boardroom floor, he saw McDonald, one of the chairmen. McDonald tried to scramble in but the doors closed too fast. He tried to call out to Mike but it was too late. Wow, he looked kind of sour. Just from missing the elevator? Oh well, he’ll catch up. Good guy, doesn’t take any shit from Moore. McDonald has an electrical engineering background. Gotta like him, we engineering guys stick together!
Mike got off the elevator and shook hands with more pals in the hallway. This is gonna be a red-letter day, he thought. How much more money are they offering, I wonder? Hell, all the patents and the new work in plant design—I think I’m making senior VP, easy. And they won’t be sharing me with Frigidaire anymore.
“They’re ready for you, Mr. Burgess,” the receptionist controlling access to the boardroom said. Mike straightened his tie, then winked and smiled at her, “Here I go!” he announced. She looked blankly back at him. The Mike “Cold Smokey” Burgess charisma hadn’t yet won her over.
Mike pulled the door open and walked in with his usual confidence. He looked around and saw all the usual exec faces, but also two others he didn’t know. Bean counters probably, he thought. He moved around the room shaking a few hands, and then McDonald entered from the private entrance and sat down at the head of the table. There were ten or so men in attendance, plus a secretary taking notes.
“Greetings, Mike. Glad you got here safe and sound,” McDonald said.
“Glad to be here. I survived driving through Gary and the mills. No matter how many times I drive through there I can’t get used to that smell.”
“Well, Mike, don’t forget, a lot of that Gary steel winds up in our cars. Or in a lot of the stuff you’ve designed for Frigidaire over the years.”
“Sure, I was just making a joke. Guess it wasn’t that funny.”
“So, Mike,” McDonald announced, “I’m going to be running this meeting since we’ve known each other a long time. I’ve always respected your work. You’re a multitalented hardworking man and I appreciate all you’ve done for Frigidaire and GM in your time here. Carl here will start things off.”
“Thanks for being here, Mike. I echo Mr. McDonald’s sentiments,” said Carl Castle, a bald-headed fellow who always looked like he’d been sucking on lemons. “Mike, we’re all here because we’ve become aware that you like money.”
“Well, of course. That’s what GM is about, Carl. Didn’t you get the memo?” Mike zinged back. He looked around and to his surprise no one seemed to get his little joke—his sly putdown of Castle, the goddamn jerk.
“Yes, Mike. I understand. Clever. As I said, we’ve noticed you like money. And actually girls, too.”
Carl Castle? Really? The guy hates my guts. Everyone knows it. What’s he talking for, anyway? “Well sure, Carl, I think it’s safe to say we all like money here. And girls, too, right? We’re men, aren’t we?” Stone-cold silence. Even the fellows in the room who’d been his best work pals looked away, avoiding eye contact.
“Mike, there’s a difference between girls and women, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well sure. So, really, what’s this about, Carl? I thought this was a business meeting. Say, if it’s about production on that new thermocouple for the Impala I’ve got the specs in my car. I can go get them.” Jesus, something’s not right here. Damn fucking Castle, what the hell does he know? Dammit, dammit, dammit!
“Carl, get back to the main point, please,” McDonald insisted, looking pissed off.
“No, sir, I’m sorry. We need to go over this point first, do we not?” Castle said, looking over at a fellow who Mike had never seen before in his life. The man who stuck out by virtue of his ill-fitting $39.95 Montgomery Ward’s suit gave a tiny nod back to Castle.
“No, Mr. Castle,” McDonald said, “I said for you to move to the real point of this meeting. Ultimately I’m in charge here. Stick to the main point or you won’t speak any further.”
“All right, understood,” Castle said, trying to hide his disdain not only for Mike but for McDonald, too.
“Mike,” Castle snarled, “bottom line is that I don’t have to be nice to you. I can just hang you out to twist in the wind. You know why? Because right now I’m going to introduce you to someone who has become very interested in you. This is Special Agent Springer from the Internal Revenue Service here to my right. He’s got a few things to say.” This wasn’t the poorly dressed man Castle was trying to introduce before—this was a different fellow, trying, with little success, to herd a giant pile of folders on the desk, papers spilling out every which way.
Oh shit, they got me. Damn it, fucking goddammit, and fuck Castle. I should cold-cock him right now. Motherfucker! Mike could feel his face turning red, his blood pressure going through the roof. His urge to walk over to Castle and kill the bald-headed shit-fucking bastard with his bare hands was overwhelming.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Burgess, I’m agent Dirk Springer of the Internal Revenue Service out of Cincinnati. For a while now Frigidaire and GM accountants have been reviewing your expense accounts and have also been trying to resolve how you had access to and control of certain company bank accounts. They asked us to investigate and we’ve been doing so for about nine months now. Your personal bank has been cooperating with us for at least the last six months. I would like it on record that the IRS feels that GM and Frigidaire have done a poor job of controlling situations like this. We’ll be working with you to clean up some processes, correct, Mr. Wyatt?”
“Yes, GM will oblige and we’re ready to work with you,” said Larry Wyatt, GM head legal counsel. “That’s completely understood. Mr. Springer—please continue.”
“Mr. Burgess, I am here to inform you that the IRS is prepared to file charges against you next week for felony tax fraud in regard to massive unreported income, alleged to be embezzled GM funds, for tax year 1978. We are talking about criminal tax fraud, a felony. The files here on this table represent just a fraction of the information that will prove our case. The case against you is substantial. I suggest you listen closely to Mr. McDonald and GM legal counsel Mr. Wyatt when they lay out a path for you which may resolve this matter quickly. Just to be clear, the IRS is not charging you with embezzlement. That’s not part of the IRS—we are simply a taxing body. Embezzlement would be a state of Michigan matter. However, if the state did press charges we would fully cooperate. Thank you, Mr. Burgess for your attention.” And with that, Springer simply sat down. There was no drama—no vendetta. He wasn’t there to crucify Mike like Castle was. Mike hated the IRS, but at least he could give credit to Springer for treating him with decency and respect while speaking to him in front of his colleagues.
“So, there we have it,” Castle said. “And now I am going to turn to Mr. Bendek like I first wanted to. There is more to this situation. Mr. Bendek?”
The fellow with the cheap suit stood up. “My name is Jussi Bendek, I’m a private investigator. When the IRS started investigating this situation, they confirmed that they were only investigating his financial activities. But Mr. Castle desired more information about Mr. Burgess’s daily activity. He hired me, and in my investigation I found that he purchases cocaine for his private use. I also discovered that he seems to like young women, often taking them out to either what you might call dive bars but just as often to nice restaurants. Over the last year we identified these young women and determined their ages. Mr. Burgess, you met a Hazel Morganthaler in Flint, Michigan, on December 31, 1978. Do you recall that?”
“I refuse to answer your questions,” Mike said, recovering a little bit of his cool. “You’re obviously a tool of Castle’s. This is a fucking hatchet job. I have nothing to say.” McDonald’s sour expression finally turned into a smile. He nodded his approval to Mike, as did several other men.
“You drove Miss Morganthaler from Michigan,” Bendek continued, unfazed, “through Indiana to Illinois while she was, at that point, seventeen years old, in order to engage her in an act of prostitution, a violation of the Mann Act of 1910.”
“Oh, really?” Mike bellowed, pounding the table with his fist. “Castle, you asshole, you hired this two-bit sleaze ball
“I’m prepared to turn this over to the FBI right now, Mike,” Castle interrupted, waving Bendek off.
“Carl, shut the hell up,” Wyatt snapped, glowering at Castle, then turning to Mike. “Look, Mike, you do seem to have a weakness for young women, the Morganthaler girl aside. It’s fairly apparent. For now, though, let’s calm down and put things in perspective. If the board were to allow Mr. Castle to go the FBI they can probably fabricate a case to make against you somehow, even though I personally think you never slept with anyone underage.”
“Damn straight, Larry,” Mike said. “I’m not a pervert.”
“I understand, Mike,” Wyatt agreed, “but right now the FBI isn’t a friend of GM. I simply don’t want to deal with them. The IRS, however, is our friend. They work with us, not against us. The Mann Act is the FBI’s baby, but they know nothing about any of this yet. We’d like to keep it that way and I don’t believe Mr. Castle’s character assassination of you will prevail. Carl, I’m head legal counsel here. I’m telling you right now to stay out of my territory, and I highly advise you to stop drumming up support with various board members about what your PI was up to. You brought the IRS in on this before we had even finished our internal investigation. That doesn’t sit well with me or anyone else in this room.” Wyatt turned back to Mike, softening his tone. “Anyway, Mike, the real situation is this—you embezzled the money. You know it, I know it. It’s a fact. You have a coke problem as well. And right now we don’t want the media to have any juicy stories to print about us. Fighting off the Japanese for market share is our big job right now, understand? We don’t want shareholders to worry about this kind of stuff, too. Therefore, we have no choice but to keep this quiet and let you go.”
“Mike,” McDonald jumped in, “does this have anything to do with situations where you were expecting bonuses from us? You know, when we licensed out patents you worked on? I’m pretty sure you were angry about that.”
“You bet I was angry,” Mike answered. “You made ten million selling off my new coolant recycle design and didn’t give me a penny. All I asked for was some part of that pie. I thought I was working for GM—not those other companies.”
“Mike, it wasn’t your design. You know how this works. Anything you did while an employee was the property of GM to do with as the company pleased.”
“And the board couldn’t give me anything? I’ve made this company millions of dollars. Many fucking millions. So yeah, that’s why I did it. I was damn angry. I did it to mess with GM—to prove I was smarter than GM. And it wasn’t hard, by the way. You’ve got a lot of leaks in your system. Come to think of it, fellas, if GM’s fiscal security was a radiator, you’d be on the side of the road with steam blasting out the hood.”
“Duly noted, Mike,” McDonald said with a slight grin.
Mike let out a deep sigh as he pushed himself away from the big table, trying to figure out what to do or say for the moment. It wasn’t their fault. He had been in the coke haze weeks, months on end, plotting revenge like a maniac. How could he have had such a serious lapse in judgment, in character? And now it was over. A relief, actually. Thank God for friends. Sure, Castle was a total asshole, but there were other men in the room who, he knew, loved him as a friend and as a colleague. He had let them all down. And even just McDonald being there, sort of on his side, meant the world to Mike now.
“So, Mike,” Wyatt continued, “GM knows that we have a number of people in the company with cocaine problems, it’s a problem all over the country, I hear. You’ll have to sort that issue out for yourself. Frankly, it’s neither here nor there to us right now. GM leadership believes along with me about you and the women. None were underage, just good-looking twentysomethings, correct? Don’t listen to Castle. Don’t let him rattle you. When Cunningham and Farrell leave the board in about six months, he’ll be fired. He pretty much hung himself when he spilled all this to the IRS without coming to me.” Wyatt shot a withering look at Castle, who shriveled under the glare. “The amount you embezzled would seem very large to John Q. Public, but to GM it’s a tiny piss in the ocean. So here’s where we stand with Agent Springer—GM will not ask you to turn the money back in—it will still be viewed as income. We’ve worked out a deal wherein GM will pay your taxes, late fees, penalties, the whole nine yards. We’re settling with the IRS and after today they don’t know you from Adam. All you have to do is resign and walk away. Plus one more thing. We want you to write down how you got the money—how you did it. We want that so we can tighten things up, understand? We’ve got papers here for you to sign. Everyone else is going to walk out now except for Agent Springer, McDonald, and myself. You look over the papers and I’ll answer any questions you have, but you need to sign these today, understand?”
“Yes, Larry, thank you. I apologize to you all. It should never have happened. Thank you, and I hope you can forgive me,” Mike said sadly, looking from face to face. The other men shuffled out of the room, most of them giving him a firm handshake or a bear hug as they went. Wyatt brought the resignation papers over to Mike.
“Okay, Mike, go ahead and read all this. Please note that you can’t take any of our intellectual property to your next employer. That’s very important.” McDonald, Wyatt, and Springer sat patiently while Mike read everything. It was all straightforward. There was zero mention of the cocaine or of the Mann Act crap.
“Okay,” Mike said. “Now what?”
“Here’s a pen. You’ve got to sign here and there, and initial over here on this page a couple times, see? Press hard for the carbons, okay?”
“Okay,” Mike said, “what else?”
“Now you need to sign this amended tax return the IRS has prepared for you,” said Wyatt. “Look it over and sign that and you’re off the hook with the IRS. No charges, no prison, nothing. The state of Michigan and the FBI will not be brought in. And for your own sake, Mike, clean up your drug problem. You don’t want to risk going to jail for that, do you? Anyway, look at this way out as GM’s thank-you for your many years of inspired service, and we’re sorry this happened just as much as you are.” Wyatt gave Mike some time to read over the IRS amended return. “Okay, now take this piece of paper and write down how you got into those accounts. You can just sketch it out for us. Listen, Mike, there’s nobody on this planet who can replace you at GM. It’ll probably take three guys to do what you did for us. Best of luck as you move forward with your life.” Mike finished up the quick narrative on how he easily funneled GM money into accounts he controlled and then handed it to Wyatt.
“Mind if I keep this pen, Wyatt?”
“Sure, of course.”
“You can have this, too, Mike.” McDonald slid an envelope over to Mike.
“What’s this?” Mike asked.
“It’s our thank-you,” McDonald explained. “The board decided, who amongst us is without fault? The chairman says we made a mistake by not rewarding you enough. We should have done more all along to make you happy. You made a mistake, a big one, and maybe there should have been a public punishment—that’s what pricks like Castle would like to see happen. But having to resign from GM is a gigantic punishment just in itself. We hope you’ll reinvent yourself. I mean hell, that’s what you do, man. You invent!”
“Thank you all,” Mike said humbly as he rubbed his tired eyes. “Mr. Springer, I’m sorry—and I didn’t think I would ever say I’m sorry to the IRS for anything, but here I am doing it now. Thank you all,” he muttered again as he stuffed the envelope in his suit. “Wait, Larry, do I have someplace to sleep tonight if I drive back to Glencoe?”
“Yes. The company lease for your apartment is good for another seven weeks. Drive carefully going back, okay? Can you handle that?”
“Yeah, I can. Hope to see you sometime.” Mike shook hands with all three men, walked out of the room, and got on the elevator. Half an hour earlier, in this very same elevator car, he had been dreaming about nabbing a senior VP job and a fat raise. That sure as hell didn’t pan out. The elevator brought him down to the lobby. He sat down on a bench, took a deep breath, then slowly tore open the envelope McDonald had given him. Inside was his final Frigidaire/GM check—all his company retirement account money and other accrued benefits added together, then rounded up, way up to the figure of exactly $750,000—GM’s way of somewhat turning a blind eye and thanking him for his years of genius and dedication.
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