Lords of Corruption Read online

  "What?" she said gazing at the ground. "You know damn well what. How much money has she gotten out of Mom?" "Not that much."

  "I want that thieving bitch out of here, Laura."

  "I know, but Mom won't --"

  She fell silent again when Josh turned and stalked off.

  "Fawn! What the hell are you doing here?"

  She stepped from the car, attempted a disinterested hair flip only to be thwarted by too much hairspray, and then ducked into the backseat to retrieve a box.

  Fawn Mardsen was the daughter of their second stepfather. Not actually a blood relation but often mistaken for one because of her superficial resemblance to Laura. Though a few years older, she was the same height, had the same thin, slightly sickly physique, and wore her hair dyed to approximately Laura's natural shade. Her pale skin wasn't genetic like Laura's either, but a symptom of her aversion to the outdoors and anything resembling an honest day's work.

  She hefted the box and turned confidently but hesitated when she was forced to look into Josh's face. "Hey, I didn't see you back there on the road. Congratulations on graduating -- that must be a weight off, huh?"

  He remained silent.

  "Sorry about not coming and getting you at the airport, but you know, I've been super busy."

  "Really?" he said. "Doing what exactly? Do you have a job?"

  "Yes," she snapped back, "I have a good job."

  "Fawn's starting a business," Laura said, subtly taking a position between them.

  "Yeah, and it's going really well," Fawn said. "Actually, it might be an opportunity you'd be interested in. Your mom's getting in on the ground floor. It's a smart move."

  "A smart move? What happened to the money Mom put into your last business, Fawn? What was that one again? Something about online pet grooming?"

  When it became obvious that he wasn't going to step out of her way, Fawn set the box down and lit a cigarette. She took a long drag on it before she spoke again. "Yeah, and what are you doing? Other than sitting around in a classroom that costs a hundred grand a year --"

  Josh's eyes widened, and Laura grabbed his hand. "Josh, she didn't mean --"

  "Who provided the car you drive around in, Fawn? You? Or was it me?" He thumbed behind him at the broken-down trailer. "Who keeps the heat on in there? Oh, yeah. It's me. What exactly do you contribute?"

  "Who the fuck do you think you are, Josh? Mr. I'm-better-than-everybody-elsebecause-I-went-to-college. You're never here. You haven't been for years."

  "Get out, Fawn. I don't want to see you around here anymore."

  She just laughed and threw her cigarette on the ground, grinding it out with what looked like a fairly expensive shoe. "What are you going to do, Josh? You may pay the bills, but this is still your mom's place. And let me tell you something, you're out of here before I am. You just don't treat that woman right. And I do."

  She picked up her box and brushed past him, pushing through the door and calling out for his mother. "Momma? How you doin' today? All right?"

  Josh took a few deep breaths and tried not to grind his teeth. The one dentist he'd seen in the last six years had told him he wouldn't have any teeth left when he was forty if he kept it up.

  "Josh," Laura started, "you've got to

  He held a hand up, once again silencing her.

  The thing that really pissed him off was that Fawn wasn't completely wrong. She gave his mother exactly what she needed a loser to take care of. His mother wanted more than anything to feel needed, and her curse was that both he and Laura could make it better on their own.

  "None of the money you're making at the store is going to her, right, Laura?"

  "Come on. I'm not stupid."

  The first time Fawn had shown up on their doorstep, Josh had been sympathetic. Her father was a world-class son of a bitch, and she'd obviously needed help. She stayed with them for a few months, contributing nothing, expecting him and Laura to wait on her hand and foot, and then one day disappeared at the same time as a piece of jewelry their grandmother had left them probably the only valuable thing the family had ever owned. And now she returned at least once a year, broke and sniffing around for what she could get.

  He climbed the cracked wooden stairs and yanked the screen door open, ignoring Fawn as he pushed past her and headed to the bedroom at the back.

  He found his mother on her bed, wearing a robe that over the years had faded to the same color as the sheets. The ashtray next to her was full, and there were two empty beer cans on the floor.

  "Mom?"

  She just lay there, eyes closed and an arm hanging off the bed. Her nails were yellow and un-cared-for, some broken off close to the skin, others curling like claws.

  Josh backed away and fell into a chair, watching her chest move subtly up and down. She looked like she had lost weight, and it caused the wrinkles in her face to deepen to the point that they were beginning to look like gouges.

  They'd never had much, but you didn't really need all that much to be happy. To be a family. Poverty couldn't be blamed for what had happened to them. It was hundreds of little bad decisions that had added up to this disaster. And that was the problem. It made it too easy to dwell on "what if" scenarios. What if she hadn't been an alcoholic? What if his dad had hung around?

  But he hadn't. And in his place, Josh had suffered through a procession of useless stepfathers. The last -- number four -- still stared at him from a crooked frame on the wall. He'd been a real prick -- worse than numbers one and three but not quite as bad as Fawn's father. It looked like that was going to be the last picture, though. His mother, once a real natural beauty, was in no condition to attract another man. And since she didn't count her children, that left her pretty much alone.

  His cell phone rang, and he picked up. "Hello?"

  "Josh Hagarty, please."

  "Speaking."

  "Hi, this is Bill at Alder Data Systems."

  Josh sat a little straighter. "Bill! It's good to hear from you. I'm really looking forward to meeting with you and talking about joining your team."

  "Yeah. About that. I'm afraid we're going to have to cancel."

  "Can we reschedule for some time that would be more convenient?"

  "I don't think so, Josh. Your resume looks great, but we've decided to go with someone else."

  Josh suddenly felt nauseated. "Bill, you're making a mistake. If you think I'm looking for some insane amount of money, you're wrong. I understand you're a small company, and that's what's exciting to me. I think I can really help you achieve the potential --"

  "The decision's been made, Josh. I'm sorry it didn't work out."

  Shock turned quickly to anger. "Jesus Christ, Bill. I'm scheduled to be back in town for that interview, and I've been stalling other companies until we talked. Now you're telling me you're just blowing me off?"

  "You're just not what we're looking for, Josh. I'm sorry."

  "But --"

  The phone went dead, and he swallowed hard before looking back at the source of the rustling behind him. Fawn was standing in the doorway, looking down at him with a broad smile splitting her face.

  Chapter 5.

  The sense of deja vu was somewhat diminished by the fact that this was Josh Hagarty's first experience with a second interview. Of course he'd listened hungrily to his friends' stories about them, but those narratives had always had the faded impact of someone describing color to a blind man. Now all that was going to change.

  He glanced at his watch and jogged across the street, aware that he was doing everything exactly as he had before -- a slip into superstition and compulsive behavior, for sure, but there was no point in taking chances.

  The receptionist smiled and called him by name, telling him to "just go on back." The informality felt like a good sign, and his confidence rose as he navigated the hallway to the waves and greetings of the people behind open doors. It was like he'd worked there his whole life.

  "Stephen?"

  Trent rose f
rom behind his desk and waved him in. "Josh! I really appreciate you coming on such short notice. I know how busy you must be."

  "My pleasure. I appreciate you inviting me back." Josh sat and tried to relax as Trent dragged up a chair to face him.

  "I don't see any reason to beat around the bush. We'd like to offer you the job."

  Josh felt his breath catch in his chest but managed to get normal respiration going again before it became obvious. Or he turned blue.

  "The salary we're offering is forty thousand a year." The moment he said it, Trent immediately raised a hand to head off the uncontrollable laughter he apparently expected. "You've got to understand that it's really difficult for us to compete on salary with the private sector guys who are courting you. Our donors would be understandably upset if they thought everything they were giving was going to American employees and not the Africans we're trying to help. It's hard to explain to them that getting good people saves us money in the long run."

  Josh nodded sympathetically but was actually barely listening. Instead he was calculating the payments on his student loans and making assumptions about financial aid for Laura's college tuition. Forty thousand was incredibly low. It was a number that forced him to consider what he could make running the service center of a decent-sized car dealership.

  "What we can do, though, is support you in less direct ways," Trent continued. "For instance, we'll make the payments on your student loans as long as you work for us. Our donors value education, so it's not such a hard sell."

  That made Josh stop thinking about rebuilding transmissions and focus on the conversation again.

  "We also provide full medical benefits for you and your family. If and when you might decide to start one."

  "I have a sister," Josh said.

  "Well, what we're talking about is more for wives and kids."

  Josh didn't react, and Trent smiled. "Let me see what I can do. In fact, let's just say we'll figure out a way to get your sister on the policy."

  Josh nodded noncommittally.

  "We also cover most tuition for your dependents. Normally that wouldn't include your sister, but for the sake of argument, let's say it does. Is she in school?"

  "She graduates high school this year." "Then we'd cover the costs of her college."

  "When you say cover . . ."

  "I mean cover. Tuition and living expenses as long as she lives on campus. Also, I want you to keep in mind that all your housing, food, and expenses are taken care of when you're in Africa. So while the salary doesn't sound that impressive, most of our people just have it deposited in a bank here in the States and never touch it. Compare that with how much you'd be able to save living in New York -- even if you were making five times as much."

  Josh leaned back in his chair and struggled to keep his expression hovering between skepticism and mild boredom. Trent was talking about Laura having medical coverage for the first time in her life and getting to go to an Ivy League school instead of shopping around for the cheapest in-state school they could find. If he worked at NewAfrica for five years, Laura would graduate from college free of debt, he'd have the better part of two hundred grand in the bank, and he could play his experience and philanthropy against his criminal record to prospective employers. And as an added bonus, he'd get to see the world and maybe help a few people out along the way.

  Unless, of course, somebody hacked his head off with a machete.

  "I've had some time to do a little more research on the part of Africa you operate in, Stephen. It seems really . . . fascinating."

  In truth, he hadn't needed to do any research at all. Laura had gone nuts on the subject, following him around reading excerpts from the information she found surfing the Net and poring over books and magazines. But when balanced against the compensation package Trent had just rolled out, what did a little brutal violence, deadly disease, and crushing poverty matter?

  "I won't lie to you, Josh. We're not talking about sending you to London, here. It's an area with a lot of problems. If it wasn't, they wouldn't need us."

  "From what I read, a lot of charities have pulled out."

  Trent nodded. "The country is basically split into three sections. In the North the Xhisa tribe has a strong majority. It's the seat of the government, and that's where some very profitable mining goes on. Overall, it's fairly stable. In the South, the Yvimbo have a weak majority, and there's a fair amount of tribal violence and rebel activity."

  "And the middle section?"

  "Is where you'd be working," Trent replied. "There have been a lot of refugees coming up from the South to escape the fighting -- both Xhisa andYvimbo. So we're working there to get the people out of the refugee camps and back to productive lives."

  "The president of the country is Xhisa, right?"

  Trent nodded. "Umboto Mtiti. He's a decent guy who's working hard to unite the country, but it's an almost insurmountable task. Tribal animosity runs deep in that part of the world."

  It was an interesting take on the situation and more or less mirrored the sentiments of the American press. Laura had been more thorough than that, though, and she'd printed articles from all over the world. The European papers made no bones about Mtiti getting and holding his position through brutality and corruption but conceded that allowing a power vacuum to be created would be a dead end for his country. The South Africans were more pessimistic, with one editorial suggesting the country was completely hopeless and going the way of Somalia and Sudan.

  "Sounds exciting."

  "I guarantee it."

  "So what would I be doing?"

  Trent smiled. "You'd be managing a Yvimbo agricultural project not too far from one of the main refugee areas. The hope is that we can move a bunch of people out of the camps and into this self-sustaining farming community within a year or so."

  "And when would I need to make a decision?"

  "I'm sorry to say that we basically needed an answer yesterday. The project's adrift, and we're a little desperate."

  Chapter 6.

  "Don't touch that!"

  Josh released the box in his hands and let it drop back onto the table. Fawn was standing in the middle of the trailer, hands planted firmly on her hips.

  "That stuff's valuable and it's complicated and it has to stay in order."

  "Order?" Josh said, looking around the tiny trailer at the boxes stacked on virtually every surface. There was no writing on the sides, so he peeked into an open one, ignoring Fawn's noisy protests. It was full of large plastic bottles. According to the labels, most contained diet pills, but some also made vague promises about liver function and increased muscularity.

  "Stop it! Get away from those."

  He dipped a hand into an open box nestled behind the kitchen table and came up with a container of pills that claimed to be the ancient secret to penis enhancement.

  "So this is it? This is your new business?"

  Fawn snatched the bottle from his hand. "While you're off in Africa, someone has to take care of this family."

  He actually managed to laugh, and for a moment his fantasies about killing Fawn became less violent -- tending toward strangulation as opposed to throwing her in a vat of battery acid. The power of gainful employment to bolster his mood was no less than amazing. And the two thousand dollars in cash Trent had given him to help with moving expenses was making him downright giddy.

  "Well, I appreciate the contribution, Fawn. I really do. But I have a rental car full of my stuff from school, and there doesn't seem to be anywhere to put it."

  Fawn smiled and retreated a bit until she was standing as close to his mother as her boxes of medical miracles would allow. Clearly not a good sign, but the roll of hundred-dollar bills straining the worn seams of his wallet would undoubtedly soften the blow. "Okay, Mom," he said. "Go ahead. Let's hear it."

  She was sitting in a threadbare orange velour chair that he remembered being delivered when he was barely old enough to see over the arm. Her eyes were thei
r typical red, and a cigarette hung loosely from her fingers. He'd been worried about her smoking for a long time, but honestly it seemed like every year she had less energy to actually take a drag. It was quickly becoming nothing more than a carcinogenic security blanket.

  "Sweetie, you're not going to be around much. We were thinking you could put your things in the shed. It'll be okay there she's not leakin' anymore since you fixed her."

  Josh sighed quietly. "Look at all this, Momma. Is this the kind of thing you want Laura around?"

  She put an elbow on the arm of the chair and propped the side of her head on her hand. Gravity had its way with her sagging skin, and for a moment she became almost unrecognizable. "Laura'll be okay. Laura's smart."

  "Yeah, Laura's smart, Mom. But she's just a kid. She's . . ." He let his voice trail off. How many times had they had this conversation? What was the point?

  He threw his duffel over his shoulder and started toward the door.

  "Hey, Josh."

  When he looked back, Fawn threw the bottle of penis-enhancing pills at him. It was only a lucky catch that kept them from hitting him in the face.

  "On the house," she said. "You know what they say about those African guys. I'd hate for you not to measure up."

  Josh pushed through the screen and out into the sun, taking a deep breath of air that didn't smell of old tobacco and even older mold. There had been happier times. Or maybe that was just his mind contorting the past into something better than it really was. It didn't really matter. What was the harm in slipping on a pair of rose-colored glasses when you looked backward?

  The trail that had been faint in his youth was nonexistent now. It didn't matter, though, he could have found the way blindfolded.

  Josh navigated through the loose rocks and tangled underbrush, reveling in the peaceful silence like he always had. To his left, the slope dropped off steeply, leading down to a small ridge obscuring the trailers that made up his neighborhood and giving him the impression that he was the last person on earth. Sometimes not such an unpleasant fantasy.

  Laura had been gone when he'd come out of the trailer, but it wasn't hard to figure out where. He plunged into a tangle of dense bushes, holding his hands out in front of him to protect his face.