Meadowlarks by Thomas Holladay (novels to improve english TXT) 📗

I was stupid. You did it in such a voice that your whole staff now questions my authority.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Kirby smiled and shook his head. “Those just weren’t the kind of choices Potter would have made.” Another one of those comments Kirby wished he could reach out and drag back. He had no idea what stories John Potter might have picked.

No big deal.

Both his editors sat stone faced, waiting for Kirby to make a decision.

“What’s the layout?”

Hendricks said, “After School has a kind of nursery rhyme theme. I think Carolyn Potter’s fiction piece about a little boy’s imaginary dog is good. It has a lot of cute rhymes.”

“Okay.” Kirby spread his arms and leaned over his desk. What's the problem?

“We’ve also got a nice word game. If that sounds okay with you, we can close out After School.”

Kirby flinched in the affirmative. “What about Teen Dreams?”

“We’ve got another piece by Carolyn Potter, a story about a girl on a swim team. She's a champion swimmer and an honor student. She's got a bad family life and needs a college scholarship.”

“If we give Carolyn too much, the others might think I’m favoring her.”

“She’s becoming a very good writer.”

Kirby shook his head. No good.

Hendricks asked, “Have you read any of the material?”

“I don’t have time for that. That’s why we hired you.”

Hendricks spread his arms and leaned closer, obviously mocking Kirby’s earlier gesture, a deliberate insult.

Kirby didn’t dare fire the prick, reminding himself of why he’d hired him in the first place. Hendricks had delivered some very large school textbook accounts, vastly increasing the value of Kirby Publications. He needed to sign Hendricks to a long-term contract and give him more authority.

Be nice.

“Flip a coin, Bob. Make a decision. Do something for Christ’s sake.”

For whatever reason, Thornby woke up. “John Potter never flipped a coin in his life. He made decisions.”

Small wonder Hendricks didn’t like Thornby. Soon, as a show of good faith, Kirby would allow Hendricks to hire his own copy editor. Kirby said, “Come on, Bob. Get it done. I promise not to squawk, even if you run with both of Carolyn’s stories.”

Can’t afford to give her a raise.

Hendricks smiled a little and they left.

The mere mention of John Potter prompted Kirby to find the key and open his private drawer. That folder with all the papers nobody could ever see was tucked under his 10mm Colt Delta Elite, a very similar weapon to his Marine Corps issued sidearm. He set the weapon on top of his desk and pulled out the file. Potter’s one page deal memo was on top, no need to touch the sheet, keep it looking new. He might need to deny ever having seen it but he did need to keep it.

Kirby's parents had been gone for a little more than four years now. Flying their single engine Cessna over the Sierra’s at night had been stupid. Their bodies had never been recovered, though searchers did find the crash site. After seven years, his parents could be legally declared dead. If there was an audit, he might need to show where that hundred thousand had come from.

One of the last two things his father did as publisher was to purchase six children’s magazines, dumping all but two to reduce competition and streamline distribution. Most of their advertisers had come over to these remaining two.

Before that purchase, Kirby Publications had published one magazine, a variety of coloring and picture books, and a limited number of educational texts.

They’d done well enough to own the house in the Palisades and the cabin in Utah, where Kirby's parents had intended to spend the Christmas skiing before their fateful flight.

Shortly after buying up the magazines, his father had been temporarily short of cash needed to pay printers and staff. He hadn’t enough time to mortgage a property and he'd wanted to keep total ownership of the firm, so he'd borrowed a hundred thousand from John Potter.

Kirby had seen that pass book in boot camp, the one thing that looked out of place during inspections, resting there in the top tray of his foot locker. The money had been left to him by his grandmother and he'd never touched it, not until Kirby’s father needed it.

The deal memo gave his father thirty days to pay Potter back with a flat ten percent interest. After thirty days, if the loan was not repaid, Potter would receive twenty five percent of the profits from these two children’s magazines. Kirby’s father had planned on repaying the loan when they returned from Utah. He would have needed only about a week to secure a loan from their bank. Either way, it had been a good deal for John Potter.

Too good.

At the time of purchase, the advertising revenues for these two magazines had amounted to just over fifty thousand dollars a month, all profit, with a small profit from distribution. Those two magazines now brought in more than three times that amount in advertising alone, and distribution sales were up.

Six months after his parents went missing, the forestry service suspended search operations in the Sierras and Potter started asking questions about his share in the magazines. He had even shown Kirby his notarized copy of the deal memo.

Fool.

That same night, Kirby had broken into Potter’s desk, retrieved his copy and shredded it.

It all happened on a Friday night, shredding Potter’s copy and his meeting with Lester, his bookie. They'd held their meeting in a booth in back of the Cabo Cantina, Kirby’s favorite sports bar.

Kirby remembered it like yesterday.

“Listen, Lester, you’re always telling me how you know certain people.”

“I know lots of people.” Lester had given a nod toward Omar and Loomis, his two constant companions. They'd been standing at the bar, muscles lumping through their sport jackets.

“I mean, what if I had a friend who wanted someone to disappear?”

“Disappear or die?” Lester had never liked misdirection.

“My friend says the guy has a really nice car. A new C-class Mercedes, the kind of car people get