Stepmogul

By Dan Richart

Blackmail, betrayal, and murder have become three unwelcome guests in the life of enigmatic Atlanta business mogul, Walker Troup. Fighting attacks on multiple fronts, Troup discovers that he can no longer trust his top business executives, his grown stepchildren, or even his wife. He turns to the only men he can trust, Kurt Parker, a retired Airborne Ranger turned philanthropist, and Jake Mann, a semi-retired rock n' roll legend for help. At stake are Troup's entire business empire, and possibly his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483522807

Book preview

unintentional.

Chapter One

Outside, the tiny, fragrant blossoms of ligustrum and golden honeysuckle commingled with just a hint of wild blackberry blossoms. The aromas drifted lazily on warm, gentle breezes to form Atlanta’s very own springtime perfume. The scent wafted through open windows and made every home smell fresh, alive, and full of promise.

Inside, just as the sun was setting on a particularly perfect May afternoon, Walker Troup sat alone in the two-story, mahogany library of his Italianate mansion. Shadows and sunlight danced gracefully across his massive desk and the two manila envelopes that rested peacefully next to one another on his blotter. Neither could have looked more innocuous. Still, he stared at them, as if to look through their exteriors and examine their contents without actually having to touch them.

There could be damn near anything in there, he thought, briefly wondering if he should hose them down or call the police.

It was all very suspicious. All business correspondence, including household bills, went to his Midtown Atlanta office or to any of the offices of the many companies he owned all over the United States. His personal CPA and corporate CFO, Gordy Newton, paid the bills. All of his personal correspondence had to get past his trusted COO, Frances Moore, before he ever saw it. Both employees were high-powered executives, but they hadn’t started out that way. So in addition to their enormous corporate responsibilities, they also did personal work for the man who led them to the top. He liked it that way and so did they. They had all been together for many years and liked to think of themselves as family.

At home, he received no personal correspondence to speak of, other than a small handful of Christmas cards from greedy, estranged relatives in Valdosta, GA, begging for his hard-earned money. Plenty of junk mail found its way to his home, as it did all homes, but his live-in maid, Orlanda, sorted the household mail.

Earlier that day she told him about the two large envelopes, before leaving for a visit to her sister’s home in Duluth. She had said she wasn't sure what to do with them, especially since neither had a return address. He'd told her to leave them on the kitchen counter and he'd look at them later, as he had been watching Bringing Up Baby in his home theater.

Later, feeling tired from laughter - he loved to laugh and did so often, especially when it was inappropriate, which made it all the more funny to him - Walker went to the kitchen to get a can of the only non-alcoholic beverage he ever consumed, Coca Cola. Every can was helping his Coke stock go up, he said. It had been decades since he had sipped a cup of coffee, gulped orange juice, or enjoyed a tall glass of sweet tea. Water was for rinsing toothpaste from your mouth, he always said.

After popping open a can and taking a gulp, he noticed the two letters on the granite counter of his kitchen island one on top of the other. He picked them up, gave them a quick sniff with his long, straight nose, and walked to the library just off the front hall.

The seven thousand square foot home was built in 1925 by Harold Day McDonald, Jr.; a young man only three years out of Harvard. He used the sizable amount his industrialist father had given him back in Pittsburgh to get a start in the world for investing heavily in the stock market. In only two years he had become a millionaire several times over. He took his money out of the stock market and moved to Atlanta to start an import export business.

Easily visualizing the seemingly unlimited opportunities Atlanta afforded him, McDonald fell absolutely in love with the booming young city and went on a spending spree. First he bought six acres in the new Buckhead area for a home, then eleven hundred acres of timberland in the north Georgia Mountains, where he kept a modest hunting lodge. Over the next two years he purchased fourteen large farms in south and eastern Georgia totaling nearly thirteen thousand acres.

His import export business shipped goods overseas via Savannah, so he bought a stately Victorian townhouse on Madison Square and two large warehouses on the riverfront to store the goods he shipped and received.

Business grew rapidly and he weathered the infamous Crash of ’29 easily. With the onset of World War II he expanded his shipping business to Baltimore and he watched his earnings quadruple with many fat contracts from the United States government to ship goods to both England and France. He lost nearly twenty percent of his shipments to German U-Boats, but the U.S. government and his friends in Congress were very understanding about such things, especially before they became officially involved in the war.

The home McDonald built in Buckhead was named Rosalie, after his favorite Natchez, Mississippi antebellum mansion. Rosalie had experienced no less than five major renovations since its completion in 1925, the most recent in 1991, when Walker purchased it.

He had much of it restored to its original Hentz, Reid, Adler, and Shutze plans, which had lovingly been passed from owner to owner. He periodically had it updated with the latest in technology and comfort, like the heated floors in the bathrooms, his bathroom's steam room, as well as the steam room in the pool house. He had the kitchen totally redone, and, of course, his beloved home theater, which seemed to be refurbished around every other year as technology progressed.

The library was the one space Walker left virtually as it was in July of 1944, when the owner was killed during a business trip to London by one of Hitler’s beloved V1 buzz bombs. Over time the books, furniture, and rugs had changed, but the extraordinary, almost glowing, mahogany and the dramatic two-story design had enchanted every owner and had remained amazingly intact. To many in Atlanta architectural circles, every part of the home was a masterpiece, but the library always seemed to be the main attraction during the decades of exclusive parties. It had made Walker Troup want to own it nearly twenty years before he had the opportunity. Over the years he had attended several cocktail parties and fund raisers in the home and without fail, he would gravitate to the library like a bee to a hive. He somehow felt a link to the place that he didn’t understand, but he did know that if it ever came up for sale, he would be the man to buy it.

Though the thousands of books the library housed would indicate the owner was a learned man, Walker Troup had not a single degree to his name. In fact, he had been expelled from Valdosta State College forty-five years before for conduct unbecoming of a student, physically assaulting one’s classmates, and gross misconduct. Gross indeed.

Walker’s transgression involved alcohol and excrement. On that fateful evening, he and two friends had consumed a case of beer in less than three hours. They were bored, so they decided to play a prank on the school’s president. Walker had a brainstorm and decided he would poop on the president’s front porch, since the president had suspended him the previous semester for appearing at an honors forum while intoxicated.

The three young men drove to the house in a white Dodge pickup. Walker, being the only freshman, the other two were juniors he had played football with in high school, was the crapper they joked. Of course the crapee would be the president, or at least his porch.

What none of the young men knew was that the president was getting ready to take his enormous German Sheppard, Brutus, out for his final pee before bedtime.

Totally unconcerned with stealth, they parked at the curb in front of the house. Walker, who had enjoyed his eight beers immensely, tried his drunken best to hop out of the truck and sprint sixty feet to the front porch. He only fell down once during his retarded gallop. Proudly, he raised his arms in victory as he stood near the front door, making his comrades laugh hysterically. Then he ceremoniously dropped his khakis and began what he thought would be one of the best pranks ever played on any college president.

When he was only halfway finished, the truck’s horn began to sound repeatedly. Walker was horrified. Before he could even attempt to flee, the lights came on; the front door swung open, and out came Brutus. Walker fell backward onto his own excrement and was promptly assaulted by a hundred pounds of bones, fur, pointed teeth, and sharp paws.

Rolling about in his feces, Walker did his best to fight the dog; right up until the big animal clamped its gnashing jaws on his scrotum. He passed out.

When he awoke Walker found himself in Pineview General Hospital, where he was told that only one of his testicles survived, though it was damaged. The doctor’s words reverberated in his skull, I’m sorry, son, but you’ll never be a daddy.

Can I get the other one in a jar or something? You know, like a keepsake? he had asked. He was told it had been thrown away, which left him weeping for a time.

And so it was. Walker never was a biological daddy. Stepfather was the best he could do.

So Walker sat at his desk studying the envelopes for clues from their sender or senders. One was a bit thicker than the other. He looked at closely. It had his address printed in the Ariel font he often used for sending memos at his office. The label was small and white. The other looked to be in Times New Roman, the Microsoft Office default font, and it was printed directly on the envelope, with no label.

Stop pussyfooting around, Walker, he grumbled to himself in his South Georgia drawl.

After opening the narrow end of the thicker one, he dumped its contents onto the desk. He saw six pictures of himself with a woman forty years younger than he. They were both nude. The envelope also included a small, typed message, which he paid no immediate attention.

Well, how nice, he said to no one. He removed his half-lenses from the front pocket of his flannel shirt and began reading the letter that was attached to the first photo with a paperclip.

Mr. Troup,

You look pretty damned good for a

sixty-three-year-old man. Damn good.

No gut, not too wrinkly. Hey, the girl

doesn't look half bad herself, now does she?

Walker gave a little chuckle and didn’t bother to read the rest. Damn amateurs, he muttered, tossing it aside. "I should’ve seen that one coming I guess. And fifteen million dollars? In small bills no less. Shit for brains," he said to the cavernous library.

Now for you. What do you have in store for me? Another picture of me chasing pussy, or did I just win a million dollars and a new Winnebago? he said to the remaining envelope. He slit its end removed a single piece of fine stationary from his own Midtown Atlanta office.

It didn't take him long to read the letter. The second he finished he wadded it and threw it up on the mahogany walkway that made its way around the walls of books on the library’s second floor.

Damnit, damnit, damnit! he shouted to the books. He slammed his fists against his blotter repeatedly.

After taking several deep breaths, Walker composed himself. He sat quietly for a moment, reclining in his big, leather swivel chair, with his battered old cowboy boots on the leather blotter. He thought deeply for several minutes, not really believing what he had read. The possibility had always been there, lurking in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to pounce. But Walker reflected that he had been so very careful about everything, every detail, destruction of correspondence, everything.

Now he knew that things would be different in his life. The only constant is change, he thought. He did his best to accept the changes and decided that whatever was going to happen was going to happen, so hope for the best and prepare for the worst. This maxim had usually worked for him in the past, so he would employ it once again.

"Well, shit," he muttered, as he stood from the chair and made his way up the wooden spiral staircase to the second floor walkway. He strolled past everything from classics to paperbacks and collections of magazines including Car and Driver, Field & Stream, Saltwater Sportsman, Smithsonian, Sculpture Digest, and National Geographic. He stopped briefly in front of a short row of signed, William Faulkner first editions, which the paper ball rested directly beneath.

Before picking up the wadded letter and reading it a second time, he took Absalom, Absalom! off the shelf and looked for the signature inside. He touched the ink with a forefinger, almost as if to draw power or wisdom from it. Walker practically worshipped Faulkner and often thought about what good friends they would have been had they been born of the same generation and run in the same circles. He immediately imagined them fishing together, smoking pipes, and drinking fine bourbon.

I'm sure you had plenty of treacherous assholes to deal with in your day too, Mr. Faulkner, said Walker, reverently. He put the book back in its space lovingly and bent down to retrieve the letter. He carefully opened it, as if it might bite him or explode.

Dear Walker,

I imagine you thought you had gotten away with it, hadn't you? Twenty-five years is quite a long time and I imagine you had pretty much forgotten about it, or at least tried. My memory is quite good, especially since I have so many things to refresh it with.

It is not too late, you know. I am a reasonable person and I am sure we can strike a fair bargain. You give me what I want and I will give you what you want. You could not ask for more than that, now could you?

I will contact you sometime in the next few days with my demands. Until then, ask yourself what you think the information is really worth to you.

It wasn’t signed, though a signature was completely unnecessary.

Walker's face turned bright red and the veins in his neck bulged menacingly, looking ready to burst. He gently smoothed the letter on the mahogany railing and folded it, before stuffing it into the back pocket of his jeans.

Chapter Two

A shirt, pants, socks, and underwear were on the island in the center of the kitchen. Kurt Parker was, as his deceased father used to say, naked (pronounced nekkid) as a jaybird and doing fast pushups on the cold granite of his kitchen floor. He wanted his chest and arms to look as impressive as possible. One of the few things he and his father had in common was a love of the great Southern editorialist, Lewis Grizzard. His father loved quoting Grizzard any chance he got. According to Grizzard, he’d say, "there’s a difference between being naked or nude and being nekkid. Naked is when you don’t have any clothes on. Nekkid is when you don’t have any clothes on and you’re up to something!"

Kurt, who was definitely up to something, finished his pushups and took a brief but appreciative look at his bulging muscles. Even though he wasn’t as big as he had been back in his Airborne Ranger days three years before, he still looked battle ready. He flexed the muscles of his back and shoulders a moment, knowing from the mirrors in the gym how strong and defined they were. He was ready to go.

Kurt gathered two, crystal champagne flutes in one hand and used his other to grab a bottle of Dom Perignon out of the Sub-Zero by its chilly neck. Even the cool blast from the refrigerator couldn't reduce his obvious enthusiasm for the evening.

Only five minutes before he had been rolling around on the sofa with a rather bookish girl whose name he couldn't remember at the moment and whose hair was died Elvis black. An hour before that she had used her lean, curvaceous body to full effect while performing some of the most lascivious dance moves he had ever seen at a club only five blocks from his Buckhead condo tower.

She was like a silky black cat, though her skin was very pale, almost white. She had been wearing a rather prim business suit and black-rimmed glasses. He hoped she wasn't some nutty Goth chick in disguise trying to make a switch to more mainstream kinds of nightclubs. They could be tricky, the Goth chicks. The one Goth chick he had briefly dated tried to drip hot wax on his nipples on one occasion and then began ferociously whipping his bare ass with his own belt on another. A little kinkiness could be fun once in a while, he mused, but not the painful stuff.

This girl just had black hair and pale skin. There was no evidence of tattoos or piercings, with the single exception of her ears, which displayed a modest pair of diamond studs. She could be a accountant or repressed computer geek for all he knew. What he knew for sure was that her buttoned-up appearance, combined with the dirty girl dance moves, was driving him mad with a primeval lust he had not felt in quite some time.

After they had kissed for nearly a half hour, he looked into her eyes and asked if she'd like to go back to his bedroom. She said sure and they casually strolled down the short hallway to his room. The curtains were open and she, like everyone else who had entered the room at night, was immediately drawn to the view of Buckhead, just below, and Midtown and Downtown Atlanta's towers brilliantly illuminated in the distance. It was his experience that the view, and the whole sumptuous feel of his two-bedroom condo, seemed to arouse women without fail. The fine quality of the furnishings and general refinement and good taste apparent throughout the condo very seductively and smoothly whispered money. The decor could all be attributed to his mother, since she had selected most of the furniture, fabrics, rugs, and artwork.

It was quietly driving him crazy that he couldn't remember her name. A B? Did it start with a B? Hopefully he could trick her into telling him later, or have a peek in her purse while she was taking a shower.

As he made his way down the short darkened hall, he noticed bright light bursting like an aurora around the closed door to his bedroom.

She had modestly asked him to leave the room while she undressed, which he thought was a little weird considering how she had rubbed against him on the dance floor and considering how she practically date raped him on the sofa. To each their own, he thought, nekkid is nekkid. His sexy little nerd girl was surely good and nekkid by now and he couldn’t wait to see her.

Kurt gently used the bottle to knock on the door.

Come in, she purred. The sleek black cat from the club, he thought.

At this point Kurt could have used something other than the bottle to knock on the door. Having come from the kitchen, where only the under cabinet ambient lights had been on, he was startled by the bright light that assaulted his eyes. She had turned on both bedside lamps, all of the recessed lighting, and even the lights in the built-ins on two walls. He blinked like a bat at noon and looked over to the bed.

Lying on her back like a giant letter X the girl looked up from the pillow, attempting a smoky-eyed seductress gaze that would surely make him dash to