Renniger kept driving.
The cyclist died.
Renniger was never caught.
And from that moment on Renniger became John Houseman’s little bitch.
Renniger hated that term.
It was Houseman’s, not his.
But it was technically accurate, for as long as the two men lived Houseman had the ultimate leverage over his friend.
Both of them knew it, and although Houseman periodically reminded him of it, such reminders certainly weren’t necessary.
Being subject to extortion isn’t exactly something one ever forgets.
“Congratulations,” Houseman started after being ushered into the chairman’s office and shaking his hand.
“I want a piece.”
“Of course. But we have to be careful.”
“I didn’t get where I was by being stupid.”
“I didn’t mean…”
“I know. And no offense taken. How is this thing gonna work?”
“That depends. There are different stipulations for the moving contracts and the construction contracts.
“Take your pick.”
“Take my pick, hell. How about I take a piece of both of them?”
Renniger smiled.
Or maybe it was a wince, for he hated dealing with Houseman in this manner.
He tried hard to be Houseman’s friend. It was just easier that way.
But Houseman was obnoxious and abrasive.
And worst of all, he could ruin Renniger and throw him in prison for the rest of his life, simply by picking up a phone.
“Let’s talk moving first. You’ll have to set up an LLC. It can’t be in the name of you or your family, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“You have to go one step further. No friends of family members either. You’ve got to place several layers between yourselves and those publicly associated with the company.”
“Easily done. I’m the one who taught you all about shell corporations and off-shore accounts, remember?”
“Of course.
“The no-bid ceiling is three hundred thousand.
“If you go above that amount I cannot approve it myself. That’ll be your magic number.”
“What happens if I go over?”
“Then you’re taking a risk. It’ll go through the competitive bid process.”
“I thought you were the chairman.”
There was sarcasm and disdain in his voice.
“I am. But a chairman and a miracle worker are not the same thing.
“Remember, the President has promised the public this would be the most transparent contacting operation the federal government has ever undertaken.
“That means not only that the GSA Inspector General will be watching us closely. But the more than twenty consumer watchdog groups that are always a pain in my ass are going to be filing open records requests and doing their own investigations.”
“How do we get around that?”
“I’ve already told you, John. You’ve got to keep your bids below three hundred K. If a bid exceeds that amount it’ll have to go through the panel. It’ll be fast-tracked, because we can’t slow-roll this project. But it’ll get a lot more scrutiny and you’ll have to sign additional disclosure forms. That’ll set you up for perjury charges if they ever go through your books.”
Houseman huffed.
“If they ever discover my real cash stream perjury will be the least of my problems.
“And the least of yours too, by the way.
“Still looking for a trap door.”
“How about this. You let me know where you want to build and how much you’ll charge per unit.
“I’ll make sure to make the contracts small enough to allow you room under the threshold.”
“So, I may get ten contracts for the same apartment complex?”
“Right.”
“That’s a shitty way to do business.”
“We’re the government. We do shitty work.”
Houseman rubbed his chin. Bidding on ten small contracts instead of one big one would mean a lot more paperwork and a bigger pain in the neck.
But the end result would be the same.
“Okay. That’ll work.”
“Good. The way we’ll do it is I’ll have my estimators break it into pieces. Say, five apartment units they estimate construction costs at thirty thousand apiece. I’ll give you an advance copy and you bid your three hundred thousand. I’ll approve it and send it on its way.
“As soon as it clears the system we’ll do the next five.
“Each contract will allow for a ten percent maximum cost overrun. You’ll make a hundred eighty grand per contract.”
“And how many contracts can we get away with?”
“We’ll keep doing them until we run out of money. I’m guessing your share will be twenty, maybe thirty million.
“Now you’re talking language I like.”
Chapter 39
Renniger smiled.
“Oh, that’s only the half of it.”
“Then tell me the other half.”
“Have you ever thought about getting into the relocation business?”
“Nope. But if there’s money in it I’d certainly think about it.”
“Oh, there’s always been money in it.
“Until World War II the military was on the cheap when it came top moving its troops around.
“Of course, when we sent them to war families couldn’t go. That was easy. We just told each of the troops to pack everything they needed or wanted into two duffle bags, lined them all up and put them on troop ships or on a MATS plane.”
“MATS?”
“Military Air Transport Service. The troops called them airborne cattle cars.
“When they had to move military families from one place to another they just had the troops do it. They reimbursed them for the moving costs provided they saved all their receipts. But they were notorious for capping certain categories of expenses and not telling the troops until after the fact.
“Also, there were broad categories of expenses they never reimbursed.
“Like, for example, military people and families who were transferred to places like New York City or Chicago, where they had to use taxis to go here and there looking for a place to live.
“Back then taxi drivers didn’t give out receipts. So the service members ate that cost. Eating meals at delicatessens and street vendors, same way.”
“In other words the government ripped off the very people who were serving their country.”
“Exactly. And they still do in a lot of ways. But it’s gotten better.
“These days the military uses a lot of the same means to move that civil service workers use.
“These days the military and federal agencies have agents who contract for them with moving companies. The companies come out and pack up the household goods, move them where they need to go, then unpack everything at the military member or civil servant’s new house.
“It’s a lot easier on the military member or civil service guy and… here’s the good part. It’s a very lucrative business for the moving company as well.”
“Okay,” Houseman said. “But how does all this stuff about moving military people around relate to me and how much money I’m going to make?”
“Simple. We’re using the same approach to move Yellowstone refugees to Alaska.”
“The military model?”
“Yes. The military model.
“Under this new program we’ll accept bids from moving companies. We’ll agree to pay them so much per pound to pick up the household goods of people in the evacuation zones.
“We’ll pay so much more for those companies to truck the stuff up to Alaska, or to wherever it is in the safe zones the owner wants to relocate to.
“And of course we’ll pay the moving company to unload the household goods.”
“Okay, pardon me for being impatient, Walter.
“But I didn’t come in here for you to tell me I could start a moving company and make a little bit of profit. I came in here to find out how we can scam the system and get a whole lot of easy cash from this new ocean of money you’re in charge of.”
“You’re not listening, John. Or maybe I’m just not being clear enough.
“I want you to start a moving company, yes.
“Hell, with your resources and contacts you should start several. There’s gonna be so much work for everybody, the more companies you have involved the more you’ll rake in.
“But here’s the thing. Just like the garbage business and the taxi medallion business have always been fronts for the mafia, the moving business is just gonna be your front.
“It’s gonna enable you and I to work together to skim money. Off the top, off the bottom, off all four sides. It’ll be like taking candy from a baby.”
“Examples, Walter. Examples.”
“Okay, how about this… the government is going to pay for up to thirty thousand pounds of household goods per family.
“But the average family, according to the government’s own studies, only owns about twenty two thousand.
“There are ways, though… easy ways, actually, to falsify weight tickets.
“Say for example a truck is loaded. It goes off to your warehouse, where it is weighed.
“It comes out to be twenty two thousand pounds.
“Your people can put pallets of concrete plates onto the truck with a forklift until it comes to just under the limit of thirty thousand.
“Then it’s driven to a public scale for an official weigh-in. It gets an official weight ticket, which is filed with your claim to the government.
“The truck goes back to your warehouse, where the concrete plates are removed, and it goes on its way.
“You get paid for moving eight thousand pounds… four tons, of stuff you never had to move.”
“I like it. What else you got?”
“When we wrote the bill I insisted on what we called ‘fair market compensation.’ That means you’ll be reimbursed for your labor costs in addition to your contract reimbursement.
“When you prepare your bids, you’ll consider only your administrative and transportation costs. Your movers and drivers will be paid for separately.
“You’ll still bid very high. I’ll make sure you’re selected. That’s more cream for you to skim.
“But the real cream comes from the labor clause. We mandated thirty dollars an hour for laborers, forty dollars an hour for drivers.
“You’ll turn in your time sheets, and that’s what you’ll be paid. But you can hire illegal laborers for ten bucks an hour and drivers for twenty. The rest you can pocket.”
Houseman smiled.
But there was more.
“Here’s the best thing. If you move someone who has gold bullion or expensive jewelry you can just make it disappear.”
“Yeah, right. Then my insurance and bonding costs will go through the roof.”
“No. Not at all. The best thing we did was make the government assume liability for losses. The government will bear the costs of the insurance, and there’s no requirement for any of your people or your companies to be bonded. The absolute worst thing they could do to you is ban you from future bidding.
“And I’ll personally make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Chapter 40
Jeff, Tony’s best friend and current house-sitter, was running his own scam.
He was hosting a pretty young girl of twenty four.
A woman of Scandinavian heritage with blonde hair and blue eyes and a fiery disposition.
She was something else too.
She was very materialistic and judged people by what they had as opposed to who they were.
It wasn’t exactly a flattering trait.
But then again, perhaps she deserved being chased by a man old people called a “cad” and young people called a “player.”
Perhaps.
In any event, it seemed to work for both of them.
Jeff normally lived in a tiny apartment with noisy neighbors on each side and a stubborn mouse which insisted on eating anything he left in the cupboards despite an on-going effort to catch the little critter.
He hadn’t managed to collect anything of value during his twenty six years, unless one counts his string of dozens of ex-girlfriends.
Oh, yes. And his collection of empty Tennessee Whiskey bottles.
He’d emptied all of them himself and decided several years before they looked rather cool lined up on a wall.
On a high shelf he hung himself with a long two-by-four and angled shelf supports he lined up sixty one such bottles.
And he was right.
They did look rather cool.
When the shelf was full he built another on the adjacent wall, just over the doorways.
After another year it was full too, and he surrounded the other two walls in the same manner.
When the first and fourth two-by-fours met in the last corner one was two inches lower than the other.
He could add “carpenter” to the very long list of things he was not.
But he stood back and looked at the problem and decided it added just a bit of character to the project.
And the slight decline of half an inch along the run of each wall wasn’t enough to make the bottles slide off, so he left it as it was.
Every friend he had over was impressed by his collection and told him so, so he started a new project.
Tony happened to stop by that day to ask him if he’d housesit for him and Hannah while they were in Phoenix. Tony noticed an empty five gallon water bottle sitting in the middle of Jeff’s living room.
Besides a ratty couch, a lop-sided recliner and three lawn chairs it was the only thing in the room.
“What are you gonna do with that?” Tony asked of the bottle.
“Oh, that’s my new art project. I’m gonna fill it with beer bottle caps.”
“Art, huh?”
“Don’t laugh, Tony. Someday when the world realizes my artistic talent this bottle will be on display at The Louvre, you’ll see.”
Before Alyssa dropped by to see Jeff for the first time he’d gone through Tony and Hannah’s house, scrubbing it of anything he could find which indicated somebody else really lived there.
He came across the couple’s application for the Alaska Land Act grant sitting on a table next to the front door and flagged down the mailman walking down the street.
Congressman Renniger had announced to the world the application office was officially open for business just the day before.
And Tony and Hannah’s request was officially in the mix.
Along with over a million other Americans.
Jeff was feeling rather smug, thinking he got away with his ruse, until he walked into the master bedroom to find Alyssa standing in front of the dresser.
The top drawer was open and Alyssa was holding up one of Hannah’s bras with a puzzled look on her face.
She heard Jeff behind her and turned to look at him.
He was busted.
She was looking for him to say something but he was speechless.
And sheepish.
Finally she said, “C cups. I don’t think you have enough to fill them up, but if this is what you want to wear in the privacy of your own home, who am I to judge?
“Take my advice, though. Don’t go out in public like that. I don’t think society will be as nonjudgmental as I am.”
“Um… okay.”
“I was looking for an empty drawer so I can put some of my things in it. I’m getting tired of living out of a backpack. But all the drawers are full.
“If you want me to move in with you, Jeff, you’re gonna have to move your stuff over and make room for me.”
The remark caught him off guard.
He’d wanted to convince Alyssa he owned the place to make time with her.
Certai
nly not to convince her to move in.
That might be okay for the short term.
But Hannah and Tony would be back in just a few days.
And they might not take kindly to Jeff moving a stranger into their house in their absence.
“Um… sure. Let me get that stuff out of your way.”
He opened an adjacent drawer and dumped Hannah’s bras and panties unceremoniously into it.
“I’ll need some closet space too. At least half of it.”
“Um… sure. I’ll take some of my stuff out and pile it into the garage.”
This was getting better and better.
Jeff didn’t have a lot of friends. He was starting to worry he’d have even fewer once the Carsons came home, and he made a mental note to himself to call them later.
To find out when they were coming back.
So he could get everything back in order again and get rid of Alyssa.
That was later, though.
For now that was the least of his problems.
Alyssa was smiling at him coyly.
She said, “You know, I’m kind of curious to see what you look like in a bra and panties.
“Why don’t you put them on for me?”
Chapter 41
Yellowstone was now a witch’s brew of activity.
All over the park boiling rock was rolling out of the ground.
The National Park Service command post hadn’t been heard from in a full twenty four hours.
In the National Emergency Command and Control Center in faraway Washington everyone believed it was just a communications problem.
The command team was briefed by someone who didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but who was trying to impress the right people and earn himself a promotion.
“The seismic activity is probably causing interference with their radio signal,” he said. “They’ll contact us again whenever the signal clears up and will give us a status update.”
But that wasn’t true, not at all.
The command post had moved several times in previous days, whenever the weird sulfur and vinegar smell of the sulfur dioxide started penetrating their air vents.
The command post was essentially a large travel bus, stripped of most of its seats and decked out with all manner of electronic gadgets.
The Yellowstone Event (Book 5): The Eruption Page 12