Thursday, December 26, 2019
Don Travis: Impotent-Chapter 2 (A Serial Novella)
Don Travis: Impotent-Chapter 2 (A Serial Novella): dontravis.com blog post #368 Courtesy of NeedPix.com Last week, we left our corporate executive Forrest De la Roche and his rescue...
Impotent-Chapter 2 (A Serial Novella)
dontravis.com
blog post #368
 |
| Courtesy of NeedPix.com |
*****
IMPOTENT
“What’re you doing out here in this
storm?” the slickered figure asked.
“Acting the fool,” De la Roche answered. “Decided
on the scenic route to San Ysidro same moment the Good Lord decided on the
second flood.”
The driver flashed a smile that reached
down into De la Roche’s groin. “Promised He wouldn’t do that. Didn’t anybody
warn you August is our rainy season up here?”
“Wasn’t smart enough to ask,” he
acknowledged. “Just took off blind.”
“And wrecked a fine piece of machinery. Lucky
you crashed where you did. The road drops off into Cebolla Canyon at the top of
that hill.”
He laughed harshly. “Tell me about it. I
found a friendly tree before I went over the edge. The accident happened when I
back-peddled down the road.”
The young man gave a chuckle that came up
out of his belly. “Old Beulah’s saved more’n one careless soul.”
“Old Beulah? You name your trees around here?”
The driver pushed his hat to the back of
his head, dribbling water down his slicker. “That one we do. She’s been Old
Beulah for as long as I can remember. Where you headed?”
“Albuquerque. I have a meeting there
tomorrow. I’ll be glad to pay you to drive me there. Square it with your boss
or whatever.”
Another chuckle. Despite his misery, De la
Roche became aroused.
“You could offer me a thousand dollars a
mile and you’d still miss your meeting. Nobody’s going anywhere until the
county or the Forest Service or the pipeline people get out the graders. Is it
an important meeting?”
“Yes, but one of my execs can handle it. Do
you have a phone at your place?”
“Cell. Not worth a damn in this weather.”
“Same as mine,” he acknowledged. “I feel
so damned impotent! Well,” he patted
his briefcase, “I’ve got a GPU in here. My people will pick me up by air as
soon as the weather clears.”
“GPU? Ground Positioning Unit? Be damned! Haven’t
seen one of those since I was in the army.” The young man stirred in the seat
as if reminded of something uncomfortable. “You can stay at my place until then.
According to the last radio report this storm’s a big one. Likely to last into
tomorrow.”
“Appreciate your hospitality. Uh, is it
far? Your place, I mean?”
“Couple of miles. I have a little spread
up here. Run some cattle on my hundred acres and a permit in the Forest. All
the land around here’s National Forest except for some private plots like mine
here and there.” He tossed a thumb over his shoulder at the stock trailer. “Today
I had to come for a cow with a bummed up leg.”
“Lucky for me that you did,” the executive
commented.
The downpour became so heavy that driving
demanded all of Austin’s attention and made conversation all but impossible. De
la Roche watched the cowboy out of the corner of his eye and recalled the first
time he’d been with a man…well, with a boy, anyway.
It had been in high school. Everyone on
the soccer team debated about whether one particular kid was queer or not. In
typical fashion, De la Roche stayed late one night in the locker room and waved
a hard-on at the suspect. In a flash, the guy was on his knees in front of him.
That was as far as he’d planned on taking things, but he lost the will to
protest. He was shocked that the experience turned out to be genuine pleasure
instead of mere relief. He never alleviated the team’s curiosity, but he never
went back to the kid, either. Leaking water all over his side of the Jeep, he
let out a small chuckle at the recollection.
Austin Andino’s ‘home place’ was an
authentic log cabin that would have looked ramshackle if it had been big
enough. Big common room, two small bedrooms and a bath plus a walk-in pantry. Maybe
a thousand square feet, the engineer in De la Roche calculated. Tight, cozy. A
solid sanctuary against inclement weather like this. In the middle of August,
he was wet and chilled to the bone at around eighty-eight hundred feet above
sea-level. Summer had disappeared… at least in these mountains.
The cowboy opened the door to the cabin
and snapped on the lights. They promptly flickered and went out. “It happens
every time we have a good rain, so I’m prepared.” The tall man soon had a log fire
and kerosene lanterns casting a warm glow around the little building.
“Water’ll still be hot, Austin said. “You
need a scalding bath to chase away the chill. I’ll lay out a couple of blankets
to wrap up in after you finish. Whiskey’s under the sink, if you need a bracer.
I’m gonna go tend my cow.”
“Need any help,” De la Roche asked,
fighting to keep his teeth from chattering.
“No, thanks. Get dry and warm. I’ll be
back as soon as I can.”
When younger man was gone, he poured a
straight shot of Wild Turkey and got out of his cold, sodden clothing. Under
the hot spray of a shower bath, De la Roche rubbed life back into his numb
limbs and gloried in the warmth.
Wrapped in two soft blankets, De la Roche
wandered the cabin, feeling the need for activity. He was about to get dressed
when Austin reentered, shaking off rainwater and shedding his Stetson and
slicker. What had appeared a big, beefy man turned out to be a tall, rangy
cowboy with the broad shoulders and deep chest of a gymnast, and the trim lower
torso and hips of a horseback rider. By the firelight in the gloom of the rainy
day, those attractive angles and planes De la Roche had noticed earlier settled
into a remarkably handsome countenance. That wasn’t quite right. Too powerful
and commanding to be classically handsome, the raw masculinity of Austin’s face
overwhelmed the softer, somehow more feminine beauty of a mere Adonis. The
power of the intense agate eyes alone made him striking. De la Roche was
momentarily speechless, a phenomenon new and slightly uncomfortable.
“Got the leg fixed,” Austin said in a deep
voice as he stripped off his damp shirt.
It took De la Roche a moment to realize
the man was talking about his injured cow. Gawking at the smooth, broad chest
loaded with muscles and finely pelted by short brown hair between the huge
areoles, he closed his mouth with a snap before coming up with a response.
“No complications?”
“Nope. She’ll be all right. With beef
prices the way they are, she represents a fair investment,” the cowboy said,
drying his torso with a towel. “Of course, she wouldn’t even make a blip on
your financial radar.”
De la Roche permitted his surprise to
show. “You know who I am?”
Austin bent to a table, muscles rippling
with the movement, and tossed him the US
News and World Report issue that covered the acquisition of a pipeline
company for something in excess of three billion dollars. There was a closeup
of De la Roche in the article.
“When did you know?” he asked.
“What you said about your people picking
you up by air.” Austin paused a moment and swiped at his flat, ridged belly
with the towel, one of the most unconsciously erotic movements the older man
had ever seen. “Just don’t try to throw your money at me.”
“You got a very important man out of a
very bad jam, and that’s worth something in my world.”
“In mine, it’s simply being a good
neighbor.”
The throaty growl grabbed De la Roche in
the gut. “Well, neighbor, maybe I can reciprocate one day.”
“If you ever find me lost in the canyons
of downtown LA, feel free,” the cowboy laughed.
“A rugged individualist. I like that.” He
laughed, stimulated as much by what he heard as by what he saw.
Austin’s shower was by necessity a short
one; De la Roche had used most of the hot water. In a few minutes, the cowboy
strode into the room with a towel clasped around his trim waist, pausing only
to indicate a door. “That’s your bedroom for the night.”
Feeling that an opportunity had been
missed, De la Roche entered the small room and wiped down his soaked bag before
throwing it on the bed. He donned a comfortable pair of chinos and an expensive
sweatshirt, assessing the situation while he dressed. He wanted Austin Andino,
and he was accustomed to getting what he wanted. But maybe this wasn’t the
typical situation. The young man had already shown that he was not interested
in his money. Although De la Roche was a handsome man in good physical shape,
he seriously doubted that would get him what he wanted in this instance. What
was left?
He sat on the bed and watched the rain
soak the mountainside outside of the window. Viewed from the warmth and safety
of a solid log cabin, it was beautiful… beautiful and nourishing. It made the
mountains what they were. And what was Austin Andino? A cow man. An
individualist. A maverick. Independent. A man who would respect power… be drawn
to it.
But all the power lay on the other side at
the moment. He was totally dependent on the young cowboy for his very existence
for the next couple of days. He was more refugee than power broker. He had to
change that. How? Not by bragging about his accomplishments; that would turn
the young man off. It was simple. His mind was his power. Use it!
*****
It looks as though a mental
gauntlet has been thrown down. Will Austin pick it up? Did he even recognize
the industrialist’s attraction to him? We’ll see. Next week, Chapter 3
The following are buy
links for the recently released The Voxlightner Scandal.
Barnes
& Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-voxlightner-scandal-don-travis/1132632844?ean=9781640809260
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading and keep on
writing. You have something to say, so say it!
My
personal links: (Note the change in the Email address because I’m still getting
remarks on the old dontravis21@gmail.com. PLEASE DON’T USE
THAT ONE.)
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Buy
links to Abaddon’s Locusts:
See
you next week.
Don
Thursday, December 19, 2019
Impotent (A Serial Novella)
dontravis.com
blog post #367
 |
| Courtesy of NeedPix.com |
I’m
going to try something different (at least to me) this week. I want to publish
a heretofore unpublished novella in serial form. I’ve done short stories in
installments, but this is quite a bit longer. We’ll give it a try, at any rate.
Please let me know how you like this first installment.
*****
IMPOTENT
Forrest De la Roche swiped at
the cold, damp windshield. The Volvo’s defogger failed to clear the mist inside,
just as its wipers could not cope with the downpour outside, leaving him
virtually blind. It appeared to be twilight, although the dashboard clock and
his gold Rolex insisted it was not yet two in the afternoon. Who in the hell
knew it rained like this in New Mexico? Admittedly this was northern New Mexico… but still.
For a brief moment, De la Roche
surrendered to a sense of overwhelming depression, something entirely foreign
to him. As the chairman and CEO of ConstructCo International, he had controlled
his own destiny and that of thousands of employees for years. Problems were
simply knots to be undone by the application of knowledge, experience, logic,
and brainpower, and this situation was no different
An inveterate workaholic, he had
felt the sudden need to snatch a couple of days from his crowded schedule, and
a solo trip to a meeting in Albuquerque seemed just the ticket. He deplaned the
company’s executive jet in Farmington, a small New Mexico city in the Four
Corners Area, rented the Volvo, and started driving, ignoring demands that one
of his security staff accompany him. He wanted to forget about White House
invitations, Congressional hearings, power lunches, and merger strategies while
motoring cross-country in the superbly engineered Swedish automobile.
Almost immediately upon leaving
Farmington, he ran into long stretches of road construction. After consulting a
road map, De la Roche struck out across the Jemez Mountains, planning on
rejoining the highway at some place called San Ysidro where the construction
would be behind him. In any case, the prospect of a mountain trip pleased him
more than the flat, high-desert country he had traveled so far. A few miles
east of a quaint little town called Cuba, he ran out of pavement and really
began enjoying himself.
The first big raindrops
approached from behind and failed to give adequate warning of what was to come.
The landscape faded from green to gray behind a heavy veil of water. The
weather system hovering to the west all day had rushed up to catch him by
surprise. De la Roche pulled to the side of the road to punch up his satellite
phone. Nothing but static. He glanced at the briefcase on the seat beside him
and assumed the Global Positioning Unit inside was doing its job. Past experience
with mountain storms told him the front would rush past, leaving only the worry
of washouts and bog holes. Since the road was well graveled, he threw the Volvo
in gear and continued.
Before long he suspected he had
miscalculated. The rain relentlessly pelted the countryside. Frequent flashes
of lightning momentarily brightened the day-turned- night, but the deluge
drowned out the thunderclaps except when a bolt hit especially close. One
strike on a stretch of road a hundred yards ahead of him excited the hair on
his forearms. The gravel foundation that gave such comfort and confidence began
to thin, and in places totally disappear, but by that time he was committed. Reducing
his speed, he doggedly kept driving.
Half a mile later, he powered
through a stream of water rapidly eroding the dirt road. Once across the newly
formed creek, he realized he’d foreclosed returning the way he came. The
roadway would be completely washed out in a matter of minutes. In typical
fashion, he shrugged and continued his slow way over the sodden road.
He was climbing now, and his
primary worry became the condition of the roadway. On sudden, severe
down-slopes typical of mountain roads, the car planed on treacherous caliche
clay. More than once, he slid off the slick road into water-filled ditches, but
the valiant machine always pulled itself clear... until it didn’t.
Cursing vehemently, he crawled
out into the pounding rain to stuff rocks and branches under the bogged wheels with
little hope that it would help. To his amazement, the rear wheels grabbed, and
the Volvo gradually tore itself from the mud with loud sucking noises that
sounded amazingly like Griego, the hunky masseur at this discrete little club
in San Diego.
The car topped a steep hill and
entered a flat, open meadow. Negotiating the long gradual curve to the right,
he almost did not see the fallen tree until too late. Even so, he calmly pumped
the brakes gently. The automobile fishtailed alarmingly but stopped short of
the pine blocking the road.
Fighting panic, he noticed a
track leading off to the left, undoubtedly an old logging road. With no other
real alternative, he urged the Volvo on its uncertain way into the misty
forest. A short time later, the rough track connected with another graveled
road. Relieved, he turned right and prayed this would lead him to civilization.
One hour and no more than five
miles later, the road dropped abruptly to snake down the side of a steep
ravine. He pumped the brakes, but it did no good. In the terrifying moments
before the car gently caressed a big Ponderosa, halting its uncontrolled
forward movement, De la Roche noticed a Forest Service sign announcing Cañon
Cebolla. As he stared down the two hundred-foot precipitous drop just beyond
the friendly pine to the distant floor of the canyon, his stomach dropped into
his scrotum.
Mindful of the shallow root
systems of these mountain pines, even one so formidable as this, he threw the
car into reverse. Alarmed that the rear wheels spun sideways, swinging the nose
of the car free from the protecting tree trunk, he hit the seat belt button and
prepared to abandon the vehicle when the tires found purchase and threw the car
backward. Removing his foot from the gas pedal, he allowed gravity to take him
wherever it wished, so long as it wasn’t down into the canyon. Where it took
him was on an unrestrained slide back along the sloppy road. The car slued
sideways as it picked up speed before bouncing across a washed-out furrow and
crashing against a boulder.
The rain quit abruptly as he climbed
out of the car. The respite was only momentarily; another wall of water
approached from a hundred yards down the road. Rushing through an inspection,
De la Roche found the right rear fender crushed and the wheel beneath it bent
at an awkward angle. The Volvo wasn’t going anywhere except for a piggyback
ride aboard a wrecker. Unwilling to risk the steep road down into the canyon, he
tackled the hill behind the disabled car. After falling twice and sliding on
his L. L. Bean-clad butt all the way back to the car, he turned at right angles
to the hill, dug the length of his soft Italian shoes into the mud, and
side-stepped his way to the top.
Despite hours in a gym and a
disciplined exercise regimen, he was breathing laboriously. It was the altitude,
he told himself, exhaling white vapor into the mountain atmosphere. Just before
the rain came again, he caught the distant growl of a laboring motor. Immediately,
he began running down the road like some panicked greenhorn in pursuit of what
may or may not be a vehicle. The rain struck, descending in angry torrents that
blinded and rendered him deaf. He floundered on, clutching at the faint hope of
salvation. Chilled to the bone, he nonetheless began to sweat heavily as he slipped
and slid on the untrustworthy clay.
Then he faltered, coming to a
halt with his hands clutching his knees while he fought for breath. Out of the
corner of his eye he caught movement! Lights! A car! Awkwardly, he stumbled
ahead, understanding immediately that the machine was on a sidetrack intersecting
the road fifty yards ahead of him. The vehicle towed a stock trailer so the
driver would not attempt the descent into Cebolla Canyon. The car would turn
away from him if he did not attract its attention. Given the lashing rain, the
driver would be concentrating on the road ahead of him.
He wouldn’t make it to the
intersection in time! The headlights shimmering through the rain approached
the turn-off while he was still twenty yards away. Realizing that he wore dark
clothing, De la Roche tore off his windbreaker and quickly reversed it,
flapping the tan lining frantically. The vehicle, a Jeep, reached the
intersection and turned in the opposite direction. He nearly collapsed from
fear and disappointment.
Halfway into the turn, the brake
lights flashed. The Jeep drifted to a halt and sat puffing pale clouds of fog
at him. A yellow-slickered figure in a Stetson emerged from the cab of the
vehicle and peered through the falling rain.
De la Roche, reaching down
inside himself to reclaim his dignity, calmly put on the soaked windbreaker for
the scant protection it afforded before walking toward the vehicle with as much
poise as he could muster on the slippery surface. The driver, a large figure
obscured by the pelting rain, approached on foot.
“Trouble?” asked a basso-profundo voice when they were five
yards apart.
De la Roche downplayed the
thing. “You might say that. Car’s propped up on a rock at the bottom of the
hill,” he half-turned and gestured behind him.
“Let’s take a look,” the figure
said, striding past him, amazingly sure-footed on the treacherous surface.
De la Roche had the impression
of a big, beefy man. Young. Confident. Capable. “It’s disabled,” he called,
turning to follow the yellow oilcloth raincoat.
“Blocking the road?” The voice
was muffled by the failing rain.
“Halfway. Rear end’s in the
ditch; front’s sticking out some.”
“Better do something about it.”
The man preceded him down the
slope, digging in the heels of his calf-high waders to keep his sliding to a
minimum. De la Roche almost plowed into him from behind when he stopped beside
the Volvo.
“Let’s see if we can shove the
front end into the ditch.” In a move De la Roche admired, the stranger picked
out some hefty rocks and stomped them into the greasy mud for leverage. The wet
clay made the task reasonably easy. Soon the handsome black car sat forlornly
in a water-filled ditch at the side of the road.
“Help you carry your things?”
the man asked, pushing his dripping hat back on his head during another brief
lull in the downpour, revealing an immensely pleasing face of angles and
wind-burned hues.
Cowboy for some ranch. About
thirty. Good-looking. Sexy as hell. And a Godsend.
“Thanks,” he responded aloud,
allowing the stranger to take his overnight bag while he claimed the briefcase.
They reached the Jeep just as
the rain started in earnest again. Safe from the deluge for the moment, the
cowboy eased his vehicle and trailer out onto the road before glancing over at
De la Roche and shooting out a hand.
“Austin Andino,” the cowboy
yelled over sound of rain slamming against the roof.
Impressed by the grip, he
responded. “Forrest De la Roche.”
*****
Well, now they’ve met.
And they’re stranded in the middle of the northern New Mexico mountains in a
horrendous rainstorm. At the outset, I said this was a novella, which gives me
time to develop characters, unlike a short story. We already know that Forrest
De la Roche, big shot or no, occasionally likes to get it on, like with Griego the masseur. But we don’t know anything about the desires of a big cowboy, do
we? Not yet. At any rate, the Los Angeles executive usually is in control of
things. But now he’s at the mercy of a strange cowboy. He’s in an unaccustomed
condition… he’s impotent.
The following are buy
links for the recently released The Voxlightner Scandal.
Barnes
& Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-voxlightner-scandal-don-travis/1132632844?ean=9781640809260
Universal
Link: https://books2read.com/u/4AxPDo
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading and keep on
writing. You have something to say, so say it!
My
personal links: (Note the change in the Email address because I’m still getting
remarks on the old dontravis21@gmail.com.
PLEASE DON’T USE THAT ONE.)
Email:
don.travis@aol.com.
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Buy
links to Abaddon’s Locusts:
See
you next week.
Don
Thursday, December 12, 2019
Hector Running Wolf and Billy Youngston
dontravis.com
blog post #366
 |
| A Running Wolf - Courtesy of Free Images |
Wow!
Got a lot of hits on The Voxlightner Scandal last week. Hope every one
of them buys a copy of the book.
This
week, a piece of flash fiction by my fellow Oklahoman Mark Wildyr caught my
eye. It’s short and pithy and gets its point across in a hurry… which is the
object of such short-short pieces. At any rate, it’s something he posted on his
web site in July of 2016. He’s given me permission to post it on my site.
Here
goes. Hope you enjoy the read.
*****
HECTOR
RUNNING WOLF AND BILLY YOUNGSTON
By
Mark Wildyr
“Billy?”
“Huh?”
“You wanna do it?”
My back went cold from goosebumps while my
groin caught fire. We were out in the woods at the old lean-to we’d made back when
we were kids. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about what he was saying.
Not by a long shot. But Hector was a coyote, which was a trickster in his
culture. Sometimes he’d come out with these outlandish suggestions and then
make a joke of them. Mostly they were for fun, but sometimes they bit.
I didn’t even know why we were best
friends. Sons of a white farmer and a Creek carpenter, we were an unlikely
pair. White sugar and red pepper, my mom used to say with a shake of her head.
But friends we were, ever since we’d laid eyes on one another in middle school
five years back.
I remember the first time we went skinny
dipping together the summer after we met. We came out of the water with him
examining me like I was a mule he was intent on buying, while I snatched furtive
glimpses of his equipment. That pretty well summed up the difference between
us.
As time went by, our friendship
strengthened. On my part, it was almost exclusive, but he was lots more social
than I was. I admit to being jealous of his other friends. Seemed like they
shared lots more with him than I did. Of course, they did… an entire culture.
But it gradually dawned on me that I got more of his time than any of the
others. Shoot, than all the others,
and that was what counted.
I didn’t know if half a minute or half an
hour had passed since he asked his question, but I answered it anyway.
“Don’t make no difference to me one way or
the other.”
The air seemed charged with electricity
like when a storm’s approaching. The surrounding pines dropped their sharp
scent on us like it was a tangible thing. I grew aware of strange things. The
toes in my boots. A beetle crawling over the back of my right hand. A squirrel
fussing from the oak tree overhead. And the long, lanky form of Hector Running
Wolf lying beside me.
The world turned normal again as disappointment
rose within me. I took a breath and tried to relax my taunt nerves.
And then he reached for me.
*****
I wonder what they did?
Was it fumbling kid’s stuff? Or did Hector Running Wolf turn it into a real
experience for Billy Youngston. Mark’s story allows you to finish it according
to your own fantasy. Have at it!
The following are buy
links for The Voxlightner Scandal.
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-voxlightner-scandal-don-travis/1132632844?ean=9781640809260
Universal Link: https://books2read.com/u/4AxPDo
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading and keep on
writing. You have something to say, so say it!
My
personal links: (Note the change in the Email address because I’m still getting
remarks on the old dontravis21@gmail.com. PLEASE DON’T USE
THAT ONE.)
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Buy
links to Abaddon’s Locusts:
See
you next week.
Don
Thursday, December 5, 2019
Voxlightner Scandal’s Out, So Let’s Take a Look at It
dontravis.com
blog post #365
 |
| Artist: Maria Fanning |
DSP
released The Voxlightner Scandal, the sixth book in my BJ Vinson mystery
series, last month. I’d like to present an excerpt of that novel for you this
week. Part of the Blurb for the book serves to set up the narrative. Take a
look:
No good deed goes unpunished, as investigator B. J. Vinson is about to discover.
Writer John Pierce Belhaven was murdered before he could reveal the name of another killer--one connected to the biggest scandal to rock Albuquerque in years. Two of the city's most prominent citizens--Barron Voxlightner and Dr. Walther Stabler--vanished in 2004, along with fifty million dollars looted from Voxlightner Precious Metals Recovery Corp. It only makes sense that poking into that disappearance cost Belhaven his life.
But BJ isn't so sure.
The
following excerpt comes in Chapter 1. In the first part, BJ is calling his old
partner from his days on the Albuquerque Police Department, Lt. Gene Enriquez,
to solicit some information on the author’s death, but also to clear his
investigation with the police. He always does this before snooping into an
active police investigation. The second part is a conversation between BJ and the
love of his life, Paul Barton, about the case.
*****
THE
VOXLIGHTNER SCANDAL
Ignoring the mayor’s call, I scheduled my testimony on the
embezzlement case with the ADA before dialing Gene’s private number. Our phone
conversations, although increasingly rare, followed a pattern. Brusque
greetings and catching up on domestic affairs before getting down to business.
Given Gene’s family of five children, most afflicted with the dreaded teenage
condition, he talked a lot more than I did. Today was no different. After he
filled me in on Glenda and the brood, I brought him up to date with news of
Paul and me. Once everything was covered, I asked if there was a police
investigation of the Belhaven death.
“You mean the writer toasted in his garage? Why? Should there be?”
“You know the answer to that better than I do, but Paul’s convinced
something’s funny. Claims Belhaven wouldn’t have attempted to repair a lawn mower
or anything else. He wasn’t a hands-on type of guy.”
“We’ve had that feedback too.”
“So you’re looking into the death?”
“Like usual, we’re satisfying ourselves everything’s on the up and
up… unless the medical investigator declares it an accidental death.”
“Paul wants to write a story on it.”
“Have him touch base with a detective named Roy Guerra. He’s
handling it for us.”
*****
Midafternoon I heard Paul’s familiar voice in the outer office.
Hazel’s delighted rejoinder hinted I might be relieved of my current task, at
least momentarily. My office manager-cum-surrogate mother—although totally
perplexed by my gay life—nonetheless loved Paul as much as she did me. After a
hug and a once-over from Hazel, he came through the doorway to invade my
private space, and a welcome incursion it was. I never tired of looking on his
handsome features.
“Hi. Am I interrupting anything?”
“Nothing uninterruptable,” I quipped. “Come on in.”
“I talked to Detective Guerra. We’re meeting here later, if that’s
okay. Thanks for getting the contact for me.”
“Pleased to do it. What did he say?”
“He has reservations about Belhaven’s death, and I added to them.”
“Any theories?”
“Couple. I found out Pierce was interviewed on TV the afternoon he died.
The interviewer quizzed him about his new book, and his answers might have cost
him his life.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked as we moved to the conference table
in the corner of my office.
“He writes—or wrote—mysteries. Fiction. But according to the
interview, his next book was going to be based on an actual event. Do you
remember the Voxlightner blowup a few years ago?”
I nodded. “A big scandal. I was still at APD, so it was probably
late 2003 or early ’04.”
Paul flipped out a notebook and clicked his ballpoint pen. “What do
you remember about it?”
“Gene and I weren’t assigned the case, so I just remember bits and
pieces. One of the local lights, a guy named Barron Voxlightner, and a fellow
named Stabler found acres and acres of mine tailings in Arizona that tested
positive for commercial grade silver and gold. All they needed to do was
extract the precious metals and sell them.”
“Sounds like a sure thing,” he said.
“That’s what everybody thought. The whole town wanted a piece of
the action. The money poured in. People went crazy.”
Paul checked his notes. “I take it they formed a company called
Voxlightner Precious Metals Recovery to do the project.”
“Right. They took VPMR—as it became known—public and raised fifty
million.”
“That’s a lot of dough.”
“Absolutely. And yet the bottom fell out within six months. It
turned out the tests were rigged. The tailings were worthless. But before the
hammer fell, Voxlightner and Stabler vanished, and the lawyer exposing the
fraud was murdered. The thing was never solved.”
Paul’s face assumed a thoughtful look. “When I was a kid, I thought
anyone called Voxlightner was royalty.”
*****
I hope the above is
enough to hook you on the book sufficiently to follow the next chapter in the
career of Burleigh J. Vinson… do you blame him for going by BJ?
The following are buy
links for the book”
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-voxlightner-scandal-don-travis/1132632844?ean=9781640809260
Universal Link: https://books2read.com/u/4AxPDo
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading and keep on
writing. You have something to say, so say it!
My
personal links: (Note the change in the Email address because I’m still getting
remarks on the old dontravis21@gmail.com. PLEASE DON’T USE
THAT ONE.)
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Buy
links to Abaddon’s Locusts:
See
you next week.
Don
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