The Vote Trader

By Roger Alan Bonner

The Vote Trader is a socio-science fiction drama. Hector is a financial and business expert, working in gray markets in Brooklyn. His partner, Sarah, is a political operative for a Democratic candidate in the race for Senator from New York. The sci-fi element is that New York allows individuals to buy and sell votes in political elections (like buyers and sellers do for corporate securities). Hector, though apolitical, decides to trade in votes in the election for US Senator from New York. Initially, he is pursuing profit.  

HIJINKS ENSUE. 

The story explores the connections between civic responsibility, greed, wealth, and politics. It is not based upon the USA's 2020 national elections. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Frog Books Company
• Release date: Oct 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393675167

Roger Alan Bonner

Roger Alan Bonner is a retired economist and ersatz mathematician, now busy creating works of fiction. He works primarily in science fiction because science is exploding these days.   He retired from Washington, D.C., spent time in waterlogged Florida, and then escaped to the Triangle are of North Carolina. It is a beautiful place, which the hurricanes often miss, filled with warm, bright, interesting people. He has two daughters and usually does not know where they are.  He likes baseball, the Outer Banks, chocolate cream pie, dancing, music, and is a huge fan of painter Vincent van Gogh, home run king Barry Bonds, guitarist Al DiMeola, and actress Minnie Driver.  Contact him at rogeralanbonner.com or leave an email at [e-mail].

Book preview

Also by Roger Alan Bonner

Sentinel

A powerful supercomputer, built to operate a large telescope on an asteroid, awakens to human companionship, mortality, complexity, courage, and resourcefulness.

THE VOTE TRADER

Hector is a financier in Brooklyn, involved in a variety of enterprises and projects motivated by profit. When New York allows its citizens to buy and sell votes in political elections, Hector dives into the heavy surf of money and power, and is surprised to encounter issues of humanity that supersede profit.

A THING OF DARK IMAGININGS

A psychological drama - Amir and Serena lose their only child, a daughter, in a mass shooting on her campus. After that, Amir loses a battle with grief, becoming psychotic, possessed by an inner voice, the Beast, an angry, vicious being obsessed with revenge. His life becomes awash in blood; having lost his daughter, he might lose everything.

Milky Way Tango

The first of the Belt stories. On a date, Jimmy and Sarah are victimized by violence. Jimmy kills and is incarcerated near a nebula over a thousand light years away. Abandoned, Sarah struggles to resurrect her life while Jimmy fights to survive the cold, vacuum, and turbulence of a vast and fiery nebula.

MILKY WAY BOOGIE

Sarah cannot live without Jimmy. She moves into space, seeking to reunite while Jimmy learns to love the beauty of the nebula and displays a gift for managing potential disasters. 

MILKY WAY GALA

Malfunction and treachery conspire to maroon Sarah in deep space. Jimmy leaves the nebula and searches for her, following an obsession that becomes a job, then a life. Though his rescues bring him fame and fortune, he fails to find Sarah. She fights a desperate battle to survive as cold, vacuum, privation, and radiation invade. An explosive climax concludes the Belt stories.

Thirds

The first of the three-volume Nebula tales, a space opera at the juncture of political science, biology, and fantasy. Humans encounter a space-faring, tri-sexual society, Surana. The biology and interdependence among the three Suranan sexes result in pervasive and deeply seated stratification and discrimination. Violence ensues and Surana threatens to explode.

THIRDS RISING (forthcoming, 2021)

The second Nebula tale. The oligarchs ruling Surana try to use science as a means of oppression. Violence, terrorism, and kidnapping explode on Surana.

THIRDS AFLAME (forthcoming, 2021)

The third Nebula tale. As the body count rises and destruction spreads across Surana like a fiery disease, the tris discover a weapon far more effective than guns and bombs. Biology drives politics, and Surana strives for a resolution.

THE VOTE TRADER

A novella by 

Roger Alan Bonner 

Red Frog Books Company

November 2020

Copyright, Disclaimer, and Keywords

©2020 Red Frog Books Company. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews, please reproduce no part of this story in any manner without written permission from the copyright owner.

ISBN 978-1-948988-12-4.

My thanks to Robinraj Premchand and Pixabay for the gorgeous image on which the cover is based. Book covers © Red Frog Books Company 2020. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction, created to entertain the reader. Any legal or natural person, place, event, or institution mentioned herein is either a product of the author's imagination or a fictional element of a story. Any resemblance to an actual person, place, event, or institution is coincidental and unintended.

Keywords: Biker bar, black markets, corruption, Brooklyn, buying votes, selling votes, money, politics, lobbying, stock markets, sex, stripper, extortion.

Doing the Rounds

On a Flatbush Avenue sidewalk outside Rubio's Cuttery , Sal Bustamante walked with the smooth rolling stride of a confident man. In late morning, this piece of Flatbush was a beehive - shoppers on the sidewalks, delivery trucks double-parked while dropping off merchandise. Cars, trucks, and buses hummed past in a steady parade, honking at each other to proclaim their right to the road. Across the street, a single policeman nodded to shopkeepers and shoppers; he caught Sal's eye. Sal nodded back. It was Sal's job to provide security for the area near Rubio's , a prosperous barber shop. That was Sal’s territory; the policeman handled the rest of the block.

Sal was there because Silvio Rubio, the proprietor of the Cuttery, had retired a year ago from a prominent Brooklyn crime family.

Sal watched a young man approach. As the man came near, Sal said, Hey, Hector. Good morning. How you doing?

Hector Ruiz, a few years younger than Sal, was an entirely different breed of man - serious, thoughtful, busy, always going somewhere, an oddity in a neighborhood where many men spent their days loitering on street corners. He walked fast without seeming to hurry, a man with places to go, people to see. Hector dressed for utility, not style; he did not wear a suit, would occasionally wear a sport coat, and usually carried a laptop and two cell phones. 

Several months ago, a local mugger had demanded Hector's laptop, which was encrypted to protect clients. Hector shrugged and handed it over. The laptop contained a dragon’s lode of commercial information, which caught the attention of several of Brooklyn's more prominent criminal managers. The incident seemed not to bother Hector. The next day Sal spoke with the mugger, who decided not to risk his skin, his eyes, his kneecaps, and his friends. The mugger returned the laptop and the information intact and undisturbed. That was that; the situation resolved