The Corporate Lies: A Novel

By Donald Reichardt

Corporate financial misdeeds. Rampant rumors of Mafia presence in the executive suite. A marriage on the rocks and a boss who demands blind loyalty. Max Brusca didn't expect any of those surprises when he landed a cushy officer position with Paltroy Industries in New York City. But what appeared to be an exciting and prestigious opportunity in t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Don Reichardt LLC
• Release date: Dec 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798987276921

Donald Reichardt

Before starting a novel-writing journey, Donald Reichardt taught school, wrote for newspapers and magazines, and managed public relations and advertising teams. As a corporate communications executive, he wrote speeches for five Fortune Fifty corporate CEOs and many other company officers. Author website: www.DonReichardt.com

Book preview

1

Living the Nightmare

Looking back on it now, I don’t understand how it all came down to this. Hell, I was the golden boy, wasn’t I? Nobody but Al Lichstein ever said it aloud around me, but I didn’t need to have ESP to know what they were all thinking: Max Brusca is can’t-miss, top-three material. Maybe he’ll catch a break or two and sit in the man’s chair someday.

So, since everything seemed to be going so swimmingly, why am I trying to understand how in God’s Earth I got caught in this vise? Never since hiring on at Paltroy Industries have I felt so all alone, weighed down, torn in fifty ways trying to understand the game. How I should play it. How I can stay alive. I’m safe for now, I suppose, but there’s no way I can know if it’s all over.

If you can’t stand the pressure, get out of the cooker, I said to myself time and again while gazing out over the unfriendly skyline from my Big Apple apartment window. Or walking the damp, steaming streets. Or downing two or three Manhattans at Harry’s over on the West Side, a ritual that increased in frequency as everything became dicey.

Get out? Easier said than done. This Paltroy Industries adventure was to be my moment in the sun. Time to shine, big boy. Make a name for yourself in the annals of the New York City financial district.

Yet there I was, facing a nerve-shattering crisis with no simple means of escape. Except to run.

I could blame it all on my dad. His ghost still whispered constantly in my shell-pink ear.

Or Camille, my darling ex-wife. Didn’t she walk out when I needed her most?

Or the man himself, Theodore Ted Ziegler, the CEO who pulled me out of the Midwest prairie dust and plunked me onto that throne of splinters and nails.

But no. If I’m honest, this was on me. My bad, as the athletes say. Got in over your inexperienced head, didn’t you, Max? Failure to recognize powerful people. Poor judgment in the face of peril.

I swear, the memory of how it all blew up will remain as vivid thirty years from now, if I’m still sucking air, as it is right now, while I’m re-living the nightmare in real-time HD.

I remember vividly that horrid, sweat-stained night when I was facing the decision of my life. At some point, I had no idea what time, I heard a torrential storm raging outside, beating violently against the bedroom windows like a high surf, the kind that thrashes in anger against tall stone jetties and produces advisories. A late-winter New York tempest so tumultuous it muted the night racket of taxi horns and garbage trucks.

I half-woke and gazed toward the nightstand clock but was too numb, too bleary-eyed to read the numbers. Coming in the wake of the recent days’ chaotic events, this earsplitting cloudburst was robbing me of desperately needed sleep. I thrashed around but could find no comfortable position, and so I lay comatose, a helpless zombie, trying at least to salvage some precious rest.

Thus, the entire night became a loss, dragging me under like a persistent, angry undertow. When I finally, fully awoke in a profuse and miserable sweat, my tee shirt was drenched, my graying hair matted like cold, limp spaghetti clinging desperately to the side of a colander. I was actually relieved to be facing the day, even in my sleep-deprived state.

Pulling myself up on the side of the bed, the last vestiges of an anxiety-riddled dream stayed with me for a few minutes as I struggled to pry my eyes open. I shivered, remembering parts of it from this night, others from nights past. For this was a recurring frustration, the same one I always had about searching for a place to tee off amid a landscape of concrete streets and skyscraping edifices. When I finally spotted a space wide enough to drive a two-iron shot through, I turned to discover my clubs were missing. I panicked.

The conundrum was whether to rush back to the clubhouse to see if I absent-mindedly left my bag behind or to borrow an iron from a playing partner. It was the same decision I faced a dozen times on similar nights, in the same identical subconscious fantasy. Finally deciding to commandeer someone else’s club, I discovered my foursome buddies had tired of my indecision and played ahead without me.

Abandoned in this cold and unfriendly metropolis, I was left to soldier on without support.

I recalled all of this in an instant of awakening. There had to be some deep, psychological meaning to that dream, especially since I’d experienced variations multiple times in recent months. Yet how to interpret it was, and would remain, a discomfiting mystery.

I shook my head and sat sagging groggily on the bed’s edge, wishing I had never learned to play the senseless game. I found it impossible anyway, living in New York City.

The nightmare dithered, pixilated in my brain, then expired. I knew its source doubtless had something to do with my career slipping down a dangerous slope, my future hanging in the balance of the next twenty-four tortured hours.

As I stumbled into the kitchen and punched the coffee button, I could still hear the rain, but steady, not raging like before. There would be a mob scene at the train—umbrella wars and annoying spray from hats and raincoats being shaken out. The trick would be to beat the subway rush. There was only time for one cup as I scrambled to shave, shower and dress.

It was a five-block sprint through the weather to the Fifty-Ninth Street stop where the Lexington Express—the Lex—would propel me toward my fate, whatever that was to be. Today was going to be show-and-tell hell at Paltroy Industries, and I would have to be on high alert to avoid a catastrophic end to the unfolding drama.

Mercifully, the rain settled into a gentle drizzle as I bolted from my building. Eddie peered quizzically at me and tipped his cap, but I barely looked at him going past. I managed to stuff my folding umbrella into my briefcase as I sprinted toward the corner.

Bertie was there at his stand, as always.

Morning Mr. Brusca, he rasped, chomping on an unlit half-cigar. Nasty damned morning.

Nodding, I said, "Wall Street Chronicle." My voice surprised me by cracking as I said it.

I really didn’t need to tell him; it was our morning routine. Bertie thrust the paper toward me and accepted my bill, stuffing it into his apron with a casual shrug.

I waited until I was down in the tunnel before opening it. My hands trembled a bit as I thumbed desperately through the pages. I scanned it cover to cover. Once, then again. Nothing. I was safe for twenty-four hours. Maybe there was a God. Perhaps I could figure something out and right the ship before the wrath of Hades reigned down upon my sorry life and career.

Still in a confused fog, I absently bumped a man in a trench coat and rain hat as we tried to enter the car at the same time.

Hey, asshole! he protested.

Sorry, man. I stepped aside and let him in first. No need for a subway confrontation today. There would be plenty enough stress when I got to work.

As I pushed to grab a strap with the rest of the wet, miserable schmucks crowding in, I wondered if any of them was facing a crisis, like me, that might define the rest of their lives.

Fifteen minutes later I was crossing the street in mid-block. Paltroy’s headquarters offices were in the financial district on Broadway in an iconic old building that once housed the largest corporation on the planet at that time, AT&T. Long after the Bell breakup and the company’s move farther uptown, it became home to several publishing concerns. Two years before 9/11, Ted Ziegler leased the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth floors, plus some lower office space, and made it Paltroy’s home base.

The 195 Broadway building was the last structure still standing on the east side of that horrid World Trade Center disaster. Paltroy moved out temporarily after the collapse, but as Ground Zero became converted from a smoldering rubble pile to solemn, open space, Ted moved the company back in.

I intentionally avoided the corner where the corporate limos were lined up next to the building on the side street. I crossed where the drivers couldn’t see me. Mario Esposito would already be there, sitting at the wheel of the lead car where he had let Ted Ziegler out most likely an hour earlier. No need to take a chance on Mario spotting me coming in.

Not many people were arriving yet. In another hour, at nine, the building entrance would be a noisy zoo. As I pushed through the heavy brass revolving doors, my wingtips made hollow click-click sounds on the marble floor. The massive white marble columns in the lobby remained after the AT&T move. So did the open space that echoed the hurried travels of hordes of people who crowded toward the brass-trimmed bank of elevators, the same clop-clopping of powerful executives and worker drones that rattled through this great precipice for decades. On normal days I relished hearing the rushed sounds of my strides inside this corporate cavern as I launched into the workday with vigor. Not now. Today, it seemed to me they were announcing my arrival on death row.

I weaved around the huge columns and flashed my identification badge at the security guard. She nodded at me, hardly looking at it. I didn’t recognize her; I assumed she was probably subbing for somebody sick. So, I thanked whatever gods were still smiling down on me that I was arriving at the office on this dangerous day in relative anonymity.

2

Trouble at Paltroy

With mind-blowing trepidation, I watched the lighted numbers change over the elevator doors and moved quickly toward the one descending fastest toward the lobby. When it opened, I was startled by the lone appearance of Pierce McCaffrey, our company speechwriter and one of my direct reports. He was surprised, too, his heavy black eyebrows arching at my sudden appearance directly in front of him. He stood motionless for a moment, rubbing his hands nervously. But a small stream of early arrivals wanting to get on forced him to abandon the car, step toward me with the pained expression of a man watching the massive ceiling above us about to come crumbling down.

Pierce’s deep New York-accented voice had a kind of tremulous, frantic urgency as the elevator door clanked shut behind him and swept its passengers up to their own individual fates.

Max, I found you. Mario Esposito was looking for you earlier, he said.

I nodded. My adrenaline pumped violently from the warning. I started to speak, but the next door sprang open and a small wave of arrivals behind me surged toward it, carrying me along with them into the car. Once inside, I turned and saw Pierce transfixed in the lobby, watching me with sad, gray eyes, an expression of resignation washing across his sallow, middle-aged face.

Max, listen to me, I heard him say just before the door slammed shut. It’s not worth the risk. Do whatever the man wants.

**

I remember Pierce talking drunkenly one night about rumors we had an organized crime figure in the corporation. I’d already heard the rumblings but dismissed them as unadulterated corporate grapevine bull.

We were having drinks after work at The Top Hat on the corner of Nassau and Fulton. It was a quiet, nondescript little place where, given its proximity to Wall Street, City Hall and the big banks, one might expect to see suited and neck-tied heavy hitters doing deals over martinis. But the place was a little too seedy around the edges. So, instead, it attracted local laborers from nearby construction sites and mid-level corporate types like Pierce who hoped their managers wouldn’t come in and see them getting too deep into their cups.

Because it felt old and dingy and lacked any refinement, I disliked going there. The only times I did were occasions when I couldn’t steer my speechwriter toward the classier atmosphere of, say, Day Trader’s Bar or The Bull Market.

I didn’t like hanging out with the man too often. Not only was he my subordinate, but he also over-imbibed and became sloppy. Oddly, I liked him personally despite his drunken proclivity. He was clever and quick-witted. And because he made the rounds of so many company departments in the information-gathering phase of his job, he knew a lot about what was going on at Paltroy. It was entertaining and informative to have a drink or two with him, now and then.

So, when he ducked his head in my office a little past six, and invited, Pop a couple with me at The Top Hat? I said I would. Besides, tension between Camille and me was escalating. Going straight home didn’t appeal to me.

That evening, sometime midway through our second cocktail, Pierce made an off-hand comment about a made man on the payroll. He continued to ramble on, but his observation stunned me. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard the rumor, but Pierce’s slipping it into the conversation with such casual certainty made me double-take, mentally. I stopped listening to whatever drivel he was babbling, my mind locked onto the comment.

Pierce, hold on. Are you serious? You don’t really believe that—a ‘made man?’

His gaze turned skyward in surprise at the question, searching his memory for what he’d said.

Finally, Sure, he responded impatiently. Everyone talks about it.

You do mean made, as in Mafia?

Pierce waggled his head yes and waved for Cortez to pour us another round. It would be our third, and I was feeling a buzz. It seemed to me as if the speechwriter was just getting his night started.

I said, That’s complete crap. Sure, I’ve heard hints, rumblings, but in more of a joking mode. I don’t think the organized mob even exists in New York City anymore.

Shoot yes, it does. The five families still operate, he answered. They’re a lot smaller than they were in their heyday and operate a lot of five and dime store scams. The drug gangs have changed the real money-making landscape in New York City. But there’s still a family hierarchy, and they all have their little schemes going.

And one of them operates out of an office at 195 Broadway. I said it more as a statement of incredulity than a question.

Cortez brought the drinks, and we both nodded an acknowledgment.

I continued, So, assuming for a minute I accept both your statements—that the mob still exists and there’s one of them among us, that begs the question. Who is it?

He shook his head and didn’t answer as he drained half his vodka tonic.

I crowed in protest, See, you don’t know. How would you know?

    He tilted his glass and finished off the drink. I’ve lived in Manhattan all my life. I know what goes on, he said with a hint of offense in his voice.

But, I mean, how would you know Paltroy harbors one of them?

He stared at me, a bit angrily I thought. Boss, you do know what I do for a living, don’t you?

I laughed. Being the CEO speechwriter doesn’t get you inside anything, Pierce. You know it, and I know it. You’re a damned wordsmith. You pour silk down Ted Ziegler’s throat and give him the vocabulary he has never had. You gather info and data from dozens of middle-level managers in accounting, engineering, marketing, legal. None of that puts you on the twenty-sixth floor.

He picked up his glass and banged it back down on the bar so hard I thought it might crack. I don’t think he meant for the gesture to summon Cortez, but the barkeep came running, and Pierce nodded yes to him. Cortez glanced at me, and I held up a hand in decline. I was already loopy from the two-and-a-half I’d had.

I continued my diatribe, making mental note of Pierce’s growing antagonism, No disrespect, but I’m a frigging company vice president, and if we had a gangster in our midst, I’d come a lot closer to knowing about it than you. I’ve never even heard a hint from anyone who would really be aware.

    That might be true, Max, the speechwriter responded, seeming to calm down. But you’ve been here, what, less than a year? I’ve been here for at least two hundred. And as to whether someone in my position could be in the know, you must have learned by now not everything at Paltroy flows in straight lines.

We finished our drinks, and I tossed some bills on the bar. I left him there, probably to get really smashed.

Riding home on the Lex, I turned the conversation over and over in my mind. Pierce was not only a drinker, but I was aware of his tendency to exaggerate and dramatize. In a sense, combined with a million-dollar vocabulary and great recall of history, that’s what made him a good speechwriter. Yet I believed he was too out of the loop from what would have to be close-to-the-vest, secret corporate business. Plus, it seemed too incredibly far-fetched.

Still, as I exited out of the car and climbed the littered steps up to the darkening street, I couldn’t help fixating on Pierce’s claim. And, despite his huge vodka intake, the unqualified certainty with which he made it.

I found myself speculating. If so, who?

One name sprang immediately to mind. He spent more time with Ted Ziegler than anyone else. He was a local, and his name fit the stereotype.

The CEO’s limo driver, Mario Esposito.

**

The schedule was on my side. Ted had a conference call with the financial analysts at nine, and he never emerged for anything on reporting days. I could get into my office, check my messages before my assistant, Charlotte, got there, and make my play. Then decide what to do about Greta.

As bad luck would have it, Greta’s message was on my office phone voicemail. Why she hadn’t called my cell phone, I didn’t know.

"Max, it’s Greta," her voicemail message sounded crisp and businesslike. I smiled to myself, relishing the relationship that was building between us. I really need to talk to you, her message concluded.

I called her back. What’s up, Greta?

You know what’s up, Max. My editor’s crawling all over me about these pending investigations of Paltroy. SEC, Justice, who knows who else? I need answers.

I swallowed hard. Do you have time for lunch?

Eleven-thirty, she answered curtly.

I’ll meet you at Harry’s, my Midtown hangout. You remember it, right?

There was a dramatic pause, of incredulity, I realized.

No, Max, I don’t recall the place where we celebrated New Year’s, she responded in her best sarcastic voice. The place where I first kissed you.

Sorry, I offered weakly.

Harry’s is too far to go. It’s a busy day.

It’s safe.

All right, she agreed.

Charlotte arrived as I was hanging up. She put away her coat and hurried in. My assistant bustled around too busily to suit me, but she was growing on me. I liked her sunny disposition and care and feeding of me.

You don’t have coffee, she smiled. I’ll get you some.

That’s okay, Charlotte, I’ll get it while you dig some files out for me. Here, I’ve made a list. I’ll need two copies of all of it by eleven.

She made an effort to smile again. This is a lot. I’ll do my best to have it by then.

It’s really important, I answered.

My next move was to Hamilton Frey’s office. His door was closed, but I barged in without knocking.

Paltroy’s chief financial officer was on the phone, looking kind of dazed. He nodded me in and finished the conversation in a near-whisper. As he hung up and hunched his massive shoulders over his desk, he stared at me with his wide forehead and bushy white eyebrows pulled into a pained furrow.

"Ham, I have a date with the Wall Street Chronicle, I said. I’m having lunch with their reporter who’s already getting a heads up on our situation. I know just enough to be dangerous. Tell me straight, what’s going on?"

The Securities and Exchange Commission is sending us a notice of formal inquiry, his voice sounded labored. Max, we don’t want any publicity about it.

My laugh was more like a scream. Publicity? The press already has it, Hamilton. I need to know what you know so I can handle it.

I never heard someone’s last breath, but as he leaned back and emitted a burdened sigh, I imagined that must have been the sound. He motioned me to his side chair, but I remained standing, growing more uncomfortable by the minute.

I’ve seen the raw data, Ham. Unless you tell me otherwise, it appears to me we’ve been booking revenues prematurely—really big numbers—to prop our earnings up for the analysts. And shareholders.

Hamilton grunted. The lawyers say I can’t tell you very much.

I exploded. Screw the lawyers! I’m the one taking the heat from the press. I have to know how bad it is. Ted’s been saying all along it’s penny-ante stuff, minor infractions.

Frey’s silence and zombie-like, dead-ahead stare said it all.

So, it’s really bad. Is that everything, Ham, or is there more?

Off the record?

I’m not the press, Ham. I’m Paltroy. I wanted to punch the big jerk in the face. What can you tell me about the offshore accounts? I know they exist—I’ve figured that much out. I simply can’t put enough of the pieces into the puzzle to see the whole picture.

Hamilton stood and rambled aimlessly, nervously around his office. He was dripping perspiration. I had seen this hulking man face tough questions at annual meetings. I marveled at how he was able to stare down board members when they questioned his strategies. Now he was wandering across his office like a wounded animal.

We used them to—you know, to obscure certain transactions.

In other words, to hide bad debt, I translated emphatically. My hunches were correct.

He stopped pacing. An odd kind of pleading expression washed across his face, a child seeking forgiveness from his parents.

Everyone does it, Max, he whined.

Christ.

No, no Max. Listen to me. It makes the quarter look good so the stock won’t tank, and we can set it straight later. No harm, no foul.

I waited amidst a long, embarrassing silence.

It wasn’t my deal, he said weakly, his broad face displaying wide-eyed panic. I do what I’m told.

I pivoted defiantly and strode toward the door.

He added, to my back, his deep voice trembling, You don’t understand what’s going on, Max. If you don’t handle this right, I pity you. I pity all of us.

3

Caught in the Middle

It was five after eleven. I had barely enough time to stop by my office, then catch a taxi and get to Harry’s to meet Greta. My mind was racing like an Indy car on a slick and dangerous track.

Charlotte was waiting for me with two stacks of papers on my desk. That fantastic woman never let me down.

Bonnie Millwood called, she said as she stuffed each stack into a large manilla envelope. Mr. Ziegler wants you to take his car. Mario will drive you.

I stopped stock-still. How does the chairman even know about my meeting?

I don’t know, Charlotte said, followed by the obvious, I guess somebody told him.

Hamilton Frey must have called him, I thought. So, Ted is sending me in his car, with his chauffeur. Now I have to deal with an obvious veiled warning from my CEO and a driver I don’t want to be anywhere near.

My day was turning uglier, more fraught with trap doors.

I called Greta. Change of plans. We can’t meet at Harry’s. I didn’t explain I didn’t want Mario to know about my West Side hideaway.

That’s fine, she said. I thought it would be too far to travel, anyway. Do you know Farley’s?

Yes. Over at the Seaport.

See you there. Same time.

I jammed the envelopes into my briefcase and hurried out the door, waving a thanks to my reliable assistant.

Mario was waiting by the car on the Fulton Street curb. The rain had abated a bit, and I used my briefcase as cover. The driver smiled politely, opened the door and I climbed into the limo.

Where to, Mr. Brusca?

Farley’s Bar and Grill. Do you know it?

He looked over his shoulder at me, his swarthy face gripped in an annoyed frown. Of course, he would know where Farley’s is, I thought.

Even in noontime traffic the trip would take no more than ten minutes.

Brusca, Mario mused as we headed east on John Street toward the Seaport District. That’s Italian, right? Like me. What’s Max short for, Massimo?

I wasn’t in the mood to make conversation with this guy, but I had to humor him.

My dad was Italian. Mother was German, I answered, feeling antsy. She wanted to name me Maximillian, but my dad wouldn’t hear of it. So, they settled on Max. I hesitated, then took advantage of the opening. You grew up here, did you, Mario? In New York City? I tried to sound casual, although my brain was spinning crazily around the idea I might be talking to a real-live, card-carrying member of one of the New York families.

The driver pointed in a southeastern direction. Over there. Brooklyn.

His answer didn’t do anything to ease my nerves. Several organized crime families operated out of Mario’s home borough.

As we pulled in front of Farley’s, I glanced at my watch. Exactly eleven-thirty. Greta would be there; she lived her life ten minutes early.

No need to wait, Mario, I said as he opened the door for me. I’ll be a while.

He gave me a little grin. No problem. Nothing on my plate for a few hours.

As he closed the door, I tried to sound emphatic, repeating, No need to wait.

He shrugged his shoulders and nodded, the message received. I watched