One Last Chance

By Dan Stout

Jack Parker, having served one sentence for felony aggravated driving while intoxicated, is currently behind bars on a grand theft auto beef. He has automotive repair skills and is selected by the warden for a new pilot program administered by the warden’s church. Elder Martinez, representing the church, is serious about keeping Jack, a two strike felon from going back to prison. The church provides a car, a cell phone, a modest amount of money, ID and hope, vital in helping him become a productive member of society. If Jack can keep his nose clean for ninety days, the church will help him open an auto repair shop that will secure his future.
But Jack, like so many others, has an alcohol abuse issue. His biggest problem is with the murderous and vicious bookie, Benny the Chain. Benny believes in setting an example by beating people to death with iron links. Jack owes him twenty five thousand dollars.
Benny moved up in the car theft arena and is counterfeiting vehicle identification and titles for luxury cars, but needs the stolen cars to convert. He brutally convinces Jack to steal cars to settle the debt and after Jack succeeds, decides he is too valuable to let go.
Can Jack, caught between Elder Martinez and the church, Benny the Chain, and a fear of life imprisonment find a way out?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dan Stout
• Release date: Mar 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301895878

Dan Stout

Dan Stout writes about fever dreams and half-glimpsed shapes in the shadows. His fiction draws on travels throughout Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Rim as well as an employment history spanning everything from subpoena server to assistant well driller. Dan's stories have appeared in publications such as The Saturday Evening Post, Nature, and Intergalactic Medicine Show.

Book preview

One Last Chance

Dan Stout

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Dan Stout

License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dan Stout

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PO Box 6505 Boise, ID 83707

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Also by Dan Stout

Coming summer 2013

Far From Innocent

A NOVEL

$even Round$

A SHORT NOVEL

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

FAR FROM INNOCENT - Coming summer 2013!

Dedication.

To my beautiful wife, who helped to give me extra time to write and extra encouragement to do so. And again to my wife and lovely daughters, whom I never get to spend enough time with.

Acknowledgements.

To Kim Jones and Susan Jacobus for your editing skills which were invaluable in helping to make my writing look professional.

To the many friends and family whom read this manuscript and offered encouragement and constructive comments on the story.

To Dane Low for the awesome cover. You were able to hear a few ideas and create a piece of art.

To John Low for your skills and work formatting this wonderful short story for epublishing.

Chapter One

Molly Martinez tapped the loose papers into a tidy stack and stapled them together. There were various tabs with small, legible writing on many of the right hand edges so she could easily find her data points. She took her presidential appointment seriously and was always well prepared for each quarterly teleconference, the latest of which was about to get underway. She needed to be ready. She was the chairwoman of the National Committee on Prison Reform.

Her credentials were impressive. A retired professor from one of the most politically active universities in California with a Masters degree in accounting and a PhD in Economics. During her tenure she had published numerous opinions, research papers and two books about the effects of the prison system and its burden on taxpayers.

She was practical, had been married once and forever to her high school beau and was the president of the community church she and her husband attended. The church was small and carried no debt. The congregation believed in doing God's work without a lot of fanfare. Over the years the members came to embrace her simple uncomplicated guidance and aimed to please her, knowing she was a results oriented leader.

Many states were in a terrible financial crisis made worse by growing prison populations. In California alone it cost over forty-seven thousand dollars per year to house one inmate. The new numbers were not yet in. There were over one hundred forty-three thousand prisoners, not counting parolees, costing six point seven billion dollars a year and growing. A colossal waste and that was just in California.

Molly had been appointed by the President because she saw options others missed and was not afraid to break new ground. She had a small staff and was a congenial and dedicated taskmaster. Secretly, she was tired of the endless talk and the sloth-like progress of today's political process.

Molly believed people should face the consequences of their actions, especially the two strike felons. There was really no excuse for these people to commit more crimes. She believed that criminal who committed a third strike needed to be removed from society. Violent crime rates had dropped dramatically and with a few exceptions the three strikes laws were working. However, a minimum sentence of twenty five years for a third strike, cost the taxpayer over a million dollars. Something new needed to be tried; something radical. A better system was needed to