Chapter 1

Maxwell Alexander eased back in his plush desk chair and swung around toward the massive grey-tinted window behind him. Only two weeks ago, he had been able to gaze down unblinkingly through the golden May sunlight to the traffic-clogged Los Angeles intersection five stories below, but summer had come scorching in on the heels of spring and now the air shimmered with heat and a hazy blinding glare. The sky seemed to drop down suddenly thick with smog, like a stifling shroud over the sprawling city. The newspapers had been reporting that the level of air pollution was critical and had already reached the danger point twice during the past week. As usual, the papers had blamed it on the complexes of heavy industry that surrounded the city and editorial writers were crying out for more stringent anti-pollution measures.

With an impatient snort, Max turned his chair back around toward his broad mahogany desk and picked up the latest copy of New World Steel, Alexander Steel Company's bi-weekly magazine. He grinned perniciously at the striking cover photograph that met his gaze--a shapely, long-legged blonde sunbathing next to a sparkling bright blue river with a few gleaming white smoke-stacks rising over the trees in the background, gently puffing out pale balls of smoke into the unsullied sky. The caption read: "Pollution-- What's All the Fuss About?" Even though the picture had been taken months ago, it still amused him to think of how he had been keen enough to take advantage of a steelworkers' strike to scrub down those smoke-stacks and then burn tons of newsprint in the huge furnaces to produce that innocent-looking white smoke.

The "clear blue stream" had been a bit more of a problem, considering the sulfurous waste that was being constantly dumped into the river by the steel mill, but, just as the photographer had said, "There's nothing you can't do with the right camera filters, and good equipment." Sure, it had been expensive and time-consuming, but hell, he thought smugly, it was well worth it. It was exactly this kind of clever, creative thinking that kept him in his position as president, and major stockholder, of Alexander Steel, the booming company that his uncle Morton Alexander had founded.

Yes, he mused proudly as he chewed off the end of one of his expensive Havana cigars, he deserved every damned Wing he had ever got. After all, it had taken him years to reach his present position, and by God, he had had to scheme and connive, in ways that few people could really appreciate, to gain control of this industrial empire. In a rare moment of humility, he found himself thanking the gods of fate that he had become so thoroughly successful, had become a man who was wealthy and powerful enough to avoid the unpleasantness of the smoggy Los Angeles summer by remaining safely ensconced in the comfort of his lavishly- decorated, air-conditioned office.

Puffing reflectively on the lighted cigar, he flipped through the glossy magazine to the pages that outlined Alexander Steel's profits for the last fiscal quarter. Though he knew every figure by heart, he could not help but let out a low, satisfied chuckle at the sight of the marked increases in orders and profits that would make him and the other stockholders many millions of dollars richer this year. In the ten years that Max had worked under his aging uncle, Morton Alexander, he had learned the business well, so well that the old man had had almost no choice but to promote his enterprising nephew up to a vice-presidency, the position of power from which Max had gradually taken complete control of the company. That had been almost five years ago, Max recalled nostalgically, and the promotion had been Uncle Morton's single grave mistake in an otherwise brilliant business career.

Max never tired of remembering the details of his relentless climb to power and wealth. Because of his nephew's extraordinary business sense, the usually shrewd old uncle had tended to ignore Max's occasional unscrupulousness and the new vice-president's obvious impatience with ideas that ran contrary to his own. Max had a tendency to interpret everything around him in terms of dollars and cents in his own pocket, which after all, the old man thought, might be a good thing from a stockholder's standpoint. At first, the younger man's trenchant greediness about business matters had disturbed Uncle Morton a little, and the aging steel magnate would be tense and shrill after a few hours around him. But gradually, Morton Alexander learned to relax around his eager nephew and had come to regard the young man's impatience and demands as nothing more than healthy ambition.

Cautiously, and then with less care, the uncle had started to accept Max's advice on crucial new issues concerning important company policies and had eventually entrusted him with the handling of entire projects without feeling the necessity to oversee them or examine the end results of his power-hungry nephew's administrative efforts. Ultimately, with a great surge of confidence that Max would be able to work even more effectively with additional responsibility, the old chief executive had brushed aside the violent protests of the other board members and had seen to it that his ambitious junior relative was elevated to a full vice-presidency.

That had been the beginning of the end for Uncle Morton. He had sown the seeds of his own downfall as the reigning head of Alexander Steel Company.

It had been only a matter of time until, little by little, Max had thoroughly usurped his uncle's power and had phased the older man out of the company altogether with only a comfortable token pension and a relatively insignificant vote as a minor stockholder. The other executives who had been troublemakers in Max's eyes--the ones who had been foolish enough to show any opposition to his ruthless rose to the presidency and full command of the company--had been forced into either complete administrative slavery or dishonorable resignation with a bare minimum of compensation for their years of service with Alexander Steel. One by one, the vacant posts had been filled with fresh personnel that the new dictator had screened personally--a staff of people who filled all the necessary qualifications and were willing to accept low starting salaries with promises of handsome incomes in the future if they somehow managed to meet his high expectations of them in their various fields. No one had been able to stop Max from having his way as the president of the big corporation, and he knew that there was not a single employee who could justifiably criticize his effectiveness as a businessman--if one of them should even dare to think of criticizing him. As merciless and underhanded as he often was with other rival companies, and sometimes with his own customers, he had built Alexander Steel's quarterly profits up to all-time record highs. And even more impressive at least as far as the employees were concerned, he had introduced incentive programs through which everyone, from an ordinary laborer to a vice-president, could earn attractive bonuses if they were able to fulfill the production and sales quotas that he had posted on bulletin boards as being "Normal Standards," but which veterans of the industry considered beyond the capabilities of the huge plant as well as beyond the range of the available market. Nevertheless, sales and production continued to soar and, occasionally, much to the surprise of the company skeptics, Max's secretaries posted bonus lists throughout the plant.

In short, Max Alexander was an undeniable success in the world of business and, moreover, he enjoyed his position far too much to feel the smallest pang of remorse for anything he had had to do to become what he was. To the contrary, he often found himself almost wishing that he had not gained the pinnacle of his career quite so rapidly and completely... that there was still some challenge left in his life. Ironically, Max's knack for organization had made the company operate so efficiently that there was little for him to do now but count up the profits and amuse himself with an occasional new project--such as New World Steel, the company magazine that now lay before him on the desk.

The magazine, which had started out as a half-hearted effort to keep up with production trends started by other large companies, had become Max's pride and joy, an attractive, glossy testament to the success of Alexander Steel... and it's president! The ruggedly handsome middle-aged executive thumbed proudly through the smart little publication, nodding in pleased agreement with everything that his young editor Henry Cummings, had included so far. It had taken Max a good while to clear all the fancy intellectual notions out of the recent college graduate's head, but finally he had trained the boy satisfactorily.

The magazine was exactly as Max wanted it now, packed with colorful photographs of new plants and operations as well as busty, well-shaped girls to keep the stockholders interested in the meat of the articles. Yes, young Cummings was certainly coming along and, if he continued to remember who was buttering his bread, the boy might possibly have a brilliant future at Alexander Steel.

Max turned another page of the publication and suddenly the expression of smug-faced complacency began to fade from his craggy features. Below the thick mass of greying brown hair, the fifty- three year-old executive's face darkened and his broad chest began to heave beneath his expensively-tailored shirt and suit jacket until his appearance was that of a lion on the verge of roaring out its fury. On the desk before him the magazine lay open at its last page, the headline of which read: "A Message from Max"...

"Goddammit, Cummings, where's my picture?" the enraged bull- like man bellowed out in his spacious office. "How in the hell could you forget that?"

Then, remembering that the palatial office had been thoroughly soundproofed as a result of his own orders, and that no one but he could hear his indignant fury, he rose quickly from his chair and leaned over the highly-polished expanse of desk to jab impatiently at the buzzer that signaled his receptionist in the next room. His tall, still-muscular frame seemed even more ominous than usual as he bent over the call-box, punching his forefinger brutally down on the button until a red light suddenly lit up on the console.

"Yes--yes, Mr. Alexander," a nervous female voice finally chimed in from the speaker on the machine. "I-I was just away from my desk for a minute..."

The girl's obvious terror pleased Max in his sour mood and he found himself smiling evilly as he roared back in to the speaker, "You're damned right you did, blondie! And tell your friends at the water-cooler to break up the tea party and get back to work right away!"

"Oh, yes, sir," she squeaked timidly. Max grinned to himself sadistically as he imagined his deliciously built ash-blonde receptionist cowering at her desk, making frantic gestures to his small battalion of secretaries that they should return to work immediately. He required a fairly large number of girls in his personal secretarial staff because some of them were dead weight and had been hired solely for their looks. Well, what the hell, he thought defensively, what was the good of being president if he could not indulge himself in a few harmless amusements at the company's expense.

"Uh, Mr. Alexander, sir," the timid female voice from the speaker broke in again, intruding on his thoughts. "Did you want me for anything else, sir?"

His fury of a moment ago renewing, Max was just about to instruct the girl to summon Henry Cummings to his office when his wandering gaze fell on the page opposite his own "message" in the magazine. Almost against his will, he stared feverishly at the page headed "New Products" and at the picture of a buxom, round- hipped brunette girl seductively caressing a huge roll of glistening heavy-duty steel wire, one of Alexander Steel's newest lines. Though he tried to maintain his waning anger at the young editor, Max could not help but appreciate Henry Cummings' unerring taste in female flesh. Max wondered for a long moment if the magazine editor interviewed his models personally. Christ, the very idea of all those gorgeous young women clustered in Henry's tiny office, like a whole gardenful of flowers just waiting to be plucked by any man with balls enough to do it, made the steel magnate leer licentiously. It was no wonder that Henry sometimes forgot a thing as simple as including the boss's picture with his address to the stockholders, Max mused with a chuckle. Hell, the poor kid probably had had a hard time managing to think straight all the time.

"Did you say something, Mr. Alexander?" the receptionist asked at the sound of her employer's muffled laughter over the intercom. Max sat there in silence, continuing to stare at the juicy female morsel in the photograph, his temple beginning to pulse and throb.

"Aw, hell, buzz Miss Stillson in her office and have her come in her at once," Max finally ordered. "And tell her to make it snappy."

"Yes, sir," the receptionist's voice came back, a tone of frightened obeisance causing her to squeak a little. It was not two minutes after the intercom had clicked off that a small door marked "Private" sprang open on the far side of Max's office.

"Honey, you know I'm right next door, you don't have to go through a third party," a gorgeous raven-haired woman purred as she stepped into his office, clad only in a revealing sea-green negligee fringed with almost incongruous-seeming lace at the cuffs and down along the deep vee of the neckline. "I could hear you bullying that poor girl out there even over the sounds of the baseball game on my radio."

"Dammit, June, you're on my payroll as my public relations assistant, and you really ought to be dressed by this time of the day," Max grumbled with mock sterness as his glittering eyes hungrily scanned the generous, sexy contours of June Stillson's nearly-naked body. Although Maxwell Alexander's ravishing dark- haired mistress was in her late thirties, her provocative, voluptuous body was always enough to send his blood pressure soaring, and now Max rapidly forgot the younger girls on the pages of the company magazine.

He added with a leering grin, "What if one of my secretaries came into your office, baby? Now what kind of public relations work would you be doing in that kind of outfit? Christ, June, who do you think you are?"

"I'm just me, Max, and I'd be doing the same kind of work I always do," she replied with a confident smile as she began to stroll casually toward him, her full outward-curving hips swaying seductively beneath the sheer fabric of her negligee. "Don't worry, anyway, because I always keep the door locked when I'm like this. I just had a feeling you might want to see me this afternoon, so I dressed for the occasion."

Smiling at him cleverly, the statuesque beauty peeled the thin garment slowly from her sensuous body and, dropping it to her feet, did a small pirouette in the center of the spacious office before she walked nakedly to his desk and leaned her smooth rounded buttocks back on the hard wood edge, wriggling back along the top until she perched gracefully in front of him. Her deep amber eyes flickered smokily with suddenly-ignited lust as she stared expectantly into Max's hard but handsome face.

"By God, you really want it, don't you, baby?" Max growled excitedly at the beautiful woman whose buttocks were already moving slowly in tiny little circles of anticipation on the highly burnished wood surface of his desk, a scant few inches from his leering face. "You little whore, I'll bet you don't think about anything but cock all day long."