Chapter 13: How Everything Works Out

Thirteen. It’s superstitious. I’ve even stayed in a hotel with no thirteenth floor. I married my bride on the thirteenth of the month and my daughter was born on the thirteenth, minutes after midnight, so yeah, I’m superstitious too. Only thirteen is my FAVORITE number. That’s why at one pm on the thirteenth, I called Lotta Rain. Evelyn had given me her real name but I liked to call her Lotta. For all I knew, Kathy was as fake a name as the rest of her.

Evelyn was going to call but I thought it’d be better if I did. I am the man of the house. For all her nearly sixteen years, Evelyn had been looking after me in one form or another. It was time to show her I have what it takes too. Instead, Evelyn sat near me, ready to help if needed.

Lotta might have ignored the call. She may have been busy. But luckily she answered on the first ring. I tapped the icon on Evelyn’s phone and hers began recording everything that was said on mine. Lotta had no idea who was calling her, not knowing my number, but as soon as she answered I set her straight. Instead of a greeting, I asked her if she had sixty seven million reasons to hang up on me, because I could give her sixty seven million reasons not to. That got her attention. It was a line she’d said to whoever had been on the other end of the call we’d overheard via the recording. My next sentence made my intent clear.

“Maybe you’ve already done it, but if you haven’t, it’s already too late to sanitize your system anyway. We have a full backup we could sell you if you want?” I lied.

“What do you want?” Lotta asked calmly. “If it’s money, I have none. Grandfather owns everything. I don’t even keep the money I earn off my own porn.”

I could tell Lotta wasn’t trying to make me feel sorry for her. She wasn’t whining, just stating facts. I waited without saying anything more. I wanted her nervous and eager to fill the silence. Her next words weren’t nervous. More resigned.

“If you’re trying to ruin grandfather, it won’t happen. You could have him on film shooting someone in the face with a cannon and he would never spend a minute in jail. And you won’t get any money off him either. After you left on Saturday I called him. He made things crystal clear to me. I you want me, I’m yours to do with as you please. The moment he begins losing money because of you, you’ll disappear. The moment he’s harassed by the IRS because of you, you and your family will all disappear. If you choose to accept his terms, you’ll never hear from him. If you want a favor from him, don’t ask. You’d regret it.”

“And what about what you want?” I asked.

“It’s not up to me. If you don’t want me, I carry on just as I have done.”

“What if I decided to make you my personal pain slut and keep you locked up in a hole in the ground until you die of old age?” I asked, seeking anger or fear or something other than resignation. I didn’t get it.

“It wouldn’t happen,” Lotta stated simply. “The moment grandfather loses money, you’d disappear. He’d lose money if I wasn’t making videos.”

“So what exactly does, ‘Do what you want with me,’ mean then?”

“It means anything other than denying grandfather my videos. I can be your pain slut if you want. I can deliver you the executives at Palladium who have their own toys and make them give those toys up to you if you want. It’s my company, I just don’t get to see anything except an accounting of the cash grandfather earns from it.”

Just like that, the power was in our hands. I sat down with Evelyn after we’d each had an opportunity to process everything Kathy had said. Evelyn was in favor of going to the police. We’d recorded the phone call so we had proof of intent. No actual evidence, but a smoking gun. I was against the idea, citing Lotta’s insistence that her grandfather would and could do something to us. If we did nothing to Mr Bitterman, he’d leave us alone. We’d already been ‘paid’ more than forty thousand dollars to maintain our silence. Evelyn was of the mind that both Kathy and her grandfather be made to pay and the money we’d received already had nothing to do with it. It was just the right thing to do.

“Life isn’t always about doing the right thing. Sometimes it’s about doing the practical thing that minimizes hurt to others. If the right thing to do is to go to the police about Bitterman, then we’d be hypocrites if we didn’t turn in your mom too. The practical thing to do would be to accept Bitterman’s offer. It would help much more than anything else I can think of. Would Palladium Entertainment continue to exist if we successfully brought Bitterman to justice?” I asked pointedly.

“That is one business the world could do without,” Evelyn responded.

“I don’t know how many people are directly or indirectly employed there, but even if it were only a hundred. Would you take responsibility for a hundred lost jobs? Your mom’s paid extremely well there. Would we manage without that income?”

“You think mom would even consider staying there after all that’s happened?” Evelyn was shocked at the idea.

“I can’t say that I understand it, but I’m coming to grips with the idea that your mom prefers to live how we’ve made her live lately. That’s all due, indirectly, to Palladium Entertainment and Kathy Griffin. Some would say we owe her a debt of gratitude.”

“So what do you suggest, dad?” Evelyn asked in a small voice.

I had a few ideas and one of them hinged on Evelyn not hitting the roof when we talked about Lotta Rain. She’d felt particularly betrayed by the woman. I took a deep breath and told her everything on my mind.

Monday morning at five am, security experts began wiring the corporate office for sound and in some cases, video. They were finished, had cleaned up and left before the first employee arrived. All this was with the full knowledge and consent of Kathy. I’d decided to call her on her statement that it was her company and she was owned by us. She didn’t argue. She didn’t hesitate. She just asked if we were going to do it ourselves or if it was up to her to get it done. I saw no downside to having her do it.

By Monday afternoon, we had plenty of dirt on all but one of the executive team and that was only because the last executive was on a ‘business trip’ to France with his secretary. It came as no surprise to us that he was blackmailing the secretary too. This exec didn’t get her into bed with his charm and good looks.

What i didn’t know was that eighty percent of the staff was female and attractive. Five percent were executives, all male except for Kathy who wasn’t officially one anyway. The ten percent that were male were actors or computer geeks. A good proportion of the females on staff were not being blackmailed yet there were at least fifty in corporate alone that were unwillingly giving up sexual favors. It was almost like a female all you could eat smorgasbord for the executives.

Monday evening we inserted memory card after memory card into the laptop and reviewed each. In those four hours until lunch, we discovered evidence of corruption, extortion, blackmail and insider trading. It was like the executives were being paid a salary to sit at a desk and break the law. Evelyn and I were astonished that the company had been able to remain in business as long as it had, until we realized that the regular employees were really keeping things going so well that all the executives had to do was read a report five minutes before a meeting in order to do their job. I got a rush when I saw girl on one video clip as she dropped paperwork on her boss’s desk. The camera had been installed looking straight down at the desk and due to the way she happened to position herself, we both got a very nice down blouse look at her. Easily as exciting for me as seeing her naked.

While I was at my job, Evelyn stayed up editing and creating copies of what we’d recorded. She was just finishing when I arrived home again. I had to call in for her the next morning. She just was in no shape to be concentrating on school work, but she did want to join me when I visited girl at work.

Girl met us at reception and took us behind the corporate curtain, where the work was done. She introduced us to Susie, then a few minutes later, to Megan. We had seen them both before but were finally introduced.

Evelyn couldn’t help herself. She patted a briefcase she’d brought along. “I think your day is going to be a pleasantly memorable one,” she said to each woman cryptically.

Karen had set up a meeting with all the VP’s. All except the one who was on a ‘business trip’ with his secretary.