Drew S. Goodman's Blog

Once again, it's been awhile since I've posted.  Life has brought it's twists and turns and has kept me busy and guessing.

A couple of weeks ago, I was laid off from a job where I'd worked for 10 years.  If you want to read more about my feelings on that, I've posted a blog piece on my business blog titled: "I Was Laid Off, And I'm Grateful."  But no need to dwell on that any more here.

What this sudden fork in my path has brought is the opportunity to write.  More time to write each day, but, with some economic deadlines put in place by the situation itself.

Over the last 3 years, I've traveled the country occasionally, speaking to business group, conferences and trade associations.  I started out a little slow on this, but I quickly discovered that people get paid to speak to groups like this.  Yet, as a couple of mentors in the speaking world have taught me, you've got to have something to back you up.  Offer up some "street cred," if you will.

So, they've encouraged me to write books on the topics I speak on.  That doesn't mean that I'm abandoning my fiction, but for now I'm focusing out of necessity on writing what helps to build my expertise on business subjects.  From time to time, I'll post some of my experiences here, but to follow what I'm doing writing about business, you can follow my other blog: Building Better Ideas.

But, especially as I have interesting stories about writing, reading, and traveling, I'll still be posting here.

I haven't completely disappeared.  I'm still writing.  "Dark & Stormy" is coming along slower than I expected, but I hope to have the first draft of the next chapter up on the blog fairly soon.  In the meantime, I've been working on two non-fiction books about employee morale and increasing the bottom line (this relates more to the professional speaking that I do).

Recently, I was involved in a discussion about short stories and the topic of flash fiction was brought up.  For those of you who don't know what flash fiction is, here's an answer- it is a short, short story, completely told with 300-1000 words.  Since I have a folder filled with hundreds of story ideas that I've been collecting over the years, I thought I'd try my had at some flash fiction.  I've written a few of these already, and will eventually have some more, perhaps to bundle together and sell as an ebook.

I thought I'd share one of the ones that has gotten the most reaction so far, if just for the title.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:  "Butt Money."

Butt Money


Jeff Massey was working a Saturday shift at Border’s Books & Music.  For the last half-hour, he’d been keeping an eye on what appeared to be a homeless man, sitting quietly in an overstuffed chair in the children’s area, mesmerized by a book about snakes.  Being downtown, the store had its share of homeless who came in during the summer to enjoy the air conditioning and get a drink of water.  But, there’d been a problem with several of them stealing books and CD’s.Jeff worked where he could watch the man as he straightened bookshelves.  As he rearranged some chairs around a table, the man suddenly stood up with the book and walked towards the front door.  Larry was at the cash register was right next to the door and when he looked up Jeff nodded towards the homeless man with the book in his hands. Though Larry knew this meant to watch him, Jeff could see the terrified look in his eyes, knowing that Larry wanted no part in physically stopping the hygienically challenged man.  Larry was a germaphobe who used wet-wipes to scour the cash register, computers or anything else that had been touched, before he would use them.  Jeff prepared to bolt out the door after him.Instead, the man walked to the register and put the book on the counter.Larry carefully turned the book over and scanned the barcode.“That’s $17.45 please,” said Larry, being as polite with this man as with any other customer.The man reached deep into the pockets of his ratty jeans and came out with a few one dollar bills, some change, and what might’ve been lint.  He put it all on the counter.“I’m sorry, sir,” said Larry, without touching the money.  “That’s not enough.”The homeless man paused for a moment, looking down at the money on the counter, then scooped it up and put it back in the front pocket of his dirty jeans.Then, both Jeff and Larry watched, too stunned to move, as the man undid the button on the waist of his pants, unzipped, then dropped his pants down around his ankles.  He stood there in his baggy, grayish briefs.  Before Larry or Jeff could say anything, the man reached behind and lifted the elastic band with one hand and pulled out a soggy twenty dollar bill from between his briefs and ass.  He held it out for Larry.Larry hesitated and swallowed so hard Jeff could hear it from twenty feet away.  He took the bill by the smallest corner he possible could, opened the till, and dropped it in.  He waited while the man pulled up his pants, then handed him the change.“Would you like a bag?” Larry asked.Then man shook his head, took his change, picked up the book and walked out.Larry came out from behind the counter and was in a full sprint towards the bathroom by the second step, a gurgling scream emanating from somewhere deep in his throat.

I'm right in the middle of chapter 5 of "Dark and Stormy."  This chapter has been a little harder for me than the last four.  Trying to ratchet up the tension and violence, drop some clues and throw in some red herrings.  It'll be out shortly though, I promise.

Meanwhile, to keep you reading this weekend (February 16-17, 2013) I'm giving away a copy of my short story, "Nothing There" on the Amazon Kindle store.  You can read it even if you don't have a Kindle by using a Kindle app for your tablet, or the Kindle cloud reader on your computer.

Click here to get a FREE copy of "Nothing There."

And lastly, I'm nearly done with the edits on an all new short story- "The Cactus Curtain."  I'm hoping to have that one up for download sometime this week (since I have a few days off of the day job).

I hope you've been enjoying "Dark and Stormy," and that you'll take advantage of the free download of "Nothing There."  Thanks for reading!

I've struggled a little more with this chapter.  I'm beginning to notice some changes that I should make, both in character development and plot.  That's eventually going to make me go back and start making cuts and changes to parts of the first three chapters.  As you read this latest chapter, let me know if you can see what I mean.


After I left the restaurant, I walked over and hopped on the Red Line headed north.  I’d brought the pictures that Skip had given me.  He was right they were grainy and the face was fuzzy, but if you held them away from you and squinted a little, you got an idea of who you were looking at.I wasn’t convinced that the guy in the picture was a cop.  It would have been easier to make him if he’d been in uniform, but that’s asking for things to be too easy.  That isn’t the way the world works.  Especially my world.There was an acquaintance of mine, I wouldn’t call him a friend or enemy, who ran a bookstore in Wrigleyville whom I thought might be able to help me.  I’d end up walking out of the shop with a few books I’d probably never read, but it was a small price to pay if he had some information that could help me.It was a short walk from the Addison L station over to the store on Clark Street, but it was an unseasonably warm day for early October.  I took my suit coat off and hung it over my arm.  At least I’d worn a short sleeve shirt under the jacket.  I was rarely formal.  Good thing considering I didn’t have much formal clothing.I rounded the corner onto Clark and saw the distinctive sign- a martini glass, with a book instead of an olive.  The lettering on the doors welcomed me to The Speak Easy Bookshop.When I walked in I was greeted by photos of famous Chicago gangsters hung on the wall behind the front counter and all around the walls above the bookcases.  Al Capone held a prominent location just behind the cash register.  They were all there; “Big Jim” Colosimo, the godfather of the Chicago Outfit, “Johnny the Fox” Torrio, the man who took Capone under his wing, George “Bugs” Moran, Capone’s biggest rival, along with dozens more I didn’t recognize.  Tony even had the balls to hang a picture of John “No Nose” DiFronzo, the reputed current boss of the Outfit.Tony Carlisi came out of the office, saw me and frowned and nodded.  It wasn’t that he didn’t like seeing me.  Tony never smiled.  In the six or so years I’d known him, I’d never once seen him smile.  No one else I knew had ever seen him smile either and a few of those people had known him a lot longer than I had.Tony loved to use his Italian heritage, his true-crime and mystery bookstore, and his demeanor, along with a few hints dropped here and there, to let you think that he had a connection to the Outfit.  I don’t know if he did or didn’t, but I wasn’t going to question him about it.  He knew a lot of people and could get a lot of information and I wasn’t about to piss him off by questioning his connections.“Been awhile, Jacks,” he said.“Business has been slow.”“I’d imagine, after what that rat-bastard did to you in the courtroom.”Even Tony knew.  But, Tony knew a lot of things.“You here for a book on how to be a dick?”Like I’d never heard that one from Tony before.  Only every time I came to the store.“Don’t need one when I got you as an example.”He bobbed his head in amusement.  That was as close as I ever saw Tony get to a smile or laugh.Just then, the phone rang.  Tony answered and gave me the indication that this could take a few minutes.  I walked deeper into the bookstore, looking at all the titles on the shelves.  Many of the shelves were stacked two deep with other books piled on top of those for the lack of room.  It always amazed me how many books he had in here, fiction and non-fiction that were devoted to crime.  Looking at nothing but the books in this store, you’d get the idea that murder was big business.I went into another room where all the books were signed by the authors.  Most were used, but there was a good selection of new books, written by current bestselling authors.  In a glass case in the middle of the room were books that I assumed were more valuable than the rest that were lining the walls.  I looked at a few of the titles, not recognizing most of the books or their authors, until I saw a copy of “The Big Sleep” by Raymond Chandler.  A little card lay on the shelf that said “Inscribed” and had a dollar figure that made the payment I’d just gotten from Bennett look not so large.The Philip Marlowe stories that I’d read so long ago first made me want to be a private investigator.  But the dreams of a teenage boy are often overtaken by reality and making a living.  Especially once you got married and had responsibilities.  But, when the job and the marriage both fell apart, it seemed a good time to pursue my dreams from so long ago.  Although I’d learned that the real life of a private investigator was nothing like the fictional stories of Marlowe or Spade.“Sorry.  Business,” said Tony.“Not a problem.  I was admiring your copy of Chandler.”He nodded.  “That was a good find.  The guy selling had no idea what he had.  His grandfather’d left it to him and he was looking to cash out quickly.  Probably to get high.  Stupid kids.”I imagine Tony had given him a good amount of cash, but nothing near what he could have gotten for it.  If you didn’t know what you had, “seller beware.”  Tony knew his books and he had no problem lowballing you for something.“You might like this one,” he said while handing me a hardbound book.  I flipped to the title page.  Sure enough, it was signed.  Like it or not, I was going to walk out of here with it.“It’s a modern day western.  A Wyoming sheriff that solves more murders in a county of five thousand people than there ever should be.  But, the writing’s great.  You’ll love Longmire and end up picking up all of Johnson’s novels.”“Anything else you’d recommend?”He led me through the store put a few more books into my hands.  I hoped he could help me, because this trip was beginning to add up.He rang me up and I handed him two bills.  As he was putting the books into a plastic sack with a big green martini glass on the front, I pulled out the two photos that Skip had given me.“Tony, I need some help.”He held out his big hand and I put the photos into it.“This guy did some breaking and entering.  The guy who gave these to me seems to think it was a dirty cop.  The pictures aren’t the best, but I was hoping you might know who it was.”Tony held the pictures out at arms length and looked at them over the top of his half-moon reading glasses.“These suck.”“I know.  It was the best he could pull off the video.”“Can I hold on to these?”“Sure.  Go ahead.”He looked at them again, this time close up and squinting.  Then he opened a drawer behind the counter, put them inside and closed it.“I’ll call you,” he said, then turned to help a lady who’d just approached the counter.Conversation over.

One of the things I've discovered about posting the first drafts of these chapters on my blog, is that it's forcing me to stay ahead of the posts by writing everyday.  Whether in school, work or writing, I always seem to stay more focused when I've got some pressure pushing me forward.

So, here's the first and very rough draft, of chapter 3 of Dark & Stormy (working title):


Stormy Bennett wasn’t that hard to find.The copy of her appointment calendar told me where’d she be and the photos Bennett had given me got me were dead on.  But Stormy Bennett would’ve stood out in any crowd.She stepped out of her metallic red BMW Z4 one long leg at a time, with effortless grace, like a panther hopping from a tree branch to the ground.  Though she wasn’t model thin, the weight she carried was distributed in all the right places and she wore a black dress that accentuated each curve.  It was cut low in the front and the hem sat mid-thigh.  With her black matching heels, she was probably as tall as I was.  Her hair was jet black and fell straight around her head and shoulders like a curtain of satin.  From across the street, seated at a sidewalk table at a coffee shop, I could see the red shade of lipstick was almost glowing like a heated brand.My digital camera made a few fake camera sounds as I discretely clicked off a few shots.One of the valets nearly tripped over himself getting to the driver’s side door and missed helping her out from behind the wheel.  She smiled pleasantly at her and handed over the keys to a car that was probably worth more than my tax return said I made last year.  She didn’t look back as he pulled away from the curb.The doors to the Capital Grille swung open, held by someone unseen from where I was sitting.  She disappeared from the noontime light of the September sun into the dark interior of the earth tone decorated restaurant.I waited a few minutes before I threw away my paper coffee cup and crossed one street with the light, and then across the other, against it.  A cabbie turning the corner honked his horn and gave me the finger.  I slapped the yellow hood of his car and hop-stepped over the curb and to the front door of the restaurant.  The door magically opened for me as well.The hostess who’d opened the door smiled and the rich smells of alcohol and cooking meats welcomed me.  I told her I’d take a seat at the bar and she waved me on through.I’d worn my best suit, wrinkles and all.  Even if I’d had it cleaned and pressed it still would have stood out among the power suits and power ties.  Yet, all around me, men and women were so engaged in their conversations that hardly anyone noticed me anyway.I quickly scanned the room and found Stormy sitting by herself at a table for two, busy with her smartphone, the presumably from which I had been given copies of her calendar.  It had been right so far.I found an open seat at the bar not too far from where she was sitting and ordered a Cutty Sark and asked for a menu. Her back was to me, which would give me a look at her lunch companion, which according to her schedule was the man Bennett was so concerned with.Michael Hurst was an attorney at a firm that other lawyers around town referred to as Brown Nose and Butt Kiss.  Though they were a relatively new law office in Chicago, established about six years ago, Brown and Butkis had developed a reputation of holding a snobby, holier-than-thou attitude towards other firms in town.  All of their lawyers volunteered time to organizations and causes that made them look good.  But, they didn’t play well with others and they were constantly kissing up to judges.  There were even a few unsubstantiated rumors of jury tampering and payments to judges.  It wasn’t uncommon to see an occasional picture of one of the senior partners having lunch with a judge.Hurst was in his early forties and had been with Brown and Butkis nearly five years.  He mainly handled intellectual property and patent cases and had developed a decent reputation.  Nothing like Bennett’s, but decent.He wasn’t married, sat on the boards of several charitable organizations helping to guide their governance and non-profit statuses.  He owned a twentieth floor condo in Lakeview and drove a Chrysler 300.Stormy occasionally looked up casually from whatever she was doing on her smartphone towards the door.  She seemed busy, but not in a rush or impatient that her lunch date was a few minutes late.  A waitress brought her a martini and she took a small sip and nodded her approval.  The waitress asked if she was ready to order, but she declined and said she’d wait until her friend arrived.  The waitress left a couple of menus on the table and left.Just then, Michael Hurst walked into the dining room.  He was a little taller than I was and was dressed nicely in a dark blue sport coat, no tie.  Every hair was held perfectly in place by what I could only imagine was a handful of gel applied carefully in the morning.He smiled when he saw Stormy, a friendly smile, that was neither fake nor too enthusiastic.  He walked over to her table and took her by the hand while he bent and kissed her on the cheek.“Good to see you, Stormy,” he said.“You too Michael,” she said.“Have you ordered yet?”“Just the martini.”He waved to the waitress who came to the table after finishing a conversation with a diner a few tables away.“Have you decided what you’d like?” the girl asked.“May I?” Michael asked Stormy.“Please.”He ordered a cocktail for himself and a couple of entrées that just sounded expensive.  I decided to stick with my scotch.  While he spoke to the waitress, I pulled out my pocket sized digital camera and discretely took a couple of shot of the two of them together.As they talked, it was apparent there was an easiness between them that told me they’d known each other for a while.  It wasn’t flirtatious, just friendly.  From what I could hear, which was most of the conversation, only interrupted by other conversations that got occasionally louder then faded once again, it was all about fundraising for a children’s charity.  One of the ones that I’d found in my research of Mr. Hurst.Every so often she’d laugh and touch the back of his hand or wrist and I found myself wishing I was sitting where he was.  So I could see her face, so she would touch my hand.  She was not only beautiful, but seemed quite genuine in her concern for both the charity and the children it served.They ordered desert and I took a couple more pictures while aiming the camera just around the side of my left arm.“Sir.”  I jumped at the sound of the voice behind me.  I turned to see the bartender.“Were you going to order something to eat?” he asked.“No.  I’ll just stick with the drink.”  I rattled the ice in the glass.He nodded.  “We discourage taking pictures of other patrons.”  Busted.I smiled.  “Sure.  Not a problem.”  I reached into my suit coat and pulled two twenties out of my pocket and laid them on the counter.“Keep the change.”“Thank you, sir.  Enjoy your drink.”  He left to serve others at the bar and didn’t come back to freshen up my drink.
Any thoughts on what you've been reading?  Let me know by posting a comment.  Thanks for reading...

I'm putting the FIRST draft of my new novel out on my blog, one chapter at a time.  It's rough.  It's unedited.  But, it's yours for the reading.  Here's the second chapter of Dark & Stormy (working title):

Chapter 2


“You’ve got nothing else I want and I happen to know I’ve already got anything that was worth something.”That was how Skip Zemke greeted me as I walked through the front door of his pawn shop.  And, he was right.“I’m just here to check on the stolen merchandise you’ve been buying.”  That turned a couple of shoppers heads.  I put my hands on the counter.  “Yep, this place is so hot it hurts.”Skip had owned the pawnshop for as long as we’d known each other, which was long before I’d become a private investigator.  His reputation was far from squeaky clean but he knew how to offload the merchandise that he knew or suspected was stolen as quickly as it walked through the front doors.  The police usually hassled him a few times a year, but they could never prove anything.“Actually, I’m here to get my digital camera.”He gave me the same look as when I tried to dicker with him for more money when I sold stuff to him.  I pulled three, hundred dollar bills out of my jacket pocket.  He’d given me two fifty for it a few weeks ago, easily a hundred more than he should have.“With interest.”  I tossed the three hundreds on the counter.He grabbed the three bills and pocketed them quickly.  This transaction would never end up in his computer database.Skip disappeared into the back room and down the stairs to his ‘secret stash,” stuff he didn’t keep on the books, which is where all my stuff was at.I walked down one of the aisles, shelves shoved full of things that people had sold for a fraction of their value after finding themselves in desperate circumstances or looking for a quick high.  There were a couple guys looking at and arguing about a set of tools.  Another guy was looking at the rings behind the glass of the jewelry counter.  He was arguing with himself about which ring was prettier.  I kept an eye on him until I heard Skip come out of the back room holding a medium sized box in his hands.“Here ya go,” he said, pulling out my camera along with a case that contained several additional lenses.  He also put my laptop computer on the counter.“I don’t have enough for that yet,” I said.  I obviously did, but I wasn’t about to let Skip know about the money I had sitting inside my jacket pocket.  He’d want me to get everything out of hock right now.  Most of the rest of the stuff I wanted, but didn’t need right now.“This is a freebie if you can do me a favor.”  He given me a few hundred to hold on to it.  “Nothing big.”It was big, or at least bigger than the computer was worth.  But, Skip was a friend and he was giving me a pass on paying him back, which was unlike him.  Which made me worry about what he wanted me to do.“What’s up?” I asked.“I had a break in a few of nights ago,” he said.“You have break ins a few times a year.  Did you call the police?”“Not on this one.  He went into the basement.”Where he kept the off-the-record stuff.“What’d he take?”“That’s the strange part.  Nothing.”I raised my eyebrow a bit.  “He broke in, didn’t take anything, and you’re willing to give me back my computer to look into it?”Skip leaned forward over the counter and lowered his voice.  The two guys were still arguing over the tool set and the guy talking to himself was still talking.  No one else was paying attention to what Skip was saying to me.“He didn’t go into the office where I have the safe.  Didn’t go out to the sales floor.  He picked the lock on the back door and went straight for the basement.”“Do you have any video?”  I knew he would.  He had cameras everywhere in the store.“Yeah.  I’ve got a couple of grainy stills from it.”  He reached under the counter and pulled out a couple of photos that had gotten a pretty good angle on the burglars face, but it had been dark in the shop and the cameras could pick up only so much in low light.  It might be clear enough to ask around with.“What was he after in the basement?”“I don’t know.  The video shows him going down the stairs and then coming back up about ten minutes later.  He didn’t seem to have anything with him.”“What did the cameras show him doing down there?”“No cameras down there.”I nodded.  Not a good place for Skip to have any kind of video evidence that could be used against him.“But, he was moving a few things around, opening things, like he knew something was there but couldn’t find it.”“Did he find the wall?”  Skip had a false wall that was well concealed.  The police hadn’t found it over the years they’d been looking around the shop.“I don’t think so.  Nothing was moved in there.”“Do you have any idea who it might’ve been?”“I don’t recognize the face, but it’s not the greatest picture.”“Any thought as to way someone would break into the store, go into the basement, ignore the safe and not end up taking anything?”He hesitated, which I knew meant that he had an idea but thought it might sound crazy.“What is it?” I asked.“I think is was a warrentless search.”“You think that was a cop?”  I wouldn’t put it past a few of Chicago’s finest, but the question remained as to why.“I think a dirty cop heard that I might have some stuff in the basement that he could use to…”“Blackmail you?”“Yeah,” he said.“What about the alarm?”“Doesn’t work.  Somebody broke it a week ago when they tried to break in.  The alarm company hasn’t sent anyone to fix it yet.”I didn’t know what to think.  Nobody breaks in to a shop full of jewelry, money, and other expensive items and takes nothing.  But, I was reluctant to think it was a cop.  Not that I believe some cops wouldn’t do that, but in my experience, most dirty cops had a partner.  This guy seemed to be a lone wolf.I picked up the two photos that Skip had printed, my camera equipment, and my laptop and put them all in the box that he’d brought up from the basement.“I’ll ask around Skip.  See if anyone know this guy.  Cop or not.”“Thanks Jackson.  I owe you one.”I lifted the box a little higher. “I’d say for now, were even.”

It's been awhile since I last wrote anything here.  So, who know if anyone is still reading this blog.  But, if you are, thanks for coming back.  I've decided that 2013 is going to be the year for me to buckle down and get a novel onto paper (or the computer screen).

It helps that I had a dream a few weeks ago that kind of fed me a story line for a hardboiled detective novel.  I quickly wrote down the rough outline for the whole book, then began to break down the plot into chapters.  It was far from perfect, but that's why we rewrite.

So, in it's roughest form here is the first chapter of my new novel attempt.  Working title is "Dark and Stormy."

Chapter 1- The Job


I woke with a pounding headache that could have come from either the empty bottle of Cutty Sark that was lying on the floor next to the couch, or from the strangling pressure of the necktie that I was still wearing after collapsing on the couch last night.  My bet was on the scotch.The couch was about twelve inches too short for me to sleep on comfortably, but since I’d lost my bed along with my apartment, this was about as comfortable as I was going to get for the time being.I rolled over, meaning to swing my legs to the floor, but my legs were asleep from sleeping in such a cramped position.  Instead I fell to the floor, landed on the scotch bottle and shot it across the scuffed and gouged wood floor, out the door of my private office and into the reception area.Not that it was much of a reception area anymore.  My receptionist had quit two months ago when the check I’d given her bounced for the second time.  I’d promised her that things would turn around and I’d get her the money.“I can’t pay my rent with worthless paper and promises Jackson,” she’d said.  “And the couch isn’t big enough for both of us.”She’d tossed the check on the floor, right about where the scotch bottle had ended up, and walked out the door, slamming it behind her.  The gold lettering on the window of the door that read “Jackson Malone, Private Investigations,” was about the only thing left that indicated that this was a business office.I’d emptied the reception area of everything except the desk, pawning what I could with Skip, a friend who owned a shop down the street.  Skip gave me a little better price than I’d get anywhere else and he’d hold onto my stuff a little longer to give me a chance to get it back, at a slightly more reasonable rate of interest.I sold everything he hadn’t taken through online want ads.That’s how I’d managed to make the lease payments on the office until last month.  Now I was behind and was avoiding the landlord.  Eventually he’d catch up with me by locking me out of the office.I heard footsteps in the hall that got louder until they ended with a two-rap knock on the outer door.  I didn’t have a chance to say anything or even clear my throat before the door opened and in walked Fulsom Bennett.“You look like shit,” were the first words out of his mouth as he shut the door behind him.  I’m sure I did, but I didn’t need to hear it from him.  He was impeccably dressed as usual, wearing a dark gray tailored suit that could have easily covered my lease for six months.  The red silk tie with gray stripes that perfectly reflected the color of his suit matched the silk handkerchief in his pocket.  His hair was cropped close to his skull, giving him the look of marine, which he’d once been.  He looked down at me from his full six foot five inches through a pair of stylish glasses that I suspected didn’t even contain prescription lenses.  They were part of the show.  Bennett backed up all the flash by being one of the highest paid attorneys in Chicago.“What the hell are you doing here you son-offa-bitch?”  That was being kind to both him and his mother.  I may have looked like shit, but despite this, this guy was a real life walking turd.This smarmy, smug lawyer was the reason I was living in my office and trying to live off the occasional wife who was looking for evidence that her husband was cheating on her.  Those cases paid less than his tie cost.Six months ago, I was called as a witness in a case of alleged corporate espionage.  I’d been working for a small company that had accused Bennett’s clients, a large corporation based in Chicago, of stealing some sensitive information about how a new manufacturing process worked.  They’d hired me to get evidence that one of the corporations researchers had gotten the information by stealing it from one of the founders of the smaller company.Bennett had gotten me on the witness stand and proceeded to shred my credibility by making me look like a thief and liar.  Ever since, none of the firms in town that had at one time used my services would hire me, afraid that either I was a thief and liar, or that I’d be exposed as one in court once again.“I’ve got a job for you,” he said.“What makes you think I’d work for you?”He tossed an envelope on the floor in front of where I was still sitting, back up against the couch.  It was a manilla colored envelope, the kind used for interoffice memos, names of people and office numbers hand-written all over the outside.  I looked at it but didn’t reach for it.  Just the thought of touching it made me feel dirty.“I want you to follow my wife.”I smiled.  “What’s the matter Bennett?  She stepping out on you?”“Who she sleeps with is none of my concern.  She has her indiscretions, I have mine.”  At that moment, I caught what looked like the one corner of his mouth move up into the start of a smirk, but it lasted only a second.“I’m more concerned about who she’s talking to.  More specifically, who’s talking to her.”I was confused.  The guy was concerned about people talking to his wife, but could care less about who she hopped in bed with.  I’d heard of open marriages, but this was a strange twist.  He must have seen something on my face that gave away my thoughts.“I believe someone is using her to get information about my cases.  In the last six months I’ve lost three important trials.”“We all lose things Bennett.  That’s not evidence that she’s selling you out.”“I don’t lose!”  A quick outburst but he regained his composure quickly.That was true.  Bennett wasn’t one of the highest priced attorney’s in Chicago for nothing.  His clients hired him because he won.  Period.“Well, looks like you’re going to lose this one Bennett.  After what you did to me in that courtroom, I’m not doing anything for you.”He seemed to have expected that answer.  Nothing seemed to surprise the man.“Malone, that was business.  My job is to win.”“Even if your clients are guilty?”“I’m not concerned with guilt or innocence.  My job is to protect my clients and their interests.  I do it by finding the strongest point in my opponents case and I break it down.  Lazy lawyers look for the weaknesses and go after those.  But, if you destroy the key piece of evidence, everything else falls apart.”I had a hard time arguing with that logic.“You were the strongest part of their case.  I destroyed your testimony because that made the rest of it fall apart like shattered glass.”“That supposed to make me feel better?  It doesn’t repair my reputation and lack of clients.  There isn’t an attorney worth his weight in subpoenas that will hire me.”“Look Malone, you’re good.  That’s why I went after you in court and why I’m hiring you now.”I shrugged.  “I didn’t say I’d take the job.”“In the envelope are a couple of recent pictures of my wife, a couple of newspapers clippings and a bar association photo of the lawyer I think is contacting her, printouts from the calendar she keeps on her smartphone with her appointments for the next week, and your retainer.”I looked at the manila envelope that still sat on the floor close enough for me to grab it.  He didn’t say anything else until curiosity got the best of me and I picked it up and looked inside.  There was ten thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills sitting on top of everything else.“That’s yours.  Hourly rate and expenses.  Finish early and you can keep the rest and consider it a bonus.”I stood and walked to my desk.  Tossing the envelope in the top draw, I took out my receipt book.“My receptionist is taking some time off.  I’ll write you a receipt,” I said.“Your receptionist quit and I don’t need a receipt.  This is off the record.  Understood?”He certainly knew what was going on.  That and the fact he didn’t want a receipt turned on that little flashing red light in my brain that usually warned me that something was wrong.  But, the ten thousand sitting in my desk drawer was nearly enough to draw the shades on the flashing red.“Do this for me and I’ll make it right with you too.  I’ll spread the word among my brethren to throw business your way.”  That snapped the shades completely shut.I nodded in agreement.He left without another word.

Just a note- My most recent short story, "Nothing There" is now available for those of you have Nook e-readers.  If you'd like to get a taste of the final story before you go to Barnes & Noble.com (or Amazon), you can read the first few paragraphs from an earlier post on The Path of a Writer.

I'm nearly done with the final edits of a new short story, "The Tortilla Curtain," one that jumps into the topic of immigration.  As soon as it's available, I'll share some excerpts here.

I've also recently started writing a series of short "lunchtime books" about social media.  Several times a year, I'm being asked to attend a conference somewhere in the United States and give a presentation on social media for business.  I was recently advised to start writing these short books on different aspects of social media for business and putting them out there for sale, along with recording of my presentations.

So, while I'll continue with writing fiction, I'm adding non-fiction to the mix since that seems to be where I'm beginning to make a living.  Speaking and writing.  Go figure.

"Nothing There" on Amazon.com (Kindle).
"Nothing There" on Barnes & Noble (Nook).

Ray BradburyYesterday, was a horrible day.

The day job that pays the bills has left me terribly depressed.  There is no future there for me and I frankly don't see the business surviving much more than 5 years.

And so I write.

While searching the internet, helping to prepare a book for my mother's 70th birthday, I ran across an old friend.  She was first crush I'd ever had (as only a 5 year old boy can have).  It made me think of the past, things done and undone, poor choices made and choices not made at all.

And so I write.

My car is slowly breaking down around me and is unsafe to drive, so I don't.  There are bills to pay and not enough money to pay them with.  Contracts for speaking engagements, six months into a future where the speaking fees can't yet help me.

And so I write.

There's the business that I'm developing.  Tentacles of work thrashing in every direction, threatening to derail me from unfinished tasks.  The day job keeps my thoughts so occupied that I can't focus my thoughts on the hundred tasks that need doing to create my dream.

And so I write.

Then, the news reached me that Ray Bradbury had died at 91 years old.  He was one of my heroes, one of the writing greats whom I'd once had the chance to meet, who shook my hand, signed my copy of The Martian Chronicles, and told me to take chances, to "go jump off a cliff and build your wings on the way down."  And with his death, I realized that I've avoided jumping.

And so I write.

My love of writing fiction has taken a backseat to non-fiction, which underpins the business I'm developing, so while not a bad thing (at least I'm writing), it's attempting to take me away from what I love, from putting imagination on paper.

And so I write.

Ultimately, through depression, heartbreak, lack of money, difficulty focusing, and the loss of a hero, I use those emotions to fill the empty page.  I'm looking for that cliff, Ray.

And so I write...

Now that my first two short stories, "Once Was Lost..." and "Nothing There" are finished and available for sale, I'm returning to a project that I wrote about a while back.  It was actually going to be the project right after "Once Was Lost..." but, well, stuff happens.

I've just finished the outline for "Burned."  I originally intended for this to be another short story, but after outlining the story, it struck me as being potentially longer than the previous two shorts.  Much longer.  I could see a lot more going on, a lot more that needed to be in the story to tell it properly.

So, I started thinking this might be novella length, twenty to forty thousand words.  I'm now waffling on that length as well.  As I think about the characters, the plot, setting, this may turn out to be far longer than I'd originally intended.  I'll let the story be the guide and see where it takes me.  If you have input as you follow along, I'd be glad to hear it as well.

Here is the outline as first written.  It may get added to and if it does, I'll put that up here as well:

1. The Fire
"A fire burns a home in the Park Hill neighborhood.  As the firefighters put the fire out, they discover a man in the home who has second and third degree burns all over his body.  He is alive, but in critical condition."

2.  The Investigators
"The fire department's arson investigator discovers that the fire was started by dumping gasoline on the man, lighting him on fire, and then trying to set the house on fire to cover it up.  They call in police detectives to investigate an attempted murder."

3.  The Dog Walker
"The detectives first approach the man who called 911.  They wonder what he was doing out at 1:00 in the morning walking his dog.  He has insomnia and often walks his dog and acts as the unofficial neighborhood watch.  He is ultimately on record as having called the police a number of times about suspicious activities in the neighborhood.  It's him that tips off the police to some of the anger in the neighborhood directed towards this man due to the way he has treated the neighborhood's children.  He directs them to the first parent who had a problem with the man."

4.  The Lawn Mowing Business
"An older teenager (17) ran a lawn mowing business.  The burned man approached him about mowing his lawn that summer.  The boy told him he charged $25/week.  The burned man said he would pay him $5 and the boy refused the job.  Later that summer when the burned man was out of town on business, his wife, who was supposed to mow the lawn, hired the boy to do the job before her husband got back to town.  She said she'd pay him the $25.  He told her he would get to it in the afternoon, behind some other jobs and she agreed.  The burned man came home, found a note about the lawn being mowed by the boy, but the lawn hadn't been mowed yet.  He called and left a message on the answering machine for the boy, but his mother got it.  She went down the street and screamed and yelled at him for what he'd said.  She told the detectives that this wasn't the only threatening behavior that had been witnessed.  She sent them to the Scout's parents."

5.  The Angry Mother
"On a tip from the dog walker, the detectives approach the angry mother.  Her twin teenage sons (14 at the time) had worked for the burned man a couple of years ago as part of a business that he was setting up.  They worked hard for months, under the promise of being paid when the business got going, but they finally quit, the business was successful, and they never got paid.  She had confronted him loudly in the neighborhood market about his ripping her sons off.  She claims not to have had any contact with him since then (which the detectives find out is not true) and she tips them off to a mother and father who are angry about the way they treated their young child and a friend over shoveling snow at the burned man's house."

6.  The Snow Shoveler's Parents
"The detectives meet with some parents whose child shoveled snow for the neighbors during the winter- including the burned man.  Last winter, during a big snowstorm, their daughter and a friend where shoveling sidewalks, walkways and porches for $5.  The burned man had hired them, but when they finished, he told them there was more.  He wanted them to shovel his driveway (connected to the garage from the alley) as well as his back walkway, and his patio.  When they told him it would be another $5, he told them they wouldn't get paid the original $5 unless they did it all.  They left and were later paid a $1 coin when the burned man ran into them and their parents together.  These parents then told them about the lawn mowing incident."

7.  The Scout's Parents
"Two young scouts had been selling fundraiser tickets throughout the neighborhood, when they came to the burned man's house.  One of the scouts had worked for him previously and not gotten paid, even after he asked repeatedly.  He had told his father, and his father had had a heart to heart talk with the burned man just a week previous to the fundraising visit.  When the burned man opened the door, he saw the one scout who'd worked for him and pulled him inside by the arm and shut the door.  He then yelled at for him for telling his father on him.  But, said the scout's parents, you might want to talk to the man who stopped the burned man from beating his own daughter."

8.  The Good Samaritan
"He'd been walking through the neighborhood one summer day after visiting a member of his church who was elderly.  As he walked back to his house, he heard some yelling and it got louder as he approached the burned man's house.  The burned man was standing in his front yard, yelling at his own daughter, calling her a whore, threatening to give her a whooping or throw her out of the house.  The good samaritan stopped, took the burned man by the arm and proceeded to quietly chew him out for treating his own daughter that way."

9.  Questions
"Something in the stories didn't add up.  The detectives had a neighborhood full of angry parents, yet the man had his supporters too.  Several neighbors told them that the burned man was one of the nicest guys you'd ever meet.  Other people were just jealous of his success."

10.  Motives
"There were a lot of parents who had the motive to burn the man.  Everyone seemed to be blaming everyone else, pointing the police to the next person with motive.  And yet, the police couldn't seem to pin anything down.  Was there anyone angrier than the others?  As they looked over everything, something keeps pointing them back to the mother of the boy with the lawn mowing business.  And, there was the gasoline can."

11.  Arrest
"The detectives decide to arrest the lawn mower's mother and take her to the station to be questioned further, even though the evidence was very circumstantial.  They go to the house to find the mother home and proceed to arrest her.  She breaks down crying, sobbing, bawling.  She'd never been in trouble before."

12.  Answers
"As they are arresting her and trying to calm her down before taking her out, her 17 year old son gets involved, trying to defend his mother, fighting to keep the detectives from arresting her.  As they take her to the car, he screams that it wasn't her.  That it was him.  He did it."

13.  Confession
"He had carried out the actual attack on the burned man- getting into the house, with the key the man's daughter had given him.  When asked why he did it, he said that the kids in the neighborhood were tired of this man ripping them all off.  They had all been burned by him, so they decided to burn him."

This is the preliminary outline, so it may change a bit as the story begins to flow.  I've already had a few thoughts about how I might alter the some of the storyline, but basically, it still follows this general outline.  Keep checking back.  As I write the rough draft, you'll get to read it first.