The Tower of Endless Worlds

  Chapter 4 - The Interview

  Anno Domini 2002

  Simon walked through the university’s parking lot, a bundle of papers tucked under his arm. He unlocked his van’s door and settled inside, spreading the papers over the passenger seat.

  Simon looked at the first paper, an estimate from a body shop, and grinned. The mechanics thought they could fix it up the van for only six hundred and fifty dollars. That would leave Simon with $4,300 from the check. He considered returning the excess money to Senator Wycliffe and dismissed the idea.

  Simon had bills he needed to pay.

  He turned over the next paper, his smile fading. Simon had voted for Senator Wycliffe, but he knew practically nothing about the man. Simon’s studies and his employment difficulties had kept him occupied and oblivious to current events. If Wycliffe offered offer him a job, Simon wanted to know more about his potential employer. So he had booked a library computer and done some quick searches on a news server.

  The results had been unsettling.

  According to the articles, Wycliffe headed a firm known as Wycliffe Consolidated Shipping. He had made a fortune seven years ago in commodities with Demeko-Kurkov, a Russian company. Wycliffe bought meat and cloth in bulk, and sold gold in tremendous quantities. No one quite knew how he made his money. The EEC, the FDA, and the FBI had all launched investigations into Wycliffe’s businesses, and all three agencies had come away empty handed. Simon paged through the article and shrugged. So what if Wycliffe had found an unusual way to make money?

  Simon turned to the next article, which detailed Wycliffe’s rising political career. He had been elected to the House of Representatives in 1998, after his opponent committed suicide two weeks before the election. Wycliffe had then run against Senator James Fulbright in the 2001 election. Simon remembered that. It had been all over the news. One of Fulbright’s ex-lovers had gone on a rampage before killing himself. Fulbright lost the election, shot himself in the head, and Wycliffe took office pledging to undue the damage caused by the scandal.

  Wycliffe had won two elections by his opponent’s suicide. Very weird. It sounded like something out of a gangster movie. And Wycliffe had made most of his fortune trading with Demeko-Kurkov. A few of Simon’s articles argued that the Russian mafia, actual gangsters, dominated Demeko-Kurkov.

  So just what had Wycliffe done to make his money?

  Perhaps Simon should just take the money and forget about Wycliffe. Simon stared at the check, sweat dripping down his face.

  “Why not?” Simon started the van, put it in gear, and drove for the address on Wycliffe’s card.

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