STATE SECURITY by BRIAN R. LUNDIN (best finance books of all time TXT) 📖

stopped at a rest stop in Eau Claire, Wisconsin and the men were allowed to use the washrooms accompanied by three marshals and two Government police officers. Robert noticed mothers holding their children closer as they got out the van. One little black boy maybe five being pulled by his mother looked at Robert waved and smiled, Robert smiled back. Before long they were in Wisconsin and were given cold bologna sandwiches and cold drinks. Five hours later they were on the flat plains of Minnesota with it rolling hills and lakes.

INT. DULUTH MINNESOTA MINIMUM SECURITY PRISON 2 -MAY 1, 1997-LATE EVENING
At two in the afternoon they arrived at the Federal Prison Camp that was located on the former Duluth Air Force Base near the southwestern tip of Lake Superior, halfway between Minneapolis-St. Paul and the U.S.-Canadian border, and 7 miles north of Duluth. The institution is also known as a Federal Prison Camp that have dormitory style housing, a relatively low staff-to-inmate ratio, and limited or no perimeter fencing. The institutions are work- and program-oriented; and many are located adjacent to larger institutions or on military bases, where inmates help serve the labor needs of the larger institution or base.
Robert noticed there were no barb-wire or guard towers it looked like a college campus. They were led into a well decorated room and were interviewed and screened by staff from the case management, medic and mental health units. Later, He was assigned to the Admission and Orientation (A&O) Program, where he received a formal orientation to the programs, services, policies, and procedures of that facility that outlined security, safety, and sanitation concerns. After being stripped-searched he was issued clothing, hygiene items, and bedding, and told about the laundry services and that he could purchase other personal care items, shoes, some recreational clothing, and some food items through the commissary. Robert was assigned to the prison laundry where he worked eight hours and earned .12 an hour. After work and a light dinner he slipped on a pair of slippers and grabbed the rough towel and slowly walked to the shower house. He adjusted the hot water as hot as he could stand.
The steam filled his lungs and throat, Robert hope this was a bad dream and the hot water would awaken him from this nightmare, it didn’t. After the shower he returned to his room, laid on his bed and reflected on how Susan always looked out for the Rodriquez brothers, how she insisted over his objections that he accompany them on their trip to Cancun and how one afternoon he saw them kissing at the pool. He remembered how when he asked her about it she shrugged it off and the next minute they were in the bed and she was giving him a head job. He thought about how they met.
Susan was ten years younger than him and she worked as a stripper at one of the Gentlemen Clubs in an unincorporated area of Cook County where he worked as a Deputy Sheriff. Man, was she hot when she did her pole routine sliding up and down the pole wearing on a g- string and a bra which had a hard time holding in her big tits. Every night he stopped in to catch her act and finally he got up the nerve to ask her out. They had a nice and expensive dinner at the Como Inn and spent the rest of the evening in bed. Man, she was a terrific fuck. He remembered he didn’t like her showing off his shit at the club and he convinced her to move in with him at his home in Barrington Hills. He had just received his real estate license so he quit the sheriff department and opened a real estate office on the northwest side and Susan was the office manager. Soon afterwards mainly because of his gregarious and good natured personality the company prospered and he found out about her uncle Vito who referred customers. He was deeply in love with her although he did notice she was flirtatious. He now admitted to himself that he was “pussy whipped.”
INT. DULUTH MINNESOTA MINIMUM SECURITY PRISON –DAY ROOM -MAY 3, 1997-SUNDAY MORNING
Robert sat a table and opened his trial transcripts, he had booked marked all the pages containing testimony and he flipped the pages until he got to Hosea Rodriquez. Hosea was given immunity if he testified against the company even though he admitted under oath that he had paid a Contract Security Coordinator to overlook the guards not being on their post, thereby avoiding the company being docked a full shift pay, admitted using ghost pay rollers and cashing the checks and keeping the money and with the help of the company’s dispatcher sold over time to guards in exchange for receiving a portion of their overtime pay. He next flipped to the testimony of Henry Peeler his accountant that embezzled the money that he gave to him for the taxes. The checks were earmarked for tax payments and Peeler placed them in a company account and didn't send the money in, yet he was also charged with income tax evasion and Peeler was allowed to relocate to Las Vegas Nevada where he took a job as the accountant for the Blue Chip Sports Betting Parlor. Peeler's boss, a guy by the name of Ilescu, was having an affair with a stripper who worked at the Crazy Horse Saloon in Las Vegas, Ilescu asked Peeler to kill her boyfriend and Peeler brought a hit man from Chicago by the name of Jason Paris to do the job. Paris lured the boyfriend, Bruce Ray Fisher, out of his apartment on the ruse of having hit his car in the parking lot. Once outside, Paris shot him in the head. They were planning another hit when the Las Vegas police arrested them. Robert closed his eyes and shook his head, how could I have been such a fool he wondered?
INT. DULUTH MINNESOTA MINIMUM SECURITY PRISON DORMITORY ROOM #2-MAY 1, 1997- NIGHT

Robert wondered as he sat on his bunk if a part of his mind had been altered by his experience if maybe his recollections were unclear maybe some were but one thing intact was his memory which, he searched daily, compulsively. Nothing in his memory was too inconsequential to tear away and examine. His memories were all he had especially at night when he was alone in what the government called a dormitory room but to him it was his hell, his prison that was always too cold and the realization he would be in here for seven years. The memories blocked out the distant cries from his cellmates and some of the obscene games that the prisoners played with each other.

Like most men in his situation he examined and re-examined every aspect of his life and because of this examination went on night after night it required the discipline of accuracy. With one piece of information he could isolate a face or a person and that what bewildered him now, where had he gone wrong? He reflected back on all he had lost now all he had was memories. After he was convicted the government seized his home, his bank accounts everything. Why and how had it come to this? He wasn’t a thief or guilty of any of the charges for which he had been convicted. How did he not see all that was going on in his company and fail to see that the Rodriquez brothers were behind everything but they could not have acted alone, was his wife involved in their schemes if so why, she had everything she wanted. He read the transcripts from the trial and especially Hosea and Roberto Rodriquez under a grant of immunity. Hosea admitted being involved in the ghost payroll scheme occurred, however, it was occurring out of the 47th Street office in the persons of John Ester, Hosea Rodriquez and his brother Roberto. He was not involved and knew nothing of it, but did Susan know and authorized it, but again why she didn’t need the money. The transcripts described how the scheme worked it involved the Rodriquez brother submitting false payroll reports listing numerous dismissed and no longer employed guards. They would then receive their payroll checks from the main office. Once in possession of the checks, Hosea and Roberto would go to the currency exchange at 26th South Western Avenue and cash their checks and the money would be split between the brothers and Ester.

Robert was amazed at the fraud committed against the company from the lowest guard to the highest ranking employee, schemes and plots were the norm. The transcripts read how employees would routinely sign in and leave their posts and the supervisors were always trying to figure out how to steal. Robert put the file back into his briefcase and put his head in his hands, why would Susan do this to me he wondered.

INT. METROPOLITAN CORRECTIONAL CENTER-CELL 4B- April 5, 1997-MORNING

Susan Malkowski glanced in the mirror at herself. She hated the green smock she had been issued, her hair was a mess and she wore no lipstick. She wet her lips with her tongue and rubbed her cheeks hoping to put some color in them. A female guard entered her cell.

GUARD
You ready?


SUSAN
Yep!

The guard led Susan to the basement garage where two US Marshal were waiting. The male marshal shackled Susan arms and legs while the female marshal searched her, helped her into the van and sat in the rear, there were three other women in the van all shackled. The 180 miles trip to the Peking Correctional Camp took four hours.

INT. PEKIN FEMALE CORRECTIONAL CAMP ORIENTATION CENTER-AFTERNOON

When they arrived, the women were led into a large room where they were interviewed and screened by staff from the case management, medic and mental health units. Later they were ushered into another room where they received a formal orientation to the programs, services, policies, and procedures of the facility. They were then stripped-searched and were issued green smocks, hygiene items, and bedding, Susan was assigned to the prison library.

INT. PEKIN FEMALE CORRECTIONAL CAMP ROOM 6A- 2 MAY 1997-NIGHT

Susan day started at five in the morning. After washing she went to the cafeteria for breakfast and reported for work at eight. She was assigned to the prison library check out desk where she issued library cards and checked out and in books by the inmates. She got off work at three and had the rest of the evening off until nine pm when the lights were turned off. At night she sat on her bed and remembered.

Susan couldn’t sleep she kept thinking about Hosea and how he had betrayed her. She was aware of the bribes to McBride but she didn’t know anything about the ghost pay-rollers. She remembered how at their trial Hosea who pleaded guilty to bribery had lied about her knowing about the ghost pay-rollers and implicated her and Robert in the bribery of John McBride. She knew that she could control Robert with a head job or a fuck and he never looked over the books. She was responsible for lying to the insurance companies about the amount of guards they had and falsifying their income tax returns, now she had lost everything, her home, her freedom and Robert.

FLASHBACK: 5350 NORTH LAKE SHORE DRIVE APARTMENT 24A-JUNE 10, 1989-MORNING

Robert and Susan sat on the balcony of their expensive high-rise condo and watched the colorful sail boats on Lake Michigan reading the newspapers. Susan as usual was looking at the sales and Robert