Swamped

excerpt

Although, after the meeting at Sewell’s, both Eteo and Robert began
to have second thoughts about Mario’s new company, he offered them
stock at the lowest level a new company would issue stock, and since
the control of the stock was so good, they agreed to participate. This
was despite their experience some fifteen months previously with another
of Mario’s shell companies, Target Resources, of which each of
them had taken a piece only to discover that Mario had played a bad
game with them.
Usually, when a shell company becomes available for sale, all the
initial seed stock is collected from the shareholders and all their share
certificates converted into bearer form. This means that whoever has
a certificate in his hand can cash it in at any brokerage firm in Vancouver.
Normally, therefore, bearer certs are lodged with a trustee,
sometimes a lawyer, sometimes an accountant, or indeed any individual
who can keep them safe and make them available to the purchasers
on demand.
In the Target Resources deal, all the shares had been lodged for
safekeeping with a woman associated with Mario on the understand-
ing that she would only release the shares on instructions from two
people involved in the deal.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX

Jazz with Ella

excerpt

Hank recognized one of the prettier waitresses, Galya, lounging in the doorway examining her eyelashes in a small mirror. She smiled flirtatiously at him.
“Zdrastvo, Galya. You’re looking good today. Could I ask you to do me a small favour?” Here his Russian failed him. He couldn’t think of the words for “unlock the door.” Galya, mistaking his hesitation for shyness, offered him a chocolate from a large box covered in brown paper.
“Oh, hey, thanks. I have some books for Miss Lona Rabinovitch. You know, in cabin 2B. She’s busy with Ivan Nikolaevich at the moment, helping him, so she asked me to put these books in her cabin.”
Galya started a little at the power of the director’s name.
“Could you just—? The key…?” He pointed.
“It is forbidden to let others into cabins.”
He grinned. Still looking doubtful, she took Lona’s key from its hook, and led the way to the cabin. She stepped back for him to enter. Hank could see that she was going to stay close at hand.
“Wow, this cabin is so much bigger than mine.” Indeed, its situation at the bow of the boat allowed it to curve into an L-shape, giving its user a little more privacy while in bed. He strode to the desk, searching it quickly for anything unusual. Galya, still at the door, coughed delicately.
“Yes, I’m coming. It’s just that it’s such a great cabin. Look how the berth slots in so snugly into that space.” And there it was, poking out from under the pillow—a slim, black notebook. Of course, she wouldn’t leave something like that out in plain sight. In two steps he was over to the bed to snatch up the book. He riffled through it quickly: names, addresses, doodles flashed past.
“I think this is very bad,” Galya exclaimed.
“No problem. I was looking for this. Honestly! Lona borrowed it from me yesterday. So, ssshh…no need to say anything about it.”
Over the waitress’s protestations, he tucked the black book into his pocket, exited rapidly and didn’t even wait while Galya locked the door.
★
That same afternoon, Professor Chopyk spent twenty minutes examining his face in the cabin mirror. It calmed him to stand in front of his reflection, smoothing his forehead wrinkles and rearranging the trim

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

Poodie James

excerpt

He watched Thompson make his way along the path to the big
log dining hall. The air was heavy with the scent of the pines. A
counselor and half a dozen campers sat in a story-telling circle on
the sand. Torgerson was lost in thought about the absence of complications
in young lives when he felt a finger poking into his side.
He looked down into the face of a boy in a swimming suit. The
boy’s head, its hair nearly white from the sun, was even with
Torgerson’s hip. The boy had a bottle of citronella in his hand.
“Here, please,” he handed Torgerson the bottle. “I’m getting
bitted all over.”
“That’s ‘bitten,’ Torgerson said. “You’re getting bitten all over.”
“Yes, I am.”
“I suppose you want me to put this on you.”
The boy stared mournfully at Torgerson.
“All right, then. Just a minute.”
He took off his jacket, folded it, placed it on the bench behind him
and rolled up his shirt sleeves.Hemade a circle with his forefinger and
the boy turned around. Torgerson applied the oily citronella to the
boy’s back and shoulders, his hands covering half of the little body. He
worked the fluid over the backs of the boy’s legs, then took him by the
shoulders and turned him around to rub it on his front. In the cooling
air, Torgerson felt moisture on his forehead and rising pressure in his
veins. The boy looked at him without expression. Torgerson finished
with the citronella and handed the bottle back to the boy.
“That should keep those mosquitoes away.”
“Thank you, mister.”
“What’s your name?”
“Dwayne Elwood Mortensen. I’m six.”
“Glad to meet you, Dwayne Elwood Mortensen.”
“I have to go now,” the boy said, and walked along the porch to
the uphill side, then to the cabin next door and disappeared inside.
Torgerson went into Thompson’s cabin to wash the citronella
from his hands and slumped against the basin, steadying himself
against his trembling. “Damn me,” he muttered. He looked up to
see a forest ranger standing in the doorway.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W7SHCMV