Page 47 of The Lie Maker

He got it, and he took it, because as despicable a man as Galen Frohm was, he was Michael’s paycheck, the perks were plentiful, and working for the man was like living in some rarefied atmosphere where the rules didn’t matter, where you were part of some special class of people who got to look down on everybody else and do whatever the fuck they wanted. Galen knew people. Judges, politicians, lawyers, leaders of industry. The kind of people you needed in your back pocket when you strayed outside the legal and ethical lines.

It was horrible and intoxicating at the same time.

On top of that, Michael had always felt in Frohm’s debt. Frohm had taken Michael on as a favor to the boy’s father, one of Frohm’s employees, just as he was turning seventeen. He’d been a difficult teenager, been running with a rough crowd in Southie, and was rumored to have done some very bad shit, and Michael’s father, divorced from a woman no longer on the scene, had given up trying to get him back on the right track.

“Let me see what I can do,” Frohm had said, and offered the kid a low-level job at one of his businesses. Loading trucks, hauling bags of laundry. Checked in on him regularly, mentored him, administered some tough love when it was appropriate. Gave him better jobs with increased responsibility. The kid caught on quickly, excelled at whatever task he was assigned.

Then, one day, Frohm offered Michael the position of his personal assistant.

“There’s no one I trust more,” Frohm told him. “You’re the man I need at my side moving forward. There are challenging times ahead, tough decisions to be made. I want you there with me.”

How could Michael possibly say no?

He soon learned that being Frohm’s assistant was more than a job. It was a way of life. It was a 100percent commitment.

So he wasn’t going to be able to eat the last of these oysters while he sat on that bench. He tossed them into a nearby trash bin and hoofed it back to the office. It wasn’t even a five-minute walk back to Frohm International’s offices in the high-rise complex at 75 State Street. Before entering the building, Michael used a napkin to wipe any tartar sauce that might be left in the corners of his mouth. He boarded the elevator and hit the button for one of the upper floors.

Frohm International took up three of them. The lowest was dedicated to overseeing the Sleep Tight Tonite chain of cheapo motels. More than four hundred of them around the continental United States, usually situated where one interstate highway crisscrossed with another. Aimed at families and business travelers on limited budgets, Sleep Tight Tonite promised clean, basic accommodation without the frills, and according to customer reports, often fell short of even that.

The middle-floor offices oversaw Frohm’s other business interests. A chain of fast food chicken outlets and several hundred dollar stores where the employees’ wages were so poor, they could barely afford the products they stocked on their own outlets’ shelves.

The top floor consisted of upper-management offices, conference rooms, and what Michael thought of as Frohm’s lair—a massive office that overlooked the city of Boston, the walls lined with photos of the CEO posing with politicians of all stripes, leaders both foreign and domestic, framed honors from various charitable organizations Frohm had strong-armed to take some cash from him so as to temper his reputation as a money-grubbing shit. There were framed newspaper clippings—so long as they were flattering—and even a BusinessWeek cover. The story inside had been actionable, in Frohm’s opinion, but still, when you make the cover of a national magazine, that’s a moment worth memorializing. Frohm might not have been the wealthiest businessman in the country, but he certainly wanted you to think he was.

Michael went straight through the double doors into the office without knocking. When you were summoned, it was understood you were to come straight in. What surprised people meeting Frohm for the first time was that his physical stature was no match for his public persona. He was a small man, barely five-five, and topped the scales at no more than 140. But one sensed a considerable energy, even menace, within him.

“About time,” Frohm said.

Michael let it roll off him. If he’d been in the next room and been there in ten seconds, Frohm would have said the same thing. He waited for the boss to proceed.

“We have a problem in Illinois,” he said.

“Gartner?” Michael said.

Frohm nodded. Abel Gartner ran a large linen-supply company that serviced seventeen Sleep Tight Tonites in the greater Chicago area.

“He’s still a hair in our soup,” he said.

Abel Gartner had been trouble for a few months. He didn’t want to adhere to Frohm’s business practices anymore.

The uninitiated might have thought a company like Gartner’s won a contract by offering an excellent service for a reasonable price that undercut competing bids. And while there was an element of that, Frohm tended to go into business with those who were willing to make large, ongoing under-the-table payments to get the job. Gartner was not only tired of doing that, he was talking to other firms that did work with Frohm International, urging them to band together against such corrupt practices.

“We’ve tried speaking to him several times, get him to see reason,” Michael said. “That he could lose the contract altogether. And we tried... other ways.”

Those had included trying to lure him into a compromising position at one of Chicago’s finest hotels, the Drake, get some pics, threaten to show them to his wife. But the girl they hired to try to get him up to the room struck out. Gartner wouldn’t take the bait.

“He’s already talked to people in Cleveland and Charleston,” Frohm said. “This has to stop.”

Michael nodded. “I’ll fly out tonight. Take one last shot at talking some sense into him.”

Frohm slowly shook his head from side to side. “We’re past that.”

Time to use more persuasive methods, Michael thought. Break a finger. Dangle him from a window. Handcuff him in a locked garage with a car belching exhaust until he came to his senses.

“I can move things to the next level,” Michael said.

“We’re past that, too,” Frohm said.

Michael didn’t like the coldness he saw in Frohm’s face. “Family?” he asked tentatively.

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