ection>DEVILLE’S CONTRACT
Other Titles
by Scott Zarcinas
The Pilgrim Chronicles:
Samantha Honeycomb
The Golden Chalice
Non-Fiction:
Your Natural State of Being
Fiction
Thanksgiving Day
SCOTT ZARCINAS
DeVille’s Contract
DoctorZed Publishing
www.doctorzed.com
DeVille’s Contract
DoctorZed Publishing
86 Valley View Drive, Highbury
South Australia 5089
DoctorZed Publishing website address is:
This DoctorZed eBook published 2012
© Scott Zarcinas 2012
Scott Zarcinas asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
eISBN-13 978-0-9872495-4-8
Top of the World lyrics by Dwayne Wiggins, Eric Baker, Frederick Busby, as sung by Karen Carpenter.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers or author.
For Martie, Zsa Zsa & Zenya
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For twelve years now I have been writing and for twelve years I’ve had the loving support of my wife. Without her support this book and others would still be vague images trapped inside my skull. Thank you again Martie for helping me give birth to this story.
To my readers who proofed the manuscript, thank you for your time, effort and suggestions. The book is better for your input.
Lastly, to God, thank You for showing me that we make a heaven and hell of our own choosing, especially on this Earth, even if I’m a little slow in learning.
“With our thoughts we create the world.”
Gautama Buddha
PROLOGUE
The Grand Vision
HIDING his smile at the head of the table, Louis DeVille eyed the suit and ties filing into the boardroom. With a wink and a nod he greeted every one of the Vice Presidents as they sat down. Could say this was what he’d been working toward since the day he began the company, the culmination of his life’s work. He basked and took it all in. And why shouldn’t he? The company was about to burst onto the big stage. All thanks to him.
“I’d like to call this AGM open,” the company secretary said, glancing at his watch, “at 6:04, March 13, 2012.”
The secretary then read out the minutes of last month’s board meeting before asking Louis if there was anything he wanted to say before the vote. To the applause of the VPs, Louis stood and gathered his thoughts. He thanked them and gestured for silence, stretching the jacket lapels over his belly and squeezing a button into the eyelet.
“As you know, when I started out in the late fifties I was just a salesman doing the rounds for one of the drug companies here in New York. One of the ‘Big Four’ back then.”
Next to a pile of dossiers his PA had left on the table was a pitcher of cow juice and from it he poured himself a glass. God, he hated this stuff, but he needed it. Grimacing, he eyed his subordinates over the rim. They were chuckling. Everyone knew Louis DeVille had bought out that company when it hit hard times in the mid-eighties and stripped it of its assets. All that remained was the mahogany table they were now seated around.
He put the glass back down on the table and went on. “I was good at what I did, and what I did was sell the wonder drug of the day: Penicillin.” There were more chuckles. “Unlike most of you, I grew up in Brooklyn. The only education I got was on the street. College was never a consideration. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a goddamn blessing in disguise. Those years were my apprenticeship. I learned what it took to get to the top in the only school that matters, the school of hard knocks.”
Several gray and balding heads were nodding. The others, fresher faced and fuller on top, just stared back with polite interest.
“Without wishing to bore you with details,” he said, “I hated making money for someone else. Plus, I wasn’t getting promoted as fast as I wanted, so I figured the best thing to do was resign and start my own company. Best goddamn thing I ever did.” The gray heads chuckled and nodded some more. “The market was tough, let me tell you. I had to plead with the banks to call off their goddamn hounds more than I care to recall. Nevertheless, DeVille Pharmaceuticals was in the black within four years. Within ten we’d broken into the south and Midwest. Within twenty we’d stretched right across the country. We then started looking across the Atlantic, and in the eighties we even changed our name to Global Resolutions Network. Now, almost forty years to the day it was born, the company is approaching another milestone. Listing on the Dow. The goddamn Holy Grail.”
Louis brought the glass to his lips again, hesitating before he took another sip. Then he passed around the dossiers from the pile next to him and waited until everyone was ready. He held up his ring-bound copy, a sky-blue cover across which was written in white: THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL RESOLUTIONS NETWORK. Glaring beneath it in red: STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. “Each of you now has a dossier of my vision for GRN,” he said. “Everything I’ve learned about the pharmaceutical industry is in here. The secret of my success. The secret that will rocket GRN to global dominance of the drug market.”
The Vice Presidents each picked up a copy and began flicking through it. Louis could see a couple of wry grins. This was going to make every goddamn one of them wealthier than they had ever imagined, and they were entitled to raise a few eyebrows at what they read. They were welcome to the money. Some of them though, the older boys, the ones with a third wife and second coronary understood that it was more than just the number of zeros on the bank statement. The game was about dominance. Proving everyone else wrong. Making a goddamn success of your life despite the odds.
He nodded toward the company secretary, one of the fresher faces with a full head of hair but not too far from
