Vengeance. Mystery Writers of America Presents B00A25NLU4

But Joe’s anger drained away. “That’s okay.”
    “At least you can get unemployment during the layoff, if you’re not applying for early SSA.”
    “They owe me the pension.”
    “Not anymore.”
    “And it’s not even — you know how much I’m due? Thirty-seven years, paying in every single week? All I’m supposed to get is eighteen thousand dollars a year. Barely fifteen hundred a month. These
new owners
” — Joe heard his voice coarsen —“eighteen grand, they probably lose that at the cleaners. Loose change in their pants.”
    “Everything they did was completely legal.”
    “Legal.” Joe slumped back in his chair.
    “Believe me, if there was any possibility for a claim, I’d have filed already. Class action, in every jurisdiction Valiant has so much as driven his Lamborghini through.” The lawyer seemed to have some anger of his own stored away. “But they’ve got two-thousand-dollar-an-hour attorneys out of Washington negotiating these deals and writing the agreements. It’s bulletproof like plate armor. We can’t touch them.”
    “Okay, it’s legal.” Joe looked out the window, at the late-afternoon sun and, far in the distance, a low line of clouds. “But it’s not
right
.”

    T WO WEEKS LATER , midmorning. Dim inside the community room with the lights off, but dog-day heat shimmered outside the windows. An air conditioner rattled and dripped, not doing much.
    A dozen men and two women sat on metal folding chairs, filling a third of the room. The Rotary was coming in later, and their dusty flag stood in one corner. No one could hear the projected video very well, not over the air conditioner, and the facilitator had closed her eyes, fanning her face with the same copy of “Writing a Killer Résumé!” that was on everyone’s lap.
    “I still don’t understand how they did it,” Stokey said in a low voice to Joe. They’d taken seats in the rear. Long-forgotten memories: grade-school desks, ducking the teacher’s eye, daydreaming.
    “Leverage,” he whispered back. “The lawyer walked me through it three times.” No one in the room had any interest at all in the career-counseling service, but they had to show up to keep the unemployment checks coming.
    “It worked because Fulmont had borrowed all the money, six or seven years ago,” Joe said. Fulmont was the plant’s owner, the third generation to run Fulmont Specialty Metals. “For the modernization — ISO 9000, all that? But when the economy tanked, it looked like we were about to go out of business, and Valiant’s hedge fund bought up the debt.”
    “How can you buy debt?”
    “Like Rico laying off his markers? Fulmont doesn’t owe to First City National anymore, he owes to Valiant.”
    “Oh.” Stokey squinted. “I guess.”
    “So then Valiant called the debt, drove us into bankruptcy, and the bankruptcy court let him cancel every single obligation the company had. Suppliers, customers, subcontractors — they all got totally screwed, and we lost our pensions. Everything went into Valiant’s pocket.”
    Tinny music came from the video. On the screen, young, well-dressed men and women strode through high-tech offices, smiling and making decisions and managing big projects.
    “And then he opened the plant up again, only now everyone’s getting paid minimum wage.” Joe glanced at Stokey. He hadn’t shaved either. “You could do better pumping gas at the interstate plaza.”
    “They ain’t hiring.”
    “I know.” Joe felt his shoulders sag. “I asked out there too.”
    “Valiant stole every penny that could be squeezed out of Fulmont,” said Stokey. “No different than he took dynamite and a thermal drill down to the bank after hours. Except instead of trying to stop him, the judges and the courts and the sheriff, they were all right there helping him do it.”
    “Pretty much.”
    “That’s how I see it. That’s how you see it. That’s how everyone in this fucking room sees it.” Stokey was getting worked up. Joe noticed the facilitator’s eyes had opened. “What country are we living in here? Russia? France? Who wrote these damn laws anyway?”
    “The best politicians money can buy. You know that.” Joe put a hand on Stokey’s arm. “Forget it. Watch the movie.”
    Stokey subsided, grumbling, and they sat through the rest of the session. People got up wearily when it was done, chairs scraping on the worn floor.
    “Next week we’re doing social networking,” said the