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    Lame Ducks
    Lame Ducks
    Lame Ducks
    Ebook57 pages49 minutes

    Lame Ducks

    By Isaac Black

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    About this ebook

    Lame Ducks is a meditative noir about two inhabitants of Los Angeles who form a bond in the midst of political intrigue. Simon Johns is a reporter for a newspaper whose publisher is in cahoots with the corrupt Speaker of California's State Assembly, and Casper Benton is the reclusive scion of a tabloid-magnet Hollywood family. The speaker is trying to privatize the state's water supply and has the opposition party governor cornered without the option of a veto. Despite the different social strata the two protagonists inhabit, chance (and their shared feelings of alienation and ennui) brings them together to plot against the speaker and his powerful cronies. As their camaraderie builds, so does the tension in this atmospheric thriller.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIsaac Black
    Release dateDec 22, 2012
    ISBN9781301758579
    Lame Ducks
    Author

    Isaac Black

    Isaac Black is a Mormon living in Salt Lake City. He holds a BA in English from Brigham Young University. He is opinionated and often cranky.

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      Book preview

      Lame Ducks - Isaac Black

      Lame Ducks

      By Isaac Black

      Published by Isaac Black

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2012 Isaac Black

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      Thank you for downloading this ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

      Simon felt dizzy. He and his boss and coworkers were partying in the VIP lounge of the most exclusive bar in LA.

      He found himself talking to a girl.

      I met a girl years ago who looked just like you. Her name was Anique.

      Yeah?

      Is your name Anique?

      Yeah.

      But you’re not her, are you.

      No.

      His friend was going to be killed that night—could already be dead—and Simon was still keeping up the pretense that he didn’t know him.

      Simon Johns first met Casper Benton after Casper plagiarized him. The Bentons were flamboyant socialites, descendants of a gold rush landowner, so Simon recognized Casper’s family name when it appeared in the local paper on an article that Simon had written. The article read identical to its counterpart in Simon’s university political science review except for a clumsily reworded sentence here and there. Despite being conversant in local gossip Simon wasn’t acquainted with Casper. He thought he remembered rumors of a somewhat reclusive middle brother—or maybe it was a young uncle—but was unaware, along with most of the city, that Casper was the primary heir to the Bentons’ massive fortune.

      Local royalty or no, Simon was going to confront him. By calling in a favor he came up with the Bentons’ home phone number.

      Hello? answered a soft, deep male voice.

      Casper Benton please.

      This is he.

      Hi. It’s Simon Johns. The guy who wrote the article you put your name on.

      Whoops.

      I want a public retraction, Simon said.

      How public?

      I want the credit.

      I’ll write in to the newspaper and tell them you wrote what I said I wrote. Good? Casper offered.

      That’s the idea.

      I’m going to wind up in the tabloids for this.

      I’m so sorry, Simon said sarcastically.

      Anyway. Look for my retraction.

      Ok.

      Bye.

      Only after the call ended did Simon realize that Casper hadn’t apologized to him. But true to his word, the retraction ended up in the editorial section with Casper’s skimpy paragraph of explanation, carefully worded so as not to indicate remorse. And, true to his prediction, the tabloids picked up the story. But the next day a Hollywood starlet went topless at a beach in France and the world moved on.

      The article in question was about rising tuition for California public universities. Simon’s curiosity as to why someone like Casper would care to rip off such a snoozer nagged at him. He concluded that Casper was trying to burnish his image, to portray himself as something other than an aristocratic bimbo. He put some time into researching the Benton family. His interest was partially professional; he was an entertainment reporter for one of LA’s dailies, The Sun. His research turned up that Casper as a teen had made a music video for a pop single, one that incidentally demanded little of his pubescent vocal range. Since then, he only appeared in the news again for plagiarizing Simon’s article.

      Casper must have had a special talent for seeming lifeless in order to repel the vultures in the paparazzi. Simon figured that the sensational carnival the rest of his family put on display aided him in his obscurity. His mother had remarried three times after Casper’s father’s heart-related death in his early 40s, bizarrely suing for custody of her step-children in the most recent divorce. Casper’s oldest brother was a peacock restaurateur with lots of celebrity friends and rumored drug trafficking ties. The next oldest brother was notorious for being disorderly and intoxicated in clubs and had settled a sexual assault

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