Ryne Pearson - Capitol Punishment

And that he was, his choice being subterfuge, a talent Stanley had perfected as a bored student looking for intellectual adventure in the conformist schools he was forced to attend. His brother, Toby, similarly bored with an educational system that looked upon his family’s racial views as abhorrent, had rebelled in a more confrontational, violent way, taking on more of a leadership role with the few friends he had. Stanley simply became one of the followers, the younger brother obediently in tow.

And that sibling hierarchy had not changed in the many years since those difficult days of Stanley’s youth. Still he followed, still he obeyed, still Toby was the one to show the way. Of course that way had already been laid out by their father, but, during his incarceration, Toby had taken over the leadership role of the family. Stanley simply faded further into the shadows, rarely expressing himself in any way that was not acquiescence to his brother’s wishes. Never did he lead the way. Never did he make the big play. Never did he shine.

Until now.

“Don’t be nervous,” Toby told his brother as he pulled the rented car through the traffic gate and into the Metrolink parking lot at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, choosing the first spot that presented itself.

“I’m not.”

“Just take it slow,” Toby instructed him.

Stanley looked at his brother, making contact with his good eye. “I can do this.”

Toby nodded nervously, knowing his little brother was about to be put to the test. A test he had actually arranged for himself. A test that, if passed, would yield the final information needed to ensure success. “I know you can.”

The words, sounding sincere, surprised Stanley. Approval? From Toby? Or was it just resignation, a hope that little Stan could do it and, if not, oh well. But then again, did it really matter which it was? “I gotta go.”

Stanley stepped from the car, closing the door behind, and headed for the stairs to the Metro Red Line station, the feel of his brother’s judging eyes on his back fading only after he began the seventy-foot descent. At the platform level he quickly oriented himself and went straight for the ticket kiosk. The environment was foreign to him, as it was to most Angelenos. The City of Los Angeles had only recently jumped upon the mass transit bandwagon, building its first true subway, the Red Line, which cut through downtown Los Angeles on its underground swath westward. Stanley, though, had familiarized himself enough with the layout and route to know which stop would be his, and he had reminded himself that, despite the absence of the turnstiles familiar in the subways of other major cities, he did have to buy a ticket from the computerized vendor. The honor system prevailed here, though only until one of the many uniformed transit cops might ask to see your stub. In a way it was farcical, Stanley thought, smiling at the kiosk-mounted screen — he was playing by the rules on his way to do something quite the opposite.

The trains at this time of the morning ran every twelve minutes, leaving just a short wait for the next one. Stanley boarded one of the surprisingly clean cars with only a small group of passengers, most dressed as he was, and took a seat facing the aisle. After the doors closed with a muffled hiss the train pulled away from the station and into a sweeping left turn that was barely noticeable in the tunnel. Less than two minutes later, just shy of a mile from Union Station, the train made its first stop, at Hill and First, disgorging those who had business at the Civic Center. That done the chain of steely silver cars continued less than a half-mile further, slowing and stopping at the Pershing Square station…Stanley’s destination.

The ride had been less than five minutes, but it served a purpose, putting virtually untraceable distance between Stanley’s final destination and the rental his brother had picked up that morning at the airport. From the platform Stanley walked up the stairs, emerging into the noise and light of downtown Los Angeles just north of Fifth Street at Hill, across from Pershing Square proper. The oasis of green amid a forest of glass and old stone was not his final stop. He stayed across from the square, walking west on Fifth with the rest of the late-morning commuters. At South Olive, waiting for traffic to clear, he looked up, seeing the towering masterpiece of engineering that dwarfed anything on the west coast of the United States. His destination. Their target.

The First Interstate World Center, located at the corner of Grand and Fifth in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, rose like a polished cylinder of gold-tinted glass to a height of 1,017 feet. Its seventy-three stories were populated by a mix of banking, legal, and other offices that came very close to filling the 750,000 square feet of available space. At any one time during a workday, between five and twenty thousand people were estimated to be either working, doing business, or visiting there. This day, Stanley Barrish was among those.

“Excuse me,” Stanley said to a pretty young lady at the information desk. “I’m supposed to meet Ray Harback. He’s the…” Stanley fished out the piece of paper he’d written the man’s title on.

“He’s our environmental plant manager,” the girl said with a smile.

“Right,” Stanley said, putting the paper back in his pocket.

“His office is on this floor, over there.” She pointed west across the lobby. “Down that hallway you’ll see a sign that says World Center Management. Mr. Harback’s office is in Building Services.”

“All right. Thank you.” Stanley moved across the crowded lobby, the dingy morning light flowing through windows to his left, and down the hallway to the location he had been directed to. Inside the door to Building Services he found Harback’s secretary, who showed him into her supervisor’s windowless office.

“Mr. Stearns,” Ray Harback said, coming around his desk to greet the visitor.

“Call me Stan,” Mr. “Stearns” responded.

“Okay,” Harback, jacketless and in rolled-up sleeves, agreed willingly. “And I’m Ray. ‘Mister’ goes with the blazer.”

“I’m a loose-tie man myself,” Stanley informed his host.

“Have a seat.” Harback returned to his chair and closed several folders on his desk. “So, Mick at Sun-Snow pointed you my way.”

“Sure did. He was a big help.”

“I didn’t get the whole story from him, just that you’re doing a project overseas and there’s trouble with the environmental systems. Is that right?”

Stanley nodded. “Trouble is an understatement. The guy who did the job I’m now jumping into was arrested for taking kickbacks from one of our installation contractors.”

“Where is this?”

“Thailand,” Stanley lied believably. “We have a two-and-a-half-million-square-foot warehouse facility just about finished in Bangkok, maybe six months’ work to go, and the environmental system this idiot contracted for will not do the job.”

Harback grimaced. “Ouch.”

“The main problem isn’t the actual equipment,” Stanley went on, “it was my predecessor’s screwed up installation instructions. He had the support plant for the…” He pulled a notebook from his briefcase. “…let’s see, for the Cansco Control Systems equipment built too far from the feed systems to be of any use.”

“Yeah, I know that CCS gear,” Harback said with a shake of his head. “Their pumps and their flow managers are weak. You could boost the pumps, but that wouldn’t put any more product into your space. Just plain air.”

Product . Stanley knew that meant the output of the environmental system, what would have been called the air conditioner and heater only ten years before. No more heat. No more cool air. Product. The research he’d done was paying off.