HENTY'S FIST 1: GAUNTLET RUN: birth of a superhero by Andre Jute, Dakota Franklin and Andrew McCoy. 60,000 words in 76 chapters.
CHAPTER 2
Henty’s bank manager was a professionally jolly fat man. Usually she didn’t mind him, even though he was a groper and a pain. Henty believed in live and let live.
But today he was deciding not to let Petey live. She knew it by the way he refused to meet her eyes and kept punching at the terminal keyboard and studying the screen long after he knew everything he needed to know.
“We can’t extend our limit,” he said at long last.
“What about the farm?”
“There’s already a second mortgage on it.”
“Well—”
“And you already owe the hospital another $85,000.”
“How do you know that?”
He punched some buttons and watched the screen. “The normal way. Their computer told our computer.”
“That’s illegal, sharing memory banks.”
The fat man smiled grimly. “Most people think so. But it’s legal for the government and for government-sponsored or -guaranteed organizations. All the banks are guaranteed by the government, so we can find out anything we want to know about you.” Now he was staring hungrily at her.
“What about the hospital giving out infor—”
“They’re in The Caring Society, so it’s legal for them. There’s almost nobody it’s illegal for.”
“I got to have the money. Petey’s dying.”
His eyes slid over her like eels in a tank. “You’re overextended right now. Can you meet the note due day after tomorrow?”
Henty just shook her head. He knew she didn’t have the money, just as well as she did.
“See?” He snapped his terminal off. “Sorry,” He grunted as he struggled out of his chair. Henty couldn’t remember him ever standing up before. It was respect for the soon-dead.
Henty backed out of his office. At the door she stopped. “Please, isn’t—”
The bank manager shook his head, his eyes on her breasts, and sat down. Her audience with him was over.
In the main hall of the bank, Henty paused to look at it, really to look — for the first time in years. When she was a little girl, there had been counters with customers on one side and clerks on the other side. Now there were only desks at which clerks talked on the phone or communed with their terminals. Through a haze of tears, Henty saw the open door of the vault in the far wall.
Petey would die because she was the only who cared whether he lived or died and she couldn’t raise the money to keep him alive. “I wish Pop were alive,” Henty said aloud. That gave her an idea and she almost ran out of the bank to her decrepit old truck.
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• MORE ABOUT THE AUTHORS AT:
Andre Jute http://coolmainpress.com/andrejute.html Andre’s latest book is DREAMS Book 1 of COLD WAR, HOT PASSIONS http://www.amazon.com/DREAMS-COLD-WAR-PASSIONS-ebook/dp/B00A3BSJM2 Dakota Franklin http://coolmainpress.com/Dakota%20Franklin.html Dakota’s latest book is NASCAR FIRST http://www.amazon.com/NASCAR-FIRST-RUTHLESS-WIN-ebook/dp/B00A72A556 Andrew McCoy http://coolmainpress.com/andrewmccoy.html Andrew’s latest book is STIEG LARSSON Man, Myth & Mistress http://www.amazon.com/STIEG-LARSSON-Myth-Mistress-ebook/dp/B004GXAZAM
Copyright © 2012 André Jute, Dakota Franklin, Andrew McCoy. The authors have asserted their moral right. Published by CoolMain Press 2012 www.coolmainpress.com. Editor: Lisa Penington. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or performed by any means without the written permission of the publisher.
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HENTY'S FIST 1: GAUNTLET RUN by Andre Jute, Dakota Franklin, Andrew McCoy
ActionThe Gauntlet Run is the toughest race ever run by man: across America with every man’s hand turned against you from the statue of Liberty to the old US Mint in San Francisco. There the prize awaits you: $10 million and a full and free Presidential P...
