The Voting Machine

The Ends and the Means

We left downtown heading east on the 10. Then, in San Bernardino, we connected north onto the 15 Freeway that cuts across the high desert into Nevada. Her car drove so smoothly. I'd never been in a hybrid before. She bragged that they could go all the way to Las Vegas on less than a half-tank of gas.

"I never fill it up," she said. "I get everywhere I need to go on half a tank." I couldn't tell if she was joking or not.

We rose thousands of feet on the winding freeway, passing through the mountains that lead to the high desert. That's when Annabelle announced we would be making a special stop on our way to Las Vegas.

"My father wants to see you, Temo," she said. "He's in a minimum-security federal prison in Victorville. It's right off the freeway."

"Sure," I said.

"I let him know you'd be coming. He still talks so fondly about you. He feels like you and Charlie were the only ones who were loyal to him in the final days at Passion. Charlie's dead, so in his mind, you're the only one who didn't betray him in the end."

"I don't think I am the only one. Lots of people stayed loyal to him. He did a good job as CEO. He kept the company going strong and created thousands of jobs down there in South LA. Since he left, Chet Castle gutted the place. Passion's just an empty building now."

"A lot of employees turned against Dad during the investigation," she said. "There was a whole list of executives and middle managers who cut deals with the feds to testify in exchange for immunity.

"J.P. Breton made hundreds of millions of dollars working for my father. He was under investigation for insider trading until he cut a deal to testify against my dad. And don't get me started on that bitch Teresa Swan," Annabelle continued, the anger rising in her voice as we drove through the mountainous landscape. "Everyone knows she's a hardened criminal. I heard she was working with the Russian mob to hack into credit card databases! She got a deal too in exchange for helping the feds get access to my father's computer systems. That woman is the lowest of the low. And now she's living off the government payroll as some kind of expert advisor!"

I said nothing about Teresa, who I considered a friend. I knew she had her own reasons for manipulation situations and dealing in an ethical gray area. I knew a lot of people hated her and apparently Annabelle was one of them.

"They even gave a deal to that caveman Lenny who supervised the call center."

"They gave a deal to Lenny?"

"Yeah, they brought him on as an informant after he'd been arrested soliciting prostitutes. Lenny knew a lot about the collection rates. He had access to data on how many credit customers weren't paying their card balances so that became part of the evidence. I'm telling you, the feds would've cut a deal with the devil if they thought it would help get a conviction.

"This is why my dad thinks he has a good case to win his appeal. There were so many problems with how the feds made their case, using testimony from all these employees who are more ethically compromised than my father. They just wanted to put a bank CEO behind bars. They figured the ends justify the means, so why not cut corners and pay off a few corrupt informants."

"You sound really mad about what your father's going through, like you really love him," I said. "It seems like you two are much closer now."

Annabelle took one hand off the wheel to dab a tear in her eye.

"Dadand I are trying to get back to the relationship we had a long, long time ago.It's not easy, but we're trying ."