All for Naught
The Rise and Fall of President Barry Blue
B OOKS BY M.E. S HARPE
Non-Fiction
JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH AND THE LOWER ECONOMICS
AMERICA IN DECLINE
CHANCE ENCOUNTERS
A Memoir (Forthcoming)
Fiction and Poetry
THOU SHALT NOT KILL UNLESS OTHERWISE INSTRUCTED
REQUIEM FOR NEW ORLEANS
CANDIDE THE TENTH AND OTHER AGITATIONS
YOU NEVER CAN TELL and SMOG
Two Novellas
ALL FOR NAUGHT and THE RISE AND FALL OF PRESIDENT BARRY BLUE
Two Novellas
First published 2014 by M.E. Sharpe
Published 2015 by Routledge
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Sharpe, M. E.
[Novellas. Selections]
All for naught ; The rise and fall of President Barry Blue : Two novellas / by M.E. Sharpe.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-7656-4541-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
I. Sharpe, M. E., Rise and fall of President Barry Blue. II. Title.
PS3619.H356648A79 2014
813.6dc23
2013046117
ISBN 13: 9780765645418 (pbk)
To my wife Carole; my children Susanna, Matthew, Elisabeth, and Hana; my sons-in-law Sergio and Alex; and my daughter-in-law Mystelle
Contents
For the impeccable work of Angela Piliouras, production manager; Susanna Sharpe, copy editor; Nancy Connick, typesetter; Liz Dancho, author photographer; Jesse Sanchez, cover and interior designer; and Carole Brafman Sharpe, advisor-in-chief.
Chapter One
An Explosion
A terrific explosion demolished the foyer about five in the morning. The estate manager called the police. The police checked the grounds and came up with one critical piece of evidence. A five-foot stone wall surrounded the fifteen-acre grounds. A grainy picture from the surveillance camera showed someone climbing over the rear wall from a wooded area. He or sheits not clear if it was a man or was a woman wearing loose clothinghe or she carried some kind of package, explosives no doubt. The explosion knocked out the surveillance system so no further pictures were available.
John Stevens, the estate manager, spoke to the police chief and asked him to keep the report of the incident confidential. He also instructed the household staff to do the same. He didnt want any copycats to try again. He assumed that the intent of the mysterious figure was assassination, assassination of the estate owner, Richard Melmont, who had enemies. He didnt want to give out that any would-be murderer could just climb over the stone wall and blow up the house, or at least part of it. Stevens would explain to neighbors and the local press that a gas line had exploded, and that would be the end of it. There was no gas line leading to the foyer, but no matter.
Richard Melmont lived alone in a Greek Revival mansion located in back-country Greenwich. He and his wife Maria had amiably agreed to live in separate houses, but conduct the public side of their lives together. Their children Barbara and Daniel were grown and visited occasionally.
By eight in the morning, Stevens had called a trusted contractor and explained the need to reconstruct the foyer in five days, by Saturday. Mr. Melmont had planned a luncheon and among his guests were an Under Secretary of Defense, the ambassador from France, and the ambassador from Great Britain. You may think that five days is not enough time to reconstruct a foyer. But when a sufficient amount of money flows, men can perform miracles. And miracles were performed. Meanwhile, the estate manager arranged to have furniture, carpets, paintings, and a grand chandelier appear at precisely the right moment. A sufficient amount of money flowed and by late Friday afternoon, the foyer and its contents were as good as newbecause they were new.
Chapter Two
Maria Melmont Lunches with Her Children
Maria Melmont sat staring at a blank screen on her computer. She lived not a mile away from Richard Melmont in a more modest mansion. She began thinking about possibilities. The intruder was a foreign terrorist who wanted to make a statement by killing one of the richest men in the United States, in his view an evil man. The intruder was an American terrorist who wanted to make a statement by killing a member of the one percent, indeed of the one-hundredth of one percent. The intruder had a personal grudge against Mr. Melmont. Her thoughts began to suggest a story line. Maria Melmont was a novelist with several successful titles to her credit. But at the moment she was not interested in a story line. She was interested in finding out who tried to kill her husband. Or warn him. After all, who is in the foyer at five in the morning?
Her children Barbara and Daniel were coming for lunch. They are hardly children. But that designation seems to apply to offspring of any age. Barbara is a lawyer who graduated from Harvard Law School five years ago and has had experience working for a prestigious firm. Daniel is an economist who graduated from Harvard University three years ago and teaches Keynesian theory at The New School University. I need hardly add that they are legacies, since Richard Melmont received his MBA from Harvard Business School and since has opened his pocket wide for that institution.
We must go to your father and tell him to get out of the limelight. Maria Melmont was accustomed to speaking categorically.
What if he gets out of the limelight? Hes a billionaire. Billionaires are in the limelight whether they like it or not. Barbara Melmont was accustomed to speaking reasonably.
Let him give his billions to worthy causes. Then he will be seen as a good billionaire. So replied mother.
You know very well that we cannot tell father what to do, Barbara speaking, Daniel nodding in agreement. I hear that he has something more ghastly afoot than anything he has done before.
Mother: I have not heard of it. What could be more ghastly than telling all his trusting investors that the market was about to go up when he knew that the market was about to go down, fleecing them of several billion?
Daniel: You know his answer, mother. They should have looked at history, as father did.
Mother: I shall go and ask him what is the point of making more billions on top of the billions he already has. Go and do something useful.
