Business Doctors - Management Consulting Gone Wild (2 page)

Shocked, Chang stood still, uncomprehending, when the chopper got close, and dropped a rope-ladder.

Disoriented, but once again reflex taking over reason and reacting to the moment, Chang lunged for the wildly swaying ladder, grabbed it with both hands and hung on. Escape could not have tasted sweeter.

Realizing that the explosions were to divert their attention, the guards started firing at the chopper.

This isn't so bad
, thought the pilot. He recalled the hell he had once faced during one of his sorties in Afghanistan. Surrounded by a score of Kalashnikov-wielding
mujahids
pumping out blankets of fire, he had successfully offloaded 18 marines, onboarded 2 injured comrades, lifted off with a bullet-pierced leaking tank and shattered visor, and landed safely, in the process taking 5 bullets, among them a particularly stubborn one that lodged itself in his left forearm. He looked at the nightmare unfolding around him and thought,
Gotta head back soon – need to catch the game tonight
.

The chopper was now lifting off and starting to drift away from the building, towards its planned destination – with Chang hanging on for dear life.

Just then, another convict hiding on the terrace emerged from the shadows, and started running towards the chopper. It was Drake. Chang heard another volley of rounds from the chain guns. The guns had won again - Drake was cut down long before he could reach the ladder.

After a long time, Chang was enjoying his personal space on the ladder and a second person dangling next to him wasn’t what he was hoping for. He thanked God for his new-found freedom and prayed that the bullets
would continue to evade him. The chopper dipped away from the building, blades churning furiously. It sped away and within seconds disappeared into the grimness of the night.

The simplicity and brilliance of the plan convinced Chang that there was a mind far sharper than good old Spike’s at work. But he still had no idea who was behind this and what was in store for him next.

By the morning, the chain guns would be disassembled. Over the next day, body shop specialists that were standing in tow would repair the dents and gashes where the bullets from the prison guards had made their mark. The red paint would then be touched up and sanded to give it an authentic worn look so that it did not stand out. After the repairs are done and the paint has dried, it would be returned to the rental agency. The clerk at the rental agency, observing the lower number of hours logged on the Hobbs meter, would not feel the need to inspect the aircraft too closely.

The rental agency would rent out the aircraft to another client later in the day, the body shop specialists would be back at work at their respective auto body shops, the pilot at
his regular daily job, and Chang whisked away to an appropriate location. All possible trails leading to the prison break would stand erased into oblivion.

* * *

Three months prior, in an upscale neighborhood in Malibu, there was another event unfolding.

“Pass the toast honey,” Stephen Woody said to Angie, his wife of almost three years.

Angie pursed her lips and passed the plate to her husband who took it blindly, his face buried in the headlines of the morning newspaper. He hardly ever spoke to her these days, most of his waking hours spent at work and the evening hours hanging around with his buddies at the club.

“Darling?” Angie queried, seeking his attention.

“Hmpph,” Woody grunted from the midst of the paper. He was skimming through the main stories and stopped at the obituary section.

“ - will you please listen to me?” Angie muttered, an edge to her voice.

“Won’t you let me read my paper in peace?” He went on without waiting for her response, pages rustling. He sounded irritated.

“No,” she pressed firmly. “How bad is it?”

“How bad is what?”

“Woody, don’t be a fool. It’s visible to any idiot that we are in deep shit.”

Everyone called him Woody, including his wife. That was the name that he was known by within the business. After three generations in the business, it was no longer a name. It was a brand. A brand that commanded respect and fear.

He glared at Angie “Don’t bother your pretty head about it. I am on top of things. It’s just this recession that is affecting everybody – the papers say this economy thing will go up by next year, so I think we should be good by then.
Anyway it’s all too complicated for you. Let me bother about it and you take care of that pretty face.”

Angie was barely able to keep her temper in check. She knew from her sources that they were losing money, and their arch rivals were reaping the benefits of their lack of enterprise.

Woody tried at insouciance but he lacked the refinement to carry it off. He shrugged and ignored his wife’s facial contortions.

Women! Why don’t they mind their own business?
he thought sullenly.

Big, broad shouldered, carrying an excess weight of twenty pounds, Woody had the look and manner of a spoilt brat, something like a cross between a bouncer and a businessman. Woody’s blue eyes were perhaps the only physiognomic feature that lent a certain icy coolness to his demeanor. Most times when he was business-like, he looked like a belligerent bouncer. He lacked finesse, and dressed in the best money could buy to compensate his lack of polish. But the overall effect of his personality was still raw, intimidating and unfinished.

He had bluffed his way through life – bluffed that he ran a multi-million dollar corporation, which, in truth, was handed over to him by his well-respected father who was considered an ace in the business. Woody bluffed himself the most, which was his major shortcoming. Many a time he refused to accept the truth and to take action. The result was a slow deterioration of a business that was once extremely lucrative. The recession had very little to do with it.

Woody, this breakfast morning, was dressed spiffy in an Armani suit which lent him the skin of sophistication. He was ready to hit his plush office, once he was done skimming the papers. At six feet four inches, he towered over his wife, as he rose to leave the room. He paused to look at his three-
storey oceanfront property, soaked with all luxuries money could buy and wondered for how long he could keep up the ruse. He pecked a regulation kiss on Angie’s cheek, absently, and made good his escape.

Angie sat fuming, as he completely ignored her and stalked out of the lovely breakfast room that she had painstakingly designed, along with the rest of the house, in warm earth colors and textures.

Upset, Angie rose gracefully and went up to stare at the horizon from the first floor full-length windows. The morning sunlight streamed in, filtering through her negligee and silhouetting her body enticingly. Her face was bare of expression. She was good at playing plastic. Her years in the modeling world had trained her well.

Angie was a beauty few could withhold, certainly not a crass man like Woody. She was ambitious and demanding, but was methodical in her approach. At five feet six inches, she was a little short for a model but she possessed a beauty that could pole-axe a person at
twenty paces. She used her charms like a weapon. Large brown eyes, slightly slanting in an oval face, a mane of cascading mahogany, a decadent mouth and a body that induced hot blooded male fantasies. Her pout could set pulses racing inside a rectory.

Though Angie lacked the height to be a ramp model, she had graced many a Vogue cover doing cameo advertisements. After five years of modeling, Angie hooked up to a better and far less demanding source of income – Woody.

Her first encounter with Woody was in a high-profile party that she had been to. One of those where an overt display of glamour and wealth took center stage. From his swagger and his overall attitude, it was unmistakably obvious that Woody provided the latter. Angie had no pretenses and was well aware that her modeling career had a short shelf-life and would take a nose dive with age. The thought of not being able to retain the lavish lifestyle that she had grown accustomed to was also a serious concern. None of the Greek Gods, the male models, she worked with in the industry could provide for her what she yearned for. Their time in the limelight, just like hers, was limited. Their money and fame wouldn’t last for long.

Angie’s ambitions stretched far beyond the modeling world. She craved for money beyond the usual millions. She knew this sort of position was available either to those in the political circles or the ones who were above the law.

Woody fell into the second category. The fact that he was very courteous to her, though his rough looks made that combination seem incongruous, made him the ideal target. She soon befriended him and learned from sources about his widespread business empire, the power he wielded. She also found out about his underworld status and reputation.

Getting Woody to propose to her was a matter of convenient timing more than anything else. For Angie that was the toughest decision of her life. Though she viewed her marriage to Woody as a passport to a secure, future – for as long as it lasted anyway – she would have to spend her life as an underworld don’s show wife. After a lot of introspection, she reached a decision where her brain played a bigger role than her heart. She chose to be a rich man’s doll and enjoy life’s riches. And that’s how Woody used to treat her in the early days of their marriage – like a doll. She knew she was arm candy - a trophy wife. She did not mind. She graced his home and warmed his bed. Woody in turn gave her security and loads of money to spend. She had no illusions about him and he was sufficiently smitten with her charms to propose marriage within days of their meeting.

The memory brought a bitter sweet smile on Angie’s lips. Looking back, she was not sure if she would have made the same decision after three years of marriage. The money was there, no doubt, but Woody was too much of an old-school male chauvinist to share any of his business dealings with Angie. She had started feeling stifled in the glass house she had so painstakingly designed and built. Just then, the bell rang and brought back Angie from her reveri
e
.

Chapter 2

At his office in downtown L.A., Stephen Woody banged his fist hard on the mahogany table in his office. That action had the intended effect - the handful of men in the room flinched. The table’s contents, a few whisky glasses and a Mauser, rattled and settled down nervously.

Woody was reputed and feared as a man who had uncommon strength when enraged. This was not just rumor – two of the men present in the chamber had seen their boss twist off the arm of a rival goon - mercilessly – agonizing screams echoing from the victim, till the arm was just hanging off via loose tendons. Suffice to say the doctors could not sew back Woody’s handiwork.

Woody made killing look easy. With his lineage, he had inherited it, and over time, mastered and perfected the
art
, much like a carpenter, blacksmith or a luthier would. It was only natural that he had the privilege of learning the tricks of the trade at an early age. He first realized his love for violence and inflicting pain at the ripe old age of twelve when he bludgeoned his best friend close to death – the point of contention being a tiff which none could recall later when their parents asked. Since then Woody had never looked back and had gone from one escapade to another. His affinity to violence could barely be contained by his designer suits and his entire demeanor reeked of menace. He wore several large gold rings on his fingers and their sound resounded noisily in the closed confines of the Dungeon as he drummed his fingers impatiently on the table. The resulting tapping sound achieved the same effect as the usage of a minor scale in a musical piece – to build tension and create an air of suspense. The routine was so effective that it might have been worthwhile for Woody to consider music composition as an alternative career option, if the proportions of brain and brawn were more balanced.

Woody had called a meeting of his lieutenants in the Dungeon, a name they used to describe their meeting room.
 Woody’s grandfather had used the name when they started their business way back in the thirties, and in those days the room did live up to its name. It was buried deep underground. The wide and varied equipment of torture that decorated the place added to the sinister ambience.

Over the years as money flowed into the business and the mafia acquired a patina of polish, the family hired interior designers, for a hefty fee, to re-design and re-furnish the place, in an effort to give it
 a modern and contemporary look. In a way that objective had failed. The grisly nature of their business, which included certain acts of torture that came with this unique line of work, that needed to be performed at the place, contributed to its sinister ambience – something that a group of interior designers were not able to dispel overnight. Petrified, terribly afraid of their client, the interior designers were appalled when they were introduced to the Dungeon. They were more horrified when they were instructed to retain all the original devices and artifacts. The designers were only expected to beautify the place and make it more comfortable, so to speak, without destroying the
heritage
.

The resultant outcome was walls covered with black wallpaper interspersed with wallpaper having scarlet roses design. Sections of the old cave were left to give the place an authentic yet contemporary feel. Air ducts were left visible to lend a raw appeal
to the place, the sorts found in some of the night places familiar with the inhabitants of the Dungeon. All around the room, the implements of torture were artfully displayed. A pair of spiked chain clubs graced one wall. An Iron Maiden stood peaceably in a corner. An art deco table displayed strange tools, the curious use of which made many a man shudder. The lighting was subdued. Maybe the decorators realized that bright lights would only accentuate the vile things, but on the other hand the dark gloom made the place more macabre – the dim glint of light being reflected off the polished steel of the machete blade, the reddish-brown glow emanating from the metal grip of the iron maiden, and the sparkle off the barrel of the old Beretta all added to the macabre ambience.

The dark ambience would either lull one to restless sleep or the loud floral print would induce horrendous nightmares. In the semi-darkness, the roses seemed like blood splotches smeared, oozing from the walls.

This morning, like most others, the Dungeon was filled with hardened criminals, the coterie of Woody’s empire. Tattoos covered about half of all visible skin in the room. That figure would possibly be higher if the clothes came off. Many of them were etched in fond remembrance of a fallen comrade, as a sign of loyalty to a gang or a mark of protest. 

But in sheer animal ferocity Woody beat them all and that’s why they respected him. Not because he had brains – he had never shown any signs of better brainpower than any of them. Not because he held the reins of the business. But because he was a brutal animal and they feared crossing him.

With his icy blue eyes, he glared at his bunch of men and demanded to know how each of his businesses was doing.

“So where do we stand, fellas?” Woody wanted to know.
 

The top seven men in the empire, from each of the nefarious businesses Woody ran met every three months to provide him an update on where their businesses were heading. They were seated across the large mahogany table
– another piece of furniture that struggled to blend in with the Dungeon theme. Also present in these meetings was Joe, Woody’s man Friday.

Woody’s Family Business, or WFB as it was better known, was active in the highly lucrative and risky areas of weapons, drugs, prostitution, gambling and possibly others that Woody had lost track of. Their operations were controlled from Los Angeles but spanned across the country.

Woody was losing big money to his competitors from Santa Monica. Rookie gangs that were hardly on anyone’s radar screens a few years ago were suddenly dipping into the melting pot of riches. WFB was in bad shape. Woody personally owed an unthinkable amount to the loan sharks – not even his underworld don status would keep him safe from them. Some of their best men in the business were snapped up by rival organizations. The situation was close to hopeless as Woody had begun to discover. Unless he acted promptly and came down hard on the competition, WFB had no future.

“Gimme the dope, Phil,” he looked at the drug baron. Phil Buchanan was one of the old-timers in the business. Woody’s father had picked him up when he was a small time street-peddler. Within WFB he got the money and the contacts to do what he was doing earlier, but on a bigger scale. So he stayed on.

When it came to his build and stature, he would have perhaps exceeded Woody but for the attached brand name. The wrinkles on his face gave away his age, though he still looked like he could take down many others half his age present in the room. He was a self-made man who took pride in being a first generation underworld bigwig.

“There was a heavy crackdown by the cops last week,” explained Phil looking glum. “Truckloads of our shit headed for Asia and Africa have been seized.” The downfall of their narcotics business had hit a new low. Phil went on for the next five minutes – more accounts of seizures, arrests, and busted hideouts. After he had finished, Woody looked down at the table, thinking.

Five minutes of bad news hadn’t made Woody lose his temper. This was rare. This was also an opportunity for ‘Captain’ Jacob, the man responsible for the pornography business to put his share of the bad news. While Woody was still staring at the table, Jacob explained in his inimitable style, slurring the words sagaciously, “The industry has gone flaccid too boss. It needs some intense stimulation to stroke it back to life. Stiff competition has been erecting hurdles in our paths. Our clients aren’t coming…”

“Cut the crap, Jacob. Give it to me straight,” Woody cuffed Jacob.

Jacob knew he was not getting his five minutes of monologue. Lucky Phil had got off easily. Jacob continued, “Er, I ain’t gettin’ no fresh meat, boss. All the young chicks are being picked up by the others,” he gestured, indicating the rivals. ”The movies ain’t doin’ good either. Our holes have been smoked twice and we’re hardly doin’ a couple of scenes a week. The new chicks seem to like the other geezers that are into this new
in-traa-net
thing – they’re tellin’ me that there’s more money and quick stardom in computer porn. Boss, me thinks if we buy a computer and do this new
in-traa-net
shit, we will do good.”

As the meeting continued, similar stories emerged from the other business bosses - extortion, contract killing, arms trading, gambling had all been seeing a downturn. Several of their big customers had deserted WFB. New clients of the same stature were not ready to come onboard a sinking ship.

Key people across their businesses had either moved on to other gangs or been killed by the police or by rival gangs. Those that went to other gangs took with them many of the existing customers.

Woody’s business was steadily going downhill, and the ride was rough. It seemed as if lady luck had stopped shining on it for quite a while. But no one wanted to accept it. Things were different when his father, Jack Woody, was alive. Stephen Woody was shielded from all the ups and downs of the trade. There was always someone else to fix the issues so he could sleep well at night. His dad’s death suddenly exposed him to the real business – warts and all. Stephen Woody took resort in a new skill he discovered early on after taking over the reins of the business in his hands – the power of blind delegation. He had his trusted lieutenants to fall back on whenever there was the slightest hiccup to his business. His men were more than enthusiastic to embrace those problems for their boss. Woody was happy, his men were happy and the business was pretty
much on cruise control for all these years. Or was it? Woody was now unsure of why and how things started going downhill.

After a long time, barring the initial few weeks as the head honcho of WFB, Woody was secretly wishing his dad had been there to manage this new crisis. His men called his father ‘Woody’. The father and son duo were never in the business together. So there was no need to address them as Woody Senior and Woody Junior. There was one boss. After Jack Woody died, Stephen inherited the crown and the title -
Woody
.

When asked about the confusion it might’ve created, Stephen Woody would joke. “If the
Phantom
legacy could be passed on for twenty one generations, the Woody clan has only scratched the surface, my friend.”

Being the only child had its advantages. After his dad passed away, there was no coup or any apparent power struggle. The heavyweights who managed the individual businesses could have taken advantage of the situation, moved away and started their own independent teams. But they hadn’t. Though the occasional thought of how and why things fell in place so easily did cross Stephen Woody’s mind, he did not bother too much about it. He assumed it was only natural for his dad’s loyal followers to support him. He was the boss now and that’s what mattered.

He collected his thoughts, regained his composure and got himself mentally back in the room.

“In all our earlier meetings right here in the Dungeon, you guys said it was a temporary phase and that we’d see the situation changing in a few months. It’s been over a year now and we have no idea how badly we’ve been hit.”

Woody’s rage was palpable. He got up, and started pacing and circling the company – both to vent his anger and to circle the group as the eagle before going in for the kill. The deep rumble of his voice sounded concerned. He realized his team had been taking him for a ride and hiding the bad news. The fact that today none of them made any attempts at false promises made him shudder and realize how bad the business had turned. After all these years of keeping it all under wraps hoping for the tide to turn, they knew it was pointless to keep covering it up. They had been in denial for all these years. But the writing now seemed to be clearly on the wall.

Alfredo, also from the drug business, had an uncanny ability to verbalize the darkest fears that everyone else had in their minds and as always, made no effort to curb it –

“We lost three customers last month, and now four more, and all of them moved on to either Nortenos or Surenos – they are getting stronger all the time. And they get their shit directly from Zetas. The small time Russians are also quickly getting into the game. Looks like one fuckin’ big party that no one wants to miss out on…,” he summarized.

“If this continues, in the next six months most of our top buyers will be gone. Looks like the beginning of the end for us. We are doomed, man, we are so freakin’ doomed. I knew I should’ve taken up that factory job my old man arranged for me when I was still a kid.”

‘Captain’ Jacob quipped - “And you should have done that, you wimp, coz you seriously lack the balls or the brains to be in the business…”

Cutting him off, Woody said, “Ok. I get the message. We are in deep shit. And you know something else? You guys got us into it - and you are going to get us out of it.” Woody stopped walking around and collapsed into his chair.

“
Anyone got any brilliant ideas?” Woody opened the floor, tilted his head back on the headrest of the chair and stared at the ceiling. Traditionally, he had never really proposed solutions to any problems earlier and had always been at the mercy of his trusted men to bail him out.

Jacob seemed to have an idea in mind and was the first to offer his thoughts. “We need to set an example to our existing clients. Let’s go out there and kill those who’ve left us. We have their names and addresses. We also know where to find them - and when we do, we’ll teach them right for messing with us.” Jacob was not known within the team for his IQ. He was great at hustling innocent young girls and boys into the flesh trade and had reliable sources for fresh recruits but lacked any real brilliance when it came to solving problems. Woody gave Jacob a killer look, but did not say anything.