Chapter 6 - The Fall of Grant Holloway
One month later.
Chicago was thawing under the faint, pale sunshine of early spring, meltwater dripping from the iron eaves of the city buildings.
In a cramped, second-floor walk-up apartment above a noisy auto body shop in West Chicago, Grant Holloway sat on the edge of a stained mattress.
The room smelled of stale beer, damp carpet, and exhaust fumes.
On the floor beside his feet lay four unopened brown envelopes stamped with red official seals:
NOTICE OF FORECLOSURE — EVANSTON RESIDENCE.
INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE — TAX AUDIT SUMMONS.
COOK COUNTY FAMILY COURT — ORDER OF CHILD SUPPORT.
US DISTRICT COURT — SUBPOENA FOR CORPORATE FRAUD.
Grant wore a wrinkled, stained dress shirt without a tie. His hair was long and unwashed, his cheeks covered in patchy, grey stubble. His six-thousand-dollar Rolex watch was gone—sold two weeks ago to a pawnshop on 5th Street to pay three weeks of rent and buy cheap microwave meals.
His phone rang on the wooden nightstand.
Grant grabbed it frantically, his trembling fingers sliding across the cracked screen. “Hello?! Arthur? Is that you? Did you get the bankruptcy judge to release my personal checking account?!”
“This is not Arthur, Mr. Holloway,” a sharp female voice replied through the speaker. “This is Detective Sarah Martinez with the Illinois State Police Financial Crimes Bureau.”
Grant’s stomach dropped into a abyss of cold terror. “Detective...? What... why are you calling me?”
“We are serving an arrest warrant for three counts of felony corporate embezzlement and tax evasion tied to your offshore holdings in Nevis,” Detective Martinez informed him flatly. “Officers are outside your building right now.”
Grant jumped up from the mattress, knocking his plastic water cup onto the floor. “No! You can’t arrest me! It was my company! I had the right to transfer those funds!”
“You transferred two million dollars out of your employee pension fund twelve hours after your wife filed for divorce, Mr. Holloway,” Detective Martinez said coldly. “That is federal pension fraud. Step out into the hallway with your hands visible.”
Grant slammed the phone down, his breathing coming in ragged, terrified gasps.
He ran to the small window overlooking the street.
Below, three black-and-white police cruisers sat parked at the curb, their red and blue strobe lights flashing against the brick walls of the auto body shop. Four armed officers were stepping through the front entrance of the building.
Grant looked around the filthy, tiny room in utter, frantic madness.
He opened his closet—there were no cashmere coats, no Italian leather shoes, no gold cuff links. Only two pairs of cheap jeans and a synthetic jacket he had bought at a gas station.
The heavy steel door at the end of the narrow hallway rattled violently.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
“POLICE! OPEN THE DOOR, GRANT HOLLOWAY!”
Grant backed away until his shoulders hit the dirty wall of his room.
He sank down onto his knees on the cold linoleum floor, grabbing his hair with both hands, sobbing in pure, pathetic, helpless terror.
Six weeks ago, he had been a man worth nine hundred million dollars, sipping vintage champagne in boardrooms, deciding which assets to keep and which human lives to cut.
Now, he was just a disgraced felon sitting on a dirty floor, waiting for the handcuffs to click around his wrists.
The door burst open with a loud CRACK, and the hallway flooded with police officers.
As the officers pinned Grant’s arms behind his back and dragged him out into the cold rain, Grant looked up at the sky and realized the ultimate, terrifying irony of his life:
May you like
He had tried to clean his life of liabilities.
And in the end, he was the only liability left.
