This month, read an excerpt from member Barbara Brett’s recently published novel Secret Agenda: Who’s Castrating the Wolves of Wall Street?
The most powerful men in America are planning a government takeover, but someone else has a secret agenda too: one by one, they are being castrated!
SECRET AGENDA: Who’s Castrating the Wolves of Wall Street?
A local florist had recently been stabbed and robbed, and when Tom Berenson heard the door of his bookshop open, he hurried up front. Like many of the shopkeepers in Brooklyn Heights, he was licensed to keep a gun, and his .38 was in a drawer beside a first edition of Little Women, which he had been commissioned to sell by a newly unemployed customer. After looking down at his fourth corpse, Tom had vowed never again to shoot to kill, but good intentions were often forgotten in the heat of a shootout.
The visitor was a tall, well-dressed man in his mid-forties, and he didn’t look at all like the menacing figure in the police sketch. “Nice little store you have here,” he said.
With his mind on villains, it took a few seconds for Tom to recognize Dr. Albert Foster. Until today, he had seen the doctor only at his Park Avenue office.
“Is my father-in-law okay?” Tom asked.
“As of his most recent checkup, Max is doing fine.”
Tom smiled with relief. “I was afraid that you had bad news. But, of course, it’s unlikely that you’d come out here to tell me.”
Foster’s own smile suggested that for a decent guy like Tom, he would make a house call to the ends of the earth, or at least to Coney Island.
“We both appreciate the good care you’ve been giving him. His previous urologist hadn’t done much.”
Foster nodded. “I guess in every profession there are some who don’t measure up. By the way, I understand that you were a terrific detective until you retired.”
Tom waved aside the compliment. “Nowadays I’m concentrating on becoming a terrific bookman. Are you in search of a particular book?”
Foster put his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “I think that you can be more helpful to me than any of your books. Max is always bragging about his son-in-law, the police lieutenant who cracked so many tough cases.”
“Is this a criminal matter?”
“Probably the crime of the century.”
“Then you should go the police immediately.”
“That’s one thing I can’t do.”
“How about the FBI?”
Foster shook his head. “The cops and FBI are out. News would leak to the press and public.”
“I’m sure that if an eminent physician like you insisted on secrecy, they would go all out to accommodate you.” Tom grinned. “As a clincher, you could promise to maintain their potency into old age.”
What started as a nervous laugh suddenly seemed to become uncontrollable. Foster pressed Tom’s arm, and when he was able to speak again, he said, “I think you’ll agree that the worst thing that can happen to a man is the loss of his capacity for sex.”
“Sure. At least for most men.”
“All men.”
“I was thinking of certain clergymen.”
“Balls!” Foster glanced at his Patek Philippe as if searching there for the words he needed. Suddenly he looked up and blurted: “There’s a maniac loose—and he’s been castrating my fraternity brothers. We want you to catch him before he strikes again.”
Until she left to pursue her own writing, Barbara Brett was both a magazine and book editor. She is the author of Secret Agenda, Sizzle, Between Two Eternities, and, with her husband, Hy Brett, the critically acclaimed mystery, Promises to Keep.
