Preview the first chapter of my new book CITY BY THE BAY CHAPTER 1 The Judge hung on with a death grip to the chrome legs at the front of the seat he’d been thrown out of. His body was violently torqued to the left and then to the right as the cable car accelerated out of control down the hill. The acid smell of flames choked his throat and stung his eyes. He wondered if he’d see Katy, his bride, again, or their little boy…Ralphie! The screams of the other passengers at the upper-end of the car had gone quiet, the upper-end fully engulfed in the fire. The flesh on his ankles and legs was starting to char, like broiled meat. It had started out an ordinary morning, like the four mornings before. Fog had rolled up the hill toward Chestnut Street in thick cotton mists from the Bay, filtering the early morning light into a spidery web of shadows and rays. The Judge had snuggled deeper into his overcoat as he’d walked, wishing he could have spent another hour in bed pressed up to the side of Katy, his years-younger bride, warm, soft, feminine smelling. But the merger he’d been working on was a big one and negotiations had taken a startling turn. Like clockwork, it was 7:30 a.m. when the Judge climbed from wet slippery pavement on to the Hyde cable car at the top of Chestnut. As he did so, a pretty, young woman in a red slicker smiled at him from across the street. He smiled back, then took his favorite seat at the front in the lower end of the car, where he could look out the downhill windows, down the steep street to the foggy city below. San Francisco was quiet, deserted, all whites and greys, like some ancient borough not quite ready to be shaken alive. This would be his fourth meeting at the law offices of Weinstock & Chan. And the plaintiff’s CEO and Chief Scientist, Dr Richard Lee, was supposed to be there for the purpose of finalizing acquisition terms. But his client, C. Jeffery Coldstone, had called at 6:10 Wednesday, the night before from Virginia, with shocking news. This Dr. Lee had stolen Coldstone’s technology. Just tucked their only prototype into his briefcase when no one was watching and walked out of their lab. A brazen theft of proprietary technology if ever there was. The Judge was going to nail Dr. Lee’s ass to the barnyard door for that stunt. It was not the way things were done. He’d looked around the car. It was almost empty. Two young men in spiffy suits and college ties who looked to be novice brokers or venture capitalists, shared their ride to the office as they had each of the prior mornings, comparing notes in not so discreet tones as to their successes…or not, in female-bedding the night before. An old Chinese gentleman sprawled across two seats behind the Judge, arms spread [...]