Steven Cross

Lawren Hall Steven Cross First edition

Nineteen sixty-three should have been a year of prominence and prosperity, but instead it was a year of turbulence. It was a year the Cuban missile crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. It was a year where segregation and racial inequality ignited the fight for civil rights. It was the year the youngest President ever elected to office was assassinated. For Ozias Williams 1963 was a year of turbulence as well. Two years earlier he had established himself as a writer and published his first novel. With the money he earned from the sale of his book, and some cash he acquired, he opened Hickey's wash & dry in of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Being new to the business he hires an accountant named Jeffery Leland to manage his finances and keep the business on track, but Jeffery misappropriates funds, takes flight and leaves the business in financial ruin. With his business in ruin Ozias stands to loose everything if he doesn't come up with five grand in one week. Things take a turn for the worse when a strange man walks into his small establishment and makes him an offer he can't refuse. Strapped for cash, and a strong desire to save his dying business, Ozias is forced to take on the stranger's proposition.