The Hollerith Tattoo

Malcolm Zytel, a computer programmer for the Pelican National Bank, has devised an amazingly simple way to embezzle money.

When he takes $100,000 and runs, he is unaware that he could have taken more than a quarter million dollars. For his crime he receives a ten-year sentence in the minimum security prison at Susanville, California.

When he decides to break out of Susanville, with the help of his brother, he leaves a string of bodies as he attempts to settle his personal score with bank employees and the legal system.

However, he hadn’t “banked on” the grit of the shrink who helped put him away, Doctor Carole Roberts, now married to the Chief of the Chainville Police, Quentin Price.

The Herman Hollerith-devised coding system was used in early electronic computers to record information in dollar-bill-sized pieces of cardboard. If you can remember what an “IBM Card” looked like and perhaps some of the punches that put those rectangular holes in the card, you’ll enjoy The Hollerith Tattoo.