CON TEST: Double Life (17 page)

“
You wasted the checks?”

“
No. Absolutely not,” Justice said and grabbed a Staples bag. “I made some extra checks before I left the Plaza. And here's two new boxes,” he said and handed the boxes to Amir.

“
Did you handle your business while you were shopping until you dropped?” Amir asked. He was disgusted.

“
I sure did,” he said. “And came up with $5000, too.”

“
I thought the loan will be ready tomorrow?” Amir asked, beating Alimu-Shine to the question.

“
It will be. I am getting that cash, also!”

“
So, how did you get five grand?” Alimu-Shine asked, frankly.

“
Easily!”

“
Easily, how?” Amir barked.

“
I opened...,” Justice started, but stopped. “I cannot give away all of my tips.”

“
What!” Alimu-Shine and Amir said in unison.

“
Damn, don't bite my head off and toss it out the window onto Broadway. I opened a line of credit while I was there and was approved for $10,000. I did a cash advance while I was getting my debit card. I will take the rest out tomorrow.”

“
And you could not put us on that?” Alimu-Shine asked. Amir was catatonic and could not respond.

“
I just did. Had to try it out, right? Besides you don’t know how much your guy will be approved for, if at all,” Justice said with a smile on his face that pissed Alimu-Shine off.

“
You always find a way to win grand prize.”

That was beautiful, William thought and stood. He cracked his knuckles and then stretched. It felt great to write such a romantic scene, he joked to himself. He said that and grabbed the remote to change the TV channel, but there was nothing on. He threw on some clothes and decided to take a walk.

He reached for his wallet and realized that it was light. His fictional plot was actually non-fiction. The women that he ravished had stolen his wallet and in very crafty fashion. He had not even seen that coming as he had made it convenient for Justice. He slumped over to the bed and discussed how the hell could he not have been on point for that. He had to know that it was possible because he did it in fiction. They had stolen $200 from his wallet. He was pissed and concluded that that was what he got for cheating on Lundin. He picked up his pride and walked toward the hotel door. He definitely needed to walk after all.

William skated across the lot to the ATM. He withdrew $40 and proceeded through the revolving door to the street. The sun was setting in California. San Francisco was surprisingly calm and quiet. As he walked pass the parking attendant, he totally gagged. An atomic bomb could have been launched at his feet and he would not have noticed. The great black snake was in front of him heightening his frustration.

“
Hello, Mr. Fortune!” Justice said, slightly.

William had a nightmare. At that point, he thought that the two girls were operatives of Justice. And the same held true for the man in the zoo.

“
Look, get the fuck away from me,” William hissed.

“
So violent. Does Lundin know about the temper? You should try anger management, sir.”

“
Fuck you, jackass!” William said, continuing down the lobby driveway to the pavement.

“
What have I done now? You are trying to get rid of me and I have not done anything.”

William stopped walking and balled his hands into fists. He was nose to nose with his nemesis. “Look, you think that you can plunge into my daily routine and follow me whenever you like to and you’re fucking wrong, buddy,” William growled. He violently poked Justice in the chest punctuating each word. His body dithered from the anger they he was wrapped in. Saliva spat out of his mouth as he spoke. “Get this, you bitch ass snake. Stay the fuck away from me and that's the only warning. If I so much as see you in the hotel lobby when I leave, I'll kill you. Point blank.”

“
No, you won't,” Justice said with contemptuous irony, while he chuckled.

William ignored him and walked back toward the hotel entrance. He said all he had to say and meant it. He would kill the bastard and be adulated as a hero for it. Unable to be in the city with the goon, he decided to go back to his home. He packed his things and took a late night bus home. He was pissed and in no condition to drive, so he turned the rental car in in San Francisco and caught a light bus out of there.

TWENTY-EIGHT

S
hortly after 1 a.m., Justice Lorenzo stepped out of a taxi and darted through a dark and desolate
cul-de-sac
off Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue in Hollywood. This scene was queer, but he was sure he had the right place. He had followed Nyoka’s directions to the letter. Despite his senses telling him to meet her at another location, he rang the bell on the wall next to a steel door.

A small trap door opened at the top half of the door and a small mirror came out. Justice looked up at it.

“
Are you a member?” A female voice asked.

“
I was told to ask for Mystery Dior.”

A buzzer sounded that opened the door. A middle aged Russian with red spiky hair and a devastatingly effective gun appeared.

Justice was ushered down a flight of stairs and was greeted by the sound system blaring hip hop music.

Justice could not believe what he watched. The refined snapshot illustrated an underground club for the rich and famous. He saw Paris, Leo and Depp enjoying themselves. Even more shocking, Nyoka, an innocent acting secret service agent was a member of the club.

The Russian woman dropped Justice in front of Nyoka and left. He found Nyoka fiercely made-up, and bouncing in her seat, her breasts were being thrown from left to right. Three champagne buckets were on the table. Each contained exclusive top shelf bottles. She was chatting with two other women who exchanged pleasantries with Justice before they danced away.

He looked  at the tray of stuffed shrimp and champagne and said to Nyoka, “Between your salary and my gift, you’re living quite the glamorous life.”

“
Not hardly. I was thinking of raising your rent,” she said and then sang the chorus to a Nikki Minaj song. “But do not worry, I'm not. You make it all up in the sack,” she said, and grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer to her. He fell on top of her and she tickled parts of the inside of his mouth wildly. After five minutes of groping and kissing she released him

Justice liked the drunk and crazy Nyoka, but he was afraid of her new behavior. Do I smell some sort of craftiness in the air? Justice thought and straightened out his shirt. “What was that for?”

“
Just showing my two girls how sexy you are. How your arm muscles contract showing off every cut as they explore my body. Look at them over there gasping.”

Justice turned and saw the girls that left the booth. They were at a bar kissing and looking at him seductively. He asked, “So, which one can I fuck?”

“
Both!” she said, pulling out a Grafton on Sunset hotel room key and a blue Viagra pill. I know that you are long winded, but they will fuck you until you give up. As long as you can get it up, they will fuck you, baby.”

Justice grabbed the room key. “I’ll pass on the Viagra. I’ll take some X, though.”

“
Sure,” Nyoka said, waving down a scantily clad waitress. She asked the waitress if she had any Tic-Tac’s. The waitress went into her bra and pulled out a Tic-Tac container. She then dropped two ecstasy pills into Nyoka’s palm. She passed them to Justice, and said, “Everything is available at Club Touch. All you have to do is ask. A $1,000 a month membership assures that.”

“
Damn, I’m going to pop these and down a few glasses of champagne and then I’ll go fuck your girls. But for now, what’s the urgent news.”

Oblivious to the potency of her words, he snaked his hand up under her dress and slid his middle finger inside of her. He pulled his finger out and looked over at her girls before inserting his fingers into Nyoka’s mouth. He dipped in a second time. That time, he tasted his fingers before kissing her crazily.

Justice surmised that her offer to bang her friends was staged to balm her horrible news. He had had a masterful plan and a disguise that he had planned to revive for that moment. Say hello to Ms. Grisby.

* * *

Outside Justice walked to one of the girl’s car. He could not wait to mangle them. The man snapping photos of him could not wait to expose his drunken nocturnal behavior.

TWENTY-NINE

L
AX was choked, it seemed to William Fortune as he arrived to pick up Lundin from her NYC excursion. Many people tried to get out of the airport. Equally, people tried to get an earlier flight out before the storm hit. LA traffic in general frustrated him, but that day traffic was horrific. Bad enough he ran late. He had no idea why everyone wanted to travel that day, and he was irritated.

Somewhere in the area of the stop-and-go traffic, he rescued Lundin from the LAX beast. She was extremely excited considering he waited two hours, even though he was late. He pulled over to the curb and jumped out of the car, and threw his arms around his wife. She hugged him with equal force, and a passionate kiss. Before they moved onto to sex at the airport, he tossed her luggage into the car and headed home.

He blended in with the 405 traffic under a nightmarish charcoal gray sky. A crash of thunder crossed the sky. William’s body earth quaked at the steering wheel, and he jerked the wheel a little. Embarrassed by his jumpiness, he kept his eyes on the road, avoiding Lundin. Despite his avoidance, Lundin sensed something awkward in his behavior.

She said, “Sorry for coming back during such a busy time. I know you asked me to take a later flight, but I wanted to get out of New York.”

“
That’s fine, Boopsie,” he replied, swerving out of the way of a tractor trailer. “I miss my parents,” he said. Both of them were caught off by the revelation.

She placed a warm hand on his thigh, and cooed, “Oh, William...” She could not find any words to comfort him. She had never been in that situation. Rather than spoil the moment, Lundin stroked his leg while he let it all out. She had no idea what to say. She left his words in the air, as they drove to Robertson Boulevard silently. All was quiet except the bold rumble of the thunder which electrified the smoky sky.

THIRTY

W
illiam and Lundin’s home was unrealistically still. They were both tired, and after catching up they had sex and fell into comas. At three a.m., William rolled over and opened his eyes. He sat up, pulled the comforter back and slipped on his house shoes. He pressed down the loft stairs to the bathroom. He took a leak, flushed, washed his hands and turned around to exit the bathroom. He nearly bumped into the intruder. Justice had his index finger poised to his lips, “Don’t you say a fucking word!”

William wished that he had stayed asleep. Then his mind flashed to Lundin and he prayed that she was not upstairs dying. William stared at the ceiling, silent as instructed by Justice.

Well alright
, William thought.
My gun is in the bedroom, so I couldn’t get to it before this idiot shot me and then Boopsie. Maybe, I could back him into the door and rush out the house and force him to chase me to protect Lundin. Fuck!

William nixed that scenario. It would have failed. Even had the police arrived, they would have shipped William to the looney-bin. Surely, he had to be a struggling writer suffering from a psychotic episode brought on by his creativity to create publicity wherever he could get it.

One cop would have said, “Sure, buddy, your fictional protagonist jumped right off the computer screen with the goal of becoming your unusual antagonist.”

His partner would laugh, and hysterically chime in, “It’s not new, though. Stephen King’s characters do it all the time. In fact, we have an APB out for Alex Cross. Apparently, he’s trying to kill James Patterson for having him face near death experiences so often.”

They would encourage Lundin to have him committed for 72-hours of observation. He should be able to grab enough material from the mental ward to cure his writer’s block for life. And if they added the media, he could do a press conference from the ward, too.

Then it dawned on William that that was if he was alive. There would be a different story if he was dead. There would be a murder scene with no investigative powers to find a credible motive or suspect. He had helped Justice vanish.
The policemen of West Hollywood haven’t had a murder on their watch in eons
, he thought.

William felt like Dorothy being blown into the Land of Oz. Only he was not fighting to make it down the yellow brick road to a wish-granting wizard. He heard the growl of the lightening and the rain beating on the windows. It seemed that the rain spoke to him. “Take control of your home,” it said.

William scanned Justice from head-to-toe. He searched and strove to persuade himself that Justice Lorenzo was of no physical threat. Justice was like a nagging five-year-old that forced William to engage in an annoying game of hide and seek. William had sat in on too many police and military trainings not to be able to fend off that goon. He had never had to inflict injury on anyone, but for sure, he knew how too. And would. His heart raced with approval to end his silence. Who the hell was Justice to silence him?