Fool's Gold - 1. Fool's Gold

I smiled at the woman before me as she detailed her criticisms. It was something I handled well by now.

“These shades of purple are too, well, too...”

“Do you want something lighter, airier?”

She nodded excitedly. “Yes, that’s it. I want something less drab, not as morose, more lively.” As a premier interior designer, she expected me to read her mind. Luckily, I could.

I flicked through the fabric samples with the stiff backings and found a paisley with a beige background that contrasted with the darker plums and brilliant golden yellow swirls. With paisleys, color and pattern was so important. When people said they wanted more energy in a fabric, they really meant more distinction. Adele Idlewild was one of those people who expressed her opinion in emotion rather than details. I nodded in sync as she bobbed her head enthusiastically seeing the new pattern.

After finishing the transaction --- curtains for her kitchen windows and painters with the right pedigree to show up at her required time -- I ushered the petite middle-aged woman from my studio. I looked her right in the eye as she left, waving, and turned the sign to ‘closed’. As I locked the door, I caught a glimpse of someone outside. I couldn’t help but scowl at him. He wasn’t just a passerby. He was another patron. A different kind of, well, client. I didn’t like the two sides of my life crossing paths like this. He should have followed my instructions.

I stood at the locked door, tapping my foot in annoyance as he approached the front stoop looking around nervously. The young man’s twenty-something face was flush with guilt and his eyes darted back and forth like a sneaky dog who had been digging around in the trash and found something he shouldn’t have.

The man had curly blond hair, almost white in the afternoon sun. His skin was pink and white, alive with color and excitement. His features were pleasing and in other circumstances, I could see him as a delightful playmate on a cold winter’s night. However, his presence on the front stoop, wildly looking around him, the poster boy for guilt, wasn’t wise. Someone would note his presence and that wouldn’t be good.

For example, the idiot lawyer across the street who couldn’t keep his eyes in his own head might wonder who the tasty young morsel was. I could hear Logan Reed ask who came calling after business hours. His identity wasn’t a huge deal, but the next question did matter. After ‘who was that hot guy at your doorstep after six in the evening and does he have a brother’, Reed would ask, ‘why was he meeting you after hours’?

It was best not to let that question linger and cause lesser minds to ponder.

With resolve, I unlocked the studio door and pulled it open. Grabbing one of the dude’s arms, I dragged him into the shop, closed and locked the door, and flicked closed the blinds. My grip was purposely painful, since this wasn’t a good situation.

“What’re you doing here? Where did you get this address?”

“I’m sorry,” Tony whined. “I’m scared and nervous and what if you can’t do it?” He paused, cocked his head and said, “You look way different like this.” Sheepishly, he looked me up and down taking in my green skinny pants, my aqua blousy shirt, with bangles on wrists and earrings swinging at my neck. This man had previously seen by in one of my conservative suits, not as my alter ego. I shrugged off my shock and got back to business. Inside, I was only one person, hard and in control.

Pursing my lips, I surveyed this new client. Tony Snow’s demeanor and emotional state was panicked. I had learned long ago that understanding what kind of game they were playing was key to figuring things out.

Oh, and they were all playing games. That’s what people did. They played games and fucked with people. I was worried about him, but then again, he was so…nice. In the meantime, I noted his breath was clean, minty with a hint of gin behind it. He had a manly boyish smell, faint, clean sweat, too much body spray, and a little sour twist of fear. I wasn’t happy he’d found my studio, but he seemed more concerned about his ‘job’ than anything else, like my appearance.

Tony’s lips were chapped from nervous chewing. His shoulders were hitched a bit, tight and ready for fight or flight. However, the most telling part of his anatomy was his eyes. They were opened wide, looking for danger and a place to run. But, the best part was his pupils, dilated slightly as they begged me for help. You can’t fake that reaction. Behind all the fear, the panic, the young man was excited. A quick glance down confirmed he was aroused, not fully erect or anything, but more prominent than he had been on the previous two meetings.

The dilation and arousal were enough to calm my concerns. This young man was worried about his venture and he was showing definite attraction to me which meant a level of confidence and trust. I could use that for my own advantage, and maybe afterward. I would need to be discrete, but that was my forte!

After a job, I liked a little romp in the sack to burn off some energy. Certainly, this white-gold blond snack would be perfect for a turn or two. I’d enjoyed watching Tony coming and going. His firm, high ass rippled as he walked away, the plumpness adding to the allure. His shy, inviting smile and flash of ivory teeth as he approached, a dimple on his left cheek appearing like a surprise Christmas snowstorm and then melting away just as suddenly.

“Are you sure this is how you want it to go?” I placed my hands on both shoulders and looked deep into his sparkling, azure eyes. “Once we start this train, it can’t stop. There aren’t brakes and there is no going back. When I pull the trigger, the problem goes away forever and you can’t return to yesterday.”

Tony flashed a quick, hesitant smile. He dug into his pocket and pulled a phone from it. He poked at it for a second. The instrument responded to his ministrations with a creaking, haunting tone. Now he looked troubled.

“I want my money by this weekend, Todd. I’m going to peel the skin from your lovely wife if I don’t get word from you this is being taken care of. Got me?”

Tony’s hand trembled as he stopped the recording and looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes. His skin underneath his white-gold hair was pink and needy. His eyes crinkled conveying the question to me poignantly.

“Are you sure he doesn’t have two mill to pay Pedro back?”

Tony’s lips parted slightly as he shook his head an emphatic ‘no’. “I told him I’d help. He’s my brother and we’re really close, always have been. It would be like losing a sister, what he’s saying he’ll do.”

The young man’s voice quavered as he pleaded. The tone had a trembling hard to fake. I breathed in deeply and the tinny, tart smell of fear was a little stronger now though it still paled under the heavy scent of body spray. What’s more, Tony Snow had stepped a little closer. His body was radiating heat and drawing me in closer as well. We were two gravitational bodies pulled together.

“All right, I’ll help you. From now on, you must do exactly as I say or I’m out and the sister-in-law will not be around, okay?” Sometimes euphemisms are more powerful than direct references.

“Okay,” Tony answered, an openly pleased smile graced his lips. “Thank you. I’ll do anything to repay you.” He paused and the dimple reappeared. “Anything.”

I swallowed and nodded. “I’m not doing it for free. We discussed my standard rate.”

“I’ve got the money.”

“Fine. Here’s what you’re going to do. Leave now and we’ll meet someplace safer and finish out the details.”

Tony’s teeth flashed as he placed a hand on my chest. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, now leave and I’ll call you on this,” I said, palming a burner cell into his hand. “We only communicate via this phone. Leave yours at home.”

Tony stepped back for a second and then rushed toward me. I just barely turned my head in time as his lips brushed my cheek. Startled, he backed away and gave me a wry smirk. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

The white-gold man left my studio and I locked the door after him. Peering through the blinds, I noticed my neighbor, the ambulance-chasing fool, standing in front of his storefront. His eyes followed the young man as he marched down the sidewalk to his dark blue Ford Focus.

Looking back, I could see a wolfish grin on Logan Reed’s face. He looked hungrily over as Tony pulled out of the parking spot. A pang of anxiety ran through me as I saw Reed tilt his head with the unspoken question. I now wondered if this job would be my last.

I stepped back, picked up my phone and dialed. After a few moments, I had the answer to one question. Now I needed responses to two more before I was ready to roll.

***

Pedro Morales was huge and not just in the business of lending money to ‘motivated’ borrowers, but in sheer heft. He was at least six feet, seven inches tall as he towered above the SUV he was standing by. He was also big around with shoulders that stretched impressively and ended in a barrel chest. Pedro was huge in another way as well.

He swaggered and seemed to take up more space than his bulk demanded. The air shimmered around him and he occupied that space as well. His underlings would scurry about the man like they were worker bees and he was the hive, not the queen, the actual hive itself. While his voice was loud and booming, most of the time, his various dealers, messengers, and personnel would react to his raised hand or an exaggerated facial expression. I could see even from this short distance how he had presence and used it effectively.

I, on the other hand, use my own size to obscure my presence. Without my usual elevated shoes, my padded suit coat, my flashy scarves and garish man makeup, I was practically invisible, small and insignificant. My first love, only love, had figured how this could be used as an asset.

Morgan had seen how I could use my real self as the mask and my flamboyant side as the foil. He recognized how I could hide in plain sight. Hell, I relied on Morgan for everything, lover, teacher, and even best friend. Losing him left a void unlike any other I had experienced.

After a few years, I was healing, but missing him remained something unavoidable. I tried to ignore it, but the pain arose at the worst times. I swallowed, picked up the clipboard, and blinked away the moisture from my eyes. Clearing my throat, I had to remember all the man had done for me.

Morgan had seen in me so much more than I did. He saw the fun, creative side and the serious, analytic part of me as well. He molded and changed so much in me. I never even knew it at the time. I was a dumb eighteen-year-old foster kid without a home or prospects living in a rooming house and working in a mail room. Morgan seemed to notice there was something in me he could use. He once told me he saw the raw steel and stubbornness necessary to succeed in the world. There was ‘a glint of iron ore in my eye’, I think he said. These words I’ll never forget. “All you needed was a blacksmith to purify that iron and forge it into a sword.”

That brought me back to the scene unfolding.

I shook my head as I saw Morales gesturing with both hands to a pretty young girl in her teens. She was gesticulating back and looked both angry and afraid. The big man wasn’t backing down, and stepped closer to her. I opened up the vent in the glass booth to hear the words.

“Get the fucking hit lined up. He doesn’t have the money and I’m making her the example. Fuck him and his promises. I don’t give a shit.”

The teen shook her head wildly, placing her hand on Morales’s chest. Her upturned face pleaded with him. He continued to shake his head.

“Enough, she’s going to pay.”

“Not my sister.” The words were a prayer, a supplication that the angry god/loan shark shook off.

“Not my sister,” she then wailed throwing her hands into the air.

I heard a car approach, the sound of crunching gravel under tires and the hum of an engine crawling nearer. I opened the window and leaned out. The vehicle was a large black SUV with tinted windows that looked exactly like Morales’s. I knew they were the same make, model, and year and completely reassembled. These were clean, untraceable machines.

“Can I help you?” I asked when the window rolled down.

“Who’re you? I’ve never seen you before.”

I smiled and nodded. “I’m the new parking attendant. That will be a twenty-dollar event parking fee for the game.”

The other man was in his forties, dark complexion with five o’clock shadow at nine in the morning on a Sunday. He looked rough around the edges, his full lips scowling and his dark eyes flashing. “I’m just meeting someone for a few minutes.”

Without missing a beat, I say, “I guess that’ll be alright.”

I watched as the SUV slowly edged into the structure and parked in an open slot next to its twin. The guy got out of the driver’s seat and walked swiftly over to Morales. Morales handed him an envelope, spoke to him quietly, and then waved him away. Now I knew who the operator was. I took out my camera and before he walked around the vehicle, I took a picture of his face. Satisfied, I stood and stepped back into the shadows. I unbuttoned the uniform shirt, doffed the hat, and unclipped the receiver. I handed it back to my buddy, Jake and then handed him a hundred-dollar bill rolled tight.

“Got what you needed.” Jake was all wry smiles and money for his new boytoy.

“I did indeed.” Yeah, it hurt to think about it, summoning the image of Morgan’s brown eyes flickering in the candlelight, my man…gone.

***

Watching Tony Snow was a thrill. As he batted the ball back across the net, his shirt rode up baring a hint of hair and a glimpse of skin. His brother, Todd, was just as handsome and comely, only he was dark where Snow was light. Todd Snow wore blue shorts that showed off his well-muscled tanned legs thick with dark hair. His white shirt barely hid the forest of hair on his torso. His smile and laughter matched Tony’s. Both men were natural athletes and watching them made me a little aroused in spite of myself. Seeing them play, their muscles rippling and skin flashing me, I remembered Morgan and the first time we made love.

I first had sex when I was in high school. There were a couple of guys who were willing to experiment and I was small, insignificant, and barely noticed. Therefore, I was safe. I’d had sex so I was no virgin, but little did I know what Morgan would expose me to.

Morgan showed me how making love was like a conversation with our bodies. We expressed our love and care, playfulness, and sometimes even selfishness and it was okay. A nibble on a ticklish spot meant I was vulnerable to him. A kiss on my nipple was a message my parts were treasured. A squeeze of my shoulder punctuated how I made his toes curl. A taste of sweat was an expression of our passion and heat. After Morgan made love to me, I was spoiled for other men.

That didn’t mean after he left I never had sex again, au contraire. I just never made the mistake of making love to another man again. I could see how making love with Tony Snow could be enjoyable, though I would never do so. In my line of work, it doesn’t pay to be vulnerable to another. I’d learned that lesson the hard way.

After Morgan figured out Pedro Morales’s modus operandi, we used it to manipulate and foil the shark. Sharks must always be moving and Morales was no different. He went from place to place meeting with his minions and conducting his shady business. One morning at a waste treatment plant, the afternoon at an old night club, in the evening at a school parking lot. The cops and rival gangs could never anticipate where the old bastard might be, until Morgan found the pattern. I never knew how he did it, but I guessed it involved his dick, it usually did.

The key to Morales’s meeting places was as simple as the calendar, not the solar one, the lunar one. Morales had twenty-eight meeting places. He rotated the sites in the four-week period never skipping one or visiting the same site twice in the lunar cycle. Once Morgan found out the secret, we’d used it to our advantage collecting information and using it as needed. It was surprising how much our operation harmonized with the local gang leaders. ‘Harmonize’ was Morgan’s word, not mine. He was right though. Morales’s shadow organization reflected events we were hired to do. Sometimes it was hit. Other times, it could be a simple lift job. It’s surprising how often people need a robbery to aid in their cash flow issues. They don’t want to lose the item, but they sure want the insurance check.

I digress.

The job Tony Snow wanted done was a simple one. I needed to make sure Pedro was neutralized, but before I stuck my neck out too far, I wanted to do my homework. There were cracks in his story and while the initial search was clean, I was suspicious.

Right now, Tony and Todd Snow weren’t acting like two men in fear of a shark. They were as open and carefree as a couple of innocents. There was something else off. Something nagged at me, tugging at my balls and whispering in my ear. Morgan always told me to listen to that gentle voice, whispering quietly in the dark. I just wasn’t sure what to do next. It sounded like Todd Snow’s wife was in danger. Danny Tesoro had the job in hand. What was I missing?

I shifted the car into drive and headed for home. This could wait until tomorrow. Perhaps a good night’s sleep would give me the answer.

***

When I got home, the troubled feeling had grown stronger, more certain. What was bothering me? I decided to grab a beer and line up the facts. Perhaps then I would see where cracks had formed in my understanding of the situation. I unlocked the front door of my apartment and moved toward the alarm system ready to turn it off. I punched in the code barely noticing the chirp it made. The fading evening light cast shadows from the furniture in the living room.

There was something off.

Nobody was here though. I stood and looked carefully. My fish tank glowed green with the orange and black striped koi swimming around lazily. I strained, listening for something out of place. Nothing.

Turning on the lights with the room was bathed in light, I could see no one lurked in the corners. Laying on the couch was my cat Sasha, sleeping. As I passed by, I stroked her calico fur. Then I entered the kitchen.

I flipped on the light and looked around. Still a sense of discomfort remained in my gut. Shaking my head, I walked back through the living room and into my bedroom. There were no strangers hiding there either. The bathroom was empty as was my office

I went back into the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. I took a swig and thought about this job. As I thought about the facts, I began to see things in a new light.

Tony Snow had contacted me through an ad on Craig’s List for a ‘utility man’. We met at a bar downtown, The Spot, or something like that, on Randolph Street. He’d met me dressed and behaving as my shadow persona, not as my interior designer self. He explained the situation, wanting to ‘get rid’ of the threat to his sister-in-law, Sarah Snow. His brother, Todd, had accumulated enormous debt and the loan shark, Pedro Morales, was threatening him.

I explained to him that getting rid of Pedro Morales wouldn’t cancel the debt nor would it protect Sarah or Todd for that matter. Pressing home the point didn’t seem to matter. Tony was determined to take the gangster out and willing to pay a premium for his retirement. But why? Again, this seemed more like a case of feature film caricatures. Sure, Pedro Morales was a thug and a killer. He had plenty of bad deeds that populated his history, but killing people who owed him money seemed a little counter-productive. Why not grab Todd and force him to start on a payment plan, with interest, of course.

Then Tony showed up at the studio and knew exactly who I was without hesitation or confusion.

Tony knew me immediately.

Tony wanted a contract to take out a gangster.

The chirp was a sign the alarm was off.

Sasha hadn’t moved when I petted her.

Pedro and I had been dancing around each other for quite some time.

A shadow fell across my table. Suddenly the pieces came together.

“Hi Danny,” I said, tensing and moving my hand to my side.

“Don’t move, Ray.”

“Danny, this won’t end well for you. Get outta my house,” I said.

Pedro’s enforcer didn’t say anything at first. I turned and saw him grinning with a gun pointed at me. “You’ve made life very difficult for Pedro over the years. It’s time we paid you back.”

“I don’t think you have the funds.”

Danny grimaced trying to process it.

“I think your bank account isn’t big enough.”

The gun fired.

***

Sitting in my car, a non-descript Ford Taurus, I looked down at my hands, spreading my fingers. It was at times like this I couldn’t help but remember. I twisted the white-gold ring on my right hand. The diamond sparkled and the black onyx glowed. When Morgan gave me the ring on our second-year anniversary, it went on my left hand. I was so happy that night, proud he’d made me his one and only. I could remember the scene like it was last week.

Morgan’s dark brown eyes sparkled in the candlelight of the restaurant. It was a special place downtown with cream-colored tablecloths and silver candleholders holding waxy white candlesticks. He’d preordered chateaubriand for us, a tenderloin steak the waiter carved for us, pouring beurre blanc over the delicate meat. After we ate, he’d fidgeted and I knew something was up. Morgan didn’t get nervous. He was the kind of man who could always hold it together.

In the end, he pulled the box from his suitcoat and pushed it over toward me. “I want us to be…um…a couple, just you and me. I want us to be exclusive.”

“Wow,” I whispered, picking up the box and flipping the top open. It glowed in the flickering light. I pulled it out, slid it onto my ring finger on my left hand. I held it up to him. “Does this answer your question?”

“It does,” Morgan answered, his eyes glowing and his smile radiant. “I’m the happiest man alive.”

“No, I’m the happiest,” I said, looking from the ring to his face and back again.

***

“You need us, our expertise, in order to continue operations. Otherwise, we’ll do to you what we did to Ray Smith.” Tony Snow’s scalp was pink with excitement and eagerness. Todd beamed at him in support.

“I had Smith killed. As soon as you told me who the fucker was, I had my guy take care of him.” Pedro Morales stood awkwardly in the motel room next to the bed. There were four guns, three rolls of cash, a couple of backpacks, and a briefcase lying open and with packets of white powder stacked neatly in rows.

“You don’t want to war with us,” Tony said crossing his arms. The beautiful white-gold blond seemed to be mimicking the enormous thug. “We should join forces.”

I stepped from the bathroom and cleared my throat. In each hand, I had a gun. Behind me, air flowed through the opened window. Being small and wiry had its advantages.

“I wouldn’t get too comfy,” I announced. I then shot Tony and then Todd Snow in mid-turn. They both slumped forward and crumpled to the floor. “Hands up Pedro. We have business to discuss.”

The loan shark lifted his hands eying the door, hoping. His hope was in vain. His posse was, well, neutralized.

“I think this meeting needs to be private,” I said, smirking. “Just the two of us. Now get on the floor, hands behind your back.”

After getting Morales’s hands zip-tied. I got him settled on his butt, his shoulders to the wall and his legs splayed before him. His copious gut, dressed in a black ‘Iron Maiden’ t-shirt size XXXL stretched taut over his torso making him look more like a sausage than a gangster.

“I wanted to chat a bit before we parted--”

“I can pay you,” Morales interrupted. “I understand you’re pissed.” His smell was obnoxious. This man was scared to death. I smiled to myself.

I pulled the chair from across the room and had a seat. I kept both guns pointed at the big man’s head. This wouldn’t take long, but I felt he deserved to know why he had to die.

“It was brilliant of you to use a man who looked so much like Morgan I couldn’t resist, or at least, it lowered my guard. Shall we use his real name now or do you want to continue the façade?”

Morales hung his head. He wouldn’t look up. I could see his attention was still on me though.

“So, you find this young blond sociopath by the name of Owen Redfield. He and his boyfriend, Robert Fields, are willing to scout out the competition, namely me, Ray Smith. I’m going away, right? Fields is the computer operative, skilled at finding and sorting clues about people and Redfield is a player. He can charm the pants off a straight man, right, Pedro?”

The thug cowered as I paused. I continued, “So you figured out my cover as the interior designer and my shadow existence as the hit man. You decided to eliminate me and take over the whole pie. Am I right Pedro? It’s a simple case of greed.”

“Listen, let’s work together now. I’ll keep your secret and you can do my enforcement. I take it Danny didn’t quite make it?”

“No. Danny was a little too slow. I am faster than he is. Don’t worry about Danny. He won’t be found for a while. Morgan tried to double cross me and I got rid of him, the man I loved. Don’t think I won’t do the same to you.”

I cleared my throat. Morales looked up and I shot him in the face, his large moon shaped head exploded.

“That’s the problem,” I said to the three dead bodies. “You’ve figured out who I am, so then I have to kill you. It’s as simple as that. Fools.”

Now I had to go home and deal with questions from my idiot lawyer boyfriend, Logan Reed. I hoped he wasn’t as foolish as these people, though I knew he was. Just not yet. Not, quite yet.