The Loverboy
Page 25
usually during the week and on Fridays. Friday seemed like the
most likely option but she couldn"t be sure. She took the laptop
out of her backpack and booted it up. The mall had WIFI so she
could get online and did a quick search for Berger and
Milwaukee. In a directory she found three entries. The first was
G. Berger and the address was Annie"s old address. The second
was a T. Berger and the last was M. Pierce – A. Berger. She
thought for a while. Pierce sounded familiar but she couldn"t
place from where. She wrote down the address and stored her
laptop away.
Before she left the mall she picked up a pay as you go
smart phone with internet at one of the small kiosks in the
mall. This didn"t require ID which she preferred as she wanted
to use Gabriella"s passport as little as possible. “Do you want to deposit additional funds on the phone? It
comes with a twenty five dollar balance” the clerk asked.
She dropped five one hundred dollar bills on the counter
and said “Yes, five hundred please.”
The clerk was taken aback by this and asked if she wouldn"t
rather have a subscription while he examined the bills under a
black light. She shook her head and ten minutes later she walked
away with her new phone which was completely untraceable. She
immediately used the phone to look up a cab company and ordered
a cab. Ten minutes later the cab arrived and she gave the cabbie
the address that she had written down. It was late afternoon by
the time she arrived.
The address was a cute little townhouse not too far from
where Annie had grown up. In the driveway were a sporty black
Honda Civic and a teal colored Toyota Prius and in the garden
were a variety of vegetables. Kim smiled. No doubt, this must be
it. She walked up to the door and rang the bell. It took a
minute and a young man opened the door. The young man looked
familiar. He was her age and she had to look twice but then she
made the connection with the name. The M stood for Matt. Annie
had a crush on Matt in high school and it appeared that Annie
had acted on it. Kim smiled from behind her large dark sunglasses and said
“Hi Matt.”
The man gave her a puzzled look.
“And you are?” he said politely.
Before Kim could answer Annie appeared behind him in her
usual style. Kim was glad that some things didn"t seem to
change.
“Who is there, honey?” she heard Annie ask peeking around
Matt. Kim still didn"t respond and smiled even more. The couple
gave her a confused look but she noticed a hint of recognition
on Annie"s face.
Kim removed the sunglasses and said “Hi Annie, it"s been a
while” Annie"s mouth fell wide open and she looked like she had
seen a ghost.
Matt finally broke the silence “You look familiar, I know
you from somewhere” he said.
Annie shoved him out of the way and gave Kim an enormous
hug. It felt great. Kim could not remember feeling this good and
safe. Confusion replaced surprise on Matt"s face as he was able
to place the face.
“K…K…Kim?” he stammered. Again he was shoved aside by Annie when Annie pulled Kim
into the house. A little dazed from the surprise and from being
pushed around by Annie, Matt closed the door behind Kim. Not
even asking if she wanted to come in Annie dragged Kim into the
living room with Matt following close behind. Annie looked at
Kim and hugged her again as both women started to cry. Matt went
to the kitchen to get a few glasses of water expecting they
would be needed soon and not knowing what else to do.
After Annie finally was able to speak again they sat down.
Annie gave Kim a hard punch in the shoulder and said “What
happened? Where have you been? Everybody has been worried sick
about you. We thought you were dead. Does your mother know you
are back?”
It was a diarrhea of words and Kim just sat there taking it
in. It didn"t matter what Annie was saying or that she had
punched her in the shoulder, it was just good to hear Annie"s
voice.
“I"m sorry” Kim said, “I"ve made a mess of things and
didn"t know how to fix it.”
“When did you get back?” Annie asked.
“This morning” Kim answered. “Did you see your mom and Ally yet?” Annie asked.
Kim shook and said “I saw Ally leave the apartment when I
wanted to go over but found out that she is heading in the same
direction as I went and I can"t let that happen. Jake was bad
news and now Ally is hanging out with a guy that is very
similar.”
“You need to tell her” Annie said.
“It won"t work. She won"t believe me until it"s too late. I
have to stop them” Kim said.
“If it"s anything like you and Jake you are right” Annie
admitted.
“Can"t you go to the police?” Annie suggested.
“They won"t do anything since no crime has been
committed…yet and I can"t. I am a fugitive” Kim said with her
head down.
Annie and Matt looked at her in surprise then at each
other.
“What do you mean?” Annie asked.
“I escaped from a Mexican prison and if I am caught they
will send me back” Kim said. “How…? Why…?” Annie said with a look of shock on her face.
“It"s a long story” Kim said.
“We have time” Annie shot back as if to say “Out with it!”
Kim told them the whole story. She told them about the rape
and how Jake had taken her away to Chicago where he had given
her drugs to help her forget and how things had gone wrong and
she had to sleep with the friend. How she became a prostitute
and how Jake had all manipulated her into doing it. She
explained how they were going to buy a house and had taken a
trip to Mexico to celebrate and how Jake had set her up. How she
had been arrested in Mexico and how she had been sentenced to
first twenty five years and later ten years. How she found out
about loverboys from a Dutch girl in the prisons and how Jake
was an unmistakable example of one. She told them about getting
kidnapped by the cartel and working for them. First in the
fields then doing bank transactions and setting up deals with
American dealers. She told them how the plantation had been
raided and she had escaped. She even told them about Sandro and
how she had killed him. She told them about making her way back
home and finally she told them about what she had seen when she
had gotten to her old apartment and how she had seen Ally being
setup the same way she had been. Annie and Matt hung to every word and by the end they were
both sobbing.
“What are you going to do?” Annie asked.
“I don"t know. First prevent the rape or whatever they have
planned for Ally” Kim said, “I need your help.”
“Anything” Annie responded.
“I need to go to Chicago to get something. I hid a gun in
the apartment and I want it to protect Ally” Kim said.
“Don"t worry. I won"t use it unless I have to and I don"t
want you to get involved. I just need a ride and a place to stay
for a few days” Kim assured them.
“We want to help” they both said.
That night they had dinner and caught up on the last four
years and how Annie had found comfort with Matt after Kim had
disappeared. Kim slept on the couch and the next morning they
left at eight and she left her backpack at Annie"s place.
They drove to the old apartment and there was a for rent
sign on the door. Kim tried the door to Anisha"s place but a
strange man opened cursing and yelling about ringing someone"s
door bell at ten in the morning. Kim took out her phone and dialed the number on the for rent sign. A woman answered and she
inquired about the apartment.
“How much?” she asked as if she was really interested.
“Five hundred” was the response.
Kim asked if she could see the place and explained how she
was in the neighborhood. Thirty minutes later a man arrived to
let them into the apartment. The man gave the pair a look like
they were not the types to be inquiring about this dump but he
was eager to make money of it and they looked a lot better than
the usual renters. They walked in and the place still had the
same furniture.
Kim asked if the furniture came with the place and he
quickly said “For an extra seventy-five a month.”
She walked into the bedroom and kicked the loose panel
softly. It was still loose.
“Can you distract him?” she asked Annie who gave the man a
disgusted look.
“Sure” she responded and started talking to the man while
walking around asking questions.
Soon she started asking questions about the kitchen and
bathroom leaving Kim alone in the bedroom. She quickly opened the loose panel and reached inside. She found the gun and put it
quickly in the pocket of her sweatshirt then replaced the panel
and joined Annie in the kitchen. Five minutes later they were
outside and thanked the man for letting them see the place and
they would get back to him. In the car Kim removed the gun from
her pocket and looked at it. The last four years had not done it
much good. It had been in a damp moldy wall and looked in bad
shape. Annie looked at it and commented that that thing would be
more dangerous to the person shooting it than the one it was
pointed at.
“I don"t have to shoot it. Just scare them off” Kim
explained a little hesitantly.
When they arrived back at Annie"s house, Matt was sitting
behind the laptop. He cracked the file encryption he explained.
Kim gave him a puzzled look. Annie explained that when they met,
Matt had been a hacker.
“Yeah, I was a total nerd” Matt added with a smile, “On the
internet I was known as „Evil Bastard" which I know is lame but
I learned a lot while doing it. Now I am in my final year in
college and I have several financial companies that are looking
to hire me to improve their systems security. Currently I am
working on an internship with a local bank working on making
international web transactions more secure.” “So what do we need the data in the encrypted file for?”
Kim asked.
“The file contains the bank codes for three accounts that
the cartel owns. With these codes anyone can make transactions
on these accounts” Matt explained.
“So we can transfer the money out of the accounts?” Kim
asked.
“Yes, I have actually created an unnamed account on the
Cayman Islands and transferred the money out of two of the
accounts. One account was already empty” Matt explained.
“Empty? Why?” Kim asked.
“My guess is that the other members of the cartel had the
codes for that account and emptied it when the plantation was
raided. I think they did not have the codes for the other
accounts but that they will find them. Transactions from there
are hard to trace but not impossible and the cartel has a lot of
connections. They will also find out where I transferred the
money but it will take some time” Matt said.
“What do we do with it? And how much is there?” Kim asked.
“There is one hundred and twenty five million dollars. They
will do anything to get it back. I masked the transactions but they can find out through the bank and with that much on the
line they will not rest until they get it back. I don"t know
what to do with it. I guess that is up to you.” Matt said.
Kim frowned. “I don"t want it, I"m done with the cartel and
don"t need them on my tail” she said.
“I can make the transactions so it will be virtually
impossible to trace where the money went. I just have to move it
from place to place many times but they can still trace where
the bookings were done from if they hire a good hacker. I did
this transaction from this computer at an internet café so it
couldn"t be traced to this house so for now we are safe” Matt
added.
“I will think about it” Kim said, “We can"t give it back to
the cartel and I don"t want anyone to get hurt over it.”
“Ok” Matt said, “But we can"t wait too long or they will find it and get it back.”
Chapter 34:
That night Kim cleaned the gun so it would at least look ok
but firing it would still be a risk and on top of that firing it
was the last thing she wanted to do. When she was satisfied she
headed out to her mom"s apartment. There she sat almost a block
away but still being able to see the door of the apartment. She
wore baggy jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt to make sure she
wasn"t recognized. A few hours went by and nothing happened.
At about one a.m. she figured nothing was going to happen
night. The boyfriend was nowhere in sight and all the lights in
the apartment were out. She left and went back to Annie"s place.
Annie was already asleep and Matt was working on the cartel
laptop. They chatted for a little while and then she turned in
for the night on the couch.
The next morning she had breakfast with Annie. Matt had
already left for work and Kim told her about her adventure
staking out her mom"s apartment. It was so weird and she had
never expected this but then again she hadn"t expected anything that had happened in the last few years. It had been a crazy few
years. She had gone from a gray mouse in high school to meeting
what she thought was the man of her dreams and before she knew
it she was an escaped international fugitive. Not exactly what
she had planned with her life. Then again she never had really
planned for her life. She didn"t even know what she wanted to go
to college for.
Annie looked at her and said with a worried face “What if
he picks her up and they leave?”
Kim froze and panic flushed across her face. She had never
anticipated that. Not everything would go exactly how it went
with her. If she knew anything about how these „Loverboys"
operated it was that they took advantage of anything and
everything.
“What am I going to do then?” she asked in a panicked
voice.
“You need a car, and you can"t sit out in the open. I am
sure if you do this a few more nights people will start getting
suspicious and maybe even call the police on you” Annie
responded.
Kim nodded in agreement. People that had walked past had
been giving her a suspicious look. What was this hooded stranger doing sitting there for hours at night? And what was she going
to do when it rained? That would be even more suspicious.
“I can take the afternoon off and go look for some cars
with you” Annie offered.
“I can"t drive” said Kim a little worried.
“I"ll teach you” Annie offered.
Annie left for work and Kim headed for the grocery store
and picked up groceries for Annie"s place. It was the least she
could do after all that Annie had done for her.
At the grocery store Kim thought back to how annoying she
had thought it was that she often had to do the grocery shopping
when she still lived with her mom and Ally and how fortunate she
felt now about how she was free to do this. It is funny how
events in your life make you view simple things so differently
she thought. She only had a few items on her list but she took
over an hour in the store savoring every minute of the chore. At
the register she paid cash and picked up some newspapers. Then
she walked back to Annie"s place. The bags where heavier than
anticipated but she didn"t mind. About halfway there she sat
down on a bench and just watched city traffic cruise by for a
minute or two. When she got back she put all the groceries away and read
the paper. She moved to the classified section and began
browsing through the used cars. There were a lot of nice cars
there and she had enough cash to buy any of them now. But a nice
Mustang or Camaro would only attract attention and that was the
last thing she wanted. She looked over the cars that were being
sold by private parties as a dealership would require paperwork
transferring the car into her name. If she bought from a private
party she could just take the car and promise to transfer it but
never actually do so. She called on a few cars, plain cheap ones
that would not be noticed in her old neighborhood but most of
the time they had already been sold.