Dawson's Web

by William Hutchison

  Taken aback, Jeff jabbed. “What are you talking about a week’s work? I’ve been working on this for seven months. This is actually a very lucrative deal for me. And I don’t appreciate your bitchiness and giving me grief about my job. I’m not a prominent surgeon like you, but I make ends meet. It’s been a slow market.” He had no intention of letting on he had a substantial trust fund that would last him until he died.

  That was his secret.

  Jeff knew he had to put this girl down because she was coming on way too strong. Women that come on too strong need to be put in their place.

  He played the game so much better than Stephanie did.

  As he predicted, Stephanie backed down.

  She had never seen this kind of response from her husband, John. He was so passive and non-caring. It irked her. Jeff Dawson was a lot more of a man in so many ways than he was.

  It melted her and she got involuntarily weak-kneed.

  “Okay, I’m sorry this is just me trying to be me. Sorry.”

  Jeff hesitated before responding. He knew, by her apology, he had read her right where he wanted her.

  He had nailed it.

  He didn’t reply immediately, choosing instead to let her think he might still be aggravated. After a few seconds he added, “Okay. Apology accepted.” Then to emphasize the point he caught up with her and swatted her on the butt, hard, but not too hard. He put his arm around her waist and they continued down the dock.

  Then he changed the subject. “Okay. You have this new boat. Are we going to have dinner, or should I get ready for you to take me out on a sunset cruise?

  I don’t know the first thing about sailing?”

  He let her get on the boat first and stared at her Daisy Dukes, which seemed painted on as she climbed aboard.

  Slither brain got excited.

  Logical brain put him down.

  “Go to sleep,” he cautioned his reptilian counterpart. “This is going to be a long evening. I like the interaction. I’m not dealing with you right now.”

  Stephanie saw him leering at her.

  It was nice.

  John hadn’t looked at her that way in years.

  He changed the subject again. “I’m really starved. During negotiations, I missed lunch. Can we order out? Or what’s the deal?

  I’m dressed in a suit. You look like you’re ready for a picnic.”

  He said this to put her off balance.

  It worked.

  “I can get dressed up if you’d like. Ordering out is fine, but first, let’s have a drink.”

  He stepped into the cockpit, and when he was aboard, she reached over and grabbed his hand and put it around her waist and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “This boat is exquisite. I’ve often thought about sailing, but sometimes I get seasick. I don’t think that will happen tonight, especially if you keep me occupied,” he replied confidently.

  He meant it.

  Stephanie went on and on about the boat specifications, gushing when he showed so much interests in Arachne and seemingly in her by his comments. She told him that she’d picked out the color, named the boat, got designers aboard to do the cushions and interior. She laid it on thick.

  He feigned attention, drawing her into his game.

  They finally ended up down in the galley.

  “Can I get you a drink?” She asked.

  “Sure, I’ll have a rum and coke.”

  Stephanie was ecstatic. That’s what she bought. She pulled his rum out of the Subzero cooler, took the chilled crystal glass, made him his drink and handed it to him.

  After his first sip, she approached him and gave him a deep passionate kiss.

  “I want to make sure that my guests are happy. So, are you happy?”

  This was her first, but not last, venture down the infidelity highway. She wanted things perfect.

  Slither brain was dying. He wanted to cut this bitch in half and watch her bleed out.

  Logical brain took over as Jeff downed the drink in two swallows and asked for another.

  He knew how to control snakes.

  “I’m happy. I’m very happy.” Jeff said as she stood in the galley and poured him another. Her mouth and her eyes were beautiful. They were duplicates of his Stepmom’s same features.

  He had mixed feelings.

  He adored the way she looked, but his alter ego wanted her to be dead.

  He glanced away hoping the alcohol would take effect and silence the reptile part of him.

  Stephanie saw this momentary pause and moved closer to him to see if she could understand what was going on in his head.

  She was caught off guard by his hesitation.

  It troubled her.

  She was normally the aggressor.

  She took a passive stance.

  She didn’t want to lose him, not this early in the night.

  She became tentative which was so unlike her.

  “Was it something I did?

  Is there something wrong with the drink?”

  She actually wanted to please him, which was a first.

  Usually, it was the other way around, she was the queen bee and all men were her drones. This was her first time in an extramarital affair. She wanted everything to be perfect because Stephanie’s world was always perfect.

  Jeff didn’t answer immediately as all the other men in her life did because of her charm.

  He knew why she was questioning him. He had put her down. She had low self-esteem and he had keyed on it, cracking the porcelain veneer she hid behind by her being over-the-top confident.

  He was the one in control and she liked it that way.

  He knew it.

  She knew it too, but wouldn’t admit to it.

  Apparently, her husband was a Casper milk toast.

  This might be more fun than he ever could have imagined. He was ready for an extended game tonight and would ensure slither brain stayed asleep.

  Logical brain needed some fun too. He took the second drink and downed it quickly asking Stephanie for another.

  “Sleep now. And Stay asleep,” he told the reptilian portion of his brain.

  Finally, Jeff answered as the alcohol took effect and the snake slept. “No, everything’s fine. I had a very rough day at work.”

  He reached over, grabbed her by the waist and hugged her, playing tongue tag.

  He had mixed feelings now, more so than he had had all day.

  Stephanie was so beautiful and her nose, mouth, lips and eyes mimicked his stepmother’s, but her hair color wasn’t right.

  She wasn’t blonde.

  He had to do something about that.

  That was the last suggestion the snake made before slithering into slumber.

  It reverberated in Jeff’s brain: Jussst not right.

  Mussst be blonde.

  Mussst be blonde.

  Hisssss.

  They ate dinner, drank and fell into each other’s arms in the galley.

  Afterward, they made their way to the aft master stateroom where their passions exploded and they had each other multiple times.

  The snake hibernated throughout the night while Jeff and Stephanie continued their lovemaking undisturbed by Slither’s murderous thoughts.

  Chapter 28

  Giovanni picked up the phone and called Hans, who answered immediately.

  “I take it you’re calling me to report that you found Charlene and Randy.” Hans waited on the other end for a response. His temper was short indicated by his clipped tone.

  “Boss, I’ve been here for nine days. I had a lead they were living in Hermosa Beach with someone named John Larson. Do you know how many John Larson’s there are in the Hermosa/Manhattan Beach area? You probably don’t so let me tell you. There are 15. I went on Spokeo and did several reverse phone directory searches and found locations for all of them. I went to each of their homes and none of them knows anything about Charlene or Randy. It’s as if Larson vanished or never actually existed. I’m sorry.
”

  “I don’t want to hear any excuses. You have seven days to find them and take care of Randy. Bring Charlene back for me. We have unfinished business. If you don’t, you’re off the payroll. I mean it!”

  Hans slammed the phone down damn near breaking it.

  At this point, Giovanni wracked his brain.

  Little did he know he was sitting at a bar just blocks from JR’s apartment.

  A twenty-something server dressed in a very short kilt skirt came up to him. “Can I get you another beer?”

  He was in a new bar that had opened recently. It was called, appropriately, the Twisted Kilt.

  The bar, one of a chain, mainly followed the same marketing tactics that made Hooter’s a household name. It was rustic with all types of memorabilia hanging on the walls. Old black and white pictures of the beach area as it looked in the late 1920’s were seemingly randomly placed. Surfboards were hung from the ceiling along with old life vests and buoys enhancing the nautical beach theme. The wooden bar and barstools which were wrapped in two-inch rope like those used to secure tugboats to the dock added to the deliberate atmosphere the owner’s envisioned when designing it.

  The old adage, build it and they will come was spot on—especially if you hired young, attractive, and voluptuous servers and dressed them in white, tight-fitting blouses, and short skirts.

  In the beach area, concept bars come and go like the tide.

  Some last only a month or two as the fickle and wealthy beach crowd sought out, found and rejected the new places abandoning them quickly for even new hipper spots.

  The Tilted Kilt was established six months earlier, but it had survived that initial try-and-fly period and was now always packed with men who came for the hot wings.

  (Yeah that’s right they came for the hot wings: NOT.)

  Giovanni answered after a brief pause. “Sure bring me another Bud Light. I have to watch my figure,” he said jokingly as he patted his tummy.

  She went to the bar and was back in seconds with his beer.

  She noticed Giovanni seemed grumpy by the frown on his face.

  It was her job to not let that happen. She pulled up a chair and sat next to him. He reminded her of her late uncle Tommy, who was Italian like she was.

  “Why so down Mister?” She extended her hand and put it on top of his. “My name’s Lisa. What’s yours?” She reminded herself it was all part of the job. Make the patrons happy no matter what.

  He looked into her brown eyes and saw his niece.

  He opened up.

  “Look I, I’m from Joisey. I’m here on a job and I’m not havin’ very much luck.” His accent was thick

  “I suspected as much. You don’t look the beach type. What business brings you to Hermosa?”

  Giovanni was normally cautious talking about what he did and why he did it. It served him well over the years, but this young thing in front of him so reminded him of his brother’s daughter he continued in spite of himself.

  “My boss sent me here to find somebody named John Larson who owes him a lot of money. I’m sort of a debt collector if you catch my drift. But I’ve been here nine days and have nothing to show for it. I only have a week left, or I’m gonna get canned. I can’t afford that. I came to this bar to think things out.”

  Lisa listened and the intonation Giovanni used so reminded her of her late Uncle Tommy, who was also from New Jersey, she felt compelled to help him.

  “Look. I’ve been in Hermosa my whole life. I know people here. Maybe one of my friends knows this John Larson.”

  As a long shot and totally out of character, Giovanni continued leaning forward, slugged his beer down and listened intently.

  He had nothing to lose at this point.

  He was grasping at straws.

  Maybe this young thing in front of him was his ticket home.

  Now his accent thickened. “OK, so’s this John Larson is in his thirties. He’s from back East and works as a bartender. My information says he came to California about two years ago. I’ve been in and out of the bars up-and-down the South Bay and nobody seems to know him. It’s like he’s a ghost.”

  Lisa’s eyes widened. They certainly wouldn’t know anyone by that name because he hardly ever used his last name.

  Everybody, including herself, knew him only as JR.

  She knew him---intimately. They had dated for a short period of time eighteen months earlier after he first arrived. It had been a torrid affair, but they still kept in touch typically on her initiation because of their social ties to New Jersey and because she deeply cared for him.

  “I do know someone named JR Larson, but I don’t know what JR stands for maybe it stands for John.”

  She knew, but she intentionally lied.

  If JR owed Giovanni’s boss money—enough for him to send this henchman all the way across the country to collect it—she had to lie to protect him.

  It made her think JR was in some type of trouble and she couldn’t have that.

  Maybe if she found out enough information, she could warn him, giving her one last chance to rekindle what she had lost.

  Although, on the surface, Giovanni didn’t look dangerous, appearing to be more of an aging businessman with a bad comb-over than a thug, the more she studied him, the less sure she was of her initial avuncular assessment of him.

  The fact he resembled her late uncle Tommy had clouded her judgment. She noticed a ragged two-inch scar over Giovanni’s left eye, which ran from his eyebrow up to his hairline, what little of it there was. He also had several scars on both hands. His knuckles seemed oversized as if they were broken and had mended several times over.

  She could imagine how he got those.

  She had never gotten over JR, although, she knew that he had moved on.

  She was fearful for him and decided to get up and leave to warn him.

  Maybe JR would fess up and be grateful.

  She didn’t know.

  What she did know was it was time to act and act quickly.

  Giovanni was having none of it.

  Before she could get up from the table, he removed his hand from hers, reversed it put his hand on top of hers and clenched it tightly; so tightly it hurt and kept her at the table.

  He knew she knew something.

  He was going to get it out of her one way or another.

  He continued squeezing her hand, leaned over and whispered in her ear. “I’ll stop when you tell me where I can find him.

  I know you know. I can see it in your eyes.”

  Lisa’s hand felt like it was caught in a vice. If he continued squeezing, he’d break every bone in it.

  Reluctantly and through tears, she gave him the address, after which he got up abruptly and left before Lisa could summon help and without paying his tab.

  Lisa was on the phone to JR before Giovanni got out the door.

  Chapter 29

  It was 2:30 in the afternoon and Giovanni had a slight buzz on after the two beers he had at the Tilted Kilt. He hustled to the parking structure, got into his car and left. Exiting the garage, he punched JR’s address into Google Maps and was at the apartment within five minutes.

  He knocked on the door.

  No one answered.

  He put his ear to the door and listened.

  Dead silence is all he heard. It was obvious no one was home.

  Frustrated, he pulled out his wallet, got a credit card, slipped it in between the faceplate mounted to the door and the strike plate and wiggled it up and down while tugging on the doorknob. Because the apartment was old and the locks were equally so, the credit card allowed the latch bolt to be freed from the strike plate and the door opened quickly. He had used similar techniques several times before when breaking into homes in his younger days.

  Giovanni entered the apartment, scanned the surroundings and saw evidence that more than one person lived there: two plates of half-eaten pancakes were on the dining room table. He went to the bedroom and saw panties lying o
n the unmade bed. He saw two toothbrushes on the sink in the adjoining bathroom.

  The crown jewel was when he found a picture of Charlene and Randy taped on the wall next to the bed—a sweet, but an adolescent token, probably done by Charlene, to mark her spot.

  Giovanni thought, “Not only did I find John Larson’s apartment, but I also found where Charlene and Randy live.”

  He was now so close to his goal he could taste it. But no one was home.

  He could wait for them and surprise them when they came in, but what if they had gone away for the weekend, or longer?

  He might be sitting here for days.

  No. That plan wasn’t good at all.

  He had to go find them.

  He could always return.

  They had to come home sometime.

  He started looking for any evidence where they might be: pulling out drawers in the bedroom, tearing through the closet and scattering piles of clothes on the floor.

  He found nothing.

  Finally, he went into the kitchen and found the trashcan under the sink. It reeked of the remnants of rotting fish Charlene and Randy had eaten two days prior. He wasn’t about to put his hands in that mess.

  He picked up the can and emptied its contents on the kitchen floor.

  Hallelujah!

  In the pile, there was a slip of paper. It was covered in tartar sauce, but still legible. It was a pay stub from a place called the Hermosa Beach Yacht Club with Charlene Messenger’s name on it. Although there wasn’t an address, one quick Google search and Giovanni had it.

  It was only 200 yards from where he was now.

  He pulled his cellphone out and called Hans, eager to report progress.

  Hans was still perturbed by the lack thereof. When he saw who was calling his blood pressure immediately elevated.

  “Okay Gi, what have you got? It had better be good.”

  “Boss, I met this chick at a bar in Hermosa Beach.”

  Hans interrupted him. “I don’t want to hear about any girl you met in Hermosa Beach, Miami Beach or Rio. Now what the fuck do you have for me?”

  Gi was hung up on wanting to tell his story. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. “Well, she looks like my niece.”

  Hans interrupted again. “Screw your niece. I don’t care about her. What did you find out?” He’d been down this road before with Giovanni, who was so stupid if brains were dynamite he wouldn’t have enough to blow up a glass Christmas ornament.