Giovanni was taken aback, but his job was on the line. When he finally realized that, he got back on point. “Okay boss, this gal I met told me where John Larson lives. He didn’t go under the name of John. He went under his initials, JR Larson.”
“Go on.” Hans was becoming calmer. His heart rate was slowing and his blood pressure was dropping. (Giovanni could be such a pain in the ass sometimes.) But he didn’t hire him for his brainpower. He hired him for results and it looked like results were about to be forthcoming.
Giovanni continued. “Listen, I got the address five minutes ago and I thought I’d call you and let you know that I’m making progress finally. I’m in JR Larson’s apartment and I found a picture of Charlene and her pimp boyfriend, Randy. I also found a paystub in the trash. It has the name of the place Charlene works. It’s the Hermosa Beach Yacht Club and it’s only a block away. I called you to let you know I’m about to close this deal. I’ll go over there and if I see Charlene and Randy, I’ll take care of him first and bring her back to you afterwards. It will be a cake walk, like the old days.”
Hans listened but was still livid. “I’m not interested in progress. I’m interested in you finding the bitch and her pimp. Now get to work!”
Hans slammed the phone down again.
He was glad Giovanni was finally making progress, but he still hadn’t found them. Perhaps his threats made the difference. He was pleased with his management skills. (But then again, how hard is it to manage an ape?) Hans pushed that last thought out of his head and took credit for making things happen even though he was three thousand miles away.
Tiffany walked in wearing a low-cut, revealing white blouse and dropped some escrow papers on Hans’ desk.
She was stunning.
She had dark hair, which hung at shoulder length, a little turned up nose, small hands and 36DD breasts.
She stood five foot two.
She was, in a word, smoking-hot, which is why Hans hired her in the first place. It certainly wasn’t for her typing or filing skills, and she did know how to work the clients by simply being her own vivacious self, which disarmed even the toughest ones.
She was very, very good at that and over the two years she had worked for him, she had earned him a boatload of money.
She looked absolutely stunning today.
Hans had been with Tiffany several times before over the past two years. But their’s wasn’t a regular thing. They only got together on special occasions, such as when his investigation by the SEC was completed without any charges bein lodged against him.
That was two weeks earlier, and now he was feeling pretty good about his minion’s progress finding the little whore who had tried to blackmail him. He gathered the papers from his desk and put them into the filing cabinet, sat back into his chair and summoned Tiffany to his lap.
She acquiesced and he had her right there in the office.
Sometimes life is good.
Chapter 30
The day after Jeff and Stephanie had their tryst, he drove back to his house in Malibu. Similar to all the other times he was pursuing his own interests; his wife was out of town—in Hawaii again on another “layover.”
True to form, she left him a note on their refrigerator reminding him that he had to pay the mortgage again and draw down his trust account. Jeff saw it taped to the door, crumpled it and threw it into the trash.
“Damn her!” He said under his breath. That bitch could be so demanding at times. He wondered why he even married her in the first place. If she had looked anything like his stepmother, he would have finished her in an instant. But she didn’t and he had no interest in putting himself in jeopardy.
The authorities always target the husband first when a wife is murdered. If he did manage to kill her, he would be an immediate suspect. Why risk it? He could have his fun without her, and she wasn’t in town that often.
He sighed!
He sorted his mail and paid some bills all the while thinking about Stephanie and the time they had spent together. He honestly had feelings for her, something he hadn’t felt for a woman in so many years. He sipped on his coffee and immediately Slither Brain woke up, ready to inject himself into Jeff’s life once again trying to gain control.
He didn’t like Jeff’s thoughts about Stephanie.
He had to do something about it.
Slither brain spoke. “Jeff, you know she’s not good for you or for us. She’s just not right. I know it and inside you know it too. Besides, she’s not blonde. But if we change that, we can alter the calculus of our entire interaction with her. Come on, you know I’m right.” The snake could be so convincing. His alter ego was like the serpent in the Garden of Eden who convinced Eve to take a bite from the apple. He was equally as evil.
The reptile was pleased with his logic.
Jeff answered back, sheepishly agreeing. “I know she’s not right for us. But I have feelings for her. It’s a strange sensation, one I haven’t felt in a long time. I’ve forgotten what it feels like to honestly care for someone. I’ve forgotten what it feels like to wonder what that person is doing every moment of every day. I’ve forgotten how lonely I can feel when I’m not with her.”
The snake wasn’t buying it, and he was concerned. When Jeff was like this, he felt he was in second place, something he wouldn’t tolerate.
He could feel Jeff’s feelings most of the time, but the more he tried to get into those feelings of the love he felt for Stephanie, the higher the wall Jeff’s logical brain built the fortress around his heart.
The snake was losing control.
He tried a different tact. “So what are you going to do about it, Jeff? Are you going to divorce your wife, marry this bitch, settle down and live happily ever after? I don’t think you have it in you. I know I certainly don’t. And I’m part of you. When you least expect it, I’m going to coil and strike. I’m going to take care of the situation one way or another. You know that. You know I’m capable, so why not give in now and save us both a lot of heartache in the future?”
Jeff’s fortitude was weakening. The snake made so much sense. It was starting to overwhelm the feeling of love or limerence he had for Stephanie. After all, he had only been with her one night.
One night can’t change everything.
Or could it?
Something inside him convinced him it could.
“I don’t know. I have these feelings of love for her I can’t control. The heart wants what the heart wants. Surely you understand.”
“Oh, come on Jeff. I can sense the feelings, but as the cold-blooded creature I am, I can’t understand them. You’re killing me here, partner. Now quit it. Quit it!” The snake paused.
“Quit pressing me,” Jeff pleaded holding his hands to his temples and then putting his hands over his ears to stop having to listen to what the snake was saying.
But the snake wasn’t talking.
The conversation was going on in his head.
No matter how hard he pressed on his ears, the hissing voice of reptilian logic came through.
“I’m not pressing you, Jeff. I’m only showing you what’s right for both of us. You know I have your best interests at heart. I have since I’ve been with you. Have I ever let you down? Come on now, have I?” Slither brain painted a perfectly cold-blooded logical argument.
Jeff Dawson was two minds living in one body.
On any given day, he could slip into the reptilian mode or into the sane mode in a heartbeat. The transition was seamless.
No one was able to tell.
His friends sought to try to help him when he was struggling in middle school, but no one really knew how deep or how complete his psychosis was.
Slither brain continued his assault.
“So, Master and Commander, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about Stephanie? Do you want me to go away and leave you and Stephanie alone so you can love her and cherish her and forget me? You’ll be as alone as you were when you we
re six. Don’t you remember how deserted you felt before I came along and rescued you?”
Jeff remembered being a frightened child, especially after having been brutalized by his Stepmother. He remembered the feelings of abandonment he had felt before his serpent sibling came to help him and give him solace and strength. He remembered how he pleaded with his father when he was trying to convince him his Stepmother was the one who hurt him. He recalled how, at the darkest moment, his snake counterpart came in and helped to take all the pain away.
Sane Brain lost the argument. He didn’t want to feel those feelings of abandonment and anguish again.
He took his hands away from his ears.
The snake was now firmly in control.
Jeff spoke to his friend. “I’m going to convince her to dye her hair blonde, and then we can play games again. You’d like that, right?” He asked his cold-blooded alter ego; wanting to give back after all he had done for him.
“That’s an exsssssstraordinary suggestion, Jeff. I really do like that. I really do.” Slither brain hissed.
“Then it’s a done deal. We’ll go to CVS and find out what we need to get to make this happen.”
“I like it a lot. Now you are coming over to my side of the fenccce.” The snake hissed again.
“And what side of the fence would that be?”
“It’s the fun ssside, Jeff. It’s the ssside where we both have a good time. We can have fun with Stephanie together. It would be like a ménage a trois.”
Sane Brain and slither brain were actually having a conversation, which rarely happened. Usually when one was in control, the other slept, entirely oblivious to the other alter ego. But the reptile had grown stronger with each murder Jeff committed.
Sane Brain liked the idea of a three-way, where he was allowed to participate, unlike all the other times where he was frozen out of the fun until he heard about it afterwards.
Slither brain liked the way this was going.
He liked it a lot.
He was making progress. Soon he would own Sane Brain and Jeff entirely.
Slither brain continued. “So what are you going to do exssssactly?”
Jeff didn’t hesitate. He already had his plan. He had conceived it the night in the HBYC when he turned his attention to Stephanie over Charlene when he was called on staring at Charlene too much by Randy.
He got his wallet, got into his car and drove to CVS.
Appropriately, while he was driving the radio was playing “We’re gonna have some fun tonight,” that classic song, Long Tall Sally, by Little Richard.
Chapter 31
Normally California weather is extremely predictable—temperatures in the 60’s to 80’s with sunny skies most of the time, like the Neil Diamond song says; however, over the past week, a cutoff low out of the Gulf of Alaska was driven off the coast by high-pressure air mass centered over Nevada. The low-pressure system, spinning counterclockwise, was sucking in moisture from Baja, which had recently experienced a hurricane down off Cabo San Lucas. This resulted in extremely high humidity and afternoon thundershowers, making LA feel more like Florida than the famed city of Angels. It rained so much in parts of Los Angeles earlier that day several apartment buildings had been flooded as roofs collapsed and water poured in from the ceilings. Lightning strikes had even been reported in Newport Beach and the lifeguards had to tell surfers and swimmers to clear the area.
These were the climatic conditions when Jeff drove south on Pacific Coast Highway and found the upscale strip mall shopping center on the West side of PCH in Malibu. The strip mall was opposite Pepperdine University, which sat perched high on a hill on the East side of PCH overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
He parked his car in front of the CVS and entered the drug store, dodging the puddles of fresh rainwater that had gathered in the low spots from the deluge, which had fallen only moments earlier.
The air was heavy and the humidity oppressive. Out over the Pacific, the afternoon thunderheads which had gathered on the horizon could be seen backlit as lightning strikes flashed on an off like large strobes in the sky giving the night a surreal feeling as if something bad was going to happen.
It was 10:30 at night and the CVS drugstore was deserted except for the petite blonde checker who was seated behind the counter, head bowed down while she poured over her Facebook page on her smartphone, seeing if anyone she knew was doing anything special—especially her ex-boyfriend. She was engrossed in checking out the most recent posts made by her friends and him.
She didn’t notice Jeff when he entered the store.
If he had been an armed robber, she wouldn’t have even seen him point the gun at her head and blow a hole the size of Montana in between her eyes, she was that intent on finding out what her ex-boyfriend was doing as she lurked his page.
She kept staring at the attractive redhead who had posted how madly she was in love with her ex-boyfriend. As she continued reading, a rage of jealousy consumed her and she kept flipping through the posts to see if she could find any more about Emily Anderson, the redhead.
Jeff approached the counter and the checker looked up, slightly startled and somewhat embarrassed for not doing her job. She turned her phone over face down on the counter and asked him “Can I help you?”
Slither brain smiled. He caught a glimpse of what she was doing when he stood in front of her. He saw Johnnie’s name on the Facebook page and stored that in his brain for later use.
“I’m kind of embarrassed to ask this but can you tell me which hair product I need to make my wife a blonde? She’s a brunette now.”
The young girl blushed. Her dark roots were starting to show. She was also a bottle blonde.
She pointed to the left. “Aisle three is where our hair products are. Why don’t you go over there and look at the boxes of hair dye? Look at the pictures and decide what color you want to make her.
Then she added out of curiosity, “May I ask why you want your wife to be a blonde?” Her voice squeaked like a rusty hinge from the front door of an old house. It was very annoying.
Slither brain played with her. “Let’s just say I know that blondes have more fun.” He was giddy with excitement in spite of having to listen to her. He also liked teasing this tart standing in front of him.
She blushed.
He turned and went over to aisle three and started examining all of the selections. He found one Clairol Nice ‘N Easy Born Blonde, which had a picture of a young blonde model sporting a pageboy cut and, oddly enough, the model’s eyes were the same shape as his stepmother’s. “This might do fine,” he thought but continued looking at other products to validate his initial selection. He had no idea there were so many shades of blonde--honey blonde, Champaign blonde, platinum blonde, dirty blonde (He liked that!), subtle blonde, blonde highlights, perfect blonde, etc.
His mind was boggled with all the options available to him.
After reading several of the instructions on the boxes, he realized he needed help. He didn’t know the first thing about coloring someone’s hair. He looked over to the clerk, shrugged his shoulder’s indicating his dilemma trying to get her attention.
She was back on Facebook, head down, ignoring him focusing on her ex and didn’t notice him.
“Hey, can you help me here? I’m confused,” he barked. Slither brain was starting to get pissed. “How dare the little trollop ignore me? If she continues, I’ll slit her from ear to ear right here. I mean it.”
He was now seriously aggravated and the longer she took to come to his aid, the angrier he got. He reached into his front pocket where he kept the knife. It comforted him knowing it was there.
She was reading Emily Anderson’s Facebook page and saw numerous posts from her ex on it. The posts sickened her, especially when she looked at the timing of them.
Several occurred during their supposed “monogamous” relationship with her ex.
The moment she read the post, which he had made on their anniversary declaring his lo
ve to Emily saying how much he was looking forward to their date that night (their anniversary), her stomach knotted. He had canceled their date that night complaining of having to work late, saying he couldn’t celebrate the year they had been together.
Instead, he had two-timed her with Emily.
That bastard! She had had enough.
She suspected something was wrong then.
Now it was confirmed.
Angrily, she slammed the phone down on the counter and finally turned her attention to Jeff.
Unfortunately, it was too late.
Slither brain had already opened the knife and concealed it behind his back when he approached the counter and put the box of Clairol in front of her to ring up.
“Here’s what I think I need.” He wasn’t entirely sure.
He sought validation.
The clerk picked up the box and scanned it. “This is the perfect product. It works on the darkest hair and the color shown on the box is exactly what you get. In fact, it’s the one I use. I hope you and your wife have fun with it. Be sure to read the directions and use the gloves that are in the box. Otherwise, your hands will be stained. And once you mix the products together, you’ll have to use them in one sitting, or else they’ll go bad.
That will be $12.95,” she said and then turned her attention to Facebook, reading additional posts Emily made.
The more she read, the angrier she got.
She bagged the product and he handed her a $20 bill.
He was still livid for being ignored.
“You know, you could have been more professional giving me help. I feel like I’ve wasted my time here you little bitch. You’re more interested in Johnnie than you are me!”
That got her attention.
“There’s no need to get crude. And how do you know about Johnnie, anyway?”
“How could I not know about the cheating bastard? I stood in front of you while you read the posts. You were so focused, you didn’t even see me. You should have been more attentive. That’s why they pay you. I’ll tell you what, though, make it up to me by having a drink when you close and I won’t file a complaint with your boss tomorrow. I live around here and can come back in an instant and you’d be out of a job.”
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