by T. S. Hill
“Oh Tagg! You will do this for Rosita?”, she asked with her eyes widening.
“We do this, for us!”, I answered. “You will all see. All of our work will kind of fit together. Rosita, Lori, Sasha, and me; we, you and me, all of us, will all fit together, here, and it will work, and we will all be happy. I insist!”
“You insist?”, Lori asked.
“He insists.”, Sasha piped in.
“Then I will insist also!”, Rosita said.
“Maybe we should all insist.”, Lori said.
“That’s what I’m thinking.”, I added.
Sasha started giggling. “You’re all nuts!”, she bubbled.
“There is no you’re here.”, Lori piped back at Sasha. “Here it’s we are!”
“Exactly!”, I said. “From here forward, it is we!
“We’re nuts, and it seems to be a good thing too!”, Sasha said laughing.
“Yes, is nuts, but I, Rosita, must go now, and do my business.”
I stood and grabbed Rosita, hugging her tight, swinging her from side to side, then kissing her on the lips. “Thank you for everything Princess, and thank you for just being Rosita! I’ll see you tomorrow!”, I told her kissing her once more with a lingering kiss.
“Oh, Tagg! Rosita thanks you!” she replied, turning me loose and reaching for Sasha. Rosita and Sasha hugged tightly for a moment and then kissed slowly and gently on their lips.
“That was a hot kiss!”, I commented.
“We are hot keesers, are we not Sasha?”, Rosita quipped back, winking at Sasha. Sasha just grinned, and trailed her fingers down Rosita’s arm as Rosita moved to hug Lori.
“Let Rosita say good night to the sweetheart.”, Rosita said, as she and Lori embraced and shared a tender kiss.
“Sugar, did you bring the red lingerie with you that Cowboy bought in Crockett?”, Lori asked Sasha.
“You bet!”, Sasha quipped back.
“Rosita, can you wear the red Spanish lace again tomorrow?”, Lori asked.
“Sí.”, Rosita responded. “I also now have the red shoes and red hose. You want I do wear this also?”
“Yes!”, Lori answered.
“Why don’t we get something from that restaurant again, for lunch?”, I threw in.
“Why not these left-overs?”, Lori quipped.
“Even better!”, Sasha commented. “I would love more of this, again tomorrow!”
“It’s settled then.” I called out. “We’ll all eat leftovers here tomorrow for lunch.” Then I commented quietly, “Maybe I’ll get seafood for dinner.”
As Rosita closed the stairway door behind her, I sat back down in my chair, and took a swig of iced tea. I could feel my cock responding in my pants, to the thought of these three sexy women in their red lingerie, tomorrow evening. I didn’t dare let my mind roam into what they might do in those hot sexy outfits. We had to get the kitchen in order, and if I started thinking about that, kitchen clean up would never happen. Two of those three hot sexy women were still here with me, and the evening was still early.
“So, Shug, how was he?”, Lori asked.
“What?”, Sasha responded, sounding a little surprised.
“How was Cowboy? Was he everything that you thought he would be?”
“You’re fucking with me, right?”, Sasha stated more than asked.
“I’m right here!”, I quipped, waving my hand.
“It was meant to be a stupid question, with a duh answer.”, Lori explained.
“Duh!”, Sasha answered grinning. “You know how fucking good he is! And no, he wasn’t what I thought he would be. He was even fucking better, as he damn well knows himself, and you damn well already know!”
“So how was Shug, Cowboy?”, Lori asked me.
“This is new! Having my girlfriend ask me how sex with another woman was.”, shot back.
“She’s not another woman. It’s Shug!”, Lori shot back, cutting her eyes at me.
“What did you expect it to be like for me?”, I asked her.
“Way better than you expected.”, she quipped back at me.
“Well, I happened to have expected a lot.”, I replied. “But, you’re right. It was even better than that!”
“Thanks Babe!”, Sasha beamed at me. I glanced up just in time to see Sash and Lori smiling, and winking, at each other.
“Did you two plan this little exchange, just to make me uncomfortable?”, I asked them.
“No.”, Sasha answered, looking wide eyed and innocent.
“Nope.”, quipped Lori. Then she added, “It just happened that way.”
“I swear, you two are sisters!”, I said with some consternation.
“Nope.”, Lori quipped.
“Just kissing cousins, remember?”, Sasha said, giggling.
“You two don’t seem to really need me to help with this, so if I won’t be very missed, I need to send an email to Al.”, I said getting up.
“We’ll be fine, Cowboy!”, Lori said, giving me a hug and a short tender kiss on the lips. As soon as she had turned me loose, Sasha, grabbed me, squeezing me, like for dear life, and then she planted a hard, long kiss on my lips.
“Thanks for everything Babe! I love you guys!”, she said, hugging me again.
“I love you women too.”, I said, heading toward the door. “But, sometimes I wonder if you all may be my undoing.”
In the study/office/what was left of the den, I sent Al Longworth an encrypted email, asking him to get a throwaway phone and trust no one to get it for him, and to use that phone to call me, and I gave him the number of my throwaway, then fired it up and left it sitting plugged in charging. I had no idea how long it would be until I heard from him. I needed to find out what was going on that he needed my help with, and I was simply worried about him, since it was obvious that his organization had been infiltrated by Milinni’s people.
It hadn’t even been five minutes since I had hit the email send button when my phone rang, there was no ID on the number, so I answered simply, “Al?” And, I heard, “Tagg?” Then simultaneously we both said, “Talk to me.”
Our conversation zigzagged all over the place and lasted probably forty-five minutes. The summary of it was that Al was showing the highest revenues that his company had ever posted, but his net profits were actually down. It seems that his accounting department could give him no clear analysis that offered a logical explanation. They had explanations a plenty, but none of them touched base with Al’s business logic. Al’s business logic was a little eccentric anyway, so I wasn’t completely sure what was going on. Because of what had happened to me in Dallas and Waco, and then Lafayette, he and I both already knew that his regular phone was unsecure and that his organization had been infiltrated.
I told him that my initial suspicion was that some of his operations were very likely being used to laundry money for someone, since Milinni was obviously involved in his unsecure phone, it made sense that it was his organization. Nonexistent sales, or services, is probably where the higher revenue came from, and the extra expense was the money flowing back out as expenses that became revenue for one of Milinni’s legitimate operations. And, it sounded like they may be skimming a little extra off of Al’s business.
That kind of operation had to involve the core of his accounting operations and probably his personnel department that got those people into position, and kept them there, to pull it all off. Al fully understood the risk of losing his entire enterprise if any of this went public, or if the feds were to start up an investigation. Even so, at the end of our conversation, Al was at his usual sharp business focus.
“Tagg, I’ve got three questions for you. Number one; Can we stop this, without it getting public, or the feds getting wind of it? Number two; How quick can you get here and get started? Number three; What resources do I have that you need at your disposal?”
“Al, I think I can be there with my top analyst, possibly as early as day after tomorrow. We can get started that day. I’ll need access t
o a computer terminal in your offices, without anyone knowing about us at all. I can discuss other details like access to the personnel files after closing hours and the like, after we get there and start digging in. I’ll bring in my third associate maybe a day or two after that.
Resource wise, our safe transportation is questionable right now. And, since time is of the essence, can you send your chopper to pick us up?”
“That’s all doable.”, Al replied. “When will you know your final schedule?”
“Let me review a few things, talk with the rest of the team, and make some preparations, and we’ll talk again, say this time tomorrow night?”
“You calling me or which, Tagg?”
“I’ll call you. But one other thing Al, and this one is a personal favor.”
“Talk to me Tagg.”
“Can I use your chopper to transport a couple of my team to Oklahoma City and then bring them back to Houston, probably same day? And, maybe, return one of them to New Orleans? I know that kind of transportation is a pricy thing, so could we arrange to deduct it from our settlement when this is all cleared up?”
“You want to use that same old dirt airfield, out near the bayou, as last time Tagg?”
“If that will work for you Al.”
“Consider all of this done, Tagg. My pilot will be on standby to execute according to your schedule, as soon as you can give it to me. If you can call before this time tomorrow night, please do. I don’t plan on leaving my house to even go to the office until you get here. This is some serious shit we’re talking about Tagg!”
“I didn’t have an inkling of how serious this could be until talking with you tonight Al. If I’d had any idea, I would have accelerated my own schedule.”
“Tagg, you know my entire fortune is at stake, as well as my personal reputation. Hundreds of my decent, hardworking, employees could lose their jobs, and be ruined too, if this goes wrong. Tagg, I’m begging you, as a personal favor to me, please do everything you can to get here as quickly as you can.”
“You’ve got my word, Al. As soon as we hang up, I’m on it!”
“Then hang the damn phone up Tagg, and get your ass out here!”
“Bye Al!”, I said, and hit the end call button.
When I walked back into the kitchen, my mind was already packing my bags. When Lori looked at me, she knew something was wrong. Even Sasha sensed that something had changed since I left the room almost an hour earlier.
“What’s up Babe?”, Sasha asked.
“No. Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”, Lori piped up. “What is it Cowboy?”
“Both!”, I said. “Something’s up, and something’s wrong too. You’re both going to think that I’m crazy, but I’m about to mix my, and your, business Lori, with Sasha’s business, and Rosita’s. And we’re all about to step up to the plate, and hit a home run, or make a terrible strike out. To me though, it feels like a home run for our next at bat.”
“I’m going to have a scotch while I explain. Can I get either of you anything?”
“Got any wine?”, Sasha asked.
“In the pantry.”, I said pointing to its door. “There’s a whole rack, but none of it’s chilled.”
“Got merlot?” Lori asked.
“I think, probably.”, I responded.
“That’ll work. I’ll get it.”, quipped Sasha.
“When we had all settled back around the kitchen table, and had a few sips of our respective beverages, I began.
“I spoke with Al Longworth for probably over forty-five minutes. Sash, we’ll explain who Al is later. For right now, just figure that the man is worth maybe over a hundred million dollars, I’ve worked for him before, and he and I are close friends. He’s in big trouble and needs our help. We suspect the organization of the SOB of which we don’t speak. I suspect that his accounting department has either been infiltrated to a high degree, or maybe have even been taken over by these gangsters, probably helped out by Al’s personnel department. I think they are using Al’s organization to launder crooked money back into the SOB’s legitimate businesses.”
“Sash, if I can get you on a terminal or a connection within their internal network, can you work your magic, so that we can analyze who they are doing business with, who is in accounting, who is in HR, cash flow patterns between past years and now, and all of that good shit? Additionally, we’ll need background checks, compare the corporations that Lori and I have dirt on within our data, to those that Al’s group is now, or has recently been, dealing with. Could we prove what is going on do you think, and who is doing it?”
“Oh, hell yes!”, Sasha said, sounding and looking almost nonchalant.
“How sure are you?”
“Just a wild guess? Maybe ninety percent.”
“I like your confidence!”, I said. “Here’s the next part. Al’s sending his chopper to pick us up down at Toby’s landing field.
“That dust crop spraying guy?”, Lori asked.
“That’s him. Do you know him?”
“Just know of him.”, she said. “He’s a legend. He glide landed one of those planes on the Lake Ponchitrain railroad bridge, by setting the wheel axel down on the rails, then walked off and back, bringing a five gallon pail of fuel. Then, he relaunched from the bridge just minutes before the train ran through. He got into all kinds of trouble, but there was such a public outcry that eventually, everything was dropped. I hear that he’s a crazy drunk.”
“He’s everything that you’ve heard, and more. But he’s also a good friend, and it will be a safe place for Al’s pilot to pick us up.”
“You have a strange line up of friends Cowboy.”, Lori quipped.
“They work out good for me, and I plan to keep them.”
“I’m not arguing otherwise, Cowboy. What else?”
“The temporary plan is for the pilot to pick up you, Sash, Rosita, and me, and drop off me and Sash in Houston. Then he will continue on with you and Rosita to Oklahoma City, where you will introduce Rosita and her Spanish Lace to Allie. And you and Rosita will model the lingerie for her and get her to place a huge order with Rosita. You will also take some of those Brazilian design dresses, blouses, skirts, and what have you, with you and also model those for Allie.”
“If my gut is right. Both product lines will help her business tremendously, then she will be prime for my next suggestion in a couple of months. We will keep it secret until then, but I think a counterpart to Lady Jean’s with someone like Rosita doing the merchandising, in a nice district in New Orleans, would do well. What do you think?”
Lori stood up taking her glass of wine with her. She slowly, taking one painstaking step after another, walked completely around the table, taking perhaps a full minute to circumnavigate the table, all the while sipping her wine. When she reached the chair from where she had started she gently sat her wine glass on the table, then crossed her arms and slung her hips to one side.
“Cowboy, you know my background, and success, in managing business operations.”
“That’s why I’m running this by you.”, I responded.
“Then do this.”, she said. “Have Rosita and Allie both merchandize for both stores after you open the second one, as a team. If Allie doesn’t see the value in that, at least have her co-merchandise for the New Orleans store. I know that her store is her store, but if you or we have money in this second store, I think we have a say. They both have too much to offer for either of them to be going it alone. Together, they will make an unbeatable team.”
“I agree.”, I replied. “And if Allie sees Rosita’s success with her help, even if she is resistant at first, I think she will come around. She’s a smart business woman and you’ve seen yourself the fashion sense that she has.”
“Who’s Allie?”, Sasha asked.
“My sister. She runs a ladies’ fashion store in Oklahoma City, called Lady Jean’s.”, I replied. Sasha nodded her understanding.
“What else you got, Cowboy?”, Lori prodded.
“We still haven’t been through my boxes yet Cowboy! Now I feel like a slacker! If we had all of that into a data base then… Well, you know. What if Rosita could stay and help us sort out and scan all of those documents?”
“She could do that!”, Sasha spoke up. Boring ass work, but she could do it. Scan that shit as PDF docs and then I’ve got a proggie that will convert those into usable and manipulatable data.”
“I didn’t even know that was a word, manipulabule…”, I trailed off.”
“So, what’s the fee for this assignment?”, Lori asked.
“We didn’t discuss it yet.”, I replied.
“What? You definitely need me for your business manager Cowboy!”
“No. You don’t understand Lori. Al and I never discuss the fee until the end. When he asks me how much, I tell him to pay me what he thinks its worth. He states a figure, and I grunt, and then he goes way up and asks me if I can be happy at that number. I always answer that I can, because that number is always well above what I charge.”
“Now why would I want to predetermine an amount, when I can, more or less, get paid for the amount that I work, plus a bonus? Or why would I give him an invoice that just cuts out my bonus for a job well done?”
“Cowboy, you not only have weird friends; you have weird clients!”, Lori spurted, laughing.
“But you can’t argue with friends that stand by you, and success that pays well.”, I shot back.
“Or women that love you.”, Sasha commented. Lori giggled.