Born of Greed

by Baroni, J. T.

  Amy, intoxicated from gin and toot, stayed sleeping in her rear bedroom. Jonny said his feminine goodbyes to Amber and Trotter, then left.

  “I’m going to take a dip in the pool, and lie in the sun for awhile, Jack. Care to join me?” Amber asked.

  Seeing her in a bathing suit again sounded very appealing to Trotter. Without any hesitation, he quickly replied, “That sounds like a fantastic idea. I’m healed enough now to go swimming.”

  He was already in his trunks and reclining on a deck chair when she returned in a leopard printed bikini. She tossed an deflated beach ball at Trotter. “Here, windbag, blow this up.”

  Trotter could not help eyeing her up and down, and automatically said, “I never cared for cats too much…that is, till now. That suit brings out the animal in you! Whoa!”

  “Jack! Don’t talk like that. You’re making me blush.”

  Realizing how his remark probably did sound like he was hitting on her, he said, “No, no. What I mean is…you really look good in that particular suit. I always liked those…kind…of… suits.” To avoid saying anything else that would stick his foot deeper in his mouth, he proceeded to blow up the beach ball.

  “I always thought this suit made me look like a cheap hussy, and your comment just now confirmed that.”

  “Amber, that suit makes you look like…Raquel Welch…exotic and desirable. Not cheap. Sorry, I was just trying to give you a compliment, not a complex.”

  “Maybe I should change out of it. I don’t feel exotic in it.”

  “I promise I won’t look at your suit.” Trotter teased to lighten her mood, and tossed the inflated beach ball to her.

  “How are you not going to look at it?” she asked in a puzzled tone.

  “I’ll turn my head.” And he did just that and started to whistle Jingle Bells. She had to laugh at his silliness, as she bounced the beach ball off his head.

  “Ow! That hurt!” Trotter teased. He grabbed the ball and chased her around the pool. Both of them laughed and giggled like first graders on the school playground. Amber dove in the deep end and swam under water to the other side. However, Trotter was already there and waited for her to surface. When she did, he bounced the ball off her head, and proclaimed, “You’re it,” and dove in over her.

  She swam with the ball toward him. When he surfaced, she threw it at him. Trotter used his head like a soccer player and sent the ball reeling back to her. When she caught it, he let go a devilish laugh and exclaimed, “You’re it again.”

  “Ahh, very sneaky.” Amber laughed at how he cleverly tricked her.

  They played their little game of tag for an hour. Then they reclined in the sun. Amy never heard them, or got off the bus.

  Amber looked at Trotter. “I’m starved, how about you?”

  “I’m always hungry,” he replied with a smile. Trotter imagined she would grab something from the kitchen. A few sandwiches perhaps, just like she did the other day.

  “Great. Give me a few minutes to get ready. I’ll meet you back here.”

  He did not know she implied they go to a restaurant; that would be too close to being on a date. However, he already accepted her offer, and could not decline. Oh, shit!

  Trotter used the dressing room to change, and Amber went in the house. He was waiting for her to return when a girl with short black hair, dressed in white shorts and a pink blouse came out from the sliding doors and walked up to him. “All ready, Jack?” Amber asked.

  Once Trotter realized the girl was not Nancy, minus her glasses, rather Amber instead, he said, “You just love playing head games on me. Don’t you?” Her scent of jasmine was inviting.

  “Sorry. I should’ve warned you about my disguises. I can’t go anywhere being myself. The paparazzi, or the kids, would hound the heck out of me. It’s frustrating at times; but that’s the price I pay for having a famous identical twin.”

  “I imagine that would suck, “he said as they walked to the driveway.

  “Ever drive a Porsche?” she asked Trotter. He shook his head no. She tossed him the keys. “Be careful. It can get away from you.”

  They got in the German engineered exotic sports car and although Trotter put the seat the whole way back, he was still cramped. “They don’t make these for tall guys, do they?” He took a minute to familiarize himself with the controls. He hadn’t driven a stick shift since the Marine Corps jeeps. A touch of the key and the Porsche roared to life.

  “Where to?” Trotter asked.

  “Do you like seafood?”

  His eyes widened as a smile exploded across his face. “Oh, yeah! I love seafood!” His bill at the Hilton during his first few weeks back on the west coast was testimony to that.

  “There’s a little restaurant up the Pacific Coast Highway that has excellent seafood.”

  Trotter accidentally chirped the tires when he let the clutch out. “Are you sure you can handle all this power?” she laughed.

  “It’s been a while since I drove a stick,” he cautioned her as he eased the car down the drive and turned onto San Vincente Boulevard.

  After a mile of babying the Porsche, Amber told him, “This car was built to drive, Jack. Punch it!” He down shifted from fourth gear to third and nailed it. The little Carrera 911 squatted and took off like a bat out of hell. Trotter wound third gear out to one hundred and five.

  “Very responsive,” he told Amber as he shifted into fourth gear and took her Porsche to one forty on a long straight stretch, passing a tractor-trailer as if it was setting still.

  “I think you’re having too much fun Jack, maybe you’d better slow it down,” Amber said nervously. She never pushed her Porsche past one hundred.

  Trotter let off the accelerator; the engine’s compression brought the coupe back down to the speed limit. They went around a curve in the road, and hiding behind a billboard sat a California Highway Patrolman, on his Harley, holding a radar gun aimed at them. They both laughed.

  “Jimmie’s is right around this turn,” she told Trotter. A half mile past the billboard, a small, white plywood sign with “Jimmie’s Crab Shack” in peeling red painted letters, which once had an arrow pointing down the small, graveled side road, came into view. The abundance of overgrown vegetation all but concealed both the sign, and the road. The restaurant was about five hundred yards off the coastal highway, tucked away among a few evergreen trees, down a dusty, tiny road. Jimmie's Crab Shack had always been a very easy place to overlook, or not even find at all.

  “All the times I drove this highway, I never knew this place was here,” Trotter said.

  “Of all people, Jonny just told me about this place two years ago,” Amber commented.

  They pulled into the lot. “This car is a blast to drive, but Da Stang would eat this thing alive, at least to one forty. This little toy, though, has higher gears, and will keep climbing.”

  “Yeah, right Jack. That old Mustang? You’re so full of crap your eyes are brown.” She laughed.

  “My eyes are blue, and you won’t be laughing when I return the favor and let you drive it.”

  “I’ll be looking forward to that. Let’s go in, I’m starving.”

  The distinct fragrance of Old Bay seasoning intertwining with the aroma of stale beer, which matched perfectly to the ambience of the old crab shack, greeted Trotter and Amber as he opened the front door. An actual ship’s round porthole made for its window. At six in the evening, the small bistro was not yet crowded.

  A huge wooden steering wheel from an old galleon, weathered from years of service under its Captain’s hands, welcomed the couple at the reception counter. In one corner stood a giant antique anchor with a massive chain coiled amongst clamshells at its base. Attached to the ceiling hung a fisherman’s net, holding a half dozen artificial, but very real looking, lobsters. Hundreds of autographed black and white photos of the many famous movie stars and gangsters who dined here over the years lined the walls. Clark Gable, Betty Davis, Greta Garbo, Errol Flynn, and Bugsy Siegel were just
a few of the notoriously rich and famous who enjoyed the fine cuisine here at one time or another back in the Roaring Twenties and the years following. Trotter absorbed the surroundings and pondered all the history and fame this quaint little restaurant had witnessed.

  A dimly lit atmosphere of romance laced with an aura of secrecy engulfed the tiny old eatery, as though Jimmie’s existed solely as a clandestine haven where young lovers would meet anonymously to plan their elopement and plot the fates of their interfering, hampering spouses, while enjoying a superbly prepared platter of steamed mussels over a carafe of Chablis.

  On the other hand he thought to himself, was the secluded building perchance once a gangster’s speakeasy clubhouse? Where two-timing thugs could hide out, plan their next big heist and then smoke big fat cigars while divvying the loot, and celebrate by dancing with their dames and mistresses?

  Oh! What dirty little secrets and sultry tales of lust, passion, infidelity, greed, arson, revenge, pay offs and paybacks, even murder, these walls of Jimmie’s Crab Shack could speak! Trotter continued to consider all the possibilities he could imagine while waiting to be seated.

  “Welcome! A table for two?” The young and pretty waitress came from the kitchen and smiled at her new dinner guests.

  “Yes, ma’am, two,” Trotter replied. He had both hands on the steering wheel, making motorboat noises with his lips. “Give me a second to dock my yacht.”

  “Follow me,” she said in a very bubbly and friendly voice, while chuckling.

  Amber smiled and shook her head. “Dock it, I’m hungry.”

  The waitress led them past two middle aged, but still attractive, women. The younger woman who faced them was ready to take a bite of her club sandwich, but stopped to eye Trotter from his feet to his face, and smiled at him.

  The waitress seated them in a booth. “Don’t you just love this place, Jack?” Amber asked while admiring the décor; then she noticed both women were now marveling over Trotter. The one who smiled at Trotter gave Amber a nod of approval and a thumbs up gesture. Amber returned a quick nod and a crappy halfhearted smile.

  “Yes, it’s very…nostalgic. And unique, I like it here,” Trotter answered, while looking at the star’s pictures, not noticing his admirers. Then he added, “I just love the smell of Old Bay,” as their waitress returned for their orders.

  “I think I’ll try the Lobster Bisque,” Amber said to their hostess while scanning the menu. “And a diet cola, please.”

  “And I’ll have the Captain’s Platter, thank you,” Trotter said in his phony British accent. Amber let out a small chuckle. “And a spot of iced tea, shaken, not stirred, please.” She had to hold her laugh in on that butchered James Bond quote.

  “Excellent choices.” She smiled, and took their orders to the kitchen, while Amber laughed and shook her head. She loved Trotter’s quick-witted sense of humor and little boy antics.

  “I wonder what famous movie star sat their ass in this booth, Jack.” Amber joked, and they both chuckled.

  “I think Jackie Gleason or Orson Wells must have sat here.” Trotter fidgeted. “It feels like a spring is broken under my ass.” Then they both giggled like little children.

  “It’s a good thing you slowed down when you did, or you’d have a cell bunk under your ass right now, Lead Foot,” Amber said, then sipped her diet cola.

  “You’re the one that said, ‘Punch it.’ I’d have simply told the cop that one hundred and forty miles per hour was entirely your fault. And your little ass would be in jail!” He nodded his head yes, pointed to her, while looking to his left. “She made me do it Officer. Cuff her and stuff her in your motorcycle. Haul her ass to the slammer.” They both laughed.

  “Good God, Jack, I can’t remember a day when I had so much fun.” Amber sighed.

  “Me too,” Trotter agreed. “I like having you as my little sister.”

  Amber frowned. “I wish it could be more than that, Jack. I really do. I love being with you. We’ve only known each other for what now? Two? Three weeks, maybe? But I feel as though I’ve known you my whole life. You’re so easy to talk with, and you make me laugh. But our relationship could never be anything but…platonic.”

  She glanced at those women. Neither of them could keep their eyes off Trotter, and then a tear streamed down her cheek.

  “Amber, it’s all right,” Trotter attempted to console her. Although he had no idea why she just went from laughter to tears. “I would be content having you just as a friend. Nothing more. Please don’t cry. I was only teasing about Johnny Law putting you in the slammer.”

  Her tears stopped and she coughed out a laugh. “Oh Jack. You big, good-looking dummy. I’m not crying about that. I’m crying because…because…I’m crying because I could never give you what you want…or expect…from a woman. I can’t be an exotic and desirable woman, like Raquel Welch.”

  Her mood swing from laughing to tears, then back to laughter baffled Trotter. In addition, he had no clue on her explanation of the tears. “But I only want your friendship. Honest. I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.”

  She was able to detect honesty in his voice, and a sympathetic sincerity in his face. Two qualities no man had ever shown her before. Perhaps this was the reason she found herself so easily confiding in him. Maybe it was the sadness she saw in his eyes, behind his smile; the same compassion she sensed when they were clinging to the ladder in the pool. The few other men she tried to be with wanted her for her money, or sex, and so far, Jack Trottson expressed no hint of wanting either from her. Contrarily, she found herself attracted to him more spiritually and emotionally, than physically. However, she did find him easy to look at, just as those two horny bitches also dining here did.

  “What I’m trying to say is, my whole life is a farce. I could never satisfy your desires…like those two…sluts…over there want to do to you right now.”

  Trotter looked their way, and they both hurriedly focused their gaze from him, to their clam chowder and turkey on wheat sandwiches.

  “Those two over there?” He asked, using his eyes to show direction.

  “Yes, Jack. Those two. They’ve been undressing you since we walked in.”

  “I didn’t take notice. I was too wrapped up in our conversation, and I find you absolutely…intriguing, Amber.”

  “And I find you fascinating too. That’s what scares the hell out of me and makes me envious of mature women like them.” Her hand was shaking as she picked up her soda and took a sip through the straw. “Life’s not fair! Christ! I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this.” Another tear sprang from the corner of her eye, and ran off her cheek.

  Trotter reached his hands across the table and held her tiny, trembling hands in his. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me anymore.”

  Looking into his eyes, she saw that understanding sadness again, through a smile she knew he was forcing for her sake. She felt compelled to tell him her problem. Lately, the thought of suicide has been running rampant through her mind, and subconsciously, she had a desire to confess her affliction to an understanding ear. She knew in her mind that confiding in a sympathetic person would possibly heal her tortured soul.

  “It’s just that I’m so tired of Amy calling me a lesbian, or a virgin. I’ve never been with a woman. Nor have I ever slept with a man.” She put her hand over her mouth and looked away.

  A moment passed, then she lowered her hand to her chin. “When I was thirteen years old, I was…almost raped…by the father of a little girl I baby sat. I never told anybody. It was ugly! He hurt me! He almost took the most precious thing I owned, and the bastard gave me a fear of intimacy in return. I hated all men for a long, long time. Now, perhaps because I’m older, it’s just that…I’m so confused. I have all these mixed emotions.”

  * * * *

  Did he hear her correctly? She could not be intimate, either? His heart skipped a beat. Although his mind was racing, he kept a poker face, “Trust me Amber, I know how cruel li
fe can be. I promise to keep your secret. Believe me.”

  “Somehow, I knew you would understand, Jack. But, I also hope you won’t look at me like I’m a freak, or less of a woman. What really tears me apart and breaks my heart is that I really like you. Like I’ve already said though, our relationship could never be anything more than platonic. I know a day will come when you’ll want more than that from me, and I will not…be able to be there for you.”

  Their overly bubbly waitress returned with their seafood dishes. “Lobster Bisque for the lady, and the Captain’s Platter for you, Captain.” The waitress said cheerfully while placing their scrumptious looking meals on the table, then she asked, “Can I get you anything else?”

  “Yes you may,” Trotter said, reaching across the table and picking up Amber’s almost full glass of diet cola. He then handed it and his iced tea to the waitress. “What wine do you recommend with seafood?”

  “I would suggest the Chardonnay to accent the lobster,” she quickly answered with no hesitation, placing their glasses on her tray.

  “Excellent choice! Bring us a chilled bottle of your finest Chardonnay, and two glasses, please,” Trotter politely requested.

  “Yes, sir, Captain. Coming right up.” She flashed her smile and left.

  Amber looked at Trotter, astonished. “I thought you said you weren’t a drinker.”

  “I’m not. Unless there’s reason to celebrate,” Trotter replied with a devilish grin on his face.

  “What’s there to celebrate?” Amber asked suspiciously. “I just told you I’m damaged goods.” Trotter reached across the table, and once again, he clasped her tiny hands in his huge paws. “Us. We are celebrating us. And the beginning of our…ironically…innocent…relationship!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.”

  Every male on this planet, at one time or another.

  With a chilled bottle of Chardonnay and two glasses in hand, the waitress returned to their table. After uncorking the wine, she poured a small amount in a long stemmed wine glass and offered it to Trotter. Having watched many old movies, he knew how wine tasters carried on over a goblet of vino. Acting like a professional wine taster, Trotter swirled the wine in his glass, held it under his nose and inhaled the aroma through his nostrils. He then took a small sip, swished it around, swallowed, and commented, “Ah! Very light aroma. Dry. And somewhat of a fruity flavor. I must agree. Your selection of wine will complement the lobster very nicely!”