by Estes, Danny
Randolph was doing touch ups on their background history to render polish and color to their new identities when the door to his office opened and two poor-quality-suited native muscle men walked in. As Randolph hadn’t flipped the sign over to let the public know his accounting firm was open, their entrance caused him some concerned. On second thought, make that very concerned, he corrected, as an average native wearing beach attire walked in behind the two as if he owned the world, smoking a large cigar, totally ignoring the very plain ‘No Smoking’ sign in the window. At once Randolph applied a business man’s smile on his lips to possible clients, even though he knew quite well these men had other agendas. He calmly tapped up his accounting programs and sent his work to a back file, and waited for the spider to tell the fly how much of his blood he would have to provide to stay alive.
At first Randolph fell into natural habits of playing unaware of what was to come, then he remembered Jill, and the fact she would be back shortly. Even though he felt certain Jill’s harder side could handle the situation, her softer side could endanger them both, and of late Jill softer side had been the controlling personality. This by necessity changed his tactics to get the men on their way before she arrived.
The native boss man arrived at Randolph’s desk, and rudely turned Randolph’s cheep video screen around for his viewing pleasure before beginning his shake down spiel. “Tell me, Mr. uh…”
“Tabor, Luke Tabor,” Randolph supplied, even though his fake name was clearly painted on the door window in broad letters and printed in sliver on the white name plate facing the local crime boss.
“Tabor, right. So tell me,” the relaxed native asked in a heavy Jamaican accent, “why is it you have chosen to open an accounting office here in my lovely island.”
Since any answer given would be the wrong answer, Randolph declined any response and watched the man sit in Jill’s favorite chair next to the wall. With a careful look to the two heavies, Randolph folded his hands slowly on the desktop to keep the over-watchful goon squad from becoming anything more then they presently were. After a moment of silence from Randolph, the native boss blew smoke Randolph’s way, tapping the ashes off the end of his cigar onto the clean floor without any thoughts for even looking for an ashtray. Crossing a leg, he asked, still in a calm but menacing voice, “You haven’t answered my question. Now, why is that?”
“Because any answer I give is truly irrelevant to you as I know you don’t care, so I’m waiting to learn how much I owe you for the protection you’ll grant me from the abuse of your two friends,” Randolph said in the nicest manner he could, so the native boss wouldn’t take offence to his reaction to this shakedown.
The native took another drag of his cigar and eyed Randolph, judging, saying at last, “You appear to be relatively calm about the facts of life.” He faked a look of thinking and said, motioning with his lit cigar, “I like you. You understand the price of conducting business.” Adjusting his sitting posture so he could lean back a bit more, the extortionist opened his mouth to spell out their new-found relationship when Jill chose this inconvenient moment of time to walk in.
The native turned his head in annoyance to the interruption, and saw what everyone else does, a brown-haired, white and yellow bikini-clad, shawl-covered good looking woman, missing entirely what Randolph saw—a soft and easy going personality fading out into the background while a hard, cold-blooded killer took her place once she noticed the two suited goons and the cigar-smoking native in her chair.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Tabor,” Jill improvised, clearly taking in the situation. “I had not known you’d be entertaining clients this early in the morning.” Jill made a motion to the bag she was holding from “Savory Delicacies Emporium” and said mildly, allowing no hint of alarm to enter her voice, “If you wish, I could return with a nice selection to include your clients?”
“That won’t be necessary.” The boss man smiled, signaling the over-steroided goon nearest to Jill to move in behind her and close the door as Jill continued to look the mild, low-IQ assistant who was beginning to realize something was amiss.
“Mr. Tabor?” she questioned with a tremor in her voice.
“Have no fear, Jill. These men are here to collect on a debt I owe, so if you’ll remain calm, we’ll finish this quickly so they can be on their way.”
“Now, now, there’s no need to rush things,” the over-confident boss expressed with a smile, now adding Jill’s presence as a bonus into his extortion plan. The native stood, taking the few steps over to Jill’s side, looking her up and down in a calculated fashion to add more intimidation into his proposal before he slid a finger along her jaw line, enjoying Jill’s fake fear.
Or is that her softer side she’s allowed out to give off a truer response? Randolph wondered.
“First we must consider all the tangibles of your business,” the native boss said with superiority coloring his voice, “before we may negotiate a proper account of its worth.” He gave a signal, to which Jill’s arms were seized, and the goon behind Randolph landed a blow to the back of his neck. Jill give a squeal of fright—whether true or faked Randolph couldn’t tell—and look wild-eyed on the goon who sat Randolph back up in his chair. But since she let out the high-pitched tone in the boss man’s ear, he viciously backhanded her, growling, “Enough! I’m becoming bored with the two of you.”
The native extortionist fingered Jill’s bikini top strap, while Randolph stepped up and played his part in this game of cat and mouse. “Please, mister, don’t hurt her, I’ll pay anything you want!”
“Oh, I know you will,” the native said smugly, letting go of Jill’s strap to pat her face, “because if you don’t, she and I are going to get well acquainted with each other while my men give you a few pointers in being a good client.” He took another puff of his cigar as he turned to Randolph and smashed it out on the desk. “Now then, as you are not of my native island and have neglected to hire local help, my fees by necessity have to be doubled.” He explained with a wave of his hand, indicating that was Randolph’s first and second mistake. “You see, you’re taking away the livelihood of some of my other clients, and that’s not good for our rather poor economy.” He pulled another offensive cigar out and with the help of the hormone-infested goon behind Randolph, lit it and continued the shake down by approaching Jill’s face with the newly lit cigar. “And as I can see the local custom of my lovely Island women will suffer due to this rather scrawny secretary of yours, I must therefore charge a bit more to make up for that loss of income.” He tapped out the ash on her new white shawl and took another long pull as if thinking up a number. “Adding this all up, your weekly fee well be, umm…say 1,000 credits, half of which is due right now!” His menacing voice presented no room for arguments. The arrogant native slid a glance Randolph’s way, knowing full well a business like this held no such hard credits like that on hand. With a cruel smile the native boss fingered Jill’s strap once more in anticipation to Randolph’s up and coming statement of that fact.
Randolph grimaced inwardly, wishing Jill hadn’t waltzed in an hour early, as it seemed Randolph now had to figure out how to make 182 hard credits, which was all they had left, look like 500. Something I hadn’t worried about as we were already booked on a flight off the islands. But now it’s very relevant, as these men are not leaving till I hand over the required amount or—Randolph never finished that thought as Jill came to the same conclusion as he and acted.
With expert military training in hand to hand combat, Jill used the muscle man’s tight grip on her forearms like supporting straps and gave the native boss a rude kick to his pride and joy between his legs. Then she use her other leg to connect solidly with his lowing face, sending him backward, crashing into the wall and side table before making the floor. To this treatment of his boss, the muscleman’s IQ registered surprise to actions he’d never had to consider while holding a frightened female, but Randolph held no time in witnessing her next moves as he was a bit busy
reacting to her distraction. Jumping up, he shoved the muscle man behind him into the wall with all his strength and grabbed the cheap suit’s jacket in both hands to sent him stumbling into Jill’s favorite chair, over balancing him into his struggling boss. We’re dead meat now if either one makes it to their guns! Randolph grabbed a potted plant to bounce off the muscleman’s skull when he saw a light beam burn a hole into the man’s temple, frying the brains inside. This action caused the newly dead man’s body to slump over the boss with his massive body, pinning the boss in place for a brief second. To this Randolph risked a look over in Jill’s direction, and he saw her put the pistol up under the jaw of the other muscleman and pull the trigger, then she deftly stepped away from the mindless body that slowly crumpled to the floor and looked at Randolph, taking note of his frown.
“Hey, don’t blame me,” Jill defended herself, raising her hands, allowing the pistol to dangle on her finger tip. “Numb nuts here had the thing set on max.”
Randolph rolled his eyes skywards to her declaration, and shook his head in some pain as he knew they both were in deep kimchee once the boss got out from under his man. Never mind it was the boss man’s fault this all happened, his kind never considered the consequences of their actions could ever result in retaliation, kind of like the woman crying her eyes out, declaring her son to be a good boy at his execution for murdering the school teacher who flunked him for not learning his lessons.
Jill eyed the boss, who was taking stock of his current situation, and asked Randolph, “So what do we do with him?”
The fact she actually asked surprised Randolph, causing his thinking to short-circuit a moment before he said calmly, “Well, I’ve a few more hours of work here, which pretty much renders letting him go out of the question, as he’ll become a problem later if we do.” Still considering, Randolph glanced down on their unwanted guess, whose eyes looked over Randolph trying to figure out how he’d killed his men so efficiently—that is till he saw Jill standing not far off with his bodyguard’s gun dangling from her small index finger.
Randolph turned to look out the fourth story window so he could think in terms of Now what?
But when his back was turned, Jill proclaimed calmly, “Okay, problem solved.” To which he smelled the odor of ozone and meat burning.
Randolph Jerked his head her way, seeing the gun she acquired being tucked down the back of her bikini bottom. With dread, Randolph turned to look on the native boss, finding his lifeless eyes staring up at Jill with a clean little hole in his forehead. Randolph turned hardening eyes onto Jill. “Will you please stop that!”
“Calm down, Randolph, we both knew he had to be killed if we were to leave the island alive,” Jill told him in a level voice, walking over and relieving the other bodyguard of his gun before she sat in her favorite chair. “I was just hoping you would come to the same conclusion and allow me to do what was necessary.”
With a sigh, Randolph looked about the remains of humanity’s burden on a growing society and rubbed his face and cheek, going over the other possibilities they might have had. Rather redundant now, he considered, but instead of facing the truth, Randolph stood there, thinking. There just has to be another way this could have been solved without killing them. But no matter how he approached the matter, Randolph came to the same conclusion she’d already reasoned out. The fact that she was right, knowing she was right, was what stuck in his throat, because taking someone's life was always against his principles. Thusly not saying aloud she was right makes me, oh I don’t know, “a hypocrite” comes to mind.
“You’re not going to give me the satisfaction in admitting I’m right, are you?” Jill asked, annoyed, watching how Randolph was now starting to pace with his growing agitation. “You’re just going to pace about and blame me for introducing you to the real world.”
“Give me a break Jill,” Randolph snapped, “you’ve killed four people since breaking me out of jail, and now I have to justify in my own mind the growing body count of my freedom.”
“Well, while you’re at it, why don’t you flex those wonderful muscles you have hidden under that suit and help me stuff these three in the closet for now?”
“Yeah sure,” Randolph mumbled with a shrug, knowing if anyone happened to come in, the sight of three dead men might make leaving the island a bit tricky.
By four in the morning, Randolph had all they would need. The laser printer he’d modified did a right fine job to the scroll work on the front and back of the passports, set in place to make such forgeries impossible to copy, but how they reasoned that out with all the forgers in business was beyond him. As for customs stamps, they were not as critical to match, for the bored customs agents tended to smear the activation of the archaic hand-held stamp. Next came video pictures, IDs, credit accounts originating in Scandinavia which he filled with 10 percent transfers from his few clients’ credit accounts, which provided them a modest 230 credits from three clients. Their uninvited guests supplied them with a meager 468 hard credits between the lot, but later when Randolph held more time to do some poking around, he’d check into their personal accounts and see what could be withdrawn. For now, it was a small matter of popping by a bank on their way to the skimmer port and depositing half of their hard credits before boarding their flight.
Once finished, Randolph stretched tired arms and rubbed his eyes before he nudged Jill, who’d fallen asleep in her favorite chair. When Jill's eyes slowly opened and she began the process of orienting herself, Randolph saw a sight he’d never seen before. Perhaps he’d never really looked in them before, but he swore he saw both personalities, one looking out of each eye, before the softer Jill retreated and the colder Jill completely surfaced.
This Jill took stock of her surrounding, stretched and yawned, asking, “What’s up?”
“I’ve got all we need. Now what do I do with the bodies?”
“Oh them.” Jill yawned again, standing, bending over backward and forward to wake up her resting muscles. “That’s easy. The boss man goes in the chair behind the desk. The cronies are placed thusly, one in a chair across from the boss and the other draped over the desk.”
“And this is supposed to do what?” Randolph inquired.
“Silly boy, it’s for body placement after the fire crews put out the blaze.”
“Jill, they’ll never believe they simply allowed themselves to be burned up.”
“Well of course not. The autopsy will show the laser holes, but that won’t happen till sometime tomorrow. By then we’ll be well on the way to where, uh, hmm…where are we going?”
“Telangrade County. It’s a hundred miles from the city of Willing, where Mr. Hilden resides.”
With time delay incinerators set and the office sprayed with DNA residuals—gathered over the course of their stay—to render their own DNA impossible to discern out of the mix, and the specialty equipment Randolph acquired or procured from other offices neatly restored back in their original offices, Randolph disconnected the fire retardant for the office they’d rented only and started walking out. Jill, however, gave Randolph an annoyed look, as she’d seen he’d made sure only their office would go up in flames, but he guessed she decided it wasn’t worth arguing over. After pressing the two guns in the goons’ hands, she followed him out to a rental car.
After boarding the skimmer, Randolph figured Jill’s softer side most have emerged. She snuggled up to him once they were in the air, placing both her arms around him possessively before falling back asleep. Even though he was becoming attached to her warmth, Randolph wondered what in hell he was going to do with her. She was rendering his justification in clearing his name a bit moronic, for what did it matter who the records showed he’d murdered? Because of her, he was now just as guilty of murder as if he really had killed the Henderson family and servants.
Chapter Fifteen
Once back on firm ground, the pair disembarked the atmosphere skimmer for a regular hovercraft which took the couple to an old out
dated hotel where Randolph kept his emergency funds stashed. Closing the door to their room on the 23rd floor, Jill looked about its simple appearance and plopped herself on the bed, testing its firmness, while Randolph took off the ventilation cover and crawled into its dusty interior with a pen light in his mouth. Over his many years of research, Randolph discovered corporations came and went depending on their accountability to their owners. But hotels tended to stay hotels no matter who owned them, so unless the owners were willing to drop the building, it was a relatively small gamble to stash hard credits and IDs in the ventilation shaft. Updating the HVAC system was always the last resort in a refurbish job.
After emerging, Randolph dusted himself off and dumped the contents of the dusty box out on the bed Jill was lounging on, reading a home fashion magazine she’d picked up on the way to the elevator. Jill looked on the pile with little interest and laid her magazine down to point at a picture. “Honey, what do you think of this?”