by Carl Weber
“I don’t know what to think,” I answered.
“When was the last time you checked your bank balance?”
“Not since last night. Why?”
“Because this morning Bridget wired five million dollars from her last three partners’ private accounts into her personal Cayman Islands account. I don’t know about you, but I trusted her with my personal account information, and this morning the bitch wiped me out.”
“Bridget wouldn’t do anything like that,” I said, hoping like hell I was right.
“Yeah, I told myself the same thing, and now I’m three million dollars light. Look, I’m not here to force you into anything, but if you agree to help us, Mr. Monroe, we will make sure that you are more than compensated, including being reimbursed for any money Miss St. John might have stolen from you. And then, I promise you will be free to walk away from the agency if you choose.”
It felt like I was having an out of body experience when I found my voice. “Help you how?” I asked.
“We need you to take out Bridget and her accomplice,” he said.
In this job, I’d gotten used to receiving assignments where the murder of another person was talked about as calmly as if they were just placing a lunch order. Hearing talk of murder associated with Bridget, though, was another story. “I need to think about it,” I said. “This is a lot to take in.”
He kept talking. I guess he wanted to help me make up my mind faster than I was. “People who do this job, they are able to be whoever the other person needs them to be. It’s like being an actor, and every job, every exchange, is just another role.”
“So you’re telling me that I didn’t know her at all?” I asked, my voice rising.
“None of us knew her. She fooled all of us, if it makes you feel any better. She was one of our very best operatives, smart enough and cunning enough, but I promise you that she will pay for what she did to you and to us.” Again, his voice took on that aura of camaraderie, only this was not a brotherhood I wanted to belong to: a group of men duped by the same woman.
“I don’t know. This just doesn’t make any sense.” Despite his efforts, I still couldn’t see myself hurting Bridget. “She told me she wanted to get out of the business and retire.”
“Of course she did, because she realized we were on to her. We’ve already been over this,” he said, a little impatience creeping into his voice, like he thought I was stupid. “You think if you were to meet and she knew that we sent you she wouldn’t take you out without a second thought?” he challenged me. “You’re just another job to her, and the sex and the fake emotions, it was all a distraction so that she could steal your money without you becoming suspicious.”
He tilted his head and looked at me with curiosity. “You gotta be smarter than this—or was the sex just that good? I know for me it was, but it wasn’t good enough to let her take advantage of me.”
Man, I wanted to smash him in the face. “Look, I said I need to think about it.” My voice was trembling, and I felt myself getting ready to flip. “I’m not even sure any of my money has been taken.”
“Well, I hope it hasn’t,” he shot back, “but I wouldn’t be too optimistic on that.” He waited for a second, and when I still didn’t give him the answer he wanted to hear, he said, “I understand your reluctance. I’ll call you tomorrow, give you a chance to check your accounts.” He turned and walked away.
I had to take a moment, staring out at the water, to get myself together. It felt as if I’d been punched in the gut. I couldn’t believe that the woman I’d been falling in love with had been using me like I was just a fucking mark!
Willie read the disturbed look on my face when I got back in the car. “You don’t look so good. What did he say?”
I handed him the folder. “It’s all here in the file. They’re saying she’s a thief and most likely she set up her own abduction to fly the coop. She’s been ripping them and me off from the start.”
“You believe him?” Willie looked like he wanted to say something more.
“I don’t know what I believe. I mean, he’s been working with her a long time. I’ve known her less than a year. Maybe I really didn’t know her at all. Plus, she has been acting a little weird lately. He said it’s because she was feeling the heat.”
Willie was scanning the paperwork as he listened to me. He looked up and said, “I hate to believe that about our girl, but I have to admit that there is some logic to it.”
I took out my phone and opened my bank app so I could check my account balance. I felt like my heart was breaking in pieces when I saw the row of zeroes.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
“What?”
“She took my fucking money, Willie. Bridget stole my money!”
“Shit! What are you gonna do, man?”
I clamped my mouth shut. I did not want to admit to him the assignment Jonathan wanted me to accept. This was all just too ugly for words.
“Niles, man. Talk to me. What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know, Unc. That guy wants me to take her out—her and her accomplice.”
He gave a low whistle. “That’s fuckin’ deep, man. Do you think you could really do that?”
I shook my head. “I really don’t know. Right now, the only thing on my mind is that my mother needs me to take care of her, and I can’t do that without my money.”
“Well, shit,” he said, starting the engine. “Then let’s go find this bitch and get your money back.”
Bridget
68
It had been at least a day since I was kidnapped. The man who I’d obviously pissed off the first day hadn’t shown up again, but I had figured out that there were two other men guarding me on a steady rotation, because their footsteps were different. Whoever these people were, I could only assume they were holding me hostage because they were trying to flush out Niles. Why else would I still be alive? The only time that I had ever kidnapped a person was to get to whoever pulled the strings. In this case, they were probably trying to get to the person that they thought killed Rodney.
I was sure that Niles—and, I would hope, the people from Dynamic Defense—were already searching for me. I just hoped Jonathan didn’t fuck this up with his extravagant ego and incompetence.
The door opened and I heard footsteps, two sets to be exact.
“Take it off,” I heard one of them tell the other.
I felt someone touch my face then the sudden pain of the duct tape covering my eyes and eyebrows being ripped off.
It took me a few seconds to get past the pain and become accustomed to the light, but I still couldn’t identify them, because they were wearing masks.
“Mmm! Mmmmm!” I tried to speak, but I was still gagged.
The door swung open, and I swear time stopped for a minute. I had to be dreaming—or maybe having a nightmare—because there was no way that what I was seeing could be real. His appearance left me feeling even more disoriented than I had been.
He moved across the room and took a seat directly across from me. I tried to squirm out of my seat, my eyes blazing with rage, but Jonathan simply smiled in that smug way I had seen way too many times.
“Why, hello, Bridget. I must say I’m really enjoying your predicament. You see, with you it’s always been difficult to get a word in.”
“Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!” I struggled to get out all the motherfuckers, assholes, and limp-dicks I wanted to.
He laughed at me, enjoying this way too much. “I’m sorry, but I’m having kind of a hard time understanding you.”
“Mmmmm! Mmmmm!” I said in response. I didn’t give a shit if I couldn’t form the words. I was sure he knew exactly what I was saying to him.
“Oh, you want to know why you’re here? Of course. Well, aside from you being a huge bitch who believes the world revolves around you . . . Oh, and aside from you thinking you are always the smartest person in the room. Yes, that can all be quite grating, but it’s not those thing
s. It’s actually quite simple. Me and my guys have decided to expand our retirement funds.” He laughed, exchanging looks with the two masked men, who joined in.
“Mmmmm! Mmmmm!” In a perfect world, the roles would have been reversed, and I would have just shot him dead.
“You see, me and my team are sick of watching you and your golden boy get rich and take the glory while we get shit.”
Fucking asshole! I couldn’t say it out loud, but I sure was thinking it.
“Remember that case a few years back where you recovered almost five million dollars? Well, I removed more than a million, and guess who is going to take the fall for that?” he bragged.
“And that’s not all. Now that your boy has taken down El Gato, we picked up even more. After your boy Niles did our dirty work, my men cleaned out his coffers and netted another fifteen million in cash. And guess who I linked it to? You!” he said, sounding almost gleeful. “I’m such a genius . . . but you wouldn’t know that, would you, because you think you’re the only smart one.”
He leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “If you had really played things smart, though, you wouldn’t be in this position right now, Bridget. When I dreamed up this whole plan, I thought you were going to be the woman by my side. I was going to cut you in on the whole thing. I was really in love with you, and I thought you were falling for me, too—until that pretty boy came along and you stopped giving up the goods to me.”
My eyes went wide as I came to the realization that not only was Jonathan a thief, but he was also fucking crazy.
“Don’t give me that look,” he said. “You knew I would have done anything for you. But once you started fucking that rookie, your disloyalty needed to be punished.
“You know, you probably should never have opened that offshore account of yours, or at least you should have hidden it better. It was way too easy to find, and now that I’ve deposited a couple million in there, it was so easy to build a paper trail that makes it look like you are a low-down, dirty thief.”
“Mmmmmm!” I struggled against my restraints, wanting to break free and strangle him. After all the years of hard work I’d put in for the agency, I could not go out with my reputation shot to hell by this psycho.
“Ah, but I haven’t even told you the best part yet.” He smiled, enjoying my panic. “You’re sleeping with your operative, which makes him the perfect patsy to take the fall when they find your dead body. Crime of passion and all that. Remember, I did warn you that he had a bad temper. I’m thinking murder/suicide would be a nice touch. Us regular-looking guys don’t need competition like Niles around anyway, you know what I mean?”
I struggled and failed to hold back tears at the mention of Niles, as I thought of the life I’d been envisioning for us—the life we wouldn’t have if I couldn’t get out of there. Jonathan must have seen my distress, and he had the balls to get up and kiss me on my forehead. Then he actually removed the gag and kissed my mouth before I could stop him.
My words came out in a rush. “You don’t have to kill him, Jonathan. Just leave him out of this,” I said. “You and I can be together, and no one ever has to know about the money. We can disappear together.”
He frowned. “See, you really do think you’re smarter than me, don’t you? You expect me to believe that you want to be with me, but that you also want to save Niles’s life? I like the old, cold-hearted Bridget better, the one who didn’t give a fuck about anyone but herself. She would never have tried to save Niles. But this new Bridget wants to save Niles for only one reason: You’re in love with him.” He spat the last few words like they tasted poisonous in his mouth.
Damn it! I had let my feelings speak for me, and it might have cost me dearly this time.
He turned to the other two guys, who had been standing behind him the whole time. “Oh, please. Will you take off those silly masks?” he said. “You might as well let her know who you are. She’s never going to get the chance to tell anyone.”
At this point, I wasn’t surprised at all when they removed the masks and I saw that it was Frank and Lance. I should have known that if anyone else from Dynamic Defense had been in on it with him, it would be those two.
“I’m going to kill you, Jonathan,” I growled at him.
“I doubt that,” he said, turning back to give Frank and Lance instructions. “Tomorrow, take her to the suite he keeps in Manhattan and kill her brutally. I’ll take her boyfriend out right after I goad him into killing the director.” He started heading up the basement steps, stopping halfway to look down at me one more time. “This whole thing is working out like a dream. Tomorrow I’ll take over the director’s job, and from there we’re going to be beyond rich. Thanks, Bridget.”
“I’m going to kill you! I’m going to kill you, Jonathan!” I screamed as he left. I didn’t know how, but I would make good on that threat if it was the last thing I ever did.
Bruce
69
By the time I headed out of Debra’s house, Pooh was just pulling up in his Escalade, with Majestic in the passenger’s seat. Eddie was there too, waiting in my Navigator. I jumped in the Nav and pulled out, with Pooh following behind me.
“How was the pussy?” Eddie asked as I drove down into the winding roads of Huntington.
“It was better than you’d expect.”
“So you not gonna hit it again?”
“Nah, man, I got what I needed from that old bitch. As far as I’m concerned, she’s as good as dead,” I said with a smirk.
Eddie laughed. “Yeah, and Majestic feels the same way about her daughter, too. She back there at his crib with Li’l Frog guarding her until we get back. I don’t know if he’s gonna let her live this time, Bruce.”
I shrugged, not interested in talking about Keisha or her momma anymore. We rode the rest of the way in silence, until I pulled the Navigator in front of a relatively new colonial house set back on a quiet, tree-lined street.
“This where that motherfucker lives?” Pooh asked when he got out of his Escalade.
“Yeah,” I answered. “Right after I called you, I made a couple other calls. I talked to my man who works at PSEG, and he said the only electric account with the name Niles Monroe on Long Island was at this address.”
“Let’s go,” Majestic said, coming up behind Pooh.
They followed me up to the front door, and I rang the bell. I knew we were at the right place when Keisha’s BFF, Tanya, opened the door. The bitch hated me and Majestic so much she could barely fix her mouth into a smile whenever she saw us. Now she couldn’t hide her disgust, or her shock.
“What are you doing here?”
Ignoring her, we pushed our way inside. She tried unsuccessfully to block our entrance as we fanned out across the living room. An older lady who was sitting on the couch watching television got all agitated when she saw us come in. She tried to stand up too quickly and fell back in her seat.
Tanya rushed over to her and grabbed her arm, trying to comfort her.
Majestic stepped toward them, and the old lady spoke.
“Oh my God, Tanya, I think it’s the Incredible Hulk, ’cept he’s not green.” She stared at him, bug-eyed.
“What are you doing here. Majestic?” Tanya asked.
“We’re looking for someone.”
“Well, there’s no one here but us,” she said, “so y’all can just go.”
I stepped forward and got up in her space. “Niles Monroe. Where the fuck is Niles Monroe?” I hissed in the kind of tone that should be answered immediately. Tanya’s ass wanted to act all big and bad, though, so she refused to say anything. The old lady looked like she started to open her mouth to say something, but Tanya squeezed her arm real hard, until all she said was, “Ouch!”
“Yo, Bruce,” Majestic said. “Check this out.” He was holding up a framed picture he’d taken off the mantel. In the photograph was the lady who was here with Tanya, smiling next to a dude in a military uniform.
“You
put that down right now!” the lady cried out. “I love that picture of me and my boy, so you need to take your dirty hands off it!”
Tanya hadn’t shut her up fast enough this time, and now we knew something that might help us: This old broad was Niles Monroe’s mother. She also seemed to be bat-shit crazy.
Majestic put the picture down and approached her slowly. “No problem, ma’am. I just wanna know where my friend is. You see, we were old Army buddies, and I just wanna know that he’s doing okay.”
She tilted her head and stared at Majestic like she was trying to figure out if she should believe him. I thought we might actually be able to get his location out of this crazy lady, but Tanya tried to put a stop to the whole thing.
She stepped in front of Niles’s mother to shield her. “Look, we don’t want no trouble. Niles isn’t here. Please, just leave. This isn’t good for her.” Tanya, who stood there quaking in her boots, was begging us to stop scaring the old woman, who didn’t look scared at all. In fact, she had a lot of fire left in her.
The old lady focused on me. “You are ugly, and God don’t like ugly.”
Majestic started laughing. “You hear that, man? She called you ugly.”
“Shit, I always been ugly,” I said, stepping up to her, “but I would rather be ugly than be your son. God ain’t gonna be able to help him.”
“Don’t you touch my son, you ugly gorilla.” She was still feisty. “He ain’t scared of you, none of you. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t be here when he gets home. He has a gun.”
Majestic turned to me, still laughing. “You hear that, man? Her son has a gun. Woooo!” I pretended to be shaking with fear for a minute, then he dropped the act and his voice turned deadly serious.
“Well, I have a gun too.” He pulled out a huge .44-caliber handgun, brandishing it right in her face.
This old bird was so fucking crazy that she stared down his gun like it was some kind of toy. “Judas!” she screamed at Majestic. By now, Pooh and Eddie had joined in on the laughter, but Majestic was no longer amused.
“And I plan on killing that piece of shit son of yours with this gun. Shoot him dead like a dog in the street.”