The Money Game

by Michael A. Smith

  Immediately, Marshon jumped to his feet with the letter opener in his hand. He jerked open the door and saw Williams kneeling in the hallway, holding his head and moaning. Williams suddenly looked up, saw Marshon standing there, and reached for his handgun lying on the floor. Marshon attacked, and knocked Williams over. He fell on top of Williams and began to thrust the letter opener into the architect’s chest, not once, but three or four times until the crazy, sick bastard ceased to move.

  Marshon rolled onto his back, trying to get his breath. It felt as if a hot poker had been stuck in his back. He fought a wave of nausea that nearly caused him to faint. He got up and staggered toward the reception area. He rounded the corner and saw the women’s restroom. He opened the door and dumbly flipped on the light switch, which of course yielded no light. He ran water in the sink and washed his face. Then, he felt along the wall until he found the towel rack and a towel.

  Marshon no longer considered the possibility of the guard being in the suite. He would have made his presence known by now. Marshon walked back to where Williams lay and stepped over his body. Now Marshon felt at home in the dark, and almost safe. In a storage room directly across from the conference room where they’d viewed the video, Marshon found the circuit breaker box on a wall and began flipping switches until the hall lights came on. He went into the conference room, flipped on the light switch, found his overcoat and put the laptop in a side pocket.

  Back near the copy center, he looked at Williams’s body and the letter opener stuck in his chest. The dead man’s eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling. Williams’s prayers had been answered; he hadn’t died of brain cancer. Marshon picked up his gun and put it in its holster.

  In the bathroom, Marshon turned on the lights but hardly recognized the dazed face and slack mouth staring back at him from the mirror. He threw his overcoat over the door. Blood covered the front of his shirt, and he initially thought he’d been shot in the chest, before realizing that it was Williams’s blood.

  Marshon gingerly slipped off his suit coat and shirt, turned around and looked over his shoulder into the mirror. There was an ugly hole in the lower left side of his back surrounded by concentric circles of black, red, and pink. He closed his eyes to fight off an attack of lightheadedness. He grabbed the sink for support. He looked into the mirror again and saw an exit hole on his side! With great difficulty, he felt around both areas, wincing in pain as he felt the sharp point of a shattered rib. There was remarkably little blood, but that could be a sign of internal bleeding. Nevertheless, Marshon had a growing feeling of optimism. He might yet get out of this mess alive.

  Marshon ran cold water in the sink, soaked a large towel in it, and wrapped it around his waist to cover the wounds. He suddenly felt better. Deciding on a plan, he used his cell phone to call Widja.

  “I had some problems selling insurance,” Marshon said into the phone. “You need to get out here to Corporate Center and help me out. You’ll see my BMW parked out front. There’s a major cleaning job on the third floor of Building 1223. The offices of Williams, Grant and Slocum.” He shook his head trying to jar lose any other ideas and/or needs. “Oh, bring me a clean white dress shirt and a tie.” He didn’t say anything about the dead body, fearing even Widja would abandon him then.

  Marshon again felt faint and went to sit on a leather sofa in the reception area and wait for Widja. He leaned back and may have fallen asleep for a half hour, until he was jarred awake by the office doorbell. Marshon jumped to his feet, igniting a fire in his back. He moved close to the door, where he stood quietly and listened.

  “It’s me, Widja,” a voice said. Relieved, Marshon opened the door.

  “Any problems getting by the guard?” Marshon asked, as Widja held the door open for two co-workers who pushed and pulled a cleaning cart into the waiting room. A sturdy canvas trash bag occupied most of the interior space of the three-by-five foot cart. A narrow compartment on one end held several long-handle cleaning tools, such as brooms and mops. There were shelves and hooks around the cart’s exterior to hold solvents, soaps, cleansers, rags, and other tools of the janitorial trade.

  “Gave him the name of a firm on the tenth floor. Told him the regular crew couldn’t make it,” Widja said. “He was gonna call and check us out, but I bluffed him out of it by saying we’d leave and go to the next job if he kept us waiting.”

  “Where’s your truck?”

  “Right out front.”

  “You mean the guard can see it?”

  “Yeah, man, you think it would have been less suspicious to park the van around the corner and show up on foot with the cart?”

  “You’re probably right.” Widja and his crew were janitors. They cleaned offices in nearby buildings; maybe even this building for all Marshon knew. Still, they were a memorable trio, easily described to the police. Widja was short and wiry, whereas his sister-in-law, Angela Dumont was tall and heavyset, with red hair. The other member of the crew, Leon, had vitiligo on his face and hands.

  “What the fuck happened to you, man?” Widja asked, looking at his half-naked boss, friend and partner.

  “The crazy fucker who runs this firm shot me during a shakedown,” Marshon said. “You should all put on latex gloves.”

  Angela pointed at the towel around Marshon’s waist. “Let me take a look,” she said. He took off the towel and tossed it and his blood-soaked shirt into the canvas bag.

  “Jesus, baby, that don’t look good,” Angela said. “I got some tape and gauze. I can put on a temporary bandage. You need to see a doctor.”

  While she worked on him, Marshon took the wrapping off a new white shirt and put the plastic, pins, and paper into the canvas bag.

  “Okay, come with me,” he said, after Angela finished applying a bandage and helped him on with his new shirt and suit coat. “We got business to do and then we gotta get the fuck outta here!” He took them to where Williams’s body lay.

  Leon knelt and examined the dead man. “You stab this muthafucker?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You didn’t tell me anybody was dead here, man!” Widja exclaimed, accusingly.

  “Can you get the body out of here?” Marshon asked, again feeling faint.

  Widja pulled the cleaning cart close and said, “I think so. Give me a hand, Leon.”

  Marshon watched them put Williams inside the canvas bag butt first so his knees touched his chest. This head didn’t quite fit until Widja shoved it down violently, which caused several bones to break and crunch loudly. Leon emptied several trashcans on top of Williams until paper, cups and fast food wrappers covered the body of the dead architect.

  “Check his gun,” Marshon said, handing it over. “I think he fired five times.”

  Widja picked up the gun, flicked open the chamber, nodded and said, “Yeah, he did. At least, we got the brass.” He put the gun into a coat pocket.

  Angela knelt to examine the carpet. “You’re lucky this carpet is dark brown,” she said. “I can make these bloodstains hard to see. Now, if it was beige or white, baby ….” She chuckled to make her point.

  “What about this door?” Marshon asked, as Leon fingered the bullet holes.

  Widja again pondered the problem. “Could just take it off the hinges.”

  Marshon brightened. “There’s a storage room in the back!”

  Widja nodded. “We’ll hide it there. The people who work here might not think nothin’ ’bout it at first.”

  “I just wanna buy a little time, that’s all,” Marshon said, gritting his teeth against the mounting pain. They probably would eventually figure out that some violent event occurred in the office suite, especially after Williams disappeared. However, Marshon figured it would take them some time to get from A to Z and by then, hopefully, he would be long gone.

  “Don’t you think it’s best to get the body out of here?” he asked Widja, seeking a second opinion.

  “I’m assuming this guy visited your building?”

  “Yeah.”


  “Well, then, finding his body in an alley downtown fits that pattern. It’ll throw them off a while, at least long enough for you to get gone.”

  “That’ll work. We’ll get rid of all evidence that he visited Boudra, and find out where else he was in the downtown area that evening.”

  Widja snorted. “Hell, you was leavin’ anyway, right!”

  Marshon took them on a tour of the office, explaining everything that happened.

  “We’ll wipe the place for your fingerprints,” Widja said. “I got some spackling with me, so we can cover the bullet holes in the drywall. The white door, too. We’ll vacuum for the lead. Look inside that file cabinet for that bullet. Put a calendar over that hole. That’s about all we can do, Marshon.”

  “You need to get to a doctor,” Angela repeated.

  “Help me with this tie,” Marshon asked Angela, as Widja and Leon took the copy room door off its hinges. After knotting his tie, Angela used a cloth rag and a cleaning solution on his coat until the bloodstains blended naturally into the dark blue material. She then helped him put on the overcoat.

  “I’m leaving,” Marshon said, as Widja and Leon returned from the storage room. “Widja, call me later at Jake’s. Don’t call my cell phone.”

  “Don’t worry,” Widja said, in a worried voice. “We’ll clean this place up like a bunch of nigger janitors. The security guard may think we got done awful soon, but I can put him off. Say we got an emergency call. Need some more supplies. Will be right back. Whatever.”

  Marshon nodded grimly. The plan and alibi sounded weak, but he couldn’t think of anything else at the moment.

  Marshon got off the elevator in the lobby and strolled briskly and businesslike to the guard station, where he picked up a pen and signed Andre Touissant out. He hoped the guard didn’t notice his hand shaking.

  “Mr. Williams comin’ down soon?” the guard asked.

  “Shortly, I think,” Marshon said. “He’s on the telephone right now.”

  Marshon had been upstairs for only about ninety minutes, although it seemed like hours. He walked out of the building past Widja’s white van with the company name painted in blue on the side — Royal Janitorial Service. If they pulled this off, it would be a brazen accomplishment indeed.

  Marshon got into his BMW but didn’t immediately start the engine. He fantasized about how it would work out. They’d dump the diseased whoremonger’s body in an alley in a seedy area — maybe plant some drugs on him. The medical examiner would find the tumor and everything would make sense. The security guard could implicate him and Widja, but maybe they could bribe him — or threaten him into silence. Marshon didn’t want to think of any other alternatives.

  The problem with such spur-of-the moment plans is that they seldom work out. Bad luck does go on a run, and events unfold so unexpectedly and rapidly that planning becomes impossible. Reaction and spur-of-the-moment decisions rule. The outcomes are unpredictable. It’s called life.

  17/Doing God’s Work

  The same night that Marshon killed Michael Williams, Ace showed up at Kandie’s apartment about six o’clock, shortly after she got home from her waitressing shift, and had picked her kids up at a neighbor’s apartment.

  They stood in the kitchen as Kandie hurried to put together dinner, which was to be hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, and canned corn. She efficiently accomplished her task in about twenty minutes and had the kids seated at the kitchen table, positioned so they could see the television. She and Act stood off to the side.

  Ace had enjoyed his time with Kandie, but it was nearly over. She was a decent screw. Every now and then, Ace took on a steady girlfriend for a few weeks or months, just for the sheer convenience of not having to hunt for pussy every night. And, not having to make up lies to satisfy insecure, needy women. But, there was no way he would ever settle down, get married, and work a boring, degrading job like the one he had at Biederman’s, just for the benefits of the marital bed. He didn’t want to be with the same women for a lifetime, anyway, especially as she got older. Youth and variety were the spice of life, and he was about to move on. However, he wasn’t done using Kandie.

  “I want to talk to you, Kandie.”

  Her eyes widened and Kandie appeared fearful, as if she heard that phrase before and knew that bad things usually followed. “About what, Ace?”

  Ace reached into his pocket and pulled out a large wad of bills, consisting of about eight of the ten thousand given to him by Marshon, on two separate occasions. He began to peel off bills. “You were telling me a couple of days ago that your washing machine is on the fritz, that the kids need new clothes, and that you couldn’t afford to take them to Six Flags. Here’s fifteen hundred dollars to help with those expenses.”

  Kandie was stunned, impressed and grateful. It wouldn’t have surprised Ace had she offered to suck his dick as a gesture of gratitude. “Wow, Ace!”

  “Yeah, wow.”

  “Where’d you get the money, Ace? I mean, you ain’t working.”

  “I ain’t working at Biederman’s, but I’m working some deals, Kandie.”

  “What kind of deals?”

  He adopted a severe, disappointed look. “That ain’t none of your business, Kandie. I don’t explain what I do. I thought you understood that?”

  “Sure, Ace. I didn’t mean nothin’. Just making conversation.”

  Ace reached into a pocket of his leather jacket. He took out one of the burner phones and placed it on the kitchen counter. “Here’s a prepaid cell phone, Kandie. Keep it with you all the time from now on. Don’t use it to call anyone except me. I put my new number in the contact list. I’m numeral uno on the speed dial. Don’t call me on your other, regular cell phone, understand?”

  “Sure, Ace, whatever you say. Is there some reason?”

  “Yeah, it has to do with one of my deals I’m trying to keep secret from competitors, who I don’t want to steal my ideas. That’s all you need to know, Kandie. Don’t give my new number to anyone else and don’t let anyone use your new cell phone. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Ace took her into his arms. “I’m really trusting you about this, Kandie. If my plans work out, we’ll have a lot of money. A lot. I just want to know that I can count on you to help out when I need you. I won’t have time to answer questions.”

  Kandie looked up at him and said, breathlessly, “I’ll do anything you want, Ace. Anything.”

  “Good, ʼcause you know the problem with a lot of women, Kandie, is that they want to reform their man. Tell him what he can wear, think, eat and do. I ain’t one of those guys, Kandie. You want one of those guys, they are a dime a dozen.”

  “You’re one in a million, Ace,” she said, with conviction.

  “On the other hand, I can’t tell you what to do, either,” Ace said, a sad look on his face. “I can only ask you to do something. You can say no, which is your right. But just understand, Kandie, in that case, we’re definitely done.” He took a step back, and swiped one palm over the over. Then, held both palms upward, indicating he’d sweep their relationship away that fast. Cleanly and quickly.

  “What do you want me to do, Ace? I’ll do anything so long as it don’t hurt my kids.”

  “I would never ask that.”

  “Okay, what do you want?”

  “I don’t have all the details right now, Kandie. I just wanted to know if you were willing. It’s not dangerous at all. When I get things worked out, I’ll give you a call on that new cell phone.”

  The doorbell to the apartment rang, and Ace said, “That will be Country. I invited him over for dinner. Okay?”

  “Sure, Ace. I’ll put three more hot dogs in the microwave.”

  Ace let Country in, which prompted Lloyd to get up from the dinner table and circle the two men, practicing his kickboxing routine until Kandie came and swatted him on the butt and told him to sit back down. She then served Country’s dinner, which he beheld and said, with relish, “This looks really good
, Kandie!”

  Ace sat at the table with the two older kids and Country. He leaned over and sniffed the air around Country. “When’s the last time you took a shower?”

  Country looked perplexed. “I dunno.”

  Kandie opened the refrigerator, took out two bottles of Corona in one hand, removed the caps with a bottle opener and handed one to each man.

  Country provided the dinner entertainment. The big oaf ate like a dog, opening his mouth so wide to chew food they could see all his teeth, even the molars. Ace thought the idiot’s jaw might come unhinged. After exactly four crushing blows with those oversized yellow teeth, Country swallowed.

  Ace told Kandie, “His eating reminds me of the saying: ‘through the lips and over the gums, watch out stomach, here it comes!’”

  After every swallow, the redneck tilted his beer bottle and let the yellow, bubbly stuff fill his mouth until his cheeks bulged like a chipmunk transporting nuts. Then, as if a drain plug opened, the beer rushed down his gullet. Country belched and began the next cycle of eating and drinking.

  “I went to Biederman’s today to pick up my check and get stuff outta my locker,” Country said, as a piece of hot dog fell out of his mouth, causing Lloyd to lapse into uncontrolled laughter.

  “And?” Ace prompted.

  “Them two niggers, Davron and Fax, they was makin’ fun of me and sayin’ I was your lapdog, Ace. I told ʼem to suck my dick.”

  “Good for you, Country.”

  Country’s eyes brightened and he leaned forward in anticipation. “Tell me again how they got those names, Ace?”

  “That's easy to explain, Country. You see, black women fuck hundreds of guys. They never know who their kid’s daddy is, so they just name ʼem after the last two that dumped a load in ʼem. In this case, Dave and Ron. Davron.”

  “Oh, Ace,” Kandie tittered, although clearly embarrassed. She glanced at the two kids, a sick look on her face.

  “Tell me about Fax!” Country implored, his mouth hanging open.