Deadly Phine

by Darrell King

  It would be only a few more weeks before the first of her sex clients became ill. She’d have to then move on from Lariat completely, so as to not to be implicated as the carrier who’d made so many others sick. She knew that in order for Valentino to elude the cops and health officials for as long as he did, he’d screw the whores of rival pimps and even some of his own without informing them of his health issues. They then went on to spread the killer virus before dying themselves. Rosaria had been the only one of the girls he saw worthy enough to provide with Biomax-O shots.

  She walked into the house just after 6:00 p.m. and headed straight into her bedroom upstairs overlooking the cresting turquoise waves of the mighty Pacific. There she injected a quick shot of Biomax-O into a vein in her left thigh. She’d already prepared for the searing pain of the shot’s aftermath by sniffing two long powdery lines of Peruvian flake up her nose to curb the typically unpleasant reaction to the Biomax-O.

  This new and improved version of the drug was a particularly sinister lab creation because on top of being the source of the super AIDS virus known as HIV10X, it was also a powerful aphrodisiac, which forced her to seek sexual fulfillment. She tried to pleasure herself with a large battery-operated dildo, but it did little to calm the raging flames in between her deliciously thick thighs. She stuck both the index and middle fingers of her left hand deep into her pussyhole, feverishly fingering her clitoris with her other hand while moaning like a bitch in heat. The entrance of her vagina was soaking wet with her love fluids, and hearing the very sound of her digits working in and out of her sopping twat made her cum with raw intensity.

  Nevertheless, her need for a man was insatiable enough to drive her back onto the ho’stroll. Mego Avenue had reopened after the threat of landslides disappeared, and was now busier than ever with late-night, illicit activities. Before heading out, Rosaria showered, dressed and placed a quick phone call to a marijuana customer of hers from Cushing who’d become somewhat of a confidant lately. The 27-year old Chicano, like herself from East Los Angeles, had been a gang member for the feared Mexican mafia. He grew to dislike the abuse Valentino seemed to relish in handing out to his girls, particularly Rosaria. He’d once told her that if she ever had any need to call on him for protection, he would be just a phone call away. For Rosaria, the time for that connection was now.

  ***

  July 4 began and ended for Meredith Nader the same way—in bed. She had been up for most of the night in front of her computer, completing over nine hours worth of HIV10X research work for Coventry Laboratories. During this time, she’d managed to polish off an entire bottle of champagne. Alcohol helped her cope with the aftereffects of the Biomax-O shots she’d recently begun taking.

  Wilhelm had tried to get in contact with her several times since he’d come by her house, but she’d refused to speak to him either by phone or email. After all, she thought, why was he so hard pressed now? He’d previously shown little interest in her; he had, in fact, seemed quite irritated by her constant attention. In an effort to avoid him but keep her job, she’d requested work-at-home detail, and the company had agreed. She knew that Wilhelm had been both jealous and worried sick about her dealings with Valentino, however she assured him that she’d never, ever sleep with a black man, much less one who carried a deadly virus within his bloodstream. That, of course, was a blatant lie, but she knew he’d believe it because he wanted to. He was awfully gullible for a man of his scientific brilliance.

  Now she noticed through tired, red eyes that the German had emailed her a whopping 13 times since the day before, and was currently online. She then went into the virtual chat room to communicate.

  eurotrash99: Finally! Why have you been avoiding me, Meredith? Is it because of the fight we had back in May?

  Meredith read the text as it flashed across her computer screen.She answered:

  biologyrocksMN: I’ve just been really busy as of late—that’s all. Nothing personal, Wil

  eurotrash99: Bullshit. Don’t lie to me, Meredith. I know you too well and we both know you’re pissed at me right now. Admit it...

  Meredith grinned as she typed her answer.

  biologyrocksMN: Okay, maybe I was a little upset but hey, shit happens...

  eurotrash99: You’re right. Shit does happen, but friends don’t leave friends out of the loop about their plans to work exclusively from home, and friends don’t treat each other like crap either.

  biologyrocksMN: EXCUSE ME?! Wil, baby, if I recall the last time we met in person you weren’t very nice to me. And remember when we shared the laboratory together? You acted as though I was a nuisance to you, so I saw no reason to inform you of anything I did.

  eurotrash99: We were at work and we had to keep things as professional as possible. Meredith, you knew that. It was you who seemed to have forgotten those basic rules.

  biologyrocksMN: Wil, listen up, I’m not really in the mood for another one of your whiney, egotistical, brain numbing rants, okay? I’m hung over, I’ve got PMS and I just missed all the fireworks on TV, so please just shut it, will you?

  eurotrash99: You’re such a cunt

  biologyrocksMN: That may be, doctor, but you’d still love to fuck my brains out, wouldn’t you?! ;)

  eurotrash99: I bet you’d love to take it up the ass

  biologyrocksMN: OMG, Dr. Strecker, what am I going to do with you? And I thought you didn’t care...lol

  Chapter 19

  Lucien Valentino arrived back in Lariat on the 10th of July at 5:26 p.m. He’d spent a considerable amount of time up north in San Francisco establishing another small, but prime prostitution ring near Chinatown. Coming through the door, he was immediately greeted with the usual outpouring of affection and love by the dozens of half-nude hookers who fawned over him for what seemed like an hour as he doled out to each of them expensive, glittery pieces of bling or overpriced perfumes with fancy-sounding names—the spoils of his travels. Every one of the girls seemed to be happy to see him and thrilled with their gifts—every one except Rosaria. Sitting alone in the corner, seeming distant, she was clearly unimpressed by the whole shebang, the look in her eyes hostile.

  Rosaria caught on that Valentino was curiously studying her as the other streetwalkers giggled and wiggled on and around him, so she got up from her spot in the corner and disappeared down the darkened hallway. Valentino was puzzled as to why she was acting so strangely, but he’d get down to the bottom of it at another time. Now he had to get with Shugawallz, his most senior trick at 51 years old. She served as the Madame, or “queen whore,” of the house, controlling the money and delivering it to Valentino at the end of each day or, in certain cases each week.

  While he sat on the couch counting his money at the coffee table, two of his older streetwalkers revealed that they’d seen Rosaria out and about with a young, tough-looking Mexican guy for the past few weeks, and that he seemed to be more than a mere sex client. Smiling, the gangsta pimp placed the large wad of cash upon the edge of the table in a neat stack. He rarely, if ever trusted any one, least of all the whores. Rosaria had been the only one of his girls he’d allowed to have any level of access into his private world. She had, however, betrayed that ever-so-fragile trust, and was more than likely plotting to escape again—or maybe even, he thought, planning something more sinister. It was funny to him how dumb bitches occasionally slept on him as if he was one of the squares who paid for their worn-out coochies. Sometimes he actually found hitting on his women to be somewhat distasteful, necessary, but distasteful nonetheless.

  Unfortunately, it occurred to him that Rosaria’s recent behavior might warrant such a response. If his hunch was correct, she’d left him no choice. Once a whore began overstepping her boundaries, harsh and decisive actions had to be taken on the offending trick by her pimp, usually in front of all the others so as to both teach a much-needed lesson and send a larger message to her peers. Many an amateur pimp had ruined a potentially promising career as a boss playa by taking on too soft of a d
isciplinary role with his bitches.

  He dismissed Shugawallz, who in turn directed the two other prostitutes to follow her back toward the sleeping quarters. Valentino took up the pile of money from off the tabletop and recounted it before placing it into a small safe deposit box. After locking the safe, he arose and ventured out onto the deck overlooking the ocean.

  He wondered how much damage his AIDS-infected whores, particularly Rosaria herself, had done in the town of Lariat, California since he’d arrived there. Even the very doctor who’d produced the virulent disease itself had now become a carrier. He could still use Rosaria to his benefit. The blood money the Illuminati paid him handsomely to spread the virus throughout the ghettos of America. Yet, a weird twist of fate or karma, one of their own was now a living bioweapon, capable of infecting the members of society’s upper crust—those who were never meant to be touched by the pain and suffering of the super AIDS experiment.

  Valentino thought about how he had flipped the script, and how he would blackmail the Sentinels of the Illuminati once the virus began to spread amongst the rich and powerful. No one would be the wiser, because by the time the HIV10X would be discovered within the wealthy, predominately white community, it would be far too late to quell it. Dr. Nader had been turned out just as easily as he’d turned out any of his prostitutes. She no doubt would be a willing participant in his own AIDS spreading agenda.

  As the seagulls squawked and circled above the gently splashing surf, Valentino smiled devilishly at the thought of turning the tables on his equally evil employers, thus gaining almost dictator-like power. He left the warmth of the outside deck to return again to his cozy home.

  A few of his prostitutes walked about the grand living room area cleaning and dusting the already pristine area. Rosaria, however, was not among them. Valentino walked into the kitchen and stood near the entrance, staring at three cute, girlish hookers who jabbered away with each other, while an older woman carried on a simultaneous conversation on the house phone. One of the girls caught an angry look from the Don and she quickly exited the kitchen, followed closely by her two galpals. As they walked sheepishly past their irritated pimp, he issued them a stern warning to them and they sprinted from the kitchen through the living room and down the hallway.

  Slowly he made his way into the kitchen and picked up the receiver from its cradle on the wall. He dialed Dr. Nader’s digits before placing the receiver to his ear and leaning back lazily against the countertop. Meredith answered in less than a few seconds. By the sound of her voice, he could tell that she was upset about something.

  “Lucien,” she said in a tone rife with annoyance, “I’m sorry that I sound this way, but I’m, like, totally ticked off right now.”

  Valentino’s brow wrinkled in anticipation of what would be revealed.

  “Talk to me, boo. S’up?” he asked, accepting a tall glass of cold lemonade from one of his prostitutes.

  Meredith cleared her throat on the other end before speaking.

  “Are you sitting down for this?” she said, still sounding emotional. “One of the guys down at the lab has tested positive for AIDS! And it’s too late to treat him with Biomax-O.”

  Meredith went on to describe the victim, a white, male biochemist in his early fifties. He was married with two kids, and was now well into the final stages of the virus, full-blown AIDS. The man, who had once been an avid mountain climber and lacrosse player, now weighed less than 90 pounds. The skin cancer Kaposi’s Sarcoma covered his brittle body in bright, swollen bluish purple blotches while ugly open lesions leaked putrid-smelling pus around his mouth and private areas. According to Meredith, the man was minded dying the most horrific of deaths.

  “Aiight, and?” Valentino said. “Why the fuck you tellin’ me this shit? If the muthafucka got AIDS then that’s just too damn bad. Shit, say a prayer for the muthafucka for all I care, it ain’t got shit to do wit me!”

  Meredith chuckled sarcastically.

  “Yeah, you’re right, Lucien, this doesn’t have anything to do with you. You just happen to work for us white folk who pay you to pass on HIV10X to as many people as possible, so no, you’re not responsible...just as long as you only get the right kind of people sick, remember? Meaning, people of color, Jews, and the occasional poor white trash guy or gal...but someone must’ve forgotten that educated white scientists are off limits, hmm? Look, Lucien, I like you. I mean, hey, I like you a lot. I thought I’d never in a million years fall for a black guy, least of all you. You’ve got me hooked so much that I’ve even risked infection. No one’s ever made me feel the way you do and—trust me—you make me feel like a queen. But you’ve got to think, sweetie, with this prick dying on us everyone at Coventry is going to want answers, which means the heat is going to come down not only on you but on me, too—especially if Doctor Wilhelm Von Strecker has anything to do with it.”

  “Fuck all them crackas,” Valentino said. “I don’t give a fuck ‘bout them!”

  Meredith sighed with a bit of frustration at her lover’s words. He may have been a mover and shaker in his rough and tumble world of prostitutes, pimps and drugs, but on this stage he was far out of his league. She knew he shouldn’t even be considering strong-arming anyone. This time around he was a small fish in a big and dangerous pond.

  “Lucien, you and I—we both work for Coventry Laboratories, who in turn works for a select group of doctors in the World Health Organization, who then must answer to the Sentinels of the Illuminati. These people have access to unlimited financial resources and, politically, they’re damned near untouchable. There’s just too much riding on Operation Inner City Virus for them to allow an oversexed, psycho chick from Boise, Idaho and a black drug-dealing pimp in Lariat, California by way of Puerto Rico and D.C. to throw a monkey wrench in their plans for population control, so let’s smarten up here.”

  “You think that I don’t know who I’m fuckin’ wit, Meredith?” Valentino snarled into the phone. “I fought in two wars overseas, so I know ‘bout the powers that be and how they dog the lil’ people out. That’s why I said fuck ‘em. Read between the lines, baby girl, aiight? Read between the lines on that one.”

  Meredith began to tire of Valentino’s street-hewn machismo in light of the grave situation looming before them.

  “I’m so happy that the Sentinels of the Illuminati or their affiliates resort to bugging phones or they’d be off us on your arrogance alone, ya’ know that? You’re really not taking this seriously, are you?”

  Valentino’s eyes narrowed with anger as he bristled over the cynical tone coming from Meredith. A boss playa like himself had made women pay for less before, and his hand clenched into a fist almost on queue in response to the scientist’s disrespect.

  “They know betta...besides, that cat coulda fucked around and got burnt fuckin’ wit any number of triflin’ ass hos—or, fa that matter, shit, he might take dicks. Ever thought ‘bout that?” Valentino asked. “Ya see just ‘cause y’all started out expectin’ to wipe out all the niggas in the hood with this ole HIV5X or 10X or whatever the fuck ya wanna call it, you gotta recognize that once ya infect one muthafucka in the ghetto wit that shit don’t think that one nigga gon’ just pass that shit on to other niggas. Naw, baby, that ain’t thinkin’ outside the box, now is it? You know how many fiends I got huntin’ me down for coke and crystal meth a week? Shit, I can’t even count ‘em no mo’ and they’re all rich white folks from Fujita City, not to mention the number o’ clients from the F.C. that actively solicit prostitution on Mego Avenue’s ho stroll. Bottom line is...you can’t contain this shit once you turn it loose on society. The world ain’t ya goddamned laboratory and the hood ain’t hardly no controlled environment for y’all’s lil’ fucked up experiements and shit. So don’t go blamin’ a muthafucka when the shit gets outta hand.”

  “You’re probably right, Lucien,” Meredith said, “but these guys don’t give a rat’s ass about anything you just said. For starters, Wilhelm already has a hunch that we
’ve been seeing each other—a hunch that I’ve been able to successfully disclaim because of your ‘positive’ status as an AIDS carrier as well as my ‘racial intolerance.’”

  There was a pause, and both Valentino and Meredith seemed to calm down somewhat.

  “Don Lucien Valentino ain’t never feared no man, and I ain’t ‘bout to start now,” he said, breaking the silence. “See, I know the game they’re playin’ and trust me, it’s gonna work in my favor, Meredith. You see all them so-called big-time politicians an’ shit ain’t got nothin’ on us niggas in the ‘hood, real talk. All they got on us is book smarts and a whole bunch o’ big words an’ shit, but cats out here on the pound...shit, them niggas got the real sense...‘cause they gots street smarts. I make damn near eight-hundred grand a year, give or take a few dollars here and there, and my black ass ain’t never seen the inside of a fuckin’ college or university.”

  “Wow.”

  “You damn right, girl...wow,” Valentino said with arrogance. “Not only will I bless you with this big-ass rod I’m tot’n between my legs, but I’m gon’ bless you wit the type a lifestyle you ain’t never had befo’, Meredith. Think about it—them dudes ain’t never paid a fly ass broad like yourself no mind. As a matter o’ fact, that bitch ass Wilhelm pretty much used you. And once he taxed that ass he dropped you like a fuckin’ bad habit, didn’t he? Them muthafuckas don’t give a fuck ‘bout neither one of us. Shit, I think them peoples gon’ use us until they get what they want from us and then they gon’ try to set us up to be killed, ‘cause we know too much. C’mon now. That’s why we gotta get these punk bitches before they get us, ya feel me?”