Travel Money

by JONATHAN BROWN

  TRAVEL MONEY

  A Grifter’s Song Episode 15

  Jonathan Brown

  Series Created and Edited

  by Frank Zafiro

  Copyright © 2021 by Jonathan Brown

  All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Travel Money

  About the Author

  Books by the Author

  Preview from the sixteenth episode of A Grifter’s Song

  Rocky Mountain Lie by Michael Pool

  Lawndale, California, Central Neighborhood

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Rachel said with her chin resting on Sam’s chest. Sam’s eyes were closed but Rachel knew he was awake. Sam grunted.

  “Ready to get that quick paper?”

  Sam grunted again but more feebly this time. Rachel grabbed a pinch-full of skin on his chest and twisted. “What’s this, the ‘I’m still asleep con’? Don’t bullshit me, babe. I know you’re awake.”

  Sam lay on his back with hands behind his head. He smiled, opened his eyes and tilted his head down to kiss Rachel gently on the lips. “Yes, dear, I’m ready. I’ll let you shower first since you’ve got to put on the superhero uniform.”

  Rachel gave him a deep kiss and tossed her side of the comforter off and hopped out of bed. She knew Sam was admiring her ass as she walked to the bathroom. He’d certainly be fully awake now.

  “Hey, don’t get too dolled up. Remember, he’s supposed to want the girls not you,” Sam called.

  Rachel turned and put on a sexy pose in the narrow-framed bathroom doorway.

  “Too dolled up? Who me?”

  “Maybe you should come back to bed…”

  “Focus on the money, babe, not the money shot,” she said, blowing her man a kiss and prancing into the bathroom. Rachel turned on the water and waited for it to warm up. She also counted off seconds in her head. She knew the way Sam looked at her he’d be joining her momentarily. Satisfied with the temperature, she grabbed the soap and washed her face. By this time she rinsed the soap, she felt Sam’s strong embrace from behind.

  “Oh, what a pleasant surprise,” she said. She turned around as if they were dance partners and gave him a deep kiss.

  “Surprise, my ass,” Sam said as he pulled away. “You knew what you were doing.”

  “I’m glad I’ve still got it.”

  “Still got it? Ha, you’re getting better by the day, babe.” Sam said.

  After fulfilling shower sex, Rachel kicked Sam out so she could finish washing her hair. When she came out in a towel, Sam was dressed and loading up his pockets: car keys, money clip, cell phone and his good luck zippo. With items tucked away she watched him look around the room with a look like he’d just eaten a bitter lemon.

  “This motel blows,” he said.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Rachel said. “I think the shower’s more than adequate.”

  He grinned. “Can’t argue that.”

  Hawthorne, California, East Side

  Sam waited in the rental, a cherry red 2019 Porsche Macan. He sat in the parking lot in clear view of the Naughty Girls tiny office—the phony business he and Rachel set up. The space was previously an H&R Block. The day before Sam spoke with the two-person Latina cleaning crew as they cleaned the office. It was obvious to Sam the older one, Minerva, ran the show. With carefully worded questions in his best Spanglish and just the right amount of flattery Sam learned Minerva’s Cleaners was given the weekend to clean the space. Monday the landlord would swing by and slap a For Lease sign on the building.

  When Sam pulled the wad of hundreds from his pocket Benjamin Franklin’s face folded over three times before Minerva’s grin reached capacity and her plump, weathered hand closed around the bills.

  “I suppose I can bring over mis ninos on Domingo to help finish clean.” She smiled, folded the bills in half and slid them beneath her bra strap. Once that was locked, Sam’s job was to head to the local copy place and get signage for Naughty Girls: Bachelor Parties, Private Events, Fantasies Guaranteed!

  Rachel was already inside sitting at one of the old tax prep desks, which she and Sam rearranged the night before. She wore tight white pants that flowed into a slight bellbottom and Jimmy Choo knockoffs. Her deep fuchsia top was nearly as snug as the pants. With the neckline plunging low and push-up bra doing its job she was bordering on being “too dolled up” according to Sam. She welcomed the compliment.

  Twenty-four by thirty-six-inch laminated posters of hot girls lifted from the internet dotted the plain white walls. Sam even printed up cheesy italicized phrases like Whatever You Desire And We Turn Fantasies Into Reality.

  When Rachel rolled her eyes at the effort, Sam said, “Trust me, it’s the perfect amount of cheese for a dumb college kid with a trust fund.”

  With the help of Maya, Rachel’s longtime friend and expert computer hacker adding final touches, Rachel built a website in two hours stacked with stock internet photos of sexy girls all over the two-page site. Rachel got a kick out of writing up erotic bios and fake names for the girls.

  As she tweaked the site, she heard Colt’s late model Corvette Stingray pull up to the building. Of course he had a ’Vette, Rachael thought thinking back to the night she met Colt at the bar. Colt and his bro Brian aka Biff—where do they get these names?—were pre-celebrating the end of Biff’s life of freedom. “The dumb shit’s getting married,” Colt would holler after each tequila shot. These guys were beyond ripe for the picking. Rachel introduced herself as Julia and barely broke a sweat roping in Colt, the best man.

  A couple rounds of drinks in, Rachel had Colt begging her for her company’s services because so far he hadn’t planned shit for the bachelor party and it was two weeks away.

  “That’s what I’m here for, my friend. Relax, get drunk and call me day after tomorrow,” Rachel purred.

  “Aw, man, you’re a fuckin’ lifesaver, honey. But wait,” he said fighting to focus his eyes. “Are the bitches, sorry, la—ladies hot like you, and can I get any kind o’ girls?”

  “Colt, my man, I’ve got white girls, black girls, Asians and more. I can get you big tits, small tits, real tits and fake ones. Naughty Girls has petit girls all the way up to plus- size. When you come in for a meeting we’ll go through the roster,” she said using a sports phrase she thought the sophomore jock would appreciate. “You won’t be disappointed, my friend.”

  Colt swayed on his feet then stumbled in and gave Rachel a rib-crushing bear hug. She felt sorr
y for Colt’s opponents on the football field. Rachel slithered out of his grasp before the big dolt thought he had a shot with her. Later, when she met Sam in the bar’s lot she gave her head a shake at seeing the ’Vette with the vanity plate: CLT DAWG.

  “Geez, I wonder whose car that is?” she said.

  “Now let’s not go jumping to conclusions,” Sam said with a facetious grin. The Porsche door opened by him merely touching the door handle since the key was in his pocket.

  “I could get used to this car,” Sam said climbing in.

  “That day is around the corner, babe,” Rachel said, and slid into the passenger seat.

  “Good morning,” Rachel said, rising from her seat. The burly college kid’s hair was disheveled. Cheap sunglasses covered his eyes. A giant coffee cup trembled slightly in his large hand.

  “Oh dear, feeling a bit rough today, Colt?”

  “You could say that. I swear this whole wedding is bullshit,” he said, plopping down heavily into the chair opposite Rachel’s. “I don’t know if it’s day three or four on this friggin’ bender. We’ve been balls to the wall twenty-four-sev’.”

  “Well you’re here so let me brighten your day. If your coffee runs dry, I’ve got more in the back.”

  “Thanks, Julia.”

  “You got it,” Rachel said. She pulled up the fake Naughty Girls website and spun the laptop around for Colt to see. He took off his sunglasses, revealing deep red bloodshot watery eyes.

  “Everything you could ever ask for,” Rachel said. “Take your time.”

  Colt barely lasted ten seconds before asking for a bathroom. Rachel led him to it and immediately heard vomiting behind the door. She hoped he didn’t make too big a mess for Minerva and her ninos to clean up. When he returned, he whined again that he and Biff had been partying their asses off non-stop getting primed for the wedding. And for the life of him he couldn’t understand why Biff would want to walk away from the party life. Rachel strongly agreed and lied that she’d tried marriage once and would never do it again.

  Colt sped through the site and picked eight girls.

  “You’re in luck, Colt. These girls are all…oh hang on—” she paused. “Okay, Tiffany and let’s see, Brittney are booked on another event. So that means six of your girls are good to go but you’ll need to grab two others. Here—” she spun the laptop back around for the client. Colt quickly found two substitutes claiming they were hot enough—he supposed. Rachel complimented his choices and pressed on.

  “And you wanted the three-hour booze cruise, yes?”

  Rachel used her phone calculator to tally up the phony bill. For a moment Colt looked around the office with a knitted brow. “Didn’t you say you was in business for like six years or some shit? This place looks kinda—”

  “We just opened this location,” she said. “Our fifteenth in the U.S., actually. Sorry about the mess.”

  “No shit,” he said with eyebrows raised. He frowned into his coffee cup then knocked back the rest of the drink and followed it with a loud burp.

  Rachel was done a minute later. “Okay, we’ve got the cruise at twenty-five hundred. The booze will require a thousand-dollar deposit and you’ll be billed if you go over. Let’s see, eight girls at three hundred each is another twenty-four hundred and—”

  “The boat seems kinda cheap,” Colt said, looking a little green. “I’m not renting a piece of shit tugboat for the Biff-man.”

  Ooh this kid is funded…

  “Well that’s because I haven’t added in the captain, crew and caterers,” she said thinking quickly on her feet.

  “What’s that shit run?”

  Rachel fake calculated on her phone while pulling the math from her head.

  “Thirty-eight hundred,” she said finally.

  “So what am I looking at all in? I need to get outta here. No offensive but I feel like shit.”

  No offensive, but you look like it, too. Rachel thought fast. “We’re at ninety-seven hundred.”

  “Deposit is—”

  “And my fifteen percent puts you at eleven thousand one hundred and fifty-five.”

  Why not push it?

  “I like you, Colt. Let’s call it eleven grand even. With sixty percent down that’s sixty-six hundred. Okay, for sixty-five hundred cash now you can go enjoy the sunshine.” Rachel smiled, leaning close so he could drink in her perfume.

  “Fuck the sunshine, I’m going back to bed.” He hauled out a fat roll of bills, smacked the money on the desk, and stood.

  Rachel said, “Great, I just need an email address so I can send you the contract and receipt.”

  With a heavy sigh, Colt spewed, “Coltdawgmoney69 and that’s a gmail account,” he said. “Oh and by the way dog is spelled d-a-w-g.”

  “Like your sweet license plate,” Rachel said.

  “You’re friggin’ sweet,” Colt beamed, shook Rachel’s hand and hurried out.

  Rachel climbed into the Porsche and spanked the dash with the stack of hundreds. Sam gave her a big smile and a kiss.

  “Let’s blow this joint, babe!” Rachel said. “We got our travel money.”

  Trinity County: 1 mile south of Bullion, California

  Sam maneuvered the luxury rental through the hilly region of Trinity County with ease. Rachel sat with her bare feet up on the dash and the window down. During the short stop in San Francisco she bought a bottle from a pharmacy and dyed her hair from auburn to blonde. She let the wind toss her thick locks all over the place as she scrolled through her phone. Sam’s numerous sideways glances told her he appreciated the change.

  “We are all set on the place. The owners have rented a villa in Sicily and won’t be back for six weeks. That’ll give us plenty of time,” Rachel said. “My God, this town is so cute. They’re calling it the new Carmel of California and sometimes Carmel North.”

  “How fitting for us that the city’s called Bullion. Was it named by some old forty-niner gold rush dude?” Sam asked.

  “They’d like tourists to think so. No, it was just some developer came along in the eighties and thought what better way to attract the money class?”

  “Are we talking eighteen eighties?” Sam asked.

  “Hardy har har. Nope, nineteen eighties.”

  Sam slowed at a turn then pushed the accelerator hard coming out of the corner.

  “Well,” he said. “I think his plan worked. I read the median home price is—”

  “Nine hundred thousand,” Rachel finished for him. They exchanged a gentle fist bump. “And rising.”

  Sam eased the Porsche over the interlocking paver stones. The stones were enhanced with a high gloss finish, giving them a wet look. A woman in a form fitting floral dress with deep blues, greens and reds with a tiny keyhole opening below the neck stood at the bottom of the front steps. She was slightly knock-kneed with over-developed calves. Rachel clocked her teal Louboutin’s at nine hundred dollars minimum.

  “This must be our fearless rental concierge,” Rachel said, adopting a giant practiced smile. Rachel got out to meet the concierge as Sam shut the vehicle down.

  “Welcome, welcome you must be Julia Sawkins,” she said.

  “I am indeed and you must be Jennifer Boyers,” Rachel said.

  “Guilty,” she laughed, accepting Rachel’s warm hug.

  “This is my brother Steve,” Rachel said, waving toward Sam. Sam put the bags down and gave Jennifer a hug of his own and told her what a pleasure it was to finally meet her.

  “What a beautiful home,” Rachel said. “You just never know with Airbnb. Sometimes the photos don’t tell the real picture.”

  “Oh, I know,” Jennifer said. “But you needn’t worry around these parts. We’re a really close community with practically no crime or fraud whatsoever. People that use Airbnb in Bullion are as honest as the day is long.”

  “You don’t say? How lovely for you.” Rachel sneaked a wink at Sam.

  Sam and Rachel f
ollowed Jennifer through the massive oak door and stopped inside the large foyer.

  “My God, so much glass,” Rachel beamed. “So much natural light.”

  “It’s pretty much glass and American black steel,” Jennifer said. “I don’t know if you realize but this was designed by famed architect Reginald Roy. He died about three years ago. This was one of his favorites.”

  “I’m a huge fan of Mr. Roy,” Sam lied. “He was originally from…”

  “San Jose, until he moved here,” Jennifer said.

  “That’s right, I recall it now,” Sam smiled.

  Jennifer gave the faux siblings a slow detailed tour of the house, boasting all of its attributes and accouterments. Rachel made a point of gushing when appropriate. She could tell that Jennifer liked her and would probably want to be girlfriends if Julia were to move to Bullion. The poor thing had no idea what she and Sam were about to pull.

  Jennifer ended the tour out back by the oval shaped pool.

  “So that’s about it. My number is on the brochure, and if you lose that my card’s on the dining room table. Feel free to call with any questions.”

  “What a lovely home,” Rachel said. “We really need the R and R. This is perfect. It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Jennifer.” Rachel then moved close and spoke low and conspiratorially, “by the way, I absolutely love your dress.”

  “Oh this?” Jennifer blushed. “A woman in town makes them. Gina’s, you’ll see it. If you buy one we’ll have to make sure we don’t wear them on the same day.” Jennifer laughed and gave Rachel a gentle hug.

  Girlfriends for sure…

  Sam and Rachel walked her out and thanked her again. Rachel closed the door and pressed her back to it.