Eviscerating the Snake - The Complete Trilogy

by Ashley Fontainne

Once I stepped inside my office, I locked the door and sat down behind my desk. I looked around for a moment, surveying the plush space that I had spent so much of my life in. I would be lying to myself if I didn’t admit that I would miss the place at all. Years spent pounding away at the keyboard had completely erased the letters on the keys, and stains from my sweaty hands left a funny looking sheen on my mouse.

  I let myself wander for a few moments down the path of memories, then forced my thoughts back to the tasks at hand, and that’s when I noticed my computer was missing.

  I buzzed my inept assistant to find out just where my computer was, but I was sure I already knew the answer. When she didn’t answer, I then pressed Carl’s direct number and impatiently waited for him to pick up. After three rings, it went to his voicemail. I slammed the phone back down and stood up, not relishing the idea of venturing out of the safety of my office to reach his. A light knock at the door startled me, then my nerves settled down when I heard Carl’s voice.

  “Nicole, are you on the phone?”

  I jerked the door open and ushered Carl inside.

  “I just tried to call you. We have a lot to discuss this morning. First and foremost, where the fuck is my computer?” I said, shooing him inside and quickly locking the door again before some low-life made his or her way over to ask about Audra again.

  “Well, hello to you too, Nicole,” he said, standing in the center of the office, looking like a lost puppy dog.

  “Sorry, I’m frazzled after wading through the reporters outside. Jesus, you would think I was a bitch in heat the way those whoredogs surrounded me. I should have just worked from home a few more days until things quiet down.”

  I motioned for him to sit, and he pulled up a chair on the other side of my desk.

  “Huh, you should have been here during the last week. It was insane. I believe that I aged about ten years.”

  I sat down behind my desk and leaned my elbows on the edge.

  “Recall that I was in the hospital because I had been kidnapped and almost murdered by two mental cases that we once called colleagues? Trust me, that wasn’t much fun either.”

  His face turned a dark shade of red, his cheeks so rosy they looked like they might bust any moment.

  “I’m sorry. That was crass of me. To minimize your sufferings by comparing them to mine was not my intent. I just meant that it has been stressful here, to say the least.”

  I waved my hands dismissively.

  “I know, Carl…I know. Sorry, but I am still on edge. Ok, enough talk about what happened. Let’s get down to what will happen. We have a huge mess on our hands. And again I ask, where is my computer?”

  “I don’t even know where to begin, Nicole. Three more sexual harassment lawsuits came in this week, which makes a total now of fifteen. I had dinner last night with the lawyers, and the news they have for us is not good. Most of the cases are solid, and each one is asking for a substantial amount of money. The only good news is that the life insurance proceeds on Olin and Robert should be arriving any day. At first, they balked about paying the claim on Robert until I produced all the documentation that Piper hadn’t been associated with Winscott for years. Once that hurdle was passed, they approved it. So, in a few days, we should be receiving the funds. A total of two point five million.”

  “How much are we talking to pay these tramps off?” I said, turning around to grab a pad and paper.

  “About two million dollars, total.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? That’s absurd!” I shouted, the pad of paper flying out of my hand and landing with a soft thud on the floor. “So, there goes that money, right out the door into the hands of whining whores that have their eyes filled with dollar signs. Fuck!”

  “No, I’m not kidding. On top of that, we have a new issue to deal with—Miranda.”

  “Well, let me guess. Since her baby’s daddy bit the dust, she wants a piece of Winscott’s profits, right?”

  Carl leaned back in the seat and rubbed his forehead. “Oh, if that were only the extent of the matter. She wants a free buy-in to equity partnership to happen like yesterday, or she is going to cry rape, and claim we all knew about it but covered it up. Tiffany told me yesterday that she saw Miranda getting into that reporter from Channel Six’s car yesterday at lunch-Jan something-or-other, which means she already has the media’s ear. At this point, after everything that happened, it isn’t going to make much difference whether there is any validity to her story from our end. The court of public opinion will already assume we are guilty.”

  “Well, isn’t that just dandy? Any more catastrophes you wish to drop on me my first day back?”

  Carl sighed and I noticed his earlier statement about aging was correct: he did look significantly older. The lines on his brow and around his eyes were deep enough to drive a small car through.

  “Well, to answer your earlier question about your computer is another painful subject. The FBI came on late Tuesday afternoon and removed yours, Kevin’s, and Audra’s computers, then proceeded to interview the entire staff. They also took Olin’s old computer and backed up our entire network and took a copy with them. Oh, and they also have all of the firm’s phone records, and now everyone is completely freaked out, thinking ‘big brother’ is monitoring their every move. Several auditors and tax staff quit on Wednesday. Said they couldn’t handle the stress.”

  I chewed on the new information for a moment, not sure how I should respond. Truthfully, I didn’t give a rat’s ass, since in a few days, I would be gone and none of the fucked up world of Winscott would be of my concern any longer. But I knew I needed to react in the typical way that Carl was used to seeing, so I proceeded to throw an enormous hissy fit.

  Once I finished my expletive-filled rant, I sat back down and faced Carl. The look on his face was so priceless that I almost started laughing.

  “Ok, so what do we do? Who knows when Audra will be back, which means that at least temporarily, it’s just the two of us piloting a sinking ship. Guess we need to decide which one of us should be steering, huh?”

  Carl cleared his throat and smiled sheepishly at me before he responded.

  “Please don’t think that I am trying to pry into your private life, Nicole, but Eric is back for good, correct?”

  I was thrilled with his line of questioning, since I hoped Eric’s name would be brought up by Carl rather than me. Excellent! The morning was playing out quite nicely. But I couldn’t let Carl know that, so I let my eyes squint into small slits, showing my irritation at his probing question.

  “Sounds to me like a prying question, Carl. Why do you ask?”

  He faltered, his face turning that ridiculous shade of hot red once again.

  “Well, um, because honestly, if he is, well, planning on staying for some time, and you two are on friendly terms, do you think he would consider coming back here?”

  I let that question sit for just a second, watching Carl as he faintly squirmed in his seat.

  “Funny you should ask me that, Carl. I am beginning to think you two are in cahoots together. First you send him to pick me up from the hospital, which, by the way, I would have appreciated some warning on that little topic. Then you both start making noises about his coming out of retirement. If he hadn’t already told me last night that he thinks I should be interim managing partner while Audra recuperates, then I would think you both are trying to figure out a way for him to weasel in and take control, since I don’t believe that he only came back for me.”

  Carl’s face went from cherry red to ashen white.

  “No, no, Nicole. Look, I knew I should have called you to say he was the one picking you up, but he swore me to secrecy, and quite frankly, if he hadn’t expressed some real emotion about his reasons for coming back, I might have just warned you. But he sounded so, well, sincere. He was genuinely concerned about you, and when he told me that he left Elaine, I knew that he wasn’t blowing smoke up my ass. And I agree with him one hundred percent: you
should be interim managing partner. I sure as hell don’t want the responsibility. Hell, what I want is an extended vacation.”

  I let a faint smile cross my lips as I replied, “Don’t we all?”

  “Then it’s settled. Eric’s back, and you should take the reigns. I’m sure that Audra won’t have a problem with that. I will draw up the papers and then get in touch with her.” He stood up and walked around to my side of the desk, extending his hand with a huge, stupid grin across his face. “And congratulations for taking the helm, Captain Nicole. Just remember, the Captain is the last one off the sinking ship!”

  His hand was warm and sticky and it took all my concentration not to let my disgust show in my face. He turned to walk out the door, then stopped as he added one more thing. “Oh, and Nicole, you are wrong. He did only come back for you. Something changed in him when he realized he almost lost you.”

  I let a quick splash of worry cross my face, laying some groundwork for the future. “He’s changed all right, but I’m not sure it’s for the reasons you think. He has sort of become…oh, never mind….It’s my problem, not yours.”

  “Nicole, what’s going on? As small as we are, what is the problem of one becomes the problem of all,” Carl said, the concern in his voice unmistakable.

  I brushed his question away with my hand and turned away to face the window, replying in a quiet whisper.

  “He’s just different, that’s all. Now, I don’t wish to discuss the subject anymore. I have other things to occupy my time with rather than venting about Eric’s newfound hobby of knowing my every move. I will inform him tonight that he’s welcome back, and I’m sure that will give him something, other than me, to obsess about.”

  Carl didn’t respond, and for a moment, I wondered whether he was going to leave or say something else. Since my back was turned to him, I couldn’t read his facial expression, but the electricity level in the room let me know he was struggling with what, if anything, he should say. Thankfully, he left, closing the door quietly behind him.

  I believe my master plan just took its final step. I just needed to handle the final touches and put into motion the machinery that would destroy all those who ever dared cross my path. It was time to work out in my head exactly the correct verbiage for the purported last correspondence from Eric Jennings.

  Ahh, revenge—’tis sweeter on the tongue the longer one awaits to taste.

  THURSDAY EVENING

  I DOUBLE CHECKED MY pocket once more for the cash that lined it before I stepped out of my car. The alleyway next to the club was a good hundred yards from me and I didn’t want to have to make the trip twice if I neglected to bring it with me. Feeling the tight wad in my pocket, I felt nervousness creep up my back. Once I stepped out of the car, there was no turning back.

  The music from inside the club reverberated throughout my body, the thumping bass so heavy I felt my cast vibrate with each note, along with a dull thud in my broken arm. Even though I left the hospital with a cavalcade of pain killers, I refused to take even just one, saving them for the right time. Not only was that decision wise in terms of not having to suffer drug-induced nightmares, but it also gave me some credence for my performance as a junkie. I had already swallowed one hoping it would help calm my nerves. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working.

  I glanced at my watch and decided I could spare another fifteen minutes. It was well past one o’clock in the morning and the partygoers at the strip club were still hitting it hard and heavy. When I was there the night before to meet with Raul, the former client that I orchestrated a sweet deal for a few years before for exactly what I was hitting him up for shortly, he had been shocked to see me. Of course, my ragged appearance helped me pull my plan off. At first, he assumed I came to set him up, and he proceeded to have his goons yank me into the back room and made me strip, checking every crevice for a wire. When Raul was satisfied that I wasn’t a narc and was on the up and up, I did a bang-up job portraying myself as a junkie. I told Raul that I was on “vacation” after the tragic events of the past week, and that I needed something to take the edge off, and pure white smack was my recreational drug of choice.

  It took me a half hour to convince him that not only was that what I wanted and had the cash to acquire, but that if he aided me with my endeavor, that the next time he found himself on the wrong side of the law, I would handle his case for free. That final piece of persuasion sealed the deal, and he told me he would call when the delivery came in. I waited on pins and needles for the last twenty four hours until the call came in.

  I couldn’t believe that I was at a titty bar again, waiting the official cue from Raul’s bouncer, Mamouth, to give me the signal to come inside. I didn’t relish the idea of stepping foot in the place during the busiest time of the night, afraid I might run into someone I knew that was viewing the scenery. Then again, the way I looked, I really didn’t need to worry.

  The last time I had set foot in a strip club to party was the night Ralph Winscott took a swing at me and ended up flat on the dirty ground with a nasty bump on the back of his head. For a brief moment, that brought a smile to my face, but it disappeared as quickly as it appeared when I remembered exactly how much death and destruction that tape had caused.

  And it was back again to haunt me. Blackmail should be renamed boomerang because that is precisely what happens—it comes back and thumps you right smack in the head, and you are lucky if you survive the impact.

  My nose began twitching and a tear slid out of the corner of my eye, the rank smell of body odor hitting me hard. I almost groaned in disgust since I knew it was my own stench that I smelled, but it couldn’t be helped. It was all part of my disguise to accurately portray myself as a junkie needing a fix. No one, not even my boyfriend, would have recognized me. My clothes were basically rags held together by a few threads of string, my face and hair I had yet to wash since my departure from the hospital, and the flip flops I was wearing were full of holes in their soles. A full week’s worth of stubble graced my chin, intermixed with all the dirt, which made me look like I just crawled out of the closest dumpster.

  Since my release from the hospital on Tuesday, I had been a very busy man. Knowing that I needed complete solitude to plot and plan, I had been staying in a dive motel about twelve miles out of town. I had dared not go home for fear that the paparazzi would be lying in wait to snag a bite out of me, so I went straight to a car rental place and rented an interesting vehicle that was two sizes too small for my frame. And for my cast. The only saving grace was that it was an automatic and had air.

  My own car sat safely in the rental company’s gated parking lot until I returned. Once I had the rental, I drove straight to the local computer retailer and purchased a cheap laptop and prepaid air card. Then, it only took me a few hours to prepare the documents that Ethan demanded of me after researching on the net and some creative energy on my part (plus a little electronic doctoring to give it the official quality it needed). The little bastard may know some things, but legal terminology most likely wasn’t one of them, and I knew that my efforts needed to be spent in other areas rather than making fake documents for the twerp.

  It’s not like he would be able to do anything with them anyway, since he would be six feet under with his father. Too bad Olin’s wife had him cremated or junior could have been buried next to daddy.

  It was only a little over forty-eight hours since I left the town of Summerset, and I was ready to take the final step and go deliver my promised goods to junior. Part of me wanted to call Steve and thank him for not only supplying the idea of how to accomplish my task (through a phony book scene, how creative was that?) but the confidential information I had needed to locate Ethan. Earlier, I had driven by his house, surprised when the GPS locator said “you have arrived at your destination” because truly, I was on crack house row. For a fleeting second, I almost felt sorry for the young man inside the filthy place, marveling at how the disease of drug addiction knew no bounds, when I snapped o
ut of my funk and remembered why I was there.

  While I sat there in my car and contemplated on things, it crossed my mind how quickly I went from strategizing about cases, billable hours, what fine dining establishment Bob and I would eat at, and the state of our finances. I was lost inside a world that I never thought I would be a part of—sitting in the front seat of a rental car outside of a strip club while I worked up the nerve to go trade my hard-earned cash for heroin so I could go kill my blackmailer who just so happened to be the son of the man I killed a week prior. Oh, and the plan was devised by the cop that my ex-wife shot because of the twisted mind games played on her by the first man I killed. Fuck, really? The whole sordid saga was too crazy even for a Hollywood movie. Not even the victim channel (as Bob so lovingly referred to Lifetime) could concoct such a demented story.

  Yet I was living it.

  Sweat was beginning to form under my armpits and around my brow. I needed to roll the windows down for some fresh air, and just as I started to do so, I saw what I had been waiting to see—the signal from Mamouth. When his huge Samoan frame walked outside and lit up a smoke, my heart started beating faster as the rush of adrenaline hit my system. I watched him lean against the dirty brick wall, and then I took a deep breath and made my move.

  My cast was hidden well inside the long jacket I wore, and I pulled the black skullcap down further on my head as I stumbled across the street toward the entrance. My stint as a defense attorney was coming in quite handy and I felt I was pulling off the part of a drug addict quite well since God knows I had seen my share over the years.

  I walked up the steps to the entrance and nodded in silence at Mamouth.

  “Back, second door on the left,” he said while opening the door for me.

  The aroma hit me first as the door opened, a nasty mixture of stank sweat and stale cigarette smoke. If I wasn’t already feeling loopy, the smell would have made me vomit.

  I followed Mamouth’s instructions while I kept my head low and eyes to the ground. When I reached the second door, it opened before I could even knock.