Two minutes after that, I called Marlene.
“Lisa was just here,” I said when she answered. My voice was bitter. I was furious. “Why the fuck was she just here?”
Marlene responded with silence for a moment before saying, “Lisette . . . I . . . I’m sorry.”
“I did you a favor, Marlene. From our lips to God’s ears. It was supposed to stay that way.”
“I know.”
“Then why the fuck was Lisa here?” I asked again.
Marlene sighed. “Lisette . . .”
“Marlene.”
“Lisa . . . I’ve known her for a long time. Since college. She’s a good woman with a good heart. She was fooled. She thought she’d hit the jackpot with Brad. He was a rising star on the police force. He played the role better than Steve did. For five years, we all thought she was living the fairy tale life. Nice home, beautiful kids, a loving, caring husband that would and did do anything for her. I couldn’t believe it when she told me. There was just no way the Brad I had come to know would ever put his hands on her. But then she showed me bruises.”
“Marlene . . .” I started before being cut off.
“Lisette, what you did for me . . . it changed my life. I was unhappy. I was beaten emotionally. I was dying slowly each day, forcing myself to live a lie because I was just too afraid to say fuck everyone else. I know I was never supposed to tell anyone about what we did, but, Lisette . . . Lisa needs you.”
“I did a favor for you, Marlene. I’m not a savior.”
“You’re wrong, Lisette. You are a savior. You saved me. Gave me strength I didn’t know I had. You gave me a new life. Lisa . . . she’s going to die if you don’t help her.”
I squeezed my eyes shut tightly. I didn’t want to care. I didn’t want Marlene’s words to affect me. But I would have had to have been inhuman. “There’s got to be someone she can go to for help.”
“He’s an extremely well-respected captain on the police force, Lisette. No one is going to believe that he beats his wife. And even if someone did, they wouldn’t dare speak out against him.”
“Why doesn’t she just run away?”
“Brad’s a public figure. There is no running away for her. Not without the media getting wind of this.”
“That wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
“It was a struggle for her to open up to me, Lisette. She’s a very proud woman. She doesn’t want anyone knowing about this.”
“There’s got to be someone,” I said again.
“Lisette, you don’t have to sleep with him. Just trap him. Give Lisa something concrete that she can use that would give her the freedom she needs and deserves.”
I shook my head. Again I said, “I’m not a savior.”
“Please, Lisette. She’s my friend and she’s suffering, emotionally more than physically. Please help her. I’m begging you.”
I shook my head again and gritted my teeth. I thought about Lisa and the look in her eyes. I thought about the way she’d grabbed my wrist. I remembered the strength in her cries outside of my door before she left. Marlene said she was going to die if I didn’t help her. I couldn’t help but wonder if my rejection hadn’t already sent her on her way. Damn it, I didn’t want to give a damn.
“Please, Lisette,” Marlene pleaded again. “She’s willing to pay you thirty thousand dollars.”
“I don’t need the money.”
“That’s bullshit, Lisette. Everyone needs money.”
“Marlene—”
“I’ll add another twenty to that. That’s another fifty thousand dollars. And like I said, you don’t have to sleep with him.”
Another fifty thousand.
Like I said, I wasn’t inhuman. And my being human made the prospect of getting another fifty thousand dollars extremely appealing.
Fifty thousand dollars.
Brad. He was another Steve, only worse.
Fifty thousand dollars.
I didn’t have to sleep with him.
Fifty thousand dollars.
All I had to do was trap him. Give Lisa something she could use to bring him down.
Fifty thousand dollars.
He deserved to be trapped. Deserved to pay in whatever way Lisa wanted to make him pay. Lisa. For all of the shit she was enduring, she deserved it too. Helping her wouldn’t put an end to the physical abuse of women, but it would put an end to hers. Like I said, I didn’t want to care. Didn’t want to give a shit.
But I did. And I won’t lie; it had been an intoxicating feeling looking at the balance of my bank account after my night with Steve.
Fifty thousand dollars.
I was standing in front of my dressing table staring at myself in the mirror when I said, “Lisa left about thirty minutes ago. Call her and tell her to come back.”
Marlene exhaled into the receiver. “Thank you, Lisette.”
Three weeks later, I gave Lisa a videotape of her husband on all fours, barking like a dog, begging me to fuck him up his ass with a dildo he’d brought. Turns out, Captain Bradley Stern enjoyed a good, stiff dick as much as any woman did.
Weeks after that, I was sitting with Marlene in the small café at Barnes and Noble. She’d called me and asked me to meet her there. She said she was craving a Barnes and Noble turkey sandwich and a caramel macchiato. She also said she had something important to discuss with me. Something life-changing. I agreed to meet her only because she wouldn’t take no for an answer. This was after Lisa and her bi-sexual captain of the police, who, by the way, had practically dropped off the face of the earth after Lisa made his secret known.
I was sipping on a vanilla latte, grande size, without whipped cream. She was drinking her macchiato with a lot of whipped cream. She’d devoured her sandwich seconds after she’d gotten it.
She was in her sixth month of pregnancy. For some women, pregnancy stole their beauty away. For others, it enhanced it. Marlene was in that percentile. Pregnancy was good to her. With the exception of a few additional pounds and a slightly wider nose, she was all belly. She was having a boy, and she was ecstatic.
“I know so many other Lisas, Lisette,” she said. “I have so many other friends as fed up as I was. Paying money to get the results you can get for them wouldn’t be an issue. I know women that can and would pay more than fifty thousand dollars.”
She paused and looked at me. I kept silent, sipped my latte and waited to see where she was going.
“Become a private investigator, Lisette. You can insure yourself and your services. Someone doesn’t like the results you provide—tough. Make them sign a contract. There wouldn’t be a damn thing they could do.”
I took another sip of my flavored coffee and said, “When did you come up with this idea?”
“After Lisa, I realized I had so many other friends that would be willing to pay for the same result.”
“Willing to pay me?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“Once Benjamin is born, I’ll be getting monthly checks from Steve for at least eighteen years. Lisa is now enjoying life and being fucked by one of her husband’s former subordinates. The proof is in the pudding, Lisette, and as Steve found out, your pudding is gold.”
I couldn’t help it; I smiled.
“Lisette, I can bring clientele to you. You can make a lot of money. Easy money. And don’t say you don’t need or want it.”
My eyes on hers, I took another sip of latte. She was a different woman from the one I’d sat in front of back in Houston. And it had nothing to do with the pregnancy. That Marlene had been a shell of a woman. She had a slumped, defeated posture. Stress lines decorated the corners of her eyes and mouth, and made her appearance synonymous with her broken spirit. The Marlene sitting before me, taking a sip of her heavily whipped-creamed caramel macchiato was the complete opposite. Shoulders pinned back and high, back arched, attitude laced with a confidence that made me feel as though, were she twenty years younger, she would have kept
the clients all to herself.
“What do you get out of this, Marlene?”
“Satisfaction.”
“Of?”
“Of seeing another woman liberated from the shit men put us through.”
I closed my eyes a bit. “Satisfaction?”
Marlene said, “Yes.” Then she cleared her throat and said, “And twenty percent.”
Again I couldn’t help it; I smiled again.
This was definitely not the same Marlene.
I said, “Twenty percent?”
“We can make a lot of money, Lisette. More importantly, we can do something that women have wanted to do to men for years—truly stick it to them.”
“And you want twenty percent?”
“You know I have rich friends, Lisette. Twenty percent is nothing.”
“Twenty percent of fifty thousand thousand leaves me with forty thousand.”
“Forty thousand for what—three weeks’ worth of work, tops? Hell, considering some of the assholes my friends are married to, in three weeks’ time, you could have five or six clients.”
“More.”
Marlene smiled now. “I know. I was being conservative.”
I gave Marlene a nod and sipped some more of my latte, which had become annoyingly lukewarm. Unless you rushed to drink it down, there was no sitting and taking the time to enjoy a hot beverage anymore. It was all a scam. Companies used cheaper paper cups. The drinks got colder faster. Consumers addicted to their tea, hot chocolate or java, had no choice but to spend another three dollars and change looking for the satisfaction they craved. Three dollars and change multiplied by two for every person, multiplied by more than a million people, was a hell of a lot of money for companies to recoup.
I took one last annoyed sip and then moved the cup to the side. There’d be no other drink for me. To hell with Barnes and Noble.
I looked at Marlene with a scrutinizing eye. “So you want to be my pimp, Marlene?”
Marlene’s eyes widened. “No!”
“Offering out my services to paying customers. . . taking your cut . . . sounds like pimpin’ to me.”
Marlene shook her head vigorously. “No. That’s not what I’d be doing at all.”
I raised my eyebrows and said, “Really?”
“Really.” Marlene’s forehead knotted up as she grabbed her coffee and took a hard sip.
I held back a smile. I enjoyed putting her on edge.
Marlene put her cup down and passed her hands through her hair, which was a lighter shade of blonde now. “Lisette, in no way, shape or form is what I’m talking about to be confused with prostitution. Whether women like to admit it or not, men always have the upper hand. They can and have always been able to do what they want, when they want, with whomever they want.” She lowered her voice a notch and leaned forward in her chair. “I’m talking about uprooting the playing field by giving women the opportunity to make the game backfire on the men. Or in some cases, instead of uprooting it, just leveling it by giving them something to hold over their asshole husbands’ heads, so that they could do as the men have done.”
“Like fuck the gardener or the mailman.”
“And unless the husbands want their infidelity exposed—”
“They wouldn’t say shit.”
“Exactly.”
I looked at Marlene and again thought about the woman back in Houston. She’d been so different. She’d been so weak. Now look at her. Lisa had been different too. She was an emotional wreck, beaten down and scarred. Now she was fucking a man that used to report to her ex-husband.
Uproot or level the playing field. It would be up to the woman to decide which option they wanted to go with. All I had to do was make it happen. And, according to Marlene, all she had to do was enroll her friends in the program. It’s funny, but I should have been the one to come up with the plan.
I said, “Fifteen percent.”
Marlene looked at me. Her eyes said that wasn’t a fair deal at all.
Her plan, but, “I can get clients without you, Marlene.” My tone was no-nonsense.
Marlene looked from me to her cup of macchiato, and then down to the floor.
Fifteen percent.
Take it or leave it.
Her choice.
A few seconds passed before Marlene looked at me again. Her eyes were saying something different this time. “Okay. Fifteen percent.”
Present
12
Two years. That’s how long I’d been a home wrecker.
Two years, six women empowered in one way or another. Marlene had friends. Her friends had friends. Her friends’ friends had friends. Six degrees of separation. My clients and their reasons for needing and wanting my services varied. I had women like Lisa, either battered emotionally, physically, or both, who needed help escaping from the hell their bastards were putting them through. I felt sorry for these clients, but at the same time, they really annoyed the hell out of me with their teary sob stories, because I just couldn’t understand taking a man’s bullshit the way they did. A man had one opportunity with me. One disrespectful statement from his mouth. One violent physical outburst against me. That’s all it would take for me to send the son of a bitch’s balls up into his throat. I was and never would be the one, and I never will understand the women who do become the one.
Right or wrong, my fee was high for these clients.
I had other clientele who hired me to satisfy their nagging suspicions that their husbands weren’t as faithful as they claimed to be. These clients usually hired me with the hopes that their husband’s actions or lack of action toward me would prove that their men weren’t typical. That was never the case. These clients always broke down after I presented them with evidence. These women made my head shake. They never understood that they were better off not knowing at all.
Then there were other Marlenes, who wanted hard evidence in one form or another to use against their husbands in court. Women fed up, who wanted to take their men to the cleaners. I respected these women.
Finally, there were the wives who didn’t want a divorce. These were my favorites. I called them the lost and found. At one point, they’d lost their way by losing their control, but they’d found their way again when they realized that, short of literally dragging a man around by his dick, having evidence to hold over his bastard head was the best form of control any woman could have. These women got it. I charged them the most, because with the evidence in their hands, they could get anything they wanted.
Two years. Over three hundred thousand tax-free dollars earned. I’d kept my nine-to-five to keep Uncle Sam from asking questions.
Six women had finally grown tired of being humiliated and had come calling when all else had failed. They all wanted their dignity and control back. Control over their lives, control over the men that were fucking them up emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Marlene’s friends.
Her friends’ friends. Marlene may have been, but I wasn’t on any type of moral crusade, although I will admit that it did feel good giving the women the upper hand. But like I said, it was all about the Benjamins for me. And my quest to get paid nearly got me killed.
13
Kyra Rogers. She would become my nightmare.
I was at work coming up with some new designs for a new client the company had taken on, when my silver Sidekick started vibrating. I had two Sidekicks, a black one and a silver one. Black was for everyday use. The silver rang only when my services were needed. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. My silver Sidekick was never supposed to ring until after five. These were the instructions I’d given to Marlene to give to any potential client. Prior to that day, every potential had followed protocol.
Kyra Rogers.
My Sidekick was top of the line, with a lot of features and capabilities I didn’t utilize. Too bad it didn’t have the capability to do a personality assessment for each caller. Had it been able to do that, I could have avoided the life-changing drama I wou
ld endure.
For a split second, I contemplated letting the call go to my voice mail, but I’d just recently eaten lunch, and my eyes were getting heavy. I needed the break. I answered the call.
“Hello.”
“I want my husband trapped. Can you get the job done?”
Something about the tone in her voice didn’t sit well with me. My gut was telling me to disconnect the call. Instead of listening, I said, “And you are?”
“Who I am only matters if you can get the job done.”
I pulled my Sidekick away from my ear and gave it a who-the-fuck-is-this-bitch glare. I put it back to my ear and ignored the insistence from my gut.
“So can you or can’t you?”
I sat up in my chair. We’d only been talking for a few seconds, yet for the first time, I felt as though I had no control. I didn’t like the feeling at all. It was uncomfortable. I thought again about pressing for a name, but changed my mind. She knew who I was. I knew what she needed.
It was time to take my control back.
“And how much are you willing to pay for the results?”
Supply and demand. I had the supplies. My services were in demand. How desperate was she?
She said, “More than anyone has paid you before.”
Her comment was direct and arrogant.
“And how would you know what I’ve been paid?”
“Believe me . . . I know.”
My skin tingled as I fell back into that uncomfortable space again. Who the fuck was this woman? What exactly did she know?
Control.
Once again I didn’t have it.
I looked at the clock on my PC, and once again ignored my instinct. More than anyone had paid me before. The statement was bold, loud, intriguing, scary and exciting all at the same time.
I asked again, “How much?”
She said, “Two hundred thousand dollars.”
My heart started pop-locking beneath my chest.
Two hundred thousand dollars. Without question, more than anyone had paid me by far.
“What has he done? Or what is he doing?”
“Nothing.”
Home Wrecker Page 6
