From there, Chuck did all he could to keep his adrenaline from racing out of control. After securing Oliver’s personal documentation and money, and affixing a fake mustache, Chuck flew to the Grand Cayman Islands. He breezed through Customs, then went directly to a post office box he’d set up three years prior and pulled out the last of the five aliases he’d purchased. He was now former Wisconsin grocery store owner, Bob Pinkerton.
He marveled at his foresight, his ability to plan the unthinkable. He was a freakin’ genius, plain and simple. The money he’d skimmed from both OG and his family were now spread across four offshore accounts, but none in the Cayman Islands. That was the magic of the plan. The Feds would first check Cayman, and if they found no money trail, then surely they wouldn’t continue to pursue an investigation there.
Using four bogus companies, he’d set up accounts in Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and Belize. Each of the companies was associated with a different alias. The web was intricate and by crossing so many borders and country regulations, they’d never follow the labyrinth back to Seven Mile Beach. Not in a million years.
Chuck meandered down the shoreline, dipping his toes in the water when he felt like it. Twenty minutes later, a young athletic woman with a dark mane and green, recessed eyes jogged up next to him and pinched his butt. He chortled and ran after her. Finally, he caught up to the twenty-eight year-old former airline attendant from Romania. He brought her close, gripped her firm backside with both hands, and kissed her as perspiration trickled off his nose.
“Race you back to the condo.” She was gone with the wind.
Greed comes in all shapes and forms. And Nadia’s shape fit him just fine.
###
Acknowledgments
In the beginning, it was just me, my new laptop and a story swirling in my head. The narrative had minimal shape, spastic rhythm, and a smidge of substance. From a scientific perspective, this book, FATAL GREED, barely existed at all.
But I’ve learned that stories aren’t built by elements or atoms, or even hopes and desires. They’re developed over time by writing, editing, receiving feedback, formulating new ideas and thoughts, baring your soul for all to see….dozens, if not hundreds of times. It’s not for the weak-minded. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t had moments of weakness.
The first hundred or so revisions came at the expense of my wife, Chris. Having no formal training other than reading about a thousand books of all genres, she provided me with remarkable feedback that enabled me to smooth out the rough edges. I can’t thank Chris enough for allowing the seed buried deep inside me to sprout and begin to take shape. Well, then again, I try to think of a few creative ways to show her my appreciation. (Michael isn’t the only one with a romantic side!). Her partnership, her love, continue to provide me with limitless inspiration.
The second phase of my creative development started when the idea for the Greed Series popped in my mind. Almost immediately, I began the hunt for my editor. I started with twenty-five or so candidates, then after a series of questions knocked the list down to about ten. I examined every aspect of how they worked, their success stories, their goals of their editing business, and their flexibility. That led to my top three. The questioning became more detailed, and so were their answers. Part of the test was to see if any of the candidates would bail on me because of my rigorous recruiting process. None did, which made it that much tougher. After much internal debate, I knew my answer. Actually, I felt like she was the one when there were twenty-five. But I didn’t want to give her any free passes—and she’s not given me any since we’ve started working together.
Enter Jan Fix, also known as the WordVerve. She’s all that, and more. Thank you, Jan, for helping me elevate my game and believing in me. It has meant the world to me. Onward!
LETHAL GREED
A Novel
By
John W. Mefford
Greed Series: Book Two
“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.”
– Erich Fromm
Chapter One
Three Years Ago
The textured white ceiling offered the teenage boy a multitude of dream paths. A scab-infested human arm dangled at an awkward angle. To the right, the cartoonish jowls of a grisly old man sagged at least a foot. Above that, a powerfully built, yet graceful, reindeer prepared to launch into the pale sky.
Which one should he take? Did he have an option? He saw more—crevices, undulations of a possible moon. Maybe it was the skin of the man downstairs. The man who'd teased him. This couldn't be a dream if the scarred complexion of that man was seeping into his thoughts.
Lying on his back in the twin bed he'd slept in since he was five years old, the boy rubbed his eyes and exhaled, but couldn't catch his breath. His hand touched his chest. The pulsating beat thumped like a steam locomotive, reverberating in his core, quickly migrating up his shoulders, neck, even his eye sockets, until his entire body felt like it might explode.
A wave of adrenaline came over him. It lifted him off the bed, hovering near the ceiling, high above the panic, to a place void of the unyielding anxiety. And the unbearable guilt for not being everything he should be for his parents.
A quick drop. He clutched the silk comforter with both hands, his chest and body convulsing. Please make it stop. I'll do anything to make this stop! His teeth clenched, his head shook violently from side to side. Minutes passed, then momentarily relief.
Drenched with a layer of sweat, he focused on his breathing. His eyes drifted around the room, and he noticed his old train against the wall. The tracks...yes, he now remembered. The man with the creepy face had teased him relentlessly until he did it. Finally, with hordes of teenagers chanting "Snort, snort, snort," he put his nose to the coffee table and sucked two lines of cocaine up his nostril. He'd given in to the temptation, the pressure—a daily sidekick in his life. Somehow, he'd stumbled upstairs to his room, ashamed of what he'd let his life become by age fourteen.
No convulsions in the last few minutes. But the delirium, the mind-bending thoughts and sensations only increased. Suddenly, his arm itched like never before. He scratched and scratched until he smelled blood. He blinked his eyes and skin peeled apart as if acid had been poured into an open wound. His arm felt like it was on fire. Was any of this real? Maybe this is how life would end. High, wacked out beyond belief, and alone. He deserved no better.
A door slammed. "Who's there?" he thought he asked.
He felt tugging. Someone was on top of him. A face...brown hair. I think I know this girl. He put his hands out. She grabbed his finger and put it in her mouth. What the hell is she doing? He had no control of his body, of anything. This wasn't right. He was only fourteen.
Suddenly, another adrenaline rush, but this one was different than the last. The girl was gyrating, digging her nails into his stomach, screaming.
“Stop, stop! Don't!” he begged. And then it was over.
Time passed, and she was no longer in the room. He'd just had his first sexual experience. And it was fucked up. Tears pooled. Everyone would soon know. He closed his eyes and then quickly reopened them, staring at the ceiling, wishing he could sit on the reindeer's back and leap into another life, another world. His innocence forever lost, he couldn't take any of it back.
Regret was Zachary Taylor's closest confidante.
Chapter Two
Present Day
The lip of the sun hung to the edge of the ocean in the distant western sky, as rolling waves calmed beneath the disappearing orange hue. White caps subsided, giving way to evening boaters looking for a high-dollar sunset, sipping their martinis of choice on their fifty-foot yachts. Bronze bodies, platinum on their hands, and gold in their pockets.
This was the life. The life Benicio envisioned, fleetingly, for his family, friends...mostly for himself. Sitting on the rocky sand, elbows resting on his sandpaper knees, he often observed th
e tourists, las turistas, and vicariously traded places with all of them at some point in time. He scratched his nose, paused, then viciously attacked the itch again.
The portly man had few remaining friends and had alienated his entire family. He leaned back and searched each of his pockets. His breathing increased with the exertion and the hope he might find some remaining choro, marijuana. Nothing. He rubbed his nose again and cursed under his breath.
Benicio felt the unrepentant urge rising like a tidal wave inside him. He had to relieve the pressure. He thought back to past moments of weakness and desperation. For a brief time, he'd attempted to live a normal, mostly sober life. He'd even had a girlfriend. Sure, she was demanding, even blatantly rude, but she cared. She'd make him dinner twice a week, gave him back massages when he got home from the days he was able to garner a day job. But he couldn't hold it together. Twice he'd used her rent money to go out with the boys. He didn't know when to stop, how to stop, before it was too late. He wasn't sure which was worse, his grifo—drug-induced stupor—or the berating she gave him. It only took two strikes, and he never saw her again.
The inside of his nose tingled, and he couldn't help but pinch it. He burrowed his feet deeper into the sand, and his thoughts drifted to su madre. After moving back home to save money, his saintly mother had him swear on her St. James Bible that he'd stay clean. A week later, she caught him stealing her grocery money.
He couldn't tell her another lie. “I'm going to buy some weed, and I'm going to smoke it and enjoy it. I can't help myself.”
She ushered him out of her home, and she hadn't spoken to him since. She'd given Benicio more chances than he could count. He'd always planned to repay his debts, show everyone what Benicio was really capable of. But luck was not his friend. At least not until recently.
His gaze returned to the calming green ocean, and the dreams of a hopeful future.
Suddenly, sand sprayed his face.
“Benicio, Benicio. We need you, quickly. The roosters have flown the coop. We must act on our plan.” Luis tugged on Benicio's blood-stained shirt. “We have our instructions, Benicio. Are you listening?”
Benicio momentarily refocused his attention on the largest yacht in his view, ignoring his willowy partner, just as he had grown to disregard the bleakness of his own pathetic life. At thirty years of age, he had no real skills, only unquenched desires and fading dreams. Having worked on one of those yachts for just one day, rubbing elbows with the high and mighty, he couldn't resist the diamond Rolex resting on the tray in the master bathroom. Only hours into a job that he believed was a God-given opportunity to start his life anew, Benicio was fired on the spot. He'd somehow managed to flee from the marina without having to return the watch, explaining in rapid-fire Spanish that the opulent timepiece had accidentally fallen overboard. He pleaded ignorance, as if he couldn't speak or understand much English.
Though mesmerized by the countless diamonds clustered on the piece of jewelry, he had no intention of using it to better his life, at least not in the traditional sense. The ostentatious timepiece stayed in his possession for only a few hours, slipping through his tattered fingers like the pebbled, sand-lined beaches of Puerto Vallarta. He marched directly to one of his most prodigious drug contacts and proudly flaunted the watch, then bartered it for a few bags of cocaine—cabello. As he came down from his high, he regretted his lack of restraint for not safeguarding the only extravagance he'd possessed in his life. Then again, he felt remorse nearly every time he snorted or shot up.
***
Benicio and Luis crouched behind a stone retaining wall near a partially lit alley. “My little amigo, we have a great opportunity before us,” Benicio said. He nodded at two other team members across the way. "We will make our mark on this world. We will soon have what we've always wanted. Dinero. Respect."
Benicio could hear the footsteps of people rounding the corner, similar to the pop of horseshoes bouncing off the cobblestone streets. The shoes were thick-soled, very expensive. He wiped beaded sweat from his forehead.
With dusk giving way to near darkness, the targets moved within sight. One man, one woman. Her stilettos lifted her body at least five inches. She was spry, playful with the older man, tickling him intermittently. As planned, Benicio waited for the two uniformed men to make the initial move.
“Detenerse. Stop right where you are!”
Chapter Three
The captain scooted his chair back and paused, shooting a quick glance at the private in the corner of the twenty-by-twenty room. He crossed his legs, pulled out a bent cigar, and lit it. He took a couple of puffs, then a slow release. The smoke illuminated as it rose into the air, passing the naked light bulb toward the cracked ceiling.
“Agua, water?” The captain motioned for the couple to sit in chairs with chipped red paint.
Distracted by his surroundings and hearing shuffled footsteps draw closer to the room, the slender-built American didn't answer.
“Do you want water?” the captain asked again, captivating his audience with a more distinct enunciation.
“Uh...no, no thank you.” Arthur Spanarkel could feel his heart pounding at nearly twice the rate of his age, sixty-nine years old. The publisher of the Times Herald rubbed his forehead, wondering how, why this was happening. It seemed shady, possibly a complete farce, but it was a reality he couldn't escape. He ran his hand across the blemished wooden table.
Arthur peered at his younger wife. Trudy was physically better equipped for a stressful event like this. She worked out like she was still trying to fit into her old cheerleader outfit. But her daily confrontations usually involved overpriced caterers or haggling with car salesmen to throw in the XM Radio service for free. He knew she believed her insistent demeanor was her most important contribution to the family bottom line.
Trudy sat stiffly, her clasped hands pressed against her chin, elbows on the table, appearing to provide stability for her shaky frame. The shapely blonde wore a white halter top covered by a sheer open blouse, red Capris, and matching red heels. Her eyes fixated on the square table, occasionally glancing at Arthur, who provided a half smile, attempting to reassure his wife, eighteen years his junior.
The captain opened a bottled water, took a couple of swigs, then wiped his mouth with his blue uniform sleeve. Two other men entered the room, spoke briefly to the private, then stood next to the open doorway. Arthur caught a quick glance and noticed the second pair of men wore frayed shorts and flip-flops. One was thin and younger with stringy hair and scraggly stubble on his chin, while the other had a sizable pot belly, an overabundance of dark body hair protruding out of his stained, holey shirt, and prominent pockmarks all over his face.
“Empty your belongings on the table.” The captain ran his fingers through his bushy mustache.
Trudy glanced at her husband then turned her white leather purse upside down. Even Arthur was stunned to see how much stuff rolled out, some of it falling on the bare wood floor. She leaned to her left, but the captain held up a hand. He did the honors, rummaging through every item, discarding countless makeup kits, trinkets from los mercados, traveler's checks, glass cases, and a bottle of blue pills.
“Illegal contraband, no?”
Arthur put his hand to his head and shook it.
“Those pills are none of your business. We have a perfectly legal prescription.” Trudy's forefinger and red manicured nail bounced off the table.
“What are you hiding?” The captain's eyes shifted between the two.
“I have an issue that...” Arthur looked down at the mess on the table.
“They are to enhance our sex lives,” Trudy blurted out, her cheeks now blushing and green eyes screaming defiance.
The captain's lips curled up at the corners. He looked over Arthur's shoulder toward his comrades, and they all shared a demeaning laugh. He continued sifting through the couple's belongings and came across a wad of cash, a mixture of American dollars and Mexican pesos. He focused on the US c
urrency. It took him three times to get through the stack without confusing himself, but he counted out loud up to three thousand five hundred dollars.
“We will accept this down payment on taxes you owe.” The captain folded the cash and slid the wad into his left shirt pocket.
Arthur straightened his wire-rimmed glasses, as blood rushed to his partially bald head. “I'm sorry. What taxes are you referring to?”
“You owe the state a special vacation tax, equivalent to the tax bracket you occupy back in the states,” the captain stated as if he was an educated accountant.
“Our tax bracket is none of your business, thank you. We will pay for any taxes—legally—that are required to be paid. But we will not pay out bribes, sir.” Sweat trickled down his temples, but Arthur didn't blink, looking boldly into the captain's eyes.
“You owe us, the state, five hundred thousand dollars.” The captain blew a cloud of smoke directly at Arthur's face.
“A half million dollars. Are you kidding me?” Arthur exclaimed while swatting at the polluted air.
“Five hundred thousand per person. One million total.” The captain took another long drag of his cigar.
Arthur dropped his head and let the words resonate. He noticed the array of floral colors on his Tommy Bahama shirt. Deep, rich shades of blue, accented by crimson and white flowers. Vibrant, alive...everything he'd associated with this tropical wonderland—until they were accosted minutes earlier and forced to enter this deserted building.
The bare-bones structure had no signage, no evidence of association to any legitimate business, let alone a government entity. The only noticeable entrance came through a nondescript, unmarked metal door directly off the alley. Raised nail heads littered the twenty stairs to the second floor room in which they now sat. Arthur realized he'd never thought to ask for identification. But his thoughts now were more clear and logical than they had been at first. These men, whether they were police, military, or simply dressed in costumes, wanted their money—and a lot of it. But what was their purpose in playing this game? Arthur shot a glance at Trudy, and his stomach formed a quick knot. He admitted to himself that he truly feared for her safety, even his own.
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