"Hey, I got family inside. You mind? We're going someplace... Wifey... Her sister... Maybe we'll do a little weed first, have a few more beers," Doug said. "Can you kick it for a while?"
"I don't mind," Billy said.
"Well come on in then, man. The truck is inside. You're gonna love it. I didn't go crazy with the lift... Nice tires." He reached the side door, opened it and motioned Billy inside. Billy stepped inside, a little nervous, apprehensive, but it was as he said: Two women stood inside the door talking and looking over the truck.
"You nervous. You okay?" Doug asked.
"Eh, not bad. Been a rough few days, I guess," he said. "Anyway," he turned and looked at the truck, but not before his eyes had slid across the two women. They were nearly carbon copies. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Spanish blood or Indian, he thought, mixed with... African, he asked himself? Something like that. Dark skinned. They both noticed the look. The one gave it back, the other smiled and turned to Doug, slipping her arm around his waist.
"My wife, Mayte," Doug said. She took his hand and smiled. "Her sister, Mary."
Mary smiled and took his hand.
"I heard you had a girlfriend?" Mary said.
"Did," Billy said.
"She found another guy," Doug supplied.
"Too bad for her," Mary said and smiled.
EIGHT
Eternal Rest Lawns
New Paltz, New York.
Eight months later.
The casket stood to the left of the open hole. All the words that could be said had been said. Tommy Murphy was no more. All that remained was to lower the box into the ground. It hadn't been so hard in the end. He had closed his eyes and gone to sleep. Stopped fighting.
She moved forward and placed one hand on the casket. It was a bright day, spring was coming and the sun had heated the brushed aluminum so that it was warm to the touch. That seemed right to her. She didn't want it to be cold.
She had spent the last several months working with Tommy to consolidate the two families. Tommy had no one, and he had lost so much with the final deal: Between the money and the virus he had paid out a large portion of his fortune.
He had told her about his mistake. A mistake he had brought her own father into as well. It had taken a substantial portion of what had become her fortune along with his own. He had asked her for forgiveness and she had given it.
The lie of the virus hadn't mattered as much to him in the end as he had thought it would. He had been tricked. Greed had made him believe he might have a chance at living forever. Her own father had taken the same virus: When he had died he had known just how deep his mistaken belief had infected his thinking. When his time came, he would die as well. Life was no respecter of persons. No matter what he did, he could not buy a new life, and maybe that was exactly the way God had always meant it to be. After all, there was no one to leave what was left of the old life to anyway, and that was when he had settled on her: Put aside the folly of the virus, all the wasted money and lives, and began to build her up to take over the combined empire.
They had been almost inseparable since Jefferson had been laid to rest. A lot of money in the right places had bought a verdict of suicide. Tommy had helped with that. Tommy had helped with everything. Her mother. The Press. The doctor for the abortion. A long stay at his place in the Catskills, and it had been his idea for her to take it all over. She had some sort of strength, he said. Something tempered. Something that could help her to carry the load.
Tommy had introduced her to the people she needed to know and a few months back she had begun to run both operations. She stayed full-time in the Catskills and took care of Tommy. Leaving only when she had to.
She wondered about fate. By all reasoning her life should have been over when she had put the pistol into her mouth after killing her father, but it was a two shot pistol and it had simply clicked: The sound of that click had changed everything. She had picked up the phone and called Tommy. Tommy had taken her away: Given her time to think things through, but he had also stayed with her. Made sure she made it out of the darkness and into the light. And she had.
She stepped back from the casket and watched as it was shifted over the hole and then lowered into the ground.
She scattered her handful of dirt across the top of the casket and then walked away, bodyguards on both sides of her. The limo waited. Lita told herself that she would miss Tommy, and that was true, but it was also like it closed a chapter of her life for good. Finished it so that she could completely move on.
Cranberry lake, New York.
He sat at the end of the dock in the wheelchair. Life had been tough for the last several months, but he supposed that to anyone outside looking in, it appeared to be getting better. The bullet had missed his heart, but not his spine. He was lucky to have the use of his arms. He had learned to deal with the loss, and he was settled into a routine here. Living his life, such as it was. A full-time nurse had given way to a daytime nurse to help with the daily routines. He was on his own at night, but help, if he really needed it was a phone call away. It truly must appear as though things were getting better for him, but appearances were deceptive.
The nurse was gone for the day and he was on his own. Funny how people could desert you. Not that he had a lot of people in his life, but a few. They simply didn't like looking at him. It bothered them. They came around less often and then they simply stopped.
He'd been given a promotion before he'd been taken out with the medical. And even then they had left the choice up to him. He could do a desk job, he supposed, but he couldn't see it. Couldn't see that sort of life.
Sammy reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. It was getting tougher to get them, but he could usually convince the kid that came by to mow the lawn to buy him a pack. A pack lasted a week, sometimes longer. It depended on the depression and how much he drank. He lit one now and drew the harsh smoke into his lungs.
He hadn't known Don was dirty. When the cops had searched Don's house, they had come up with close to a hundred grand. Neat stacks. Rubber banded. Same as the techs had turned in from Richard Dean's place. The rubber in the bands even matched. There had been, apparently, more than just the two stacks and Don had pocketed the others when Sammy had gone out to let the techs inside.
Sammy inhaled, coughed and then took another drag on the cigarette. If he had died and they had searched his house, they would have had him, but he didn't, and they hadn't, so he had had time to get rid of the evidence. Cash, envelopes, there had been close to 40 grand in deposits he couldn't account for, but no one had checked those. They had their bad cop, they didn't need another one.
The envelopes had stopped coming. He wondered about that. Someone out there knew he was here. Someone out there knew what he had done. How he had gone after the money. That was the way his life was now. Wondering when that someone was going to send another someone to end it all for him. Or, maybe they were just going to leave him like this. Figuring that it was enough punishment. Maybe even better than a bullet in the brain. They were smart if that was the case, this was hell. He couldn't do it. He took another pull from the cigarette and rolled out onto the dock. He coughed and then took another drag.
This camp had been his grandfather's, then his fathers, now it was his. There weren't many camps up here on the lake. The lumber mills had stopped leasing the land. His father had renewed it about 15 years back. The holding company had already told him the lease wouldn't be renewed the following year, but it didn't matter.
He had cleaned up his paperwork. There wasn't much left. Even with the medical bills covered there were a lot of expenses. He took one more drag off the cigarette and tossed it out into the water.
It was a beautiful day to be alone.
He wondered about the kid, Jingo. What had happened to him? The theory was that the girl, Nikki Moore, had killed him and dumped his body out in one of the swamps. It was possible, he supposed. The money had never turned up, that was all Samm
y knew for sure. Or if it had someone else had taken it and knew how to keep their mouth shut. Either way, he wouldn't be getting his hands on it. It was gone.
He looked out over the water. A beautiful early spring day. A good day to call it quits. He rolled forward, daring himself. The edge of the dock just a few inches away. It would be so easy. He took a deep breath, as deep as he was able to, laughed and then released it: Then before he could change his mind he wheeled himself off the end of the dock.
The bubbles died away after the first few minutes.
Somewhere across the lake a loon cried out.
The Jilly Situation
She looked over all the information again, new identity, numbered bank accounts, and then reduced it to an icon. She had sat on everything for months now. He hadn't touched it. None of it. She had been the one to set it all up for him and he had never used it. She had even taken the step of changing the passwords on the accounts.
Nothing had happened.
She had changed all the passwords and deleted the emails on the first day. It had seemed like the right thing to do. Ben Neo was dead. Ed Reiser was dead too. Only she knew that their identities were reversed. That Ed was really Ben, and Ben was really Ed. It didn't really matter to anyone anymore, because both of them were dead.
Jilly sipped at her diet coke.
It had been the thing with the fingerprints that made her so curious to begin with. Why would Neo do that, unless he wanted his identity passed on to someone else. Take a set of clean prints. Become cleansed, a new man. And why did you become a new man all at once like that. Well, maybe you were looking for a new life. Brand new, as in disappear brand new. So she did one of her bad things for herself. She sent along a back door program when she sent the e-mail confirming the changes she had made on the fingerprint files for him.
He had always teased her about how sexy her voice was. How beautiful she must be. And she had teased back that she would send him a photo some day. She never would. No one knew what she looked like, and she wanted to keep it that way, but she needed a reason for an attachment.
She was good with graphics, it was just something she did. She had mentioned once that she was part Asian, and so she found an image of an Asian woman on line and did a little work on the photo. In the end she had a slightly more than ordinary looking woman, nude from the waist up. Small breasts, innocent face that men seemed to love. The Black hair, everything but a schoolgirl uniform.
She had debated about the nudity, but she wanted him to keep the image until she could activate some extra features it contained. An ordinary image might head straight to the recycle bin. This one would be saved, she hoped, and it had been. As soon as it had been saved it had written the basic back door into his OS and saved the changes so that they would take effect the next time the machine started. If it had shown up at all it would have simply been listed as a regular update for his OS: After that it had been simple. She set up a check for his DNS number and the next time he'd been online she had been able to get into his machine.
She had activated the rest of the search program she built in. It ran in the background and searched out everything: As long as he was connected it sent her a constant stream of information. And he was on line a lot it seemed. She began to watch for patterns and had seen that he constantly accessed an account in the Bahamas. A private bank. That was when she knew what she was looking for.
She had found it within 36 hours. But then she hadn't known what to do with it. He would have to know it was her. So she had decided to bide her time. She set up an information search on both his old Ben Neo name and the new Ed Reiser name. She found the Ed Reiser name listed as being killed in a shootout in Mobile Alabama of all places. She had debated all of 30 seconds. Was it a trick? She didn't think so.
Eventually she'd even called the morgue, pretending to be a cousin, inquiring about picking up the body. It had been there, he had really died. And she knew the real Ed Reiser had died in another shootout in New York.
She had taken the money. Changed the accounts, and eventually she had moved them. There had been three accounts. Now there were two new accounts in the Cayman's. Whatever Ben Neo had done for a living it had paid very well. And... And nothing. Nothing at all had happened. Ben Neo didn't come calling. No one did, and she had begun to understand that the money was free and clear. The money was hers.
She toggled up the information from the icon again: There were actually three icons. She was waiting for the fourth, an email, to arrive.
The first icon confirmed her purchase of a castle. A real castle in France. She had found it on line of all places. It needed a tremendous amount of work, but it was a real castle. Real! She bought it. The money had changed hands. She owned it now.
The second icon was from a company she had hired to make a part of the castle livable. They had. It had a way to go, but a small area was able to be lived in now while the rest of the work was done.
She clicked up the third icon. Confirmation that what she had ordered for furnishings had been delivered. A car had also been delivered. That had been yesterday.
Today she was waiting on airline ticket confirmations. Two seats, first class to Nice. From there she would be picked up and driven to her new home. She looked around the apartment. She rarely ever left it. Rarely. Food; ordered in. Her diet coke; delivered. The paper; delivered too. You name it you could get someone to deliver it. It was easy.
She spent so much time doing her work she rarely ever dressed, just sweats, it was easier, but she'd had to go out two days ago to have clothes fitted. It had been so long she didn't know her sizes. The clothes had come today and that was all she needed to make the airline reservations. You couldn't fly first class in sweat clothes. Her e-mail program chimed and she popped up the icon and squealed with delight. She was all set. She had three hours to kill before her flight left. She would use that to get to the airport by cab and pick up her reserved tickets.
She popped up a final icon. It was her own self destruct program. It would destroy every scrap of information on her machine. She chose start, chose 'Yes I'm sure' from the next dialog box and that was it. She was officially retired.
She could hail a cab, most likely, but it was easier to call for one. They tended to shy away from her when she tried to flag one down, but when she called they had to take her. They knew who she was. And, although she rarely called they remembered her. She supposed it was kind of hard to forget a 700 pound woman: If you were that big it was hard to overlook you, but it was also hard to chase down a cab that pretended not to see you.
She got herself out of the chair, looked around the apartment one last time and wandered slowly to the door. The airline had made her buy two tickets when she told them how heavy she was. It wasn't like she hadn't known, but it was still an embarrassment. Even so, she told herself as she left her apartment for the last time, locking the door behind her, it was for the last time. She had her own place now and enough money that her size wouldn't matter.
She made it to the elevator, pressed the button and rested while she waited for it to come up. She had plans for a new diet. Maybe it would even work, she told herself. Maybe.
Los Angeles, California
Liv and Brian
Liv sat next to the pool. Her skin was dark, healthy, and glowed under the hot California sun. She had never been to L.A. until now and it was beautiful. In fact she had never been straight long enough in her life to do much more than think about where the next high would come from.
That wasn't exactly the whole truth, back in junior high school there had still been a real, vulnerable girl inside of her. That was only five years ago, but it felt like it was closer to five hundred years ago. Five million years ago. She almost felt young again, hopeful. Like the young girl she had been back then.
She looked over at Brian in the chair next to her. Somewhere in all of what had gone on in the first months: the sickness, the crying fits, the depression; she had stopped being so mad at the wo
rld and had fallen in love with him. He seemed so naive to her, but he wasn't. The only other woman that had ever mattered to him had died a crack addict, still using, HIV positive with full blown AIDS for the last six months of her life. The two had used her up, what the crack didn't kill, the AIDS virus had.
They had talked about it for hours. She had no idea how he had managed, he'd only been fifteen. Fifteen and he had taken care of her. And then when he should have been able to go on with his own life, the state had snatched him up and put him in Foster Care. Life had been tough, but she thanked God for him and the fact that his life had been so tough: Taught him such hard lessons. Someone else would have left her on her own. Not Brian. He had stuck it out.
His hand came over and touched hers. He squeezed lightly. She liked the feel of his hand in her own. She bought it to her stomach along with her own and held it as she drifted off to sleep.
Rebecca Monet
Rebecca Monet lay with Cindy in the big bed and looked out over the Gulf. The condo had a great view, but the view was only in the living room, so from the day she had moved in she had had the movers set up the bed in the living room. She entertained no one. The only person who ever came, or was welcome to come to her place was Cindy. And Cindy liked the view too. So she had turned the bedroom into an office.
She let her hand trail the length of Cindy's body, sitting up so she could reach her toes, and then traveling all the way back up again. She let it linger at the fullness of her hip, tempted to just slide over it and touch the places she wanted to touch, but she made herself move on.
"Tell me again," Rebecca said as her hands trailed up and down Cindy's body.
Rebecca was tall, blond, statuesque, large breasts that she had paid for with her measly salary as a minor tech and then a voice over at a radio station in her hometown when she had just been starting out. She had known she would work her way up from there and she had wanted the body to match the voice. It hadn't been long before she had wanted to switch to television.
Earth's Survivors Box Set [Books 1-7] Page 163
