“I’ll tell you everything you told told me. Now, get back on the road, I don’t feel safe stopped like this,” Maria says.
You put the car in gear and quickly accelerate back up to speed. The highway lights begin the steady pulse of dark and light as you pass them at seventy miles per hour. Maria begins. “You and Eddie came up with an idea on how you were gonna use the Don’s porno business to launder money you were skimming off all his other ‘enterprises’. Eddie said that he knew a way to do it so that no one would notice until it was too late and the both of you were living on an island somewhere under new identities.”
“How the hell did we think we were going to get away with that?” you ask.
She says, “I don’t know much of the specifics. Eddie wanted to tell me, he was always such a chatterbox… I’m going to miss him…” She shakes her head, “Anyway, Eddie wanted to tell me, but you said that the less I knew the better. That, plus you said I was just a stripper and wouldn’t understand the complexities of the situation.” She frowns at you. “You can be a real asshole sometimes, you know that?”
“Actually, no. I didn’t know that.” You sigh, “I’m sorry, I wish that I had told you more.”
Maria crumples her brow and looks out the window. “You never used to apologize to me for anything.”
“Well then, I’m sorry about that too. I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess, I’m sorry about everything.”
Maria says,” I guess you don't know how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.”
Suddenly, the high-pitched ring of a cell phone splits the silence. Maria pulls one out of her purse and answers it. “Hello?” Her face goes white. “…Yeah, he’s here…you want to talk to him?” She hands you the phone, “It’s the Don. He wants to talk to you.”
You take the phone from her. “Yeah?”
A low voice says, “Hello, {FIRST_NAME). I hear that Eddie is dead. That’s too bad.”
“Yeah, you sound real broken up about it.”
“I didn’t want him killed. You were my target. I know that he was the brain behind the entire plan. I could have used him in my organization. Pity…But, I digress. , you’ve stolen some money from me and I want it back.”
“Look, I wish I could help you but I have no idea where the money is.”
“That’s too bad, because if I don’t get that money back, you die, Maria dies, hell, I’ll even kill your fucking cat for good measure.”
“I have a cat?”
“Listen wise-ass, you get that money back into my accounts within ten hours, or you are dead.” The line goes dead and you hand the phone back to Maria.
“What did he say?” She asks fearfully.
“I guess he remembers me as an asshole too. We’ve got ten hours to get him his money back or he’ll kill us.”
Maria looks stunned, “He’s giving you ten hours? That’s not like him at all. Something is wrong here…”
“I could have told you that.”
Her eyes glaze over in thought for a second and then she says, “We have to go to the studios.”
“What studios?"
"The Don's porn studios. All the records will be kept there. We might be able to track down the money if we can get access to those files." |