“Old enough to suck this.” Blake grabbed his crotch.
“You disgust me. Get out of my house!”
Blake rubbed his neck beard, a wry smile on his lips. “I’m not leavin’.”
“We can do it the hard way if you prefer.” Naomi removed her phone from the jacket pocket of her pantsuit. “The police can remove you.”
“What if I told Dad about you and Vernon?”
Naomi stiffened, like a deer in headlights.
Blake cackled. “I’ve been holdin’ that secret for a long time. Waitin’ for a rainy day. I guess it’s rainin’.”
“I expect you to clean this house,” Naomi said, her voice quivering enough to reveal her impotence.
45
Derek and Closure
Derek ran on the sidewalk, government-funded apartments to his left, the street to his right. His T-shirt was soaked with sweat. His breath was elevated, and the temperature was in the triple digits, but he pushed harder. Two miles later, he reached a dilapidated playground. As usual, he was the only person at the park.
Here, he did three hundred sit-ups, two hundred push-ups, and one hundred pull-ups. Then he ran back home, pushing past the fatigue in his legs and the burning in his lungs. With no job, no money, and no family, he’d started exercising to exhaustion, partly to do something, partly to feel something, anything, even if it was physical pain.
Thirteen minutes later, he arrived at his four-story apartment building. He bent over, his hands on his knees, dripping with sweat, recovering his breath. He spit in the grass, his saliva thick from a lack of water. Once his breathing and heart rate regulated, he went to his apartment and showered. The shower was purposely cold, to cool his skin and to quench his thirst simultaneously. After showering and changing, he sat at his kitchen table, opened his old laptop, and read through the MSNBC headlines.
Black Monday 2051
Another Scorching Summer
Stocks Limit Down
Robot Love and Marriage
Europe Burns in the Heat
S&P 500 Down Ten Percent
A knock came at Derek’s door. He answered. A four-foot tall aluminum FedEx robot held a nine-by-eleven envelope, not with hands but grippy rubber knobs at the end of its arms. The headless bot walked on two legs, vaguely resembling a human gait.
“I have a package for Derek Reeves,” the bot said. “Please scan your chip here.” In place of a head, the bot had a flat cylinder on top, almost like a stubby neck. This area flashed. A sticker was attached to the bot’s chest that had four arrows pointing upward and read SCAN HERE.
Derek scanned his chip card at the robot’s neck stump.
The bot handed the envelope to Derek and said, “Have a nice day.”
Inside, Derek sat back down at the kitchen table and examined the envelope. No return address. He opened the envelope, revealing a letter and a tiny flash drive.
Derek,
April Murphy is dead and has been for some time. I believe she was murdered by Bank of China CEO Zhang Jun. He is known to abuse American girls, often choking them in the act. Ms. Murphy isn’t his first victim.
Unfortunately, like before, the police were barred from conducting a thorough investigation, given his status and power. According to multiple witness statements, on the night of 11-23-2050, Ms. Murphy was taken against her will to Zhang Jun’s penthouse hotel room.
Camera footage showed April entering The Regal Hotel on the night in question, but it did not show her leaving. It did show two of Zhang Jun’s security guards depositing a carpet-wrapped body into a black SUV registered to Zhang Jun. As they placed her body into the vehicle, her right hand and ring were visible. It was the same distinctive ring worn by Ms. Murphy when she entered the hotel.
During the investigation, this camera footage was suppressed and deleted, but I’ve enclosed a copy. I’m sorry for your loss. I hope this information brings you closure.
PS: When Zhang Jun is in DC, he stays at The Regal Hotel, room 60. His black SUV has diplomatic plates YA-013. He employs two bodyguards at all times. One stationed outside his penthouse suite, one inside.
The name Zhang Jun hit Derek like a freight train. During the foreclosure process, many form letters he’d received from the Bank of China had the man’s jagged signature. Granted, it was a copy. Intellectually, Derek understood that Zhang Jun had no idea who he was or that the Bank of China had foreclosed on his farm. The funny thing was that he’d never borrowed from the Bank of China. He’d borrowed from the Bank of Virginia, but they’d been bought by the Bank of China.
Derek grabbed the flash drive with shaky hands and inserted it into his laptop. He watched April enter the hotel, looking classy in a calf-length tailored dress and flats. The sight of her nearly took away his breath. He’d seen her in that dress before. Why would she wear flats? She always wore heels with that dress.
Whoever edited the video zoomed in on her right hand, her Claddagh ring facing outward, as if she were single. The video cut to two large men in suits carrying a rolled-up carpet from a rear hotel exit to a black SUV. The video zoomed in on and paused on the diplomatic license plate. As the men deposited the carpet into the SUV, her right hand was visible for a split second. The video paused and zoomed in on the hand again, revealing the same Claddagh ring.
After viewing the video several times, Derek paused the video on April, alive and beautiful. He stared into her expressionless face. What was she thinkin’? It was just another job. She had no idea that she wouldn’t leave that hotel alive. He shut his laptop, hung his head, and sobbed at the kitchen table.
Eventually, he went to the bathroom and washed his face. He lay on his bed, ruminating and plotting and grinding his teeth until his jaw was sore. He went back to his laptop and looked up Zhang Jun, burning the CEO’s face into his memory.
Derek left his apartment and knocked on the apartment next to his own. After incessant knocking, a dark-skinned woman answered the door. She was compact and athletically built but feminine. Even without makeup, Destiny was stunning.
“You know I’m tryin’ to sleep,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I wanna hire you,” Derek said.
Destiny cocked her head. “I don’t think you can afford me.”
“Not for that.” Derek hesitated. “Can we talk?”
She sighed. “I’m up now.”
They sat on her fluffy white couch.
“I need you to help me get to a guy who did somethin’.”
She shook her head with a chuckle. “That all you got? Some guy who did somethin’? You’re gonna have to gimme more than that.”
“He killed my girlfriend.”
Destiny put her hand over her chest. “I’m so sorry, Derek. I didn’t know.”
“It happened at The Regal Hotel in Georgetown. The guy has security. I just need you to get me up there, so I can confront this piece of shit.”
“The Regal Hotel?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the man’s name?”
“Zhang Jun.”
Her eyes opened wide.
“You know who he is?”
46
Jacob and Hedging Bets
Jacob and his family had been in Switzerland for over a week. He’d had enough of the Roth family reunion. He was ready to go home. Thankfully, their flight was scheduled for tomorrow. It wasn’t all bad. Stocks had crashed around the world, but Jacob had been able to position himself accordingly with put options to protect his personal portfolio and to turn a profit, while the rest of the investing world took it on the chin.