Late September, he and Devon came home to their Fort Hill sweet spot and couldn’t get in: locks changed. Later that night, while crashing with friends: Durango reclaimed. Juliette Choo Sheridan owned the property and knew where the tapes had been buried.
The money shot: Isaac yanking the leash on a bitch blowing his cock. Devon ’s plugging her ass. The leash was black leather and thin; the collar rhinestone-studded and delicate. Nina cataloged the scene as S &M Lite, but still unbecoming a former Marine and M.I.T. scholar-especially one facing an assault charge and looking for a university gig. The action around Isaac was more damning. Rocket from Paradise -her tits were like missiles-was one of two women being gang-raped. For insurance, the video was all over the Internet before Juliette Choo Sheridan sent copies of it to the prosecutor and the Collar’s home address. She and Sindi, former rivals, had become comrades.
Isaac took Mrs. Sheridan’s money, fucked to her satisfaction, but refused to move into her Newton contemporary mansion-which Sindi had frequently cased. And Sheridan joining an African harem had never been an option.
Early in December, Isaac’s attorney-he was back to the Roxbury sister-got a plea agreement. There was evidence of guilt but no hard proof. He could apply for a job and truthfully say he’d never been convicted of a crime.
By January, Devon was back in St. Louis and Isaac Elimu Sayif, a.k.a. Calvin Isaac Nethersole, a.k.a. Lite Dick Nethersole (most popular on the Internet), had unwanted websites sprouting like fungi after rain. The sexploits of Lite Dick streamed against the hazy image of his curriculum vitae and generated 87,000 hits on the worldwide web every day, 609,000 each week, 2,436,000 each month…
Isaac remains all but dissertation six years later.
TURN SPEED
BY RUSS ABORN
North Quincy
At the close of his twenty-third birthday, Michael Mosely sat behind the wheel of a 1968 Chevy Bel Air, looked around the empty bank parking lot, lifted a pint of vodka, and took a good slug. He screwed the top on and put it under the passenger seat. He sat up straight, shook his head like a dog drying off, pulled the shift lever on the column toward him, dropped it into drive, and eased the nose of the car out onto Broadway. Amped and fuzzy at the same time, he cranked the window down to let in the clammy night. The windshield wipers squeaked into action, smearing greasy mist into greasy streaks. He looked to the left, and cut the wheel hard right, making the power steering squeal and moan. He toed the gas. The right rear tire dropped off the curbstone, thumping into the gutter with a hollow, rubbery sound.
He inched along beside the high curb, rolled by the bank, and braked to a quiet stop in front of the steak house. Using his left hand, he pinched the fleshy web on his right hand. The pain yanked him back to his body and sharpened his mind.
A swirl of darkness exploded through the glass front doors of the steak house, and three men wearing Red Sox caps atop blurry faces rushed at the car. Two of the men held handguns, while the man in the middle clutched a satchel like it was Ann Margaret.
TJ, carrying the bag, yanked the front passenger door open and jumped in. Paul pulled the back door open and dove in headfirst, followed by Larry, large and loud. He slammed the door closed and yelled.
“Go!”
The air in the car boiled with kinetic energy, but the scenery outside didn’t change.
“Nope,” Michael said. “Not until you say please.”
The large man tried to articulate some sort of threat, but only produced a lowing noise.
The thin guy sitting shotgun looked sad but sounded giddy. “Oh no. That’s not funny, man.”
“Time, little brother,” the guy directly behind Michael said. He put his hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Gotta go. Not too fast. Slick road.” Michael looked at his brother Paul in the rearview mirror, then stomped on the gas, pinning them all to their seats. The five-year-old green sedan, as anonymous as a telephone pole, zipped down Broadway toward Sullivan Square.
“Okay, ladies,” Paul said, “get down so we can take off the stockings.”
In shotgun, TJ pulled off the stocking mask as he slid out of his seat and into the foot well like liquid mercury.
“TJ,” Michael said, “be a good fella and hand me my jug while you’re down there.”
“No, you can wait, Mikey,” Paul answered from the floor in the back.
“Just need to loosen the straps a little,” Michael said.
“Fuck! Stop fuckin’ talkin’!” Larry was the size of a newborn killer whale, and now wedged in between the seats, he sounded near hysteria. “You’re s’posed to be alone if anyone fuckin’ sees you, you stupid fuckin’ fuck. Just drive the fuckin’ car, you fuck. Fuck the fuckin’ booze.”
“Aunt Betty’d slap your face,” Michael said, “if she knew how her little Larry swore-”
“Shut up about my mother!” Larry barked.
“Easy, boys. Mikey, anyone behind us?”
Michael checked the rearview. “Just the dark.”
At the Sullivan Square traffic circle Michael spun the car around the far edge, with the tires slipping, and then whipped up the crumbling street that ran along the short section of elevated road. A quarter-mile up, the car turned right at Middlesex Avenue and then broke off a fast right into the employee parking lot at the First National Stores grocery warehouse, where there must have been three hundred cars parked in the open dirt lot.
Michael slipped the Chevy Bel Air down to the row of cars against the chain-link fence and stopped at a dark ’65 Ford Falcon. The three passengers got out. Paul keyed open the trunk of the Falcon, and they tossed in their guns, hats, stockings, and the money bag. TJ pulled off his sweatshirt, dropped it in the Falcon’s trunk, and pulled out two license plates and a screwdriver. He moved to the front of the Chevy Bel Air, ducked out of sight, and popped up again before Michael had time to find his Zippo, chunk it open, and fire up his Winston. TJ paused at Michael’s window on his way to the back of the Chevy with the second license plate.
“That’s it for me,” TJ said. He was wearing an Esso gas station T-shirt with the name Thomas over the pocket. “You suck to work with. I’m not going back to jail.” Thomas Jefferson Moran walked to the back of the Chevy.
Paul knocked on the passenger window, and Michael leaned over and rolled it down.
“What’s TJ saying?” Paul asked. He leaned in the passenger side as he pulled off his warm-up pants. Underneath a bulky turtleneck sweater he wore a white shirt and a red silk tie.
“Nothing, post-game jitters. You’re all dolled up.”
“Late date.” Paul turned back and closed the trunk of the Falcon. He threw the trunk key over the fence, out into the growth of bulrushes in the marsh.
Larry got into the front passenger seat of the Chevy. He had worn a Patriots jersey during the robbery, now he had on a Led Zeppelin T-shirt.
“Rock on, man!” Michael said. He held his hand up for a high five.
Larry sneered. “One of these days, Michael.”
Paul and TJ got back in the Chevy and Michael dropped each of the three at their own cars, which they had driven to the lot earlier that night.
Michael parked the Chevy, fished the vodka out, and took a drink. He got a rag from his back pocket, soaked it with vodka, and wiped down all the surfaces in the car that anyone might have touched. Then he tossed the Chevy key over the fence. He drank the last of the vodka, dropped back, and tried to spiral the bottle over, hoping to reach the oily creek, but it fell short and smashed into something solid, silencing the marsh.
He walked up two rows to his car, a black GTO. He put his key in the door, and felt the top end of his throat stretch itself wide. He turned his head and threw up beside the car. Wiping his mouth with the rag, he muttered, “Fuckin’ egg salad.”