CON TEST: Double Life

  Justice jogged as if he lived in the area, and was out for his late afternoon run. He used a wireless earpiece and continued to talk to Amir as he ran.

  “Them cock-suckas had every single check. I can’t believe that they let me out of there,” Justice said, winded.

  “Ain’t that something? Did they mention anything else?” Amir asked.

  “How ‘bout the answer is no, but I know that they have more.”

  “Did they mention me? Could I be the more you’re talking about?” Amir asked, fearfully. He was just as deep into buying merchandise from Marshall’s and returning the items for cash. If Justice had hit the company for 325-grand, Amir could only imagine his closing in on that amount.

  “No, and I am glad. I really didn’t want you into all this bull shit, anyway,” Justice said, sincerely. “We can’t be locked up together again.”

  Justice Lorenzo, Pennsylvania state prison number EI-1077, and Harry Dijonette, number DR-5187 met while housed at SCI-Somerset, a state prison in the Pennsylvania mountains. Justice was housed in the cell with Harry upon returning from federal writ. Before Justice went on writ, he was on a non-smoking unit, so the idea of being on a smoking block bothered him. But it was that or the hole until bed space on the non-smoking block opened up. He preferred the second hand smoke, and cancer. Ironically, Justice began to bond with Harry. They had grown into brothers since neither of them had real brothers. Justice was released to his federal detainer, while Amir finished up two years of his 7½ -15 year attempted murder sentence. They had hit the streets a month apart and embarked on a voyage of thievery.

  “Yeah, I know. We’d be the laughing stock of the Set.”

  “Fuck Somerset! You’re walking off too much parole to be getting a case fucking around with me.”

  “Damn!”

  “What?”

  “The damn chain on this piece of shit broke.”

  “Trash that shit.”

  “It ain’t mine. Where you at?”

  “South and 13th. I’ma hide out here. I do not want to cross Broad Street. Too many cops are on there.”

  “A’ight. I’m at 17th and Bainbridge, five streets away. See you when I get over there.”

  They disconnected and Justice leaned on a car and patiently waited for Amir to arrive. He had no idea what he was going to do next. Prison was not an option, though.

  PART 2

  THREE

  All writers were egotistical and defensive. William Fortune was not exempt. He, like the rest of the writers, was a manipulative liar. No writer had mastered that trait as professionally as speech writers for the United States president. Some wrote non-fiction from their screwed point of view, which was usually an anecdote of one sided half-truths. Creative fiction writers threw words together, recycled plots, and prayerfully they turned a profit or reached number one on the New York Times Bestseller’s List. William was one of them. He had done that twice, and whatever it took to do that again and garner the big bucks was what awakened William every morning.

  Lundin was in the Jacuzzi when William trudged down the loft stairs to do a ritualistic tour-de-bathroom. Dressed in silk pajama bottoms and a tank top, he offered his wife a greeting that was more like a groan as opposed to a good morning pleasantry. He took a leak and then stared at himself in the mirror that hung on the wall over the Italian brass Moody Aquarium sink. He then brushed his sparkling white teeth, and periodically glanced down at the tropical fish in the sink below him. Lundin looked on as her husband smeared a mint facial cleaner on his face. With the Sprite-colored cream on his face, he turned and looked at Lundin.

  “What?” he asked, having noticed her odd, rueful stare.

  “You look like an alien,” she said, and giggled adolescently.

  “You know, I have to be an alien. Humans do not come this handsome and sexy,” he said with conceit in the air. Then matter-of-factly he added, “Especially, not at eight a.m.”

  Lundin was submerged under a layer of bubbles inside of the palatial five hundred gallon tub, which offered the highlights of serious jet streams, resulting in serious body massages. Her creamy alluring body rose from beneath the sea of bubbles like a mermaid out of the ocean. She struck an admiring, Naomi Campbell, at the end of the runway pose, and exclaimed, “Then I must be the commander of the Mother Ship!” Water danced down her body in a curvy ride into the Jacuzzi. They both chuckled light-heartedly.

  Both of them enjoyed the sexy banter, which kept their self-esteem in the ether. He bent over the sink, his face quite close to the aquarium. He rinsed the mask from his face and the school of fish in the tank feared that they were under attack. He stood, grabbed a face cloth off the gold towel rack and patted his face dry.

  “So, has Diana figured out if she’ll be visiting her daughter and most hated son-in-law?” William asked, as he continued to shave.

  “I doubt it. She is afraid to fly because of the constant threat of terrorists.”

  “But we know why she really is not coming?”

  “And that is what, Will?”

  “She really hates me,” he said, as if the words meant nothing to his wife.

  “She doesn’t hate you. She just…,” Lundin was lost for words.

  “Hates me!”

  William’s family was never the topic of discussion, as they didn’t exist in his new celebrity life. His short version of life before Los Angeles was: elementary through high school in Philadelphia; lived orphanage to temporary foster care and back to orphanage; he fled to Los Angeles soon after undergrad completion. Lundin had often joked that he had been cast out of heaven for rivaling the perfect image of man set by Adonis. It was as if William had just walked out of the Pacific Ocean and marched across the crowded Santa Monica Beach, and yelled, “I’m here!” while stark naked.

  Lundin’s pre-Los Angeles arrangement was more complicated. Lundin was raised by a woman without any conscious or mothering skills. Disastrously, parenting was no easy task for any parent; old money, new money or no money. There was a spectrum of parents ranging from good to bad. A child dreamed of God granting them parents that hovered at the middle of the spectrum. Sadly, William received more nurturing love posing as a basketball, bouncing from home to home, than Lundin received from her birth mother.

  William climbed into the tub and Lundin sank deep into his arms.

  “I’m sorry, Boopsie, but we both know that she speaks badly about me. I am happy to be with you, though.”

  Lundin wiggled her body closer to his. He was the positive on a magnet and she was the negative. Her ass was a snug fit to his pelvis. “I can see that you are quite happy,” she said and turned weightlessly in the water to kiss him. The kiss was passionate and suggested a little, or big, sexual water sport match.

  “So, what’s on the agenda today?” She asked, nonchalantly floating to her side of the Jacuzzi, and flagrantly changed the subject.

  “Don’t give me that,” he said, as if she had just expressed the dumb reason that she was filing for a divorce.

  “What?”

  “That either,” he told her, as she squeezed Dove bathing gel into a sponge.

  “You’re gon’ turn your hot ass around and leave me to take a cold shower?”

  “Sorry, running late,” she said as she salaciously ran the sponge over her body.

  “Such is life.”

  “What?” she asked, with the identical flair of the last what that she said.

  “Pay back is a bitch. That’s what!” he said, smiling, and hopped out the tub.

  She stared at his naked body and thought that she should choose carefully the next time she had to neglect her job or husband. He wrapped in a towel and left the bathroom.

  * * *

  William walked into the kitchen and grabbed a mug of cappuccino from the maker. It was set to brew at seven a.m. every morning, even on the weekends. He walked into the living room and opened the vertical blinds and was assaulted with light. The light caused the Italian imported, python-leath
er upholstery on the sofa and love seat which was a mixture of army green and egg shell white, to glisten. At a flat table, he grabbed one remote that controlled the plasma TV, artful Outlaw Audio surround sound, DVD player, and satellite box. He commanded the television to broadcast CNN morning news.

  Justice set the news to be heard through the loft on the strategically placed Bose speakers, so that he caught every word. He never knew when he would catch a bit of news that he could fuse into one of his fictional manuscripts. He enjoyed CNN news over the plastic local news, but neither compared to Court TV’s Forensic Files or City Confidential when it came to feeding a starving plot. In the dining room, he flipped through the mail from the day before. All junk. He had all of his bills E-mailed to him. He looked past the mahogany table at the serving cart in the corner. He wished Lundin had the LA Tea Party that she fantasized about, so that the money that he spent on the sixteen party archaic tea serving set was not wasted. He respected money.

  William heard the sound of Lundin as she rummaged through one of the wall to wall closets which lined the bedroom along the wall that did not over look into the down stairs. He walked into the bathroom and showered.

  Heavenly fragrances filled the air when William entered the loft bedroom twenty minutes later. The space used to be two bedrooms, but they had the dividing wall removed. The king sized, rosewood bed with lion’s feet as legs was propped against the wall, and covered in luxe $500.00, 1,000 thread count sheets. An ocher love seat with over-sized arms helped the staircase divide the bedroom from William’s home office/library. The sofa sat approximately six-feet from the bed with a perfect view of the forty-eight inch plasma TV that emerged from the foot of the bed on command. Of the three wall to wall closets, Lundin’s was in the bedroom to avoid her from contaminating his space. His and hers six-drawer armoire’s with rosewood and sterling handles, rested on both sides of the bed. Lundin’s home to designer pearls, diamonds, amber, and sapphire. William’s topped with many colognes and one perfume: Clive Christian No. 1. At over two thousand dollars a bottle, it was masculine and expensive enough to accept the perfume moniker proudly. There was egg shell colored carpet, like the rest of the home, and on the walls was a Rembrandt original and three delectable oil paintings each with their own track lighting to flatter them.

  “You’re running really late,” William said, sarcastically.

  “They won’t miss me,” she claimed, never missing a stroke of the eye lash brush.

  Lundin had a perfect café au lait complexion and did not need make-up, but it added to her beauty. She was dressed in European couture, mostly white.

  “Isn’t there some sort of rule about white?” William joked.

  “It’s May. You’re no longer on the East Coast Toto,” she said and grabbed her keys and briefcase. “Give Boopsie some sugar,” she said and rushed over to him.

  He turned his head away. “Pay back’s a bitch.”

  “Suit you,” she responded and turned around. She walked down the stairs, and then yelled. “But this is not a war that you want to begin. Trust me!”

  William imagined the losing battle. He hang-jumped over the loft and lost his towel along the way. He met her at the front door, grabbed her, and planted kisses all over her perfectly made face.

  “Say I concede, Boopsie,” she commanded her husband.

  “You conceited, Boopsie,” he said, smiling at her and hugging her tightly.

  “You’ll get that right,” she said, and turned to leave. She crossed the doorway and he gave chase.

  She started down the stairs, and he yelled, “Sorry! I concede! Give in! Wave the white flag! Sign a treaty!" He had to back into the doorway having forgotten that he was nude. He peeked his head out before she opened the door below, which led to the sidewalk, and passersby could see him.

  “I’m running late, remember?” she asked, and unlocked the door. “No time to negotiate now. Talk to me over dinner. Bye, Blackey,” she said and the door closed behind her.

  Walking toward the living room, William picked up the lost towel along the way. He tossed the towel on his shoulder. Being proficient in Spanish, he switched the TV to Univision and caught Noticiero. The news out of Mexico was always full of aspiring drama that fed his novels.

  Midway through dressing, so that he could head to his office in Beverly Hills, he heard a news reporter delivering a story about a man who had watched someone abduct his wife. William made a note in his mental dossier to contact Romeo Gonzalez, a street reporter for the station to get the full story later.

  FOUR

  Zuzzio Model Experts, an elite Los Angeles talent and model scouting agency, occupied three floors of a nondescript and clandestine smoke glass office on Sunset and Lacienega. The company had grown to one of the top three agencies in Los Angeles and Lundin was an associate with them for the last two years. She was cashing in on the high demand for district faces to sell products from animals to zucchini. Its primary business was expert and expensive model placement, but it also did talent scouting and had a developing actor scouting department of which Lundin Fortune was the main corridor to.

  “Good late morning, Rose,” Lundin told the receptionist, before taking the steps to her third floor office.

  Lundin entered her sleek office, and sat in a brass studded leather club chair, behind a Louis XV desk. Her office was quarter of a basketball court with tall windows. On occasion she walked shoeless on the Turkish carpet and stared at the white polka-dotted walls. They were lined with her models on the cover of top magazines.

  She settled in at her desk and the telephone rang.

  “Lundin Fortune,” she said coolly, prepared to work. After all she was starting at 11 a.m.

  “Hi, Mason here,” said her Sears’s advertising contact.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked earnestly.

  “I know this is short notice, but two of my girls have gotten sick with food poisoning and I need replacements an hour ago. Please say that you can help me?”

  Lundin was already taping the keys on her keyboard for her list of available models. “What age group, Mason?” Lundin asked, and he responded pre-teen. “That poses a problem. They are in school. To pull them would be—”

  “We are prepared to pay any inconvenience fees,” he said, quickly.

  “That’s not it. The moral is that they work during non-school hours. Morally, I cannot pull them from school to pose Osh Gosh for Sears,” she said, chuckling. Unless, I can get them contracts for more work with enough money to hire a tutor and pay off the parents, she thought.

  “Lundin, just this once. I promise this won’t happen again.”

  “Mason, my girls can get sick. That happens. It’s a part of the business.”

  “Okay,” he said, somberly.

  Lundin caught the fear in his voice and knew that she had to act fast to close a deal. “Mason, if you contracted my girls for say…two years, I’ll use the convenience fee for a tutor.”

  “Two years Lundin? That’s robbery, Lun. What if they become plagued with acne or gain weight?”

  “We will put in the contract that any excess weight and acne voids the contract if warranted.”

  “Lundin!”

  “Okay, one year,” she said, which was all she really wanted. She had mastered the art of negotiating.

  “Sold,” he raved. “Get them to me in an hour. The earlier the better. I have a photographer waiting by the hour.”

  “Right on top of that, Mason.”

  Lundin hung up, prepared to talk to the parents on her cell phone as she left her office. She thought to herself, only being out of the office could keep me at ZME any longer. Modeling over school? Have I lost my damn mind? I would never allow my daughter to do this. But wait, I don’t have a child. Lundin purposely selected the poorest two girls that she had on file. One Black and one Italian. Lundin hoped that when she had children that she would not be faced with such a controversial decision. She never wanted to have to decide Harvard versus th
e NBA.

  FIVE

  When the creative mind settled down and became ready to part with its contents, a killer fiction novel or block buster screenplay surfaced. One hoped not to put out material where the audience was obliged to scrutinize the writer’s own character. Was James Patterson a bottled up serial killer waiting to be shacked and not stirred to justify a murderous kidnapping spree of his own? Readers did not know. The idea though was contributing to slowing down William Fortune, who at twenty-eight had four novels in print and two adapted into eight-figure earning motion pictures. All of them chilling, conniving crime thrillers, with too good to be true jail scenes. Scenes that only a seasoned convict could paint a picture of using the right canvas and complimentary color scheme.

  William, the writer, hailed out of Philadelphia and wrote as fluidly as a silk Yves St. Laurent gown. With a commanding sense of English and Ebonics under his belt, he settled in California ready to strike gold in Hollywood. First, he needed an agent who believed in his urban cultural knack to secure him deals with Hollywood’s two powerful P’s—publishers and producers. Agents were to Hollywood what lobbyists were to Capitol Hill. Then, he bowed before God and asked to be given the ability to unleash prolific hood tales on the public.

  Perched in a ruddy high-backed, leather executive chair, William sipped the last droplet of mocha Frappuccino from Starbucks. He stared down at the computer monitor pained by the weak frame for a chapter in his latest untitled manuscript. He planned to add the flesh and bones to the chapter in order to complete the skeleton.

  His private writing studio was in a corner office at Lacienega and Wilshire Boulevards. He, William Fortune, was a big man on campus. He had one of the five corner offices despite him earning considerably less than the corporations in the building. He had an office so that he could sit and write in solitude, and without distractions. No foolish office parties. No E-mails demanding an article that was past deadline. No opinions taken from nosey co-workers by the water cooler. And no inquiries into his private life that if certain things were revealed would render him ostracized. He sat back, listened to Mozart work the piano keys, as his fingers danced across the computer keys.