Gold, a summer story [11th edition] by Mike Bozart - HTML preview
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Chapter 31
Cindy Santos was the older of two sisters. She had one brother, the youngest of the siblings. Her parents were both Filipino from Metro Manila. Her mother was a nurse from Antipolo, the town with the great Manila Bay view and a slightly cooler climate. Her dad was from Pasay City, very close to the international airport. He was a jet-engine mechanic. They met on the LRT, the above-ground, mass-transit rail line, on its opening day in 1984.
Her parents immigrated to the United States when she was only three years old. They took up residence on the Central California coast, just south of San Francisco. Franciscan Park, a mobile-home community in Daly City, or Little Manila, as many now call it, was where they took root. It was a good fit, as Daly City soon became California’s (and America’s) first majority-Filipino city. However, Daly City sat atop the infamous San Andreas Fault.
The mobile-home park was on the southwestern flank of San Bruno Mountain. This was no ratty trailer park; the homes and grounds were meticulously well-kept. Its biggest allure: stunning, multi-million-dollar Pacific Ocean views – when the fog broke – for a budget price (by California standards).
Many bus routes were just down the mountain on El Camino Real. There was also a BART station close by. The family lived easily without a car the first five years.
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Cindy excelled in school. She loved the English language.
She also loved to spice it up with Tagalog-English blends.
Taglish, she and her friends called it.
She graduated from Jefferson High School in 2005. She then went to San Francisco State University on a partial scholarship and got a degree in Broadcast and Electronic Communication. After graduation she found no luck in landing a job with a Bay Area TV station, as each station had stacks of résumés, and added another pile each week.
Cindy grew tired of waiting for a local bite. She was ready to begin her career. She decided to cast her line much farther and wider; her job search went nationwide.
When she first got word that a TV station in Wilmington was interested in her, she failed to look at the state. She assumed it was Wilmington, California – the port of Los Angeles. She later saw the letters NC after Wilmington.
She researched Wilmington, North Carolina. It seemed kind of charming. She would be almost three thousand miles from her parents and siblings, but she wanted to show them that she could do it. She had a strong independent spirit. Ah, what the heck. I’m young. It’s not permanent. If I fall on my face, I can always come back home. If nothing else, it’ll get my résumé started. I may even like it enough to stay. Hey girl, let’s go for it! You only live once.
She began doing random field reporting for Channel 8’s 6:00
PM and 11:00 PM newscasts. She felt confident and 193
comfortable doing it. She was a natural in front of the camera with a microphone in her hand.
As the only Asian female on the local TV news stations, she got lots of fan mail from the Asian freaks – men and women.
She loved the attention, except the handwritten letters from the ones who seemed like genuine psychopaths. They scared the hell out of her. She soon had someone screening her mail.
After two years of living in a quaint yet cramped apartment on Nun Street, she decided to drop anchor and buy a condo.
She found a nice one-bedroom unit on Water Street with a great view of the Cape Fear River. The sunsets were majestically postcard-perfect five nights a week. The World War II battleship that fought in Leyte Gulf in the Philippines was right across the river from her second-floor picture window. Moreover, she loved her new digs.
She was also right in the middle of the Wilmington nightlife scene. The boutiques, restaurants, bars and coffee shops were all short walks. It wasn’t long before she had a boyfriend.
John X. DeJohnson VI was his name. He was a dark-mustachioed, prematurely balding, Caucasian insurance agent of thirty-two years from Boise, Idaho. He wasn’t a bad guy. It was the first time she had sex with a man. Their relationship, though, only lasted six months. It just fizzled out. There was no dramatic ending.
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Back in college, a Filipina friend had talked her into a lesbian experiment one night after they ate some green brownies.
They were high as untethered kites. She didn’t hate it, but it made her realize that she wanted a real wienie in her bilat (a Filipino term for vagina).
The weekend weatherman at the TV station was constantly flirting with her, but she thought that he was a bisexual swinger, who would never stay faithful and moored to just one female. She laughed at his odd jokes, just to be polite.
He had asked her to go out with a group of friends several times, but she always had an excuse for not going. She knew the inherent risks of being in certain public places.
Cindy was always afraid that some bigwig in Wilmington would see her out drinking and acting silly, and that it would have a detrimental effect on her career. She was very conscious of her public image, whether on or off the clock.
However, loneliness had found her and was beginning to suffocate her. She considered posting an online singles ad under an alias. She spent three hours one night writing a detailed description about herself sans photo. And promptly deleted it. She just couldn’t do it.
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Chantelle knocked on David’s inn door at 7:33 PM. He opened the door. She was simply stunning in her purple summer dress with swirly paisley patterns. It hung on her slender body so perfectly; it wasn’t too tight, nor too loose.
“Hello there, and don’t you look so gorgeous,” David proclaimed with a big smile.
“Why, thank you. You don’t look like chopped liver, either,”
Chantelle added. I wonder where she heard that.
“Ah, you already know some American expressions.”
“You hear a lot of idiomatic English in those checkout lines, my darling.” My darling? Already? Wow!
“Oh, I bet that you hear a lot of things, and see a lot of checking-you-out.” David chuckled. “Well, here, have a seat.” David motioned for her to sit in the armchair. He then sat on the side of the bed, facing her.
“This is a nice room,” she remarked while looking at the textured walls.
“Yeah, it is. I got it because it’s close to everything down here. Walking distance, in fact. No need to drive the car anywhere. I don’t like driving after I’ve been drinking, not even after one beer. Just too risky. The alcohol odor. I just 196
don’t want the hassle at an impromptu roadblock.”
Impromptu roadblock?
“That’s smart,” Chantelle said. He’s a bit paranoid, I do believe.
“Where would you like to eat, Chantelle? Any type of cuisine in mind?”
“Pizza! Just kidding. How about some seafood?”
“Sounds like a winner. Port cities always have the best seafood. There’s a place just around the corner with a nice river view.”
David looked at her breasts and imagined what would be happening in the room two hours from now. He had sprouted a bent oozing chub. Wish I could turn that damn thing off.
“Cool! Ready to go?” Chantelle was full of energy. I wonder how big his biroute [penis in French] is.
“Sure,” David said as he rose from his sitting position on the bed with some difficulty. “Let’s head over to Chandler’s Wharf and see what’s popping?” Huh?
“See what’s popping?” Chantelle gave him an inquisitive look. “I don’t think that I’ve heard that expression before.”
She was now grinning.
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“I hadn’t heard it before, either,” David said as he opened the door for them to exit. He’s as odd as Mark.
<><><>
They were able to get a table with a view of the tea-colored Cape Fear River. A lone tugboat was headed downstream towards the port. The gray, steel-truss Memorial Bridge towered to their left. The burnt-orange sun was steadily approaching the horizon. The shadows were lengthening on the water’s undulating surface. Wow, it looks just like a postcard. I think he really likes me. / She seems content.
This is going great.
David began the dinner conversation as he turned his gaze to Chantelle’s mysterious dark eyes. He just hoped that he wouldn’t stutter. Just relax. Go with a comedic ice-breaker.
“Chantelle, tell me about yourself. What do you do besides flirt with guys in the Wally World checkout line?” David gave her an overconfident smirk, replete with a right-eye wink.
“I don’t flirt with every guy that passes through my line.” She was somewhat taken aback by David’s opening salvo, but quickly recovered and got back on her game. “I only flirt with the ones that look like they are up to something big, like you and Mark.” She winked back at him.
“Excuse me, but I think the air went out of my big balloon earlier this afternoon,” David confessed.
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“Well, maybe I can pump it back up later tonight.” Wow! No persuading needed with her. This is going to be deliciously easy. I guess the gods are not totally against me.
“I’m sure you can, sexy lady. But, before we get back there, what can you tell me about Mark?”
“Well, not much more than I told you in the store. Our whole conversation only lasted a minute. He seemed to be in quite a rush. He appeared to have something urgent to do.”
“I see. And, you wanted to be with him?” My boy is tripping.
David wanted a straight answer from Chantelle, but doubted he would get one. He tapped his left index finger unconsciously on the fork.
“No, I just wanted to know more about him. I just had this sixth-sense feeling that he was up to something – something big. Maybe he was on some kind of mission.” A golden mission, no less.
“Why did you want to know more about him? Might you be a journalism student at UNCW, [University of North Carolina at Wilmington] Chantelle?”
“No, David, I’m a creative-writing student at Cape Fear Community College. I hope to transfer to UNCW next year.
I’m always looking for more material for my future novel.”
Novel?
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“Oh, a budding, sexy writer. Even more dangerous than a reporter. Novels have a long shelf-life.” That was kind of clever. He’s not all zeroes and ones.
David had got Chantelle to laugh. They were both immensely enjoying the evening. Their minds were churning up future scenarios. He’ll be a good male character study. I wonder if he can really pump it. Really hit it hard. / Well, I got her to laugh. I’ll get her to scream later. I can already feel those long, exotically painted fingernails clawing into my back. Oh, yeah!
The waiter arrived. He was white, of average build with black hair, in his mid-20s, and kind of Italian looking. His long, white, flapping apron brushed against Chantelle’s water glass, nearly snagging and toppling it.
“Woah, that was a close call,” the waiter said as he steadied Chantelle’s water glass. “Are you guys ready to order?”
“What would you like, Chantelle?” David asked.
“Oh, I’m not a big eater,” Chantelle said. “Just a bowl of seafood soup will do for me.”
“What kind of seafood soup, madam?” the waiter asked while pointing to the soup and salad section of the menu.
“Surprise me!” Chantelle exclaimed as she turned and smiled widely at David.
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“And for you, sir?” the waiter asked.
“I’ll have what she’s having,” David chimed back.
“Ok, so we’re doubling down on tonight’s mystery soups.”
The waiter quickly made the shorthand notations on his pad.
“And, anything to drink other than water?” he asked, hoping for an expensive wine order.
“Do you like Moscato, Chantelle?” David asked. Most women love this sweet wine.
“I sure do,” Chantelle gleefully replied. I knew it. / Does he really think that he needs to get me drunk first?
“We’ll split a bottle of the golden Moldovan Moscato,” David told the waiter, as he scratched his right ear. Moldova?
“Very well. Good choice. Your soups should be out in five to seven minutes,” the waiter announced, and then walked away.
“Five to seven minutes, did you catch that, Chantelle?”
“I did. It’s those kinds of lines that will be in my novel. Some of the things I’ve overheard I could never make up. People say the oddest things sometimes.”
“Don’t you need to write it down? Is your memory that good?” David was quite curious as to how she would 201
Does
she
use
some
association-based
memorization technique?
“Oh, I have my little, digital, audio recorder going,” Chantelle coolly disclosed. “It can record up to thirty-five minutes.”
“Well, I can go longer than that.” David chuckled. I hope I can. I may bust in three minutes on that hot body. / He’ll shoot his first load in four minutes, tops.
“Well, I certainly hope so.” Chantelle gave him a challenging look. “Ah, here comes our soup.”
They took a break from their scintillating dialogue and began to feast on their scrumptious seafood soups. Chantelle’s appeared to be mostly crab; David’s seemed to be mostly white fish with some bay clams sprinkled in.
The restaurant was nearly full now. The waiters were having to hustle. A pot dropped in the kitchen. <clang> They both finished their soups at the same time. They were gastronomically satiated to the max.
“Boy, that really hit the spot, David.” I hope that I hit her spot later. I want to create an orgasmic frenzy with this super-sexy, meta-mesmerizing enchantress.
“Yeah, that was good stuff,” David replied as the waiter came with the wine bottle and glasses.
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The waiter poured the wine into each glass until they were half full. He did so in an effeminate manner. “Enjoy,” he said as he left their table.
“Do you think our waiter is gay?” Chantelle curiously asked.
Of course, but why does she ask?
“I believe so. His mannerisms remind me of one of my gay friends in Raleigh.”
“My younger brother is gay,” Chantelle blurted out. “He’s having a hard time in high school. He’ll have to go again next year. I think that he’ll end up graduating when he’s nineteen.
I think it’s harder when you’re black. And, transferring from Haiti to America at the age of thirteen was tough for him. Do you have any gay relatives?”
“I do, Chantelle – a cousin and an uncle.”
“Have you ever had a homosexual experience?” Wow, right between the eyes.
David tried to regain his poise. “Well, let’s just say that there was one night in Bangkok,” David said aloofly as he nervously chuckled.
“Please elaborate, sir,” Chantelle demanded like a hostile lawyer in a TV-covered courtroom.
“Well, four of us – college buddies from Pitt – went to Bangkok one summer between my junior and senior year. Of 203
course we went trolling for whores. I mean, what college-age male doesn’t in that city of sex? Well, we were drunk and high on something that I can’t even pronounce, and two of us ended up with what they call ‘the third sex’. We were so wasted, and they looked so feminine, that we didn’t realize it at first. I mean they really looked like women, boobs and all.”
“Ok, please continue …”
“Well, to make a long story short, it was the best blowjob of my life and she-he looked better than my ex-girlfriend. I’m still in e-mail contact with Angong. You talk about a subject for a novel. She-he has lived, and continues to live, a mind-blowing life. Ok, now it’s your turn; how about you?” Whew, thank God, he’s not some homophobe.
“Oh, gosh, I can’t tell you how many women have eaten me out.” <gulp> What did she just say? Am I up for this?
“Oh,” David leaked out, very meekly.
“Half of the people who flirt with me in the Wally World checkout line are females.” Whew! Someone pour some ice cubes down my trousers. She’s verbally titillating me, and she knows it. / I think I have his complete attention now.
“Can we go to a commercial now?” David laughed self-consciously as he exhaled through O-shaped lips.
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“Don’t worry; I won’t bite it off, David.” Am I going to end up on the news like Mark? She’s got incredible game. Incisive and dissective. [sic] And catalytic!
They started on their second glasses of wine. The setting sun’s reflection was languidly wobbling on the river’s ripples.
It was pure Wilmington Chamber of Commerce.
David commenced the new round of dialogue while gazing at some kids on the dock, throwing bread in the water for the river fish to eat.
“Where did you grow up in Haiti, Chantelle?”
“Carrefour,” she nonchalantly replied.
“Never heard of it. Where is that?”
“Just west of Port-au-Prince, on the coast. Our hut was only eight kilometers – or five miles as you say here – from downtown.”
“Hut?”
“Yes, it was just a simple hut for the three of us. Carrefour is a very poor area, David. My dad died when I was only three from a MRSA infection. I really have no memory of him.”
“I’m very sorry, Chantelle. So very sorry.” So much sadness and woe on this globe.
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“It’s ok. Everyone has tragedy of one kind or another in their life. It’s not an easy ride for anyone – not even for the rich ones.”
“Were you there when that massive earthquake hit?”
“No, but my mom happened to be visiting. That was in January of 2010. I lost several friends. The country still hasn’t recovered. I really doubt it ever will. Poverty is just a way of life in Haiti, David. The opportunities are just so limited. If you don’t get out by the age of twenty-five, you just resign yourself to an impoverished existence until death.”
“Thanks for sharing this with me,” David said as he looked down at a spider crack in the floor.
“No problem. Thanks for asking. What about you?”
“Oh, just a native Pittsburgher who grew up on the south bank of the Monongahela River in the Mount Washington neighborhood. A very ordinary, middle-class American childhood. The middle brother of a family of five. Good parents. Both still alive. Nothing too dramatic or novel-worthy. Moved to Raleigh after graduating from Pitt.”
“Pit? What’s that? A seed-sowing school.” She guffawed.
“Oh, sorry, Pitt is the University of Pittsburgh.”
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They both looked out at the river, and they both had the same thought: Moments like these are so sublime, but so fleeting. The transient-yet-cruel beauty of this passing life.
David rekindled the conversation. “What will be the genre for your novel, Chantelle? Action? Drama? Romance? Mystery?
Suspense?” Nymphomania?
“Keep going. It will have all of those in it and more, David.”
I’m sure that it will.
“How about some philosophy?” David asked out of a passing wave of lecture-hall-recalling curiosity.
“It will be hiding between the lines,” Chantelle said with a sly smile. She swirled the yellowy wine in her glass. “I really like this wine. It has a very nice, fruity scent and a pleasantly sweet taste. I hate the bitter wines.” I knew it.
“Thanks. A lucky pick, I guess. I really don’t know that much about wines. It takes some age to like the bitter, dry ones, I think. And, well, you’re still a Beaujolais nouveau.”
“Why, thank you, monsieur. [mister in French] Ready for a novel question?”
“Aim high, shoot low, princess. But not too low.” Wow, he called me ‘princess’!
“You’re connected to Mark in some way, aren’t you, David?”
Holy Toledo! Where did that come from?
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“Why would you think that, Chantelle?” Damn, she’s good.
Very perceptive. That, or I’m very obvious. Probably more of the latter. I need to reel it in.
“You asked me about him. Twice. At the store and here.
And, you had trouble answering my simple question.”
“Are you sure that you’re not studying to be a lawyer?” Gosh, I hope not. / Should I consider that field?
“Did you kill him?” What the fuck?! / I got him again good.
“Hell no! I was in Raleigh asleep in my bedroom when he went off that bridge. I have an alibi. I can prove it. I didn’t know Mark; I had never met him. There’s no connection between us.” Except that car. / Wow, I sure got his goat with that one.
“Relax, I won’t call the cops just yet.” She started laughing.
She was feeling the wine. Man, she played me like a cheap toy with that line. And, I took her bait and made a fool out of myself. Ah, but she’s tipsy. Time to take this fine lass back to the room and impart some penile payback. I’ll get back on the gold track tomorrow morning.
The waiter came back to their table right as they finished the bottle of wine. He had a look of mortal inevitability.
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“Was everything up to par, mes amis?” [‘my friends’ in French] Wow, our waiter knows French? Was he eavesdropping? For how long?
“Everything was parfait!” [French for perfect] David exclaimed as he handed the waiter his debit card.
The waiter soon returned with their bill and his bankcard.
David signed it, leaving a generous tip.
David then glanced at Chantelle. “Ready to go?”
“Sure,” Chantelle said with a seductive smile.
Chantelle got up and they walked back to The Stammering Man Inn. By the time they got to Ann Street, David’s arm was around her waist. This feels great. I hope he remains nice to me. Please, no Jeckyl and Hyde act. / She sure has taken my mind off of today’s golden disaster. Well, almost.
As they walked down Front Street, David realized that she now had much more information about him with regard to the great gold quest. She had won this opening round. I know that she will use all of this in her novel one day. I’m sure of it.
Just please change my name, Chantelle. Please grant me a non-associable alias.
<><><>
Once the inn door closed, their clothes quickly came off.
Chantelle slyly slid on a bright purple masquerade mask.
Wow, she’s a freak! I’m in for it. And, already up for it.
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She immediately went to work on David’s schlong, bringing up a sporting tumescence. She tickled his orbs and wet-vacuumed his phallus. Oh, my … this is heaven on Earth! / I can tell that he’s never had it so good. Never.
David was speechless and breathing in gasps. She was damn good alright, porn-star good, he imagined. Wow, what an artsy look. Her mask is just too damn much. Too cool.
She is pure erotic art in action. Dearest and highest God of gods, if it’s not in the cards for me to find that forsaken gold, let me die right now with my boinging bologna in this goddess’ mouth.
David fell back on the bed. Chantelle positioned herself on top of him. They began to 69. Chantelle had applied a lilac perfume on her vulva that made David lick faster. He rubbed her clitoris with his upper lip and nose. Her pelvis was convulsing. Why must all good things come to an end?
Why? / I want to mark him with my juices for life. Don’t stop, David. Don’t stop!
David was about to extinguish the flame. He needed a break or he was going to unload in Chantelle’s mouth. He really didn’t want to do that as Chantelle might not be expecting an impromptu protein shake. He was raised to be a gentleman.
“Condom time, dear,” David said from below her lower pelvic wetness.
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“Where is it? I’ll do it for you.” Chantelle looked back at him as she remained on all fours like a pony.
David found a condom under the pillow and handed her the individual package. She took it out and rolled it down his swollen member. It was black latex.
“Your bistouquette [penis in French slang] looks Haitian, mon ami,” [‘my friend’ (masculine) in French] Chantelle proudly announced.
David gave a slight chuckle as Chantelle tasted the condom. He could feel her tongue and lips. Oh, my God!
She felt the throbs of his penile veins. He’s ready. Chantelle then mounted David and rode him hard and fast.
Occasionally she would slow down to grind her clitoris on his pubic stubble. She was getting ready to reach singularity with the universe, and so was David. Lord, let me last a few more seconds. Must think of baseball in August. Very hot.
Two outs, bottom of the sixth, no one on base. The fat manager spits in the dugout and scratches his ass. Ball boy looks at the ground, completely bored. A flying insect annoys the batter. He steps out of the box. He steps back in. He swings at the pitch. Foul tip. Umpire takes it right on the front of his mask. The baseball-delay was a success.
They climaxed within a millisecond of each other. Chantelle collapsed on David, her lower torso still pulsating. David held her tight and kissed her forehead. Her breasts felt reassuring 211
against his chest. They were both exhausted and fell asleep within thirteen minutes. It was 10:12 PM.
At 11:11 David got up to remove his condom and take a pee.
When returning to the bed, he stopped and studied Chantelle on the bed. She was such a beautiful young lady.
He wondered where this could lead. Maybe she can help me find the gold, too. I’ll feed her some small nuggets of information and see how she does.
David got back in the bed, turned up the air conditioner, and pulled the sheet and thin blanket over Chantelle. He still felt a bit hot as he watched the Channel 8 11:00 News weather segment. It was going to be hot again tomorrow with a chance of a late afternoon or early evening thunderstorm.
Typical summer pattern. Repeat.
At 11:18 Cindy Santos appeared on the screen, but it was just a replay of her earlier report on the 6:00 newscast with a voice-over by the anchor in the studio. I guess there’s nothing new. I know the gold is on Dale’s property. I just know it. Maybe I’ll send her another quick e-mail.
David tip-toed over to his laptop on the small table and glanced back at Chantelle. She was still sound asleep.
That’s one tired young lady. I’ll just let her sleep. I don’t want to get her involved in this just yet.
He opened his e-mail account. When he looked in his inbox, there was nothing new but some more Viagra spam. I guess this is the price I pay for hitting those porn sites.
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He went to the fridge and grabbed another local microbrew.
He drank it quietly in bed next to his sleeping Haitian novelista-to-be while listening to the program-menu channel’s light instrumental music. He tried to think of his next move in the great gold quest, but by the fifth slug of beer he was lights-out as 11:59:59 PM became midnight.
At 12:32 AM Chantelle awoke to the glow of the TV and an instrumental version The Shadow of Your Smile. At the song’s conclusion she flipped the channel to the local PBS
affiliate. Charlie Rose had just started; he was talking to a new bestselling author. Gosh, I would so love to be on his show one day. He seems so down-to-earth. But, could he be harboring any untoward secrets? Something in his smile …
She then heard the hum of David’s laptop cooling fan. He must have forgotten to put it on sleep mode.
She walked over to the laptop and brushed her right index finger across the touch pad. The screen lit up.
David’s e-mail account was still open. She read the exchange between him and Cindy Santos. A ‘large wad of cash’ missing from a safe? A murder on Van Buren Street?
Hey, Mark’s last name was van Buren. I’ve got a novel here.
And maybe, just maybe, I can find out where this missing cash is. Gosh, that would be great.
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Chantelle took a pee and put her clothes back on while David snored away. She wrote a note on the inn’s complimentary pad of paper; it read:
Thanks for everything!
I enjoyed the night.
Would love to meet
again and continue
our secret mission.
So sorry that I had
to leave early.
Have to work today.
Call or text me.
xoxox, Chantelle
Chantelle left the note on the dresser in order to greatly reduce the chances of David thinking that she had seen his e-mail correspondence with Cindy Santos. When she looked back at David, he was still sawing logs – clearing a small swamp forest with each inhalation.
She then left the room like a cagey cat, disappearing into the warm, incredibly dense, river fog.
David never heard the door shut.
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At 7:38 AM the phone on the nightstand was ringing. It was loud and annoying. On the third ring David rolled over to his right and grabbed the handset. Where is Chantelle? Is she still in the bathroom?
“Hello,” David sleepily sputtered. I guess Chantelle split. My erotic goddess went poof during the night. Did I not perform up to her satisfaction? Or, was it something else?
“Hello, this is Detective Larkson from the Wilmington Police Department. Is this David Scrapalski?” Oh, shit! It’s way too early for this. Oh, crap.
“Yes, this is he.” Cindy must have turned me in. Damn her!
“Mr. Scrapalski, we would like to ask you a few questions with regard to the murder yesterday of Dale Smite. It should take less than twenty minutes. When do you think you could come down to the station?” Hell, give me at least forty-five minutes.
“Uh, I just woke up. Is eight-thirty ok?”
“Sure, that’s fine. Anytime this morning.”
“Where are you located?”
“We’re at 615 Bess Street. Just head north on 6th Street.
Eventually the road will bend sharply to the right; this is where Bess Street starts. We’re on the left.”
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“Ok, thanks,” David said as he hung up the phone. What a day this is going to be. Payback for last night.
He looked back again at where Chantelle had been sleeping.
He wasn’t totally surprised that she was gone. I wonder if this episode will become part of her first novel. Well, I better take a shower and shave, and get mentally ready for this interrogation. Try to shake off this little hangover.
<><><>
David rolled into the headquarters of the Wilmington Police Department at 8:27 AM on a humid, steam-fog Saturday morning. He was in Detective Larkson’s office at 8:30 on the dot. Made it on-time.
Detective Lazarus Larkson was an African American of large frame. He was in great shape and looked like a linebacker.
He was bald and wore dark sunglasses. A large, brown, 24-ounce cup of convenience-store coffee proudly sat on his wooden desk. He quickly got to the crux of the matter.
“Mr. Scrapalski, did you know Dale Smite?” Detective Larkson asked while looking at his yellow notepad.
“No, I had never met him before last Friday morning,” David stated with confidence.
“Exactly when on Friday morning? And, where did you meet him?” Stay steady, boy.
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“It must have been a quarter to nine at Shipyard Boulevard Auto Salvage.”
“And, what was your reason for meeting him?” I got this.
“I went to Shipyard Boulevard Auto Salvage to buy a trunk door for my 2011 Ford Focus. My trunk was struck by a blown-over tree in Raleigh during Tropical Storm Dorn.”
“I see. Ok, how would you characterize your conversation with Dale Smite?” Just stick to the e-mail. Don’t adlib.
“It was just your normal business-transaction stuff. Just talk about the trunk door. The model type. Price negotiation.
Nothing else.”
“When did you leave the salvage lot?”
“At nine. But, I returned around two.” The exact truth.
“You came back? Why did you come back? Did you not get your trunk door at nine?” Ok, let’s not let this blow up.
Remember that Dale is dead; thus, he can’t contradict whatever I say that he said.
“I came back at two to meet with Gerald, the owner. Dale had told me that he couldn’t sell me any parts off that car because it had been underwater. He told me that Gerald would have to approve any and all part sales from that car.”
Gosh, I hope that sounded believable. I kind of think it didn’t.
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“So, there was no sale at nine o’clock?”
“No, sir. There was no sale at that time. I left with nothing. I didn’t pay Dale a dime.” His story checks out so far.
“Do you know Gerald Zowen?” Detective Larkson asked with a blank expression that David couldn’t read.
“No, I had never met him until two o’clock on Friday afternoon, when I came back for the trunk door.” No lies so far.
“How would you describe Gerald Zowen’s demeanor?”
“He was agitated. Very upset. In fact, he was furious –
furious at Dale. He kept telling me that he was going to get even with him for ripping him off. Something about a missing
‘large wad of cash’ from the safe.” I think that sounded ok.
Hope so.
“Did he sell you the trunk door?” Odd question. What difference would it make who sold me the trunk door?
What’s his angle? What is he digging for? Gold? Ha-ha.
“Yes, he did, Detective Larkson. Gerald gave me the proper legal disclosure; he told me that the car had been underwater for a couple of hours. I looked at the trunk; it looked fine. I bought it for one hundred and fifty dollars. He unbolted it from the wrecked car and put it inside my trunk.
It’s in there now. I plan to install it once I get back to my 218
home in Raleigh. Would you like to come out and see it?
See, I’m telling you the truth, robo-cop guy; I’m not lying. /
This guy is clean.
“No, that’s alright. Ok, so you got your trunk door around two-thirty on Friday, is that right?”
“Yes, that would be correct, sir.”
“Then why are you still in Wilmington?” Yikes! Don’t say ‘for the water’. Think fast.
“I had decided in advance to make a mini-vacation out of this auto-part trip to Wilmington. I hadn’t taken a vacation in some time. My boss was even demanding that I take some time off. I’d become a work-work-work robot.” That sounds believable.
“What else do you know about that wrecked, white, 2011
Ford Focus, other than that it was underwater?” Detective Larkson asked as he peered at David with laser sights on his brown eyes. Don’t choke now. Just answer calmly and assuredly.
“Well, I later learned from the Wilmington newspaper and local TV, radio, and internet news websites that the car went off the Snow’s Cut Bridge last weekend, and that the driver died in the accident.”
“Did Gerald or Dale also tell you this?” Huh?
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“No. Neither one of them told me about the death of the car’s driver. They just told me that the car had been underwater for a considerable period of time.” He seems to be telling the truth. / Hope he believes me. I don’t want to be here tonight.
“One last question: “Did you know Mark van Buren or Susan van Buren?” Whew, that’s an easy closer. No sweat.
“No, I had never heard of their names until I saw them in the Wilmington media.” Seems to be the truth.
“Ok, David, you can go now. I’m done.” Success! Maybe not a home run, but I certainly passed the test. I can tell that the police are unaware of the gold. I’m sure that it wasn’t in either vehicle. I sincerely doubt that they found it in anyone’s residence, either. It’s still somewhere on Dale’s property.
Somewhere. And just waiting for me.
“Thank you, sir. Have a fantastic day.” Spare me, dude.
“You, too, Mr. Scrapalski.” It will be the most fantastic day ever if I find that gold later. / We’ll be keeping tabs on you.
David got up and began to exit the room. Think I did pretty well. Didn’t flub it. On a scale of one to ten, would rate my performance a solid 9; ok, maybe an 8. / He’s still a person of interest. He knows more than I asked. Can feel it.
<><><>
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David then drove back to the hotel and extended his stay by one night. When he got back in his room, he laid his aching head down on the re-sheeted bed and sank into the quicksand of sleep. He was out for four hours, and had a lurid dream involving a bright-yellow, hand-held metal detector, combing over acres of otherworldly blue sand.
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Cindy Santos was having her customary, post-five-mile-run, Saturday afternoon, iced, herbal-fruit tea at The Wilmington Tea Emporium on Water Street when he walked in. She knew it was David as he looked just like his Facebook profile photo. She watched him walk up to the counter in his Pittsburgh Penguins jersey and order. He appeared to be about six-feet tall. Her table was only twelve feet away, just behind his right shoulder. She was close enough to hear the conversation.
“What would you like today, sir?” the young, short, brown-haired barista asked.
“I’ll have a medium, iced, mint-green tea,” David said.
“Is that all?” she asked while looking out the door at some people passing by.
“Yes, that will do it,” he answered.
David paid, and while waiting for his tea, looked around the quaint café. He caught Cindy’s eyes as she sipped her tumbler. They stared at each other for a few seconds. That’s her! / No doubt about it – that’s him.
Then David looked back at the barista. His tea was ready.
He grabbed the tall glass and paused. Ok, how do we do this? What to say?
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An adjacent, thin-armed, red, antique chair was repositioned; its feet screeched on the concrete-slab floor. Yow!
David then walked over towards Cindy’s round table, tumbler in hand. He made eye contact for a split second with Cindy. I think she knows who I am.
Cindy quickly looked down and studied her smartphone, pretending not to notice his approach. Her hair was in a ponytail, which passed through the adjustable-strap hole on the back of her orange-billed San Francisco Giants cap.
“I don’t think we’ve formally met. My name is David. David Scrapalski.” Not the most flamboyant opening line, but at least he’s being honest. / I sure hope it’s her. If not –
awkward!
“Oh, yes, you’re that guy who sent me the e-mail with the tip for an exclusive.” Of course, it’s me. Why is everyone so coy in this town?
“Is this seat taken? I have some more info.” Well, he’s certainly not shy. / I hope some big, burly, Mr. Macho guy doesn’t emerge from the men’s room.
“That seat is reserved for San Francisco Giants fans only.
Just kidding! Have a seat.” Cindy could see that she had really shocked him with her little sports-team joke. His stunned expression was just too funny, yet a little unsettling.
Wow, I didn’t know that he would be so stunned. Maybe I 223
shouldn’t have said that. / She really got me with that one.
One-nil.
“Thanks. It’s nice meeting you.”
“Likewise. Are you from Pittsburgh?” She already knows that’s where I’m from. She’s just being a good investigative reporter, looking for any signs of lying.
“Yep. Steelers, Penguins, Pirates and Pitt Panthers all the way. I live in Raleigh now.” Good, he’s telling the truth.
“You don’t root for the [Carolina] Hurricanes? Shame on you!”
“Well, I do when they’re not playing the Penguins, which is like over ninety-five percent of the time.”
“How about NBA?” Cindy inquired.
“Bobcats, wait, I mean Hornets. I just heard that they’re changing their name back. Ok, so, who do you root for –
besides the baseball Giants?”
“I’ve been here a little while now. I root for the Panthers, Hurricanes, and Bobcat/Hornets. When North Carolina gets a major league baseball team, I’ll take my SF cap off and put it in the closet. I guess you must love the fact that Pitt is joining the ACC.” [Atlantic Coast Conference]
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“Oh, yes; that’s sweet. I’ll be able to see them play in Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. I think we’ll hold our own in football; in basketball, well, we shall see.”
“Ok, now that we’ve got the sports segment out of the way, would you have some more details about the murder of Dale Smite?” I wonder what details she already knows.
“Will you run to the police with it again?” David gave her the eye. Oh, gosh.
“Did the police question you?” Cindy looked surprised.
“They sure did. About six hours ago.” Oh, dear.
“I’m so sorry. All of the TV station’s e-mail traffic is monitored. One of the IT guys probably saw it flagged by a filter and forwarded it to the Wilmington police. They never told me. I really do apologize for that.”
“It’s ok. I actually learned more than they did.”
“Learned more about what?” Cindy was intrigued. Is this just an atypical, intentionally vague, male ploy to try to get me in the sack?
“Well, let’s just say it wasn’t over a ‘large wad of cash’.” Wad
– what a word.
“What was it over? Drugs? A woman? A debt owed?”
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“Those are three great answers, but they’re all wrong.”
Struck out. Even more curious to know now.
A mother and her seven-year-old son passed by, scraping their table. Cindy and David halted their dialogue until they were out of earshot. Cindy grabbed her tea to make sure it wouldn’t be knocked off the small table.
“Well, you got me; I’m stumped,” Cindy confessed. “And, I imagine that the police are, too, David.”
“They are. I can tell from my interrogation that they still don’t know the root cause of the killing. They’re grasping at any grain of sand that falls in their lap.” I’d like to examine his lap someday.
“And, you do know?” Cindy wasn’t sure if he was for real or not, but thought she would play along anyway, just to see where he was leading her. I have more information than David knows, and can quickly catch him in a lie or a false assumption.
“I might,” David said as he rubbed his chin like a theoretical physicist on the verge of a breakthrough dark-matter hypothesis.
“Might you tell me?” Cindy pretended to be extremely interested. The case had already started to somewhat bore her. One knucklehead kills another knucklehead, probably during an incredibly stupid, intoxicated argument. Killed knucklehead had something that belonged to killer 226
knucklehead. Killer knucklehead promptly gets arrested. End of story. Just another violent crime between a pair of dolts.
“I could. But, you will have to win back my confidence and trust in you.” Oh, really?
“And, what might you want me to do? Walk on red-hot coals while chanting ‘mea culpa’?”
“White-hot coals,” David specified with a mischievous grin.
They both chuckled. He’s harmless, though not completely clueless. / Would love to examine her software.
“Ok, silly guy, is it something to do with stocks or bonds?
Some kind of securities swindle?” I love her Filipina accent.
“Hey, you only get three strikes. But, no, your fourth swing missed the ball, too. You’re out! Go back to that AT&T Park dugout.” David laughed. He was enjoying having the high card in this conversation.
Cindy just sat there, looking very puzzled. A man has been murdered in broad daylight in his own home, and this David guy knows something about the crime that makes him laugh.
Odd. Very odd. I obviously don’t know everything about this.
“Well, baseball rules were never my forte, Mr. Scrapalski,”
Cindy calmly stated. “Listen, I must be going. It’s been great talking to you in person. You can text any other info to me at 227
my personal cell number.” She trusts me. / I better not get a sausage-shot from him … well …
Cindy waited for him to get his cell phone out of his left-front pants pocket. When he got to his Add New Contact page, she recited her phone number. Wow! An 00 ending. Did she pay extra for that?
“Ok, I got it,” David said while looking down at his cell phone.
I can’t believe that I’ve got her phone number. / What have I just done? That was reckless, Cindy.
“Just don’t abuse it,” Cindy warned firmly. “One non-tip, one flirtatious message, one inappropriate image, and you’re blocked. I’m not kidding.” Ah, so she’s had problems in the past with her phone. She probably dated some nut-job down here, and when she dumped him, he must’ve went into textual annoyance mode. / I think that I can trust him. I want to know what he knows.
“I read you loud and clear, Miss Santos.”
“You’re not some crazy reporter-stalker, are you?” Jeez, another woman who thinks I’m out to kill her. She probably watches that truTV channel twenty hours a week. His guess was only off by two hours – two hours too low.
She was already 97.79% sure that he was a decent guy, but thought it best to go through with the boilerplate caveat anyway.
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“No, you know that I’m just an RTP lab tech with a million-dollar hidden fortune.” What did he just say? Why did he say that? Is there something hidden on Dale Smite’s property on Van Buren Street? Is that what he’s alluding to? I wonder what it is.
“Tell me more, David,” Cindy implored. Not now, pretty lady.
“Listen, we both must be leaving. We’ve got busy schedules.
I’ll text you another juicy morsel later in the day.”
“I’ll devour it if it’s good; I’ll cut your titi [penis in Filipino slang] off if it’s junk.” Cindy looked at his crotch for a second.
I wonder how it would feel in my …
“Tee-tee?” I’ll have to look that word up later.
“Tea-tea.” Cindy pointed to their glasses of tea. Maybe that diversion worked. He’ll probably still go to an online Tagalog-English dictionary right after he leaves. He would.
They shook hands, both thinking that they were being ridiculously way too formal, and left the tearoom. They headed in opposite directions on Water Street. The street smelled of dead, rotting crabs.
They were both sizing up each other as they walked farther apart. David wondered how much Cindy knew about the house’s contents. Cindy now was very curious as to what might be worth a million dollars at 2393 Van Buren Street.
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A twenty-foot-long, thirty-inches-wide-at-the-base, hardwood tree trunk was drifting down the river. A small bird was riding on it, enjoying the free transport. David just smiled at the little, light-brown bird as it passed by the docks. It winked back as a fly landed on its left eye. That bird is logging some free miles. If I were a writer, I’d use that thought in some novel.
David thought about what he had said to Cindy as he walked back to the inn. Have I lost my mind? Again? Am I going to turn out like Mark? He just kept walking with his head down.
Then he thought that his Freudian slip of the tongue may have actually planted the right seed in Cindy’s mind. He hoped that it would quickly germinate and get the best of her feminine curiosity.
His hope was justly rewarded. As Cindy walked down Front Street, she called her main contact at the Wilmington Police Department and asked if anything of interest or value was found in the house at 2393 Van Buren Street. The police sergeant told her: “Nada, as in not uh thing, Cindy. Nothing in the attic but pink insulation. Nothing in the sheet-rock walls but stale air. Nothing in the crawl space but brown recluse spiders. Nothing in the shed but a shovel and some sand.” A sandy shovel? Hmmm …
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Chantelle got off work at 5:30 PM. She headed straight back to the house on Castle Street that she shared with two other girls, both students at Cape Fear Community College.
They lucked into a great deal on the three-bedroom house, which was just outside the now-expensive, rapidly gentrifying, sign-designated historic district. It was in the old African American section of Wilmington, between 9th and 10th Streets. There was a great soul-food restaurant two hundred feet away, and the WAVE (local) bus station was just a block away. The community college was an easy eleven-minute bike ride, or seven minutes in the car when it was raining.
Chantelle arrived at 5:55 PM to an empty house. Her roommates were working. She got a bottled water from the refrigerator and sat down on the used, chocolate-brown, faux-felt couch that one of her roommates had scored. She flipped on the TV. The teasers for the 6:00 news were airing on Channel 8. Wonder if there are any new developments.
During the commercial break, Chantelle’s mind recalled David’s e-mail exchange with Cindy Santos. A ‘large wad of cash’? How large? David sure is interested in it. That’s why he’s down here; I can tell that this is the focus of his stay in Wilmington. But, why would he tip off a TV reporter, who surely would forward it to the police? Why wouldn’t he try to retrieve it for himself? Why does he want someone else to find the ‘large wad of cash’? Is it counterfeit? When it’s 231
found, does one of his enemies go to jail? Or, is there some note with it that benefits him in some way? This is weird.
The 6:00 newscast began with the anchors telling the viewers that Cindy Santos had breaking news with regard to the murder of Dale Smite. Suddenly, Cindy Santos was back in front of 2393 Van Buren Street.
“I’ve just learned from an anonymous source that Dale Smite parked inside his privacy-walled backyard around ten yesterday morning. He closed the gate behind him, but left less than ten minutes later, only to return again at a quarter after one. Gerald arrived around two-thirty. Police tell me that they have not recovered anything of interest from the house or shed, from Gerald’s Shipyard Boulevard Auto Salvage, or from either vehicle. Gerald Zowen, the suspected murderer, is in custody at the city jail, but he is not talking.”
Cindy brushed her long black hair out of her eyes. It was gusty. A thunderstorm was now approaching. The fill-in anchorman had a question for her.
“Cindy, do they have a possible motive for this murder?”
“Tom, revenge for robbery is now being floated as a possible motive for this murder. However, the police are unsure as to what was actually stolen from Gerald Zowen by Dale Smite.
Gerald Zowen is no help; he remains uncooperative. The Wilmington Police Department wants anyone with any 232
information regarding this murder to call them at once. Cindy Santos reporting for Channel 8 News.”
The TV camera was focused on the privacy-wall gate at the end of the driveway, which was half open, as Cindy closed her on-location news segment. In the distance, the metal shed could be seen, which, too, had one of its doors open. A small shovel could be seen lying on the shed’s bare, sand-sprinkled, plywood floor. Hmmm …
Yellow crime-scene tape blew in the evening breeze; it draped over the wooden gate and around the house.
Chantelle began to ponder the situation as it stood. So, they still haven’t found that ‘large wad of cash’ … I wonder where it could be. Maybe he buried it. But, the money would decompose in the soil. Is it really a ‘large wad of cash’?
Maybe David just threw that false tidbit out to Cindy, just to see what she would do with it. Maybe he just wanted to have the house, shed, salvage-yard office, and vehicles searched by the police to rule out those possible hiding places. Maybe it’s really a very valuable object – an object that you could safely and quickly bury. I bet it’s buried somewhere in that backyard. When Dale pulled into the backyard, I bet that’s when he buried the object. Boy, I’d love to run a metal detector over that yard.
Chantelle turned on her tablet computer and went to Google Maps. She entered 2393 Van Buren Street, Wilmington, NC.
She zoomed in on the parcel. She studied the overhead image of the backyard. It was devoid of any shrubs. One old-and-quite-large live oak was in a back corner. The shed that 233
was just on the news sat in the other back corner of the small rectangular lot. Now if I were burying something and I wanted to stay out of view, where would I choose to bury it?
Certainly not in the center of the yard as the neighboring two-story house would offer several vantage points.
Probably along the privacy wall. In a corner. In the corner behind the shed! It looks like there’s just enough space.
That’s got to be where that Dale guy buried the pièce de résistance – the supreme object of David’s desire. You would be shielded from view on three sides; the fourth side would not be an issue as the people in the single-story house could not see over the eight-foot-high privacy wall.
Images of various models and types of metal detectors soon filled Chantelle’s computer screen. Darn, there’s no metal detector store open at this time in Wilmington. Wait, Denise has one! That one her dad gave her. He told her to have fun combing the beaches for spare change. Where is it? I’ll just peek in her room. She won't mind. She won’t be back in until after eleven.
Chantelle entered Denise’s bedroom. She didn’t see it anywhere in plain view. She checked under the bed. Just a chocolate-flavored condom wrapper. Was David over here pumping Denise while I was at work? Oh, why do I think such crazy thoughts? Because I’m a female. She giggled.
Upon opening the closet, she was greeted with a hanger rod crammed with clothes. She parted some blouses, and there it was: a super-nice, high-end metal detector with the headphones still attached. She flipped it on; it chirped loudly.
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Yey! The battery is still good. She snagged it and walked back into the living room.
There she grabbed a pen from the coffee table. What should I say? ‘Denise, I borrowed your metal detector.’ ‘Oh, really?’
‘Yes.’ ‘And, exactly where did you go metal detecting, Chantelle?’ ‘Why do you want to know?’ Hmmm … Second thought, I better not leave a note. Denise won’t know that it’s gone tonight.
Chantelle fine-tuned the sensitivity and then placed it in the back seat of her silver VW bug. She drove away, heavy in thought. I’ll scout out that neighborhood first. Just get the lay of the land, as they say in America. Yeah, that’s it – I’ll familiarize myself first with the immediate vicinity. Find out what I need to look out for.
<><><>
Dusk was dusting the Spanish moss in Sunset Park as Chantelle turned right onto Central Boulevard. At Van Buren Street, she made a right. She slowed down. She was soon in front of 2393. She saw the shovel on the floor of the shed.
Should I buy my own shovel, or wear gloves and use that one?
She continued down the street, making a right onto Northern Boulevard, followed by a right onto Jackson Street. Let’s get a rear view of the house and backyard, and see what kind of house backs up to 2393. Hopefully, it’s not occupied by a family of eight. Please, no – not that.
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At the modest, vacant, single-story house directly behind 2393 Van Buren, she stopped behind a parked, white, 2011
Ford Focus. She saw the back of a white male’s head in the car. She studied the shirt collar, hair and the ears a little closer. Holy shit! It’s David! What in the world is he doing here? How long has he been here?
David looked in his rear-view mirror; they made eye contact.
David smiled. So, she knows more than I thought. / I guess I’m busted. I wonder if he’ll be mad – homicidally mad.
David got out of his car and walked back to Chantelle’s. She wasn’t sure what to expect.
“Why, hello there, Chantelle,” David said as he leaned in her car with a big smirk. “I didn’t see your text message about this evening rendezvous.”
“Was your phone turned off?” she sheepishly countered.
He let out a false chuckle. “Imagine meeting you here and now. What are the chances?” David eyed the metal detector in the back seat of her car.
“Improbable for sure,” Chantelle offered.
“Do you always go metal detecting in Sunset Park on Saturday evenings?” David gave her the raised eye.
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“Let’s go somewhere and talk. Are you hungry?” I need to lower his ire a few levels.
“Not really. We can’t talk in a restaurant or a bar. It’s way too risky. Let’s go to Greenfield Park. Just follow me.” What?! Is he going to kill me and dump my body in that swampy lake?
As Chantelle followed David’s white Ford Focus in her silver VW Beetle, she noticed the dented trunk door. I wonder how that happened. It doesn’t look like an automobile collision caused that. Was it caused by a human body being slammed down on it? Was it from the body of the last girl he killed because she knew too much?
They pulled off into an empty parking lot on West Lake Shore Drive. No doors opened for several seconds. Gosh, I hope this isn’t where he kills me. Does he have a gun in his car?
After an eerily tense pause, they both got out of their cars, almost in unison, and walked down to a bench beside the dark-green-surfaced lake. There was a lone, mature, Spanish-moss-laced cypress tree on its own tiny island, about fifty feet in front of them.
“You see that cypress tree out there, Chantelle?” David asked her while pointing to it with his nose.
“Yes,” Chantelle cautiously responded.
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“I feel like that cypress tree. I’m surrounded by dark water that I can’t trust. I don’t know what evil lurks beneath the surface. Maybe I’m already having my roots gnawed off.”
“Oh, I’m not that bad. I’m just a girl doing some more field research. Just gathering more data for my novel.”
“With a metal detector?” David blurted.
“Hey, the spare change along sidewalks adds up. This girl is a struggling student, remember?”
“I remember that I left my e-mail account open.” Oh, no.
Chantelle sighed and looked up at the ominous clouds. “Ok, let’s both come clean. I’ll even go first.”
“Fire away, ma belle romancière.” [‘my beautiful novelist’ in French] How much French does he know?
“I know that there’s something of great value on that parcel of land at 2393 Van Buren Street. I kind of doubt that it’s money. Maybe a gold trophy or small statue – maybe an Oscar! – or, maybe a sack of gold coins – something that can be buried easily and safely.”
“Well, you got the gold part right,” David said. Oh, hell, I may as well just tell her. I need her metal detector tonight. “There are two large gold nuggets.” There’s enough to share, and she won’t run to the police. Or, will she? I don’t think so. She 238
wants some of that precious metal, too. Yeah, she’s got the fever.
“Buried in the backyard, right?” Chantelle’s face lit up. She loved the treasure-hunt aspect to this mystery.
“Yes, I truly believe that it’s buried somewhere in that backyard,” David concurred.
“Well, what’s the plan, captain?” Captain?
“I’ve got some good news: The house directly behind 2393
Van Buren on Jackson Street is not occupied, and as you may have noticed, it has no fences. I put on my white tech outfit – to look official for the neighbors – and walked back to the privacy wall. I noticed that with just a little bit of digging in the loose sand, one of us could slide under the wall with no problem – maybe both of us to speed up the metal detecting and digging.”
“What if a neighbor sees us going under the fence?”
“That’s a risk we’ll have to take. But, believe me, the payoff will blow your mind. You’ll be able to self-publish your novel.
Have twenty thousand copies printed in the first run.”
“Wow! I’m in.” That was easy.
“I thought that was my line,” David said and began to laugh.
Such a goof, he is.
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“There are two large shrubs that will offer some cover when we dig under the privacy wall. We can dress in black attire to reduce our chances of being seen. I’ve got some black pants, black shoes, black socks, and I just bought a flat-black sweatshirt and a black ski mask. Do you have a black outfit, Chantelle?”
“My birthday suit,” she said with a wry smile.
“Your birthday suit is too sexy for this operation, ma belle.
[‘my beautiful sweetheart’ in French] Yey! He still likes me.
“Sure, I can go back and get it from my house on Castle Street. How long do you think we’ll have to use the metal detector, searching for the burial spot?”
“I don’t think we’ll have to use it for more than five minutes, max. We’ll turn the audio signal off and just go by the LED
light.”
“I’ve got headphones, too.”
“Chantelle, we need to be able to communicate at a low volume. If one of us has the headphones on, the other person will have to raise their voice. And then a neighbor or a dog could hear us.”
“Got it. That makes sense.” His brain seems to be working tonight.
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“Plus, Chantelle, if someone sees the headphones on our ears, it’s game over.” That is true.
“What about dogs? They often bark, you know.”
“Great question. Luckily for us, the nearest dog is two houses away. He or she may go in at night. It was in and out of the house the past hour.”
“I sure hope that the canine is in tonight, David.” So do I.
“Either way, I think we’ll be ok, dog-wise.”
“Hey, do you watch the old Mission: Impossible reruns on TV
Land, David?” Chantelle asked with a slight grin. “For some reason I remembered an episode involving a dog and some hidden treasure.”
“Yep, I think I saw that one. I watch MacGyver as well … for laughs.”
They both chortled. What are you in for, girl? / I can still use her, but she’ll warrant watching from now on.
“Ok, back on-point. How heavy is this golden booty?” Booty.
“Between thirty-five and forty pounds. Just two, sexy, slender kidney-shaped nuggets. Hall-of-fame material. Trust me, pictures of these golden fillets will be going in the history books and littering Google Images. They’ll have names.”
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“What about lighting? Do we need a flashlight?”
“No, it’s way too risky. The jerky beam of a flashlight is a dead giveaway. The neighbors would see it on or above the privacy wall and think there was a prowler. The cops would be here in four minutes. We’ve got a first-quarter moon tonight. That should be the perfect amount of light.”
“When do we commence this operation, commander?”
What’s with these military ranks? Does she think this is some special-ops exercise?
“I was thinking three or three-thirty. The drunks should be home from the bars by then.”
“And, what do we do for the next seven-or-so hours, my golden corporal?” She wants to fuck. / I hope he gets my drift.
“Well, my hotel room has new linens.” Such a horndog, he is.
/ I hope I didn’t shock her.
They heard a thunderclap. The evening storm was upon them. Then there was a flash of lightning to the north. Heavy rain was on its way. A few, big, fat, leading-edge drops were beginning to go splat.
“I’ll go back to my house and get my flat-black spy outfit. I should be over at the inn around eight.”
“Eight is great, but don’t be late.” Because if you are …
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“Spare me the lame poetry, Scrapalski. Gosh, your last name sounds like a hockey defenseman, Mr. Pittsburgher.”
They gave each other a long inquisitive look before separating. Both of them had the same thought: Will he/she try to take all of the gold as soon as I leave?
Chantelle drove straight home, convinced that David would not screw her out of a slice of the golden stash. I’ve got a good metal detector; he doesn’t even have one. And, David can’t even get one tonight. He absolutely needs my metal detector. He’ll wait for me.
<><><>
David tootled around the neighborhood until 7:45 PM. The thunderstorm gave him some cover, as he plied the same streets: Van Buren – Central – Jackson – Southern –
Harrison – Northern – Monroe. It appeared to him that Chantelle had indeed gone home; he never saw her car.
Maybe she’s actually trustworthy. No one else has been.
He then rushed back to the inn, making sure that he was there first. He was. I’m so glad that I didn’t see her car sitting here. That would have been awkward. Very awkward.
He looked at his cell phone. He noticed that he had received a text message at 7:39 PM from an unknown number.
Strange, I never heard the text alert.
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At 7:37 PM Cindy Santos was wrapping up some voiceovers and paperwork in her office at the Channel 8 TV
studio. She was going over her recent notes regarding Dale Smite’s murder. She scrolled down the memo pad on her smartphone.
> Gerald Zowen in city jail; sullen – still not talking to anyone
> Police’s 2nd search of the house and shed yields nothing of interest
> Police’s 2nd search of both vehicles yields nothing of interest
> Police’s 3rd search of wrecked Ford Focus turns up some gold specks in trunk, under spare tire, during a wipedown.
> Autopsy of Dale Smite confirms three 38-caliber shots to the face from very close range
> No gold found on Dale or Gerald
> No ‘large wad of cash’ found at Dale’s house or in his vehicle
> Police plan on searching the backyard with a metal detector on Sunday morning
She started thinking about David, the great gold chaser.
Well, if he doesn’t extract that gold from the property tonight, the police will find it tomorrow. It’ll end up in a museum display case somewhere in Wilmington, Raleigh or Charlotte.
Should I tip him off? I don’t want to get implicated in this, though. Oh, I know how I’ll get the message to him.
Cindy grabbed her secondary, rarely used, personal cell phone. It was the one that she used for situations like this.
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The cell phone’s number was blocked from being displayed on a receiving phone; moreover, no one – not even her family in California – knew the number. The phone never rang. She had it set up so that it couldn’t receive calls or texts. It was a purely one-way, anonymous-sender, message-transmission device. Should I really do this? Sure, why not? He was a gentleman at the tearoom. He seems like a decent guy. I’ll let his gold-quest adventure continue –
maybe to a fruitful end. Perhaps he’ll even compensate me for the tip. Wait, it’s not traceable to me. But, he’ll know it’s from me. Who else would send him such a tip? Gosh, I hope he doesn’t get arrested tonight. No, he seems pretty smart.
A techie from the RTP. He will have thought it through.
Cindy opened her old flip-phone and typed:
I’m throwing you a bone, big dog.
Time is of the utmost essence. You
must unearth your treasure tonight.
She hit Send, waited five seconds, turned it off and snapped it shut. Mission accomplished. Good luck, sport!
She then checked her Facebook account. There was a friend request from David and from someone or group going under the alias of Psecret Psociety. She glanced at the featured pics. Sounds arcane and intriguing. I wonder if David is in this esoteric club, too. I wonder what it’s all about.
Is anyone that I know in this group? She accepted both.
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Cindy quickly perused David’s pics. All single. He must have gotten rid of all the ex-girlfriend pics. Good boy, David. He looks a shade Korean in this one.
She checked his relationships status. He listed himself as single. Well, he appears to be. (Neither David nor Chantelle had posted any pics of themselves together yet on Facebook.)
She then checked out the Psecret Psociety page. Definitely some surreal strangeness here. Then she viewed some of the agent folders. Weird. They’ve all been assigned agent numbers and they’re from all over America. There’s David –
Agent 888. And, that girl lives in Vietnam. And, this guy lives in England. Heck, they’re from all over the world. How was this put together? Why was it put together? I’ll have to look into this more later. Then she got up to go home.
When Cindy reached the front lobby, she noticed a moth whirling around a floor lamp in the lobby. It had two light-bulb sockets, but one light bulb had been removed. The moth swung too wide while looping the bright 100-watt bulb. Poof!
There was a blue flash and a puff of gray smoke. The moth had landed right in the open socket and got a fatal 110-volt zap. Wow, what are the chances of witnessing such an odd occurrence? People only see such events in the crazy novels that I read.
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David went back inside his room at The Stammering Man Inn on Front Street. He grabbed a craft beer from the fridge and sat in the armchair. That no-caller-ID/no-reply-possible text message obviously came from Cindy. She must have another cell phone for such under-the-radar texting. Why, she’s a cute TV news reporter – of course she does. I think that she wants me to find the treasure. I think I can trust her.
It’s now fourth down; I’m going for it.
At 8:01 there was a rapid knock on the door. He went over to the door. Sexy has arrived.
“What’s the password?” David asked playfully.
“Let me in!” Chantelle screamed, and then giggled.
David opened the door to find Chantelle getting drenched by the heavy downpour. Her hair was soaking wet. She quickly dashed into his room and got a towel from the bathroom.
“Just a little shower, my lass.” David smiled at her.
“Shower, my ass! I’m soaked!”
“Would you like for me to dry you off, madam?”
“That would be great, monsieur.”
David took the partially wet towel from her and laid it on the bed. He got a clean, dry towel from the bathroom.
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He began to undress Chantelle as she sat on the bed. He took her black, long-sleeve, polyester fleece top off first.
Then he reached behind her and undid her black 34 C bra.
What a perfect pair!
Her skin was wet. David dried her off with the new towel as he felt a mountain growing under the equator. Chantelle noticed his budding crotch bulge, too. She unzipped David’s black jeans and pulled down his zebra-striped boxers.
Where in the world did he get these boxers? He was already almost fully rigid.
David dried her back while she gave him a lovely lizard lick.
Oh my, she’s tongue-tastic!
David finished up the drying of Chantelle’s body and began to caress her supple breasts. They felt so good in his hands.
This girl’s got one helluva body. She feels like Lady Luck.
Lady Good Lick-Luck.
Chantelle began to slide her mouth up and down his pecker faster and faster. She tasted his preliminary secretion. I better stop or he’s going to unload a pint of goo in my mouth.
I don’t think that’s what either of us wants. I have already had my protein for today.
Chantelle stood up and pulled down her black velvet leggings and black thong. David knew what to do. The cunnilingus went on for eleven minutes. Her moans came 248
from another world. This is how I want to die someday: ecstatic death by flickering tongue.
When his lower face was thoroughly marked by her fluids, he rolled a chocolate-flavored condom on his bronzed pickle and presented his wrapped sausage to Chantelle. She licked it a few times, then looked up at him and smiled.
Chantelle laid her svelte body back on the bed. David pumped her missionary style for fourteen minutes, changing his speeds and fondling her curves. When he was almost at orgasm, he pulled his member out, quickly rolled off the condom, and shot his opalescent load on Chantelle’s perfect ebony breasts and flat stomach. He felt so gratified. I now know what my boy has seen on the internet. / Should I have done that? She might now wonder about my internet habits.
“Oh, my God, I wasn’t expecting that pornographic finish,”
Chantelle said, while looking at David’s translucent expellant rivuleting down her left side onto the wet white towel. I wonder if he is addicted to porn. It seems like every guy I meet is.
“Oh, sorry, I guess I got carried away in the hyper-sensual fantasy that is Chantelle.” Nice recovery, dude. / Hope she liked that remark.
“Hey, I like the sound of that,” she said as she rose up and toweled off his splooge. “I’ll have to use it in my novel, David.”
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“I think we make a great team, Chantelle. A novel team.” A novel team? Well, he is essentially writing the male character for me.
“A great cream team?” Chantelle asked as she smiled at him and raised her eyebrows as she went to the bathroom to take a shower.
David just smiled fiendishly. She’s something else. I really struck gold with her. Now to find the elemental variety – time to unearth super-fine 79. [Gold’s atomic number]
While Chantelle was in the shower, David looked at the crenulations in the antique-white ceiling and started to think about how the night would go at 2393 Van Buren Street.
Gosh, I hope the police don’t find it before we do. That would suck … forever. Nothing could be more deflating. I’d be haunted for life. Maybe even go mad and commit suicide like poor Susan.
Chantelle was rinsing her vagina when she had a startling thought. What if David kills me after we find the gold? I will no longer be needed at that point. He’ll find another girl to fuck. But, she won’t be able to please him like me. I saw his face; he was in heaven. He never had it so good. But, he’ll have over a million dollars! He’ll be able to buy some high-priced, hyper-nympho whore as his live-in. No, he’s not like that. But, he is a man. That damn zézette [French slang for penis] between their legs really affects their thinking.
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Chantelle opened the bathroom door and began to do her hair. The mirror lights projected Chantelle’s silhouette onto the white wall.
“I see a seductive shadow on the wall,” David said in an overtly affected tone of voice. “A VERY seductive shadow.”
“You better be a good boy or the shadow will attack you,”
Chantelle said in a playful, maniacal tone.
“What do you think our biggest liability is tonight, my sexy accomplice?” Accomplice? I guess I am at this point.
“You,” she boldly stated as she tried to suppress her giggles.
What? Who?
“Me? No way. This boy is fully prepared to win the gold sweepstakes tonight and share it with his Haitian princess.”
That was nice of him to include me. But, was it too nice? Too artificial sounding? Maybe I just need to stop thinking that he’s going to kill me. Just relax your mind, girl. Quiet those negative thoughts. Get a grip; this isn’t a ghastly crime novel.
Or, is it?
About ten minutes later, the hair dryer shut off. The shadow on the wall got thinner. Chantelle had a simple request for David.
“David, could you bring me my clothes?”
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“Sure, one minute,” David said as he began to gather her black garments. He brought them to the bathroom.
Chantelle, with a white towel around her head, took them and smiled.
“How much do I owe you, bellboy?”
“You just lost a gram of gold,” David said as he walked back to the bed to lie down.
Chantelle then emerged from the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bed, running her fingers through her shoulder-blade-length, dark-as-a-starless-night hair.
“You look pensive, David. We can do this! Don’t worry. We can succeed in this golden odyssey.” Odyssey? Yeah, that’s the right word for this.
“I know we can, too. I’m just wondering if we should do this in two phases.” Oh, no …
“What do you mean?” Chantelle was very curious to know what he was thinking, what his change of plan was.
“I was thinking that maybe we should dig out a passage under the privacy wall first. Then leave and return a few hours later to detect the gold and dig it up. What do you think?” He’s going to overthink this if I don’t stop him.
“I guess it has its advantages and disadvantages,” she said diplomatically while running her skinny fingers through her 252
hair.
Certainly
more
disadvantages.
/
Disadvantages? Huh?
“The way I see it, Chantelle, the big advantage is that we aren’t ever there for more than ten minutes. And, when we come back the second time for the gold, we can quickly slide under the privacy wall and get right to work, finding and extricating the gold in short order.” What did he just say?
“Extricating. I’ll make sure to use that word in my novel.”
“It’ll cost you another gram.”
They both laughed. I’ve got to keep him on-script. / Can I really totally trust her after what I found her doing earlier? Do I really have a choice now? Not really.
Chantelle leaned over towards his face and looked into his brown eyes. “Golden boy, the disadvantage is now you have to cross the front – and back – yards of the vacant house on Jackson Street four times instead of just twice.” That’s true.
She’s got a good head on her shoulders. A lovely head.
“That’s a salient observation, Chantelle. And, yes, you can use that word in your first novel.”
Chantelle studied his now-serious face. She was growing to love it. I hope he wants me as much as I want him. I don’t want anyone else.
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David continued. “We could go in your car the first time with just a short shovel and park on Southern Boulevard. Oh, wait, we don’t have a shovel.”
“That’s not a problem; my Super Wally World has shovels, and it’s open all night.”
“Hey, you want to go there now?” Absolutely.
“Fine by me. I’ll just wait in my car for you. I don’t like going in there when I’m off.” Will she drive off while I’m in the store? No, I don’t think so. And, even if she did, I could have the cops there faster than she could have it unearthed. But, would I really want to get the police involved? Hell no! And, she knows that. Well, life is about taking chances. Fingers crossed.
“Ok, I understand. Let’s go.”
<><><>
They didn’t talk on the sixteen-minute drive to the large-box, one-level, discount, department-and-grocery store. Halfway there, Chantelle switched on the radio to break the unnerving silence. The song Golden Years by David Bowie was playing. I’ll stick with you baby for a thousand years …
Oh, yeah! / Song of the night. What were the chances of us hearing that song on this fateful night? Way too hard for me to calculate now. Sure hope that was a harbinger of things to come.
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Chantelle parked her still-shiny-from-the-recent-car-wash-and-wax VW bug in front of the Monkey Junction Super Wally World at 10:13 PM. She told David where the shovels were located in the store. Then David got out. She rolled her window down as David walked around the front of the car.
“You wouldn’t leave me here, would you, ma chérie?” [‘my darling’ (feminine) in French] David asked, now not totally sure if she would bolt.
“No, I still need you.” She laughed.
David grinned at her, then walked into the store with his head down. What kind of answer was that? Am I going to get rolled later by her goons? Maybe even offed? No, I think she’s just playing. I hope.
He quickly found the shovel section. David decided to go with a short, narrow spade. It looked perfect for the task. He was back at her car in only nine minutes.
“Wow, that was quick!” Chantelle exclaimed as they began to leave the parking lot for US 421 North.
David gently placed the spade on the rear-seat floorboard, and then glanced at looking-straight-ahead Chantelle. “Yeah, I found a checkout that had just opened. I was first in line –
no wait at all.”
“Just curious, who was the cashier?”
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“Some Hispanic guy named Ricky.”
“Oh, I’ve already fucked him. Twice.” What the hell did she just say?!
David looked shocked, like he had seen the ghost of the old Baldhead Island Lighthouse. Is she just some out-of-control nymphomaniac? C’mon, David, don’t let the little head make the big decisions. Don’t be a fool. It’s not too late to abandon her ship. Don’t let lust make you stupid! You can’t blow this.
It’s most likely the last chance to reclaim that gold.
Chantelle smiled and began laughing hysterically. “I got you again, David. What a face! Gosh, you’re too easy, loverboy.”
I really don’t know what to think of this girl, but I’m going along for the ride – literally.
As they approached the intersection with Independence Boulevard, David proposed a new plan to Chantelle. “What if you drop me off and circle the block while I dig out a passage under the privacy wall. Better yet, I’ll do everything in one swoop: I’ll dig out a passage, detect the gold, dig it up, and bring it out. I bet I could do it all in under fifteen minutes. You would pick me up, and we’d be gone. You wouldn’t even have to get dirty.”
“Or, you leave with all the gold for yourself when I’m on the other side of the block,” Chantelle countered.
“No. Hell, no, Chantelle. I’m going to give you a gold fillet worth half a million dollars. And, besides, I would be on foot.
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I can’t carry forty pounds of gold, a shovel, and a metal detector two and a half miles back to the inn. The cops would pluck me off Front Street, if the thugs didn’t pick me off first.”
“You could call a taxi.”
“You have got to be kidding, Chantelle. I can’t hide it on my person.” My person?
“Then, on who else’s person?” What? She says the oddest things.
“Listen, my sly, super-sexy lady. The cabbie would demand a chunk of it or turn me in to the cops, or maybe even roll me for all of it. This much gold makes people crazy.”
“Well, you’re living proof of that, mon ami.”
“Ok, ha-ha-ha. Very funny, cool girl. Nice zinger. Really, though … I think it’s the best plan. It takes your point into consideration: only one entrance and one exit by one person. Minimal exposure. Much less chance of being spotted by a neighbor or passerby. C’mon, what do you say?
All you have to do is slowly circle the block. You could even act as a scout, should the police show up on Van Buren Street.”
“Ok, I’ll play.” Thank God. / This had better work out right.
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Chantelle turned her VW bug onto Southern Boulevard. It was 10:41 PM and the street was vacant. She slowly drove west towards the river.
“Maybe we should go by Dale’s house first to make sure the cops aren’t there,” Chantelle suggested. Smart. Very smart.
“Excellent idea, babe.” Babe? Wow, that was nice of him.
Chantelle made a right turn onto Van Buren. Her metallic-finished car slowly rolled by 2393. It was dark. No cars were there. There were no signs of any life anywhere. The privacy wall’s driveway gate had been closed. Yellow police tape rippled in the humid, at times gusty, southwest breeze.
Cindy’s right; they’ll be digging up that backyard tomorrow. /
We gotta do this very soon. It really is now – or regret forever.
“Perfect. No one’s there.” David felt a bolt of confidence go through his spine. Maybe, just maybe, Lady Luck stays with me tonight. Now, please don’t wander off.
“Listen, after I drop you off, I’ll comb the other neighborhood streets so I don’t become that car that just keeps going around the block.” Great idea. She’s quite keen. Hopefully, I will be as well when I execute our gold-extracting operation.
“You’re so smart, Chantelle. Where would I be without you tonight?” He has to ask?
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“You’d probably already be in jail,” Chantelle said as she turned right onto Central Boulevard. Quite possibly.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” David let out a short chuckle.
They passed a white guy in jeans sporting an ironic t-shirt, walking his dog, a beagle-feist mix. Then Chantelle turned the wheel to the right again. They were now on Jackson Street, closing in on the vacant-house drop-off point. Almost there, almost showtime. / Gosh, I hope that he can stay on-plan.
A cyclist with an orange shirt zoomed past them. Wow, he’s really hitting it. Does he have the gold in his backpack?
Chantelle was amused by the thought. That guy again?
There must be a large cycling group down here, and orange must be their jersey color. David’s rationalization settled his mounting anxiety. Well, just a little.
“Well, we’re here,” Chantelle announced as she turned the engine off. I sure hope that this goes as planned. I don’t want to go to jail. I could easily be deported. But, the reward is worth the risk. I’m not backing out. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. / Time to execute the plan. Toes crossed. Well, almost crossed. Let’s not fuck this up. Must stay smart.
David glanced at the vacant house. It was totally dark, looking like the power had been cut off. It’s probably a rental.
Looks like the last tenants left several weeks ago.
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He then glanced at a flickering streetlamp thirty feet down the street. The ballast was humming. The lamp’s partially dislodged plastic shield was rocking in the wind. Well, at least it’s not on top of us.
David grabbed the metal detector and shovel. He was decked out in black – nothing but black. He pulled the black ski mask over his head and aligned the eyeholes, and then reduced them to slits. What if a cop drives by? One look at me and they would definitely search me and the car. Should Chantelle be the one to do this? Her dark skin would be less visible. No, just man up and do it. Yeah, I’ll be ok. Well, it’s time to go for the gold. Please be easy to locate, Au. Be an easy find. Just this once, be easy.
“Loop back every five minutes, after the first fifteen minutes, Chantelle.” +15, +5, +5 …
“You got it, captain. Are you ready to go?” I guess so.
“I’m out.” David quickly disembarked with the shovel and metal detector in hand. He scanned the street. All clear. He then looked at the nearby houses’ windows. Only one window was lit that could see him and the dark curtain was fully drawn. We’re good to go, boy. Let’s do this …
successfully.
He motioned for Chantelle to roll and she drove off. David stealthily walked along the vine-enmeshed, chain-link fence that ran down the northern property line to the back privacy wall. Don’t think anyone saw me. Think I’m still in the clear.
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The surface of the sand was like a soggy pie crust; the grains had coalesced from the recent thunderstorm. He grabbed the spade and was amazed at how fast he was able to create a fourteen-inch gap under the privacy wall. You sure can’t dig a hole this fast in the piedmont’s red clay.
He soon saw the back of the metal shed just four feet away.
Dale, I bet you buried it right here last Friday morning. I know you did, pal.
David pushed the shovel and metal detector through the opening, and then slithered under the privacy wall. He looked at the back of the metal shed and privacy wall corner sections. Perfect! I’m safely in the vault. Now to find that golden stash.
The first-quarter moon provided just enough light, though lingering clouds momentarily eclipsed it from time to time. He switched on the metal detector, immediately killing the audio beep. In a crouched position, he passed the detector’s search coil over the middle of the small thirty-square-foot area between the back of the shed and the privacy wall. The red LED light lit up just seven seconds later. The metal detector’s screen told him that there was a large, non-iron object twenty-eight to thirty-four inches below the surface.
Eureka! That’s has to be it!
David made an X in the sand with his right index finger. He put the metal detector down and grabbed the slender spade.
He began digging an eight-inch-diameter hole straight down 261
into the soft sand. At a depth of thirty-one inches, the tip of his spade clanged a heavy object. Jackpot! We’re in Gallery Park! Wok da woothie!
He peered into the grayish white hole, but didn’t see a yellowish color; he only saw black at the bottom. Oh no, this aint good. Not good at all. Maybe this is the wrong spot.
David reached way down into the cylindrical hole with his right arm. He felt a plastic bag with his index finger. There’s something hard in there. He knuckle-tapped the bag. Is that the gold? Feels like it. Yeah, that’s it. Found it! So, Dale bagged the gold before burying it. ‘Thanks for doing that, pal, as I seem to have forgotten my own black bags.’
He had the two bags of gold unearthed within seven minutes. All was going super-swimmingly; it couldn’t have been going any better. Then the dog that was two houses away began to bark. Fuck! God damn it! Wouldn’t you freaking know it? ‘Shut the hell up, Fido! Please just shut the fuck up!’
Luckily for David, the dog stopped barking after the homeowner yelled a cease-and-desist order. Excellent.
Silence is golden. He quietly chuckled at that thought.
David threw the spoil pile of sand back into the hole and smoothed the surface over with the side of the spade, eliminating all shoe, hand and knee imprints. He even created some natural-appearing undulations in the sand before disappearing under the privacy wall with the bagged 262
gold, spade and metal detector. Once on the other side, he filled in the gap and tossed some fallen leaves and twigs on the surface. Great. It looks like I never went under there.
He then grabbed the heavy bags with both hands, and pinched the metal detector under his left armpit, while pinching the spade handle under his right armpit. He looked like a grade-Z criminal as he walked, crouched over, to a dark, secluded spot that was next to the driveway-side of the vacant house. So far, so good … I think … I hope … so.
David was only crouched down in the shadows for a minute, when Chantelle slowly approached in her round-roof sedan.
He waved at her. She looked over and saw him. She stopped. David hobbled to the car, placing the weighty, gold-laden, black bags down on the passenger-side floorboard.
He then quickly threw the metal detector and the spade on the rear-seat floorboard. Chantelle smiled. My boy scored!
“Hit it!” David barked as he pulled the door shut.
She obliged, speeding off almost fast enough to burn out.
Once they were on Burnett Boulevard, Chantelle spoke.
“That’s it?” she asked while looking at the sandy, crumpled, black trash bags under David’s feet. She was surprised at how small they were in volume; she thought that forty pounds of gold would be much larger.
“Yeah, the two fillets of pure gold are in these black bags, Chantelle,” David said as he lightly tapped his feet on them.
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“Just wait ‘til we get back to the room. You’ll be amazed.” I sure hope so.
<><><>
David toted the heavier bag of gold into the inn room, while Chantelle carried the lighter one. They placed them on the round table. David then motioned for Chantelle to take a seat, which she did in the adjacent armchair.
Next, David carefully removed the two boomerang-shaped fillets of gold from the thick, industrial-grade, black trash liners. Chantelle’s mouth was agape. Mon Dieu! [‘Oh, my God!’ in French]
“You’re looking at over a million dollars, Chantelle. Easily over a million. Maybe as much as 1.3 mil.”
“Can I touch it, David?”
“Sure, go ahead, sweetie.” Ah, so nice of him.
Chantelle ran her fingers over the smaller one. “Wow! Never in my wildest dreams …”
“We’ve crossed a big hurdle tonight, my good-luck charm.
Well, I guess ‘slid under a low limbo bar’ would be a better expression. However, we’re not entirely home-free, my new and forever love.” I like the sound of that!
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“What do you mean, golden dong?” Golden dong? Her words never cease to amaze me. I’m sure that her novel will be something else. How long will it take her to write it?
David chuckled for just two seconds. “The ultimate goal is to convert the gold into cash. That is not as easy as you might think. If we do it the wrong way, we’ll get caught and end up with nothing. We could even end up in jail.” Oh, great.
“Any ideas on what to do next, mastermind?”
“Yes, I’ve already thought this out. We need to place the larger one in a stream that has a history of gold nuggets being found in it, such as one in or around Mecklenburg County. You will then take a pic of yourself pulling it from the stream, giving the illusion that you just found it. Maybe place a white quartz rock on top of it, as gold in this state is typically found in veins of white quartz. You will go public with your find, announcing it to the Charlotte media. You will be a celebrity of sorts – the new North Carolina golden girl –
as your slender, crescent-shaped gold nugget will be the longest, as well as one of the heaviest, ever found. The State of North Carolina, or a wealthy gold-nugget collector, will most likely buy it. We must create the illusion that these nuggets have nothing to do with Wilmington or any place in New Hanover County. Also, I can’t be involved with this in any way, as I’m already on the police’s ‘gold watchlist’.
When they don’t turn up any gold or any object of high value at 2393 Van Buren, they may start to look much closer at me. Also, Gerald will eventually talk. Your miraculous gold find in a piedmont stream – perhaps in that famous one east 265
of Charlotte – may set his mouth off. He may go after me, trying to implicate me in some way.”
“Ok, you are not going to get mad if I poke a few holes in your golden, precariously low-flying, hot-air balloon, are you?” Chantelle asked while looking at him with a skewed eye.
“No, not at all. Let me know what concerns you have.”
“First off, I don’t want to be a celebrity. I’m not an attention-seeking kind of girl. I don’t want that ‘Look at me, I just won the multi-million-dollar lottery’ kind of fame. I just want to be a writer, leading a very private life, out of the spotlight. Also, the authorities will check my residency status; it’s not spotless. I could even be deported.” What in the world has she done? Bilked a bank? Why did I think that?
“Secondly, even if the State of North Carolina, or some wealthy gold collector, bought the nugget for maximum price, half of it would be immediately eaten up by the taxman in such a public sale. The premium for a nugget would be negated. We’d be back at the going ounce rate, or even less.
And, we would now have a whole lot more headaches.” That is an excellent point. She sure has got one profoundly perspicacious mind.
“Thirdly, if the police are watching you, they already know about me. This town is growing, but it’s not like it’s Miami.
You can’t really hide here.” Why did she choose Miami as 266
her big-city example? Did she enter the US via Miami? Was it a legal entry? Hmmm …
“Fourthly, if Gerald gets a case of the nasty tongue, where would you hide all the cash from the sale of the giant nugget? Certainly not in a subpoena-able account. Under your mattress? In the walls? Under the floor? They could get a search warrant and go through your entire house and car.
Would you hide the money out in the woods? They’ll track you and eventually see you going to retrieve it.” Possibly, but I think this scenario is unlikely.
“Thanks for your feedback, Chantelle. You’ve made some excellent points. Based on what you’ve just said, I’ve already got a change of plan. Ready to hear it?”
“I’m all ears, dearest golden lover.” Sweet.
“We melt the gold down and cast it into ingots – small bars –
one pound maximum, and sell them on ebay.”
“On ebay? Really? You’ve got to be kidding me. The police are always monitoring ebay for stolen items and items of interest in crimes. Also, someone buying a one-pound gold bar is going to want an independently certified metallurgist to verify the gold bar’s purity. What if the buyer is far away, like in California? Or, somewhere overseas? You get into all kinds of shipping issues. Package insurance will add up.
Some packages will mysteriously disappear in transit.
Everyone will point fingers at someone else. The claims process will entail a lot of questions and verification. You’ll 267
have to declare what’s in the package. ‘And what are we shipping today, sir?’ ‘Solid gold.’ That will get you some attention at the post office. Probably get you put on another watchlist.” Yep, she’s quite an asset. As good as gold.
“Ok, I agree with you, smart girl.” Did he really think I was just some dumb, easy lay?
“What if we just sold it to some of those ‘we buy gold’
outfits?” Chantelle asked while feeling her face. She thought she felt a pimple.
David was very impressed with her comments. He truly appreciated the points that she had made. He was now deferring to her. My boy respects my input.
“We certainly won’t get top-dollar,” he informed her. “They’re all low-ballers who prey on people desperate for quick cash.
A lot of them are pretty shady.” And, what we’ve done is aboveboard? Get real, David.
“But, those are the kind of people we may be forced to deal with, David.” Gosh, I sure hope not.
“Chantelle, what if we cast the gold into coins with enigmatic writing on them. We could put some obscure language on them, maybe Moldovan, for instance. We could sell them at the higher-end jewelers – not at the tents on the corners.”
“Hey, I like that idea.” She smiled.
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And, guess where we can get a coin mold, auriferous maven?” I’ll use that word in my novel.
“Let me take a wild guess – ebay?”
“You got it. We can get them for less than thirty dollars all day long on ebay.” He must be on ebay forty hours a week.
Wait, that would cut into his porno time. Ah, maybe he’s not like that. I should stop thinking that all he does is look at naked chicks getting banged in strange settings.
“What else would we need? You can’t melt gold in a saucepan, can you?”
“No, you can’t. You melt it in little graphite vessels called crucibles. They look like large thimbles, but without any holes, of course.”
“Well, I guess all we need is some crucibles and a butane torch.” Crucible – now there’s the word for this whole golden dilemma.
“We can get the crucibles off of ebay.” Why, of course!
Where else would we get them?
“Are they expensive?”
“No, Chantelle; they’re not very expensive – under fifteen dollars. And, Home Zone sells butane torches. I think Wally World does, too.”
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“What should we do first, Mr. Mold Gold?” What in the world!
How does she come up with these terms?
“I’m going to order a dozen crucibles on e-bay right now. I’ve got to go back to Raleigh tomorrow, Chantelle. I’ll buy a torch up there. I’ll try to take the week after next completely off. Are you free that week?”
“As a matter of fact, I am.” Now.
“Cool beans. You can hold onto the smaller gold fillet if you want, if you think you can keep it well-hidden. If not, I’ll just take both of them back to Raleigh.” Of course I’m going to keep one, sly dog.
“Oh, I know just the place to hide it.” I bet you do.
They looked at each other and smiled. They had the gold.
They had a plan. They had trust. Or, so they sincerely hoped.
<><><>
Chantelle fell asleep on her side in David’s arms at 12:32
AM. David awoke with the morning wood at 8:08 AM.
Chantelle felt it, and quickly took care of it.
“You sure know how to make a man feel good, Chantelle.”
“A man?” Gosh, men can say the dumbest things.
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“Your man.” David felt that his recovery was adequate.
Chantelle shook her head and smiled. Men!
They took their gold fillets out to their cars and slid one under each passenger-side front seat. David actually took the smaller one. They triple-checked their car locks.
<><><>
They had Sunday brunch together at a little bistro about a block away on Dock Street. They muted their newfound excitement. It was a challenge to contain their elation.
“I can hardly believe that we really have it in our possession,” David said to Chantelle at a low volume, while chewing on a garlic bagel.
“I know. It’s been quite a quest. Thanks so much for including me. I never dreamed that this could happen to me.
Such an unbelievable stroke of good fortune. David, you have no idea how poor we were in Haiti. We were almost too poor to even dream.”
“Well, I really think that I may have made a wrong turn without you. I like your perspective; you see things that I miss. We’re a perfect pair – a golden duo.” Nice, David. Very nice.
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Chantelle felt a flood of warm blood flushing through her cheeks’ capillaries; he had made her blush. What a charmer.
Yes, what a charmer my boy is!
“Thanks,” she said, almost sobbing. “Thanks so very much, David. You’re such a nice guy.” My ex might not agree with that assessment. / I hope he doesn’t leave me.
David put a twenty-dollar bill on the table and they got up to leave the restaurant. There were a few other patrons in the bistro. A snobbish-looking, white-as-milk, older, fat lady stared at them. David looked back at her and licked his lips.
She was thoroughly ruffled.
They walked back to the inn with coffee cups in hand.
Neither spoke. They were still quite stunned: They had over a million dollars in gold. It was them; they had won the gold quest. Their ticket had the winning numbers in raised gold.
The sun was now shining on the old brick buildings like it had done for over a hundred years, but it seemed almost magical at this very instance, as David glanced up at them, noticing the green moss on the mortar joints. Could any of the deceased people who once inhabited that old building have imagined me here today? Ah, the crazy things I think. /
He seems lost in thought. What is he thinking? He wouldn’t kill me at this point, would he? I think he really does love me.
Chantelle’s mind was then back in Carrefour, Haiti – the slums where she and her brother played with just an aluminum can when they were six and four. She recalled the 272
flies and mosquitoes in that unrelenting, humid, Caribbean heat; the horribly disfigured and diseased victims everywhere; all the impending death and general misfortune.
America has been like another life. I feel it going into overdrive now. It’s unreal!
<><><>
Back at the inn’s parking lot, next to her 2006 silver VW
Beetle, Chantelle kissed David on the lips. She felt a tingle run up her spine. It was love. I love my golden boy.
David hugged her tight, and then let Chantelle get in her car.
“Be a good girl. Keep it in a safe place. There are no do-overs if you lose it. These gold nuggets are not insured.”
David stated his warning to her just like a football coach reminding his star running back not to fumble in the red zone.
“You do the same, mon chéri. [‘my darling’ (masculine) in French] I’ll see you in eight days. Stay safe. I love you.”
Wow, she said it. And, I think I can believe it.
“Je t’aime,” [‘I love you’ in French] David said as she slid past him. Wow, he really loves me.
<><><>
David’s drive back to Raleigh was largely uneventful. There were some cops directing traffic around a multi-vehicle 273
wreck near Benson, but the traffic never totally stopped. He was in his Kittrell Drive driveway at 1:11 PM.
He placed his black-bagged golden fillet under his bed and took a nap. He was out for three and a half hours. He dreamed of living on top of a mountain of pure gold.
In the dream there was just Chantelle and him. Not only was the mountain upon which they lived made of gold, but so were many objects in their palatial home. There was a gold lamp in the main foyer, a pair of gold toothbrushes in the second-floor bathroom, a gold stereo in the den, a gold analog clock on the main living-room wall, and gold televisions with gold-toned images on the screens.
What wasn’t made of gold was gold in color. Gold cumulus clouds slowly wafted by. Golden birds effortlessly glided on the gold-dust breeze. The sidewalks were gilded. The earth was gold-hued. The halls were covered with golden wallpaper. Gold-colored carpet, rugs, drapes, and furniture coverings abounded.
Later in the dream, they applied gold-leaf cream on each other – all over their arms, legs, torsos and faces. And, yes, Chantelle even coated his sausage. They literally became the golden couple.
It was a golden life. And, it was never going to end.
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Cindy Santos was back in the Channel 8 News studio on Princess Street at 1:09 PM, editing a script for an update of Dale Smite’s murder. She had already been informed by the Wilmington Police Department that nothing of significant value or interest had turned up in the early morning search of the backyard at 2393 Van Buren Street, even though metal detectors, ground-penetrating radar, and dogs had been used. I wonder if David found his treasure last night.
Maybe I’ll send him a text.
She got out her primary cell phone and typed:
Hope you got what you were looking
for last night. All the best, Cindy
The air conditioner was humming away as she depressed the Send key. It was another hot, mega-muggy, late June day. The humidosphere, she heard the weekend meteorologist call it. On days like this she missed cool and perennially foggy Daly City. But, she didn’t miss the earthquake risk.
She recalled a strong temblor while in high school. She was terrified. Ceiling tiles fell down. A bookcase fell over and hit her teacher, breaking her leg. She vividly recalled everyone screaming and crying. As the class huddled under tables, her scared-for-her-life best friend told her, “I just know that we’re all going to die.”
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Her parents had also told her about massive earthquakes in Manila, and how they leveled whole shantytowns. She could deal with the heat, the humidity, the severe thunderstorms, as well as the not-that-infrequent tornado and occasional hurricane threats. However, the unannounced nature of earthquakes scared the bejesus out of her.
As she was putting the finishing touches on her script, her cell phone chirped. It was a text message from David; it read:
I did. Thanks so much. I’l tell
you more in ten days. I have
a gift for you. – David
Ten days? Why can’t he just tell me now? Gosh, I have to go a week and a half in suspense. A gift? Wow. I wonder what it could be.
She texted him back:
Ok, mystery-gift man, I’ll be
waiting. Don’t forget me.
Within two minutes, David replied:
I won’t. Trust me.
Cindy made the final revisions to the script, read it to herself silently, then recorded it for the voiceover, and left the studio.
She was back at her condo at 1:54 PM. Storm clouds were billowing to the west. The front’s leading winds were already creating small whitecaps on the river.
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She opened the balcony door, leaving the screen door in place. She then curled up in her round, brown-framed, pink-cushioned Papasan chair that she had brought with her from Daly City, and watched the storm approach. It was one of her favorite things to do. It made her feel so refreshed. Her mind would always have such interesting thoughts, almost from some other world, she felt. Maybe it was all of the negative ions whirling about.
The sky grew grayer and darker. She could see the curtain of rain approaching. The west winds became stronger with gusts over forty-five miles per hour. People vacated the river boardwalk and Water Street. A piece of wax paper was whipped high into the air, spiraled around, and then sailed over a nearby four-story building.
A storm-induced reverie began as Cindy saw the first lightning bolt touch down off in the distance in Brunswick County. I wonder how much gold David found in Dale’s backyard. How did he retrieve it? I guess he had a metal detector. How did he get into the backyard without being seen? Did someone help him? Will he kick back some of his treasure to me for the priceless tip that I gave him? I wonder how deep the river is in the middle. I wonder if I could still swim it. I’d hate to attempt it now. Aren’t there alligators alongside the battleship? Swimming in that river is a death wish, girl. I wonder how big David’s utin [penis in Filipino] is.
I bet it would fill my buto [vagina in Filipino] perfectly. Wow, I’d like to have wild sex with him in a storm, just like this one.
I bet he fucks like a wild boar. But, I’m in the local spotlight 277
as a TV reporter. Everyone seems to have seen me in this town. I can’t go anywhere without being recognized. I knew this went with the territory. I liked the notoriety at first; now, I thoroughly hate it. In fact, I’m ready to pay someone to do my grocery shopping for me. Yeah, I should call one of those services tomorrow.
A raindrop hit her forehead. She got up and closed the balcony door. A lone seagull was perched on her black railing, getting drenched. Poor bird. You can fly, but you’re always outside. No easy life there.
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During the next week, David would call and text Chantelle, usually four or five times a day. Of course he was always concerned about the larger fillet d’ or (‘golden fillet’ in French), as he code-named it in the texts and calls. She told him that she just left the slender, black-bagged gold nugget right where he placed it. She felt it was safest there – in her car – as her roommates often went through her room, just as she did theirs. Additionally, she had placed an old, brown, bath towel on top of the black bag.
The week actually passed fairly quickly. Chantelle got her vacation to start on Sunday, July 8th, but she was only able to get three days off, not the whole week. She wondered: Should I just ditch this job now? No, not yet; I don’t have any cash flowing out of that golden boomerang just yet. It’s still just a curved, yellowish, heavy-ass rock.
After working the first shift on Saturday, she left for Raleigh, right from the Monkey Junction Super Wally World parking lot at 4:08 PM. She had packed for the trip the night before; her cerise suitcase was in the back seat. She reached under the passenger seat as she rolled out of her parking space; the gold had not been stolen. Dieu merci, il est toujours là.
[‘Thank God, it’s still there.’ in French]
As she headed north-northwest on I-40 West through the virtually flat lowlands of pine stands and crop farms of eastern North Carolina, her mind drifted like a texting motorist. This should be an interesting few days. Very 279
exciting. I’m driving right through the pages of my future novel. I just hope he doesn’t drug me, tie me up, and keep me as his sex slave. No, he’s not like that. Well, if he tied me to the bed and … mmmm … Just me and David in his house. Maybe one day I’ll live with him as his wife. That would be so nice. Oh, I am getting way ahead of things. I bet that he’ll use the money from the gold to pay off his mortgage. Wait, that might look suspicious. I think they’re watching him. Maybe me, too. Who knows? I need to play it cool, too. Maybe he will just sell his house and move somewhere else. I guess I will find out his future intentions over the next few days. Can’t wait to have sex with him on his bed. Going to wear his rod out. I’ll reduce his staff to a smoldering nub. His balls will be sore for days. Going to go super-freaky on my bone boy. I wonder how big his bed is.
Probably a king size. I can’t wait to experience the gold-melting and mold-pouring procedure. This should be fun and informative. I’ll use it in my novel. For sure.
Chantelle pulled off at Exit 303. The sign read: Jone’s Sausage Road. Bone’s sausage. She chuckled to herself.
Her throat was parched. She drove to Burger Thing and got a strawberry smoothie at the drive-thru. It hit all the dry spots, even froze her brain for eight seconds. Youch!
She composed a text to David before leaving the parking lot; it read:
I’m only 11 miles away. Get
ready, loverboy. I hope you
took your blue pills. xoxox
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David heard three, rapid, loud knocks on his front door at 10:08 AM on an ultra-bright, warm-but-rapidly-becoming-roasting-hot Saturday morning. Is Chantelle already here?
Did she call in sick? I thought that she couldn’t miss work today.
He looked through the peephole. It was the UPS guy. He had a small, light-brown package for him. He signed for it and closed the door. What could this be?
The return-address label was the giveaway. It was the dozen graphite crucibles that he ordered off of ebay last Sunday.
Yey! Earlier than expected.
After carefully opening the cardboard box, David held the miniature, handle-less, pot-like objects in his right hand. I’ve already got the torch, tongs, ingot molds, and coin molds.
So, why not do a test run? Chantelle won’t be here until after six. Yeah, that way I can perfect my technique and impress her.
He brought the box of crucibles up to his half-finished attic storeroom. One side of his attic was finished: it was his office, and when/if he got married, it would be his man cave.
The side that he was on still had non-drywalled studs. There was a louver at the end wall that let in fresh air. He would use it as an exhaust vent.
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David had a 2’ x 3’ metal table under the louvered vent with an extendable lamp overhead. This was to be the operating table; this is where he would melt small chunks of the elongated nuggets, and then pour the molten gold liquid into the coin and ingot molds; yes, this is where marketable conversion would occur.
The unfinished attic area was already getting hot. He switched on the large, commercial-grade floor fan, aiming it at the louvered vent. He left the door to the office open so that the cooler, air-conditioned air could be drawn into the work area.
David now had his golden fillet up on the table, along with the molds, torch, tongs, an electronic postage scale, a couple of chisels and a hammer.
Before firing up the torch, he took a photo of the semi-sacred gold fillet. This pic could get me in trouble someday, but I want to be able to remember what this beauty looked like. I’ll move the pic off the camera later to a secret flash drive and hide it.
After taking a pic of the gold nugget while weighing it on the scale (it weighed exactly 16 pounds, 7.11 ounces; the readout was in the photo), he grabbed the half-inch-wide chisel in his left hand and the short-arm hammer in his right hand. He paused for a second, realizing that once he struck the gold fillet, its pristine beauty – and ultimate high value –
would be forever lost. But, he had debts to retire and projects to start, and could see no other way. And, even 282
though you got free meals and lodging in jail, the caged life just didn’t interest him.
<thud> The chisel easily sliced into the pure gold. He picked off a small, curved piece and put it in a crucible. He fired up the torch and ran the flame over the top of the gold, occasionally bringing the fire perpendicular to the gold shaving. It soon melted. He grasped the crucible with the steel tongs and poured the molten gold into a one-ounce ingot mold. Wow, I never imagined that I’d be pouring gold ingots at any time in my life. Never.
He repeated the process twenty-two more times before taking a break. David now had twenty-three one-ounce ingots of pure gold solidifying in front of him. At $1,500 an ounce, he was looking at $34,500 right under his nose. Boy, that was quick and easy. Good work if you can get it. Wait ‘til Chantelle sees this.
After David ate a turkey-and-Swiss sandwich for lunch downstairs, he returned and poured twenty-two two-ounce coins. The molds were some odd lot off of ebay from some guy in Romania. They had strange, cryptic designs and words in Romanian like noroc (luck), bucurie (joy), and dragoste (love). They also had the inscription: Au 99.99 fine.
This is what sealed the deal with David. If a metallurgist tested one of their gold coins and it came up less than 99.99% pure gold, he would gladly refund the money, take it back, and re-melt it. He felt fairly confident the gold fillets were gold through and through; he saw no impurities in the 283
solid form or in the molten pour. And, his supposition was correct. Both were essentially pure specimens.
He watched as the twenty-two gold coins cooled. Another $66,000 dollars. Combined with the twenty-three ingots, he had cracked the $100,000-dollar mark. Take this job and love it. Certainly.
He shut off the torch, turned off the fan and light, and went downstairs. I’ll let those babies cool in peace. He glanced at the digital satellite clock over the fireplace; it was 3:03 PM.
Three hours until her sexiness arrives.
He went to his bedroom, took off his shoes, and took a nap.
He had a dream that he was living in another gold house – a house literally made entirely out of gold.
However, in this dream there was a villain who always seemed to be in a black mist, had a super-sized oxy-acetylene torch, and was always extorting money from him, which he paid by chipping off pieces of his house. He resented it, and was always thinking up a scheme to have him eliminated. It was maddening.
<><><>
At 6:36 PM he awoke to someone lightly knocking on his front door. That’s got to be Chantelle!
He jumped up and answered the door in his bare feet.
“Hello there, pretty lady.”
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“Hello, golden boy,” Chantelle said with a French-Spanish smile as wide as Hispaniola. “Nice house. Might I come in?”
“Why, of course. I guess that I got lost in your hypnotic beauty, girlfriend.” David had zoned-out on the zigzag pattern of black stripes on her red, mid-thigh-length dress.
“Oh boyfriend, you just want a blow job. I know you. I know your balls are blue and as tight as piano strings. C’mon, let Chantelle see that proud, ivory, tube steak.”
As the front door shut, Chantelle went to her knees and unzipped David’s jeans. She pulled down his dark-blue, speedo-style briefs, and David’s half-hard kielbasa sausage flopped out.
“Nice donger, dude,” Chantelle said in an affected, over-the-top, Southern-California-sounding dialect. “I remember that bulk of bologna. Yes, sir, I do.” Bulk of bologna? She’s on her game … again. Where did she hear a [San Fernando]
Valley accent? Oh, wow … Here we go again. Woah! Oh, yes!
“You’re too much, Chantelle. Where do you <gulp> come up with <gulp> this stuff?”
“Just relax, my love; you’re getting all flustered,” Chantelle said as she took a momentary break from her felatio of felicity. He’s really loving this, I can tell. He’s never had better.
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David just shut up and enjoyed it. Man, she’s soooooo good.
Bryan Ferry was right: Love is the drug. And she sure knows how to polish a plug.
After six minutes of all variations of lip slides and tongue licks, he could take no more. When the tip of his wonder worm touched Chantelle’s left tonsil, he erupted. He shot his man lava straight down her throat. He convulsed hard five times. Chantelle took it all without missing a single beat. She literally drained him. When she was done, there was no need for him to go to the bathroom. His urethra was completely cleared and as clean as a polished whistle.
“Well, that was one hell of an entrance, my fair lady. How much do I owe you?” David asked in a ludicrously transactional tone.
“Oh, I’ll get sweet payback later. I’m going to ride you to market and back.” Woah! Where did I put that Viagra pill?
“Ok, I hear ya, princess. Are you hungry?”
“I just inhaled a cream-filled, American, one-eyed snake,”
Chantelle said while laughing. Wow! What a description.
“I heard that. Well, we’re off to a great start. Let’s ride it all the way to victory lane. Hey, is the gold still in your car, under the passenger seat?”
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“Uh, something happened, David.” Chantelle looked so very sad, simply pitiful, as she bowed her head down. Is something amiss? Have the gods turned against me again?
Has something gone horribly wrong? Is that why she gave me that fantastic blowjob? Was it to soften my rage at what she is about to tell me?
“What happened? Did someone steal the gold?!” Blood was draining out of David’s face; he was turning white.
She looked back up at him with a big smile. “Gotcha!” She certainly did … once again.
David breathed a sigh of relief. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“Relax, it’s right where you left it. I put a towel over it to hide the plastic bag.”
“Excellent. Great thinking. You’re one smart, sexy, young lady.”
“Thanks. It’s so nice to hear that, David. No one has ever said that to me.”