CON TEST: Double Life (5 page)

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

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

She settled in at her desk and the telephone rang.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“
Okay,” he said, somberly.

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

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

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

“
Lundin!”

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

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

“
Right on top of that, Mason.”

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

FIVE

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

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

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

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

Without a story map, William began to type:

Justice rode in silence as he sat in the back of his Escalade. Amir rode shot gun and a mutual friend, Nick drove. The troika drove over the Ben Franklin Bridge into New Jersey. Justice needed to work his craft to get a lot of quick cash. He was staying at Amir’s afraid to go home, fearing the feds would be waiting in the shadows.

Amir had a mocha hue with complimentary coffee tinted eyes. He was in the short category with cropped short hair, which was pre-maturely gray. He had a chiseled body that yelled ex-con. That played a pivotal role with him getting the ladies.

Over the past two days, Justice had replayed his moves in his head so that he could stay many moves ahead of the Government. M&M had left multiple messages at his aunt’s home for him to report to her office immediately. All of them were ignored. So were calls from the public pretender. Secret Service Agent Delia Williams also called for him to pick up his cash. Justice was not going back to prison. Especially not after they had released him so easily. He planned to move very low-key until he could chant an incantation to get his criminal drama to do a disappearing act.

One hour passed and they finally pulled into a Walmart parking lot. They were in a rural area of New Jersey. Surely that area was not heavily exposed to his con. Justice used Walmart’s web site and located four stores within close proximity to the one in Woodbridge. His plan was to hit all four of them with checks worth not less than $500. He planned to return the merchandise for cash refunds.

Nick and Amir exited the truck and walked into Walmart. Justice waited five minutes before he also entered the store. Amir went directly to the electronics department, while Justice rummaged in the super goods store.

Justice quickly snatched up two Oral-B electric tooth brushes valued at $140 each. He then went to the telephone department and threw two cordless telephones into his handheld basket. They were $120. Good, he thought. He would do better than his $500 target price.

Eager shoppers ebbed in and out of Walmart’s strategic aisles designed to trick the consumer into buying merchandise everyone wanted, but could do without. Justice described the Walton Family as ingenious.

Approaching the front of the store, Justice looked over all of the clerks. He searched for the perfect victim. He spotted his cashier mark and walked over to her line. She was young, black, nice tits. Not that any of that mattered. Her mannerisms showcased a dislike for her job. Anyone that observed how she carelessly tossed customers items into the shopping bags knew that she did not like her job. He waited in her line and watched Nick casually leave out of Walmart without Amir. Justice knew they had to be finished with their business.

Justice pulled his items from the basket and watched them inch their way down the belt to the clerk. The clerk acknowledged his nod with a smile. He could see in her eyes that she had an attraction to his complexion and sexy eyes. Too bad he never mixed business with pleasure. Alimu-Shine, Justice’s friend and co-defendant on the original federal beef had mixed the two. When the investigation commenced, the woman remembered “the jerk” that never returned her calls, and handed his number over to investigators. Shame on him.

The clerk scanned toothbrush number one and her eyes widened at the price. She held the box in the air. Scrutinizing it, she asked, “Does it greet your morning breath in the bed?” She giggled a little. Small boobs bounced vivaciously.

Justice flashed his pearly whites with a coy smile. He could go two ways with his response. He could claim that one was for a girlfriend, but then he could no longer attempt to flatter her enough to distract her from his misdeed. “It just might,” he said grinning boyishly. “They’re for my parent’s anniversary. They’re getting up there in age, and they made sure,”—he flashed his teeth—“that I had a sexy smile.”

“
How thoughtful.” She cooed. She ran the telephones over the scanner and could not believe the total. She said, “Five-hundred…”

Justice whipped his checkbook out and proceeded to fill out a fraudulent check. He planned to add an additional $20 to the total to get the cash back. Every cent counted. He lost that train of thought by the sight of a linebacker running through the store and out the front entrance of the store. Two burly white men were in hot pursuit of Amir, and forced Justice to rethink his action.

“
I had no idea that the phones were that expensive. I thought that they were on sale,” Justice told the clerk and swiped his checkbook off the counter. “I better get some cash out my car.”

Justice strode into the parking lot, and his heart skipped three beats. He was dead. The truck was gone. He hopelessly walked around the parking lot, as he frantically called Nick’s phone.

“
Where are you?” Justice growled into the phone. He prayed to keep his composure.

“
In the Friday’s parking lot, across from Walmart.”

Justice looked and saw that Friday’s was across a highway with a concrete barrier topped with a fence that was spiked at the top.

“
What the fuck are you doing over there?”

“
I got scared when two white guys walked up on Amir, so I left. Is he cool?”

“
He’s running somewhere you fucking pussy! Did it dawn on you to call me and tell me the situation? You know, put me up on game.”

“
I thought he was okay.”

“
Then why the fuck did you leave him, and leave with my fucking truck? Bring my shit back, now!” Justice slammed his phone shut and called Amir.

Amir answered on the first ring. He breathed wildly. “J, they on me. I’m in a swamp somewhere.”

“
Where? What happened?” Justice asked. He was irritated and scared at the same time. He could not fathom how this happened. “The Walmart Johnnie’s are following me. Put your phone on vibrates,” he said and hung up. Justice knew that he had to think for all parties involved.

Justice tried to get out the parking lot, but he was accosted by two white men.
Here we go
, he thought. Do not panic. Relax. The men followed him as he continued to walk. He was like a five-alarm inferno with evidence of attempting to pass a bad check and altering a state issued identification. He cut between cars and smoothly dropped his checkbook wallet on the ground and scooted it under a car. He made the move and never missed a step. He got distance on the wallet and then stopped in front of the Marshall’s entrance.

“
Why the fuck is you freaks following me?” He said, screaming so other patrons could hear him.

“
Where’s your friend? We know that you’re with Harry,” one of them said. He had red, spiky hair.

“
Don’t have any friends out here…” Justice’s phone rang interrupting him. It was Nick. He answered. “Go home!” Justice ordered and hung up.

Justice’s mind raced back to a time when Nick had ratted on him and Justice was arrested. Nick worked at a Bertucci’s restaurant while Justice worked at Strawbridge’s department store in the Plymouth Meeting Mall. They had ridden the bus with the same mall crew every day and shot the breeze with them during the ride. They befriended Debron who worked at Zales—a jewelry boutique. The three of them conspired to give each other free goods from their respective jobs.

Nick had to let them eat at Bertucci’s practically free. That was easy. Justice let them use their real debit cards to buy menswear from the department store, just so that they could get past loss prevention. When they left the store, Justice would post-void the transaction, and, he sometimes allowed them to return the merchandise and they split the money once in their accounts. Debron let the other two fill out credit applications from Zales using stolen identities from Strawbridge’s customers to buy jewelry.

The plan was foiled when Nick bought a ring that was too small. He was told to take the ring to another store to have some gold removed so that it fit. Dumbo took the ring to the same store that it was bought from and the store manager called the police to have the thief arrested. It took the police no time to find Justice who was serving time in Bucks County by that time. The Montgomery County court sentenced him to 3-23 months to run concurrent with his Bucks County sentence, which he went up state for. Nothing good came from the situation, but him meeting Amir.