Playing Dirty (18 page)

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s soon as Scott left for work the next day, I scribbled a note and left. I didn’t want to make him angry, because I still needed him for my trial, so I just let him know that with everything that had happened, I needed some time alone. I pinned my hair up and put on a huge-brimmed sun hat that I’d purchased after my release. I covered my eyes with a large pair of black Valentino shades and threw a silk scarf around my neck. I took a taxi from Scott’s place to the South Beach Ritz-Carlton on Lincoln Road and checked in under my mother’s maiden name. I still carried all of the credit cards I had opened in her name when I was in college, ones she never knew about.

“Would you be needing turndown service, Ms. Aoki?” the Korean concierge asked me.

“No thank you,” I said, in the best Korean I could muster.

Inside, the room was gorgeous, just like I knew it would be. I’d had several fuck-and-go sessions with judges in this very hotel. I felt some kind of sick connection to the Ritz, and besides that, it made me feel like Yoshi Lomax again. Once inside the room I did all of the things I was hesitant to do at Scott’s house, like masturbate myself into orgasm. Shit, I needed to come because I was backed up for miles.

After I was done, just out of curiosity, I dialed Paul’s office. When a man answered, I asked for Paul. “He’s no longer with this firm” was the man’s response. Then I decided to call my old office line and retrieve my messages. There were more than twenty-five messages—the maximum the system could hold—and they were all from Sheldon Chisholm or one of his men.

In the last message, Sheldon said, “Ms. Lomax, I just want to let you know that I’ve been keeping up with what’s been going on with you. Too bad, you done fucked around and got a murder beef like me.” He let out a sinister laugh. “I guess now you see what it feels like to be behind bars. And now that I know you’re released on bail, I want you to either make arrangements to have my money refunded or find me a lawyer. Shit is getting really critical right now. So…if me or my family doesn’t hear back from you in the next twenty-four hours, something drastic is going to happen.” His chilling words sent a shiver up my spine. Between my murder charges and Sheldon’s threats, it seemed like leaving Miami was the best solution I could have ever envisioned.

After I heard the rest of my messages, I flopped down on the king-sized hotel bed and stared at the ceiling. I knew people said running from your problems was the cowardly thing to do…but in my case, what fucking choice did I have? It seemed like everyone who admired me was now my enemy. And the ones who envied me were waiting patiently for my downfall, and I couldn’t let them have the last laugh. My pride wasn’t gonna let it go down like that. While I was thinking back on my past mistakes, my train of thought was broken by the hotel telephone.

Shocked, I sat up and stared at it, contemplating whether or not to answer it. “Who the fuck could that be? No one knows I’m here,” I reasoned, and snatched up the receiver.

“Ms. Aoki, this is the front desk. Would you like in-room meals? We forgot to ask you during check-in,” the pleasant voice on the other end said.

I took a deep breath…a sigh of relief and answered yes.

After two days I had become a master at disguises. I’d tried several different ones before I was comfortable going outside. So far, I learned that Paul was forced to resign from the firm. In addition to that, he lost his stake in the firm, and was under investigation by the IRS, DEA, and the local police. Every day his name appeared in the newspaper, right alongside the reports of the dead bodies of Mr. Santana’s people and Sheldon’s people. There was definitely a war raging between the two.

I was feeling bold and confident in my disguises and decided I would head out once more. I got dressed, again, with a different wig, dark shades, flat heels—something I never wore—and blended in with the Miami crowd. I rented a simple little sedan, and first I visited all of my banks. I had to get my stashes together; I knew I’d need the money to live off. I wasn’t planning on sticking around much longer.

After I visited every bank and my safe-deposit boxes, I started to head back to the hotel, but something was drawing me toward Paul’s neighborhood. It was like some force beyond me was pushing me—I wanted to see that bastard’s face in misery, I hoped. It was a fairly long drive and all the way there I pictured myself walking up to Paul’s house, ringing his bell, and slapping the shit out of his face. I knew I couldn’t do that, so I planned to settle for just watching outside of his house and waiting to see that bastard. He probably looked old and fucked-up right now, I said to myself, knowing that his stress level was probably through the roof with all the shit that Scott and I had made happen in his life.

Before I knew it, I was outside Paul’s estate. I parked my car almost five huge houses away and still had a great view of his place; that was how big it was. For the first twenty minutes, there was no sign of him or his wife and kids. I watched his neighbors walking their little dogs, taking their kids to school, and power walking or jogging through their quiet neighborhood. I stared at Paul’s house, wondering how my life would’ve been had I chosen to have a family. Me as a mother? Shit, I knew I was too self-centered for that. Sure, having a rich husband would not have hurt anything, but who the fuck wanted to be tied down?

Lost in my own thoughts, I finally saw something or someone stirring in one of his front windows. I pulled my dark shades down so that they were just resting on the tip of my nose—I did this so I could see better. It was Paul, and I had a perfect view of the window to his office. He walked past the window again, this time with something in his hands—it looked like the telephone. He was moving back and forth so fast, I sensed that he was pacing. That kind of made me feel good because it sent a clear message to me that he was pacing because he couldn’t rest easy, which was exactly what I fucking intended. I was so busy watching him move back and forth, I didn’t immediately notice his wife coming out of their front door. There were two people with her, a man dressed in all white and a woman dressed in black and white—her hired help, I assumed. The man tugged a large suitcase out the front door and then several more. The woman was helping the children out the door, fussing over them and seemingly preparing them for a long trip. Paul’s wife didn’t seem to be speaking much, just hustling in and out of the house. I looked back to the room where he was, and now he was standing in the window as he watched his wife and kids. It wasn’t hard to tell what was going on.

“She’s finally leaving his ass,” I whispered. It had taken a few weeks, but it was finally happening. I had come just in the fucking nick of time to see it go down. My insides were hot with excitement; this was good for Paul’s ass. I gritted my teeth so hard, I was taking pleasure in watching this. Paul’s silhouette in the window was very still and his arms were by his sides. I could see that the kids were visibly upset, probably crying. White kids have always thought divorce was the equivalent to the end of the world, so this was probably tearing them up. I didn’t feel bad at all—shit, I grew up without a father, they would live. The male servant came out of the house with the last set of bags and he bent down to tell the children something. It seemed like a long good-bye because, one by one, the children threw their arms around the servant’s long neck and gave him a hug. He closed his eyes and gave each of the children a long squeeze. The female servant just stood aside with a tissue and blotted her eyes.

I assumed that she was probably their nanny, and this was probably extra hard for her. It was clear that wherever Mrs. Shapiro and the children were going…they were not coming back. As all of the long good-byes were being exchanged, I watched Paul, standing, watching his life walk out the door, leaving him alone with his troubles. Suddenly a black Mercedes G-wagon pulled up to the house, and Mrs. Shapiro, the children, and the hired help all turned toward the vehicle. The process of loading up the G wagon started, just like it had for taking the bags out of the house. One by one, piece by piece, slow and methodical, their lives—Paul’s life—were packed away in the back of a luxury SUV.

“Good for you, bastard. She should’ve left your ass a long time ago, fucking dirty piece of shit,” I mumbled, loving the fact that I had a front-row seat to Paul’s misery. I wished I could be up close to see his pain firsthand. After what he’d done to me, I wanted him to feel just how I felt, to go through just as much bullshit as I had to go through. I wished I could force-feed his ass a mountain of cocaine, just so he knew what being addicted felt like. I gripped the steering wheel in the rental car until my knuckles turned white. I didn’t even notice my rapid breathing, I was so furious.

I looked at Paul in the window and noticed he was holding something next to his head. “What the fuck is he doing? Oh, my God! Is that a gun?” I whispered aloud, secretly hoping it was. I couldn’t see very clearly, and I so wanted to get out of the car for a better view. But I couldn’t chance him noticing and recognizing me. So I stared at him and for one minute I averted my eyes back to his wife and kids. They’d finally gotten all but one of the bags into the G-wagon.

When I looked back up to the window, I realized Paul had suddenly disappeared.
Bang, bang, bang!
And then I saw that shattered glass from the window where Paul had been standing, not even a minute ago, was now lying on the lawn outside the home. My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. Startled by the same sound, Mrs. Shapiro, the children, and the servants had all looked up toward the window where the sound had come from. And the next thing I knew, Mrs. Shapiro and the children started screaming. They all ran back into the house and left their door wide open. I could see straight into Paul’s foyer, but there was no sign of anyone. Then suddenly someone raced past the doorway, running frantically. I couldn’t tell exactly what had happened. Maybe it was a gun that Paul had held. Could it be that he had blown his own brains out right there in his house?

As I speculated, I noticed it—a large, wet, red spot on the top pane of the window. “Oh shit, that motherfucker did shoot himself!” I said loudly to myself, covering my mouth at the same time. I couldn’t believe it! His shit-talking ass took the coward’s way out and he didn’t even wait until his wife had left with the children. He blew his own brains out with his kids only a few feet away. That was some sick-ass shit, if you asked me.

It was crazy, because I saw White people doing that type of shit all the time. I mean, it could not have been that bad! Or could it? Shit, I knew that if my life was fucked-up, like his was, then I probably would have just gone into hiding. Fuck killing myself. There was not enough shit going on in the world that would have me wanting to commit suicide. That’s just not what I was made of. I had too much to live for, in spite of the fact that I had a ton of enemies.

Aside from that, I didn’t know what to feel, because the evil side of me felt vindicated, but a small part of me felt sorry for the kids. It was only a matter of seconds before the wail of ambulance and police sirens came crying down Paul’s street. It really felt strange how I was around when he killed himself. The shit was really bugging me out! I mean, how coincidental was that? But what was even stranger was the fact that I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted to see that motherfucker squirm on his stomach. I wanted him to get a taste of what it felt like to be behind bars, too. Everything I went through was because of him, and I wanted him to get a taste of his own medicine. But I now saw that was not going to happen. So I was going to have to take what I could get and keep it moving.

Realizing that the block was being flooded with the paramedics’ vehicles, the coroner, and at least a dozen cop cars, I decided it was time for me to get the hell out of Dodge. With this much action one of the local newscasters was bound to be out here in the next several minutes, and I could not afford to let them see me. I could see me now, face plastered all over the front page, with the headlines saying that I was the cause of his suicide. That was the kind of press I was going to stay away from. And the sooner I got off this street, the better my chances were that I wouldn’t have to face them or the police.

Also, I wasn’t even supposed to be anywhere near Paul or anyone else associated with Shapiro and Witherspoon, per the conditions of my release. As a matter of fact, the other conditions of my release were that Scott had to keep me under strict supervision and make sure I made it to all my court dates, since they figured I was a flight risk. In addition to that, I had to turn over my passport. I was mad as hell about that shit, too, but then I figured that that was a very minor request—considering I was getting my freedom.

Finally, after maneuvering around a few cars that were already in the neighborhood, I was able to make my escape without being seen. And when I got back to the main freeway, I raced back to the Ritz-Carlton. I was a little shaken-up. After watching Paul, I decided that I wasn’t ready to face the music of my situation. I was getting the fuck out of Miami, because either I was going to jail for murder one or I was going to be murdered by Sheldon Chisholm—neither of which were choices I had envisioned for my life. Back at the Ritz, in full disguise, I raced past the front desk.

“Hi, Ms. Aoki,” the concierge said.

I never answered her. I didn’t have time to talk or be nice today. I was now on a mission to get gone. The only reason I had even returned to the hotel was because I decided that I needed to get my real identification so I could go to my overseas stash account and retrieve the remainder of my money. I knew leaving the country would mean leaving Scott high and dry, and the strings he had pulled to get me out on bail were surely going to get him in trouble…but I had no choice. There was no fucking way I was going to deal with the trial and Sheldon Chisholm without losing my mind. I was already tired of disguising myself; if I had to do this for another day or so, I knew I would be on the brink of having a nervous breakdown. And I couldn’t have that, because how many people that you knew ever came back to their full capacity after that? I didn’t know any. So my best bet would be to keep my mind on target and to keep the drama to a minimum.