Smooth Operator (21 page)

The vein in Lyfe’s neck tightened as he pointed his finger in Galvin’s face. “You don’t know shit about what I do with my wife.”

“Hmmm.” Keenan bobbled his head slightly from side to side. “I move to strike, but we all know,” Keenan continued his act, “that your degree in the ins and outs of California prisons, or your Crip set, not even your criminal background, makes you fit for such a position. So, let’s see, what could it be: your charm,” he held his hands out as if he were counting on his fingers, “your wit, or could it possibly be,” Keenan tapped his index finger against his temple, “that you have simply upgraded your crimes from the streets to the boardroom? And that you lured rich people to come into your wife’s company to invest their money, and then you passed them on to your coconspirator—excuse me, your chief investment officer, Quinton King. Mr.
King then sheltered the money in various offshore accounts, most of them with your name on them.

“Would you please explain to the jury how such a sophisticated operation came to be? Are you an innocent bystander or simply an opportunistic criminal?”

Lyfe didn’t flinch. “Well, if all of that is true, then why are we sitting here sipping cocktails? It sounds like you need to be charging me, ’cause as of right now, I’m not assisting you with shit.”

“Testing the three strikes law is up to you.” Galvin mashed his cigarette in the ashtray.

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Pretty much slim to none,” Keenan interjected.

“I’ve always been the underdog, so I pretty much like those odds,” Lyfe retorted, “especially since you would have to prove me guilty and you don’t have shit besides some bogus-ass theory that you made up on your way over here.”

“Really?” Keenan reached into the inside pocket of his trench coat, pulled out a business envelope, and opened it. “Let’s see what we have here: On March 3, 2006, two days after your wedding, you moved four million dollars into a Swiss account, and then you took half out and invested in foreign bonds.”

“What?” Lyfe said with a dash of too much surprise, as a vision of Payton danced before his eyes,
Honey
, she’d said a few days after they were married,
sign this.

“What is it?”

“A joint offshore investment account. An insider tip told me that this is one to invest in …”

Lyfe blinked, and warred with his eyes to hide his immeasurable level of surprise. “It’s not illegal to invest, it’s not even illegal to have Swiss accounts.”

“True,” Keenan said, moving on to another banking statement. “But it is illegal to take investors’ money and use it as your
own. Now, let’s see what else we have here. On July 23, 2006, you moved a whopping twenty million dollars into Monte Carlo, another offshore account.” He handed Lyfe the bank statements, looked into his eyes, and said, “Yes, Your Honor, we have a verdict—we the jury find the defendant guilty of fraud, money laundering, and theft.” He pounded his fist on the table. “You’re sentenced to life in prison.”

Lyfe hoped like hell that the rapid speed of his heart didn’t show on his face. He took another swig of his Hennessy and said, “Bullshit. All of it, well-prepared bullshit. I never laundered any money. So, do what it is you came to do.”

“Fine,” Galvin snapped, “I don’t give a fuck if you make Pookie the punk suck your dick or you become somebody’s bitch in prison, but it would seem to me that you would want to get out while you can.”

“I haven’t done anything,” Lyfe insisted, his voice becoming slightly elevated.

“Well,” Keenan shrugged his shoulders, “you’ll fit in perfectly when you go back to prison, because they’re all pretty much singing the same tune.”

“I don’t believe this,” Lyfe said, more to himself than to them.

Keenan snapped his fingers. “Oh, wait, here’s some more well-prepared bullshit.” He slid Lyfe a list of offshore banks. “More accounts in your name. Again, Your Honor, we the jury find the defendant—”

“What do you want from me?” Lyfe snapped.

“Help us,” Galvin said.

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“It’s easy,” Keenan leaned in, “twenty million dollars in cash will do the trick.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Lyfe frowned.

“You know exactly what we’re talking about,” Galvin said, tight-lipped. “And in exchange we won’t turn in the evidence we
have on you to our superiors. We’ll simply turn in what we have on your wife. So, we suppress the evidence and you walk away, start a new life, and tell everybody left here to kiss your ass. Besides, it’s your wife who’ll give us the headlines. You’re small fuckin’ fish, and we go after sharks—anything smaller than that, we let the trigger-happy police handle those shits. We want headlines, a front-page bust, so, consider this your plea bargain—no jail time, and not only do we all walk away rich, it gets us the decorated career we’re looking for.”

Lyfe chuckled in disbelief. “You’re trying to muscle me?” he said, taken aback. “Crooked fuckin’ pigs.”

“Call it what you will, but from where I’m sitting you don’t have a choice. You can play hero, roll the dice on three strikes, or you sacrifice your wife and we all walk away wealthy.”

Lyfe sat silent for a moment. Too many thoughts were going through his head to decide what was the most pressing issue he had to deal with. Yeah, Payton had been a bitch during their marriage, but she didn’t deserve this. But what if the paperwork that they gave him was legit? Then what? Is this why Payton was so resistant to the audit? There was no way in hell he could go back to prison, especially for something he didn’t do. He looked at their gleaming silver FBI badges and shook his head. “I need some time,” Lyfe said, knocking off the rest of his drink. “How can I reach you?

“Don’t worry,” Keenan said as he and Galvin rose from their seats, “we know how to reach you.”

L
yfe had been sitting in his office from the time he left the FBI agents last night until five a.m. this morning, poring over the financial reports, records, and computerized files, and nothing made any sense. There were accounts showing gains when even the dumbest motherfucker knew that the stock market was on its ass. This was insane. He slammed his fist onto the desk and shook his head.

It was a front. All of it, a disaster, the next piece of shit that was sure to send him to prison for the rest of his fuckin’ life.

Lyfe could feel his heart inching its way from his chest and into his throat. He couldn’t understand why he hadn’t seen this coming. Why did he expect that this shit was fuckin’ legit, when the financial world was falling down all around him. This is why Payton wanted him in New York; this is what she didn’t want him to know … that she was robbing every-fuckin’-body who could see straight blind.

“What the fuck!”
Lyfe screamed at the top of his lungs and pushed everything off his desk. His nameplate made a thud as it hit the tile below and the papers scattered violently about the room. Tears filled his eyes, but Lyfe was determined not to cry … he couldn’t cry … because that shit was for the weak at heart. And that’s not what he was.

He sat staring at the computer, the financial account fading
to black on his computer screen. He wondered if moving the twenty million dollars was the right thing to do … when all of the information he had was based on an assumption. He wasn’t able to prove if there were really offshore accounts in his name. Could he tell if money had been moved from Anderson Global accounts? Yes. Did the amounts moved match the bank statement copies the FBI gave him? Yes. But did he have absolute proof that Payton was doing him in? No.

And suppose it wasn’t Payton. Hell, maybe it was Quinton. Shit, after all, it was his department that made the hard sales and invested the money. All of the higher-ups in the company knew that Payton’s power was more for show and for when she felt like flexing it, but other than that, she was just there.

He had to speak to Payton; they needed to push aside their marital discrepancies and discuss what was really going on. The only problem was explaining to Arri that he was going to California to see his wife.

A
rri could tell by the way Lyfe was fucking her that something had happened between the time he left her last night and when he showed up at her door this morning. Given the way he’d abandoned all finesse and was instead stroking her hard and rough and the usual soft and sensual sucks to her nipples were borderline abusive, something was troubling his thoughts. Her breasts had always been his favorite to toy with, yet he was mistreating them and making her nipples sore.

She opened her eyes and watched his shaft make heavy metal drumbeats as it slammed against her pussy lips. It wasn’t that the sex wasn’t good, it was, and Arri had already cum twice; it’s just that with each nut he gave her, he became rougher and more on edge. She knew he hadn’t cum yet, and maybe that was part of his frustration, but she also knew she couldn’t take much more of this rough-ass lovemaking.

Lyfe flipped Arri over on her stomach at rocket speed and gripped her by the back of her neck. Now she was sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that his mind had fled the scene.

“Lyfe!” she screamed his name as his hips soared against her ass.

He didn’t answer; instead he took her hands that gripped the sheets, pulled them behind her back, held her wrists together, and forced the wheels on the corners of the bed to sing.

Arri turned her head to the right and looked at Lyfe; every vein in his arm and hand was highlighted and bulging through his skin. He bit into his bottom lip as he rode her ass like a Roman chariot, forcing her a few seconds later to cum solo again.

This was the first time they’d made love without him saying a single word, only grunting, groaning, and roughhousing her in all sorts of positions. He pulled her to the edge of the bed, where he twirled her around in a wheelbarrow position. Instantly every ounce of blood in Arri’s body rushed to her head and her hair covered her face. She loved the high of being fucked upside down, but she knew that his dick was too big for their daily sessions to ever be this intense.

He slapped her hard on her ass and then he pounded into her in a rapid succession, before putting her back on the bed, placing her backward across his middle, and watching her ass leave behind erotic lotion all over his dick. Lyfe gripped her by the sides of her hips and plopped her up and down on his cock until she’d released her overflowing dam and he’d finally rained like a tsunami all over her ass.

Arri eased off Lyfe and sat alongside him, her knees pulled to her breasts, as Lyfe folded his arms behind his back and stared at the ceiling. “Did you enjoy that?” she asked.

“Enjoy what?”

“What the hell we just did?”

“What are you saying?” He frowned and turned toward her. “We make love damn near every night and now there’s a problem?” he snapped, sitting up with his back against the headboard. “Whatever argument you’re looking for tonight ain’t the night for it. Check me tomorrow, but see tonight, it ain’t going down.”

Arri drew in a deep breath. “What,” she paused, “is wrong with you?” She placed her finger against the center of his lips, “And don’t give me no bullshit.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Oh, here we go with the nothing-is-wrong-with-you shit; it’s obvious that something has you fucked up.”

Lyfe sighed and pulled Arri on top of him. He stared at her and he said, “Anything you have to tell me, that I need to know, tell me now.”

Arri was caught completely off guard.

“Why are you saying that? What is that about?”

“Everybody,” Lyfe’s eyes seemed to drift into space, “has been lying to me. Nothing is real … Nothing. So if it’s anything, I need you to tell me.”

Arri’s heart beat fast as she wondered if he knew about A Smooth Operator, and if he did, how? She knew she needed to tell him, but how exactly do you explain that you’ve been fucking men via the Internet to pay your rent? She swallowed. “I do have something to tell you.”

Lyfe’s hands dropped from Arri’s waist.

“What is it?”

She could hear the hesitancy in Lyfe’s voice. “Listen,” Arri felt her heart build resistance, “I’ve been raising myself since I could remember, so I’ve had to do what I had to do.”

“And what was that?” he said coldly, as if he was preparing for the worse.

“I was a stripper, but when my nephew came, I couldn’t keep that up, so I had to take care of him another way.”

“And how did you do that?”

“I started working at Anderson Global in the day, and at night I set up an erotic site.” She swallowed the hard lump in her throat.

“What were you doing on the site?”

“What do you think? Fulfilling men’s fantasies. Fucking them via the Internet. So what,”—she pushed back the tears rocking her eyes—“now you know. And I will not”—she pointed
into his face—“apologize for taking care of my business.” She stared at him, and when he didn’t say anything, unwanted tears filled her eyes and she said, “It’s cool, that’s why I don’t fuck with love.”

“Too late.” Lyfe placed his hands back around Arri’s waist. “You’re already in love.”

“I can get over it.”

“Really?” he asked. “Well, I can’t. Listen, you can tell me anything, because believe me, I have done some shit that makes me not able to ever judge anybody. I know what it is to have to survive. But let me ask you this, were you
only
doing this over the computer, and not in person?”

“I wasn’t a whore.”

“I didn’t say that you were.”

“And I’m not apologizing for it—”

“So what are you saying, you’re still doing it?”

Silence.

“I need you to stop.”

“Why?” she snapped.

“Because, I’m not comfortable with that shit.”

“I have to pay my bills.”

“I’ma pay ’em!”

“So, you gon’ pay me to be your whore. Is that what you’re saying? No thanks, I can take care of myself.”

“You gettin’ on my damn nerves with this defensive shit. I didn’t fall in love with a whore. And all I’m saying is that you don’t have to do that computer shit anymore—”

“And why is that?”