The Rented Mule (3 page)

Into dead space, Cooper said, “Great. Thanks, Brooke.”

He stared at the phone for a moment, not believing that the woman of his daydream had just called. That alone would make his evening bearable. He sighed as he drove to the local grocery store in search of clear plastic forks while only a three hours’ drive away was a woman who seemed very interested in having a relationship with him. She looked at him in a manner that he hadn’t experienced in a long time. And he was experiencing emotions and thoughts that he had never considered possible. On top of everything, she was about to go fishing. He lived to fish.

Brooke stared at the crystal clear Gulf and yearned for things to be different. After several minutes she gracefully gathered her belongings, slipped on a beach robe that matched her bag, and walked toward the condominium, totally unaware that she was being watched.

H
e was having a rough day. Sitting at his desk, Gates was overwhelmed by all the work that he needed to finish. Gates loathed any details and particularly paperwork. He decided to delegate this pile of mind-numbing documents to Cooper:
let him deal with it
.

Realizing that his hand was shaking, he went over to his door to check that it was locked, and then quickly opened a small wooden humidor to pull out a metallic cigar tube. He opened it carefully. Inside was a small baggie of coke.
I just need a little bump before this phone call
, he thought.

Gates poured a small amount onto his credenza and used a credit card to break up the clumps and then define the line. He rolled up a dollar bill and snorted the powder. The worried man closed his reddened eyes and pinched his nostrils as his body reacted to the sudden rush. He didn’t think he was addicted. He only needed it to help get through the pressure of selling the business. There was much more at stake, however, and the stress was taking its toll on him.

Gates Albert Ballenger, III, almost always had everything he ever wanted and usually got it with little or no effort—the best schools, the best clothes, the best cars… and sometimes the best-looking women. His college days, of course, were a monument to mediocrity. And then later in life controlling a successful business didn’t offer much satisfaction either since it never occurred to him that his lack of contentment was proportional to the amount of energy he didn’t put into it. The company was successful in spite of Gates and was attributable to the efforts of others, namely Cooper, whom Gates was slowly beginning to despise.

Gates’s second wife had recently left him and with alimony for two and the child-support payments for one, he was being eaten alive, financially.
Either I’m attracted to the wrong women or they’re attracted to me. I’m not sure
, he thought.

One thing was abundantly clear: women paid very close attention to his money, or what they thought was his money.

As a kid, his father had allowed him to drink bourbon with him. His dad had thought it was cool to introduce Gates to his world this way, having no idea that Gates had been drinking since he was twelve. Shortly after his father’s introduction to whiskey and “outside women,” the no-longer deniable troubles with Gates began. By seventeen, he had experienced more than most twenty-five-year-olds, and he searched hard for anything that would give him a thrill.

Gates found nirvana in gambling. It first started at the dog track just east of Montgomery. Gates loved the thrill of betting and a custom-made false ID allowed the high schooler to walk right in. One week Gates would be up five grand, and the next he would be down ten. Soon he befriended a local greyhound trainer and tried to fix races to help his percentages. After a bad misunderstanding and a loss of over $20,000 in one weekend, the trainer’s dogs mysteriously died
and Gates barely missed an extended stay in juvenile detention. If the judge hadn’t been his father’s hunting buddy, Gates wouldn’t have graduated with his class, he would have been pressing license plates.

Gates’s father began to wonder if he had really helped his son when getting him out of a number of embarrassing situations. He couldn’t shake the fact that his son coldly killed the dogs and then beat the trainer so badly that he ended up in a body cast. For whatever reason—a father’s unconditional love or his desire to avoid societal humiliation—he always kept his son from behind bars.

The gambling bug never left Gates. He bet on everything. Horses, basketball, baseball, but his favorite was football. He was addicted to point spreads, the over/under, and he searched far and wide for his next tip. He listened to sports talk radio and did research online, all to not much avail, and the last three years found him paying more and more juice to his bookie. Gates was a loser. He lacked discipline, which coupled with a gambling problem was a recipe for disaster. The last tally showed him owing just over $1 million, with interest compounding daily. Nobody knew, but everyone had his or her suspicions. Gates’s father had to cut him off. The ex-wives’ relentlessly pursued their cut of his net worth. All of this was making Gates’s extravagant lifestyle almost impossible to maintain.

He was a genius at showing the bankers that he was making money, the Internal Revenue Service that he was not, and his equally curious ex-wives that there wasn’t any more blood in the turnip. What he could not do was manage his bookie. The guy was hot-tempered, hungry for payment, and growing anxious. Gates was constantly begging for more time. Now it appeared that he had only one option. If he could sell the business, he could satisfy most of his debts;
and if he could doctor the books, he could get even more money away from Cooper. He had to. Gates was terrified of his bookie; he knew he had pushed the limit with him. Gates was scared and backed into a corner.

He sat down at his desk and stared at the phone. He quickly dialed the number from memory and listened with trepidation as it rang.

“Hey, man. It’s Gates… uh, how you doin’?”

“When you gonna pay me?” a gruff voice responded.

“That’s why I’m callin’… to let you know… I got a meetin’ with the bank next week, and I should have a firm sale date then.”

Gates waited for a reply. He heard a cigarette lighter close and Mitchell blowing out a deep breath of smoke.

“That’s good. I’m gettin’ tired of waitin’. This is draggin’ on way too freakin’ long. You know I got a business to run. I got expenses.”

“I understand, but I should know exactly what we’ll get and a target date to close, I swear,” explained Gates, trying not to sound terrified.

Mitchell Holmes ran a multistate booking outfit. To appear legitimate, he controlled several businesses through which he laundered money. On any given weekend during football season, he had hundreds of thousands of dollars crossing his books. Because several high-profile law enforcement officers placed bets with him regularly and watched his back at the local level, he felt very well insulated—nearly bulletproof.

“We? You’ve never said
we
before. Who exactly is
we
?”

“My partner, Cooper, gets a cut,” Gates replied, wishing not to explain every detail.

“You gonna get enough to pay me, Gates? You never said anything before about havin’ to pay out to a partner.”

“I’ll know soon. It should be enough. It’ll be close.”

“What’s his name again?”

“Cooper. Cooper Dixon.”

“Get rid of him,” Mitchell said as he exhaled a lung full of smoke.

“I can’t do that… how can I do that?”

Gates had every intention of cooking up some general administrative expenses to inflate his take of the sale, but never dreamed of killing Cooper, although he had planned to screw him out of a sizable chunk of his share of the sale. Gates nervously rubbed his nostrils.

“Listen, you little shit, I want all my money, and I don’t care how you get it. You got that? Do I need to help you? Because I think I do. I can make things happen real fast, you know,” Mitchell Holmes said coldly, implying everything that Gates feared.

“I hear what you’re sayin’. Just give me a few more days. I swear I’ll call as soon as I know the details.”

“I want all of it. All of it. Ya hear me?” Mitchell instructed and then hung up.

“I know. I know,” Gates said into dead air; then he returned the handset to the cradle and thought about Mitchell’s comments.
Cooper’s share is the answer to all my problems.

Wearily, Gates leaned back in his chair and stared out the window at the State Capitol. The giant domed building was built in 1851. Many significant events had occurred there including the formation of the Confederate States of America and the end of Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic Selma to Montgomery march. Gates wondered what gave the building the strength to endure over 150 years.
I know that I don’t have that kinda strength, but maybe if I do somethin’ dramatic, I can turn the tables.

A
fter finishing off a dozen hot chicken wings, the waitress brought a third beer. He ogled her chest and drummed the table with his hands as she cleaned up his mess. She was accustomed to guys staring at her orange shorts and tight white top, but this freak really made her uncomfortable. There was something peculiar and very unnerving about the way he leered.

“Are those beauties
real
?” he asked, gawking at her chest.

She didn’t respond.

“Hey, don’t ignore me! I’m a payin’ customer.”

“What do you think?” she fired back angrily.

“Let me feel ’em, so I’ll have a better idea.”

“Look me in the eye.”

He did, expectantly.

She said, “Not in this lifetime, asshole!” and then she turned and quickly walked away to alert the manager.

He chuckled and took a long pull of the cold beer. Setting the bottle on the table, he glanced at his watch and realized it was time to leave. He had a very important business
appointment at ten o’clock. He checked the tab that the manager brought to the table. He dropped bills on the table, leaving a $1.37 tip.

As he walked across the street to his BMW, he pressed the unlock button and the lights flashed. Sitting in the car, he ran his fingers through his hair and thought about the chaos he was about to set in motion. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror and smiled.
This is some serious shit, and I’ve planned every detail. It’s flawless. It’s freakin’ brilliant!

He cranked the car and then adjusted the radio, stopping on an old Eagle’s song. He pulled onto Highway 182, headed east to the infamous Flora-Bama—a beach bar sitting atop the state lines of Florida and Alabama. As he drove, he recalled the instructions he had been given. He was to sit at the end of the bar at exactly ten o’clock and light one match every minute until he was approached. Checking his pockets, he felt the book of matches and an envelope with $10,000 in one hundred dollar bills. Reaching under his seat, he pulled out his hammerless Smith & Wesson .38 revolver.

When he parked his car in the crowded parking lot, he untucked his navy blue golf shirt to hide the bulges in his pockets. His khaki shorts and boat shoes matched what half the crowd would be wearing. The other half would be bikers or wannabes. Although preppy, he appeared average, and he hoped very forgettable. Smiling boldly at himself in the rearview mirror, he brimmed with excitement.

“Let’s do this,” he said aloud as he walked toward the neon signs and the loud, rowdy crowd that was already spilling outside.

He paid the cover charge and then headed toward the back, deep into the crowded bar. Hot women were everywhere, dancing and having a great time. As he worked his way through the mob, he tried not to get too distracted by
the tanned scenery. He became anxious when he spotted a big, burly guy with a blue jean vest and tattoos covering his arms sitting at the far end of the bar—his conceit evaporating at the sight of the huge muscular biker. He was going to have to ask the mountain to move.

“Hey, man. I need that seat… if you don’t mind.”

The big dude didn’t acknowledge him.

“I’ll make it worth your trouble,” he yelled over the music.

Still no response.

“Look, if I buy you a beer, will you let me sit there?” he asked loudly, and again he was met with zero acknowledgement. He glanced at his Rolex but couldn’t see the hands well enough to tell the time. Growing anxious, he held his left wrist toward a neon beer light and saw that he had less than five minutes.

“Okay, dude… look… this is my final offer,” he almost screamed as he grabbed his wallet out of his back pocket. “Here’s a hundred. All you gotta do is let me sit right there. Okay?”

“Make it two and you gotta deal,” the big guy mumbled loud enough to be heard and then took a huge swallow of cold beer.

Gritting his teeth and looking at his Rolex, he realized that this was wasting time and decided it was just another business expense.

“Okay. Here. Take it. Now, can I sit down?” He was practically begging. He took another quick but futile glance at his watch.

The enormous man grabbed the money and then his beer and with a grunt pushed his way into the crowd.

Relief flooded him as he quickly sat down, nervously exhaling. His buddy could get him anything for the right
price; they had worked several past deals and had formed a fast alliance based solely on cash and results.

He lit a match and held it in front of his face while it burned. Very few people even looked at him. As the second match burned brightly, he glanced around to see if anyone was paying attention.

The female bartender noticed and placed an ashtray and a bar napkin in front of him, asking, “Whattaya have?”

Wondering if this was part of the plan, he thought for the correct answer and when nothing came to mind, he just said, “Coors Light.”

She nodded, reached into the cooler, grabbed and opened the bottle, and then sat it on the napkin and walked off. He laid a twenty next to the bottle.

He lit a third match, held it with his right hand and drank his beer using his left.

A tipsy blonde walked over and blew out the match, and then started singing “Happy Birthday” to him… until he finally convinced her to stop. She stared into his eyes and smiled. He admired her skintight cut-off blue jeans and equally tight white tank top as he returned the smile, but he was too edgy about his meeting to successfully flirt.