The Winner: Part Nine

It’s the day after Christmas and nearly noon. I'm sitting on my sofa in my salmon colored cashmere bathrobe, playing the last level of Resistance: Fall of Man. It's a fun game and all, but I'm beginning to feel like a douche for spending fifteen-hundred dollars on Ebay for a PS3 just to play that game. I get bored with the game after I get eaten by a mutant for the sixth time. I start scratching my balls with the Sixaxis controller. The contours of the controller feel surprisingly good. At least the PS3 is good for something...

My landline starts beeping. I pick up the cordless and answer it. Its Apple in the lobby. I press pound to buzz her up.

A minute or so later, I hear desperate pounding on the door. I check through the peephole and see Apple is alone, so I open it up and let her in. She immediately embraces me and sobs, "Poopy, I'm so glad you called me."

"No problem," I say. "What's wrong?"

She pulls back, sniffles, then attempts to regain her composure. "I'm sorry. I just don't know what I'm gonna do," she says. "I went to the club for my shift today and Demetrius said I was fired! I don't know what to do, Poopy! I'm so poor!"

"There, there," I say, petting her hair. "It'll work out. It'll all work out."

I knew this was gonna happen. A couple days ago I convinced my parole officer to call the strip club and act like he was doing an employment follow-up for Apple (though I had him use her real name, Angela). He then claimed that Apple was on probation for drug possession and prostitution and threatened to have the restaurant board look into revoking his caberet license for hiring such a felon. I had to pay him three-thousand dollars to make the call and to look the other way a bit when it came to bringing in paystubs and notifying him if I leave the country and shit like that. I'm surprised that I was able to bribe him so cheaply and so easily. They must not pay parole officers shit.

I figured if I was going to break Apple's soul, I needed her to become dependent on me. I pull my money clip out of my bathrobe and count out two-thousand dollars. "Here. This is for you to pay the rent and utilities," I peel off another two-hundred dollars. "This is so you can buy yourself something you wouldn't otherwise get. Don't worry about that job right now. You just worry about you."

I pat her on the butt, then go over to my kitchen and get a bottled spring water out of the fridge. "And make sure you don't give any of that money to that guy Luke."

"Poopy, I can't," she whines. "He knows I'm over here. I'm gonna have to give him something."

"What do you see in that guy anyway?"

"Luke? Oh, he get's upset sometimes, but he's really a sweetheart. He had some trouble with the law, but it totally wasn't his fault. Anyway, I gotta keep him around. He's my babies daddy."

"Well, give him some of it then. But not all of it. That money is primarily yours.

"Okay," she says unconvinced. "So, nice place you have here. You wanna do this here or in the living room."

"That's okay," I say, coming out of the kitchen. "You're obviously stressed by losing your job today. Just use that to take care of yourself. I want to make sure your all right."

I put my hand on her shoulder and she started to sob again. "Thank you, Mr. Poopy. You're one of the nicest guys I know. You're way too good to me and my family." Then, she kissed me on the cheek.

She starts to head towards the door when I say, "Apple, one thing before you go..."

"Yes?"

"I want to see your cunt."

"What?"

"I said I want to see your cunt. Just pull down your pants so I can get a peek."

"Oh-kay," she says. She sets down her purse and unclasps the buttons on her jeans, then pushes them down her hips to about her knees. "Is this good?"

My dick feels rock hard right now. "Show it to me from behind. Right there on the wall."

She cautiously turns around and bends over with her hands against the wall, sticking her butt out. I get a closer look at her shaved snatch and puckered up anus and start jerking off right there. It takes me less than a minute to squeeze out one hollow, hateful orgasm. I feel suddenly angry.

"Get the fuck out of here," I mutter to Apple as I look for a Kleenex to wipe the come off my hand. She looks confused as she pulls up her pants and gets her purse. "Thank you," she says meekly as she exits the door. I don't say anything or watch her as she leaves.

I take a hot shower, rub some mango pit moisturizer over my face to moisten my dry skin, then get dressed in my new clothes from Armani exchange that I bought last week. I call a cab to take me to the garage so I can to pick my Mercedes up. The mechanics start talking some bullshit about how they had to order this clasp and that clasp and undo seatings etc. and my bill turned out to be five hundred more dollars than I expected. I didn't have time to argue with them. I had to get my car so I could meet with Sergei.

I rolled up to the Lazy U Motel a few minutes after four. Sergei is waiting outside, smoking a cigarette. "Put out the cigarette and get in," I say, unlocking the passenger side. He hops in and I say, "Let's go for a drive."

"No problem, Poopy," Sergei says. He pulls a CD out of his blue jumpsuit. "You wanna listen to this? It Russian hip-hop. You know Russia have a hip-hop scene?"

"Why on earth would you want that dreadful nigger music around if you didn't have to?"

"No, no," Sergei says. "Russian hip-hop better than nigger hip-hop. It's more true to the streets than that bling shit. Chechen's make Moscow almost like South Central."

I don't want to fight. "Fine. Put it in." Sergei replaces the Cannibal Corpse CD in the player with his own, and reassures me "Trust me, you like."

Out comes the predictably obnoxious rap music, unique only in the fact that I couldn't understand the words (not that I can understand our ebonics riddled homegrown rap music that much better). "So Poopy my dawg. Can I ask why you want to meet with me?"

"I need a favor, and I wonder if you might know someone to do it for me?"

"What you need Poopy? I do anything for Mr. Peanutz."

"I need to have someone killed."

Sergei doesn't flinch when I say this, but he doesn't say anything either.

"So?"

Sergei reaches forward and turns the volume on the stereo up painfully high. "What the fuck?" I yell, and I reach over to take his CD out of the player and throw it out the window, but get stopped short when I realize that Sergei now has a gun poking into my side.

"Keep driving!" he yells so I can barely hear him over the music.

I drive like this for about a block. "Sergei! What the fuck?"

"See that parking structure in the mall off to the right?" Sergei yells. "Turn in there. Park on the top floor, but not the roof."

I comply. It's late afternoon and a weekday, so there aren't many cars at the mall. I try to get away with parking the car close to the entrance, but Sergei says "Not here. Towards the end." He points me toward an obscured corner and I go there. Before I turn off the ignition, Sergei yells over the music, "Give me your cell phone!" I obey. "Now, when we get out of the car, take off your jacket and show me your waist!"

I nod, then turn off the car and carefully step outside. Sergei does the same while keeping his gun trained on me. I throw my sport coat on the roof of the car and start pulling my shirt out of my pants while Sergei sits my phone on the hood and fumbles around trying to dig the battery out with one hand.

"Watch the paint," I say. Sergei motions with the gun for me to join him on his side of the car. Once there, he quickly searches me for a wire, spending an uncomfortable amount of time feeling my groin looking for a transmitter. Then he grabs my coat off the hood and searches it before tossing it back to me.

Satisfied, Sergei finally quits aiming the gun at me, but he doesn't put it away either. "Walk over here," he says.

We walk a couple car lengths down the garage. "Sergei. I say again: what the fuck is going on?"

"Sorry Poopy," Sergei says, fishing another cigarette out of his pocket. "It's just a rule of the family. Never talk business on the phone or in the car. I had to be sure."

Then the fucker puts the gun up to his lips and pulls the trigger. Nothing but a small butane flame pops out of the end. He lights his cigarette. I feel so stupid that I want toss that Russian fuck off the roof. I keep my composure.

"So, what do you think? You know how to get that done?"

"I'm not sure," Sergei says. Stupid fuck, this is no time to play coy. "I mean, what is troubling you Poopy. Sometimes problems can be solved better without killing.

"Fuck that shit," I say. "And isn't it better if you don't know my motives?"

"Depends who you have a problem with."

"Some speedfreak biker named Luke who lives in the trailer park by the north end."

Sergei mulls this over. "The syndicate doesn't do business with bikers, so no explanation is necessary I suppose. You don't want anything special to happen to this fellow?"

"If it's possible, I'd like him to suffer for as long as possible. And I'd like to have photographs."

"Photographs? Are you stupid? You want evidence?"

"I have my reasons," I say. "I'll pay extra for it."

"I might know someone who is interested in a job like this. He is insane; spent half his life in a Soviet gulag, but he is good at his work..." Sergei ponders for a moment. "I should be able to get it done for twenty-five grand, plus an additional two for expenses. Ten for the shooter, and five for me for brokering the deal. And I need it in cash."

"Not a problem," I say. "If the pictures are extra-gruesome, I'll throw in a five grand bonus."

"I think I can do it," Sergei says, smiling through yellow teeth. "Give me a few days. I will need two recent photos and the address of the target as well as the money in bills no larger than twenties."

"No problem, just give me a call when you want it."

"If you don't already have the cash on hand, I'd suggest withdrawing more than the amount from your account in different sized installments over the course of the week. Not that it should come back to you, but keep in mind an alibi for why you need so much cash in such a time."

"Gotcha," I say.

"Very well then," Sergei says, tossing his cigarette off the structure. "You wanna go have a vodka? There's a restaurant in this mall run by a Russian who keeps some good stuff at the bar."

"Yeah," I say. "I think I might need it."