“Would you like some more cheesecake, dear?” Merle’s old Grandma waddled carefully into the room, where Merle lounged on the sofa watching the Red Green show.
“No thanks Grandma,” Merle answered, “I’ve already had two slices, and I haven’t finished this ice cream float yet.”
“Oh,” Her Grandma sounded disappointed, “But I’ve just cut up another piece.”
Merle looked up and studied the cherry-adorned cheesecake admiringly, “I guess I still have room for your cheesecake Grandma.” She smiled.
Her Grandma brightened immediately and hastily placed the treat in front of her. Merle wondered what it would be like to live with her Grandma, who never stopped feeding her, than with her parent’s, who didn’t feed her enough. She figured she’d probably get fat.
She sat back again with the cheesecake in her lap and settled down to watch the word game, they were playing with Ranger Gord today. Just as it was getting to the funny part, there was a knock on the door. Merle cursed under her breath; it was probably her father come to take her home right at the best part. She couldn’t even stay for handyman’s corner!
Sighing, she got up and met her father, Arthur Lotus, at the door.
“Hi dad,” She said as she put on her shoes.
”H-Hi honey,” Her father stuttered. He had an annoying habit of stuttering sometimes when he was anxious or stressed.
“Long day?” Merle wondered.
“Y-y-yes,” He managed to choke out. He wiped his sweaty dark brown hair out of his face and rushed her out the door. Somehow his hair had fallen out of its carefully slicked back state. That rarely happened, and she was beginning to get worried.
”Dad? What’s going on?”
“N-n-n-nothing,”
Merle eyed him suspiciously but didn’t push him. Her father could be very irritable when he was nervous; and he was obviously nervous about something. It was April, it must be the tax season.
“I told you! I’ll have the goods by Saturday,”
“Yeah, and it’s Friday and my boss is getting worried that you won’t deliver. I just need to check up.” The disembodied voice answered coldly over the phone.
“I mean it, I-I-I’ll have the goods by six tomorrow. Have you sent the money?”
“I’ve wired half of it to your account. It should be processed real soon. You’ll get the other half when we see our product.”
“O-O-Of course. T-tomorrow, I promise…” He was greeted by a harsh click and then the sound of a dial tone.
The man ran his hands through his sweat-drenched hair. Things were getting too complicated. He knew he should have stopped a long time ago, but the money coming in was too good to be true. But all good things must come to an end. The government was catching on to his operation, and he’d already blown off a few clients who were by now, no doubt getting very angry.
He did a few quick calculations in his head and decided that the half from this latest job would have to be enough. It was too much of a danger to his family. He needed to leave, and quickly.
“Dad…?”
The man shot up and quickly grabbed the mess of papers scattered across his desk.
“Y-y-yes?” He stammered, looking up and his daughter came down the stairs.
”Mom says dinner’s ready.” She eyes him curiously, but thankfully made no comment. He didn’t want to have to explain what he was doing in his office in the dark, and sweating like a pig.
He pulled at his dampened collar and stood up. “I’ll be right there, I just need to clean up a bit.”
She nodded and headed back up the stairs.
Arthur Lotus pushed his chair back in and composed himself before going up the stairs to face his wife and daughter. He would have to tell them; not everything, but at least tell them that they had to move. Moving, yes, that would solve a lot of things. To Quebec, and change their name to something French. That would do the trick.
“Arthur!” his wife called, “We’re waiting.”
“Coming!” He cried. He fixed his collar and walked up the stairs.
Craven woke at three o’clock in the morning on Saturday because of the phone. His brother had set it to an abnormally loud ring so that it would wake him up if Gray had to call in the middle of the night. Normally, Craven went back to sleep, but today he was curious enough to stay awake and press his ear to the wall, trying to hear his brother’s side of the conversation. But all he heard just made him even more confused.
“He what? Are you sure? God dammit Redman! I told you…No, and you already sent the money? Half? Well, you got that right at least. What was the price you agreed on? …WHAT?!…”
Craven winced at the volume of Chad’s voice.
“Are you fucking stupid?!” Chad screamed.
“Yeah, yeah…call Trent and tell him to get his ass over here. We’ve got to fix this…Well what do you think, dumb ass? Just hurry up!”
Craven heard Chad’s footsteps fall heavily on the floor as he walked past his door. He thought he heard him stop outside, so Craven sank deep into his bed and closed his eyes pretending to be asleep. But Chad didn’t come in, and Craven let out his breath. Chad made his way downstairs instead.
In a few minutes, Craven knew that Gray and Trent would both be at their door. Craven didn’t like Gray or Trent, but especially Trent. He gave him the creeps. Craven crawled out bed and got dressed. Just as he finished he heard a car pull up. He saw a small blonde step out of the driver’s seat and a huge black man from the passenger’s side. Craven recognized them instantly: Gray and Trent.
Chad brought them into the basement to talk, and Craven crept quietly down the stairs to listen in.
“Did Gray tell you what’s going on?” Chad asked of Trent as they walked down the stairs. The huge black guy only nodded and turned to glare at the twitchy blonde.
Chad nodded, “We can’t let this go on. That software is worth a lot to us, and if we don’t get it…”
“So what do you wanna do, man?” Gray asked.
“What do you think? We have to go up there!”
“Go up there? To Canada?! But that’s a like…” Gray stopped and tried to figure out how long it would take to drive to Canada.
“At least five days, even if we drive non-stop.” Chad finished for him.
“But we don’t have much of a choice.”
“Well, we should at least wait until six, just to be sure…”
“Gray,” Chad groaned, “If we wait until then we could miss him! We have to act, now.”
Trent sat in the corner, silently watching the discussion.
“What about you, Trent? Don’t you think we should wait until six?” Gray asked of him.
Trent looked at him for a long time before he shook his head.
“You’re outnumbered, Gray. I say we go and show this guy exactly who he’s messing with. If he really is gonna skip town, we’ll catch him in the act.”
Craven had been watching the entire thing as if it were a dream. This couldn’t be real, after all. There’s no way his brother could be involved in something so obviously illegal. And who was in Canada? Whoever it was, they were not very lucky, or very bright to have gotten on Chad’s bad side.
“C’mon, you should go before someone wakes up, but be back here at eight.”
“Okay,” Gray agreed as he left. Trent nodded and followed him.
Craven scrambled to get back up the stairs before they caught him.
“You hear that?” He heard Gray ask.
Craven cursed and quickly tried to come up with a reason for him being up at three o’clock in the morning. Chad followed his friends up and spotted Craven by the fridge.
“Cray?” He asked. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Um, I was uh…” Craven looked around and grabbed the handle of the fridge door. “I was getting a drink!” He declared.
Chad gave him the ‘yeah right’ look.
“You were listening in on us, weren’t you?”
“No!” Craven cried immediately, “Well…I may have heard a few words…”
“How much?” Chad repeated.
“All of it,” Craven sighed. He was out now, so he decided he might as well figure out what the hell was going on.
“What the hell are you guys into?”
Trent growled at him and whipped out a vicious-looking hooked knife. Within seconds it was pressed against his throat.
“Apparently, something illegal.” Craven grumbled, “Or else I wouldn’t be pinned against a wall for asking, would I?”
“Craven stop being a smart ass.” Chad snapped, “You can’t breathe a word of this to anyone.”
”Tell me what you’re doing!” Craven insisted.
“Don’t do it man…” Gray warned.
Chad waved him away, “It’s nothing really,” Chad moaned, “Just a bad deal with some guy up north.”
”In Canada, I know. What kind of deal?”
Trent put more pressure on the knife.
“And will you call of you goon?!”
“Leave him alone, Trent.” Chad sighed. Trent backed off. “We were buying some illegal software from a supplier in Canada, and for some reason I went dumb for a short period of time and let Gray handle the negotiations. Now the guy has half the price we agreed on, and is about to leave the province to go to like, Quebec, or something. And if that happens, we may never find him to get either our software or our money back.”
“And you know this, how?”
“Gray was checking out his files and discovered that he had an uncomfortable amount of tabs on real estate in Quebec.”
”So you think he’s going to run off and disappear.” Craven finished.
“And now you’re going to go up there and commit some criminal act that will undoubtedly put you in jail for even longer?” Craven scoffed,
“That’s a real smart idea, Chad.” He rolled his eyes.
“Great, now the brat knows everything! Thanks a lot, Chad!” Gray complained, “What are we going to do with him now?”
Chad turned to his brother, “You wanted to know, Craven. I guess now you’ll have to pay the price.”
Craven gulped when Trent smirked and brought out his knife again.
“Not that, Trent! I mean we’ll take him with us.”
“WHAT!” Gray and Craven both screamed.
“Chad, are you crazy? He’ll just get in the way!”
“Y-yeah, I’ll just get in the way, Chad. You should leave me here.”
“I thought you hated California, little brother.” Chad smirked, “Besides, we can’t risk leaving you here to call the cops or something. It’ll be better if we can keep an eye on you. Pack your shit, because we leave at eight thirty.”
Trent chuckled and replaced his knife before heading for the door. Gray followed slowly. “You are so gonna regret this, man.” He warned.
“Whatever, Gray, just get outta here.”
He shooed his friends out the door and then turned to Craven. “You try anything, and I’ll let Trent dissect you!”
Craven gulped, he knew that Chad probably would, and Trent would enjoy every minute of it. Craven really hated his brother’s friends.
