Bad Luck Black Money Page 12

  "You're putting me in a rather bad position here. Busting in on the boss is the kind of thing that can get a person fired."

  "Mr. Cornwall, you are not comprehending the importance of this meeting between the Duke and your boss. Nor, are you realizing the severe consequences of antagonizing his Dukedom.

  I shouldn't have to say this, but the Duke of Winterfield is a powerful man. With but a single word, he can have your employer's businesses banished from Her Majesty’s Kingdom. His Dukedom also has friends within MI6, if you catch my drift?"

  Tom's not too subtle reference to MI6 wasn't lost on Sarge. He hated those sneaky, covert bastards. In a straight up fight there was honor to be had. But killing someone without telling them why, through trickery and deceit was truly reprehensible. Spies had no honor in Sarge's world.

  "Mr. Ridge, are you threatening me?" asked Sarge in his least confrontational voice.

  "It's not a threat, Mr. Cornwall. Let's just say that it's in everyone's best interest if Mr. Hopenhammer shows up tonight at the Slutty Teasers strip club at eight 'o clock sharp.

  Duke Winterfield has bought out the entire place for the night. He's flown in his personal chef who'll lie out a banquet to die for. All the strippers have been paid handsomely and will bump and grind all night long.

  That is what the Americans call it? Bump and grind?"

  "Yeah," Sarge said, his mind racing on how to get Boss to show up. "Say, can I tell Boss that the Duke will help his company make millions of dollars?"

  "Of course, Mr. Cornwall," replied Tom Ridge. "It isn't even fibbing. Money is to the Duke like sand is to the desert. Tell him whatever you like, just get him there... for both our sakes."

  Sarge slowly walked down the hallway toward Boss's office. He didn't know exactly how he was going to get Boss to go to the strip club, but he had to somehow. "Why is life so hard?" thought Sarge.

  Gently, Sarge knocked on Boss's door. A sleepy voice called out, "Come in." Sarge slowly opened the door and heard Boss yawning.

  "Did I catch you at a bad time, Boss?" asked Sarge.

  "Nah," said Boss as he stretched after waking up from his nap. Boss was lying on a big, leather couch, which he had put in his office for the express purpose of taking naps on. The previous night, Esmerelda had cashed in one of her sex rain checks.

  "What do you need, Sarge?"

  "It's not what I need, sir. It's where you need to be tonight at eight o'clock."

  "And where might that be?"

  "Slutty Teasers, Boss."

  Boss sat up on the couch and asked, "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "The Duke of Winterfield wants to meet you at eight o'clock tonight at the Slutty Teasers strip club."

  "Who is the Duke of Winterfield?"

  "He's one of the richest and most powerful men in all of England, sir.... His secretary assured me that he'd make it worth your while to attend."

  Scratching his head, Boss asked, "Isn't that club on the bad side of town?"

  Shifting his weight to one leg then the other, Sarge replied, "Yes, sir. But with your security detail, which I'll personally supervise, you'll be safer than a gold bar in Fort Knox."

  "I've never been in that club. It might be fun to see some boobies tonight.... Sure, why not?" said Boss as he lay back down on the couch. "Wake me up when its time to go."

  "Yes, sir!" enthusiastically replied Sarge as he left, closing the door behind him. Finally, something had gone his way without any effort on his part.

  Chapter 17

  At precisely eight o'clock, Boss was sitting in front of a stage where a dozen women of various shapes and colors danced in their G-strings. He had the whole place to himself. Sarge was outside with secretary Tom. The rest of his security team surrounded the building and rooftops, ready to take on an army if need be.

  Sipping on a freshly opened bottle of imported beer, Boss couldn't help but think that this was where he should be. Enjoying the bouncing breasts, getting wisps of stripper perfume, (it had a pecan smell to it), and feeling free for the first time in ages.

  A tall, elderly man with an eagle-like face walked up beside Boss and said, "You must be Milton Van Hopenhammer. I'm Duke Rochester Winterfield, but you may call me, Duke."

  "Hello, Duke," said Boss as he rose to shake the tall man's giant-sized hand. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

  "Likewise, I'm sure," Duke said as he took the seat beside Boss. "Rest assured, everything in this den of iniquity has been thoroughly sanitized."

  "That's good to know," Boss said, taking another swig of beer.

  "Except for the wenches, I didn't have time to get them tested. So, you'd better slide into a slicker before you plow any muff here."

  The unexpected, crass statement made Boss cough, shooting beer out of his mouth and nose. He wiped it off with a napkin the waitress had placed under his bottle of beer.

  "I wasn't planning on having sex with any of the girls," informed Boss.

  "Well, you never know," said the Duke as he stared at Boss. "I might bend one over on the stage and give her a good rogering."

  "O... K...," replied Boss with his bottle of beer frozen in midair. He forced himself to set the bottle down.

  After a moment of awkward silence, the Duke said, "I've brought in my personal chef from London. He's going to grill us the best steaks, you've ever eaten."

  "Sounds good. Can I get mine well done?"

  The Duke pushed himself backwards in his chair with horror etched on his face. "You want your steak, well done! What's wrong with you, man?"

  Getting defensive, Boss replied, "There's nothing wrong with me. I just don't like the taste of blood, and I don't want it running down my chin like a vampire. Man discovered fire, over a hundred thousand years ago. You might want to give it a try. All the young people are doing it."

  The Duke's eyes narrowed and his teeth clenched as he called out to one of his entourage standing in the shadows, "Tell Franco to leave Milton's steak on the grill until all the pink gets out of it. We wouldn't want "his majesty" to get upset....

  The cow, from which our steaks were carved, was flown over for this occasion. Unlike your beef lot, American cows, she wasn't pumped full of steroids, antibiotics, and force-fed till she dropped. But no, don't think anything of it, I'm sure we can find you a bottle of ketchup from which you may drown the flavor of a decent steak."

  "Um... thanks," Boss said without a trace of sarcasm.

  After a few minutes of ogling the half naked women, Duke asked Boss, "Are you going to get a lap dance from one of the girls?"

  "Is that allowed?"

  "You really don't know who I am, do you?" asked the Duke of Winterfield. "I am a prime member of the New World Order. I am power incarnate! I could rape this town's mayor's wife in the middle of a police station, and nobody could do shit about it."

  In one smooth motion, the Duke jumped up on stage with the strippers. He was amazing agile and energetic for such an old man. Reaching out for the nearest stripper, he pulled her into a tight embrace and stared rubbing against her roughly. The frightened girl didn't say anything, but her eyes had gone wild.

  Boss looked around for a bouncer or bartender or even the manager to run to the girl's rescue, but nobody moved. It began to dawn on him that the Duke of Winterfield was a dangerous psychopath. And he had better not inflame the man's rage.

  The Duke was dry humping the poor girl like a stag in rut. The girl was sadly whimpering, while the old man started to grunt loudly. To Boss, the whole experience was surreal.

  Trying not to be obvious about it, Boss started looking for Sarge or one of his bodyguards. But the only people lurking in the shadows were the Duke's men. He was alone with a descendant of Jack the Ripper. A cold chill ran up and down his spine as sweat poured from his forehead.

  The old Duke made one last loud groan, and then pushed the crying stripper to the stage's floor.

  "What are you going on about, slut?!" yelled the Duke. "I didn't even stick it
in, you bloody, overfed yank."

  The thin, old man dropped his wet trousers to the floor. He then picked them up, wadded them up in a ball, and threw them on top of the stripper.

  "Go clean my pants, whore," spat the Duke with acid in his voice.

  As the Duke of Winterfield made his way off the stage via the stairs, Boss decided to play it cool. Any sign of weakness might draw more madness from the man walking around in his boxers, black socks held up by garters, and black Italian loafers. Without being obvious about it, Boss wiped the fear sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

  The Duke walked by Boss and said, "Lets get a table."

  Boss rose to his shaky legs and followed the old man to a booth in the back corner.

  Breathing heavily from his recent exertion, Duke plopped down on the faux red leather seat. Boss sat on the other side of the booth, which was 'C' shaped to give patrons an unobstructed view of the ladies.

  "Where are my manners?" said the Duke. "Would you like to bust a nut before supper? You can grab any girl you like, except for the one that had better be cleaning my damn slacks."

  For a brief moment, Boss considered what to do. If he refused, it could be seen as a sign of weakness. It didn't pay to be weak around mad men. However, if he followed in the Duke's footsteps and accosted a poor girl that might be seen as a challenge to the old man's dominance, which could also turn out bad.

  "Maybe, in a little while, if that's all right?" asked Boss.

  "Whatever floats your yacht," said Duke as he leaned his head back against the booth's padding.

  "... What do you know about the New World Order, Milton?"

  The fact that Duke Winterfield had called him by his first name, Milton, wasn't lost on Boss. The Duke wouldn't call him Boss, whether that was the name he went by or not. It was a power play that Boss was usually on the other side of, but for now, he had to knuckle under.

  "The New World Order... I've always thought that it was some sort of conspiracy theory, all the richest people in the world getting together to rule the whole world. It sounds like something out of science fiction."

  After clearing his throat, Duke Winterfield said, "And your democrats and republicans are so different than professional wrestlers? One goes, "I'm for helping the poor," and the other goes, "We're for the Constitution." But in the end, after congratulating each other on giving such fine performances, they take turns sucking on the public teat like starving leeches. And the paradigm slowly progresses in the NWO's direction, regardless who's in charge.

  I know you donate to both parties. It's good business practice to placate the men who pass the laws, which affect your business. Looks like you, more than most, should know there isn't a difference between the two. And if your paltry money can buy influence, what about people with real money? We can and have bought the entire system, outright."

  "Paltry money?" replied Boss. "Since you seem to know so much about me, you do know I'm a multi billionaire, right?"

  "Heh, heh," laughed the Duke evilly. "You have tons of paper with pictures of dead Presidents upon them, paper money that was created by OUR printing presses.

  You have office buildings and factories and homes and a couple of islands, but you can't really defend any of it. Your own government can take it through eminent domain or by drug entrapment and confiscate everything, outright. And what you cannot defend, you do not really own. It can all be snatched away from you with the same ease as taking candy from a baby.... You have nothing."

  Boss breathed a sigh of relief when the chef brought out their meals. Steak with loaded baked potatoes and baked beans were served from sterling silver, serving dishes, which sat upon sterling silver trays. They ate off of sterling silver plates with sterling silver flatware.

  An ancient bottle of wine was opened with great care by a servant whose sole job was to tend to the wine. The wine was recovered from the bottom of the Black Sea where it was preserved for centuries at the perfect temperature. Just a cup of the nectar was worth more than most people's houses. The Duke of Winterfield sloshed down two, crystal wine glasses full before Boss even had the chance to sample any.

  "I trust your steak is done well enough," the Duke spoke with dripping sarcasm. "If it's not, we can always blowtorch it."

  "Actually, it's delicious," Boss said, cutting another piece. "In fact, I may put some cows in the backyard and have one slaughtered for dinner every now and then."

  "It's not just the freshness, which makes it good," said Duke as he swallowed down a mouthful of bloody steak. "It's the whole no drugs, happy cow thing.

  I never eat the crap they serve to the useful idiots. Don't you know that shit's poisoned?"

  "Poisoned?" asked Boss.

  "Of course, it's poisoned. You think men are becoming less virile by the day because of evolution? Hell, even their dicks are shrinking shorter year by year, while women's clitorises are growing larger.

  Preservatives consumed in processed food, keep today's corpses fresh for months underground without the need for embalming fluid. Pesticides used to kill modern super bugs also cause havoc in one's intestines. And don't get me started on what we're doing genetically to the peons' food supply. Suffice to say, I would rather eat a steaming pile of dog-shit than a hamburger from a fast food eatery."

  "I didn't know that," said Boss, sipping the exquisite wine, which seemed to glow within the Swarovski crystal wine glass.

  "There are lots of things you don't know, Milton. I'll have Tom send your family a supply of healthy food. The deliveries will keep arriving until you've had time to set up an aquaponics system and raise your own meat and vegetables from our stock."

  "That is very generous, Duke Winterfield. How can I express my gratitude?"

  "You mean, 'how MAY I express my gratitude'. Learn how to properly speak the King's English, Milton."

  "... OK," said Boss as he gripped his knife and fork a little tighter.

  "And another thing, what is it with your bitch secretary? Tom tried to contact you several times through proper channels, and she impeded his efforts."

  "I wasn't aware of that."

  "If she hinders my secretary's calls to you, just one more time, I'll have her head cut off with a rusty butter knife. And then have it sent to your little girl in a box gift wrapped in festive paper with a big bow on top."

  Boss put down his knife and fork. He got up from the booth and said, "Thank, you, for meal and entertainment. I'll see my way out." And started walking toward a door marked exit.

  "Where do you think you're going, Milton?" asked the Duke in a loud voice. "Sit your ass back down, or I'll have you strapped down to this table like an escapee from the loony bin!"

  Freezing in mid stride, Boss's mind raced for alternative courses of action but found none. He lowered his head and slowly walked back to his place in the booth and dropped into his seat. Until one of his bodyguards checked on him, he was the Duke's prisoner.

  Raking the dishes and glasses off the table in front of him, Duke leaned forward toward Boss, "We are not getting along splendidly.... Part of this is my fault. I have forgotten my social skills. I speak my mind. I get my way. And you're just going to have to learn to deal with it."

  Boss looked into the old man's eyes but said nothing.

  "Talking about sending to your daughter, the severed head of your secretary as a present, well, that might have been over the line.

  I'm going to do something that I haven't done in at least twenty years. I'm going to apologize."

  The Duke of Winterfield stood up and stretched out his hand across the table. After a couple of seconds, Boss stood and shook his hand.

  "I'm sorry," apologized the Duke.

  "That's OK," accepted Boss, then they both sat back down.

  Chapter 18

  "I know what our problem is," said the Duke as he relaxed on the faux leather. "You don't believe this is real. You think I'm a crazy, old bastard, and somehow I'm pulling a con game on you. Isn't that correct?"


  "No, I believe you," Boss said, trying to look sincere.

  "Ha!" laughed Duke. "Your poker face isn't working tonight, too much shock and awe.

  I can read you like an open book.

  You're biding your time, hoping that your security detail will come charging through those doors and blow me away. Or, do you want to capture me alive then whisk me away to Bolivia where you'll torture the truth out of me? Like you did to that poor chap, Dwaine. That was his name right, Dwaine?"

  "How do you know about that?" asked Boss. "Do you have a mole on my security team?"

  "I know everything about you, Milton. I know about the boner/ecstasy pills you take before having relations with your 'handsome' wife. I know how your son, Emerald, scammed his way into millions in gold, Saint Santa coins, by the way, kudos to the lad. I definitely want him on my team when the time comes. Shall I go on, or have you heard enough?"

  Shaking his head in disbelief, Boss said, "I've heard enough.... How?"

  "That's for me to know, and for you to never find out," said the Duke. He then snapped his fingers and one of his people brought over an electronic paper made from graphene. On it was a real time feed of what appeared to be a group of bodies lying motionless in a warehouse.

  "Do you know these men?" asked Duke as he handed the electronic paper to Boss.

  Boss looked closely at the screen and recognized Sarge's face among the men. It instantly dawned on him that his entire security team was dead.

  "You've killed all my guys?" Boss asked, while still beholding the horror.

  "No, they're not dead. I'm not an animal, Milton. They've been tranquilized by gas. By morning, the only effects they'll feel are hangovers and short term, memory loss."

  While handing the electronic paper back to the Duke, Boss asked, "What do you want from me?"

  "Ah, now we're getting somewhere. What do you have to give?"

  "Just said a few minutes ago, you said that I have nothing. So, I have nothing to offer you."