After lunch, Teresa Armacost dropped me off at the office. She kissed me good-bye and told me she'd be in touch.
I walked into the office and noticed the time. Carla was unaffected that it was almost 2 o'clock.
"Hi schweetheart. Did you have lunch?"
"Yes. I had a granola bar. Thank you very much."
"Want me to run down to the deli and get you something?"
"Are we going to Murphy's after work?"
"Probably."
"I'll just wait until then. Where'd you go for lunch?"
"Murphy's."
"You took her to Murphy's?"
"It was her choice. And a good choice it was. I introduced Murph to Teresa."
"Did he ask her about the wharf?"
"Yup!"
"What did she say?"
"She said she was going to check to see what she'd have to do to sell it to him."
"That would be nice. Any idea how much?"
"Five and a half." I wanted to see if I could catch Carla like we did Murph.
"Million or hundred K?"
She's smarter than I sometimes give her credit. "Million."
"Murph can't afford that, can he?"
"Not the million, but Teresa said that was what Benny wanted to sell it to a developer for. She said it is actually only worth between a quarter and a half million. THAT Murph said he can afford."
"Must be nice."
"Yeah. My wallet was hurting just listening to them talk figures."
"Oh yeah. This package came for you. They almost didn't let me sign for it. It says that only you can sign for it."
It was one of those padded manila envelopes. It was specifically addressed to me. That's not too out of the ordinary. Some of my clients get a little sensitive about who knows what about them. It felt like a video tape inside the padding. There was no indication as to who sent this package, so I was a little cautious opening it.
When I looked inside the envelope, it was a video tape. There weren't any labels saying what it was, just a little card taped to it. I shrugged my shoulders figuring it to be a sales promotion tape, stuck it back in the envelope and took it into my office. I checked my emails, nothing pressing. I took the tape out of the envelope again and looked inside the envelope for a letter or receipt, anything to identify what it was. There wasn't anything else in the envelope, just the tape and the little card. I opened the card and read the typed message,
"M", Your copy. Please do not let this fall into the wrong hands. "H" does not know about this. I wanted you to see how I plan to get even. T.A."
At first it didn't dawn on me who T.A. was. "Oh, oh!" I didn't like the sound of this. I walked over to my television, which has a DVD and VCR built in. I turned the TV on and slid the tape in. It looked like a movie, but it didn't have any credits or previews, it just went right into the movie.
There was a woman sitting in front of a mirror getting made up. I couldn't tell who the woman was. The make-up artist was finishing up and made some type of comment like, "I think that should do it."
The woman turned around on the stool, "Holy shit!" It was Teresa Armacost. She looked at the camera and begun...
"Hi there. Last week I caught my husband fucking our next door neighbor. I waited for the separation papers to be signed before I decided to celebrate. I wanted to get even with him and couldn't think of a way. Then a friend of mine suggested I contact this group in California who specialize in just what I needed to get even. My husband always wanted to watch me have sex with another man, but I never let him have that pleasure. Well honey, I've decided to grant you your wish, now that we are no longer together. Ha ha! This is for you."
"Oh, No! I hope she isn't going to do what I think she is going to do." Yeah, I know, I wasn't making a whole lot of sense to myself either. I turned down the volume a little to keep Carla from hearing. Carla was busy answering emails and wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to what I was doing.
The video cut to a new scene, a fancy living room in what appeared to be a mansion. Teresa and a man who looked remarkably like Benjamin, maybe even a little older, were sitting on the brown leather sofa. She was dressed in a fancy, bright red, short dinner dress, and red platform heels. The dress was low-cut in the front and was laced up in the back. She looked like 10 million bucks. And why shouldn't she. She is worth at least that much. There was a chime type door bell and she stood up from the sofa.
"Now who could that be?", the man asked.
"I don't know. I'll get it.", Teresa said with a slight smirk on her face.
Outside the front door were three black guys. Teresa opened the door, "Hi fellas. Come on in." Right from the start I knew this wasn't a "home video", this was a real production.
The three guys walked into the living room. "What the hell is this? Who are they?", the Benjamin look-alike asked. Let's call him Benji.
"These are friends of mine. I invited them over for a little fun."
Two of the black guys lifted Benji up by his arms. They duck taped his hands behind his back and taped his ankles together. Then they carried him over to a chair in the corner of the room and taped him to it. The finishing touch was putting a piece of tape across his mouth.
Teresa walked over to him, "Now you sit there and be a good little boy. If you behave, we'll let you watch. If you're a bad boy, we'll have to lock you in a closet."
Two of the three black guys sat down on the brown leather sofa. Teresa sat down on the sofa between them. They took turns asking introduction related questions.
"We usually do this for women whose husbands want to watch us do it to their wives. It's not too often we have to tie one up to make him watch."
"That's why I'm doing this. I've spent over 25 years with that little son-of-a-bitch. Last week, while we were having a party at our house, all of our friends and I caught him fucking our next door neighbor."
"That sounds pretty fucked up."
"It was. It totally mortified me. Then it came out that he has been a womanizer most of our marriage."
"So why this?"
