Business Proposal

(There is almost no sex in this story, so be forewarned)

*

Patty and I had been married for a shade over 18 years the day I stood in that courtroom. Our divorce was one of those "no-fault" things, so the results were obvious, no arguments. I kept looking over at the woman I had loved for so long, she never once looked back at me.

Then Judge Walton had looked down at me in a stern manner.

"There won't be any trouble out of you, son?" He had said. It wasn't a question.

Judge Walton owned more than half the town, he had power beyond belief. I knew that, so I just humbly nodded my head and walked out.

It all came crashing down in a few short weeks. Had anyone asked before, I would have answered instantly that Patty and I were one person, mated for life, happy.

That turned out to be not correct.

I thought about it later, wondering just how in the hell and why Patty had done that to me? I thought I knew why, there suddenly was money, something that up until that point we had always lacked. Money had never really mattered to me, we were a family, we were in love. I thought so anyway, but in the end, I guess that money and things mattered to Patty.

We had heavily mortgaged our house, it already had one mortgage on it and we took out a second. I had cashed in my pension plan, that was a pittance but it helped us swing the deal to buy that spa. We still owed a lot on the property and business, too.

How in the hell had Patty just produced a checkbook I had no clue that she even had, and started writing checks? She paid off the property, had me sign to dissolve the business partnership, and handed me a check for $80,000.

Just like that.

I didn't know the answer, that kind of money sure as hell didn't come from our business activities, illegal be damned. The place was making money and quite a bit of it.

But not that much.

The good part was, I had a fat bank account. More than I ever even dreamed of having, to be honest.

Plus I now had no bills, I owed nothing. Our kids had moved on too, I sent checks regularly for their schooling but I knew that Patty sent them much more. At least she cared on that point.

I was suspicious, it almost had to be Judge Walton, there just was no other answer. Something had happened between my wife and the Judge, he had to be the source of the money.

I had a vision of my wife with him, that made me sick inside. I had loved her, but I had also stepped over the line. I had also been unfaithful in a way. I felt guilt at that, perhaps her knowing that I had done that was the cause?

There was a long period where I tried to blame myself.

Now I had no way to take it back, no way to return to our simple but happy life with each other.

The small community had few real secrets, the stories went around that the Judge was into everything. Even the local politics, if anyone wanted to run for city council, mayor, anything that mattered it was best to have the Judge on their side or somehow the votes just didn't seem to come.

There was a concrete plant, an asphalt plant, construction, materials. The papers called that economic development, they reported on the efforts of the Port Commission to bring business to our community. I read the stories, almost without fail I found Judge Walton in the mix somewhere.

Me? I worked in the mill, and part time at the other spa in town. What was I going to do about what had happened? The truth is I wasn't going to do anything at all.

I had almost forgotten, given up the day my phone rang and it was Janet, Judge Walton's wife. She asked for a session, I explained to her that I was legitimate, the memory of some of the heated sessions I had given her at our spa flashed into my mind.

She hinted that we could have a session just between us, she made it obvious what she meant.

I told her to drop on by. That was a mistake. I had it in my mind to get revenge, take the Judge's wife in a way he never could, a way he could not match.

I did exactly that, too. We started on the table and ended up on the floor, then after some rest I took her again.

It almost was not lovemaking, or sex. It was more in anger, all of the pent up rage I felt at being betrayed came out of me. My penis was a weapon, she was the property of that Judge. I tried to break her until I was exhausted, taking it out on her.

But she had done nothing to deserve it, not that I knew of anyway.

"I've never...." Was all Janet said, looking at me afterwards. She was soaked in sweat, disheveled. Then she kissed me, got up naked and walked into my bathroom. She came out in minutes looking like she always did, a beautiful mature woman. I sat there and watched her as she dressed and with a wave, walked out my door.

She never came back, but then I didn't expect her to.

I got up the next morning feeling once again dirty, ashamed of myself. The feeling of vengeance I had hoped for never came. Instead my mouth seemed filled with bile, I did not like myself much right then.

I got in my truck to head for work, halfway there I saw the flashing lights in my mirror. I glanced down at my speed, I was doing 30 in a 35 zone.

It took the officer a solid hour to finish writing the ticket, 55 in a 35. That made me late for work. I got another one on the way home.

I knew why. The 3rd one came two days later, I knew that that meant my insurance would be cancelled. Of course there was the high risk insurance pool, I knew what that would cost.

The way things would be was being explained to me, I knew.

I went from feeling ashamed of myself to mad.

Crazy things flashed into my mind, like the patch of Scotchbloom I knew about that overlooked the parking lot at Patty's spa. I could hide up there and wait, an easy shot when the Judge showed up. I even fantasized about the escape routes I could take, the possible alibis.

I finally shook my head, that was really crazy, that wasn't me. No way was I going to throw away my life for his, no way.

That thought was there, though.

I drove out to the valley the next day, sold my old truck and bought a car, thinking that might hide me somehow.

I was stopped on the way home, in a long stretch of road. I sat with my mind numb, both hands on the steering wheel as the officer approached. I saw it was a city cop car, but we were 20 miles outside of town.

"You know why I stopped you, don't you?"

"Yea, I have a pretty good idea."

"I don't like it any better than you do but I need to keep my job."

I just nodded.

"Some things are best left alone." He said.

"OK." I answered. He stood there silent for quite awhile. I began to wonder if maybe he was going to drag me out of the car, slap me around or something.

"Dammit! I can't cite you. I just can't."

I just looked at him.

"All right then." He turned and walked towards his car, then he stopped and came back.

"We never talked." He said, handing me a piece of paper and walking quickly away.

I didn't understand that, but I was grateful to not get another ticket. I looked at the slip of paper, it was just a telephone number.

That was really strange. The next day I made it to work, no one bothered me. I got off shift, then cleaned up and went down to the spa. I had just two clients and was done by 8 PM, so I decided to head down to the cafe for a meal. I checked my pocket for some cash, felt the slip of paper.

On impulse, I stopped at a pay phone and called the number. I really didn't expect an answer, not at nearly 9 PM, maybe a message machine or something?

A male voice answered.

"Someone gave me this number, I am not sure what it is all about?" I asked. I didn't know what else to say.

"Who are you?"

"Dan Magnusan."

"Just a minute." I held on for several minutes, I was just about to hang up when he came back.

"You are on a pay phone?"

"Yes."

"Good, don't use the one at home or your cell phone."

Now what the hell? I thought.

"We need to talk." He gave me an address in a town more than 40 miles inland.

"What is this all about?"

"Just come by, and don't talk to anyone." Then he hung up.

Don't talk to anyone? About what? And don't use my telephone? I was totally confused. I shrugged and went on down to the cafe, had a nice dinner. I had the usual light banter with the cute little waitress that worked there, we always flirted. But then she flirted with everyone, it was just part of her job. I had thought of asking her for a date a few times, but never got around to it.

All of that helped my mood a little bit. Still, on the way home I watched my mirrors, kept a look around.

"Don't use the phone at home." The man had told me. That made me nervous as hell.

Two days later I pulled into the parking lot of an office building out in the valley. Paranoid, I had checked the mirror regularly, and kept just under the speed limit all the way. The building was plain, all there was on the outside was a number.

A large man greeted me, shook my hand.

"Thanks for coming. We need to ask you some questions." He produced a badge, showed it to me.

Great. I figured I was probably really in trouble now.

"I haven't done anything." I protested.

He just laughed.

"No, not really, anyway. At least not that we give a shit about. I am John Baxter, I work for the Federal government. We are investigating Judge Charles Walton....and your ex wife." He looked at me pointedly for my reaction.

"Oh, for the spa? For...some of what they are...doing?" I felt a twinge of panic, were they after me, too?

"No, we don't give a damn about that, but we do care about corruption."

"Corruption?"

"Yes, we want to know about the money you got paid, and where it came from."

"Patty wrote me a check, hey look, I paid the taxes on that."

"Yea, we know." He grinned at me.

"Look, here is the deal. The Port down there passed a 5 million dollar bond measure, environmental cleanup was the reason. We know that a lot of the funds got diverted through dummy companies, we know that the Judge is involved. Nothing we could prove until he made a mistake and bought into your wife's business."

"I figured it had to be something like that, but what do you need from me?"

"All of your financial records for you and your wife, it's just a loose end. We need to document in court that there was no actual source for the half million. There wasn't, was there? No dead Grandpa, no secret bank account? We have been checking, we can't find anything."

"Half million?" I asked, startled.

Then I thought about it, a half million? Dollars? That meant kickbacks involved, money laundering, Patty smack dab in the middle of all of that.

"What did she do?"

"She was running cash through the books, that makes clean money. There sure are some high priced happy endings going on out there." He laughed again at his own joke.

"Then funneling it back to Judge Walton, and getting a cut. Of course lots of it got hidden in phony expenses, things like that. So tax fraud on top of it."

"She is in real bad trouble, then?"

"Yea, but we want Judge Walton. What did you get, 80 grand?" He laughed again.

I blushed and hung my head. We stood up, shook hands. I drove back home.

All hell was about to break loose. I couldn't help Patty, they had warned me about that.

There was a photo and big story in the local paper a few weeks later, Judge Walton being led off in handcuffs. There was a related story about Patty's spa, it seems one of her clients was an investigator. She was arrested for prostitution, they raided the Judge's office and Patty's too. There was quite a splash in the papers for weeks, my name never got mentioned.

Patty testified, I sat and heard it. She never looked my way, not one time. She didn't even look ashamed when they asked her about what she had done, she just admitted it all.

They really didn't need me in court much, they already had it all down, had the Judge cold. I testified for perhaps 15 minutes, then mercifully got out of there. I was just a loose end, like they said.

One funny thing, I went down to the courthouse to pay my traffic tickets but they had no record of them.

The Judge put up a serious court battle but lost, he got a long sentence. I read a few months later that his wife filed for divorce. Patty was released on probation, but the spa went to the government, something about Rico statutes. Money laundering was federal, they didn't play games. Caught cold, she had cut a deal.

I expected them to demand I pay back the $80,000. They never asked and I never offered. The truth is I don't think they really cared, or perhaps it was my reward for coming completely clean with the little I really knew?

I really don't know, there are a lot of things I don't know.

They say revenge is sweet, I don't think so. The whole mess made me feel sick.

Patty ended up living in an apartment just outside of town, I heard through the grapevine that she had been dating the guy who owns the gas station in town for awhile.

I saw her a few times during all of that. She looked good, just older. Oddly, I got a twinge each time, remembering the way we had been. She always smiled and said hello but that was about it.

Me? I quit my job at the mill finally, bought the spa I had worked at. It makes a living, pays the bills.

And Lynn, the woman that started all of this, just wanting to help me with my sore back? I see her from time to time.

I am not a client.

We are friends. Friends with benefits, I guess that is called. She is older now, but then so am I. By the third session of "just touch" it went beyond that. The relationship fills a need in both of our lives, those times together are special. We go to the beach, we take walks, Lynn loves to fish and we sit out by a nearby lake and catch whatever bites and then let them go. We both know very well that that is all there ever will be, though.

I never remarried, I have no plans to do so either. The kids stop by from time to time, spend a few hours and go back to their own lives. We never talk about their Mom much other than just in passing.

The other day I was driving down to my spa, just to check on things. I have a good crew, we do hair and nails, waxing, massage, wraps and baths. We even have both private and co-ed hot tubs, those are fun but no hanky-panky is allowed. It's pretty nice, I think, I am proud of my place. I really like what I do, I guess you could say that means I am happy.

There are moments, though, and this was one of them.

I walked into the office, said hi to Sylvia, my desk clerk. I was talking to her, just checking on sales when I heard a familiar voice.

I looked up and Patty walked out of the back and up to my counter. She looked like a million dollars, expensive clothes, her hair and makeup perfect. She smiled at me, handed Sylvia a credit card.

I just blinked in surprise, it had been a long time since I saw her. I just nodded.

"Hi Danny! Nice to see you." Then she signed the slip and left. I looked out the window, she climbed into a huge Mercedes and drove off.

"What was she here for?" I asked Sylvia.

"Wax job, she asked for Brad." Sylvia grinned at me. "She tipped $20.00." She added, holding up the slip.

I sighed. Now what the hell? Then Brad came out, walked up to the counter to check the schedule.

He grinned at me. I knew he had no idea who Patty was.

"That one is something else." He said, shaking his head.

There are always loose ends.