Realtor Revenge

Realtor Revenge is the sequel to Real Estate Games. For the full experience, I suggest you start with Part 1 of Real Estate Games..

***

Realtor Revenge

Chapter 6

Job Offer

"I think we're ready," I told Flanagan when he finally emerged from my bedroom the next morning.

I'd been up for a couple of hours. A shower cleansed my body of the previous night's activities. My pre-shower run did the same for my mind.

"Ready for what," he asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

"The next step in my quest to rid the world of Janis Moorehead."

"Just so we understand each other, when you say, 'rid the world', are you talking about Merryville or the entire planet?"

"I'd prefer the latter, but since you're going to help, what would be your preference?"

"I've always preferred compensation commensurate to the job."

"What the hell does that mean?" I asked.

"I spied on Janis in exchange for a few bedrooms favors. Next you asked me to help you frame the city council... tasks that involved considerably more skill and risk than simple surveillance. Yet my compensation remained the same. Now, unless I'm misreading the situation, you want me to dispose of your arch enemy -- even though, as far as I can tell -- she hasn't done anything to wrong you or anybody else in this town."

"Do you have a problem with killing someone you mistakenly think is innocent?" I asked.

"No. But I do have a problem with my current fee structure."

"If you're asking for money, I'm afraid you've come to the wrong girl. Besides my body, there's not much more I can give you."

"How about the Merryville Chief of Police job?"

"What makes you think it's mine to give?"

"It isn't, at least not now. But once you get rid of Janis, the Mayor and the City Council... you'll own the town. You'll be able to appoint whoever you want to any position you want."

The situation called for the best shocked expression I could muster. Which I easily provided. Not because he thought I could take control of Merryville, but because he had somehow figured out my ultimate goal. How? Was my ambition really that obvious? Did I talk in my sleep?

"I have no idea what gave you the idea that I wanted to be anything but a realtor. But for argument's sake, what happens if I agree with your offer. Suppose you take care of the Janis problem, and I am unable to get you promoted?"

"I've seen you operate. There is no doubt in my mind that, with my help, you will have absolute control over this town in less than a year. If you agree to my terms, I'll gladly take the risk."

"Then it's agreed," I said. "You help me get rid of Janis and, if sometime in the future I have the authority to select the Chief of Police, I will choose you."

"That's all I'm asking," Flanagan said. "The Chief of Police job and continued unlimited access to your body. I've always wanted to screw a Mayor."

***

Behind closed doors

When Councilman Casey Green stepped into his office in the Merryville Playhouse that morning, he found a video of him and the apparently under-aged Sticki Tinigan recreating an X rated version of "The Wizard of Oz". Accompanying the DVD was a note.

"You keep my client happy and this video remains our secret. J Moorehead."

---

Councilman Andrew Rowan found a plain brown package containing his dead wife's wedding ring on his desk. His note read:

"I have Betty Sue's body. You keep my client happy and Betty Sue remains hidden. J Moorehead."

---

Councilman Peter Deacon and councilwomen Katherine Nunn both received text messages from what they thought was Janis' burner phone. A short video, showing the highlights of Peter and Katherine's sex-capades was attached to the text.

"You keep my client happy and the world doesn't see this. J Moorehead."

---

Councilman Carson Taylor also got a text from the false Janis cell.

"Your son raped me. I have witnesses. You keep my client happy and I don't press charges. J Moorehead."

***

Mayor Stuffit called an emergency meeting of the city council that evening. All five councilmembers arrived at the appointed hour. Some looked worried, others angry. Not a one was smiling.

"What's she doing here?" Andrew Rowan asked the mayor, motioning to me.

"I think you all know Raven Hardwood," Stuffit said. "I asked her to join us because we all have something in common."

"Besides being residents of Merryville, what would that be?" Katherine Nunn asked.

"We're all being blackmailed."

"All of us?" asked Peter Deacon.

"That's my impression. However, if you didn't receive a threatening message from Janis Moorehead today feel free to leave."

Five sets of eyes tentatively looked around the room. When nobody rose to leave, Casey Green asked, "what do we know about this client we're supposed to keep happy?"

That was my cue.

"His name is Mark Seiman," I said. "Or at least that's the name he's using. With the help of Janis Moorehead, he is buying up all of the available property in Merryville."

"Why?" a council member asked.

"So he can sell it to the new factory workers at a huge profit."

"New factory? That's the first I've heard of another factory coming to town," Deacon said.

"Nobody in town knew," I said. "If we did, people wouldn't be moving out and Seiman wouldn't be getting rock bottom prices for their houses."

"Okay, so this Seiman guy has some inside information and is looking to make a profit from it. Not necessarily moral, but probably not illegal. That doesn't explain why we're being blackmailed. Why does Seiman need the city council's help to make his little real estate scheme work and why is Janis Moorehead helping him?"

"The people financing the new factory will only come to Merryville if they get extensive corporate tax breaks... tax breaks you will have to approve. No tax breaks, no new factory and Seiman is stuck with a shit load of worthless property," I explained.

"Why is Janis helping him?" I continued. "She got a three percent commission on every property Seiman bought. If the new factory is approved, she gets another three percent on everything Seiman sells. Just like her client, she's in it for the money."

"I guess all that makes sense," Rowan said to me. "But it still don't explain why you're here. You've got no say on the tax breaks so why are Seiman and Janis blackmailing you?"

"Up until now, I was the only person in town who knew what they were doing. They don't need my vote; they need my silence."

"That still doesn't explain why you came to us. You're a realtor. What do you care about tax breaks? If a new factory comes to town, you're bound to profit from it. So why didn't you just keep your mouth shut and let it happen?"

"You're right," I said. "If Merryville gets a new factory, I stand to sell a few houses. But, if Mr. Seiman gets his way, he'll own a great majority of the available real estate and Janis Moorehead will be his exclusive realtor. She'll get rich and I'll barely be able to pay my bills.

"Even if that wasn't the case, I still don't like being blackmailed. I don't want anybody having that kind of power over me and especially not Janis Moorehead. If I accede to her demands this time, what's to keep her from doing it again? If I make a million-dollar sale, what's to prevent her from claiming it as her own? And even more disconcerting, when this factory deal is complete, everybody in this room will be a liability to Mr. Seiman and Miss Moorehead. If just one of us talks, the two of them will go to jail.

"I came to you today because I am afraid for not only my life, but for yours as well. Mark Seiman is a ruthless, violent man. Once you approve the tax breaks and are no longer of any use to him, he will kill each and every one of us."

I stopped and let what I said sink in. Gave them time to connect the dots and, hopefully, come to the right conclusion. I baited the hook. Who would be the first to take a nibble?

"We should notify the police," Katherine Nunn said after several moments of reflection.

"And tell them what?" Carson Taylor asked. "Tell them we're being blackmailed by Janis Moorehead, who everybody in town loves and trusts? And what do you do when the cops ask for your blackmail note? I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not willing to show them mine."

"How do we know for sure Janis is behind this?" Peter Deacon asked. "Suppose she's being set up by somebody else?"

"I guess that's possible," Mayor Stuffit said. "But she has been acting rather strangely these last couple of weeks. If the rumors of what she and Seiman have been up to are true, murder wouldn't be much of a leap. It wouldn't be the first time a small-town girl came under the spell of a good looking, fast talking outsider."

"I say we confront her," Katherine Nunn said. "Bring her here to the courthouse and let her defend herself."

"Put her on trial?" Green asked.

"Not a formal trial. Just a discussion with the mayor and the council."

"What if we don't like what she has to say?"

"We remove her," Rowan said. "Permanently."

"What about Seiman?" Deacon asked.

"We get rid of him too," Rowan said.

"Let's not be too hasty," Stuffit interjected. "I agree that both Janis and her boyfriend eventually have to go, but we have a commitment to the citizens of our town. While we may not like their methods, bringing a new factory to Merryville is just what the doctor ordered. I suggest that, if what Raven has told us is correct, we dispose of Miss Moorehead immediately but delay Seiman's demise until the new factory commits to coming here."

"Who will complete his real estate dealings if Janis is gone?" Nunn asked.

"Raven, of course. She was brave enough to bring us this information. It's only fitting that she gets a little something in return."

"Thank you, mayor," I said, trying hard to act surprised. "And, so nobody thinks I came here for financial reasons, I will split the profit I make from Seiman with the people in this room."

***

With the decision made, I wanted to do it the next morning. Have the meeting, kill Janis and dispose of her body. But a few of the city council members wanted a day or two to reflect before authorizing their first execution. We agreed to meet again in two days and, unless somebody lost their nerve or came up with a better idea, we'd do Janis the following morning.

I had Flanagan over to my house that evening -- which was occurring much too often -- to brief him on what happened with the council.

"Have you thought about how to do it?" he asked. "How you're going to kill her?"

"I was considering a nine-millimeter between the eyes."

"How long have you hated Janis Moorehead?"

"As long as I've known her," I answered immediately. "Since the third grade, when she and her parents moved to Merryville."

"You've held this grudge for over twenty-five years?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Aren't you afraid that a quick trigger pull won't satisfy you?"

"Why would that be? Dead is dead."

"True, but it would be kind of... I don't know, maybe anticlimactic?"

"Do you have something else in mind?"

"Actually, I do."

Flanagan's suggestion for Janis' demise was so ingenious, I was tempted to drop down on my knees and blow him on the spot.

***

Merryville Courthouse

I was initially concerned when the council asked for a two-day delay in Janis' execution. But, in retrospect, Flanagan and I needed the extra time to prepare for the big event. I never knew murder was so complicated. Selecting an out of the way burial site, buying a non-descript coffin and digging the grave took up most of our available time. Not to mention designing and then installing a water supply and ventilation system.

But when the morning showdown with Janis and the council finally took place, we were ready. All we needed was the council's approval to proceed.

The meeting with Janis was an hour late in starting. After two days of soul searching, half the council were having second thoughts and debated what they should do while Janis was locked in a courthouse conference room.

Both Casey Green and Andrew Rowan were facing serious jail time if their blackmail material became public. They fell on the side of "if you don't kill Janis, I will".

While Carson Taylor wasn't looking at any criminal charges, he had to choose between his son's freedom and Janis' life. He was sitting on the fence and could have been easily swayed either way.

The two that worried me most were Katherine Nunn and Peter Deacon. The two had apparently discussed it with each other and seemed willing to sacrifice their reputations to save Janis.

"Here's how I see it," Stuffit said to break the stalemate. "Janis Moorehead and Mark Seiman are a plague in the city of Merryville. They have to be eliminated. Now there's two ways to do that. We can turn them over to the law, and have all your darkest secrets made public, or we can take care of it here and now."

Despite the Mayor's undeniable logic, when they finally met with Janis, Nun and Deacon still weren't sure where they stood... until Janis made a huge error and told them her "small real estate deal" would turn a profit of twenty-five million... which I already agreed I would split with the council.

The lure of instant wealth quickly superseded any false sense of moral reservations any of them might have and they all agreed that both Janis and Mark needed to be eliminated.

That's when Janis made her second fatal mistake. She cried out a warning to Mark, which meant she was wearing a wire. A transmitter. In her vagina no less.

Her subsequent strip search and gang rape, although not in the plan, made what already promised to be a great day even better. Imagine watching your worst enemy humiliated right before your eyes. Yes, I climaxed. Right there in courthouse conference room. I pulled up my skirt, pushed aside my thong and twiddled my twat as the town leadership physically punished my lifelong nemesis for deeds I had done.

And when they were done. After they tore the clothes off her body. After they held her down and took turns molesting her. When every hole in her body was full of middle-aged semen and her screams of anguish turned into moans of resignation. I watched as they loaded her limp body onto a gurney and stuck a needle in her arm. A needle that the Mayor and City Counsel thought would painlessly end her life. But I knew better.

The dyke cop and her male counterpart put a sheet over Janis' naked body and wheeled her down to a loading dock where Flanagan was waiting with a nondescript cargo van that looked at least ten years old. The back of the van was full of assorted tools and a slightly modified coffin. Once the other cops left, Flanagan transferred Janis from the gurney to the coffin, threw a tarp over the wooden box and drove away.

It was a forty-five-minute drive to the grave site. Not a cemetery but an abandoned pasture nobody had used for over a decade. When I got there, Flanagan had already muscled the coffin out of the van.

"Do you want to do the honors?" he asked as he opened the lid and offered me the handcuffs.

At first glance, I thought Janis was already dead. Eyes closed, skin even paler than normal... just what you'd expect for somebody in a coffin. But then I saw her chest rise and fall as she took shallow breaths. And, when I touched an arm to secure it over her head, it was still warm. Yes, she was definitely alive. Hopefully for two or three more weeks.

After securing both hands over her head, I took one last look at my lifelong enemy and noticed she was wearing a pearl necklace with two silver dolphins swimming around it. Thinking it was a present from Mark, I snatched it off her neck and placed it in my pocket. She certainly wouldn't need it and, if I ever needed cheering up, it would remind me that there was nothing Janis had that I couldn't take away.

Then, without an ounce of regret, I closed the lid.

With the help of a front-loader, Flanagan lowered her into the hole, hooked up the water and air lines and covered her with six feet of dirt.

***

Back to business

With Janis out of the way, I inherited the job of Mark Seiman's realtor. I was a bit nervous (scared shitless) about how he would react after what happened in the courtroom. I didn't count on Janis carrying a microphone into the meeting and Mark might not take kindly to what was said about him or how the council treated his girlfriend. But he either didn't hear everything said or, if he did, he didn't care. Which shouldn't have surprised me.

Mark was a man on a mission. He had just over two weeks to buy every available house in Merryville.

"Our schedule has moved up," he told me over dinner the night I buried his ex-girlfriend. "In three weeks, the consortium of foreign investors will start visiting. Once that happens, we quit buying houses and start selling."

During our first official week as realtor and client, I soon learned the unique Mark Seiman house buying model.

Since he was in such a hurry, he insisted on a least one of the owners being present for each showing. He wanted to walk in, make an offer, negotiate, sign the papers and move on. He didn't have time to go through an intermediary. It was an extremely efficient way to buy houses, even if the negotiation phase often took much longer than I thought necessary.

We did our homework. Mark knew how much he was willing to pay for a house before he walked in the door. He'd stroll through the place for a minute or two and then make a low-ball offer. The owner would counter, they would go back and forth for a few minutes and eventually settle on Mark's predetermined price or lower.

That was the routine when we dealt with old or ugly people. But if a good-looking woman opened the door when we knocked, the routine changed. When confronted with a well-proportioned female homeowner, Mark's usual lowball offer turned ridiculously low, like a hundred-eighty-thousand for a three hundred-thousand-dollar house. In normal times, the woman would slam the door in his face. But these weren't normal times. Mark was most likely the only prospective buyer she'd seen in months and possibly the best-looking man she'd ever see.

When a reasonably attractive woman tried to sell us her house, she might as well have stripped down and bent over the sofa before we got there. Because that's where she was destined to be before the day was done. Who could blame her? How many women could claim they got a hundred thousand for thirty minutes of sex? Or at least that's how they justified their actions.

Yes, the women were eager, but what they didn't know was, Mark was desperate. He needed to buy houses as fast as he could. If he walked into a house, he always bought it. He never walked away. Not a one tried it, but I'd bet dimes to diamonds that if one of the women had kept her clothes on and slammed the door in his face, Mark would still have bought her house. At the same price.

Did I mind the little games Mark played with the female homeowners? Not in the least. I thought they took up valuable time, time that would be better used buying more houses. But if he wanted to screw half the women in Merryville, who was I to say no?

Which apparently was not an option. Me saying "no".

Because I did mind what happened when a man answered the door. It didn't have to be a young hunk. If Mark thought the guy could muster up a reasonable erection, his going in offer was just a few thousand below the MLS asking price. That should have been it. Mark's offer was way more than the man expected and the deal should have been done. But before the guy put pen to paper, Mark would say...

"...for twenty thousand less, I'll let you screw my realtor."

I'll be damned if nearly every one of them did it. They willingly gave Mark the price of a small car in exchange for fifteen minutes with me in their bedroom. If you think about it, I got fucked twice. Once in the pussy and again in the pocketbook. When the price went down, so did my commission.