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The drone of Travis’ voice was putting me to sleep. I was listening but heard nothing that would classify as a secret. A young couple marries, goes into business, and buys a house.
“Travis, your story is quite interesting, but could we finish another time?” I asked again while doing my best to keep my eyes open.
“You’ll want to hear this, Chloe. It will bond us forever,” he replied.
I tried not to chuckle at such a melodramatic statement, sat up by propping myself with all the pillows, and provided my full and undivided attention.
Mr. Trammel, through his evening conversations with the mayor, learned which properties in town were in distress and who owned them. He then took the owner to lunch and used the same “I’ll save you the realtor fee” spiel by repeating to each forlorn real estate owner to “just let me take it off your hands.”
Travis then spoke with pride as he related the rest, so I perked up a little more, hoping he’d get to the point.
“As a trusted confidant and true friend of the mayor,” Travis stated, “My dad earned positions on the boards of a couple of banks. He wanted on those boards to assist in his goal of becoming the most well-known man in the community, but his membership was fortuitous for much more than that. Dad swapped up land all over the county, Chloe. I’ll give you a Bob Trammel land tour sometime. It’s fascinating. He bought farms, corporate office buildings, and even some retail buildings over by the mall. Each piece of land was purchased via a separate newly formed company to avoid liability. His accountant was the mastermind behind all of it. We paid that man well and as a matter of fact, I still pay him well. He’s 75 years old now and I don’t know what I’d do without him. Oh, but I digress.”
I tried not to roll my eyes when he used the word ‘digress.’ It was too smart of a word for Travis. Goodness, he was full of himself. Clearly, he got it from his dad, I was learning. I didn’t want to be there, but I was too tired to drive. This was important to Travis, so I thought there was no harm in just staying the night through and then distancing myself a bit from this mixed-up life of his.
“Here comes the secret, Chloe. You will never tell a sole. My dad was utterly clever. I will never have the brains to do what he did.” He stopped and took a big gulp of wine and resumes, “So dad slowly amasses property, Chloe, a lot of property. He’s on the boards of two banks and the loans are coming due. His only income is from rent from the properties, cell phone towers, and the billboards. It seems that would be sufficient, but remember, he lives in a big house, drives a fine car, not to mention a Cessna, and is generally living the high life. Long story short, he makes a few loan payments and realizes his income won’t pay the mortgage payments. With careful thought, he signs all the property over to me. He then laments with his banking buddies that maybe this property or that property wasn’t as profitable as he hoped. They love him. He is charming and everybody’s best friend. No one wants to see my dad fail, so each of the two banks writes off a few of the loans discretely without issuing any notice to the press. It was genius. Within two years, my dad and I amassed more than two million dollars. My mom is protected because I own the property.”
“Travis, you do realize you both committed fraud, right?” I asked. I couldn’t believe how calm I was, considering the shock I felt at Travis being proud of having committed a class A felony.
“Jesus, Chloe, did you just get off the pickle boat yesterday?” he snapped, “This is how business works. You can’t make money following every God damned rule.”
I was so done with that man. Just one more night, I told myself. Just one night. I could get through this.
“So sorry, Travis. Please continue,” I said softly.
“So, my dad is a multi-millionaire after years of cunning business deals. He kept a few prime pieces of property that provided a steady income flow and my mom inherited them when he died. I manage those and when mom dies, I will inherit them.”
There were many missing pieces to this broken puzzle. Travis recounts this story with pride but failed to see that his father used him to protect his mother.
“What happened to the money?” I asked. I had to admit, curiosity was getting the better of me.
“Dad wasn’t done dealing yet. Just before he died, he had me file bankruptcy on half of the property in my name and he and I creatively ensured the money was ... never to be found.”
“I’m confused, Travis, if you filed bankruptcy on each of the properties, there’d be no money to divide.”
“Au contraire, my dear, not when you have an accountant that specializes in creative accounting. He used the accounts to ‘loan’ money and those loans were never paid back.”
“Where’s the money, Travis? Didn’t anyone ever go after you or your father?”
“Good questions, my dear. You’re catching on. The bankers never went after us because they were humiliated. How could they go after a well-known community board-sitting member? About a year after the bankruptcies, a rogue young deputy prosecutor started sniffing around and began asking questions. However, he didn’t take into account my dad’s neighbor was the Mayor, so his sleuthing was quickly snuffed. In fact, he was fired.” Travis chuckled. He was amused by fraud and its repercussions. I wondered if this sociopathic mentality was a product of nurture, nature, or both.
“Where’s the money, Travis?” I asked again.
He got up, walked over to the huge safe, and began to open it. He fiddled with the gold handles that looked like the wheels on a bank vault, turning right, turning left, jamming it right and then letting go. He was having difficulty opening it and was exasperated. He stood there staring at it and I noticed he was having trouble with his balance. I noticed out of the corner of my eye on the nightstand there were three empty bottles of wine. I don’t know when he’d gotten the other two, but at some point in his long diatribe about his legend of a fraudulent father, he must have ran to the kitchen and opened them.
Travis took a deep breath, looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds and then, boom, the combination came upon him like a revelation. Right, left, right, and the safe was open. I laid there quietly as he pulled out not one, not two, not three, but four shotguns, and placed them on the floor beside me.
“Travis, I have no interest in guns. While I am glad you keep them securely locked, firearms are of no use to me. Please put them away.”
“I’m going to show them to you. They are part of my story. Everybody loves guns. What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? Absolutely nothing Travis, now put those away.”
He walked over to the bed, pulled the covers off me and slowly laid each gun across my bare body. I was scared and my breathing became labored. The guns raised and lowered horizontally with each breath I took.
He placed his hand across the old shotgun closest to my breasts and rubbed his fingers slowly across it, tracing also against my skin.
“God, your lacy panties look so sexy under these guns. When did you put these on?” he said, not seeing my face, oblivious to my fear. I couldn’t leave now if I tried.
His hand trailed to a stop as his fingers reach the end of the gun and flirted with the hole at the end of the barrel. “Do you know what this one is, Chloe? This is a Belgium-made Browning sweet sixteen semiautomatic 16-gauge shotgun. I don’t know exactly how old it is, but it is worth about $2,000. It belonged to my father. I used this shotgun when I killed that bird, Chloe. This is the gun that taught me the power one can have over another living thing, being able to choose life or death for an entity other than myself.”
He pulled his finger from the barrel of the gun and ran his hands across the second gun, again, tracing his fingers against my now shivering skin. “This one belonged to my grandpa. It’s another Browning. Do you see the beautiful etched design on the side? That’s how you know it’s a Browning. I need to take this one to the gun shop. I’m not sure if it still shoots. This third one still does, though, and this is the one you’ll use when we go shooting.”
“I’m not going shooting with you Travis. You can forget that. In fact, I think I need to go now.”
“You’re not going anywhere Chloe. Jesus, I thought we already discussed that. Relax,” he snapped.
He continued as if there had been no interruption. “This one is a Model 94 Winchester Rifle. You can use it. It’s light. Pick it up, Chloe,” he said as it took my hands and brought them to the gun.
Laying on my back in my underwear, beneath four guns, I lifted the Winchester by the palms of my hands. This was no fun for me, but it certainly was for Travis. I looked over at him and could see that talk of panties and guns had aroused him. I may be humoring him now, but I certainly wasn’t going to finish this moment by having sex. I was done with Travis Trammel. He was oddly eccentric in a fearful way. The more I got to know him, the further away from him I wanted to be.
“This one I bought for myself. I was in the gun shot buying bullets last month, you know the place where they do taxidermy in the back. That place is so cool, Chloe. Anyway, I saw it in the back and just couldn’t resist. Do you know what it is? Of course you don’t. It’s a 1955 Winchester Model 21 side-by-side 12-gauge. I don’t have much more to tell you about this one, except that I love it. Have you ever saw something and thought ‘God, I’ve just got to have that.’ I feel that way about this gun, and I feel that way about you. I just have to have you.”
“Are you talking about sex or me or what,” I asked. I was trying to elude him from sex, but yet realized I just brought it up.
“All of you Chloe. You’re mine.”
Trying to change the subject, I asked, “What happened to the money? Where is all this money you and your dad made when he bankrupted those properties?”
He rose from the bed and one-by-one returned the guns to the safe. Then, he brought out a bag and plopped it on my belly. “This, Chloe, is my walking around money.” He unzipped the bag, tipped it over, and hundreds of hundred-dollar bills fell out all over me.
“God, you look sexy Chloe. Let me fuck you with this money strewn all over you.”
“This is it?” I asked, trying to keep him off the subject of sex. I was never having sex with this messed up guy ever again.
“There’s $300,000 here. I can document all of this. This isn’t the money dad gave me for safekeeping. Even my greedy drug loving sister will never find that money. That’s my retirement. By the time I need it, she’ll likely be dead.”
“Should I ask you again or are you finally going to tell me?
He stood up and pointed toward the sliding glass door that led to the hot tub. “There.”
“Where?” I had no clue what he was referring to.
“It’s buried under the hot tub,” he said with a conceited grin, “I personally stuffed $2 million dollars into two airtight barrels and buried them. I’m not stupid though. I planned it well. I stuffed in a whole bunch of those ‘do not eat’ silicon packets and vacuumed sealed them the money in several bags. At first, I buried it and thought I’d just plant grass over it, but it gnawed at me. I knew there were still a few shady people who suspected I had all the missing money. Burying it in the back yard seemed too easy to find. You know what I mean? So, one cold night after I’d worked out and my muscles were aching, I got the bright idea to build that room and put a hot tub over it. It was genius.”
“Who else knows about this?” I asked, too exhausted for any emotion.
“My mother, of course, my accountant, and now you.” He then leaned over and began to kiss me. “Oh yeah, and my golf buddy, Eddie Carter. He knows.”
“Why me, Travis? Why did you pick me?”
“I didn’t pick you, Chloe. It was love. Love picked you and it picked me. That was the one thing I couldn’t control. There are two types of love. Love the noun and love the verb. When you love – as in the verb – you control it. You control who you choose to love and who you don’t. Then there is the noun love – it just is. This thing between two people that you can feel and sometimes see is unstoppable. It picks you. Love came upon us that day in the copy room.”
I could no longer avoid his advances. He mounted himself on top of me as if he were the lone ranger mounting his trusty steed. I wanted him off and had no choice but to be direct.
“Travis, I can’t do this. I’m just too tired. Let’s go to sleep, please.”
“What do you mean? Sleep. You’ve got to be kidding. I just shared a special secret and now you don’t want to celebrate? What’s wrong with you? We’re going to make love.”
“No, actually, we’re not. I’m going to sleep.” I began swishing the money off the bed when he grabbed me by the wrists.
“I’ve got one more gun to show you.” He reached over my body, opened the nightstand, and pulled out the small pistol I’d seen that first night I’d spent with him. While straddling me, he sat ramrod straight, pointed the gun at the ceiling and cocked it. “Everyone needs a gun in their nightstand. Everyone needs protection.”
The word ‘protection’ made me realize I was about to be raped. I’d like to say it all happened so quickly, but it didn’t. The sucking away of my sole happened in slow motion. He laid the gun on the nightstand and forced me over on my stomach. I had no choice but to take it. He placed one hand on my back, holding me down, and entered me from behind. I could have tried to reach over and get the gun, but how could I shoot from the position I was in. What if I did shoot? Could I leave and not be detected? What would the real-life Lt. Joe Kenda make of the naked dead man I left behind and all that money? I’d have to take the money. No one would ever know, except his sick entourage of family and friends, and since those bills were derived from ill-gotten gains, they’d never speak.
Pump pump pump. He was pumping and pumping. It felt as if all the goodness that comes from sex was fleeing my body like a plume of smoke swirling in the wind. My spirit, my sole, my strength were being sucked away with every pump and groan. When would he ever finish?
“God baby, don’t you just love this?” He had the gall to say. He was totally clueless. He truly thought he was pleasing me.
I felt as if the devil were rising in me. In a low guttural voice, I slowly said, “Get the fuck off me.”
“Ooo. You do love it. I didn’t know you talked dirty. Keep it up. I’m almost there. I don’t generally like that word, but I do know. Mmmmmhmmmmm.”
Pump pump pump. I didn’t think it would ever stop.
I was full of anger, from the tip of my head to the bottom of my toes. Darkness filled me. If I were physically capable, I could have killed him. I didn’t like myself for it, but I hated him. The more he pumped, the further distant I became. I lost myself and let it happen, let it end. I just wanted it over with. In fact, I’m not sure when he ended, because the next moment I came to, he was lying next to me with a radiant smile on his face.
Face to face, with only an inch between us, I quietly said, “You raped me you motherfucker.”
“Chloe, you need to watch your mouth. Remember, a woman who spouts dirty words is dirty inside, my dad always said. I thought you were classier than that.”
“Me classy. What about you? Do you have any idea what you did? What you took?”
He sat up, finally realizing what I was accusing him of. He looked shocked and angry at the same time. “Get out, bitch.” He walked over to his closet, pulled out his thick terry cloth bathrobe, hustled back over and dragged me by my leg off the bed. “I said get out.”
I stood up and headed for the foot of the bed to get my clothes and he stopped me. “I didn’t say get your clothes, I said get out. You’ve been difficult from the moment I met you. I don’t know why I ever let a girl like you get under my skin. You’re a whore, you know that? A whore.”
I had to remain calm. I was truly fearful he was going to toss me out naked. “Okay. I’ll leave Travis, but I didn’t drive.” I hunched down naked on the floor and began to cry. He grabbed two twenty-dollar bills and threw them on me. “There, call a cab.”
I’d never felt so humiliated. I didn’t know how a human being could talk about love one minute and hate with such fury the next. I felt worthless, scared, and angry all at the same time. If this was the rush of emotions that love brought about, I wanted nothing to do with it. Logic, though, told me this wasn’t love. This man was a product of bad parents. I hated him and pitied him concurrently.
“Okay, I’m leaving, but let me put my clothes on. Could you imagine what your neighbors will think if you kick me out like this? Imagine the consequences.”
He stepped back and looked down at my clothes. I quickly dressed, grabbed my purse, and headed for the door. “Don’t forget your ho bag,” he said as he tossed the overnight bag in my direction.
I left out the front door and started walking down the street with the little black ho bag dragging behind me on its wheels. I stopped at the lone picnic table at the lake’s beach, pulled out my phone and called Tim. It was only 9:00 p.m. I knew he’d be awake. Three rings seemed like thirty.
“Chloe?” he answered. We never called each other. He knew something had to be wrong.
“Yes. Where are you? Can you come and get me? Am I bothering you? I’m so sorry if I’m interrupting something,” I said and then began sobbing, yet trying to act as if nothing was wrong.
“I’m just leaving the library. It’s no problem for me to come and get you. Where are you? Did your car break down? I don’t mind doing this, but I thought you had AAA and aren’t you still dating Travis? Is he out of town?”
I just started crying on the phone. Two people who work together every day begin after a few years to know each other without having to talk. He knew it was time to stop with the questions.
“Okay. I’m on my way but need to know where you are.”
“I’m sitting at the picnic table at that private lake in Travis’ neighborhood. Do you know how to get here?”
“Yes. Do you want to stay on the line until I arrive?”
“No. I’m fine.”
I sat at the table with my black bag at my side trying to look nonchalant. I didn’t mind being seen, but I would mind if someone came and asked if I needed help. The only help I needed was to get out of there as quickly as possible.
Within ten minutes, Tim arrived. He had a box of Kleenexes at the ready and at my side. I buckled up and began to cry. He pulled out and didn’t say a word. After we were safely out of the neighborhood, he asked if I’d been hurt. I didn’t provide specifics and was barely audible through the tears, but he’d heard enough to ask if we should first stop by the police station.
“NO,” I shouted, crying harder.
He drove me back to my house and walked me to my door. I was in such shock at what had happened, I was fearful to have him follow me into my home. I was fearful of all men.
“Chloe, if you need a thing, you just call, okay?” he said softly.
“I will. I’ll see you, Tim. Thanks.”
I shut the door, went to bed, and cried through the night.