Chapter Seven: No Doubts Remain

 

No one is willing to help me out with my financial issue. Not one single person or bank. I’ve even taken the drastic step of emailing a wealthy cousin of mine by the name of Renee Bucksheer. She’s a multimillionaire now, but I grew up with her and we were thick as thieves until I was about fourteen years old. Since then, I’ve kept up with her and occasionally contacted her on Facebook. It seems that now that I need help, she’s not willing to respond to me at all.

 

“Fuck,” I mutter as I go into the dining room in our apartment and sit down at the table. Opening my laptop, I begin to weed through dozens of emails in the hopes that someone...anyone...will have offered some kind of financial aid. Unfortunately, there’s not much of anything there that is helpful. However, there is an email from Victor.

 

“Hello, Layden. I trust all is well,” his email begins. “I haven’t seen the money yet. Is there a problem that I can help with? Does the account number I have given you work? Please respond as soon as you can. Thank you.”

 

“Dammit, I have to tell him,” I say nervously as I click the reply button in the email. Though I have avoided contacting Victor for the last three days, he has apparently found my email address. The fact of the matter is that he and his associates know a lot more about me and my wife than is at all comfortable. Something has to be done to satisfy their desire for the money, but I don’t know what that something is.

 

“Victor,” I begin the reply as my fingers tremble on the keyboard. “I have a problem with getting the money to your account. Please, try to understand everything from my point of view.” I take in a deep, shaky breath as I continue. “The money was unexpected and very welcomed by me when it arrived in my bank account. Though I shouldn’t have, I took it and invested it into a stock that an advisor I know told me about. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out the way that I had expected. The stock has gone belly-up and the money is gone. All of it.”

 

“Just be calm,” I say to myself as I lift my hands from the keyboard of the laptop and rub them together for a moment. “He has to understand. There’s nothing that I can do now that it’s gone.”

 

“I have tried for three days,” I continue, “to find at least some money to give back to you in good faith. However, I’ve come up with nothing. Things around here are tight for me and my wife, and we have almost no money of our own. I don’t know what to do.” Again, I lift my hands and think about the email. I could delete it and forget that Victor even sent it to me. Though, I don’t think that would be my smartest move. “What can I do to make this right?” I ask in one final line. “Sincerely, Layden.” I move the cursor to the send button to deliver the reply email to Victor.

 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I say as my body shudders. “That’s a lot of fucking money and I just told a mob guy that he won’t be getting it back. Fuck.” I have considered contacting the police to tell them what happened, but I’m not sure they could or would do much. The money didn’t get into my account fraudulently and I’m the unlucky bastard who has lost it. Still, I would feel a little better if someone in law enforcement knew about this.

 

Though Elaine has hounded me to tell Terri since Victor came to the restaurant, I have avoided doing as much. My wife would be horrified if she discovered that I used that money to invest in the stock market. She would have good reason to question my intelligence. She already considers me a lousy money manager, although I run a restaurant and keep up with the finances there. Terri knows that I can be impulsive sometimes, especially with investments. Maybe I deserve to have her talk to me like I’m a child for what I have done.

 

An email from Victor returns only minutes after the one I sent to him. I open it up and take a deep breath as I begin to read it. “I thought we had an understanding,” Victor begins the email. “You have lied to me and my associates. I’m afraid that we must now request all of the money immediately. You will not be paid the finder’s fee as earlier promised. Layden, you have until close of business at the bank today to do this. Do not disappoint me further.” Vincent doesn’t bother to put his name at the end of this email. The understanding between us is now crystal clear. I am being threatened. If the money is not in the bank account by the end of the day, something very bad will happen.

 

“Fuck.” I close the email and decide to do something that is likely a bit rash. I delete it and the one that came before. I decide to ignore Vincent and see where this all leads.

 

“Hey, baby.” Terri walks through the front door and drops her car keys on a small shelf nearby. Making her way to me, her hands go to my shoulders and she begins to rub them. “How was your day?”

 

I can feel my wife’s lips touch the top of my head as she kisses me. “I’m good, honey. How about you?” After closing my laptop, I turn to see her standing behind me.

 

“It was pretty good,” she replies as she sits down in a chair at the dining room table. “Busy, but good. We saw more patients today than we’ve seen all week.” Terri smiles at me as she relaxes. “You’re not going to work today, are you?”

 

I shake my head. “No, I decided to take the day off. I’m not feeling a hundred percent.”

 

“Really?” She reaches over and feels my forehead. “You don’t feel like you have a fever. What’s wrong?”

 

A part of me wants to be completely honest with Terri. I want to tell her about Victor and the money that I have lost. I want to tell her how we are being threatened because of my stupidity. However, I just can’t bring myself to do it. It would cause my wife to have a much diminished view of me.

 

“My stomach has been bothering me,” I tell her. “I think it has a lot to do with stress at work.”

 

Terri grimaces. “We need to take a vacation soon,” she points out. “We’ve put it off for months and now you’re suffering for it. You need to take that week off you promised me you would take.” My wife raises an eyebrow. “Besides, you would like to see me in that new two-piece bikini I got last month, right? A trip to the beach would be great.”

 

“It would be, huh?” I answer with a slight smile. “And I’m sure that you would rock that bikini, too. I would love to see you in that.”

 

“Would you? Layden, what’s eating at you besides the upset stomach?” My wife knows me so well that she gets the sense that I’m suffering in some other way than physically. I love her for this gift, but I wish she didn’t have access to it at this moment.

 

“Honey, it’s just work. Someone came in and complained at the restaurant and now I’m having to deal with it. I’ll get it worked out, okay? All’s well.”

 

“What’s the asshole’s name?” Terri asks with a frown.

 

“The asshole?”

 

“The guy who gave you a problem. He must have sent a nasty message to the owner, right? You should know his name. What is it?”

 

Thinking briefly, I reply, “Victor.”

 

“Well, then, fuck Victor.” Terri smiles and begins to laugh. I do the same as I think about what would happen if Victor were to hear my wife speak this way about him. I’m sure there are very few people alive who have insulted him and lived to tell the tale.

 

“Fuck him,” I say quietly with a smirk on my face. I need to sell this to my wife if I’m going to get her to drop the subject. “Fuck him to hell.”

 

“That’s the spirit,” Terri giggles. “You have to do that whenever people try to walk over you, baby. That’s how I handle patients who decide to verbally abuse me.”

 

“I know how you can be,” I say with an impish smile. “Still, I’ll probably see this guy again. I can’t just go up to him and say, fuck you, to his face, though. He’s not the sort of guy who is easily intimidated.”

 

Terri smiles. “Well, then, just keep in mind that you’re dealing with assholes daily. Don’t let any of them get you down.” She reaches over and pats me on the hand. “So, Destin Beach sometime soon?”

 

“I’ll check with the restaurant owner and see what I can do,” I tell her. “Maybe we can arrange a trip sooner rather than later.”

 

“I would really like that.” Terri smiles at me. “Let’s go get some dinner tonight. I’m starving.”

 

“Okay. What sort of food?”

 

“We could always go to your restaurant. The food there is pretty good.”

 

“No, not today. Again, I’m not feeling so great. Maybe something that won’t be too rich on my stomach.”

 

“Okay.” Terri thinks for a moment. “Let’s go to that new cafe on Warden Street. They are supposed to have some great menu items. I’ll bet they would have some food that you could eat without bothering your stomach. What do you think?”

 

I smile. “Sure, why not?” I get up from the table, as does my wife. We are soon out the front door and in the downstairs parking garage. As Terri drives toward the restaurant, I think about the threatening email from Victor. I won’t be able to ignore this guy and his buddies for very long. There will come a time when I have to do something to make amends for that loss of their money. I just hope to have enough time before then to find enough money to give them to help keep my wife and I from getting into serious trouble.