Chapter 3

She woke on Saturday feeling refreshed and very satisfied. Her qualms about giving sex for rent were forgotten about, such pleasure she received from Jim was greater than anything she ever had before. Some people might look at this as wrong, but she couldn’t see it that way. How could something that feels so good be bad?

The remainder of the weekend flew by, and soon it was Monday and she was home from work, making dinner for herself and Dylan, taking a quick shower, putting down Dylan for the night and waiting for Jim, who arrived at 9pm.

Monday was not at all like Friday; Jim just wanted a blow job. But he did eat her out to several orgasms. Wednesday was the same as Monday, oral sex only.

Friday. That was the day. Friday’s were the wild sex day, everything goes, no holding back, take no prisoners, wild fuck me in any hole you want sex day.

The following Monday Jim began giving her pointers on sex, how to give great blowjobs, how to entice a man, how to rim a guy, and on Friday the many different positions. Fridays were beginning to become uncomfortable. The couch was good but not comfortable, and some of the positions were impossible to do on the couch, and the floor was too hard. So she made a change in the rules, they would use the bed if Dylan was asleep. That made their rendezvous even better. And with Dylan being a sound sleeper they were never interrupted.

A month had gone by and things were going well. On Tuesday just after she got home with Dylan there was a knock on the door.

She walked over to the door and asked, “Who is it?”

A muffled voice responded, “Hello, are you a Ms., Kathy Gouben?”

“Yes” she replied hesitantly. Last time someone came to her door was NOT a good day for her.

“You have a son named Dylan?”

“Yes.” This was not going to go well.

“Good. I am going to slide my business card under the door. My name is Thomas Cook, I am representing the Estate Mrs. Angelina Samarillo.”

She picked up the card that was slid underneath the door, it was a Business Card for a Law Firm called Williams and Associates.

“Do you have a moment to talk?”

She thought about it for a moment and opened the door, “Sure, please come in.”

Thomas Cook was an older man, in his forties she thought, and was dressed nicely and carried himself well. He walked into the apartment and she directed him to the kitchen table.

“Would you like a glass of water?”

He sat down and opened his brief case and said, “No thank you Ms. Gouben.”

As soon as she sat down across from Thomas he began, “As I said I represent the Estate Mrs. Angelina Samarillo. Mrs. Samarillo, had a will that left everything to her son Vincent Samarillo. Unfortunately Vincent Samarillo and his mother Mrs. Angelina Samarillo passed away on the same day, leaving her estate open. In a recent visit to our office Mrs. Samarillo showed a picture of her grandson, Dylan to myself and others in the office. Since there are no other relatives, Dylan is the sole beneficiary of Mrs. Samarillo’s estate.”

“Excuse me? Dylan is the beneficiary?”

“Yes. And since he is underage and you’re his Parent, you will need to sign the documents for him.”

“What is the cost?”

“All of our fees have been paid from the funds in the estate. All we need is for you to sign the documents and we will cut you a check for the full amount in the estate.”

“How much is it?”

“I cannot disclose the amount until you have signed for it. I can tell you that if you accept and sign for your son Dylan, there will be no cost to you.”

Shaking her head no, “No cost to me?”

“Correct. The estate has a positive balance. There are no leans or other legal matters associated to the estate.”

“Okay. Where do I sign?”

“You will need to come to our office, that is where all of the documents and keys are.”

“Keys?”

“I cannot say anything more, I’m sorry.”

“Okay. I work during the week, are you open on Saturdays?”

“Sorry, we are open Monday through Friday from 9am to 5pm. Call the number on the card when you can get the time off from work. Sooner would be better than later.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to my boss tomorrow and get back to you.”

He got up and extended his hand, “You have a pleasant evening Ms Gouben. And I look forward to meeting with you to resolve the estate of Mrs. Samarillo.”

She shook his hand saying, “Thank you Mr. Cook.”

She showed him out and came back to the kitchen and sat down. This sounds too good to be true! Even if the estate is five hundred, that’s five hundred she didn’t have.

First thing she did when she got to work was to get the next day off so she could see the lawyers. Her boss, Bob, gave her the day off easily. She hugged him and called the number on the business card and had an appointment for 10am Thursday.

Thursday morning she dropped Dylan off at the normal time and came home to shower and dress for her 10am meeting downtown. Luckily for her the subway was close to her apartment and within 5 minutes walking distance to the law offices. She arrived with five minutes early and was directed to sit in the waiting room.

At 10am Thomas Cook came out to greet her, “Good morning Ms. Gouben, I’m happy to see you here so soon.”

She shook his hand, “My boss is pretty cool.”

“Well, that’s good. Please follow me so we can conclude our business.”

She was led to a glass conference room just past the waiting area. She sat down and and Thomas sat down directly across from her, and opened a large office envelope. He pulled out several documents and placed them in a specific order before placing one in front of here. He explained what it was and directed her where to sign, where to initial, and where to enter the date.

After about a dozen documents he looked at her and said, “See, not so difficult.”

She laughed and said, “Sure. Not difficult.”

He smiled back and said, “Now comes the part you’ve been waiting for” and slid over a single piece of paper.

“This paper has all of the accounts and a list of assets that are now yours. I’ll go over them with you. First the accounts, there is a savings account with a balance today of $2,045.38, a checking account with a balance today of $506.32, and has no activity for the last 21 days. There was a CD that we closed out to pay for the funeral and related fees, the remainder of that money was placed in an escrow account, the balance of which is on this check for $2,343.42.”

Her eyes were unable to focus on the numbers on the paper, she put it down and listened to Thomas.

“That is all for the accounts. Now on to the assets. There is a home fully paid for, here are the keys and the title” which he placed in front of her. “The entire contents of the home are yours as well.”

“There is also an auto that she owned, a 1992, Nissan Sentra, here are the keys and title. There is also a Safety Deposit box. We have not performed an inventory of it as Mrs. Samarillo has specifically told us not to” again he placed the keys before her.

“The accounts are at First National Bank, an office is across the street from here, and I would highly recommend that you close out Mrs. Samarillo’s accounts, open an account and place all of the money into that account.”

“You should also plan on having the title of the home changed over to you as soon as possible. Oh, and you will need these Death Certificates.”

They went over several other things before completing their meeting. Thomas placed all of the documents into a large manila envelope and slid it over her.

She thanked Thomas and picked up the envelopes and headed home. She didn’t got to the bank across the street, but headed to the bank where the Safety Deposit box was, why not do everything at one place?

First she created account from the escrow check, and then closed out the other accounts, moving the them all into one. She then went to Customer Service to check out what was in the Safety Deposit box. She was taken to a room in the basement and soon after a large metal box was brought to her. The clerk unlocked one of the two locks and left her alone in the room.

She unlocked the last lock and opened the top of the box. Looking inside she found a smaller box, two small backpacks, and a sealed envelope that appeared to be very well stuffed.

She first took out the envelope and opened it. Inside she found a small amount of money, counting it quickly it was around two hundred, a couple of pages that had several sets of numbers written on it, nothing that she could make out. She put the couple of pages back into the envelope and placed it back into the box and put the money in her purse.

She pulled out the first backpack and placed it on the table. She opened it up and almost fell over as she found ten bundles of bound cash. She sat down in the chair her hands shaking as she did a quick count of the cash and found $25,000.

She lay back in the chair and stared at the bundles of cash before her. And then she remembered the other backpack and quickly went into the box, pulled it out, and opened it quickly. As she opened the bag she was mystified at what she found, plastic bags filled with what looked like flour. Why would he have flour in a safety deposit box she asked herself. And then it dawned on her, it wasn’t flour, it was drugs, cocaine probably!

She quickly pulled her hands away from the backpack acting as if she could get high by just touching the bag. She had no idea what she was going to do. Well she did know that she was absolutely NOT going to take it with her.

She put the backpacks into the box and throwing caution to the wind pulled out the smaller one, it was a small box, what could be the harm.

She should never have opened the small box because inside was a gun. She knew it was a bad idea to open the small box! She knew it, she knew it, she knew it, she knew it! But she did it anyway!

She put the small box back, and locked it up and sat back down. For the next ten minutes she went over and over and over what she was going to do, until finally she just gave up. This was a no win situation so no matter what she decided it was not going to work out well.

She knew the money was tied to drugs, how can it not be since there were drugs along with it in the box! There was also the matter of the gun, which was also probably illegal, and probably tied to drugs. And what about those two pages of numbers? They were probably tied to drugs!

God damn you Vince! Even after death you can still fuck me over!

She made her decision and decided to keep the money from the small envelope but go to the police and let them know what she found in the box. Since this was her first visit to the bank and she had a clean record what could they do to her!

She locked up the box and called the clerk back in to take it away and left to pick up Dylan before going to the police, she had no idea how much time it would take and she didn’t want to put out Mrs. Robinson.

The police station was a mass of people, encompassing all aspects of humanity, from the respectable citizen to the hardcore criminal, both of which scared the shit out of her.

She asked at the front desk to speak with someone in narcotics and was told to have a seat and someone would see her as soon as possible.

Thirty minutes passed before a plan clothes officer came up to her, “Hello, Ms. Gouben?”

“Hello.”

“Hi, I’m Detective Martin, please follow me.”

She followed him through the crowd of people to his desk and sat down.

He sat down and looked at her and asked, “So, what can I do for you today?”

She fidgeted before saying, “Well, Detective Martin, I was downtown clearing up my, umn, Ex’s Mother’s estate, and part of the estate was a lock box, at First National.”

He nodded his head and grabbed a pen from the desk and pulled out a notepad and asked, “Okay, and what was her name?”

“Uhm, a Mrs. Angelina Samarillo.”

He stopped writing and said, “Mrs. Angelina Samarillo? Wasn’t that the mother of Vince Samarillo?”

She nodded her head, “Yes. That was his mother.”

He sat back and asked, “So, what is your, relationship with Mrs. Samarillo?”

“Well, we really didn’t have one.”

“So why were you part of her estate?”

“Well I wasn’t, my son Dylan is. Vince Samarillo is his father.”

“Your son is the son of Vince Samarillo?”

“Yes. We weren’t married.”

“Okay. So your son Dylan inherited the estate?”

“Yes. And today I went to the bank to clear out a safety deposit box and I found some things in there.”

He leaned forward and asked, “Like what?”

“Money. Like a LOT of money. And a gun. And, a bag of something that I think might be drugs.”

“And, this is at First National?”

“Yes. I came right over when I found out what was in the box. Well right after picking up Dylan. I want no part of what’s in the box, so I came right over here.”

“Okay then, would you allow me to take possession of the items from the bank?”

“Yes. That’s why I came here, to turn everything over to the police.”

“Well that is certainly the right way to do things Ms. Gouben” he said with a smile.

He wrote up their conversation, had her sign it and Detective Martin, and three plain clothes officers went to the bank and retrieved the contents of the Safety Deposit box. Detective Martin was very happy with the money and drugs they found, but when he opened the envelope he nearly jumped out of his clothes.

You see, Detective Martin was the lead investigator into the workings of the major drug dealer that Vince worked for, Albert Gordon, and the numbers on the sheets were account numbers where he supposed the drug dealers kept their money. And with this information they’ll be able to claim the money as proceeds from drug dealing and most likely lead to convictions on the account owner.

That’s when she knew that the bottom had fallen out. She had met Albert Gordon just before Vince was killed, and she wasn’t saying anything to Detective Martin about that, and the person who was going to lose all of the money in those bank accounts would most likely be Albert Gordon, and he would find out that she was the one that brought all this down upon him. She left the bank as quickly as possible and went home in fear. What had she gotten herself into now?

Friday was her big day with Jim, and she was a wreck. She screwed up orders, delivered them to the wrong table, and was generally not there mentally. And when Jim came over she was horrible at everything she did, which was not lost on Jim who get out of there before she caused him permanent harm.

All her worrying was well founded as Sunday afternoon there was a knock on her door.

She walked to the door and, without thinking, opened it to find Albert Gordon standing there.

Before she could say anything Albert pushed her back into the apartment and closed the door behind him. She began to protest when he grabbed her arm and said, “Please be quiet Ms. Gouben, my visit with you will not take long.”

He pushed her onto the couch and grabbed a chair from the kitchen and placed it directly in front of her and sat down glaring at her.

After a minute or two he asked, “Do you know how much you cost me?”

“Uhm,”

“You cost me $250,000 dollars. You’ve given the police a document that contains a list of accounts that they are trying to grab from me, and, that gun in the box. That fucking GUN in the BOX was used in the robbery and MURDER of a retired cop.”

“Do you know how much SHIT you dumped on me? All because YOU fucking goodie two shoes bitch, has a fucking conscience!”

“I”

“Shut, the FUCK, up. So, what we are going to do, you and I, is figure out how you are going to pay me back.”

“What?”

“That’s right. You cost me a quarter of a million dollars, so far, and I want my money.”

“I, I don’t have that, I don’t have any money.”

“Well, that’s going to be a problem for you, because one way or another I’m, going to get my money out of you. Maybe I’ll peddle your ass on the streets for the next fifty years.”

“What?”

“I’ll give you a week to figure it out.” He leaned in and said with a great deal of intimidation, “And if you decide to skip town or go to the cops, which I fucking HIGHLY recommend that you do NOT do, IF they ever find your bodies they will weep from the grisly way that you will have died.”

He got up from the chair and walked to the door and turned to her, “One week. You have ONE FUCKING WEEK to get my money. If not, get ready to start your community service.”

With that he opened the door and walked out.

She sat on the couch, not moving, stunned at what had happened. What was she going to do?

She woke with a start on Sunday. The house. She could sell the house! Hopefully the house was worth what she owed. She jumped out of bed and ran to the corner restaurant and picked up a free magazine with homes for sale just inside the door. Inside it were listings of homes in the area but also some of the Realtors. She found the Realtor closest to the house and after lunch packed up Dylan and headed out.

The Realtor was very helpful, they went together to look at the house and found it in pretty good shape. It was a Ranch with three bedrooms and two baths, a kitchen, dinning room, and living room. But it was dated, like twenty years dated. The Realtor recommend that she clean the place, get rid of all the clutter, and give it a good paint job.

But all of those things would take time, and that is something that she did not have. She asked the Realtor if she could sell the house ‘AS IS’. The Realtor said that she could, but she won’t get as much for the house, which she estimated at $300,000. She didn’t care and told the Realtor to sell it as quickly as possible.

They went back to the office where she signed a contract to sell the home and create a listing for the house. She was back home by dinner, exhausted but happy, she should be able to pay off Albert Gordon and have a little left over for a rainy day. Not that it was pouring now!

The weekend passed uneventfully, but beginning Monday it changed drastically as people began looking at the house, and by Wednesday she had three offers on the house, all of which were around $285,000. She was the happiest she’s ever been since she gave birth to Dylan. And it was not lost on Jim, who noted her enthusiastic sexual play that night.

Thursday after picking up Dylan she went to the Realtor and accepted the highest bid, thus ending her first home ownership. But she didn’t care as she was going to walk away with enough money to pay off Albert Gordon.

Friday after dinner she waited patiently for Albert Gordon to arrive, and she wanted this business with him over and done with as quickly as possible. Friday after dinner there was a knock on the door, she knew it was Albert even before opening the door.

“Good evening Mrs. Gouben.”

“Come in Mr. Gordon.”

“Like you had a choice!” and walked over to the kitchen, grabbing a chair and placing it where he had the week before and sat. He pointed at her to sit and began, “Let’s get this over with. The cops were able to steal another account before I could get the money out, so you now owe me $275,000.”

“No way! You said $250,000!”

“That was before they got another account. Wait a minute, you sound like you have $250,000?”

“Yes I’ve got it!”

“Let’s see it then.”

“Well, you’ll have to wait until the house is sold, so in about eight weeks.”

“You sold a house? And you’re living here?”

“No, it wasn’t my house, it was Vince’s mother house. I inherited it, well Dylan inherited it, after she died. And Today, I accepted a bid on the home for $285,000.”

“What else did you get from the inheritance?”

“Well, there was the house, a car, and about $5,000 in cash that’s in the bank.”

“Okay, so about a grand for transfer stamps, say $500 for the Lawyer, Title insurance is about $750, and the Realtor is going to get 5% of the total so that’s about $15,000, so about $17,250 from the top leaves me with $257 thousand. Plus the five grand in the bank, and another grand for the car, so I’m about $263 thousand. Good enough for me.”

“You’re taking all my money?”

“No, YOU are paying me back for ALL the money you cost ME!”

“But”

“And you will no longer be in my debt.”

“But”

“Or, you can still be in my debt, and I can peddle your ass on the street for what you owe me.”

“But, it’s my money.”

“WAS! It WAS your money. You keep forgetting that you OWE me money.”

“Of course I can just kill you and sell Dylan. There are several options available to you.”

“It’s yours,” she spat out.

“As I thought it would be.” He got up to leave but stopped at the door and said, “I’ll be in contact with you in regards to the sale of the home, and I’ll be by Monday for the title on the car, the keys, and the five grand from the bank. And, of course, someone will be keeping tabs on you, so remember that warning I gave you before.”

With the problem of Albert Gordon and money behind her, well until the sale of the house, life got back to normal. Well as normal as it can be. Sex with Jim was great and continuing on a regular basis, Dylan was growing and becoming more active and beginning to show a personality that was both fearsome as well as kind.

Life was getting back to normal, until she received the Registered letter from the law offices of Williams and Associates, the firm that handled the Estate of Vince’s Mom. She opened the letter and as she read it almost fainted, they were informing her that they had submitted to the Federal government the amount of Inheritance that was disbursed to her from the Estate of Mrs. Angelina Samarillo.

She had to pay tax on that? With what money, it was all gone! She had nothing!

At 9pm she let Jim in, it was their Wednesday sex night. Jim must have seen that her mind was somewhere else and asked, “Something going on that has you out of sorts?”

“I received a letter from the law firm that handled the estate of Vince’s Mom, and, they informed me that they notified the Government and now I’ll have to claim it on my Income Tax.”

“How much did you get?”

She began to lose it at this point and stammered, “Something like $280 thousand.”

“See, more than enough.”

And that’s when she broke down and cried. All of the events in her life for the past few years, except for Dylan, have been a disaster, or led to disaster, or great things that have in the end led to disaster. Her whole life is one big disaster.

She felt Jim place his arm around her and pull her into his arms, and gently rock her. She snuggled into his arms crying, how much can be placed on her shoulders when she is so young? I’m nineteen! I shouldn’t have this kind of shit to deal with!

“Quiet down Kathy, Quiet down. Control yourself and talk to me. Maybe I can help.”

She sniffled and said, “Do you remember the other week, on TV, the drugs found at the bank?”

“Yes, I seem to recall that.”

“That was me. I found it. And I went to the Police and turned it in. But, I didn’t know what it was tied to, or what kind of, people, were involved in it, or how it would impact me.”

“That was you?”

“Yes. And, well, I didn’t know Vince was a drug dealer, kind of like a Lieutenant or something like that, when I met him. When I did find out I walked away from him, but because of Dylan, well, a boy should know his father, so, he was still in our lives.”

“And then he was killed. His mother was killed, and everything that was hers, Dylan inherited, so, that is how I came into owning the Safety Deposit Box. And when I saw what was in it, I turned it over to the police and thought it was all over.”

“But, it wasn’t. Vince’s boss came to see me, he knew it was me that turned in the drugs. He wasn’t so pissed about that, he was pissed about the Account Numbers that were found, you see the cops began to confiscate the money in the accounts. He lost $280 grand, and wanted it from me since I caused it. I sold the house, gave him the cash I got from the inheritance, and the car. The only thing I have is the five hundred I found in the safety deposit box.”

“So you owe tax on $280 grand?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, do you know how much you’ll owe?”

“It doesn’t matter, I can’t put any money aside to pay the taxes, I barely make ends meet now. Will I go to jail? Oh god what will happen to Dylan?”

“It’s okay Kathy, it’s okay.”

Jim held her and let her cry it out. She didn’t tell him everything, no reason to tell him things that could get him into trouble. After a few minutes, when she had composed herself, Jim let her go and kissed her on the forehead, “I’ll, take a rain check for today. Try and forget about this, and get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that, you can start thinking on it, and hopefully you’ll find an answer.”

He hugged her again and left. She sat on the couch and being all cried out did what Jim said, she turned on the TV and watched some inane program until her mind was clear, she turned off the TV and went to bed and had a good night’s sleep.

The morning came, and though nothing had changed, she did feel better. She went about her business, falling into life’s daily routine, and put everything else out of her mind. Work was as it always was, but it was far better than most days as it allowed her to leave the worries of the day behind and focus on the things before her, the menial tasks that make up every day work life.

Outside of her time with Jim and taking care of Dylan her days passed uneventfully, which for now was a good thing. But, as the week ended her thoughts were drawn back to the problem of taxes, and what she can do about it.

Of all the options there was one she knew had the money to help, but it was the most, dangerous, Albert Gordon. She knew going to Albert for the money was a bad idea, but what other choice did she have? All of the other options she came up with were sure losers. Going to Gordon was the best worst idea she had.

She found his card next to the phone and called.

“Hello, it’s Gordon”

“Uhm, hello Albert, this is Kathy Gouben.”

“Kathy Gouben? Oh yes, Vince’s, non-wife. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I, need to talk with you about, some, help I need.”

“Help? What kind of help?”

“Financial. You see, the, uhm, there are, taxes on the inheritance. And uhm, I could use some help.”

“Yes, I understand. Why don’t you come down and see me.”

“I can try and get there tomorrow afternoon. I only have an hour though.”

“I do not have meetings tomorrow afternoon. I’ll see you at 3pm?”

“3pm is good for me.”

When she dropped off Dylan at Mrs. Robinson’s the next morning she asked if she could pick him up after 5pm, saying she had a meeting downtown. Mrs. Robinson’s agreed easily; she loved Dylan and always doted on him. She wanted to go home and change but she was running late because the afternoon waitress was late, so she jumped on the bus forgoing a change of clothes.

His office was in a nondescript office building on the third floor. Getting off the elevator she followed the office numbers to get to his, room 312. The door was open so she walked in and headed to the receptionist.

“I’m here to see Albert Gordon?”

“You must be Kathy Gouben.”

“Yes, yes I am.”

“Please have a seat Mr Gordon is on a call and will be with you soon.”

She nodded her head and took a seat on the chair next to the coffee table and waited. Her nerves were frayed waiting for Gordon, not knowing what he would say or if he would help was driving her crazy. She prayed that he would help.

The receptionist brought her out of thoughts, “He will see you now.”

She got up and walked over to the receptionist who opened the door to let her in. The office was small for what she expected, before her were a couple of chairs sitting in front of the desk, other than a bookcase behind the desk and some pictures on the wall the room was bare. Sitting behind the desk was Gordon who was just hanging up the phone.

“So, you wanted to talk to me about taxes?”

She took a deep breath and started, “Yes. I turned all the money over to you and, well, there are taxes that I didn’t know about, and, I need money to cover it.”

He remained silent for a moment before settling back in his chair. “And you came to me because?”

“I was hoping that you could pay them.”

He chuckled as he replied, “And I would do that why?”

Anger came up unabated as she yelled out, “Because I gave you all the money!”

He quickly leaned forward in his chair and pointed a finger at her saying, “That you OWED me!”

She felt tears beginning to form as she replied, “But I didn’t know that would happen!”

He looked at her critically, “When you saw the drugs in the box, knowing that Vince was a drug dealer, why didn’t you call me?”