Reel Four

There was not much else he could do now until things filtered through the system and that didn’t bother him. He had a look at his website and saw that there was a message for him. When he opened it he had to laugh as it said that he was a thieving bastardo who had stolen the cash he had been employed to recover.

That message told him a couple of things. The first was the use of bastardo meant that the person who set him up had a link to the Italian fraternity and the second was that the person was angry at the loss of the money that he had said was there for the taking. Angry people, as far as Sydney had discovered, made mistakes. The fact that the envelope was not mentioned proved it had been a ‘red herring’. On a whim he did an internet search for people who did recoveries and found a fair few. One stood out with the use of the word ‘recoup’ rather than recover. This, again, pointed at someone more used to Italian where the word for recover was ‘recuperare’. He made a note of the site in case he needed to look for his nemesis that way.

The next couple of days were uneventful and he finished reading his book and found a space for it on the shelf with others from the same author. When he checked his normal email address there was a message from his friend at the laboratory. There was a page of numbers and he skipped that to go to the page that had the answer to his question. He read the result and sat back and laughed. The answer was that the substance was thought to be simply chocolate. His friend did go further, suggesting that the ingredients of the chocolate could well make it a product made by the Mars Corporation. He also suggested that a dry cloth may be all that was needed to clean the film. He sent back a thank you.

Later that day he had a phone call from his shop manager. He said that the police had been in to talk about a person who had paid for a product with stolen money. He told Sydney that together they had decided that the person was the one who bought a VHS copy of ‘Gone with the Wind’ and that, when the police asked him to describe the customer all he needed to do was point at the picture of Claude Rains on the poster. He said that the police simply took a picture of the poster and thanked him before leaving. Sydney told him that he had done well and not to worry about things. He, Sydney, will follow it up with his police contacts if there are any problems.

Friday afternoon Sydney spent some time making sure his body, arm and legs were totally hairless. He took some time on his eyebrows with tweezers and shaved three times before having a shower with scented soap. Tonight Bobbie was going out to see what could be learned and, maybe, get herself reamed as well. The woman who left the basement apartment was one that exuded femininity. She was dressed in an A-line dress with petticoats and showed a good bit of cleavage. Her dark hair was shining and her make-up was a little over the top and she attracted a lot of looks as she walked to the main street to flag down a cab. A half an hour later she entered a bar where she knew that her police contacts hung out after a long day in the job. She saw Rocky, a nice detective she had been with a few times before, and swung her hips as she walked towards him. His eyes lit up and he said “Bobbie, so good to see you, where have you been?” She sat up on a stool beside him and answered “Questions already, Rocky, and no spotlight?” He laughed and asked her what she wanted to drink.

Over the course of the evening he got slightly drunk and she got slightly amorous and they ended leaving together. Outside he pushed her against the wall and said “Here or home, baby?” She said “Home, Rocky, I want you slowly and completely tonight.” He flagged a taxi and they kissed in the back seat on the way to his apartment. There he rubbed her leg as he followed her up the two flights to his landing. At his door she turned to him, pulled his head to her and kissed him, taking his crotch with her other hand and feeling his stiff cock. He quickly opened his door and pushed her inside.

She did try to slow him down but it was just fifteen minutes later that he collapsed on her, her legs up around his waist and his cock still throbbing in her anus. She had scored his back with her nails and he had not minded a bit, perhaps he had not even felt it. He was more sober now and they lay side by side and he said “Bobbie, darling, I could be happy to live with you in my bed every night; how about it?” She rolled over to kiss him and said “Sweet Rocky, you know that it would become ho-hum if we did that, it is much nicer once in a while.”

A little later she said “So, Rocky, how are the felons going these days, are you still winning a few?” He laughed and said “You wouldn’t believe some of what has been going on. The sergeant showed us a picture of some old film star from the thirties and told us to keep an eye out for him. Scottie asked if we were now zombie hunting and the sergeant got very angry. I think that he had orders from the guy that pays him his monthly bonus because he said that this film star look-alike had ripped off the casino down on Front Street, bundles of money that was from a batch meant to do the payouts, as if that place ever actually paid anybody. It is set up to take, not give.” Bobbie then kissed him again and whispered “How about you thinking about giving because I think I want to take you some more.”

About two in the morning Bobbie slid out of the bed, went to the bathroom and quietly cleaned herself before getting dressed. She left the snoring Rocky and walked, somewhat shakily, to a bigger street where she flagged down a cab to take her near the basement apartment. As she went through the secret doors she giggled to herself as she thought of the evening. It had been very satisfactory in more ways than one.

She stayed in character, cleansing her face, undressing, showering and putting on a nightie to sleep happily. She slept in and it was about ten on Saturday morning when Bobbie made her breakfast, sitting at the kitchen bench in her nightie with a gown loose over the top. She was deep in thought and, after she had tidied up, she turned on her computer to do research into the casino on Front Street. It was a hard slog as the place was listed as owned by a company that did not seem to have any registered office or board. Further investigation found that the company was an arm of another shell corporation. She was no closer to naming the guy who paid the sergeant his bonus. She did, however, get the name of the manager. She was sure that Dayly Winner had to be an alias, but who knew, these days.

Sunday was a quiet day if you were used to lots of action. Bobbie spent time to become Sydney once again and then spent more time on his computer, trying to find all he could about that casino. One interesting point was that the building had sat empty for over forty years and, before that, was a gym. He could find no records of any sales so, as far as he could see, whoever owned it in the twenties left the deeds to whoever owned it now.

On Wednesday evening he disguised himself as Vincent Price from the horror film ‘Tales of Terror’ This just needed some elevator shoes and a natty moustache along with minimum cheek pads and a black hair moustache and wig. A fifties style suit with wide lapels set off the image. He went to the casino, laughingly called ‘Luckies’ and went in, finding the bar and getting a scotch which must have been aged at least three months. He spent some time at the bar, diluting the scotch with water until it tasted all right. He watched the croupiers and the heavies as they meandered around the tables. One, he saw, put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a red bag, selected something from it which he put in his mouth, crushed the bag and put it in an ashtray.

‘Vincent’ made his way to the roulette table, passing the ashtray, and saw that the packet had unfurled itself a little and he read the word ‘Malte….’ At the table he bought fifty in chips and it took him all of an hour to lose it all; that, he thought, was the table being good to him. He was about to leave the table when a voice behind him said “I haven’t seen you before. Snazzy suit, by the way, takes my mind back to my younger days.” He turned to see the man who had discarded the packet. “This is my first time here” he said “I have come to town to see if I can open up a little business.”

“What do you do?” he was asked and he said “Import and export, mainly.” The guy laughed and said “I do a little importing myself. I’m Antonio Gonzales, by the way; and you are?” “Pleased to meet you, Antonio, I am Vincent Prentice and I think I may have just given you some of my money.” Antonio smiled and said “Look, Vincent, have you a place I can send a parcel for you to export for me. It is too sensitive to go through the normal post and the courier companies do not take enough care.” Vincent thought a bit and said “I have only just got here and have been looking for an office. Tell you what, if you have a business card I will open a place and send you the details if you are not in a great hurry.”

“That will do me” said Antonio as he picked a fifty chip off of the pile next to the croupier “How about you take this as a down payment on our little export arrangement. I shall wait for you to get back to me.” He gave Vincent his card and the chip and walked away. Vincent put the chip on the red and doubled his money and then slid the hundred onto odds and doubled it again. Not being greedy Vincent cashed in and left the casino with a smile on his face. He was sure he had just met the person who had tried to frame him.

The next day he, still as Vincent, paid the deposit on a small rental office in the poorer side of town using paperwork he had printed the evening before. He was sure that he was moving forward in eliminating the danger but still had no idea of an end game as yet. At the office he made arrangements for any goods delivered to be put in the mail box that was part of the deal and then went to buy a cheap laptop. At the office he linked the laptop to the Wi-Fi hub that was also part of the deal and sent Antonio an email from ‘Prentice Logistics’ and gave him the address.

Three days later a message came into his secure mailbox with a ‘recovery’ job. The person he had to recover an item from was Vincent Prentice and the office address was given. The message said that there was a parcel which had stolen jewels in it that needed to be returned to the owner without anyone else knowing. Vincent, the message said, was ‘expendable.’

Marianne G © 2021