Dawson's Web (9 page)

It took the edge off.

“Damn, that girl is hot,” Todd thought after the alcohol started to give him a buzz.

It was becoming a very warm day and the marine layer was dissipating. Because there was as strong central high over eastern California near the four corner states, Santa Ana winds were starting to blow and were pushing the marine layer out to sea.

Stephanie moved over to the side where John was seated. “Honey, I need sunscreen. Could you please go and get it out of my bag down below?”

John looked her awkwardly, thinking to himself, she’s such a demanding bitch at times, but then acquiesced. It wouldn’t be long before they’d be out here alone and all his problems would be over. He grinned, picturing his lovely wife sinking below the surface with an anchor wrapped around her neck. He imagined the horror and fear written all over her face as she sank. He grinned.

“Soon, baby. Soon!”

“Okay Hon, I’ll get it. Give me a second.”

“No John. I mean now! Get it for me now! You know I can’t have my skin getting any sunburn at all.”

He grimaced. “Okay, I’ll go get it. NOW!”  The sarcasm in his voice didn’t go unnoticed by Todd or Stephanie.

Todd was watching this whole display. It was obvious Stephanie was in control. John was her lackey boy.

Jeff Dawson pulled his Mercedes up in front of the Hermosa Beach Wells Fargo. He walked in and went to the first teller.

“I need to get a withdrawal from my trust fund.”

The twenty-something blonde teller at the window greeted him and gave him an award-winning smile.

Her name was Roxy. She was blonde. She had a cute smile.

“I’ll need to see your driver’s license and swipe your ATM card,” Roxy said.

He did so and she looked at her computer screen. She saw the seven-figure balance in his account and flushed. He was a preferred customer and she knew that she would have to give him special attention.

“Mr. Dawson, how can I help you today?”  Roxy leaned forward and adjusted her loose-fitting red silk blouse.

“I’d like to take $30,000 from my trust account. I have a mortgage payment due and I’ve got a deal working in escrow that hasn’t closed yet.” Jeff said. His eyes were glued to her cleavage.

Roxy was impressed. She was staring at the seven-figure balance in his trust fund. This person had potential in her mind. Jeff was dressed in Doc Siders and had on a Hawaiian shirt. It was open to his mid chest. His piercing blue eyes cut holes in her head.

“Okay, Mr. Dawson. Can I call you Jeff?” Roxy smiled.

“Of course you can, sweetie. I mean Roxy.”

She was obviously interested in him.

He felt the same way about her. There was only one thing wrong. She reminded him of his ex-stepmother. This was not going to end well for her. But that wasn’t such a bad thing in his mind.

“Okay, swipe your card. And how would you like that—in large or small bills?”

“Large bills will work. Actually,” he corrected himself, “transfer $30,000 into my checking account. I’ll write a check from that. And give me an extra $2,000 in cash.”

Roxy tapped on her computer screen. “Okay, I canceled the first transaction. Re-swipe your card and I will initiate the transfer of the $30,000 into your checking account. How would you like the $2,000 in cash?”

“All hundreds, please. I need a little spending money, if you know what I mean.”

Roxy was only making minimum wage. She had not seen more than $300 in her checking account for the last six months.

This guy was loaded.

“So, you need spending cash?” She started to flirt. She batted her eyes and smiled.

“Is there someone special that you planning on buying something for that you need so much cash in your wallet?”

She was totally stepping out of the bounds set by Wells Fargo for customer interaction. It was written in their policy that tellers should not be flirting with anyone, least of all preferred customers. But she couldn’t help herself. Jeff Dawson was incredibly handsome.

She kept staring at his blue eyes and his chest hair. Although he was in his 40s, and she in her 20s, she could see herself being with someone like him. She was tired of having to work 8 to 5 every day. She barely made enough to live on. She was, after all not getting any younger and the last two relationships ended precipitously with fights and disagreements over money and/or sexual preferences. She needed to find someone, but not just anyone. She wanted someone with substance and this Mr. Jeff Dawson might be the one to fill that void in her life.

She went out on a limb. “Well, I hope that someone special in your life is going to enjoy your generosity. (Do I hear gold digger? Just sayin’.)

Jeff wasn’t stupid. He knew she was flirting with him and played along.

“Roxy, I like to have money in my pocket in case I have the opportunity to indulge myself. I like fine restaurants. I like to buy expensive things. I am a very generous person.”

He had set the hook.

Roxy was all in.

She finished transferring the money into his checking account. “Okay. Jeff, the money is now safely in your checking account. I’ll print a receipt for you.”

She counted out twenty-one hundred dollar bills and slipped it under the glass to him but not before taking one of her business cards on which she wrote her personal cell phone number.

“You’re one of our most preferred customers. I hope that I’ve been able to solve all of your problems today,” she said repeating from the script given her in training.

Jeff took the money, counted it and then saw the business card. He turned it over and saw the number.

“What’s this?” he asked, knowing it was an invitation to call.

“Well I’m new on the job, and I thought that it would be nice if there’s anything that I didn’t do to satisfy you today that you might.…” She blushed. She wasn’t expecting him to ask any questions. She was in too deep and couldn’t get the seven-figure bank account balance out of her head.

Jeff smiled back at her. “Well, I’m not entirely satisfied…..yet.”

Her face went numb when she saw the bank manager listening to their conversation. Was she going to be fired? She shouldn’t have stepped out onto that limb. She was such a bozo.

Jeff continued. “What are you doing later tonight after you get off work?”

She took a deep breath. She went from sad to glad in two seconds.

Roxy, who stood about 5 feet two inches tall, had light blue-gray eyes, Cupid’s bow lips, and a flawless complexion. She was curvy but in a nice way—neither too wide in the hips nor bust.

She was also incredibly naive.

She stared blankly back at Jeff.

“What time do you get off?” He repeated.

Jeff purposefully worded the question that way leaving out the word “work”. It was an open-ended invitation. He wondered if she would get it. It was also a test of her intelligence. The ones he liked couldn’t be too smart. A smart girl wouldn’t answer. She would merely blush. A less intelligent, and hence, more open to suggestions girl, would get it and give an appropriate answer.

Roxy didn’t blush. She bit. She understood. This could be leading to something. She hadn’t “gotten off” since she broke up with her boyfriend six months earlier.

“I get off 'work' at 4:30. (She emphasized the word “work” leaving her answer as open ended as his question.)

It was now 2:30 in the afternoon.

“Okay. I’ll give you a call, say around four.  You can tell me where to pick you up. How would you like to go down to dinner in Redondo Beach at old Tony’s on the pier?”

She loved that place. It was an iconic restaurant that had been on Redondo Pier since the 1960s. Hundreds of celebrities had visited it since and had their pictures framed on the walls with the owner. It still serves some of the best seafood and steaks in all of Southern California.

Roxy continued smiling.

“That sounds like a perfectly good ending to an otherwise uneventful day.” (Really, did she just say that? She was mortified. This Jeff Dawson was a catch. How could she be sooo stupid? She hated herself at this moment.)

Jeff laughed. It was obvious to him he had caught her off guard--what an interesting comment from someone who was young enough to be a daughter.

Jeff put his ATM card into his wallet along with the money, turned and smiled back at Roxy as he left for the door. “I’ll call you in a couple of hours. This could be fun.”

Roxy waved back.

The assistant bank manager observed it all.

Jeff laughed.

The assistant bank manager, all of twenty-eight years old, but thinking he was management material, came up to Roxy’s window.

“What was that all about?” He asked pointedly.

Roxy gathered herself. “Well, Mr…. Mr. Dawson (she stuttered) is a preferred customer. He carries over $1 million in a trust fund.  He needed to transfer $30,000 from his trust fund into his checking account. I made that happen and I gave him $2000 in cash. We were only chatting. It was nothing more serious than that.”

The assistant manager pondered her remark for a second. Jeff was a million-dollar customer. If he got a negative report from Roxy’s interaction with him, he’d be in deep shit. He didn’t need that type of scrutiny.

He revised his approach instantly. He convinced himself that it wouldn’t be in his best interest to chastise his new employee. On the contrary, he should actually compliment her and reward her. If he put her in for a bonus for customer care, it would reflect better on him.

“Good job, Roxy. It’s all about the customer experience. You keep up the good work. I think you’ve got a future here at Wells Fargo.”

Jeff got his checkbook out and wrote the $15,000 check to the mortgage company that was holding his note on their Malibu estate. He dropped it in the Hermosa Beach Post Office and drove down to the Hermosa Beach Pier to Hennessey’s, an Irish Pub located right on the strand.

Once there, he had a couple of beers and watched the skaters as they cruised up and down the strand.  He had two hours to kill and he wanted to be mellow before he saw Roxy later. His plan was to take her to Tony’s on the Redondo Beach Pier for an early dinner and then back to his room at the Portofino. He had rented the room earlier that day after getting his client to sign the escrow papers preferring to stay in the South Bay versus driving up to Malibu. His initial plan was to cruise the bars and find a willing participant for his sexual games, little knowing he would meet the perfect victim at the bank of all places.

“Life is good!” He thought as he sipped his beer.

His wife had already taken another flight to Newark early in the morning. He had plenty of time to spend with his new player, Roxy.

Jeff finished his two beers and promptly at 4:30 took out Roxy’s business card and called her on his cell phone. He agreed to meet her at her apartment on Hermosa Avenue, less than a mile from Hennessey’s.

She was single and lived alone. She had a small one-bedroom apartment two blocks from the beach she rented from an elderly man who had owned the house for years.

Once they finish talking on the phone, Jeff wrote down the address. He told her he’d pick her up at 5:15 and had 45 minutes to kill so he ordered another beer and waited until it was 5:00 pm before he walked to the parking structure, found his car, opened the trunk and pulled out his gym bag. The new knife he had purchased online from the same manufacturer as his other one was still unopened. He tore open the box and opened the blade.

The knife was very well balanced and was razor-sharp. He ran his thumb across the edge to feel its sharpness and damn near cut himself. “Perfect,” he thought.

He could hardly wait to use it.

He started to get an erection as he imagined it cutting deeply into Roxy’s neck. He dug deeper into the bag and felt the plastic tarp near the bottom.

He then reached into a side pocket, took one of the leather ligatures out, held it in both hands and checked the slipknot, securing one end to his left wrist and pulling it tight with his right hand. The knot slid tightly. He pulled harder and left it on his wrist until his hand began to tingle as the circulation was cut off. When he removed it, there was a deep furrow in his wrist. He checked the other ones using the same technique.  Knowing they were working correctly, he pulled out the pair of black nitrile gloves and put them on.  Rehearsals like this would ensure nothing was left to chance.  He reached into a third pocket and pulled out the latex skullcap, which would keep any of his hair from accidentally leaving trace evidence and DNA.

He took a mental inventory making sure everything was in its place. Finally, he reached into the fourth side pocket and pulled out the small orange pill container. It had no markings, but contained 20 green capsules, resembling natural supplements one would purchase at a health store. Except these pills weren’t natural and they certainly weren’t healthy. He had purchased some Rufelin capsules on the black market and would “roofie” his new girlfriend to ensure cooperation.

Satisfied, everything was in order, he put the gym bag back into the trunk.

He was ready for his date and now had a raging erection.

Jeff drove south on Hermosa Avenue and found Roxy’s apartment in short order. He parked on the side of the road and walked up the concrete steps to her second-floor apartment door.

Prophetically, her apartment was number 6-6-6. He wondered if she was religious.

He wasn’t.

He chuckled at the irony. By the end of the night, she would be praying for her life.

Through the door, he could hear the shower running inside. This irritated him. He was all about promptness. He hammered on the door with his fists, and when nobody answered, he tried the knob.

It was open. (Dumb broad!)

He let himself into the apartment and walked towards the bathroom. The door was open and through the glass shower door, he could clearly see Roxy soaping herself.

He stared at her, watching her run her hands over her naked body exciting him even more than he was when he was inventorying his gym bag.

He knocked on the shower door loudly enough to get her attention.

Roxy nearly slipped on the shower floor as she spun around to see what the noise was. When she saw him standing there, she tried unsuccessfully to cover herself.

She saw Jeff smiling but, instead of freaking out, she started laughing. The seven-figure bank account had had an effect on her wisdom.

“I know. I know. I’m a woman. I’m not that good with time. Like, you know I started to think about what to wear, and then I couldn’t decide. So, like I decided I needed a shower. You know, like I lost track of time, and like, I didn’t know that you’d be here right on time. And like, I’m sorry I’m running behind.”

She stepped out of the shower and he handed her a towel.

If she said “like, and you know” one more time, he would do her right here. Fuck the dinner. Still he found her Valley-girl dialect cute if it weren’t so irritating.

Jeff took it all in before she wrapped herself up in the towel.

This girl was gorgeous. If she didn’t remind him so much of his ex-stepmother, he might be interested in more than just a
short-term
relationship (pun intended).

He pointed at his watch, blew her a kiss, turned and went into the living room where he sat down on the couch and waited another 15 minutes.

When Roxy finally reappeared, she was in a sexy red chiffon dress and her hair was tied up with a red bow. The perfume she wore was a mixture of sandalwood and plumeria. It was exotic, but she had used a little too much, and it was starting to irritate the back of Jeff’s throat. Although it was a fascinating fragrance, he wished she had no put any perfume on at all.

Jeff had a very sensitive nose and started to cough.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Roxy asked.

“ No. Cough, Cough. Cough.” After the third time, he changed his mind. “Yes. Get me a glass of water. I like the smell of your perfume, but my God, did you have to bathe in it?” Jeff stammered.

“Damn, I’m sorry. Like I over did it. I like have a tendency to do that because my nose doesn’t work that good.”

When he drank the water Roxy gave him, he got his cough under control.

“Well honey, about half the amount would’ve been fine. I’m okay now. Thanks. How long have you been working at the bank?”

“It’s like been about four months. I know my job is like not the most important one, but like I really like interacting with the public.”

(She used that word again. This was getting very annoying.)

She walked up to him, looked into his dark blue eyes, wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss.

This was unexpected, but he enjoyed it and yielded his mouth to hers letting her tongue explore his.

“I have reservations at 6 o’clock and it’s already 5:30, Roxy. We need to go. He reached over to her and gave her a passionate kiss, pulling her close so she could feel the effect she was having on him. (It was all about the anticipation—on his part—and hers. He could have done her at that moment, but because he had planned out his game in detail, he wanted to extend the anticipation longer and not rush into it.

“We can finish this later,” Jeff said heading for the door.

As they were about to leave, a tiny black cat with a broken tail ran from under the couch and started doing figure eights between Roxy’s ankles, rubbing himself against her.

“I didn’t know you had cats,” Jeff said. (He was allergic to them. Maybe it wasn’t the perfume.)

“I don’t have cats. I have one cat, Shadow. He’s a stray I found a couple of years ago and adopted to keep me company. He usually doesn’t come out when strangers are here. He must like you.”

“Animals like me. People not so much!” Jeff said dryly.

Roxy went into the kitchen, poured some kibble into a dish and made sure the water was filled. She scratched Shadow on the back and he immediately rolled over exposing his belly. She rubbed him and then met Jeff at the door.

On their way over to Tony’s, Jeff gave a brief summary of his life, leaving out the part about his stepmother.

Roxy was smart enough to not ask him if he was involved with anyone. Anyone with this amount of money obviously had to have someone. She wasn’t the brightest bulb on the tree, but she knew her way around a man and decided to focus on him.

She complimented him on the way he drove. She complimented him on the cleanliness of his car. She was one question after another and showed great interest in everything he said. She listened intently and when he told her about the deal he had closed for $5 million, she complimented him again.

“I’ve been working this client for six months and finally found him the perfect house he could use for entertaining guests. It was in a secluded area east of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. The ranch-style house sat perched high on a hill and had an unobstructed view of the ocean. The previous owners had been in the porn industry and used the house for location shoots over the years. But, because they were a gay couple, and one of them died, the remaining owner couldn’t stand to be there alone without his partner. He let the house go for $5 million. It was easily worth $6.5.”

Jeff was very proud of being able to close the deal and Roxy stroked his ego accordingly.

When they arrived at Tony’s, the hostess promptly sat them at a window seat so they could see the waves crashing down below. It was sunset and the water was a light green color. Several small kids were playing in the surf running back and forth and generally having a wonderful time.

Jeff stared down at the kids and was reminded how lonely he felt growing up. He had missed a normal childhood because of the abuse.

The hatred for his stepmother boiled inside him.

He looked away. Out on the pier, several couples were walking hand in hand. (The romanticism was lost on Jeff, but not on Roxy. She was in Heaven. He was in Hell.)

They ordered their meals. Jeff had a steak and lobster and Roxy ordered a mahi-mahi with a green salad.  She was 5 pounds overweight and was very conscious of what she ate. She also didn’t want to appear too greedy and ordered a modestly priced meal to make a good impression. She was in it for the long run.

Jeff had potential.

Little did she know the long term wasn’t going to be long at all.

Jeff ordered a $50 bottle of wine and drank half of it. Roxy drank the rest.

Jeff always liked this part of the date, when, after a couple of glasses of wine the conversation simply flowed.

They exchanged intimate secrets about themselves.

Jeff told Roxy he was caught up in a loveless marriage, and, instead of being intimidated, he told him his wife must be crazy.

He agreed.

She told him about the last two relationships she had that ended in disaster.

“I broke off the first one because my boyfriend was too stingy.”

She threw this out as a test.

“I ended the second one because my boyfriend was not passionate enough for me.”

Another test.

He told her he wasn’t stingy with his money, which she already had heard at the bank.

It was nice to be reassured.

Feeling confident now, Jeff threw out the bait. “Roxy, I rented a very expensive room at the Portofino. I was hoping we could go back to my room after dinner for a wild night of lovemaking.”

Her eyes widened. Momentarily she thought about hesitating and maybe telling him no, so he wouldn’t think she was cheap. But intuition told her she might only get one shot at this opportunity.

She nodded in agreement.

By the end of dinner, they both felt very comfortable with each other. Each was anticipating the climax, albeit Jeff’s idea of a climax was quite different from hers.

“Poor, dumb Roxy,” Jeff mused. “I will make her last ride short, but memorable.” He sighed.

“What was that sigh for, Jeff?” Roxy prodded.

“Oh, it was nothing. I was thinking about how much fun we will have later.”

She reached under the table and squeezed his knee.

He did the same.

Roxy was ready.

Jeff paid the tab and helped her out of her chair. She was wobbly because of the wine. She was a lightweight drinker. Jeff asked for a to-go glass of water with ice and when the waitress brought it, he reached into his pocket and slipped the roofie into the cup.

He handed it to Roxy. “Here honey, you have to drink this. You’re tipsy. The water will dilute the alcohol. We can’t have you in a state where you can’t perform.”

She didn’t say a word. She was slightly embarrassed and drank it down. “Sorry. I am a little wobbly and then slurred, “thank you,” reached over and held onto his arm as they maneuvered through the dining room out onto the pier.

When they were out of the restaurant, Roxy confronted him.

“Kiss me now. Please kiss me now.”

He turned and grabbed her around the waist with one hand, tilted her chin up with his left hand, and complied, pressing himself against her.

She melted.

A Mexican couple with two teenage boys was walking by and one of the boys commented, “Hey, man, get a room.” The father grabbed his son by the arm and was about to slap him, but the Mama stopped him.

“They’re in love. Leave them alone, Mija. Let’s go and not bother them.” She then gave her old man the evil eye. Inside, she wished she were that girl. Her husband used to look at her that way, but since the kids were born, he was as cold as ice.

The ride to the Portofino took less than four minutes and, by the time they arrived, the drug had started to take effect.

Jeff went to the trunk, put on his disguise and then helped Roxy out of the car. She was too dazed to notice the blonde wig and lifts Jeff had put on.