A couple of days later I got a call from Jim. I stepped outside and then answered. “Hey Buddy what’s up?” I asked.

“Josh you aren’t going to believe this! That SOB has been scamming the Government. He sets up the loan, gets it government guaranteed and then when they default he buys it for pennies on the dollar through partners. His son was just a small part of it. I think that the titles to those properties you gave me are probably worthless. I’m not sure exactly what all is going on but I think that basically he stole them somehow from the real owners and then ran it through the loan thing before taking possession through his partners. It is weird and buried deep but it is there. Buddy, he can’t afford to let her try and sell those properties. If a legitimate title search is done his goose is cooked.”

“Can you prove any of this?”

“I can’t prove it all but I can prove enough that he will be in DEEP shit with the Feds. I mean serious time in prison. This is big.”

“Ok this is what I want. Send me something that he definitely doesn’t think that I should know. Hell make it something that he can’t afford ANYBODY to know! Overnight it to me.”

“Ok Josh but be careful this guy is bad news. The Feds think he and or his son may be serial killers. They can’t prove it but they are watching him. They just haven’t been watching the right stuff or they would already have him. This is big enough you need to make sure you don’t get in his sights.”

“Wish I could but I’m afraid that I’m really going to piss in his Wheatys.” I thought for a minute. “I’ll tell you what how about getting Sean Peter to just deliver the stuff by hand. Tell him he will be staying for a week or two. Things might get a little hot around here.”

“I think that is probably wise. I will have him on the way first thing in the morning.” He paused, “Josh, are you sure that this one is worth the shit storm you are about to stir? I mean what if she DID have him done? You need to watch your back!”

“I will… and yes I think she is worth it. She may be worth everything Jim. I will talk to her and see if I can get a better feel for things though. I actually don’t give a big rat’s ass if she did have him done. He deserved that and more!”

We did our goodbyes and I put my phone in my pocket. Sean Peter is one of the very special investigators that we had used several times. He was big, dark and bad to the bone out of the streets of East LA. He looked it too. He was also smart, ex-CIA, ex-special forces and still “connected.” He also had an MA in English and was a published writer. All in all if I had my ass in a crack HE was the man I wanted watching my back.

I went back inside and found Deb. She was in the kitchen making me some dinner and looking mighty fine doing it I might add. I sat and just watched her as she moved around the kitchen in short tight white shorts and a little t-shirt. I still got a rush every time I looked at her. Even more amazing was that I was finding her as thrilling to get to know in the non-biblical sense as in the obvious ways.

Finally when she came and sat down I asked, “Baby, we haven’t talked about it yet. What DID happen that night that Steve was killed? I need to know because I am about to have a talk with Big Daddy about your properties. I have a friend that will buy them and he doesn’t NEED a lone from ANYONE. Am I walking into a mess that I don’t really understand?”

She looked at me. The look on her face was one of pure terror. “Oh GOD Josh, I don’t want you having anything to do with him. He and Steve are crazy.” She started to cry and finally told me the story.

This is what she told me…

That night Steve beat the hell out of her and told her that he was getting sick of her barren sorry ass. This wasn’t something new. He told her that shit every time that she messed up and made him beat her up. That night after he left she had lain on the floor in the corner of the living room for a long, long time. She had already been beat badly earlier in the week and was still hurting from that one. This time he had really beaten her up bad though. He didn’t generally hit her in the face and she wasn’t sure that he hadn’t broken her arm. Usually he broke ribs and tended to hit her in places that didn’t show if she was dressed pretty conservatively.

She laid there wishing that she could just die. She hurt so bad and knew that it would never get better. No matter what she did or how hard she tried she always messed up and made him have to beat her. For just the little things he generally beat her ass with the small end of a two piece pool cue stick. If it was really bad he used the big end and that was when her ribs would get broke if she wasn’t still like he told her to be. She just couldn’t help it the big end of that cue stick just hurt more than she could bear and sometimes she couldn’t walk for two weeks nearly.

This time he had used his fists and when she fell down he kicked her over and over. She knew that she wouldn’t survive many beatings like this and wished that she hadn’t survived this one. She had thrown up blood and wasn’t real sure that she WAS going to.

She jerked and whimpered when she heard the front door open. She could barely move and knew there was no point in trying to run any way. She decided that if he kicked her anymore that she would put her hands between her legs and let him kick her in the head. Maybe that would finally end it.

She listened as he came into the living room and walked towards her. She was shaking but managed to sit up and lean back against the wall. When she looked up if was hard to see. One eye was swollen closed and the other one was blurry too. She blinked and rubbed her eye and suddenly it cleared and she saw that it wasn’t Steve.

“Who are you?” She asked. “She wasn’t scared, Steve scared her, the worst this guy could do was rape her or kill her.

“Your husband sent me here to kill you and make it look like a robbery.” The man said. He was tall and looked a lot like the sort of guy that would go into this sort of work. You could tell that he had been in a lot of fights and not won all of them.

“Good, I don’t care, just don’t hurt me anymore please.” He had a gun in his hand and she thought that was a good sign.

“He did this to you?”

“Yeah he does it all the time. Usually he uses a pool cue, tonight he did it with his firsts and boots I guess he thought that would look more like a robbery thing. Are you going to have to hurt me any more?”

“He told me that I could fuck you if I wanted.”

“Who cares, how do you want it? If you will promise not to hurt me anymore I will even try and make it good for you.”

“Do you like it when he does this to you?”

“Hell NO!”

“Then why don’t you just leave?”

She began to cry, “Who else would want me! What else am I any good for?”

The assassin looked at her. “Are you brain fried; do you do drugs?”

“Fuck no! Well I drink a few every now and then but if I am drunk I mess up and make him beat me.”

“You don’t seem stupid, if I let you live do you think that you could get some help and do better… if your husband was out of the picture?”

“I’m not stupid; I just don’t want to be hurt anymore!”

He looked at his watch. “Can you drive?”

“Yeah, I’ve been beat worse than this.”

“Ok, in a half hour you need to arrive at the hospital and you need to stay there for at least an hour or two. You need to make them call the cops.”

“The cops don’t care, they always come. They will call Big Daddy and he will tell them that I have been drinking again and fallen down the stairs. They will agree that is probably what happened and leave. Latter Steve beats me for going to the hospital.”

“None of that matters, just make sure that they see you there.” She nodded and he looked at her. “Do you believe that I could have killed you tonight?”

“I still don’t know why you’re not.”

He shook his head and finally said, “You look too much like my Mama after my old man would beat her. He was the first man that I killed. Tonight I’m going to kill him again in a way but I want you to know something. I am going to watch you and if you take up with another man like this one that beats you, I WILL come back and I WILL kill you. My Mama found another even worse than my Dad. He is the reason that I look like this. One night after he beat me half to death and passed out drunk I killed my Mama with a hammer and put it in his hand. I laid him down in her blood and then I crawled out into the street and passed out. I was 14. This was in Florida. They fried his ass in the chair 6 years later for her murder and my attempted murder. I had a fractured skull and didn’t even know it. If you fail me like she did, I WILL come back for you!”

He left and thirty minutes later she staggered into the hospital. She was messed up REAL badly and they called the cops without her asking. She ended up in the hospital for several days. Then she was moved to the jail. While she was in jail she spent a lot of time with a psychologist, a minister and a psychologist that her lawyer sent. She left the jail after the trial determined not to fail him like his Mama had.

She finally just said, “I have tried to change and never mess up like that again… like his Mama did. I wasn’t sure that night that he was actually going to do what he said. I was messed up in the head but knew that this was my only hope. If the guy just took off, next time Steve would hire someone that would do the job!” She was still crying. “Josh, if you mess with Big Daddy he will have you killed! He thought that was what I had done because that is what he would do! I don’t want to live if something happens to you! PLEASE let’s just walk away from it all. There is nothing here that I care about now that I have you!”