Franklin BarrettMidsummer – 11 years ago
Watching Carl Michaels’ disgusting twit of a child approach my princess made me want to kill him–the boy and every other person present to witness it. Nonetheless, I couldn’t indulge that particular fantasy, and instead, had to focus on the deal I’d come here to make.
Funnily enough, it seemed my daughter had managed to draw not only the Michaels boy into her web, but two other catches of particular interest. My broken princess, collecting her own footmen.
My efforts, exciting as they were for me, were doing double-duty by moulding her into exactly who I needed her to be.
God knew her useless brother was not faring so well with his own tutelage.
Rafael’s most recent reports reinforced my convictions that the boy was never meant to be more thana pawn.
Princess, on the other hand. One day she would be a queen.
There was time to go before that, and many miles to walk if I was to secure the future I needed.
I sighed as I walked away from the man, leaving him with fading dollar signs in his eyes as he watched my back.
Then had come the fruitful conversation with Daniel Rothberg, owner of Rothberg Freight, and someone–I had on good authority from one of my very own clients–that not only was amenable to working with the type of clientele I cultivated but was also someone who had made an unnecessary enemy he was trying desperately to keep at bay.
After all, there would be no access to his wife, his daughter or his many ‘nieces’, in hell.
And hell was exactly where he was going to end up if he didn’t fix things in a hurry with Evgeny Sidorov.
Lucky for him, I’d been generous enough to offer him a solution.
Cementing our business partnership was only the first of the three reasons I was here today.
The second was to remind Jack Walker that I owned his ass, and the third, was to feed my hunger, of course.
I stared around this paradise of would-be innocence and all I saw was value.
This secluded summer camp, a virtual buffet for myself and others with my special interests.
It was easy enough, with my experience, to do the mental math on what each of the screaming, laughing, delightful children would be worth in the right marketplace.
My marketplace. Including my princess. She was the most perfect of them all, of course.
I spied her from the corner of my eye, continuing to use the Rothberg boy and the other one as if they were shields that would keep her safe from me. Only temporarily. Once my business with Jack was finished, I would ensure we had some private father-daughter time.
With all the parents milling about the property today, the Camp Director has been busy, running around greeting people and mostly avoiding a conversation he knows we are due.
Like my daughter, I had seen his eyes flash my way more than once in the little time I’d been here.
However, I was a patient man, so I let him.
But that patience was wearing thin, and I wanted to get our conversation over with.
He finally stopped moving long enough–thanks to a conversation with some faceless couple and their hideous brat–for me to grab him.
I politely whispered my apologies to the parents without even looking at them, and steered Jack towards his office.
Once inside, the smells of stale sweat and damp wood permeated the air.
The fact that he dared to call this an office was laughable.
I took the chair behind his desk. After all, he was the director, but this place wouldn’t exist without my bankroll, so in a way, I was the real owner of Camp Agonde.
Placing my elbows on the desk, I watched as he paced around the small room.
He was always a skittish little rodent in my presence, but today, it seemed worse.
Every tap of my fingers or flick of my eyes had him jumping out of his skin. While I appreciated his fear, it was also distracting.
“Sit.”
I gestured towards the chairs on the far side of his desk. You couldn’t have paid me to sit on their disgusting plaid seats, but it seemed Jack didn’t share my distaste. The chair he chose creaked under his weight, and before he had a chance to settle into it properly, I asked, “Where is my money?”
I folded my arms on the desk and leaned in while he hummed and hawed, trying to answer.
“We had a deal, Jack. So where is my money?”
He rolled his shoulders back.
“I don’t have it,” he answered, but his voice still shook despite his attempt to grow a sudden backbone.
I smiled in response.
“I know you don’t.”
The people who disappoint me often expect that I’ll lose my temper when confronting them with their failings.
Experience has taught me that often, the absence of shouting or outright vitriol can be much more unsettling.
As it was in this case. My calm response only rattled Jack further.
He blurted out several attempted explanations.
I let him prattle on for a second, before slamming my palms down. The bang snapped his mouth closed.
“Enough,” I snipped. Truly my patience was wearing thin.
“Our deal, since you seem to have forgotten,” I let my voice drop, and across from me, Jack visibly shivered, “Was that I would keep certain videos to myself.”
He coughed. A nervous tick of his that I paused to enjoy.
“And you,” I continued, “would do the only useful thing a pitiful, slithering little worm like you could do for someone like me.” My voice was laced with the contempt in which I’d always held him, and other spineless men like him.
“You were supposed to use this place–that I might mention, I‘ve helped you keep–as a shelter for my money.” He shook harder than ever and shrank into his little seat. “And now, I find out, you couldn’t even do THAT.”
“I- I- I,”
“Save it.” I slapped the desktop again, “And consider yourself lucky I don’t have Mikhael come in here and shoot you right now.”
On cue, my driver tapped the butt of his gun against the frosted glass window in Jack’s door.
There were so many disappointments in this work, but Mikhael was never one of them.
Nobody else could offer him what I could, and it earned me his loyalty.
That was my real talent, not the business or empire building, no.
It was knowing what motivations, what buttons, what prizes, and crimes to dangle over the heads of people to get them to do just what I wanted.
With Mikhael, it was access to the warehouse.
While, for Jack here, it was a video, taken nearly ten years ago, outside the annual Athletics Banquet at West Barrett U, the one I’d been sponsoring for over a decade at that point.
A video that showed his wobbling, drunken ass getting behind the wheel of a truck he’d been generously gifted as part of his hockey scholarship with a tiny co-ed under his arm.
The same truck that he’d later claimed had been stolen that night.
And that co-ed he’d denied ever meeting when her body, bloated from days in the water, turned up under the road bridge over the Valley Park River.
Maybe he needed reminding of that little blip in his storied academic career.
“I’m surprised at you, Jack, I’ve given you every opportunity. Especially,” I hissed, “considering that little Amy Sanchez’s parents are still clamouring for justice. I’m sure they would be so relieved to finally know what happened, or should I say, who, happened to their innocent baby girl.”
“I s-s-swear, Frank, I’ll fix it.” I could practically smell the piss already.
“You won’t. But I’m a generous man, so I’ve got a way you can pay me back.”
A short while later, I left Jack behind, shitting his cheap slacks in his own office after outlining my new expectations for him and for the role Agonde would now play in my operations.
Today had sparked my imagination. I took a moment on the wooden deck outside the office to close my eyes.
I relished the sun on my skin and savoured the rush that always came with manipulating people exactly as I needed them.
When I reopened my eyes, Mikhael whispered, “Boss, on your right.”
A man approached. His leathered skin and blonde hair tied back in a ponytail was instantly recognizable.
To me and most of the other parents milling about the property.
As he walked my way, many sets of eyes followed him.
Blue Grace. Lead singer and namesake of Blue and The Graces.
His hand was outstretched before he even opened his mouth, and though normally, I couldn’t be fucked with making small talk, I was curious what he might want with me.
“Mr. Barrett?” He asked, hand extended, waiting for my corresponding handshake. I let it hang there for a second, just long enough for a frown to crease his face, before answering, “Blue Grace,” and shaking his hand, “Longtime fan,” I lied, “You can call me Franklin.”
He smiled, relieved at my pleasant response. I barely noticed, too focused on a small gap in the bushes on the far side of the path, where, first, my daughter, then the Michaels and Rothberg boys, and one other child emerged from the woods.
“My son, Brennon,” he pointed to the remaining unidentified child playing with my Antoinette, “is a friend of your daughter’s, so I was hoping I’d run into you today.”
I quirked an eyebrow at him.
“Your work with West Barrett’s many charities is well-known, and I was hoping to speak with you about my wife’s charitable foundation, the Delilah Project.”
It meant missing my one chance to get my daughter alone, but I hadn’t gotten this far, built this empire on the shell of my parent’s company, by being impatient or by letting lucrative opportunities slip through my fingers.
Blue Grace and his family were wealthy, not Barrett or Rothberg wealthy, though they had the kind of celebrity status that neither Daniel nor I possessed.
Something that could be used to our advantage, particularly after today’s discussion with Jack.
Going forward, it was in my best interests to diversify.
I’d already made one deal today that would take my operations cross-country.
With that expansion came more money, more access, but also more risk, so having another avenue to slush away the proceeds of the business seemed like a wise choice.
Now, here was this aging rockstar, his desperation seeping from every pore, along with the wild look in his eyes from whatever pills he’d popped on the way here–that or withdrawal–offering me access to a charitable organisation with bank accounts large enough to hide and launder the kind of dollars I planned to move.
Plans and visions of that future flipped through my mind like picture book pages as I locked onto Blue’s shoulder, guiding him in the direction of Mikhael and the town car with a gentle nudge.
“So, tell me about the Delilah Project.”
The irony of using a women’s charity as my cleaners was not lost on me.
The charity would clean the money. Rothberg would handle distribution, and because Jack Walker–that little piss-ant could go fuck himself–I’d keep Agonde as my own personal product supply.
As long as my daughter was a camper here, I would take and take, one child at a time, at my leisure, and neither Jack nor anyone else would stop me.
After all, to them, I was Franklin Barrett, devoted father, philanthropist, and businessman. What I really was? A king.