Lewie- Part III

Lewie was tired. Working nights as he did, he was used to going home and crashing for several hours. In fact, although his neighbors though that someone lived in his apartment, they rarely had confirmation. The called him the mole, as on the rare occasion that someone saw him during the day, he had wraparound shades on, as well as a visor AND also shielded his eyes with his hands.

He was ready for bed, but apparently 2 days of forced isolation made Gloria a non-stop talker. Or, she always was like that and he was just learning that fact. Either way, his eyes were glazing over as Gloria snarfed down her fourteenth pancake while sorting through their options in great detail. She was one of those folks who believed that they were perfectly capable of eating and talking simultaneously and as oblivious to all evidence to the contrary, sprayed over the tabletop and also over Lewie.

Lewie was taking in every tenth word or so, as he repeatedly brushed all but the stickiest crumbs off his shirt. The stickiest ones he would be saving for later, not that he wanted to. However, he did hear a few things that stuck. He heard something about a safe FULL of cash; a collection of bearer bonds squirreled away: hot (hot of the variety as opposed to the Paris Hilton version) stolen vintage cars. Lots of them. And, something about weapons. Lewie’s eyes were drooping and his head was swimming by the time Gloria got to the weapons.

Eventually, noting that he was coated with crumbs, Gloria realized that he must have dropped off, thus stopping the windshield-wiper-like brushing motion to remove the blueberry pancake spray. Gloria stopped talking. She took a good hard look at Lewie. He was middle-aged, balding, with the world’s worst comb over, coke bottle glasses with the stereotypical band-aid wrapped around the nose piece, and the crumb covered shirt that may have seen the inside of a washer at some point earlier that year. He was most definitely not a looker. In fact, he was more of a definitely-don’t-looker.

Gloria sighed, wondering why her life had taken such a violent turn for the worse. One minute, she was the princess of the family, working for the family and living the sweet life, and, practically the next, she is holed up with this loser who the queer eye folks would love to get their hands on, trying to figure out what to do and how to live. She plotted quietly for a while, and then gently woke Lewie.

They went back to Lewie’s place and Gloria insisted that at least a little maintenance/disinfecting be done before she would sleep there, and before she would let Lewie sleep, either. Once she cleared a spot and threw a load of stuff from the floor into the washer, detergent-less, but at least in hot water, she settled in on the couch. And she began to dream. Though it did not seem like a dream.

She was in her family home, and everyone was there eating dinner, except for her. She was hovering over the table, but was not physically present. Her absence was noted by the empty plate at her chair.

She could hear her mother ask her brothers “Where did you say Gloria was again?”

One answered “Texas” just as the other said “Paris”. They concurred on “Paris, Texas” as their combined answer.

Their mom was puzzled. Why would Gloria go to Paris, Texas, especially without telling her and why hadn’t she taken anything with her. Her cleverest brother, Damien, said that she had called him and told him that she had the perfect opportunity to pull off a huge con and that she could not let the mark out of her site and that she would check in later. He said that was two days ago and he did not dare call her, as he didn’t want to blow her cover, whatever that may be.

Mom still looked puzzled, but accepted the story, at least for now. Dad was oblivious who was present and who was not, as he was snuggled up with his friend Jonnie Walker, and had been for the past three hours, after getting home from a hard day’s work.

Gloria woke up with many ideas ranging through her head. The hardest part would be to pick just one, or formulate one grand plan that covers the bases of revenge, retribution and survival.

The very first step was to get some money. Enough to upgrade Lewie and his surroundings—or at least clean them up. And to get out of that damned mumu and buy some heavily scented bath products in order to finally rinse away the smell of formaldehyde. Gloria decided that would pay a visit to her homestead that very day.

She knew the family was out, “working” and the house, while well alarmed in various ways, was vacant for a few hours. She woke Lewie up and outlined her plan to score some heavy cash from her back stabbing brothers. They would go to the house, pretend to be delivering religious tracts and she would go in and liberate some cash. However, she could not be greedy, and she could not leave any trace of her visit, as she did not want to spook her brothers. Not yet. She needed them to think that she was dead and thus not a threat and that there was no reason to change passwords/alarm codes, etc. That would puzzle their mother and screw up her grand plans to eventually liquidate the family’s cash and have her brothers arrested sent to the big house, where they belonged.

Lewie was going to be a very important player in the grand plan still formulating in her mind, as he already was a low-level con, and he was unknown to her brothers. They would take one look at that comb over and see him for a great mark, and with her instruction and manipulation on conning the cons, he would get to enjoy the good life and she was going to make sure that it happened.


Copyright 2008 Antigone Lett. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.