"Red Widow"

[TellMeATale2013]

"Red Widow"

Welcome to the Sex Trade​

Martin James sat at his desk, back to the door, scanning a bank of full color monitors that provided the only illumination in the room. Some were surveillance cameras looking down upon the erotic writhing of half naked bodies on the club's two dance floors; while others were hidden cameras peeking in on the three floors of private and group play rooms where the most lewd and lascivious of sexual acts were taking place.

Martin took no erotic pleasure in what he was spying upon. This was just his business, and while he often saw things he'd never seen before, he rarely if ever saw things that surprised him.

He turned at a knock on the door. A large man with an equally large gun in his belt entered and stepped aside, revealing a much smaller man with a nervous expression on his face. A second man packing an impressive weapon nudged the small man forward, closed the door, and stood post.

"Where's my property?" Martin asked, curling a finger at the man in a come hither gesture.

"Terrance Mann, Mister James," the man responded, moving forward as directed. "He had access to the dock, to the foreman. We know that he..."

He went silent at an unexpected sound under his feet. In the near darkness, it took a moment to realize he'd stepped onto a sheet of plastic covering the office's carpet. His heart jumped and he opened his mouth to speak, just as the small caliber bullet entered the back of his skull. He was dead before he hit the floor.

"Find him," Martin ordered, standing to watch the men roll the body up for disposal. As they headed out a private entrance with the former associate over the shoulder of one of the goons, Martin reminded them, "I want my property in the condition it was when this idiot lost it."

The man holding the door for his partner asked, "Dead or alive?"

Martin only turned and returned to his viewing of the monitors.



"Terry" Mann bid his wife farewell with a meaningful kiss, bumped fists with his teen age son, promised his daughter he'd be home for her 18th birthday party coming up this weekend, then scooped his eight year old up into his arms and headed for the door, tickling the boy and filling the big, oceanfront home with the wonderful sounds of laughter.

Thirty seconds later, four gunshots changed the family's future in an instant...