his drink and now looks forward to his dessert.
As he enters his kitchen he didn’t notice a small movement in the glass. It may have been from the strawberries moving as they melted in with the cream. It moved again. And then, a third time, as if it was agitated.
As he sat back with the television, he amused himself on the amount of wealth he had accumulated in such a few years. He now almost owned his townhouse and had a magnificent private collection of coins from all over the world. The coins are also an investment, as they will appreciate over time. He knows that he must move on to another location soon, as his visitations on Friday afternoons were not going unnoticed. One local, who queried him in the street during casual conversation, referred to his visitors. His reply always is that he provides a resume, curriculum vitae service for job seekers who want a professional presentation when applying for jobs. Lucky always says that it paid the bills.
He had his favorite long spoon that dived deep into the stemmed glass. By now the strawberries were ready and the cream had melted though the batch revealing artistic strawberry red veins on the inside of the flute.
The spoon went deep into the glass and for a moment it seemed different to Lucky, as he felt something larger in the glass. He brought the glass up to his face to see, when from the creamed red miasma an orange insect jumps out at him and claws onto his left cheek. As if by nature, within a millisecond the insect’s engorged tail sting strikes Lucky’s left eye, into the corner near his nose. Lucky recoils, and by reaction slaps the insect on his cheek as hard as he possibly can. No casual hand flick away! The insect, now mortally damaged, arches its tail and strikes again, driving its sting into Lucky’s right cheek. Lucky gives the creature one almighty strike, feels its external skeleton crack, which causes it to fall into his lap, dead.
He looks down in shock and despair. It is a large reddish brown scorpion. Immediately he is overcome with excruciating pain in his eye, cheek and now his entire face. He slumps forward letting his dessert crash to the floor. He tries to stand up, but falls back into the chair and then rolls onto the floor in agony. Within minutes Lucky’s pulmonary system is failing. The system of blood vessels that forms a closed circuit between the heart and the lungs was under attack from the arachnid’s powerful poisonous venom. After a while, pink frothy sputum starts to dribble from his mouth. An hour later Lucky is dead.
SAN FRANCISCO
1.
Saffron Justice is reading her notebook in a comfortable leather seat next to a port window on the Gulfstream G600 private jet. She planned to be in Frisco for about three days if all went to plan. She wears a dark grey Prada fine merino wool suit with a white Prada tie-neck silk crepe de chine blouse. She had slipped her black Bally patent leather loafers off during the flight, and now searches for them as the pilot announces that landing is fifteen minutes away.
There are only five other people on this flight from New York. Four are business people having a quiet conversation, who share documents between each other. The other is a well-dressed graceful lady. They had exchanged smiles from across the aisle during the flight. Saffron took a liking to her as she reminded her of her mother.
Saffron fastens her seat belt and looks out her window. It is an overcast day in San Francisco, so nothing much was visible on the ground.
After the jet landed, she walked across the tarmac pulling her expensive carry-on luggage behind her and heads towards a waiting limousine.
Saffron is twenty-nine years old, five feet eight inches in height with a firm slim athletic body. This is the result of her disciplined workouts and gym exercises. Her eyes are a piercing hazel-green. She can hold a stare with anyone for a long time. Her dark brown hair is tied back in a ponytail that flows down her back. A slight breeze lifts it up and flicks it about. She has an exquisite face, long and sanguine. With a cute pert nose and gorgeous high cheekbones with unblemished skin.
When in San Francisco she always stays at an exclusive guesthouse that is actually on Lombard Street. Very chic, and not marketed on the Internet.
She always pays cash for her lodgings, could receive ‘room service’ from at least a dozen local restaurants and was given the privacy and confidentiality provided by this select establishment.
An express mail package is waiting for her arrival and soon after she is ensconced in her well-furnished suite. The lounge window overlooks the famous brick paved snaking street and she enjoys on occasions watching tourists walk down its serpentine shape in iconic awe.
With all the business arrangements having been met days before, with all loose ends competed, she is now here. Saffron lets out a sigh and mixes herself a gin and tonic, with a dash of bitters.
She retrieves a small atomizer bottle from her luggage and sprays her face, hands and arms with a fine mist. Then she opens the mail package to reveal a cardboard box. Slowly opening the box at one end the contents slide out onto the palm of her hand.
“Hello my babies. You both look in great shape,” she says to them with a big loving smile.
LOS ANGELES
1.
Ronald Sweet is a large girthed mogul Hollywood producer. His company, ‘Sweets Inc.’, had created some of the finest adventure and thriller movies on the L.A. lots. Academy Awards adorn the private den in his palatial home in Beverly Hills.
Beverly Hills. Yes, that was the place to be and that was his goal as a very young copywriter for MGM Pictures. Now in his late sixties, he had little to do with the day-to-day operations of Sweets Inc., however he still had a say on the Board.
This mild afternoon he is holding a birthday party for his fifteen-year-old son, Ronald Jnr. He adores his son and has already enrolled him into Princeton. He affectionately calls him Ronnie Jay, or just R.J. There are about twenty adults and ten or so teenagers in attendance. Mostly school friends of Ronnie Jay’s, plus his adorable girlfriend, Mary May Masterson, with her short blond Shirley Temple curls and coke-bottle figure.
“Afternoon tea is now served,” calls out Susan Sweet as she walks from the front steps of the house. “Those that want to eat make your way into the marquis tent and help yourself.”
A few hungry ones, especially the teenagers, walk their way into the large white tent.
“So, tell me Ron, did you ever think you’d be bringing up a teenager in your late sixties?” asks his friend and next-door neighbor.
“No, never once occurred to me. I’m a bit of a narcissist. Ronnie Jay changed that around for me. And, of course, my wife. She contributed mightily.” Ron winked at him as he looks into the tent at his wife coordinating everything to everyone’s wishes. Twenty-five years younger and still hot and tight. ‘Ah, the perks of Hollywood’, Ron smiles to himself.
“Come on,” says his neighbor, “I’m famished.”
2.
A FedEx van comes to a stop at the front gates of the Sweet’s residence. The gates are closed, with a security guy inside. A paunchy, stooped woman gets out of the van and slides back the side door to retrieve a small package. The security guard, now in a very relaxed state of mind after taking a toke from a joint
