Out of Focus Pt. 03

"You, Suh, ha' done been served," said the Deputy. He handed the packet he had been carrying to Cantrell and left quickly. John London and I simply stood there and watched Cantrell's face morph through a series of different expressions, mirroring the changes in his emotions as he first opened the envelop and then blanched in shock at the documents that he held. Finally, he registered anger and outrage as he turned to John and me.

"You are insane! There is no way that you can expect this suit to achieve any credibility before the court. It will never ..." began Cantrell. The hands with which he held my petition for grievance against his client-and the huge amount-based on wrongful termination, shook noticeably.

John interrupted by holding out a packet containing certified copies of the Joan Hartmann documents that he had been securing at my request for the past few months. "You may want to review these before you use words such as 'never' in relation to this suit," he said.

As Cantrell began to look at the documents, I could see now that, when he was prepared, he was good at his job of putting on the confident face in court on behalf of his clients. But he was not good enough to keep me from detecting that slight deflation of his confidence in his position as he reviewed the truth of the situation that he faced.

Cantrell now knew that his clients had set him up with false documentation; not only as a basis for my just-concluded divorce, but for my firing from Thompson Corporation as well. The highlighted dates showed that I had not even worked for Thompson at the same time as this Joan Hartmann, with whom I was supposed to have had an affair, and that she had left the company over sixteen years ago-just when I had come on board.

I could tell, even with my lack of experience in all of this, that he realized he was screwed-well, his clients were; attorneys are almost never screwed. Finally, he said the only thing he could say at a time such as this. "We will get back to you on this."

John flashed a predatory smile at Cantrell and said, "Well, just don't take too long. You can call my PA and set up a meeting."

I had one more thing that I had to accomplish personally this morning, though. I reached out and handed Mr. Cantrell a DVD-R, containing copies of the electronic documents that pointed to the many years of unethical and illegal business activities attributable to Mr. J. Carter Thompson and his Chief Financial Officer at the Thompson Company.

I said, "You be sure to give this to my former father-in-law as well-for his eyes only-not yours. It just might cause him to want to hurry this along. Assure him that I will be discrete if he does not delay his acquiescence to my suit." My own attorney snapped his head around before he grabbed my arm with one hand, while snatching up his valise with the other. He then quickly hustled me out the courtroom doorway and into the hall.

"Do you want to tell me just what kind of boneheaded stunt that was? What was on that disk that you gave him? If you have, in any way, screwed up this case with your actions, you can just find yourself a new attorney-after paying all my fees, of course." John London was livid, and I guess I did not really blame him. And, true to my nature, I shrank back from his verbal attack on me. When he had wound down and was waiting for me to respond, I finally took a breath and answered.

"Thompson has been conducting shady and illegal activities for years; since long before I first came on board," I said. "I am simply offering him a bit of incentive to get this lawsuit settled; or I just might have to walk a copy of that disk over to the DA's office, or maybe even the FBI's Atlanta Field Office."

"Look," John told me, still very angry at me. "That's the kind of thing you are supposed to let me handle"

"John," I said, "you and I both know that if you had actually read what was on that disk-or if Cantrell were to read any of it rather than giving it to Thompson-either one of you would be duty-bound to make a beeline for the DA's office. After all, even though are my attorney, you are still an officer of the court; right?"

John made it clear that he did not approve of what I was doing; and he had to concede that he would have been required to take any evidence of Thompson's criminal wrong-doing to the DA. After yelling at me for another minute or two simply to vent, he got himself under control and said, "It's lunch time and we are going to Sonny's; you're buying." I smiled and we walked out together to my car with my mouth already watering for some of Sonny's barbecue and sweet iced tea.

And, with that, we entered the next exciting phase of my 'return' to this particular time line.

****

They came after me within a couple of weeks! I mean they really, honestly, physically came after me!

I guess J. Carter Thompson was not about to be threatened with either the possibility of public censure or the potential for jail time; because he sent two men after me late in the evening.

I was still getting myself used to the routine of living by myself. For instance, the layout and schedules for my new apartment were going to take some getting used to. This evening, right before going to bed, I remembered about the trash.

My kitchen trash can was almost overflowing and I needed to get it down to the building's dumpster before the morning; for two reasons. First of all, it was starting to smell. Second of all, the truck was coming early in the morning and I wanted to take advantage of that. Add to that the fact that I was still keyed up over all that had been going on for the past few months with respect to my domestic and work situations.

I had just dropped the lid to the lift-top dumpster outside after tossing my garbage bag in when I saw them. I don't know why I was startled, but I was. These two men just did not belong here. There was a weekly social mixer for the residents of the apartment complex each Saturday evening, and I had been to the last two and met the other residents here-these guys were definitely NOT residents.

Unfortunately, they had seen me turning away from the dumpster. They evidently did not recognize me in the dim light, or else they were simply targeting a location, because one of them asked me in a friendly sort of way, "Hey, Buddy! Which one of these places is Apartment 106-D?"

My apartment!

While these apartments were a step up from those I had lived in during my previous existence, they were not too clear on labeling of either the apartments or the parking places for the residents. So the confusion these two were exhibiting confirmed for me that they did not belong here.

"Oh," I croaked out. "That one is on the other side and up the far stairs." I was barely able to get that sentence out without my voice squeaking. Once again, I realized that they had been asking about my apartment-meaning me! What did these two rough-looking guys want with me? And why were they wearing windbreakers on a warm summer night in Georgia? The only answer that I could come up with almost caused me to pee in my cargo shorts as my brain began to put the facts together!

These guys were armed; armed and looking for my apartment; armed and looking for my apartment with me in it; armed and looking for my apartment with me in it in order to do me harm-or kill me!

And they were arrogant enough to ask confirming questions of some guy at the dumpster without worrying about his being a witness later!

I waited until they had begun to move off to the far corner of the building, looking for the 'far stairs' that were not really there. I was not remaining still to fool them as much as I was simply too scared to move for a moment.

Thankfully, I'd had my wallet, phone, and keys with me when I had walked out of the apartment. Having been locked out of my apartment by accident during my first week there had taught me the hard and expensive lesson about the fifty-dollar lockout fee from the apartment complex manager. It had also taught me to keep my cell phone available as well, since that incident had shown me how difficult it was trying to get another apartment dweller to open up after dark to let me use a phone to call for help.

Now, I knew that I had to get to my car and call for help; but who? The only one I could count on that I knew of was John London, my attorney. As I finally began to move toward my car, I was hitting the speed dial.

"Hello?" I heard, just as I had closed my car door and was fumbling with the car keys to get the hell out of there.

"John! This is Lou," I began, as the voice on the other end continued.

It was the dreaded, "You have reached the number of John London; please leave a message."

Shit!

I had finally gotten the car started just as the two goons realized that the guy at the dumpster had lied to them; meaning that he was very likely to be their target; and they were now running in my direction as I finally got the car in motion. I saw one of them raise his arm and then I saw a flash. The passenger side of my windshield developed a star-pattern in it that began to spread quickly.

These fuckers were shooting! AT ME!!

I pulled out of the parking lot, but had to stop at the automatic rising barrier before hitting the street. I heard a few more thumps in the back of the car and saw another two star patterns appear across my rear wind screen in my rearview mirror.

Finally, reaching the street, I fucking dropped my phone in the split between the driver's seat and the center console. I could not reach for it and watch the street at the same time. So I just drove. I could get the phone later.

I made it about three blocks when the car simply died ... right there in the middle of the street!

Evidently, those guys had gotten lucky with their aim, even in the semi-darkness. I knew that I could not get this beast going again, and I did not have time to fish my phone out from under the seat! Those guys would on me for sure before could do that!

So I got quickly out of the car and ran around it and up over the curb, into the small wooded lot that stood between two apartment complexes as a landscape barrier. As I crossed the sidewalk and headed into the peripheral shrubs lining the edge of the wooded lot, I could hear the gunning of another car engine coming from the direction of my apartment complex. It had to be them!

I moved in as deeply as I could into the wooded lot ... and ran into a security fence! I was really trapped if those two thugs saw my car and came looking. As I began to turn one way and then another, I reached both hands up to my face in terror.

Then I saw it on my left wrist ... the Nasiib stone bracelet!

Was I so desperate that I was willing to rely on superstition; even a superstition that had already appeared to work once? Could it work again? How many charges did this thing have in it, anyway?

I heard car doors slam just shy of about fifty or sixty meters away. Shit! I sat down in some bushes that were in deep shadow and began to rub that damned stone.

This time, I began to get the distorted vision within about fifteen seconds of beginning the rubbing. I was really rubbing that stone hard and fast!

While my vision was bouncing back and forth from clear to out-of-whack and from left eye to right eye, I could still hear the approaching of the two goons. They seemed to be coming right at me.

Just when it seemed that they would be on top of me, I heard someone say something very strange...

****

Chapter 6

"Louis, what is wrong with your eyes?" Francine asked me. Instead of cowering in a wooded lot, awaiting possible death at the hands of two men evidently sent to kill me, I was fucking my wife-missionary style, and with a condom, as usual.

Then I felt my cock expand and felt the satisfying release of sperm into my wife's pussy! It was glorious.

As I rolled away from Francine, I closed my eyes and fought to get my breathing back somewhat to normal. After a few seconds, I opened my eyes and saw clearly, without any distortion.

"Louis, what was that all about-with your eyes?" Francine insisted.

I finally found my voice and said, "Sweetheart, I guess you had me so excited that my eyes got out of whack there for a second. Wow! That was some orgasm! You really excite and thrill me, you know!"

I felt Francine move next to me as she reached for her panties and nightgown instead of wanting to cuddle. This was post-coital bonding-Francine style, as I very clearly remembered.

I simply watched as she dressed for bed and prepared to go to sleep, shaking my head at the realization that this was just as I had remembered married life with Francine. And it had actually been a pretty shitty experience-with an extra shot thrown in by my first Nasiib-stone-regression.

I guess the only reason that I had stayed with Francine before was because of Chelsea and Gracie; along with my own fear of confronting her or her father by trying to divorce the unloving and unfaithful bitch. And now I knew that the only reason she had stayed with me before was because Carstairs had not been available yet; that and her daddy had wanted me under control to keep me quiet about his business illegalities.

As I got up to clean myself in the bathroom, I felt the ever-familiar spent condom on my deflated cock. Wrapping it in a tissue as I pulled it off and flushed it, I shook my head in disgust as I reflected on just how much I had been controlled by Francine and her father in just about every aspect of my life before my acquisition of the Nasiib stone from that guy in Minneapolis.

The Nasiib stone!

The Nasiib stone had evidently done its thing again-after all, it was still on my wrist; and I was here in the 'new now' with no gunmen shooting at me. I just had to make some determination of 'when' I was before saying anything that might arouse suspicion or cause my family to doubt my sanity.

Francine sort of gave me a clue about 'when' I was by what she said next. "Louis, please do not make a lot of noise. It took me forever to get Chelsea to sleep and I don't want your rooting around in the bathroom to wake her."

How romantic! After making love, all Francine cares about is getting to sleep and not waking Chelsea. I noticed right away that she had said nothing about Grace. That could mean that this time frame might be before Grace came along.

That would put me back to just about a year-and-a-half after my marriage to Francine!

"I promise I'll be quiet ... Honey," I said, forcing myself to use a term of endearment that I definitely no longer felt. After all, I had already had two rounds of shitty outcomes with Francine. I did not expect this one to turn out any better-and this one was already appearing as if it could be much longer, if I did not do anything about it; and starting soon. "I just want to check that the alarm is set and get a drink of water."

Francine just mumbled and turned away from me.

After going to the kitchen in our condo to get a drink of water, I checked the calendar on the downstairs computer. It was indeed before Francine had gotten pregnant with Grace-somehow. After all, sex with Francine still involved condoms for me in this reality. So, Francine's getting pregnant a second time would really have to be some kind of fluke.

Yeah, right!

In any event, I also knew that this was the time period just after Steadman Carstairs had finished his MBA up in Cambridge and had come sniffing around Francine on his business tips to the Atlanta area, despite his having already marrying and expecting a baby of his own. That meant that this 'existence' for me just might be a bit more interesting and challenging than the one I had just barely escaped.

****

I had made a decision that I was not going to let events shape me this time around.

No! It was NOT going to happen the same way as before!

Had I grown a set of balls now that I could see things more clearly? Well, no. But I might have grown at least one.

I had decided that my life this time was definitely going to be different. But I needed to make sure of several things, starting right away!

The very first morning after being 'back,' I hugged and kissed Chelsea, with a tear in my eye at seeing my little girl again. Then I kissed Francine's cheek as she was preparing for her own departure for work after the nanny got there.

I went in to the office as usual and immediately tried to access the network and the server. I had to get one of the IT guys to help me log on first thing, since it had been several 'years' now, and I could not remember my network password. Once that was reset, I got down to the dirty business of making backup copies of the evidence I had begun to gather on Thompson's illegal and unethical business practices, lo, those 'many years' ago-meaning now. Naturally, there were not nearly as many files as I had accumulated before-but I was convinced that there were enough.

During lunch, I took the DVD-R with the off-line copies of my electronic evidence against Thompson and once again opened a new account at a different bank from the one that Francine and I had been using. I got a safe deposit box for the DVD-R evidence. I moved a few hundred dollars into a new account at this bank and began to plan my campaign for financial independence from Francine.

But, independence from Francine, simply because of the situation that I had let myself become trapped into, meant that independence from J. Carter Thompson must come first and foremost. Thus, I had established my little 'insurance' portfolio against Thompson before setting up anything else with respect to my attempts at changing the direction-and, hopefully, the very much different outcomes-of my sham of a marriage and life.

I had become, in the other time line-well, time 'lines' now-quite adept at understanding how to multiply investments many times over through appropriate selection and timing in buying 'call' options in stocks associated with volatile commodities and making many times over what normal investments would yield. The risks were very much higher than simply dealing with the usual stocks or mutual funds in the normal scheme of investments. But the payoff was much higher; and it definitely WOULD be much higher for me, with my awareness of coming events and their effects on commodities prices.

I had just never had the balls to do this previously. Now I felt quite a bit more confident in pulling off this risky venture. And it was exhilarating, when I thought about it. Just imagine-Louis 'No-Risk' Chandler now playing in the big leagues, financially!

Thus, the second thing I did that first morning 'back' was to initiate contact over the phone to establish an account with a new, young, energetic, and 'hungry' broker at a local investment firm. After making sure that he understood my intentions with respect to investing in the commodities market, he and I came to an agreement about just how much of a contingency fund I would need to establish with his firm.

During lunch, I went to my new broker's offices and signed the appropriate paperwork to establish my account. I confirmed the transfer of the appropriate amount of contingency funds, and met his supervisor-who was salivating at his anticipation of making his cut from all the money that I intended to make with his young associate's help.

The third thing that I did that day was make a plan concerning Alicia.

Somehow, I needed to ensure that Alicia would not die too early in this lifetime. Even if she still hated me because of my situation with her sister-and how it had come about-I still cared for Alicia very much.

Okay, I may as well admit that I still truly loved Alicia. I guess I still held out hope that there might be something for the two of us. If only ...