The Hired Gun Ch. 01

CHAPTER ONE: Who's House, is It?

Featuring: Mrs. Gilbert

I was working up a decent sweat running at a clip around the track that bordered the football field at the park I used every other day to work out, primarily on increasing my stamina. I was usually the only one outside this early in the morning, but today just off in the distance I found myself looking several feet ahead at a sight most welcome. I'd been coming to this park to run and do basic calisthenics for a few months now. This park was special to me in that it appeared in my dreams sometimes as a harbinger of things to come.

Earlier at four in the morning I was awakened from a deep sleep after experiencing that repeating prophetic dream once again. I was always conflicted upon waking up, but this morning left me shook enough to get out early. The dream concerned the time I'd been lured to the park by my lady love Vickie Stone only to be sucker punched and left laying as she ran off heartbroken. She didn't know I'd been framed and made to look like a dog by her mortal enemy, a recent development at the time. In less than twenty-four hours we'd made up occupying a bed right before the whole thing blew up in our faces.

Today at barely six in the morning I was jogging around that field looking at one hell of an ass.

Whoever she was, this woman was some sort of athlete moving comfortable way ahead of me while my chest was full of fire. I was at a distinct disadvantage because I couldn't tear my eyes away from a huge, massive heart-shaped butt and shapely gams that caused a tent in my sweatpants making it hard to keep up. A pair of white running yoga styled shorts were skintight across the expanse of her derriere with way more bulging cheekage than any woman should've been comfortable with. She was really moving at a decent clip leaving me happily behind.

Her upper half was covered in a matching white, short sleeved hoodie leaving her head and face completely covered and out of view. She had to be around five four, maybe a little taller, but not by much as I struggled to speed up. This woman seemed to have an hourglass figure in the extreme matching a few women I'd been lucky enough to have sex with I the past year. This mystery woman fit right in the middle between a certain baby mama number two of my cousin Jaquan and my coworker and sometimes antagonist, Zoya Berhan.

The charcoal blackened skin tone of her bare legs told me she was a sister, bar none.

I couldn't help thinking business doing the math in my head about this unknown woman's moneymaking potential to my "side hustle" website. There was no way I'd run up on a stranger and try to make the hard sell for an online adult website. It would look particularly bad and creepy, not to mention dangerous to my immediate freedom if I were to be reported to the police. So, I had to be content with just enjoying the view as that big dark chocolate butt appeared to slow down a bit. I drew closer curious to a fault about what this woman's face would look like.

Then she sped off running at a sprint like someone lit a fire under her butt. She rounded the bend but ran up an incline disappearing over a short hill as I barely made the curve stopping on a dime nearly falling over. I wanted to run up the hill but thought better of it not knowing if she would be standing there. There was a parking lot on that side of the hill next door to this closed skating rink that was undergoing renovations. I hung back walking my racing heartrate down with my hands at the small of my back. My curiosity got the better of me just as I reached the point where the woman disappeared.

An old '86 Monte Carlo was sitting in the middle of the small parking lot in the park with the windows down. I could see the shadow or outline of a person for an instant before it slowly pulled off picking up speed as it burned rubber turning the corner. I stood at the top of the short hill perplexed.

"Maybe I was supposed to chase her?" I reasoned feeling like the mystery woman had been waiting for me. I lingered behind working it out in my head figuring maybe I'd missed an opportunity for another notch on my belt at best although it was more feasible that I would have caught a police case instead.

I finished up a few laps after that until I was sure I'd made up the time before driving back over to the house I was renting from Mr. Gilbert and his new wife by now, Tressie Fisher. Their relationship had blossomed out of desperate need, mutual desire, and pure unfiltered love. The twenty-year age difference between a man in his early fifties and a woman barely reaching thirty would've been the talk of the church they met in courtesy of yours truly, but neither of them were having it.

The newly minted couple pulled up stakes for a southern state and a track house with more than enough room for her cousins, the siblings of my lost lady love, Vickie Stone. This fortuitously left me with a place to live, albeit with certain rules in place to assure no sexual shenanigans on my part. Knowing I had a series of flings with his only daughter Charity made the formerly stern parent leery of renting out the place to me, but I'd brought him back together with Tressie leaving the man with a perceived moral debt to pay.

The fact that his malevolently beloved, overachieving daughter was away at college probably factored into his decision. I doubt he would've allowed me to cohabitate with Charity considering we couldn't seem to keep our hands off one another. We communicated frequently at first, but it predictably tapered off as she got more acclimated to her new life sort of drifting away. I missed her, sometimes.

I picked up some breakfast takeout from a local café in the area before driving home in the car formerly used by Charity added as an incentive for renting out the former Gilbert homestead. I was tasked with keeping the place in tip top shape including the lawn and backyard for a discounted rate as he gave me the garage clicker. I was considering using his garage as a sort of studio but hadn't got around to it.

It was a weekend where I had nothing to do other than editing some footage from my surplus of material as I pulled into the garage to the strains of "Take Away" by Missy Elliot. My cousin Jaquan always had an open door, but I was taking a break after a blow up with Rashida who was still living in his home. The three of us had this symbiotic friendship that ebbed and flowed depending on whatever was going on in each other's lives; and he still had to coparent with a woman I hated, Rashida's former best friend.

Even my muse and sometimes FWB would sometimes disappear from the house when it was known that she would appear. I honestly didn't know how my cousin managed it. I sat in the car eating my breakfast which consisted of a croissant stuffed with eggs, cheese, and three different meats lightly seasoned. It was a specialty at the café I frequented after workouts. A healthy mixed juice malted enhanced my meal as I considered pulling back out of the garage to hang out at the lake. It was going to be a nice sunny day.

"Huh?" I turned down the music, hearing some loud incessant knocking coming from the front of the house.

I figured it might be some particularly aggressive Jehovah Witness's who'd been showing up since finding out the Gilbert's moved out. My landlord had a subscription to their Watchtower magazine out of courtesy, but now I was on their radar after answering the door one morning without thinking. That interaction turned into a near hour long conversation that ended when I insinuated that I might appear at a service or two. Two more visits made it necessary for me to use the back door to come and go.

"Excuse me?!" I found a woman knocking frantically intermittently pushing the doorbell standing way too close to the locked screen door. She didn't seem to notice as I walked around the outside of my hedges trying to figure out what was going on.

She was probably five eleven in height, tall and slender looking with a nice, packed butt that was just below big. She was wearing this tight mint green dress that hugged her curvy derriere with a visible panty line that sent jolts to my tumescence. There was a matching pocketbook, a priceless Michael Kors in one hand that she was using to beat on the door.

"EXCUSE ME!!" I shouted, getting her attention.

As soon as she turned around, I got a shock to the system.

I was looking at Mrs. Gilbert, Charity's mother who was had some facial similarities but reminded me of this actress, Samira Wiley albeit with these puffed-up bags under her eyes. Her shoulder length hair had strips of grey in it framing her narrow elegant features. There was an air of importance gleaned just from her looking in my direction. She waved me off with a flick of the wrist which was accessorized with a chain link Dior bracelet looking briefly annoyed. Mrs. Gilbert continued knocking and ringing the bell.

"HELLO, I LIVE HERE MA'AM!!" She was the spitting image of the large portrait I'd seen in the former Brownstone home she formerly shared with her estranged daughter. This woman tossed her only child out after a fiasco created by the way too entitled former princess which cost her a ton of money to rug sweep. I was looking at the only woman Charity deferred to on the face of the planet. She'd forced Charity to apologize against her will to Tressie Fisher which left her daughter devastated.

The artist who'd painted that portrait was incredibly talented. I recalled Mr. Gilbert being left out of it.

"No, you don't; now toddle along." I did a doubletake as she spoke staring daggers, into my eyes.

"Toddle along?"

She turned back around, fishing an expensive phone out of her purse, presumably calling Mr. Gilbert but I decided not to wait getting out my keys, walking up the stairs which made her flinch like I was a thug or something.

"Don't you dare; I know the chief of police, buddy!" She clutched her purse to her chest like I would snatch it almost dropping her phone in the process. I recalled that she was this high-powered attorney who left her blue collar husband in the dust of her rising career as she became a partner at a prestigious law firm.

I unlocked the screen door with my keys and then followed up with the heavy oak door stepping inside.

"WHERE DID YOU GET THOSE KEYS?!" Mrs. Gilbert asked as I locked the screen door looking her dead in the face.

"Ask your ex-husband." I slammed the heavy door in her face hard enough to make the glass window in it vibrate. Images of Charity having a meltdown in her father's truck as I held her in my arms, fueled my actions. Mrs. Gilbert was no less toxic in person.

The knocking started up again as I picked up a copy of my rental agreement from a shelf near the doorway before opening up again.

"WHAT?!!"

Mrs. Gilbert did a doubletake blinking profusely.

"Watch your tone; how long have you been here and what're you doing shacking up here with William when I haven't been dually notified as the primary owner of this home?"

"I don't see your name on my rental agreement." I held it up pressing it against the screen so that she could see it.

"Open the door so that I can properly look at that document."

"No Mrs. Gilbert."

"Did you hear what I said; open the door and present me with that document properly."

"Talk to your ex-husband."

"Are you being, difficult?" There was no doubt this was Charity's mother in the least. I had to work hard to keep from withering under her stern, piercing gaze.

Formerly I'd seen the aforementioned portrait in the ruins of the home she shared with her eponymous daughter excluding her supportive husband from the fruits of her success. Secondly, I'd heard her strict authoritative tone that made her normally malicious daughter snap to form and obey without question. Charity Gilbert talked about being "Evil" in humorous tones with me but there was always that serious undertone to her words which harkened to the woman glaring at me from the other side of the screen door. The younger Ms. Gilbert no doubt learned everything from her mother. I felt for Mr. Gilbert.

"No, I'm not being difficult ma'am; I've informed you that I am renting this property from your former husband and presented you with said rental agreement. I'm willing to email you a copy of the rental agreement and you can DO what YOU WANT with it, okay Mrs. Gilbert?"

"Well, I'm standing right here in front of you."

"I can see that ma'am."

"Perhaps you should allow me inside so that we can peruse the agreement like civilized people."

"I don't feel comfortable with that ma'am."

"And why not?"

"I am unsure of your actual intent given how I found you at my doorstep this morning. Perhaps you should explain yourself to make me consider conversing about a perfectly legal matter that is iron clad. You were quite emotional before I, made myself known and there is a ring cam recording your uhm, outburst." My tone and manner of speaking was meant to subtly mimic her own.

Mrs. Gilbert's already narrow looking eyes became slits that reminded me of her daughter who made the same expression when infuriated. I just stared back stoically waiting for the next shoe to drop.

"I have business connections, considerable business connections to the creditors who hold sway over this property. My husband was actually paying me in part all these years with money that was funneled into our daughter's trust and some brokerage accounts.

"No shit."

This forced smile appeared on her face, kind of a slit because she sucked in her lips making her expression a menacing grimace.

"I don't feel like PLAYING with a YOUNG FOOL who doesn't understand the world around him and how things really work out here. Do you want my full, undivided attention? I'm a very busy woman, young man."

"Not busy enough considering how you were banging on my door."

"Do you want to play with me?" I knew I was being threatened.

"Charity wouldn't like it if I played with you Mrs. Gilbert; although you would probably love it. Hate to be crass, but you seem like you need, to release something."

That weird smile became a half smirk.

"Oh, so you want to get your nappy head dribbled out on the sidewalk, right?"

"No ma'am, I've answered all your questions even though you could have called your ex-husband and verified things instead of making a recorded terrorist threat. Did I mention the ring cam? I think I did."

"I can get that tossed out of a court proceeding."

"Oh wow...hey, you don't have his number, do you Mrs. Gilbert?"

"What?"

"HE CHANGED HIS NUMBER AND BLOCKED YOU, DIDN'T HE?!!" I couldn't help laughing at the entitled woman on my porch stupidly posturing trying to make herself seem larger than life when she'd obviously been shut out of a man's life, she'd cast a long shadow over for decades under the guise of coparenting.

"Shut up."

"Want me to take a message?"

"SHUT UP!"

"Mr. Gilbert has been really busy as of late living happily ever after with the future Mrs. Gilbert number two ma'am. Perhaps you should get a clue." I could barely get the burn out having trouble stifling my laughter.

"FUCK YOU!" Mrs. Gilbert snarled slamming her expensive purse into the screen where my face was.

"Okay it's been fun ma'am; don't come back now, buh bye."

I closed the door slow and methodically as I could manage still chortling at the long-distance burn delivered to Mrs. Gilbert from her former husband. I doubted she even knew he'd moved away presently living happily with Tressie Fisher being surrogate parents to Vickie Stone's younger siblings. I was just down the corridor halfway to my bedroom when Mrs. Gilbert started beating, kicking, and ringing the doorbell like a madwoman. I weighed my options, deciding against the police because of her status opening the front door again.

"Now Mrs. Gilbert...Oh." I was stopped dead in my tracks before I could administer more of my acid wit.

Her face was a mask of desperate indignation, mascara running down her cheeks, teeth gritted in rage.

"HE AIN'T MARRYING NO BODY!! THAT GIRL IS YOUNG ENOUGH TO BE HIS DAUGHTER!! THIS IS JUST SOME MOTHERFUCKING MIDLIFE CRISIS!! HE'S ACTING LIKE A PUP WHO GOT HIS DICK WET FOR THE FIRST FUCKING TIME!! THAT WHORE IS NOT GOING TO BE CHARITY'S STEPMOTHER, YOU ASS!!"

"Shit." The woman was having a meltdown as I considered slamming the door in her face. Just over her shoulder, I noticed a brand-new Bentley parked haphazardly in front of the Gilbert homestead. One of the front wheels was up on the curb partially on the adjacent lawn. She'd been triggered by something.

"OPEN THE GAWD-DAMN DOOR!! I'M PUTTING AN END TO THIS NONSENSE RIGHT HERE AND NOW!!" The emotional rage in her voice was palpable enough to shake me to my core. I guess I didn't move fast enough because she grabbed the door handle shaking it in this insane fit starting to shriek.

I unlocked the screen door and was immediately shoved aside as Mrs. Gilbert powerwalked to her husband's bedroom door kicking it open with authority.

All that angry energy dissipated instantly as I walked up cautiously behind her.

The room was empty, completely packed up other than a detached headboard left behind along with a few carboard boxes of odds and ends the man didn't think were essential to the new life he was building with the new lady in his life. Mrs. Gilbert's shoulders slumped at the sight of an empty room she once shared with the man she was married to before discarding him for career and a privileged life.

"Mr. Gilbert uhm, moved out." I explained softly, understanding her feelings.

She turned slightly nudging me as she went into the living room and sat on the couch.

"Uh, didn't your daughter, tell you ma'am?"

Mrs. Gilbert sat there staring off into space looking at the living room window and the tree just outside it in the front yard.

"She doesn't take my calls; they go to an answering service. Charity has moved all of her financial assets to a private firm now that I released them to her. I, have no power over her anymore."

"Oh." I folded my arms, not surprised in the least. She was her mother's daughter, after all.

"So, I couldn't call her even if I wanted."

We didn't talk for a few minutes as she reached down putting her purse on the coffee table. It looked as if her world was imploding and my first instinct was to be understanding, and I hated myself for that. This woman didn't deserve any empathy based on what I knew of her from her daughter's words. Charity had been discarded like trash and placed under the care of a parent who was wholly unprepared for her true nature. My sudden appearance in that life unexpectantly changed things.

"You know my daughter?"

"Uhm, yeah." That moment of hesitation drew her gaze on me like a spotlight.

"You're him, that guy she wouldn't stop chattering about when we called to the carpet to return her trust. I was worried she'd gone fully native and was about to marry down because she was so defiant that afternoon. Made me so angry, I just blurted it out. Then we couldn't get her to say anything; it was like she'd gone into shock."

"Well, I guess you ain't got nothing to worry about now." Mrs. Gilbert raised a perfectly arched eyebrow scrutinizing my face at that comment.

"You broke up?"

"We were never together; just fuck buddies, a lot."

"HOW DARE YOU?!!"

"Don't give me that shit ma'am; we both know who your daughter is as a person. Ain't that the reason you yourself cast Charity out of her privileged life?! She embarrassed you and got tossed on her ass back to a place you abandoned when your paper got big. We were never together, but she's one of my best friends even if we don't talk all that much anymore. I'd never give up on her Mrs. Gilbert. We talked it over before she left and we, made love that one time. Between you and me, it was hard for me to walk away, but I knew she didn't belong down here in what your snobby ass would call "Da' Hood" Mrs. Gilbert."