-“So, Cindy what brought you all the way from Indiana to California?” Oscar asked while parking himself on the edge of her desk, with a smirk plastered on his face.
-“Well, I’d like to write for a living. That is why I came to study here.” Cindy contributed, not that it was any of his business.
-“Oh! You mean like for scripts and stuff? Hey! I’ve got contacts. Why don’t we have and early dinner one of these days, and I can tell you about hooking you up with my movie making buddies in the Valley? I mean, it’s strictly porn, but, you know, those movies need a story line, right? They can’t be non-stop fucking, if you know what I mean.” He added with a toothy smile and a wink.
Just as Cindy was about to formulate a neutral fuck off, dressed with politeness, when a commotion in the adjoining office interrupted their exchange. This was followed by a gun shot.
Oscar was the first to exit her office to see what the commotion was about. What happened next was quick and definitive. A vindictive and inebriated, former client shot Oscar point blank between the eyes, while he was standing in the hallway.
Cindy could see from the security camera Oscar’s body swaying as in a little dance, before collapsing on the floor. She could see the shooter coming towards her office and guided by sheer instinct, she made herself inconspicuous as she crawled under her massive mahogany desk.
She intuited as well as heard the steps of the deranged shooter enter her office. She imagined him waving his revolver, and walking towards the end of her office to Lucien’s office.
Cindy’s heartbeat clamored so loudly in her diaphragm, that she thought it would burst. She put her hands over her ears, and shut her eyes tight, as she trembled like a wet dog in winter. She was so scared, that she thought that she would pee in her cubbyhole.
Cindy knew what was coming next, and as expected the thunder of multiple gunshots from opposing sides collided, and the resounding thud of a hefty body making contact with the carpeted floor.
-“You fucking son of a bitch!” Those were the last words uttered by Lucien, as the words ended in a gurgle of blood seeping through his mouth, and in multiple parts of his expansive anatomy.
Sensing that the coast was clear, Cindy crawled out of her improvised shelter to inspect the scene. The shooter’s body was blocking the entrance to Lucien’s office, as she carefully walked around the sprawled limbs, and the oozing rivers of blood permeating the beige carpet.
She saw Lucien sprawled over his desk. His head cradled by a pillow of money. Stacks upon stacks of crispy one-hundred dollar bills, which had been in the process of being summed and gathered into stacks of ten thousand dollars each.
Cindy walked closer to Lucien’s desk. The massive safe door was ajar, inside there were easily over two million dollars in cash.
To be continued…
