The Billionarie's Distraction - Introduction
Power & Passion series
Tony’s Story….
“What do you think?” Sal asked, hugging the package under his arm.
Tony looked around, his eyes narrowing on the scene. “Two cops,” he announced, staring at the guy drinking a cup of coffee while talking on his cell phone and another who was arguing with a hooker. “No, three,” he clarified, noting the third undercover cop sitting in a car. He was pretending to do the crossword puzzle on his phone, but Tony sensed he was more interested in the building.
Sal muttered under his breath. He looked at the box, about the size of a big shoe box but neither boy knew what was inside. It was probably better that way.
“We’ll go in a different way,” he told Sal, but his voice was low enough to barely disturb the static of the afternoon.
Sal’s eyes widened. “Tony?”
“They’re here for the package.” He spoke grimly, then looked at his best friend. “Is this really important?”
Sal’s lips pursed and he thought about that question for a moment. Then he looked up again and nodded his head. “Yeah. It’s worth it.”
Tony accepted that answer. He looked around again, assessing the situation. “They’re blocking exits, watching windows. They’ll pinch anyone walking in. We can’t go straight.”
A breeze pushed a piece of plastic toward them. For a second, the city felt like a predator, breath hot on their necks. Sal chewed his lip.
Then Tony started speaking again, laying out a less direct approach. “You go two buildings down. Go through the back alley. Use the fire escape ladder and climb to the top floor.” He looked up at the building, knowing that his plan was doable. “ Go in through the window on the top floor, walk down three floors, then climb out through the back window onto the roof over there,” he explained, pointing to the building they needed to enter. “From there, jump the gutter onto the next roof. Shimmy down the drain and find the back door. It’ll be unlocked noon to two; I memorized the shop keeper’s delivery schedule last week.”
Sal’s gaze followed the path, the lines of his mouth grim. “You it’ll work?”
Tony looked at him like he was asking whether the sun would rise. “Of course it will.” His eyes shifted, a gleam of challenge in them now. “And I’ll make sure the men on the street don’t look up.”
Sal’s concern shifted into a small, fierce grin. “I’m on it.” He barely looked back as he walked the opposite direction, not wanting to be obvious about his approach. But he turned around and grinned at Tony. “It would be better if I could shoot spider webs out of my hand.”
Tony laughed once, low, and moved. He watched his best friend head away, the package heavy under Sal’s arm, then started walking away from the direct route.
Down the block, men in plain jackets smoked, leaned, surveyed. Tony slotted himself into the rhythm of the street. To anyone who bothered to notice him, he would seem like just a boy with time to waste. He walked with the slouch of someone who had nowhere to be and everything to hide. He kept his jacket pulled up; the box hid behind the curve of his elbow. He kept his feet patient and his eyes on the belt loops and wristwatches and breathing of the people who thought he wasn’t aware of them.
When he reached the right corner, he stopped and pulled from his jacket a small black case—no bigger than the palm of his hand. He had soldered and scavenged to find the equipment for this thing. It was simple, really, just a transmitter, a rumpled coil, a handful of batteries, as well as a trigger he could press with his thumb. He didn’t explain how it worked. He just walked casually down the filthy sidewalk.
Counting.
When he reached sixty, Tony pressed the button, mentally calculating that Sal would be climbing the fire escape ladder right now.
It shocking sound broke through the low hum of noise on the street, a shrill car alarm that startled three people nearby. Tony pretended to be surprised as well, staring at the offending car as the alarm sounded, the lights beeped. But after a moment, he continued walking.
When he reached one hundred, he glanced up. Right on time, Tony caught Sal slipping out of the window. Tony pressed the button again. Another car alarm blared. This time, he just feigned anger and kept on walking.
When he reached one hundred and thirty, Tony pressed the button again. He couldn’t see Sal, but knew that his friend would be slipping in through the back door about now.
Tony rounded around the corner, then turned and headed left. Sixty seconds later, Sal walked up, right beside, him, chuckling with triumph.
“Excellent plan,” his friend said. “But next time, you jump from one building to the next!”
Tony almost smiled as the duo headed down the street, the package delivered and several hundred dollars richer.
Naomi’s Story….
Naomi carried her tote like a small, mobile classroom: highlighters, index cards, and Gerald the plush pig tucked into the corner. She found Brad leaning on the gym table, forehead creased around a math problem like it was a defensive play he couldn’t read.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, taking the seat next to him. “Fractions,” he admitted with a groan of frustration.
Naomi unclipped a marker and drew a perfect circle. She didn’t mention that he should have grasped the concept of fractions back in elementary school. The guy had gotten pushed through the system due to his charm and athletic capabilities. “Pizza,” she announced. Brad’s face lit. “Let’s look at fractions like a pizza.”
“Other teachers said pie,” Brad grunted.
“Same concept, but I suspect you prefer pizza, right?” she offered, looking pointedly at the stack of empty pizza boxes left over from the football team’s post-game success the previous night.
“I do,” Brad replied with a chuckle as he leaned closer.
She drew a circle and divided it into eight slices, deliberately messy so it looked like an honest pizza, not a geometry test. “Imagine this is a pizza. If you eat three slices, how much of the pizza did you eat?”
Brad stared at three shaded slices. “Three… out of… all the slices?”
“Yes. Three-eighths.” Naomi shaded three slices a bright pink. “Now what if you eat half the pizza?”
Brad squinted. “That’d be… half.”
“Okay, but…?”
Naomi could still see the confusion in his eyes. She paused for a moment, then inspiration hit her. “What if we think of fractions like a football field.” She erased the pizza from the white board and drew a football field. “You need to get the ball thirty yards down the field. What’s that fraction?”
“Three tenths,” he said without hesitation.
She stared at him, stunned by his comprehension. “Right!” she replied, then did another problem. “What about if you’re on the forty yard line and you need to get the ball into the end zone. What fraction of the field do you need to pass the ball?”
“Sixty yards,” he replied quickly. Then he closed his eyes, thought about it for a moment, then opened his eyes and said, “Six out of ten. That makes it…,” he thought again, but this time with his eyes open, staring right at Naomi, almost as if waiting for her to give him the right answer. But she merely stared back at him, her face not giving anything away. “Three fifths!” he finally blurted out.
She grinned, stunned that he’d even reduced the fraction down. “Great job!” she exclaimed. Then Naomi went into more fraction problems, always bringing the issue back to football since his brain seemed wired to view the whole world in those terms. After an hour, he really seemed to understand.
As he gathered up his books, Naomi braced herself. Brad was a sweet guy, but not the brightest outside of the football field. Her next student…?
“Hey Brad,” Chuck called out as he walked into the training room where the football coach had set up a tutoring area for his players. Brad received a friendly smile from Chuck. Naomi got the smarmy smile that made Naomi’s insides clench with ick.
“Hey Naomi,” Chuck said, his voice lowering and he shifted his body weight slightly.
Ewww! Naomi pasted a professional expression on her features. She charged Brad twenty dollars an hour for tutoring. She charged Chuck forty exactly because of that smile. And what she’d endure during the next hour.
“Ready?” she replied, not bothering with a greeting. Chuck would take it as an invitation so Naomi didn’t bother.
He was also the reason why Naomi planned on teaching younger kids. Elementary school age kids appealed to her with their youth and energy. There were no smarmy smiles from a kindergartener. There were no suggestive tones from an eight year old.
“Let’s get started,” she said as Chuck sat down next to her.
“You know I’m always ready for just about anything, Naomi.” Chuck even moved his chair closer.
“What are we working on today?” she asked.
“My essay on Shakespear’s Romeo and Juliet,” he told her, his smile turning icky again. “Maybe we should act out some of the scenes just to make sure I got it right.”
Naomi skimmed through his essay, but added, “I don’t get paid if you are poisoned.”
Brad chuckled as he walked out of the training room. Naomi didn’t bother to glance at Chuck to guage his reaction. Instead, she took out her red pen and started editing, explaining the grammar mistakes he’d made.
It really was a horrible, simplistic essay, she thought. He focused on the sex in the story instead of the tragic aspects of two young teenagers whose hormones had gotten the best of them.
Chuck moved closer and closer and, each time, Naomi moved further away. At the end of the hour, she stood up and grabbed her stuff. “Times up,” she announced, surprising Chuck. But he merely leaned back in the chair, his legs spread wide in that typical man-spreading way. Did men do that to try and impress the ladies? Was he silently showing off his penis and testicles? Saying to the female that his genitals were too big for him to have manners?
Ick!
“What’s the hurry?” Chuck asked. “Why don’t we go grab soething to eat?”
Naomi glared at him. “You’re all set. And I’m not hungry.”
“Good,” he came right back, his smarmy grin widening. “We don’t have to eat. Let’s just have some fun.”
“Nope. And you’ll need to find another tutor, Chuck,” she told him and spun on her heel. “I’ll inform your coach that I can’t help you anymore.”
That surprised him. “Why not?”
“Because you are oogey,” she told him and walked out of the training room. Naomi didn’t care that he might not understand his oogeyness. It didn’t matter. She was just relieved that she could walk away. And never have to be in a room alone with Chuck again!
