Fool Me Once

Ryan smiled. It was the predatory smile of a shark nosing in for the kill.

"Consuela, my marriage is over. Our vows were broken before...they've been shattered now. My marriage was over the minute she began a relationship with Sean Michaels. I've been collecting evidence to show a court to prove her infidelity. I'm going public with it to show God and everybody what she's done...what she's doing. I'm getting a divorce from Carrie to make everything official, but it's been over for a long time.

"I've spent the last few months watching her and letting her burn the love I used to have for her out of my soul. I don't care for her now, and nothing can embarrass or humiliate, me anymore than she already has. I'm going to lower the boom on her and her...friend...and I'm going to do it hard."

Consuela looked at Ryan, seeing something in him she'd not noticed before. His blue eyes had gone an icy shade of blue as his anger built. She believed him. He was going to make a believer of Sean Michaels too. She smiled slowly.

"It takes a lot of strength to do what you're going to do, Ryan. I think you are onehombre Mr. Michaels should never have messed with," she said softly.

Ryan was startled at the comment. It broke his concentration and his rage ebbed away. He smiled at the beautiful woman sharing his table. As he looked, her face changed.

"You have proof, you said?" she demanded. "You have pictures or something?" Ryan nodded.

"I've got video tape of them together, tape recordings of cell phone conversations, and other tapes of her talking to girlfriends in her car about her lover...heck, I got a bunch of things," Ryan told her. "I know the cell phone conversations can't be used for much...maybe not the tapes from the recorder I put under her car seat, unless she gets on the stand and denies the conversations ever took place. Then they can be used to impeach her, I'll bet.

"The videos? Well, the videos I have of her hugging and kissing that asshole inside the bank, on the city streets, and I've got them walking arm in arm with him into our house...those can be used. I'm almost certain the ones of her and Doofus in our bed are legal too. I think I have a perfect right to videotape things that go on inside my house. They're pretty...graphic...as they say.

"Oh, wow..." Consuela whispered. "Oh goodness, I'm sorry. It's so sad you had to see things like that, but you've got her good, don't you?"

Ryan chuckled.

"Oh,yeah," he said, drawing out the last word to emphasize his satisfaction. "Got him too," he added.

"I haven't seen a lawyer yet, but I have my own suit to file, you know. I re-read Carrie's contract and there's a morals clause right there in big black letters on the second page. It's noteven in the fine print. I don't see how there wouldnot be a clause just like that in Michaels' contract too. That should mean the bank is...uh...liable if they don't enforce their own rules and regulations, right?"

Ryan thought for a moment.

"I...like I said, I don't do lawyer stuff...but I think we can help each other out on these things. You can testify in my civil suit that...what do they call it? Uh...something about establishing a pattern of conduct or something like that? Hmmmmm...and how about not taking action to...uh...well...stop it. What are the legal words for saying that, I wonder?"

He grinned and made a mental note to call a lawyer and run these things by him or her. For the first time in a while, he saw a way he might be able to keep his little contractor firm afloat after his wife took her pound of flesh in the divorce proceedings.

Texas family law was structured so that property settlements were affected by such things as adultery on the part of one of the spouses. He'd already been counting on that and now there was an even better chance of getting enough cash from a settlement to buy out whatever percentage Carrie's share of the business was.

********

Thursday was a disappointing day in the café. Ryan was there, as the locals had come to expect, but Consuela was not. It was because, as Ryan knew, Consuela had to go in early to open up the small town bank where she was the assistant manager. The crowd of regulars thought it was sad he was sitting alone, but they really should have noticed he'd brought a book to read while he waited for his omelet. He wouldn't have done that if he'd thought he'd have company for breakfast.

The book was a western by Louis L'Amour. Ryan loved westerns. They were about a day when a man could make a place for himself through sheer force of will, courage, and an attitude of being unwilling to accept a slight at the hands of another. It worked for L'Amour's heroes again and again. In this novel, one of the minor players was a young married woman who had taken a lover--a bad man who was good with a gun. Her farm boy husband had tried to use his gun on the bad man, but he'd had no chance. The simple farmer died a painful death when the wife's lover shot him.

Ryan identified with the farm boy. Regardless of the consequences, he'd taken up an unfamiliar tool, a pistol, to defend the marriage and his personal honor. It hadn't been smart, but Ryan could see where the man hadn't been willing to live with the alternative. Ryan understood the man; he understood him well.

The omelet was especially good that morning. Trish had given the high sign to the cook to include extra amounts of the mushrooms and sausage that Ryan especially liked. He was being given privileges some long-term regulars still didn't get. A few people noticed the fat omelet and knew the head waitress and hostess had given Ryan her seal of approval.

********

At her suggestion, Ryan and Consuela met Thursday night at a Golden Corral restaurant a little further out of San Antonio. The chances of contact with anyone they knew were slim. They'd agreed this was better than being seen together. After all, he was still a married man and people wouldn't understand they were planning two lawsuits against a multi-national banking institution, its regional headquarters in San Antonio, and a number of its senior officers.

Ryan commented on the fact that Consuela asked questions and talked while waving her fork around like a symphony conductor's baton. It was her Latina heritage, she said. Her grandmother had been raised in a small village in the south of Mexico. Sheneeded her hands in order to speak properly. Ryan teased her, saying if her hands were tied behind her, it would be the same as putting a gag in her mouth. She thought about it for a moment, then stuck out her tongue at him. He laughed out loud. He couldn't remember when he'd last done that.

She was surprised, in turn, by the fact that his great-grandfather had been a full-blood member of the Comanche nation. She studied his face closely, remarking the only contribution she saw from that side of the family that she saw was his high cheekbones. His blue eyes and blond hair certainly came from somewhere else. They'd ended by deciding contributions from the Scots and the Irish overwhelmed most of the genes in both their ancestries.

Consuela asked if Ryan knew there were more than a few Irish Dance schools around San Antonio? Did he know they held an annual Feis, a contest, in one of the downtown hotels? Ryan did not. Consuela told him he should go next October. He said he would if she would go with him. She said she would.

There was a pause while they both paid attention to their plates.

"Will the videos and stuff be admissible in court...even in divorce court?" she asked finally. Ryan shrugged.

"I'm sure a good lawyer will find a way to get them introduced somehow," he replied after a while. "If not, I'll make copies of the DVDs and mail them to her family and all our friends as Christmas presents," he added with a grin.

"I thought you said you had videotapes," Consuela remarked idly, after finishing a bite of Caesar salad.

"I did...I do," Ryan replied. But I bought a really fast computer a couple months ago for the office and I loaded a program on it to convert movies from a digital camera to a DVD...uh...format." He saw her confusion. "Oh. First I had to play the VHS tapes and record from the VCR to my digital camcorder," he explained.

"Sounds like a lot of work," she commented.

"Yeah...not a very elegant solution," he replied, "but I'm doing all this spy work on a shoestring and I didn't want to get advice from anyone, considering the subject matter. I had to find a few workarounds."

"I think you did very well," Consuela said quickly. "You've got a lot more proof for what you want to do than I have," she added.

Ryan took a moment to absorb what she'd said. It felt good to be complimented for something he'd done instead of having faults pointed out, as Carrie invariably did these days.

"Well," he said after swallowing a chunk of rare steak doused in A1, "I think I can do some things for yours and my case...I've got a couple of shots of the dork sitting at our kitchen table, naked as the day he was born, but working on something on his laptop."

"No!" Consuela exclaimed. "Really?" She flushed faintly as her delight fought with embarrassment at the mental picture Ryan's words built.

"Oh yeah," Ryan replied, "signing on to a network, logging in to a server it looked like, and then doing some transactions...what is it he does anyway?"

"Oh, he runs the division that does high-end personal wealth management," she said. "He manages accounts for the very, very rich customers...makes investments for them if they've authorized him to...keeps track of trusts...sends transfers to other banks if they ask him to...stuff like that."

Ryan nodded. His brow furrowed.

"Transfers?"

"Wire transfers," she explained after a sip of ice tea.

"Like...oh...Western Union, say?"

"Oh...yeah...kinda sorta...but on a much bigger scale," she explained. "Millions of dollars are sent and received every day."

"I see," he replied. "They trust him with that huh?" he said speculatively.

He laughed.

"If they could seem him trying to enter his password three times and screaming like a spoiled child at his laptop when it won't take, I'm not so sure they'd trust him very much at all." He laughed again. "He might send a rich guy's money off to Timbuktu or something, instead of Tucumcari...he's really not very good at doing computer stuff."

Consuela laughed with him.

"Putting in his password three times huh? You saw him do that?"

"Yeah...once he tried again and again and it neverdid process," Ryan remarked. "Carrie came downstairs once, naked as he was, the little...well, anyway, she input his password for him. That's a no-no I'll bet the bank won't want anyone to see."

He thought for a moment.

"I have a feeling all of a sudden I won't have to go to court at all...and maybe not you either," he said. "The people down at the bank arenot going to want any publicity on this. When I tell them what I have, they're going to fall all over themselves trying to get me...and you...to settle out of court. How 'bout that?"

"You might just be right," Consuela agreed. "You can see him entering the keystrokes...and Carrie knows his password too?" she asked idly.

"Sure do," Ryan replied.

Consuela snorted her contempt.

"The idiot," she said contemptuously. "I had a security level that only allowed me to do small-time stuff. His access level lets him work on all the accounts and do all kinds of magic with them," she said. "Only a fool allows someone else to know their password," she added. "The other person might be as honest as the day is long, but..." She shrugged her shoulders expressively.

"Yeah, that's a fact," Ryan agreed.

"Good thing Carrie hasn't used what she knows," Consuela said after another swallow. "She could ruin him if she did."

"Yeah, I guess she could," Ryan said. He thought for a while. "Actually...so could I," he said thoughtfully. "'Cause I know his password too, you know. I watched him type it often enough."

"Darn good thing you're an honest man," Consuela remarked with a quick grin.

Ryan shook his head.

"Huh-uh...he shouldn't count on that too much," he said. "I don'tlike him one damn bit...or her," he added.

They laughed.

"You like Louis L'Amour?" she asked. Ryan had brought the book inside to read while he waited for her to arrive. She'd said she might be late.

"Oh yeah," Ryan said quickly. "He and Tom Clancy are my favorite writers...both of them are natural storytellers."

"Uh-huh," she answered. "I like Tom Clancy...what's Louis L'Amour about?"

They talked for another hour. They had to tip the waitress well. She'd cheerfully brought let them sit unmolested, except for refilling their iced tea glasses, when they lingered a long while after eating as much as they could.

********

On her way home, Consuela Robertson ran over the conversations she'd had with Ryan Gilchrist this evening. It was more than enjoyable to be in the company of a good-looking man after so long. It took her years to get over her divorce. She hadn't trusted men in general for a long time, but she did this one.

He listened to her, and he was big...very strong...she thought. But he was incredibly gentle with Belinda. He didn't think he was handsome at all...he'd said something about it last night...but he was. He spoke so well too. He didn't seem to need to rush to contradict her, to correct things she said he thought were wrong. It was good to be with him.

Her thoughts were all over the place as she pulled into the gravel driveway. She sat in the car for a long moment with the lights off. It was a thing she'd learned to do while living in Albuquerque when she first got married. Their house had been right at the edge of one gang's territory and too close to another. The sounds of shooting could be heard most weekends. She'd learned to look into the shadows before getting out of vehicles. It was necessary to see who was there before exposing oneself.

There was no one in the shadows here. She knew there was some gang violence in San Antonio but it hadn't spread out this far yet. It wasn't a very "pretty" neighborhood but her neighbors were all retired folks or hard workers at a variety of jobs in the area.

She sighed. Sometimes she thought this neighborhood was a metaphor for her life. She was nearing thirty years of age. Time was passing her by just as it was the houses on her block. The houses were a little rundown, in need of some care, and the atmosphere was a little desperate because that care was slow in coming. Some of her neighbors had already given up. She rolled her shoulders and shook her head to shake off the mood. She got out of her nine-year-old Mercury and trudged next door to Mrs. Alvarez to pick up Belinda.

A little while later, as she was getting her little girl into pajamas and her teeth brushed, Consuela found herself staring into space. A thought had occurred to her...a plan that blossomed and matured in the space between two heartbeats.

Therewas a way to get some payback. The trouble was, what would Ryan think of her idea? What would he think of her? His opinion meant more to her than she'd realized until just this moment.

********

"You want to look at the DVDs?" Ryan asked. He was confused. It was Friday night, a night for partying, but that wasn't Consuela's way...what he knew of her anyway. And there was the baby in the bedroom just a few steps away.

Belinda had been sent to bed but she hadn't gone willingly. She hadn't wanted to go to sleep at all with Ryan there. It had been the first time Ryan had been invited here. Belinda had climbed into Ryan's lap when he got there and had resisted every attempt Consuela made to get her to leave Ryan alone for even a moment. Ryan hadn't cooperated with Consuela's efforts very much. The little four-year-old was making a deep impression on him.

"Lady, those aren't for casual viewing you know? It's a lot of...sex...and talking about sex...and them disrespecting everyone in their little world. They just not--"

"I know, I know," Consuela exclaimed. She was fighting to keep the redness visible in the hollow of her throat from spreading. Ryan studied her briefly, then grinned.

"On second thought, none of the videos are really good porn. Most of them are pretty boring actually. If you want to watch them I guess it's okay with me."

He was teasing. He didn't think she really wanted to watch the sex. There was another reason he hadn't figured out yet. He watched as the red spread from her neck to her ears.

"No, no," she protested. She searched for the words she needed. She tried again.

"Look, Ryan...remember we talked about the book you had with you last night, right?"

Ryan pursed his lips. He still didn't see where this was going.

"Yeah..."

Consuela wet her lips with the tip of a pink tongue. The sight caught Ryan's attention and nearly distracted him from what she said next.

"You said you understood why that farmer boy tried to kill his wife's lover, right?" she asked. "And you told me you don't know how you didnot kill your wife's first lover...didn't you tell me that just last night? And you had to quit carrying your gun because you were afraid of what you'd do about Sean Michaels if you ran into him or something?"

Ryan nodded. Their conversations had traveled pretty far afield last night. He'd told Consuela many things he'd never told anyone else.

Consuela got up to pace. Her house was small. There were only three steps from couch to TV. Her pacing was quick and nervous.

"There is a way to make this...thiscabron a lot more miserable than just losing his job," she said.

Ryan grinned in astonishment. She'd said the wordcabron with considerable fierceness. The word's literal translation from Spanish was "a male goat." In slang, though, it meant something more like "asshole fucker bitch." It was not used lightly by a woman as well bred as Consuela was. It was an indication of how furious she was at the man.

He took a moment to consider his alternatives while she continued to walk up and down the living room. Consuela was concerned only with getting some retribution from Mr. Sean Michaels. She was incensed at Michaels' request six months ago that she meet him for sex in an apartment he maintained close to the downtown bank. He hadn't accepted "no" for an answer and had badgered her for weeks before trying to get her fired.

Ryan, on the other hand, was more furious at his wife's betrayal than he was at the man she'd done it with. That was not to say there wasn't enough rage left over for Michaels though. Carrie had not bothered to take off her wedding band to fuck Michaels. It had been clearly visible in all of the videotapes Ryan had of the pair of adulterous lovers. Even had he not known Ryan, and they had met on several occasions, Sean Michaels had known quite well he was having sex with another man's wife.

In another day...in the days of Ryan's great-grandfather, twice removed, for instance...Ryan would have been completely justified in hunting Michaels down and shooting him where he stood. Abruptly, the scenario in the Louis L'Amour book he'd read came to mind. Ryan had always considered himself a throwback to an earlier time. He could do with a little payback directed against the man who had dishonored him. He grinned fiercely.

"What did you have in mind?" he asked.

********

"So...what do you think?" Consuela asked nervously. She sat perched on the edge of the sofa cushion. Consuela looked at Ryan uneasily. She didn't know how he would feel about her idea. It was, after all, dangerous...and highly illegal.

It was Ryan's turn to pace up and down for a long while. He was a reasonably honest man. He wasn't a fanatic about it though. If nothing else, his contacts with the local union when his little company had gone over 35 employees taught him there was a little avarice in everyone.