Game Time Pt. 03

"What do you mean, 'officially'?" I asked.

"Oh, Barney--being the astute investigator that he is--most assuredly knows that I probably have more than the official amounts that I reported stashed away overseas," Lana said with a smile. "But, he got the collar, the credit, and even some of the money--well, the Bureau did--so he and the Bureau are content. And, even though he suspects--and rightly--that I have much more stashed in the Caymans and other monetary safe-havens; as far as he is concerned, as long as we are discreet and keep that knowledge to ourselves, he and the Bureau could not care less. In fact, I believe that Barney is sympathetic to what I went through and somehow sees all that additional money as a sort of compensation for what I--no, what WE--went through."

"So, we do not have to worry about the Feds when it comes to this money," I said, "but what about Vasily's people? Are there any of them who might still pose a threat to us over that money? Could any of them still come after you--after us?

"You know," I went on, considering the pictures I had seen this afternoon, "they never DID find that asshole, Gennady Sokolski." I was probing now, in order to find out if Lana had known about Gennady's presence around our house within the past few weeks; in fact, all evening long, I had tried to remain within a few seconds' access to the Ruger with my worries about the gangster's proximity to my family.

"Well," Lana answered me, "I was worried about that until recently. But, I believe now that none of Vasily's men--even that monster, Gennady--will ever bother us again." She said this with such assurance that I was sure that she knew something more about the Gennady situation. But, for her own reasons, Lana decided not say anything more about that subject.

I was quiet for about two whole minutes as I thought about what my wife had just revealed to me. Then, I sighed once, kissed her quickly on the lips, smiled, and said, "So; does that Escalade come with On-Star and satellite radio?"

Lana laughed out loud with her sparking burst of joy, hugged and kissed me, and then she led me upstairs for an evening of marvelous sex, interrupted only once for about twenty minutes by Nadia's insistence at being breast fed. Frankly, I needed the break at that point so that I could recharge a bit so that Little Maddux could do his job once Lana returned to bed.

****

The next afternoon, after we had gotten back from church and enjoyed Sunday lunch, I was pretty sure that any of my neighbors who might have been at home must have been slightly miffed at me. After all, cutting the grass on Sunday was just not the thing that Bible Belt Georgians would do. But, I had moved here from Virginia, where cutting the grass on Sunday afternoon almost seems to be an obligation on any Sunday on which the Redskins aren't playing.

The new grass sod in back was holding up well with my cutting and I was enjoying the beautiful weather as I cut. The slope away from my house in back was sufficiently gentle, even with the swell of the septic mound, for my riding mower to handle without worrying about tipping. I grinned as I thought about my two neighbors not being able to do that with their tipping-prone John Deere riding mowers.

Just below the septic mound, as I whipped the Cub Cadet around for a pass, I heard multiple thunk sounds under the cutting deck. Evidently these noises came from clods of the clay soil and loose sand that was my curse to have for ground cover between the underground rock layer and my sod, along with plinking sounds that could only be small rocks and gravel as well, being thrown about by my blades. Additionally, I was suddenly engulfed in a cloud of reddish-brown dust that had risen all around me.

Coughing heavily, I hit the button that turned the blades off, and turned the mower uphill slightly before turning off the engine, leaving the key in place. I set the brake and stepped off the main deck onto the mowing deck and then onto the ground. As I began to examine just what I might have hit that would cause so much dirt to be slung about by my mower, I was momentarily confused.

The slope and septic mound had hidden from normal viewing from the back windows of the house what I was seeing now. On the downhill edge of the slope, there, among the blades of grass of the new sod, was a thin layer of the red-brown clay dirt and sand and some clods that matched the soil beneath the new grass sod. It reminded me of how mining companies distribute tailings from their excavations from open mining or strip mining--in a thin layer all around.

'Why in the world is all this dirt spread out so thinly across the TOP of my sod below the septic leach mound?' I thought. Surely, the landscaper did not pull out a load of clay soil just so that he could spread it out on TOP of the new sod. So, who did; and why? I turned back toward the mower and then I saw the outline in the sod.

On the downhill side of the slight mound that covered my Presby Septic system--a spot where there would be more than four feet of soil between the surface and the underground rock layer because of the mound's artificial build-up of soil, was an oblong section of the recently-emplaced sod--measuring roughly three feet wide and six feet long--that did not seem to fit into the ground as neatly as the rest of the sod sections. As I approached it, I noticed that it bulged out slightly from the gentle mound as well. Then, after thinking about it for no more than about thirty seconds, I realized what I was seeing there in my back lawn.

I also realized, at that moment, why Lana had said what she had said to me months before: "I will do whatever it takes to protect myself and my family from bad things, bad thoughts, and bad people."

And I now knew why she had seemed more relieved and carefree when she had spoken to me about the money and the absence of any real threat from any of Vasily's people: "I was worried about that until recently. But, I believe now that none of Vasily's men--even that monster, Gennady--will ever bother us again."

I could not help but smile as I now understood that Gennady Sokolski would no longer, as part of a re-energized mob getting Vasily's operations back off the ground, or with any other criminal enterprise, be saying, "Game time, My Little Slut," to any other girl or woman--ever. Because I realized that the mineral components of what used to be 'that shit,' Gennady, were probably breaking down in the same manner as the other elements of 'that shit' from my house--right here in my septic system.

Well, what the hell; I knew that I would never reveal to Lana that I had figured out just exactly how she had gotten rid of the threat of Gennady. I would wonder, though, how she had found the strength to drag his body up here from the shooting spot about fifty yards farther back from the house--IF she had, that is; smirk-smirk--but I would never ask.

And, with the guarantees that came with the new high-tech Presby Septic system, I could feel confident that there would be no need to dig around that mound for at least thirty years. And I would do all that I could to keep the secret of that septic mound safely away from any inquiry.

After all, I wanted to be sure and maintain the ongoing truth of that simple two-word statement that my son, Steven, had made to me on the day that Lana had returned to us:

"Mom's home."

THE END