Trust: It Doesn’T Take All Kinds, We Just Have All Kinds

By David Dobson

A real-life non-fictional work of fiction: Vivian de Rosa is the epitome of a hard luck woman. After her divorce she moves to Los Angeles to start life all over again. Life is anything but normal as she is surrounded by morally-challenged individuals in her professional and personal lives. Hijackings, diamond thefts, blackmailing, serial killing and monogamously challenged individuals encapsulate her world in this true-to-life romantic-comedy. After reading this you may realize that your dysfunctional family (including in-laws) may not be so neurotic after all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483689180

David Dobson

David has had the opportunity to travel throughout his entire life allowing him to meet many interesting people; many of which appear in his novels. David Dobson is an architect currently residing in San Diego, California.

Book preview

Prologue

With the motion sensor in the entry way and living room disabled, he was now able to move freely across the living room towards the hallway. With the homeowners out of town he knew he could turn on all of the lights; at twenty-one floors up there was no chance of a neighbor across the street seeing the lights on and knowing the condo was supposed to be empty. As he walked through the living room he turned on the big-screen television with the remote that was lying on the sofa and turned the channel to MTV; turning the volume up so that he would be able to hear it as he moved about the condo.

After obtaining a copy of the building plans from the Building Department at City Hall, he became very familiar with the layout of this particular condominium unit as well as all the possible exits from the building. Standing at the entrance to the hallway he held out a small mirror to peek down the hall to make sure there were no indications of motion sensors or alarms down there. He then casually walked towards the bedroom and checked it for motion sensors as well before entering. Once inside the bedroom he was free to help himself to whatever he wanted to; he started to pilfer the drawers by the vanity and only found a cigar box with cufflinks and loose change. He learned the hard way that sometimes these rich homeowners hid their valuables in plain site and only kept junk in their safes knowing that the safe’s would be the main target of thieves so now he always checks the drawers first.

The cat burglar then went directly to the closet where he knew the safe would be. He had done his research well; the safe was exactly what he expected. The problem was that although he was very skilled at breaking and entering he was not very proficient at safe cracking. Fortunately for him he had all night to break into it. He had broken into a store a month previously, photographed the store’s copies of the receipts and bought the same exact safe and practiced on it at home. After nearly three hours of fooling around with it in his garage, he finally got it open; he hoped that when it came to opening the safe during the actual robbery it would take him less than half the time to open it. When he decided to turn to a life of crime he made his own set of rules that he would follow; the first rule was to always do thorough research and planning before committing any crime. He conducted practice runs in his house and compiled a full wardrobe of disguises and even had an array of fake business cards and identification cards in his own safe at home.

After an hour and thirteen minutes, he finally got the safe open. When he opened it, he was a little shocked to find it empty except for several file folders containing the homeowner’s insurance policies and a few manila envelopes containing other documents. He started to speak out loud, Now they wouldn’t have taken their diamonds with them on a vacation to the Caribbean. He glanced again around the room and decided to check under the bed next. He crawled to the bed and lifted the bedspread and looked underneath and saw that the fabric on the bottom side of the box springs was cut open at the bottom right corner of the bed. He reached his hand inside and found exactly what he came for. .Ah, he thought. The old hiding the valuables inside the box springs trick. He should have thought of looking there first as he always hid his passport and money in the box springs of hotel beds whenever he traveled.

After putting the necklaces in his backpack, he stood up, pulled out a three of diamonds playing card from his shirt pocket and placed it on the floor between the bed and the closet containing the safe. I wonder if they left a cold beer in the refrigerator, he thought to himself before turning around to leave. As he turned he glanced back at the safe in the closet and thought what could be so valuable about the documents in those manila envelopes in the safe. Being curious and in no rush to get anywhere he shuffled over to the safe and picked up one of the envelopes .and opened it up. The envelope was filled with about a dozen 8X10 photos; he took a look at the photos in the envelope, shook his head and said, Someone has a dirty little secret.

The cat burglar grabbed the other two envelopes from the safe before heading to the kitchen. He glanced through the cabinets in the kitchen, made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and sat down at the kitchen table and looked at the contents of the envelopes as he ate.

1

So tell me more about that guy you met online, Eva said, I want to hear every sordid little detail.

Gio, Vivian said with a sigh, he’s got a great sense of humor and a very positive attitude. We chat online every night for at least an hour and a half and never seem to run out of things to say. I am looking forward to meeting him on Monday. After a brief hesitation she added, And he’s got deep blue eyes that I just can’t resist.

Do you have any photos? Eva asked. Personality only goes so far you know, is he a hunk?

Vivian smiled, Sure, let me show you. She logged onto the internet via her phone and opened her e-mail to show Eva some of the photos that he sent.

Do you have any naked photos of him? Eva asked as she looked at each one and examined them closely. I want to see the goods.

Vivian looked at her friend and shook her head, No.

Do you want me to give you some? Eva said with a slight laugh. She thumbed through the photos and said, He is kinda cute. So what do you guys talk about for an hour and a half every night?

Vivian half looked up when she spoke, We talk about everything going on in our lives….family, friends and of course, baseball.

Eva kept thumbing through the photos on Vivian’s phone, What did you tell him about me? Are these all recent photos?

Vivian giggled, I told him a lot about you; but don’t worry, it was all good. Here, let me show you a photo he sent me this morning, it was taken when he was a kid. She opened up an e-mail that she had received earlier in the day and opened the photo that was attached. It was taken when he was five. The photo showed a smiling five-year-old boy with short brown hair wearing a red shirt, blue jeans and red socks with no shoes. He was sitting on a recliner with a German shepherd puppy sitting next to him on the chair.

Eva said, Now that is cute; it reminds me of that old Oscar Meyer bologna commercial. Why did he send it to you?

Vivian smiled, When we chatted this morning we started talking about pets and he started telling me about a puppy he got when he was five. He said the puppy was his best friend until it died when he was twenty.

Eva shrugged, I prefer to have men as my pets. She leaned back and said, Come to think of it, there really is no difference between a man and a dog; they just eat, shit, growl and hump your leg every chance they get.

The one thing that really turns me on about him is that at his age he seems so innocent although I’m sure he’s been around, Vivian said. He said that he prefers to look at the world with ‘youthful idealism’.

Youthful idealism, eh? Eva asked with a tone of skepticism. You mean he’s just another middle-aged man that refuses to grow up.

Eva and Vivian had been friends since they went to High School together in Boise, Idaho. After high school they both went to the University of Idaho; Eva majored in business administration and Vivian majored in accounting. After graduation, Eva moved to Los Angeles and tried to get Vivian to join her but Vivian chose to stay in Boise to look after her parents.

Vivian’s grandparents moved to the United States from Madrid at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Her grandmother had relatives that had a farm in Idaho and offered them a place to stay when they arrived in the US. Vivian’s father had been drafted during the Vietnam War and lost his right leg to a landmine. Four months prior to Vivian’s graduation from the University of Idaho, Vivian’s mother had been in a car accident that severely injured her back. Although she really wanted to go to Los Angeles with Eva, Vivian decided to help her parents until her mother’s back healed. It was shortly afterwards that Vivian met Sam Harold, a local businessman she met after glancing at the personals ads in the paper. He appeared to be a genuinely honest and caring man. Although Vivian was very cautious with him, she quickly fell in love with him, and the two were married within a year. Vivian had tried to talk her husband into moving to California on several occasions, but he had refused to even talk about the subject each time. Not that Sam was a stellar husband; he was not that bad either, or so she thought. He seemed to be a responsible person and always made sure that Vivian was well taken care of. He even seemed to take a genuine interest in the well being of her parents. After two years of a relatively uneventful marriage, Vivian found out that her husband was leading a double life.

The shock of her life came one year on her birthday when a paternity suit was filed against Sam. When there was a knock on the door she thought it was an unexpected delivery of flowers or gift from her husband; instead it was a process server looking for Sam. Within a week, a second paternity suit had been filed from a different woman. It seemed that things could not get any worse for her, but things quickly went downhill from there. Not only had Sam been seeing other women, he had been siphoning off the profits of his company to pay for a rather large gambling debt that he had acquired. Vivian never expected anything unusual was going on behind her back the entire time they were married up until that point. Sam regularly traveled for work which often took him to Las Vegas. Little did Vivian know, Sam had been betting on every major sporting event and had become addicted to playing high stakes poker. Vivian never found out until the divorce proceedings that he had actually used the deed to their house as collateral for some of his debts.

Needless to say, Vivian quickly filed for divorce and moved back to stay with her parents. After getting tired of Vivian moping around the house her parents urged her to reconsider moving to Los Angeles for a new start, which actually had been a dream that Eva and she had shared since they were high school sophomores.

While driving from Boise to Los Angeles Vivian got a little lead-footed while she played the song, Hard Luck Woman, by Kiss on her CD player, a song that seemed to have been named after her. Instead of watching her speedometer she just kept up with the traffic, often weaving through a pack of cars on the interstate as she was eager to get the drive over with. While driving through Orange County, she got too careless and was clocked doing 86 in a 55 MPH zone. When the Highway Patrol pulled her over, she thought the trooper was doing her a favor for writing it for 82 instead of 86. She explained to him that she was moving to California to start her life over and thanked him for his leniency and then asked him how much the fine was. You have to go to traffic court on the time and date shown on the citation. Welcome to California, I’ll see you in court next week.

Vivian looked at the citation, so I have a date next Friday with a heartless asshole Highway Patrol officer. He didn’t seem anything like Erik Estrada on CHiPs.

Vivian, at age 32 looked closer to 22. She stood 5-foot 8-inches tall and only weighed 112 pounds, no matter what she ate, she never gained weight, which, of course, made her friends always madly jealous of her. She had long bushy black hair that ran down to the middle of her back that always seemed to be in place, even when the wind swirled around her. She had big seductive eyes that often hypnotized men when they looked at her. Both of her parents had blue eyes, but due to a very rare birth defect, her eyes had a violet tint to them, adding more to her mesmerizing appearance.

Though her experience with her husband left her wounded and opened her eyes to the realities of the harsh world around her, she still chose to look at life in an innocent way. She preferred not to judge people and give everyone the benefit of the doubt until they prove to her that they were not trustworthy. Inside she wanted to find a down to earth man and start a relationship, but she was not in a hurry to do so. She figured that when it happens, it happens.

Starting her life over now, she moved to Los Angeles and had a one-bedroom apartment waiting for her that she had found online. Eva had offered to let her stay at her place, but knowing how often Eva liked to have guests over Vivian didn’t think it was such a good idea; she thought that if they shared a place together they would quickly get mad at each other and never speak to each other again.

Eva was also very slender but not quite as tall as Vivian and didn’t look as young as her either; Eva clearly looked like she was in her early thirties. Eva had straighter brown hair that she quickly dyed blond after she moved to California. As soon as she settled down in Los Angeles she scheduled an appointment to get breast implants, something she had always wanted to do. Eva was born in Canada but never knew who her real parents were, her adoptive parents moved to Idaho when she was twelve. Because Eva was adopted Vivian never judged Eva’s extroverted lifestyle; she always thought that Eva was subconsciously trying to make up for the lack of personal identity. Eva had a slight French-Canadian accent that she exploited the way that Hollywood movie stars use fake British accents.

Eva was born for the nightlife in Los Angeles, going to clubs at least four nights a week, living it up and having the time of her life. She used her natural charm and tight-fitting, low-cut clothing to entice men to buy her drinks and food. The way she figured it, if men were willing to spend money on her, then she should just let them do it. It only took her a couple of months to get her routine down; she learned just how to give men the impression that she was interested in going home with them just to get them to pay for her to have a good time, and then abandon them when it was time to leave the club.

Eva had a job waiting for her in Los Angeles; she had gone to the local library in Boise and scoured the newspaper want ads and sent nearly a hundred resumes to businesses in the Los Angeles area. Being more open minded than Vivian, Eva dated a lot of different men but never settled down. Always having at least three boyfriends at any given time, Eva was what is known as a well experience companion as they say in the politically correct world. Vivian always used the word slut to describe her best friend, but never held it against her.

Eva made no attempt to hide the fact that she was seeing several men at the same time; she always had a primary boyfriend and then a couple of other men that she kept dangling for when she felt she needed a little variety in her life. One night stands were more common than not with her.

Eva did Vivian a big favor by arranging several job interviews for her upon her arrival in LA. The most promising interview was with Eva’s current primary boyfriend, Jeff Blank. Jeff had left his previous job to setup his own company with the help of a friend of his from Mexico. His friend Ricardo Osvaldo bought a small toy factory south of San Felipe, Mexico and re-tooled it to manufacture children’s building blocks and dollhouses. Jeff setup a distributorship near the downtown Los Angeles area; Ricardo would be his first customer in a plan that would get both businesses up and running simultaneously. The two had been planning their respective ventures for nearly a year before they finally got their respective companies going.

Even though Jeff was 49 years old, Eva still liked him a lot and almost felt that she loved him. The age difference didn’t bother her at all; he was fairly handsome, good in bed, but most of all he had plenty of money that he was willing to spend on her. Jeff had scheduled an interview with Vivian at Eva’s request three days after Vivian relocated to Los Angeles. Jeff had already decided that he would only hire women for his office and wished he could enforce a very seductive dress code. Even though he was married he maintained a relationship with Eva and other women on the side. Jeff’s wife spent most of her time in North Carolina taking care of her parents these days which was just fine with him. As the old saying goes, when the cat’s away the mice will play.

When he saw Vivian walk into the office for the interview, he decided at once that he was going to hire her. His business plan called for four employees; Vivian was going to be the first as he needed an accountant first and foremost. During the interview, Jeff had a hard time concentrating on which part of Vivian’s body he wanted to stare at. He liked the way her sweater accentuated her breasts, but he could not stop staring at her violet-tinted eyes. Jeff tried to drag out the interview as long as possible but after thirty minutes he could not think of anything else to say other than asking her, When can you start?

Thanks for setting up the interviews, Vivian told Eva, the two were now sitting in the back of a Starbucks enjoying an afternoon coffee. I also have a couple of interviews with some interesting companies that I found on the internet. I actually found about a dozen openings, but some of them don’t sound so hot, she said as she gazed around the coffee shop. She noticed a man looking at them several tables away. That guy has been staring at us for the last ten minutes. How quickly do you think you can pick him up?

Eva briefly looked at the man and said, Honey, all men are easy to get. You have to remember; it’s something about being a man that turns them all into perverts. They all have two heads but only enough blood for one of them to work at a time. Both girls laughed; Vivian almost spit out her coffee from laughing so much. All you have to do is make eye contact with them and they’ll take that as a signal that you want to go to bed with them. The two giggled again.

"Anyway, look at his shoes, it looks like he got them at a garage sale, he couldn’t even afford the cover charge at Woody’s let alone pay for my drinks, Eva said with a quick wave of her hand. He’s not even worth looking at, she continued. Now, tell me more about this guy you met on the internet."

Well, like I said, he’s an architect in Orange County, forty years old but looks to be in great shape judging from his photos, Vivian said.

Don’t believe the photos girlfriend, once I had a guy send me a photo of a gorgeous hunk of a man but when I met him he turned out to be a three-hundred pound whale, Eva said as she puffed her cheeks and held her arms out to indicate how big the guy was.

We’ve chatted online with a web camera; he really does look like he’s in excellent shape. He works for a local architecture firm plus he has his own business that he operates in his spare time, Vivian continued. "He said that the architecture profession was built on moonlighting, and it’s very common for architects to work for a firm and have their own side business."

So why aren’t you two hooking up this weekend? Eva asked as though this seemed like the obvious thing the two should be doing now that Vivian was in Los Angeles.

We originally planned to but his sister and her family is in town, and he’s taking them to Disneyland, Vivian said to her suspicious friend.

2

So tell me more about that gal you met online, Marty said slamming another Corona, his speech beginning to slur.

She seems really cool, great sense of … holy shit, look at the chimichangas on that one, Gio said pointing to a young woman that just entered the bar. Oh please be eighteen, he continued as he stared at the young woman. The woman was about five-feet tall with shoulder length brown curly hair. She was wearing very tight faded blue jeans and a white cotton buttoned shirt tied off at the waist showing off her slim waist and pierced belly button.

Goddamn she’s a hottie, Marty replied, also staring down the woman from head to toe, I’d like to take her home and play with her. The young woman looked around the bar as if looking for someone and then started walking towards the pool tables on a path that would take her close to the table that Gio and Marty were sitting at. You gotta stop her and get her to sit with us.

Hola mamacita, Gio said as she neared the table, "sientese con nosotros (sit with us)."

What’d you just say to her? Marty quickly asked as he continued to stare at the young woman.

I told her that you’re very rich and that I want to introduce you to her, Gio replied without taking his eyes off the young woman.

The young lady was a little taken by surprise as most Americans she met rarely speak Spanish that well, "Hablas Espanol muy bien (you speak Spanish very well)."

Marty began to get a little excited, What’d she say? He didn’t realize that he accidentally tipped his beer when he turned his head, pouring some beer on the floor.

Gio turned his head briefly towards him and said, She said that you are very handsome, and she wants to bear your children.

The young woman giggled as she overheard Gio and glanced at Marty; she could tell that he believed everything that Gio had told him. Even your accent is perfect, you sound as if you were born and raised in Mexico City, she said. My name is Tanya, she said as she put her hand on the table and slightly leaned towards Gio, fully aware that the low-cut top of her shirt now hung open part-way exposing her cleavage. Marty, always jealous that Gio had a natural gift for talking to women, slid closer to the woman and put his hand on hers, making no bones about trying to get a good down-the-blouse look.

Hi, I’m Martin, Marty said while trying to imitate a Spanish accent. You are so amazingly beautiful.

Gracias Martin, she said, looking at Marty briefly before turning her attention back to Gio. "Su amigo es muy patetico (Your friend is very pathetic). She then turned her attention back to Marty with a realistic artificial, I would be honored to bear your children."

Marty began feeling very confident now pulled out his wallet, took out a business card and gave it to her, Give me a call sometime.

She winked at Marty, pulled her shirt out at the top a little and made a seductive show of putting his card in her bra. She then turned back to Gio and said, I’m sorry, but I’m supposed to meet someone here. If my friend doesn’t show up you can buy me a drink later. She winked at them both and walked towards the pool tabled with an exaggerated strut, grabbed a pool cue from the wall rack and laid it on the pool table as she began to rack the balls. She knew that the two men were watching her, so she exaggerated her movements in a sexy fashion as she leaned over the pool table and occasionally glanced towards the two in a menacingly seductive manner.

Gio and Marty regularly came down to Tijuana, Mexico for the cheap beer, food and women; mostly for the women. Hookers in Tijuana were only about $25 USD, and sometimes you could talk them down even lower. Some of TJ’s regulars have bragged in the past about getting hookers for less than $10. Gio, though a regular visitor to Tijuana actually rarely picked up prostitutes while down there, he definitely would not touch the girls that would bargain with johns figuring $10 would buy you more than you bargained for.

Marty had a self-righteous motto: Hookers need to pay their bills too. In his delusional misinformed world, he truly thought that women turned to prostitution because they enjoyed it and got to make a good living at the same time.

Both Marty and Gio were architects and only worked in the same office for about nine months, but with their similar passion for baseball, beer and women they quickly became close friends; or just hanging buddies as Gio really saw it. It had been ten years since they worked together, and they still hung out quite often. Gio had just celebrated his fortieth birthday and looked very good for his age, most people guessed that he was in his late twenties/early thirties. He had been a paratrooper in the Army for four years when he was younger, part of the delayed entry program designed to help students pay for college. He kept up with a regular workout regimen after he got out of the Army that kept him in reasonably fit. He wasn’t overly muscular but kept himself well proportioned as he himself put it. He was only average looking, but his excessive natural charm and deep blue eyes constantly attracted women to him like a magnet. Gio stood 6’-3" tall with a full head of curly brown hair cut just below the tip of his ears. Gio was always cool, calm, collected and confident in himself; more aspects about him that women found attractive. A female colleague of his kept telling him that he was cuter than a red wagon full of Dalmatian puppies.

In spite of the fact that Gio was witty, smart and well-read, he had always been somewhat of an underachiever. Anyone else with his potential could easily have been very successful no matter what business venture he tried. Nearly all of his teachers in both high school and college commented on the untapped potential that he had. It’s not that he was lazy; he just always sought the easiest route to any outcome. As he would always tell his friends that he would rather win the lottery than have to work a day in my life. He had always joked that it was a shame that he could not sue his parents for not being rich which forced him to have to work his way through life, causing undue mental stress.

Marty was thirty-eight and in reasonably good shape himself and better looking than Gio, and he knew it, which bothered him the most about the fact that women always flocked to Gio and not to him. While Gio was more introverted and modest, Marty was more extroverted and was quite conceited, considering himself better groomed, smarter and wiser than everyone else around him. He was always so concerned about his appearance that he constantly had his nose hair removed via electrolysis. His prescription for reading glasses differed from his regular glasses which meant that he would have to change his glasses constantly when he was working. Instead, he went without glasses and contacts while at work; he would rather squint than to have people see him wearing glasses. He definitely didn’t want anyone to see him wearing bifocals.

Order another round, I’m going to piss, Marty said as he got up from the table. As he half-staggered back to the table a few minutes later, he found two women sitting at the table talking to Gio. Both girls were young Mexican beauties not a day over 20. Both had tight shorts and tank tops to keep them cool in the summer heat and humidity. Marty, not being able to stand seeing the three of them chatting and laughing together sat down next to one of the women and put his arm around her and tried to talk to her. The two women simultaneously stood up and walked off, waving goodbye to the two men. At that moment, the waitress appeared with four more Coronas and four lime wedges.

When I was in the bathroom I looked in the mirror, and I must say, goddamn I’m good looking, Marty said and the two started laughing. This was one of Marty’s favorite sayings, especially after he’d been drinking.

Cheers amigo, Gio said as he put a lime wedge into the neck of one of the Corona bottle and raised it in a toast.

I must admit I’m so fucking jealous that you can always talk to women, I guess it helps that you can speak their language, Marty said.

Talking to women is a gift I have, it’s almost a curse. Languages are another gift; it’s always been easy for me to learn a new language, Gio said modestly, while looking over Marty’s shoulder while giving one of the young girls a wink. One time I picked up a Ukranian gal, she didn’t speak any English and I don’t speak Ukrainian.

So, just how many languages do you speak? I’ve heard you speak Spanish, German and French over the years, Marty said. I never got around to asking you how you learned to speak so many languages.

Well, you know that my father was in the Air Force when I was a kid; we lived in Turkey and Italy when I was growing up, Gio began.

Yeah, I know all of that, and I know that your mother is from Portugal, Marty said. You told me that before.

Mom used to always speak to me in Portuguese while dad always spoke to me in English; they wanted me to be multi-lingual. When we lived in Turkey, we were forced to study Turkish and had to speak it nearly every day for all four years that we lived there. We lived in Italy for four years also, where Italian, French and German were required in school. One of our neighbors was from France, so we got to practice speaking French every day. When I was in the Army, I took Spanish classes in my spare time since there was nothing else to do but drink during off-duty hours, Gio said, slamming his Corona and grabbing another. I am only at the intermediate level in German and Turkish but pretty near fluent in the others. I read the news online in different languages to keep in practice.

Damn, Marty exclaimed, I just don’t have the gift to learn other languages. What do you intend to do with all of those languages?

You have a hard enough time speaking proper English, Gio laughed taking another drink of beer. I translate some stuff for companies from time to time and I also tutor language students at some of the local colleges. Of course, I only tutor female students,’ he continued raising his bottle of Corona. When I get tired of the architecture game someday I plan on traveling overseas, I’m sure I can easily get a job as a translator