Chris Mooney - World Without End

They kept trying.

Toni turned forty… They explored fertility options. Toni's age made it next to impossible to get pregnant, but to be sure, Raymond paid off the doctor to make sure it never happened. Raymond collected skeletons for a living. Turning a man into a puppet was easy when you had the right nerve to press.

Toni turned forty-one… forty-two… Good-bye baby, hello good life.

At least that was the way it was supposed to work.

Toni was supposed to grieve and get on with her life. And Raymond didn't have to worry about Toni wanting to adopt. Her father, Harrison Winthrop, was not going to be the grandfather to another man's child.

Toni would grieve, do the therapy thing, pig out, pop pills, and be overly dramatic in the way she always was, help me, someone help me, the sky is falling. Meanwhile, Raymond would play the part of the sympathetic husband, listening to her constant griping, comforting her when she cried. All he had to do was look around the house he lived in, its sprawling grounds, the lifestyle that once was promised to him now a reality, and he knew he could put up with anything.

But the world has a funny away of biting you back.

Raymond came home one night, late, opened the front door and stepped into the dark foyer. He was about to go upstairs when he saw a flame jump from a lighter in the darkness of the living room, an orange and yellow halo of light spreading across the face of Harrison Winthrop.

"Sit down, boy. You and me need to have a chat," Winthrop said.

Raymond turned on a light. Winthrop wore a black suit and sat on the couch with his legs crossed, his left arm propped up on the armrest, a Churchill-size cigar clasped in the tiny fingers of his small hands.

His white hair was immaculately combed, his powder blue eyes serene behind the wisps of smoke drifting up across his face.

A cold pain shot up through Raymond's stomach and ran all the way up into his head. For a moment he couldn't breathe; it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. He opened his mouth to speak.

"Now the affairs, I can see that," Winthrop said. His voice was neutral, as if this discussion was simply a business meeting.

"Nothing wrong with a man wanting to get his pencil sharpened every now and then as long as it's done in good taste. Toni ain't never been a pretty girl, and the Lord didn't give her that many marbles either, but he did give her a heart of gold and what you did to my baby girl was downright cruel." Winthrop took a puff on his cigar.

"I know all about the vasectomy," he said in a long trail of smoke.

"Son, don't try to lie to me. I saw your medical file. You got the vasectomy not two months after your marriage, right in Dr. Brocade's office. And don't bother asking me how I found out, because I'm not going to tell you. What I will tell you is that you're out of the picture."

Raymond sat in his living room with its antique furniture and went into shock. It was like that day when he came home from school, just two weeks after burying his father, and found repossession men moving his world into two moving vans. That day he had stood paralyzed with fear.

Now, older and wiser, his brain desperately sought some neutral ground where it could formulate some explanation that would extricate him from this situation.

"Where's Toni?" Raymond asked.

"At home with her momma. Ever since she learned that her opportunity to have kids is gone, she hasn't been right in the head."

"Does she know about " "Of course she doesn't. You think I'm going to tell my baby that the man she loves is a monster? You know what that will do to her?"

A thought came into Raymond's mind. He almost smiled.

Winthrop leaned forward, placing his elbows on his small knees.

"Now you listen up and listen good, because I'm only going to say this once. You're going to leave, tonight. The divorce will be rushed through, nice and quick, and you're not going to be in our lives anymore. You understand me, boy?"

Raymond didn't like the word boy, and he didn't care for Winthrop's self-righteous Southern tone.

"I've put four years into this marriage," Raymond said.

"And for that you will be duly compensated."

"How much?"

"Half a million. Cash."

"That's insulting."

"That's the deal. If you don't like it, go pound sand."

"What do you think the knowledge of the vasectomy will do to her fragile mental condition? I hope she isn't suicidal."

"Boy, this isn't a negotiation. You either take the money and run, or tomorrow morning you wake up and your private life will be national front-page news and you won't get a cent. Bradfield, that company you work for, you think I don't know it's a CIA front? You think I don't know what you do for a living?"

Raymond had his poker face on.

"I think there are drugs in your cigar."

"And I think you're one stupid son of a bitch. You're not the only one who can make bodies disappear."

"That sounds like a threat."

"It's a fact, sir." WInthrop smiled, and then tapped the end of his cigar against the edge of the coffee table, watching as the ashes drifted to the hardwood floor.

Raymond stared at the man's green eyes that crinkled at the corners.

He's got you by the balls and you know it.

"What about the house?"

"I'm going to hang onto it until the real-estate market shoots back up," Winthrop said.

"Don't think I'm not aware of your connections, how you collect people in your pocket. Don't make the foolish mistake of believing that you're the only one who has connections. If anything happens to me or my family, I'll release everything I've got on you along with a few other tidbits to your superiors and the media, of course. The media hounds will lap this story right up. I'll let you suffer for a while, the CIA will boot your worthless ass out, and then at some point you'll disappear." Winthrop smiled again, and Raymond wanted to reach over and punch it right off the old goat's face.

"I'm giving you the easy way out. Don't be blinded by greed."

Roll the dice and fight or take the half million?

Haifa million in cash wasn't a bad severance package.

"You got the money here?" Raymond asked.

"No, a financial planner's got it."

"Yours?" Winthrop's planner was a magician with money.

"Someone else. Conflict of interest. Now, you do what this man says, he'll invest the money for you and make you a rich man in a year. This guy's that good. I figured that little extra touch will keep you happy and away from me and my family. Of course, if you decide to piss it away, that's your problem."

Raymond used the financial planner, and by the end of the year, with the stock market soaring into the stratosphere, had tripled his money.

Winthrop and his family were distant memories. Raymond had his money, and with some patience and planning would have his old life back. Then Raymond walked into the two-bedroom condo he was renting and found the stinking, massive figure of Misha Ronkil, the Russian mob's most notorious hit man, hunched over the architectural plans for Raymond's new home.

"Pull up a chair, Big Ray," Misha wheezed.

"I've got one hell of a story to tell you."

The financial planner worked for the Russian mob. All of the money Raymond made was through stock scams. Nobody knew about it yet, and no one would know about it as long as he played along. If he didn't, well, Misha said his boss had ways of making the evidence look more damaging. Maybe no jail time, Ray, but no permanent CIA gig either. If the CIA cut him loose, Raymond would have to protect himself against the Russians. Not a realistic option.

"You and I have this common problem with this rat fuck Angel Eyes,"

Misha said.

"He's been in Russia stealing some of our stuff, and we found out he's doing it here in the States. You got the inside line on the stuff we want. So unless you want to spend the rest of your days bagging groceries and looking over your shoulder for me, you better give us access to all those goodies. Like this military suit you're developing that allows you to become invisible."