The Chauffeur (#34) The Aftermath

The Chauffeur (#34) The Aftermath

By PABLO DIABLO

Copyright 2019

CHAPTER 1

John, Fred, and both CG boys took their guns out of their holsters and ran outside. I hear a couple of rounds fired off, not sure who fired or if they hit anything.

I looked around and asked if anyone was hurt. I saw blood on Mom and some on Jill and Dakota. I went to each of the ladies, I didn’t see any wounds on Mom. I went to both Jill and Dakota, worried that both of my ladies had been hit by gunfire.

Dr. Ronda, at the other end of the table, was checking everyone at the far end of the table. Jennifer was the first one to scream.

“OH, MY GAWD, DAVID, YOU’VE BEEN SHOT,” she says to me. I start to look at myself but at first, I don’t feel anything, nor do I see anything except some blood. Dakota points to what she believes is my wound. To me at least, it looks as if the bullet hit my bicep. The blood that was coming out of the wound was not causing me pain as my adrenaline was pumping so fast.

I just sit down on the floor as my brain begins to realize that my body has been hit by a bullet. I keep asking everyone to check themselves and the person next to you for any bullet wound or any other type of injury from diving to the floor.

John comes back to the house first. Jill is already dialing 911 and telling the emergency operator that the house was attacked. John walked the front windows and counted 11 bullet holes. He also noticed that two bullets were lodged in the wall behind Paula and Dr. Ronda. The doctor was using our first aid kit to stop my bleeding. Dakota and Jill were both holding my hand, Dakota’s eyes were filled with tears. Jill was pissed off and wanted to get into her car and chase these bastards down.

Dr. Ronda kept telling her to calm down, you know, the usual thing that makes everyone calm. Yeah, not so much. Poor Patrick and Aurora, I invite them to our Thanksgiving meal and they nearly get killed. I just keep apologizing to them. They were nice enough to tell me not to worry, but of course, I do worry. I worry that maybe Jaxson, Inc. is under attack. First the fire at the trucking location in Sacramento and now multiple gunshots through our front window.

While it seemed like an eternity, I hear sirens coming our way. Mike Booker, Mark Newberg, Patrick, and Marcus moved all the ladies into the kitchen where there were no opportunities for a direct shot from outside our home. Dakota went to our room and her room and fetched both Jill’s gun and her own. She took Mom by the hand and pulled a chair into the kitchen for Mom to sit on.

As emergency vehicles arrived, Fred and the two CG boys stood guard at our front door. The Police also sent a SWAT unit, but they determined rather quickly that SWAT was not needed.

All the ladies were clearly shaken. A couple was crying. Amy was just as pissed as Jill. She left the others and went to her room retrieving her firearm. Patrick and Aurora were OK, shaken but OK. The porn twins and Belinda and Allison were all shaken with the porn twins crying. Allison and Belinda were hugging them and trying to sooth them and calm them down.

Donna came over and sat by me as did Jennifer. Although neither one had their gun, they stayed with me trying to stop my bleeding with a couple of cloth napkins and pressure on the wound.

The CG boys let the EMTs enter. Fred took over outside and discussed with the Police what happened. They called for their forensic crime unit.

As the EMTs worked on me, they suggested that I go to the hospital. I clearly refused to say that I was not going to abandon my family. Doctor Ronda assured the EMTs that she would stay here with us and keep a personal eye on me. Jill was up and pacing by the front door, she was really pissed off. She so wanted to go after those guys, but she decided that staying in the house was a better choice for everyone’s safety.

I saw Dakota on the phone.

“Who are you talking to Darling?” I asked.

She just handed me the phone. I looked at the caller ID and saw that she had called Roger.

“David, what the hell happened. Dakota said that you have lots of bullet holes in your front window,” Roger says to me.

“Well, yeah, we do have some new ventilation in our front windows. Police are here now. What’s the odds that we have this massive fire, that the Fire Department determines is arson, and as we are sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner, we end up with about a dozen bullet holes in our front window?” I ask.

Roger says he believes that someone, maybe the Russians were trying to intimidate us or the company. Little do they know that they are only setting their own fate should I have anything to do with them.

Bobby and Sammy begin to put all the food back in the oven and on the stove. They collect all the plates and silverware. They do pull out a sleeve of red solo cups and begin to pour wine for everyone in the kitchen trying to get people to settle down.

A large man named Julius McKenzie, a Sargent of the Police comes into the house to speak to us. He starts with me asking questions about if any of us saw the cars or the shooters. I pointed to our security system. He just smiled.

Amy played the security back for Sargent McKenzie. They got clear facial shots of the drivers of both cars, they had license tags of both cars and they had the video of the shooters firing multiple gunshots at the front of the house. Sargent McKenzie put out an APB for the cars. As he was speaking to others inside the kitchen, Sargent McKenzie took a call over his walkie talkie that both cars were spotted near downtown and Police were circling to take them down.

John came back into the house and came over to check on me first. I told him to go to Diane, as she is probably all shook up. He does as I suggest and goes over to her. He puts his arms around her and pulls her in tightly to him assuring her that everything will be alright.

Every so often, I apologize to Patrick and Aurora again. I feel so damn bad that they showed up for what was supposed to be a delightful meal and ended up in a shooting at our home. They both were cool about the whole thing, but I felt like shit.

About 45 minutes after the first of the Police arrived, news crews began to arrive as word was out that our home was fired upon. Fred took both of his nephews and walked to the gate entrance and poked the buttons to close the gates leaving the press outside of the courtyard. Several of them took Fred’s picture as he directed them to leave the property. A couple of minutes later, two news helicopters were hovering overhead shooting live pictures of our courtyard.

John gave the copy of the security video to Sargent McKenzie, but there was a copy still on the hard drive of the computer so we could look at it later.

The porn twins and Belinda decide to head to their pool home. Allison stays in the kitchen with everyone else. The Police were extracting bullets from the wall in the living room and the two that buzzed past us over the dining room table. They also extracted the one that hit me in the bicep. That one stung a bit as the adrenaline had worn off by then. The EMTs were cool about letting Dr. Ronda handle me and my injury. She extracted the bullet and sewed me up and put a large bandage on my left bicep covering the stitches that she put in my arm. She also gave me a large shot of morphine to help with the pain. It didn’t take long before I was as loopy as Jill was the night of her accident in the ER.

Both Jill and Amy were still pissed. I could see them pacing. I tried my best to ask them to calm down but asking that was about as helpful as telling an alcoholic not to drink the rum.

Mom got up from her chair and came over to me. By this time, I was apologizing to practically everyone for ruining their Thanksgiving. Mom looked me in the eyes and told me to just be quiet. Fred was coordinating things with the Police. John stood at our front door, although his gun was holstered now. I felt safer seeing him stand there. It was probably just the morphine making me think that way.

I apologized to Kim and Kay. They laughed a bit saying that they now had the best Thanksgiving story ever. I just giggled at that statement, clearly, the morphine was having its way with my brain. Jill finally settled down a bit and sat on the floor next to me. She put her arms around me and kissed me. I wanted to kiss her more and do ‘other’ things, but she playfully slapped my hand and told me to behave.

Maddie, BJ, and Danni were all having solo cups of wine, the Cierra wine. Bobby and Sammy kept asking if they could fix a plate for anyone. No one was hungry at that moment. I do remember Sammy telling all of us that he made several pies and they are in the fridge in the big kitchen. Marcus got up and went to go look at them. He came back several minutes later telling us that he saw a cherry pie, two Dutch apple crumb pies, a pumpkin pie, a pecan pie, and two chocolate mousse pies and a lemon meringue pie. He also told us that he saw several different types of cookies, but other than chocolate chip he couldn’t remember any of the flavors.

Sammy just laughed at him saying, “Why didn’t you just ask me, I would have told you what I made,” several of the ladies giggled at his answer.

CHAPTER 2

It took nearly four hours before all the Police investigation was complete. They got the two cars that were on our security video, but the perpetrators had gotten away. The crime forensic unit was headed over to the two cars to be dusted for fingerprints as in the video no one was wearing gloves.

Patrick and Aurora asked the Police if they could go home. The Police offered to take them home, but they refused to say that their car was in our courtyard. Once again, I apologized, not very coherently but I apologized again.

They were escorted out to their car. They got in and left. Mark Newberg collected Kim and Kay and took them back to their apartment.

I saw that Jennifer was sad. I knew it was because the shooting screwed up her opportunity to maybe have a nice discussion with Patrick. I just kept apologizing to Jennifer for screwing up her Thanksgiving. She too told me to just shush.

Mike Booker asked if anyone needed a ride anywhere as he was headed across town. No one took him up on his offer. He just left, after again I apologized for ruining his Thanksgiving.

Maddie, BJ, and Danni all went down the hall and landed in a bedroom. Again, I apologized but they just ignored me. I guess that the morphine was making me even more worried that I had ruined everyone’s Thanksgiving holiday.

By this time of the evening, we were down to 18 people including me. I was still sitting on the floor of the formal dining room. Hunger was now beginning to take over my thoughts. I asked John if he was hungry and he told me that he was.

I asked Sammy if they could make John and I plates of food to eat. They gladly made me a plate with roast beef, turkey, some sliced ham, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes and gravy. When John saw the plate that they made me he asked for the exact same plate that I got. As the plates were being made, a couple of the ladies, including Diane, Dakota, Jill, and Amy all asked for plates of food. Bobby and Sammy were now smiling as I was trying to stuff food into my mouth as fast as I could.

John was eating even faster than me. He finished in just a couple of minutes. Taking his plate over to Bobby, he asked for more AFTER the ladies all got their food. Since Sammy was making the plates for the ladies, Bobby put several slices of roast beef, two turkey legs, and three slices of ham on John’s plate. No veggies, but a large blob of mashed potatoes and lots of gravy. John was licking his lips before he even got a bite of the second plate.

By now, Jennifer was hungry as well and asked if Sammy could make her a plate also. Of course, he obliged making Jennifer smile, the first smile since the shooting.

Mom asked for just a small plate as her tummy was still upset with all the commotion that we had today. Bobby gave her a nice helping of mashed potatoes telling her that the potatoes will soak up much of the belly acid. She thanked him for taking care of all of us.

I asked the CG boys to check and see if any of the Police were hungry. They all thanked us but declined. The CG boys came into the house, locking the front door and heading into the kitchen. Bobby and Sammy made each of them a plate of food, then made themselves a plate. We all just sat around, no one really saying anything.

John sat down on the floor at Diane’s feet. She caressed his shoulders telling him how she felt so safe with him by her side. I just smiled, what the heck else could I do? Dr. Ronda gave me another shot of morphine and I was just out of my mind with silliness. Everyone seemed to be laughing with me, but upon further thought maybe it was laughing AT me.

At some point, I began to find everything funny to me. I saw Dakota and Diane both giggling at me. I knew that the morphine was having its way with my brain.

Fred, his nephews and John all discussed taking turns watching over the house. They checked the back gate making sure to add a lock to it ensuring that the ladies in the pool home were safe.