Chapter 4

Shortly after their fourth wedding anniversary, one he had forgotten, Jackie brought the newspaper to him. Stoically, she showed him that Rax Entertainment had been raided; there had been drugs found on the premises.

“They, Jackie, you knew? You knew they was selling drugs?”” Johnny demanded.

“No. Jerry? Told me my first day there, they even suspected I might be doing drugs? I would be bounced out of there so fast it would take a week for my titties catch up with me,” Jackie snapped.

“Lilly,” Johnny snapped.

“Yes sir? Oh. Hello Mrs. Zuna,” Lilly, Johnny’s executive assistant asked.

Lilly Eldridge’s intense dislike of Jackie Zuna was ill-disguised. For her part, Jackie tolerated the older woman; she was smart, efficient and dangerous. She knew too much so Johnny would not be letting her go for any minor infraction.

“Anthony? He does acquisitions, right?” Johnny asked.

“Yes sir,” Lilly said, tearing her eyes from the little tart her boss was married to.

“He’s doing pretty good, eh?” Johnny asked.

“I suppose. If you would like, I can pull together a list of the companies he has managed to…” Lilly offered.

“Do it. And Lilly? Find out how many them been busted?” Johnny ordered.

Lilly shot Jackie another look. She cocked an eyebrow, appraising the woman’s demeanor.

“So…you’re not just a stupid little blonde bimbo,” Lilly thought as she hustled to the small office just off of Johnny’s office.

“It is good you brought this to my attention,” Johnny declared as they could hear Lilly’s fingers dancing and tapping on her keyboard.

Anthony was blustering and posturing when his father placed the information in front of him. Calmly, Johnny asked if the seventeen places that had been shut down were selling drugs when Anthony approached them.

“Or, could it be, even though I have told you, we are not in the drug business,” Johnny asked, regarding his son with cold eyes. “Could it be that they became involved in the business of selling drugs AFTER you acquired them for Zuna Enterprises?”

“Either way, Anthony,” Johnny sighed as he waved his son’s rambling nonsensical blustering aside. “Either way, it is obvious you are not suited for the business world. If they were selling drugs but you were too stupid to notice? Then you are not suited for the business world. And if you somehow convinced them that they needed to sell drugs? Then you are not suited for the business world.”

“But, but, Penny, Penny’s pregnant,” Anthony stammered.

“That is good, that is good. Ah, a grandchild! So, maybe you need to go get a job; babies, they need diapers and bottles and all that other stuff, eh?” Johnny said, standing. “But you? You don’t work here no more. Your sister? She’s been saying maybe Andy, her Andy might do good here.”

“Andy? That, that pussy?” Anthony scoffed.

Despite Anthony’s indictment, Andrew David Stevens was a good fit. He brought more national companies under the Zuna umbrella, forged more lasting alliances. He concentrated on branching beyond the borders of Pennsylvania and soon Zuna needed to open branches in other states along the Eastern Atlantic.

Jackie knew she would not be able to hide birth control pills from her husband. She was afforded absolutely no privacy whatsoever. Thankfully, her doctor had started her on an implant shortly before her marriage to Johnny. Every five years, she had a new implant inserted; she had no desire to stretch her body all out of shape just to stroke her husband’s male ego. The idea of breast-feeding a messy little brat, changing shitty diapers did not appeal to her at all.

Just after their ninth anniversary, Johnny demanded she go to a clinic; see what the problem was. He knew he could not be the problem; after all, he had a daughter and a son. Meekly, Jackie agreed to the appointment with the fertility specialist but quietly prayed for Divine Intervention.

The morning of the dreaded appointment, sitting at their breakfast table, Johnny suddenly clutched at his chest. Jackie looked on as her husband labored to breathe. His eyes were wide, unfocused, his skin was cold and clammy.

“Francesca! Donavan! Somebody call nine one one,” Jackie screamed to their maid, to their driver, unknotting her husband’s thick Windsor knot. “Johnny’s having a heart attack!”

While his father lay in a hospital bed, Anthony Zuna seized the opportunity to replace his father at the helm of Zuna Enterprises. In the seven years since his dismissal, Anthony had built up an empire of his own. He had many contacts and many people owed him favors.

Andy Stevens opened the door for his little sweetheart. Once again, the girl had agreed to skip class so they could go to his lake house. Inside of the car, they shared a passionate kiss before Andy started the car.

The blast vaporized both occupants. There wasn’t enough left of either to identify the remains by dental records. Andy was the registered owner of the car and Tracy stoically provided the authorities with Andy’s toothbrush and hairbrush to help identify his body. It was only when Belinda Johnson’s mother called to report her daughter missing that the authorities had a lead on the remains of the passenger.

Anthony smirked as he entered the Zuna office building. His first act as the CEO of this business would be to move them from the old building into a modern glass and steel building, one more fitting for such a formidable business as Zuna Enterprises. His father had pointed out, several times to Anthony the architecture, the craftsmanship in the old building but Anthony was unimpressed by such trivial matters.

“Mr. Zuna, you are not to be on these premises,” a beautiful red headed girl said when Anthony entered the lobby.

Anthony liked the looks of the girl; he would definitely keep her. After all, that was the kind of face, the kind of body his clients should see when they entered the lobby of Zuna Enterprises.

“Yeah, yeah, maybe you ain’t heard?” Antony said, smiling a seductive smile at the little honeypot.

“I have heard that you are not to be on these premises,” the girl stated firmly.

“Okay, so maybe he would not be taking this girl to the new location of their enterprise; she had an attitude problem. He moved past her desk toward the door that led to the rest of the building.

“Hey, Sweetheart, want to unlock this, eh?” Anthony demanded.

The door did unlock. Two burly security guards stepped out, pushing Anthony back and blocking the hallway.

“Hey! Listen up,” Anthony protested.

“No, Anthony. You listen up,” Jackie snapped, stepping into the lobby. “Collette told you, you are not to be here. Please leave or I will have Myron and Jeremy escort you off the premises.”

“But, but, my old man, Andy,” Anthony sputtered.

“Your father is recuperating just fine; you should visit him. Oh, and bring the grandchildren; we’d love to see them. Until your father makes a full recovery? I am the acting CEO of Zuna Enterprises,” Jackie informed Anthony.

“At least, at least let me do Andy’s job, eh? I was pretty good at it before…” Anthony demanded even as Jeremy and Myron hustled him to the door.

“Don’t worry. Tracy is doing an excellent job,” Jackie smiled tightly as the door swung open. “But, we have no need of a low-life drug dealer in our fine establishment.”

Bringing Johnny home from the hospital, Jackie had a hospital bed set up in the sun room, had a wheelchair brought in, and also had a hospital bed put into the library. When the sun room became too bright, or two warm, she would have Donavan assist Johnny from the bed and then would wheel him into the library. There, she would find a book for him to read and would select a book for herself. They would sit and read quietly until he fell asleep or demanded to be brought outside for some fresh air.

His weight diminished. He had no appetite and would eat very little of his meals, even though Francesca was an excellent cook. A medical student at the hospital quietly suggested that Johnny try marijuana, even though marijuana was illegal in the state of Pennsylvania. Jackie chartered a private jet and flew to Colorado. There, she visited a few pot shops and bought the supplies she would need.

“Hey! You, you’re pretty good at that,” Johnny protested as his wife rolled a fat joint for him.

“I had them show me how to do it,” she giggled, lighting the joint for him.

“Hey, think there’s room up here for a good looking little blonde, eh?” Johnny suggested after his second joint.

“Oh yeah?” Jackie giggled, scrambling up onto the bed.

He was unable to maintain an erection for long, but did enjoy playing with her heavy breasts. After tweaking her nipples for a few moments, Johnny thrust a few fingers into her pussy but quit long before she was ready for him to quit.

In time, his appetite did improve. He began to get a healthy glow to his skin, his skin no longer sagged horribly on his frame. And, in time, Jackie took to sharing the joints with him, reclined on his bed, limbs entwined with his. And, after two or three joints, they would ‘play.’ Tugging on her fat nipples, he suggested she might want to get some piercings.

“Only if I can get my clit pierced,” she agreed, kissing him, then playfully rubbing his three-day growth of whiskers.

“Yeah, sure, get that little clitty pierced too,” Johnny readily agreed. “Use my American Express; get yourself the best.”

“So you’ll know where the fuck it is next time you got your fat finger in me,” Jackie thought as she looked for a place that would do the piercings.

She had to swing by a jeweler’s to purchase the four carat square cut diamonds; the small tattoo parlor did not have any diamonds. But the man was only too happy to thread the diamonds onto the large solid gold hoops for her. Of course, telling Johnny that her boobs and pussy were too sore to play did no good. Jackie was grateful for the marijuana; it helped to kill some of the pain his rough gropes caused in her mutilated flesh.

“Oh! Oh! They do tattoos,” Jackie enthused after he finished his rough treatment of her flesh.

“Only whores got tattoos. You ain’t no whore, eh?” Johnny declared.

“Just a whore for you,” Jackie teased, rubbing herself against him.

Jackie’s mother noticed how haggard her daughter was beginning to look. Jackie was shocked when she finally did look in a mirror; if her self-absorbed, narcissistic mother had noticed, it must be bad. And it was worse than Jackie feared.

Johnny was dead set against his wife going anywhere, doing anything other than to the Zuna Enterprises office without him. But once she was out of the house and on the clock, Johnny could not control where she went or what she did. She joined a women’s-only gym and began to work out on her lunch break. She convinced her step-daughter Tracy to join her and also paid for the female employees of Zuna to join. The owner-operator joked that Jackie might as well buy the gym; ninety percent of her clientele were Zuna employees.

“Shit, I was only kidding,” the woman said, but accepted the check with much thanks.

“What? Why we need a woman’s-only gym?” Johnny grumbled.

Looking at the books, he decided they should look at grabbing up some more gyms. And, Zuna Securities should oversee the security of each gym. And, United Guardian, a subsidiary of Zuna Enterprises should insure each gym.

“But I’m just a blonde bimbo with big tits and no brains,” Jackie whispered to Tracy and the two women giggled.

Johnny’s health was improving. His color was good, his weight was good; his doctor did want him to cut back on the carbohydrates and fatty foods and start incorporating more fiber into his diet.

“Yeah, keep this up? I see no reason why you shouldn’t be able to return to the office; on a limited basis,” the doctor said.

“Tell him what you mean by limited basis,” Jackie demanded. “I know my husband. He thinks six days a week is limited; after all, he’s taking one day off.”

“Hmm? No, no, two days a week. Two. We’ll see how that goes,” the doctor said.

On the morning he was set to return to work, set foot in his office, Johnny collapsed. He was dead before the ambulance arrived at Zuna Estate. Gently, Donavan helped the EMTs pull Jackie from Johnny’s corpse; she was still trying to provide CPR to his lifeless corpse.

After the funeral, Anthony Zuna again attempted to march into Zuna Enterprises, take over. Again, he was escorted from the facility. At the reading of his father’s last will and testament, Anthony was enraged to learn that his step-mother, his much younger step-mother was the sole owner of Zuna Enterprises. Moreover, Jackie had inherited every last stick of furniture, every keepsake, every heirloom of his father’s estate.

Quietly, Jackie whispered to Tracy that Johnny had made the will just before his heart attack; Tracy’s husband Andy had still been alive at that time.

“Please, come to the house. Come; you’re Grandmother’s jewelry? That is not mine; it should go to you.”

Anthony should have been grateful; even his wife Tammy said he should have been grateful when Jackie gave him all of Johnny’s jewelry. The Cartier pen he always used when signing contracts, Jackie kept that pen for herself. Johnny had believed the elegant pen was somehow a lucky pen and she hoped that some of his luck would rub off on her.

Closing the door behind the handsome chauffer, Daphne took her Rax Rabble Rouser troll doll to her room. Door firmly shut in case her father might come home early from work, Daphne worked the zipper down. She blinked as two fat joints fell out of the compartment. Tilting the doll forward so she could fully peer into the compartment, Daphne saw that the doll was jammed full of marijuana joints. She stuffed the two that had fallen out back into the doll and zipped the zipper up again.

“Holy fuck!” Daphne breathed.

Her first thought had been to call Angela, her former best friend. Then she remembered, Angela was now running around with Noah. And, anything shared with Angela would get back to Noah and if it could hurt Daphne, Noah would be delighted to tell Daphne’s father about the marijuana.

“Stephanie!” Daphne smiled.

Stephanie Daughbourne was Noah’s step-sister; she hated Noah even more than Daphne hated Noah. Her last name was Daughbourne, pronounced ‘DAW bone’; Noah had first delighted in calling Stephanie ‘dog born.’ Even John Books, Noah’s father insisted Noah cease and desist with that name.

After his father punished him by taking away first the IPad, then the keys to his car, Noah delighted in mispronouncing Daughbourne, calling his step-sister ‘Stephanie Dahmer, inferring that she was related to the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.