Chrysalis

“The laws are for those who can’t afford to pay the court fine!”  Chubby would say. 

         In an L.A. canyon in the early morning hours in late October after the titty bars are closed and the degenerates went home, John Farris, “Chubby” to his friends and business partners, is getting into his ‘57 Chevy.  No fuel injection in this old beast, he can bark the tires in third gear while listening to anthrax on his way home.
         Chubby doesn’t give a shit about the laws or those who enforce them, a surprising attitude for the son of a county prosecutor.  Some say it was to many breaks as a kid, others just blame his parents for letting him grow up like a spoiled little shit. 
         Chubby has managed to accumulate a lot of wealth from his chain of titty clubs throughout L.A.  That’s were he picked up his nickname, and it was fitting for a guy who’s 5’8” and weighs 325 pounds.           He never attended your more traditional institutions of higher education.  Chubby was more of a student of the side of town you would go out of your way to avoid.  He always laughed at the guys who tried to conduct business by the rules.  ”Screw you and stay the hell out of my way or you’ll have an accident.”  was his motto.
         In the last year business had become much easier for Chubby since he’s modified his business practices to include extortion, drugs, and murder.  Luckily for Chubby, the ones who fell before him were not your pillars of the community.  Needless to say, the local P.D. didn’t spend a lot of resources on the investigations.
         Chubby began distributing drugs through his clubs about a year ago.  He’s been able to avoid attracting attention by keeping himself and his clubs clean and orderly.  It  also doesn‘t hurt when you’re the chief county prosecutor‘s son.  Unfortunately for Chubby, there are ways of attracting attention to oneself without even knowing it. 
         One of Chubby’s transporters “mules” got himself busted in an Arizona desert six months ago while hauling forty pounds of crystal meth in a false gas tank.  In exchange for his cooperation with the local drug task force, his mule will go free as long as they can get something or someone little higher on the food chain. 
         Not a bad exchange, give up a drug dealer and keep your colon in tact.  As a dealer one has to be careful, loyalty to ones employer isn’t a rule but more of a guideline and we all know guidelines can change.
         Life is funny, no one likes it when someone becomes successful. Oh, we all sit back and when we are in the company of others we say, “Well good for them.  They deserve it.  Congratulations!”  While deep down I think we all have a jealousy streak that goes right up the center of our core that says, “What a load of crap!  They are the luckiest sons of bitches I have ever seen.  Why the hell can’t something like that happen to me.” 
         The other side of that coin is equally funny.  When someone looses a successful career or bad business decisions have cost them wealth or power, our public response is, “That’s to bad.  That poor guy - I hope he’s able to recover quickly.” When in reality, we are thinking to ourselves, “Good!  About God damn time!”  Come down to reality for a while and live like the rest of us.
         Chubby has hit the point in his life where people are waiting for him to fall and fall hard.  Nothing pisses a person off more than someone who always mysteriously gets their way then rubs others noses in it.  Life has a funny way of making things right.  You attract to much attention to yourself and people take notice.  Unfortunately, sometimes you attract the attention of those you don’t want to.
         

Chubby lived alone.  The home was located on a secluded canyon road.  His closest neighbor was more than a mile away.  The time was approximately 3:40 a.m. when the ‘57 Chevy approached the garage door.  The 57 rolled into the empty stall after the door went up.  When Chubby turned the Chevy’s lights off everything went black.  Chubby noticed the garage openers overhead light was burned out. 
         Chubby stepped out of the car into the dark, walked toward the front of the Chevy while guiding himself with his right hand as it glided across the candy apple red Chevy’s driver’s side fender on his way to the house door.  Not even a ray of moon light from the garage window shone to assist him in finding his way.  The only thing he could hear was the pinging noises of his beloved ‘57 Chevy as the exhaust metal began to cool. 
         What Chubby didn’t know was he wasn’t alone in the darkness.  There was a dark figure in the back of the garage that had been there for the last two hours.  The stranger had positioned himself into a dark corner of the garage allowing his target to be walking away from him while he takes aim.  Dressed completely in black from head to foot, night vision optics gave him the advantage. 
         The dark figure held in his right hand a .45 revolver aimed center mass when he noticed a slight shaking in his right hand.  This caused him to steady his aim with his left hand.  As he had been taught, he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly squeezing the trigger as he finished exhaling.  Two loud explosions echoed in the garage.  Chubby felt as though his chest had exploded from the inside out.

         Chubby fell to his knees helplessly.  While rolling over on his back, he felt the life pouring out of him with every heartbeat.  He began gasping for air and felt the room grow cold.  He never saw the face of his killer. 

         The hit was clean - double tap, two center mass.  The target was down.  The killers training takes over - quickly approach the body, use your flashlight,  be careful not to step in any blood and leave shoe prints.  Take the jewelry and wallet, bag it to be burnt later.  Make it look like a simple robbery.  Walk out to your vehicle parked in the woods on a tractor road a half mile away.  Get rid of the dark clothing, change into something you’d wear out to a club, but leave nothing behind.  Hop on the canyon road, watch your speed and head to the shop ten miles away.
         Fifteen minutes later a black Cadillac STS pulled inside a shop from an alley way down in the warehouse district.  The overhead door closes.  The driver gets out of the Cadillac and walks through the metal shop which was lit only by exit signs.  He tosses a large brown paper bag on a shop table containing the dark clothes and the belongings of John Farris AKA Chubby.
         He walks by a large kiln which sits under a large stainless steel fan shroud and flips the kilns switch to “ON.“  The man enters an office area in the back and pulls out a desk chair, sits down and turns on a small desk light.  The light exposes a used coffee cup on the corner of the desk with a symbol on it, a symbol from the United States Army.  The rank of a Master Sergeant with the name MSGT. C. Johnson.”  Chris turned on a computer on the desk. 
         The computer asks for Chris to verify his identity by retinal scan.  Chris leans up to the camera eye at the top of the monitor.  A light crosses Chris’s eyeball.  The computer responds in a very sultry voice,  “Good Evening Chris.  Is there anything you would like me to do for you this evening?”  Chris asks the computer to lock the shop down to level 3.  The sultry voice moaned in response “Very good - anything else?”
Chris inquires “Any activity in the shop since I last signed in?”
‘Negative Sergeant” “Are you going to be working tonight?”
“A couple hours, then I’m heading up north.”
“Anything else you require this evening?”
Chris thought for a moment, then “Eminem up loud.”
“Very well Sergeant .”

Pretty sophisticated computer system for a metal shop, if it was one.  On the books its listed as a research facility for a body armor manufacturer, a manufacturer with one client, the United States government.