And The Heart Grows Fonder

And The Heart Grows Fonder Part 5

CHAPTER 4

Dammit to all to hell as fuck, was I wrong.

Lincoln stood uncaring about the hundred dollar bills flipping through the money counting machine before him. His mind went back to the moment he signed those papers, or, as he mused, the night he got fucked six ways to Sunday.

He and two other men sat in a dingy room that smelled like old mold and new money. The dark-green paint coating the walls looked more like it had been mashed in with the heel of someone's shoe and scrubbed off with sandpaper rather than smoothly painted on with a brush. The one light fixture dangling from the center of the flat, lime-green ceiling illuminated the room, but not by much and did not do the interiors any favours. The sofa was dirt brown, rough-hewn, and antique. The only new things in the room were the grey folding chairs and the three-by-two foot rectangular, pine wood table the men shared in their task of neatly securing the money and stacking it together in multiple bricks of ten thousand. The longer end of the table was jammed against the wall.

The automated money counting machine sat on top, sporting ten pockets and an eight inch touch screen that allowed Lincoln to organize how much money each pocket should count. Right now, each was set to count a batch of a thousand of the hundred dollar bills. The grey pockets were detachable and could be arranged as desired. Lincoln favored a pyramid structure and arranged the machine pockets in that fashion. He fed money through one side of each pocket and they fanned out the other side in flapping waves as they were counted. Each counted at least one thousand bills a minute.

Once a pocket finished its cycle, he carefully gathered the set of one thousand Benjamins and handed it to the person next to him. Lincoln then marked off the twelve thousandth, millionth bundle as being complete with a tick on the excel sheet printout on his clip board. The person seated on the shorter end of the table added it to the nine he already had. He held the collection of bills that formed a brick on either side and slipped it in a machine resembling a desk printer. With the money fitted into the secure panels, the stack was pulled into the machine with a soft whirring sound. Less than five seconds later, the bundle was spit out into a tray with a new currency band securing it. Another man then took it and placed it with dozens more of its kind in a large, black, steel trunk. The inner lining of the trunk was cushioned by pocked light grey foam.

Lincoln was continuing with the repetitive task of loading up the counting machine pockets with more dough, when he felt his smartphone in the inside pocket of his designer suit jacket vibrate with a low buzz.

He took it out and a picture of Mat's sickeningly charming grin beamed up at him from the Galaxy Tab screen. The pic had been sent out to him in a batch email. And since Lincoln seemed to be the only male friend on the list, he wondered to himself what name Mat used to categorize the females. Lincoln smiled as he recalled the affect the email had for many of Mat's significant others. By sending out a batch email, all his veeeeery close female friends were able to touch base with each other. And to put a long story short, they were no longer on Mat's email list.

Reeeeal classy move, Number One Stunner.

Lincoln sent Mat a text, punching in the number eight before he phoned surveillance.

"Cut for five."

***

Mat looked at the screen of his mobile as he lounged on the back seat of the luxury sedan, his choice of car for pickup when abroad. His stoic driver, quiet, in front. Mat waited two more minutes before grabbing the single handle, Italian leather briefcase and exiting the vehicle. He wore jet black shades to match his waxy leather jacket. Tan slacks and designer shoes rounded out his attire. His look was sleek and sexy.