Winter Games

Moses couldn't help but to plot and connive. Even in retirement, it was as natural to him as breathing.

This neighborhood, his neighborhood, was filled with uppity crackers who looked down on him. They shouldn't. He had well-known skeletons in closets, but he wanted secret ones in theirs. Secrets only he knew.

All the white bitches in this neighborhood had a weak point. It just took utilizing. There was Allie, the only woman who could really rival Elizabeth. She had a nice life, a nice husband, Teddy, a daughter, Brooke. But she lingered at the stores and malls. She was materialistic and greedy. Moses could probably place a winning bet that she was drowning in credit card debt.

Cindy. Mother of Chris. Now she was an easy one, a divorcee. That would be like taking candy from a baby.

There was Julia. Elizabeth's best friend, and the wife of Tom, a genial sort. But get enough wine in her, and she was always lamenting about how Tom was a two-pump chump.

There were new prospects too. Reena. She was fresh in from London. She was a newlywed with her husband, Max, a layabout who proclaimed to be an aspiring novelist. That relationship had its faultlines too, Moses knew. Max still had playboy tendencies, and Reena wasn't feeling stable in her marriage yet. It'd be easy to topple that relationship over.

Bianca, a girl from a more middle class area just on the edge of the ghetto, was dating Cindy's son Chris. She aspired to a lofty life, but Moses thought she might have a little hood in her.

Moses wanted all these women to have deep, dark secrets that only he knew. Then he'd rule this neighborhood.