MOTHER FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!

I got back to the office from kacking three child molesters and two lawyers yesterday, and was looking at the board for another, when my boss came out of his office. He kinda did a double-take, and said, "What are you doing here? Aren't you on vacation?"

I snarled, then took a deep breath and told him what had happened with all the God-damned banks in town.

The jerk says, "oh." and goes back into his office, and waves me inside. He hands me another, even more satisfying hit, this one on a large, national bank's president who's been acquitted of a Ponzi scheme on a technicality (evidence that was gathered incorrectly, and thrown out as inadmissible). I smiled, and took the file.

So I got back to the office early this afternoon to collect my take, and my boss's door is open. On a Saturday. He's never there on a Saturday. So, I poke my head in to let him know I've done the job.

And he grins. "That's why we love you. High, fast turnover. By the way, I've got a brochure for you."

I did not know until today, at 3:45 p.m., that the First National Federal Public Assassin's Credit Union existed. And that they close at 3:00 p.m. on Saturdays.

At times like these, I wish I were a little less professional.

I've spent the past two days going from bank to bank, looking for one that would be willing to underwrite a mortgage for us.

I've been turned away by every fucking bank in town. Every. Fucking. Bank. In exactly the same way, for exactly the same reason.

Let me describe what happened in the first bank.

First National Bank. Good, big bank. It's the one my fiance and I have our accounts with--they know me there, and they know what kind of savings we'd racked up for buying a home. I figured I would be in and out, same day, no problem, and my fiance and I could spend the rest of my two week vacation house shopping.

Nope. Not by a long shot.

I got in to see the loan officer, and told her what we were looking for. I told her that my fiance had been in, and had been pretty unceremoniously turned down. She shrugged and told me with a very professional smile (perfectly empty and meaningless) that they turned down anyone whose income was that sporadic. I returned the professional smile and said that I understood that, and that we wanted to try for a mortgage in my name.

So, she pulls up the forms on her computer, and starts asking the questions I expected. You know: income, debts (I only told her about mine, not Mom's), stuff like that. Everything went as I expected, for the most part--I will admit that I wasn't expecting her to start fawning over me like she did when I mentioned what my annual income was.

And then she asked me who I worked for, and everything fell apart.

I told her that I'd been working for the agency for the past five or so years, and mentioned that I was one of their five top-paid agents. She went very stiff--stiff enough that her smile started looking like she was in absolute agony. I suppose she may have been--she was so terrified that she didn't seem like she could move for a couple of minutes. Then, with a shaking hand, she took the mouse and closed out of the program. At my raised eyebrow, she excused herself from her office.

She was gone for half an hour. When she came back, she had three security guards with her, and three cashier's checks--one with the amount from my personal checking account, one with the amount from our savings account, and one with what was in my fiance's account. Then she asked me to leave.

I didn't move. I was in more than a little shock. I asked to speak with her manager, and one of the security goons offered me a hand up. He said that the manager was actually expecting me, and that they were to escort me to his office.

The manager stood up, but didn't shake my hand or offer me a chair. He told me in a very firm voice (while refusing to look me in the eye) that he stood behind his bank's decision, and that my business wasn't welcome any longer. He said that the bank would honor any last charges through our checking accounts, but that the accounts were closed. Good day.

I will admit my smile was a bit thin and cold as I took this in. And he took a step back, away from his desk toward the windows. Then he glanced behind him, and jumped sideways--away from the windows, like I could push him out from across the room and on the other side of the desk, with security goons on either side and behind me.

Need I remind you that I am not a large woman?

I agreed that his bank would lose my business. I casually mentioned that my sister and brother-in-law, who also used this bank (and are, quite frankly, bigger and more important customers than I am), and that they'd be disappointed to hear that the bank no longer wanted my family's business. I wasn't expecting him to back down (and he didn't); I just wanted to make him squirm (and he did).

Then I endorsed the checks against the wall I was standing closest to, and handed them to the security goon on my left, telling the manager that if he didn't want my business, I'd fully release them from having to do any more business with me. Today. Because I didn't want to be carrying his checks.

Of course, he sputtered. He tried to talk me out of it. He yelled. I reached inside my jacket for a notepad to document the abuse. He cringed, whined, and took the checks himself, motioned for me to step away from the door, and ran out of the room. He came back with about a quarter million in cash, and three more guards.

They had six guards--big guys, all of them--escort a 5'2", 135 pound woman out of the bank. With a quarter mil in cash in her purse.

I'm glad I was armed.

And I did call Jenni while I was on my way home, and tell her what happened. And the bank lost another 2.5 million in business that same day.

Payback's a bitch.

In any case, I spent the rest of the day going around the big, national banks, looking for a home for our cash, and looking for a mortgage.

No dice. Not on any front.

Yesterday, I went around town again, looking into the smaller, local banks.

Again, no dice. At any of them.

I'm pretty sure that it wasn't that they just don't approve--which is why many of them won't deal with escorts at any level of the business. I got the impression at each and every one of the banks I visited that they were terrified that I'd pull out a gun and start shooting everyone without provocation.

If I was going to do that, I'd have shot the first mortgage officer when she came back in with the security goons to escort me out. But, I'm a bit more professional than that--if someone takes a contract out on her, I'll bite and scratch to get it, but without a contract, I won't do squat. It's unsanctioned murder. It's illegal. Most of all, I'm a professional, and killing her without a contract would be unprofessional. Damn it.

No, the quarter mil isn't in our apartment. So don't get any ideas.

And no, I won't take out a contract on the brainless twatcake that started the whole mess. That would also be unprofessional.

My fiance, on the other hand, is considering it for an anniversary present.

In the meantime, I need to kill something. I'm going in to look at the board this afternoon for a good, satisfying hit--and I don't care how much it pays, it just has to be satisfying. Then I'm going to go do it. Then I'll take the rest of my vacation.

A bit of a snag...

I ruined a really nice suit, today. You'd never believe just how badly people care for their cars. I suppose it makes my job easier when the gas lines are leaking. Saves on my professional budget when I don't have to plant more than a length of det cord.

Anyway, I came home this evening, covered in brake fluid, transmission fluid, and gasoline to find my fiance, drunk again, crying on the couch. I thought he'd had another crushing loss, but he waved that away and told me that he's started talking to Jenni before he makes a move financially.

No, apparently, his income is too...sporadic, let's say, for the banks to be willing to talk to him about a mortgage. They won't even talk to him about a NINJA loan, even with our downpayment savings account. If that's not sad, I don't know what is.

I suppose I should take a few of the vacation days I've got stockpiled and get this done in my name. I'm kinda tired of having neighbors stomping on my ceiling at all hours on weekends.

I'm home, for a while.

Wow. Sorry I went missing for a while, sis. It's been a busy few weeks.

I've been sent on a few trips for work, lately. It's been so hectic that I've barely been able to sleep in my own damn bed for more than a couple hours before I had to get up to make the next flight. No worries, though--all the travel pays extra, and Mom doesn't need it all.

Which is a great thing: my beloved fiance and I have now got a good downpayment saved up. We'll be looking into different banks' mortgage rates in the next few weeks.

In any case, I had my quarterly psych check-up last Friday. We have a new shrink working for the company that does the evals for this state's C.P.A. agencies. She's the one that did my testing, and I managed to get some interesting info out of her that I'm not sure she realizes she gave me. It made me seriously re-think my initial second career plans of going to work as a university admissions counselor.

Apparently, there've been some new regulations quietly pushed through the Department of Education. The Federal government finally managed to get their sticky fingers inserted into university admissions tracking in ways other than just affirmative action: students are being fairly forcibly tracked into "studies" majors in public universities if they are of certain races and get below about a 25 on their ACT, or a 1160 on the SAT. If they get below a 20 or 970, they're tracked into sociology and social work programs. If they get below 18 or 890, they're tracked into remedial courses, then tested again. If they score below the sociology cutoff again, they're tracked into teacher ed.

And if they get above a 25/1160, and they're Asian, they're still tracked into the "dummy" tracks. Because the "dummy" tracks don't have a certain, politically correct, populationally proportionate percentage of Asian students.

And when the new shrink who did my psych testing got the requirements forwarded to her, she changed jobs. I can't say as I blame her for that--it's probably safer for her job security to work with marginally functional sociopaths than to refuse to forcibly track students like that because it's politically correct but morally wrong.

After I can retire as a wetworks agent, I might see if I can get on with one of the psych companies. It'd be less frustrating than working with the feds breathing down my neck, that's for sure.