[flipflop]

Carpenter pulled four cold beers from the refrigerator and distributed one to each of the the other three men.

Then taking one for himself, he dropped down on to the couch, and called them to join him. As the other men found their respective chairs, Carpenter suddenly stood up and began feverishly checking all of his pockets. Then, with a look of shock he said "oh shit! I forgot my rubbers. Did any if you guys bring any?" Looking at each other frantically, they then looked at Carpenter with a look of disappointment and said "fuck no."

Then Carpenter, who was looking at them very seriously, suddenly broke into a laugh and said "just kidding! Geez you guys are gullible. Don't worry. No condoms will be required. We're gonna fuck this bitch 'au naturale'" he said, suddenly taking on a bogus French accent.

Then, he suddenly got serious again. "Okay. I know you guys all understand the plan and how things are gonna go, tonight. But now before we get 'down and dirty' with this bitch, I need to lay out a few rules. These, rules are not negotiable!"

"First, no names! Once we walk into that bedroom, you cannot use any of our first or last names until after its all over. Are you guys clear on this?". They all nodded in agreement. "Good", said Carpenter.

"Second. No pictures or videos of any kind. We can't risk having our faces shown in conjunction with this in anyway" Again, they all nodded in agreement..

"Third, nobody can say anything to her that would cause her to know that we know her husband was a cop. We want her and him to think this is a random attack on his lovely wife. If he thinks it has anything to do with the fact that he was a cop, they might be able to develop a suspect list."

Looking into the eyes of each of the other three. Carpenter asked, "do you guys have any questions?". Nobody did. "Good", said Carpenter. "Then let's have another beer.

As they finished their second beers, Carpenter looked at the clock on the mantle and stood up.

"Well, time to start this little party", he said with a grin. Then, he looked at the pair who had grabbed Liz from the parking lot and said, "where's her cell phone?"

Quickly, one of them extracted it from his pocket and handed it to Carpenter. Looking at it in his hand, he frowned. "Shit! Its an I-phone. Do any of you know how to work one?" quickly one of the three stepped forward and took it from his hand.

Carpenter had been out of prison long enough to get himself quite comfortable with cell phone technology. But his personal cell was not an i-phone and many of the features and functions were different from what he was used to.

"What do you need?" he asked Carpenter. Reaching into the athletic bag, that had been with him constantly, he pulled out a hands free headset, with an extended boom mike. Handing it to him, Carpenter said "synch this so it works with her phone".

Taking the device from Carpenter, he asked him "is it charged"? Carpenter looked at him and said, "No. It's totally dead. The challenge is for you to synch a device that has a dead battery." pausing while the other two laughed, Carpenter said, "of course it's charged. I'm not that much of an idiot!"

Smiling at his own stupid question, he powered up the device and waited while the i-phone searched for it. Once it was paired with the phone, he tested it and confirmed that it was working.

Then, he checked the phones battery level and confirmed it was fully charged. "Anything else?" he asked Carpenter. "Yeah. Check her contacts and find her husband's cell phone number".

Clicking on her contacts, he scrolled down until he found 'Dave'. Then, confirming with Carpenter that that was the name he was looking for, he asked "is that it?". Carpenter replied "yeah. Thanks", and took the phone back. Then, without another word, he grabbed the athletic bag and headed towards the bedroom, with his three ex-con friends in tow.