Epilogue

I saw my friend Harry Marshall and Detective EJ Williams leaving one of those new roadside motels off Bluemound Road, holding hands. Normally I would have pulled over to see what they were investigating and hope to get a scoop on another murder. But today they sure didn’t look like they were leaving a crime scene. Well, I mean it might have been a crime scene knowing Harry, but not a crime scene in the sense that it would require an official visit from Milwaukee’s homicide detectives. EJ was looking mighty fine and still had the bulges under her jacket that could or could not have been her gun, but seeing as Harry wasn’t wearing his jacket and no gun was visible and he had his hair combed and a slight smile on his face, well, I’ll leave the rest to you. I waved and was surprised that they both waved back. EJ didn’t flip me off.

Detective Chet George is still working for the Milwaukee Police Department’s homicide division. He received a commendation from the mayor of Milwaukee for shooting The Peanut and for saving an elephant by getting it out of the Milwaukee River. That’s a long story that I just don’t feel like getting into now.

Robbery detectives, Dave Turner and Jack Miller, retired and never did solve the mystery of who stole Gus Mader’s pork shanks. Gus didn’t get around to hiring me to find out either.

Barry Meier was struck and killed by a drunk driver down by Lake Michigan the night before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

Frank Meier kept his job as Chief of Police after he went out and publicly campaigned for the current mayor of Milwaukee who promised to support Chief Meier in his bid to become the next mayor of Milwaukee.

Bob Chimilewski was relieved of his duties as Chief Meier’s Chief of Staff and got a job as a feature writer of the Milwaukee Journal. He still doesn’t like me. That’s okay. I still don’t like him either.

Frank Meinberg recovered from his head wound and went back to flipping burgers while Willie Jones washed the dirty dishes at George Webb’s. Both will likely die of old age working in that place. The ferret who tried to rob them that night never was apprehended. Hap Schultz is still riding Harley’s and tending bar at Rocco’s Pub. He started performing on the Wisconsin Rodeo circuit. He swears he saw old Casper still tossing cowboys up in the air at the Spooner Wisconsin Rodeo. Hap won a belt buckle for calf roping. I don’t know what he will do with it as he doesn’t seem to have a belt as he has a difficult time keeping his pants up in the presence of beautiful and not so beautiful and sometimes downright ugly women. In any event, I can’t remember seeing him happier.

Speaking of ugly women, Ralph Mills surprised everyone by getting married again. He thinks her name is Velvet. She is the tall skinny woman he met on the dance floor that night we went through Sally Hammond’s diary at Rocco’s Pub. He said he felt the love rising from his toes while swaying to the sound of The Raja, singing the popular song by The Four Preps, Twenty Six Miles Across The Sea, proving some guys won’t quit until they marry every available woman they can find. What Ralph is looking for is anyone’s guess.

Dan, Rocco Man, Ciorrocco, my good friend and owner of Rocco’s Pub, my home away from home and office away from the office, is thinking about starting a chili cook off contest in Wisconsin. He was thinking of including Illinois in it as well until I reminded him how downright crooked and unethical our friends to the south of us are.

He had to expand in the back to add a larger dance floor as it seems that all the Krauts and Polack’s in the Milwaukee area love The Raja, and his blond girlfriend, Barb E. Dahl. Their number one requested song is the Beer Barrel Polka.

Eloise decided that I wasn’t worth waiting for, so she stopped serving me manhattans at Rocco’s, to don lederhosen and go to work for Gus Mader, making him forget about the theft of his pork shanks for awhile. He now has his beautiful daughter Valerie and Eloise showing off their wares in lederhosen. I heard Eloise is happy and dating the new bartender at Judge’s Beyond The Reef. I still haven’t had the pleasure of sitting at the Stammtisch table but I keep trying.

Diane Davidson is still the head of the accounting department at Harley Davidson down on Juneau Avenue. I see her every once in awhile riding around town on her little Harley Scooter with her English riding helmet. She is too cute to be a Hell’s Angel.

Tommy Hanson, my sometime personal advisor and full time bartender at Hepfner’s Bowling Alley, quit his job to go on the Professional Bowlers Association Tour. He currently is number ten in the money standings.

Sam Galbraith quit working at Harley Davidson and started flying full time transporting pork shanks and other cargo around the Midwest. On one of his trips to Colorado he ran into Alan DuPont and actually struck up a friendship. He stood up at DuPont’s wedding; and, no, DuPont didn’t marry one of his ponies, or a goat either. Sam said his wife actually is pretty nice. In fact, he is currently dating her sister. He was pretty shaken up when he learned his former girlfriend’s older brother was the serial killer who was chopping off ladies heads around Milwaukee. Sam paid Ralph Mills and me our money back along with a hefty profit but kept Hap on as a partner. He said Hap was needed to find pretty girls in case they decided to add a couple of stewardesses to serve their corporate clients on some of their island junkets.

Mildred Bates actually shaved her legs and quit cleaning houses for the rich Jews in Shorewood and went to work full time for John Marcello and Associates.

Harry hasn’t made good on our bet about her shaving her legs and he hasn’t mentioned it as he seems to be a bit preoccupied at the moment. I won’t bring it up. Anyway, it seems all the publicity Pizza received from the part I played in capturing the serial head thief, caused the phone to ring off the hook as well as causing the local postman some serious back problems from carrying all the mail he received from people wanting to use Marcello’s PI services. His ex partner at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bill Steckel from the Chicago office, retired and moved to Milwaukee to go in partnership with Pizza. Marcello and Associates is definitely growing. I am still available to assist whenever Pizza needs me, but right now I am on a leave of absence. The Peanut really did a number on my kidneys and other internal organs that my old friend Casper never came close to doing. My doctor told me I need to take time off to let everything heal.

My ex-wife and her live in boyfriend stopped by Rocco’s on their way to her home town, Neenah, to get married. He is still making a decent living tightening lug nuts on Nash Ramblers in Kenosha. I wasn’t there but the Rocco Man said she wanted me to know there were no hard feelings on her part and hoped we could stay friends.

Horace Greenberg became pretty famous after his name appeared beneath mine on all the articles relating to Milwaukee’s most gruesome and sensational murders. He actually ended up as a reporter for the Milwaukee Sentinel, the morning paper in the city of neighborhoods. He and his friend, Ricky, moved in together close to the Cudahy Meat Packing Plant. Across the street, The Castaways is still doing a hefty business. I was told that bondage stuff never gets old.

My boss at the Daily Citizen in Beaver Dam, Francis Wentworth, sold his paper to his son, and moved to Egg Harbor in Door County to enjoy his retirement years. The last I heard he had started a very popular Lutefisk Eating Tournament that is drawing hundreds, if not thousands, of Norwegians from as far away as Fargo North Dakota.

As for ol’ Max Fly, I am recovering nicely. I wrote a book about the murders in Milwaukee and actually found a publisher willing to advance me some cash for the rights to publish it. I moved out of the apartment I rented over the plumbing supply store and used some of the money from the advance I got and put it into a nice house in Pewaukee, a little country town west of Milwaukee. The house is small and in need of some work but it is on a lake so I can catch fish and have some peace and quiet while I write. I have about six acres of adjoining pasture land where I plan to put up a small barn and get a couple of horses to ride during my leisure time.

Thelma Thieland, after finding out her long time friend Jimmy The Peanut Booth was a serial killer and after learning that her boyfriend, Tampa Ray Palermo, ended up dead and buried head first in a dumpster like the late Paul Godfrey, decided she needed to change the way she chose her men and figured she would go to Miami to enjoy the warmth of the Florida sun and evaluate her life. She asked me if I would go with her. She said she had these fur covered hand cuffs she wanted me to use on her. I told her it was best if we remained in Wisconsin where it was cold and where the fur on her hand cuffs would be appreciated more.

Hell, the Braves won the National League Pennant, just as I predicted, and will face the New York Yankees in the upcoming World Series. I talked Thelma into moving in with me at my place; at least until after the series. I had two tickets and I told her she could have one. I would rather have her sitting next to me than Hap and I still wanted to figure out how to remove that skin tight red dress. She said she would show me.