Fifteen
I didn’t hear my phone ring. It could have rung while I was dealing with customers, it may have been while I was assisting a couple who needed help carrying some items out to their car.
There is a possibility that it rang while Roy was working, and that he heard it and ignored it. I’ll have to ask him sometime. Anyway, I was cleaning up, and it was taking a bit longer than usual, owing to the busy evening we had had. I locked the front door, took the trash out back, and locked the back door as well. I swept up a few spots that used to have a few items, such as an old chest of drawers. Once those things left the building, there was always a residual of dust and dirt. It didn’t take long for Roy to find another old piece, so I swept up whenever possible.
Anyway, I did all of this and went into my office to sit and relax for a bit. I had been wondering more and more lately about whom else had been in on my kidnapping run. Someone had to shoot Steroids, drive the car away, and come looking for me. I had thought that they shot Steroids to somehow help me, that the same shooter had shot the drug middleman at the fire to help me. I had thought that I had a secret benefactor. I was now beginning to rethink this.
Perhaps Steroids and the Greaseball were shot for another reason.
Maybe the drug guy was shot accidentally; perhaps I was the intended target. Things had gotten pretty hairy during that time. There was no good reason to kidnap me and then save me. Perhaps Steroids was going to die that night no matter what. He may have been doomed whatever he did.
There were really only three possibilities as to who the gunman could be. Roy was always around when things seemed to get hot. I was kidnapped from his Shoppe. He was there the night of the fire, and if he was involved, he would have known about the Greaseball’s failed attempt at Mother’s early in the case. He knew Felicia, and even set her up to talk with me.
The next possibility was Felicity. She knew that her brother had probably stolen two million from Harold Gibbons, either accidentally, or on purpose. He may have been trying to find a way to return the money, and Felicity dusted him for the dough. She was estranged from Felicia, and may have had an argument with her mother. It was her car I was kidnapped in, she had at least seen Steroids and the Greaseball at ‘The Green Frog’ the night that I met her and she was at the scene during the fire.
The third possibility was that Harold Gibbons was involved, either directly, or through his henchmen. He had a two milliondollar stake in the entire operation. He thought I was privy to something, and when his strong-arm tactics didn’t work, smooth talk and money might. If he thought that I would settle for five grand when there was a potential for two million, he was blowing smoke.
I tended to think Harold Gibbons was playing everybody, and trying to see what he could come up with. Subtlety did not seem to be his strong suit. Also, if he wanted me dead, he could have killed me outside Roy’s and taken me somewhere to dump my body. He had already shown that he could pick me up and talk to me whenever he wanted. The fact did remain though that he had the opportunity to do all of these bad things, and that could not be discounted.
I tried to remove my emotions from my mental calculations. I tried to remove my good feelings for Roy and Felicity, and my negative feelings about Harold Gibbons. I am sure that you have been able to form your own conclusions, and you are probably correct.
You have to realize that when you are actually involved and being manipulated, you can develop a blind eye to certain aspects. That was my sin, but I was beginning to see clearly now.
There was only one possible person that fit all of the potential slots, and it was up to me to prove it without getting myself killed.
That was going to be the problem, and it required some thought.
Thinking had not been my strong suit lately. Nothing had been my strong suit lately. Anyway, I was trying to think of a plan, and I repositioned myself in my office chair. That was when I noticed the little red light blinking away on my answering machine. Excitedly, I lunged for the machine. My newfound fame had already gotten me a job! I rewound the tape to zero and pushed the play button.
“Hi After, this is Paul! I was just checking to see if you got your phone working, I guess it is. I was also checking in to let you know that your Classified Ad is in tonight’s paper. Don’t be surprised if you get dozens of calls! See you at Mother’s. Oh yeah, this is Paul if I didn’t say so before. The guy at the top of the stairs. You know me.”
I shook my head. That certainly didn’t help matters. I rewound the tape again, and this time noticed that it rewound further than before. Quite a bit further as a matter of fact! Somewhat guiltily, I decided to see what messages Felicia had on her tape.
I pushed the play button.
“Hello mom, I have gotten a place to stow the money. I think I am in trouble though. Felicity and Harold Gibbons have both threatened me. Felicity says she wants some of the money or she’ll tell Harold where I am. I am coming home, cleaning everything out and leaving. I’ll be home this evening, and gone tomorrow.”
The next call was from Felicity. “Mom, I know what you’ve been up to. I won’t stand for it. Either you split the money with me or face the consequences. I’ll be in sometime tonight.”
That was it. I had no timetable to go by, although I assume Felicia had heard both messages, since the play counter had been set for Paul’s call. I also knew that Felicity had not listened to those messages when she gave me the answering machine. That was a big mistake on her part.
I knew what I had to do, but wasn’t sure if I had the stomach for it. It was going to be tricky. I needed to go home, get into my darkest clothes, find my lock pick set, and then wait until about two o’clock in the morning when ‘The Green Frog’ should be closed down. Mr. Harold Gibbons was about to have his business broken into by yours truly.
The warnings from the Lieutenant and Roy were screaming loudly in my head as I snuck quietly out the back door. I stayed to the alleys and off the road paths to get back to Mother’s. I arrived safely and it was already half past eleven. I went upstairs, took a shower mainly to get any cologne or cigarette smells off of me. Several of our customers had smoked that evening. I didn’t want some[ 211 ] one to catch a whiff of a scent and realize they were not alone. I really didn’t believe that Mr. Gibbons would have a guard at ‘The Green Frog’ at night, but there might be a delivery or something unexpected, and I didn’t want to take any chances. I found my black jeans, somewhat the worse for wear, but tonight it wouldn’t matter.
I found a tee shirt and a black sweatshirt with a white logo. I turned it inside out to hide the logo and laid it to the side. I found my pick set. I got some dark socks and put them on, along with my new shoes, which were dark enough, and made well enough that they didn’t squeak. I sat down and wrote a letter to Lieutenant Howard, explaining all that I was about to do. I told him of my suspicions and reviewed how I had gotten to this point. This did as much for me as anything else. It helped me to keep things clear in my mind, and also gave me a sort of icy calm that I was going to need. I placed the letter in an envelope, addressed it to the Lieutenant, but wrote on the envelope that it was not to be delivered until Saturday night.
There was nothing else to do; it was time for some food and patience.
I placed the envelope on my dresser.
I went downstairs, found a piece of chocolate cake, got a glass of milk and sat down to a nice, high-energy snack. I was wishing I had a gun right about now, and considered going back to Roy’s and scare one up. I finally decided that if I was caught, I would be outnumbered, and I didn’t want a death on my conscience, especially not my own death.
It was a little after one o’clock when I went back up to my room for a quick once over. I grabbed my picks and sweatshirt and headed out the door. Soot was waiting by the door as I left, giving me his most baleful look. I stopped, took a hard look at him, and told him he wasn’t such a bad cat after all. He yawned at me, and walked away into the darkness, tail upright and stiff.
I opened the door and walked out into the night. Luck was with me, there was a crescent moon but it was obscured by a few clouds, it was as black as it gets in town. I made my way through the dark streets and alleys to the other side of town where ‘The Green Frog’ perched, seemingly waiting to snap up this little black fly. I got there well before two o’clock. ‘The Green Frog’ closed at one thirty on Friday nights and most of the parking lot was already empty. I was across the street and was perched several buildings down, nestled into a dark corner between the pools of yellow light afforded by the streetlights.
Cars were leaving with less frequency. The regulars were being assisted out by the bouncers. The waitresses got into cars or waited outside the door for their rides, the tiny red glows coming from the ends of their cigarettes. I didn’t know if it was my imagination, or what, but my senses seemed much more attuned tonight.
It wasn’t too much longer before Harold Gibbons’ limousine arrived and the big guy himself got into the car. All of the girls were gone and it seemed deserted, but there was still one old blue Ford Escort in the parking lot. I decided to wait rather than take a chance.
I waited another half-hour; it was nearly three o’clock when I decided that the car was just parked there. I walked carefully to the lot and snuck up to the front door, staying out of the lights as best as I could. I got my picks out when I was startled by a noise coming from inside the building.
There wasn’t time to do much more than stand flat against the wall, next to the door, which opened my way. Joe, the bartender was coming out, and had a dolly with some empty kegs on it. He didn’t close the door, and didn’t see me, as he wheeled the empties toward a shed off of the parking lot. That made my problem a bit easier and I took the opportunity to slip inside the door. I saw that all of the chairs were upside down on the tables. There was a bucket of water and a mop, but the floor was already wet, so I figured that Joe was about done cleaning up. I went to the far side of the room where it was darkest, and crouched behind a large plastic plant in the corner. Joe returned quickly, taking the mop and bucket somewhere out of my field of vision. He returned, turning off all of the lights, then I heard him close the door and jiggle it to be sure it was secured tightly. I couldn’t believe my luck, I had spent very little time outside and it appeared I had entered scott free. If there were any alarms, I hadn’t seen any. I gave Joe five more minutes to return, just in case he’d forgotten anything, then I started to move around in the dark. There were a few sources of light here and there, mostly glows given off by machines, including one fairly bright light from a lighted wall clock singing the praises of a local brew.
By now I realized that I had neglected to bring a flashlight. That wasn’t a disaster, as there were no windows in the building, but somehow I still kicked myself for attempting a break in at night without a light source. I wondered what else I had forgotten. I decided that I could chance some real light and went behind the bar, where a little searching brought me to a light switch. I flipped it on and had a look around. There was a door directly behind the bar, which I assumed to be the main office. There was another door near the plant I had hidden behind, and a third door behind the table that Harold Gibbons always sat at. I was willing to bet money that that door led to his private office, but I thought I’d check the other doors first.
I dismissed the restrooms out of hand, and went to the door at the far end of the building. It was unlocked, but only opened to an employee’s lounge room. There were cubicles where the girls could freshen up and a few loose pieces of clothing strewn about. There was also an employee’s rest room, but that was it.
I left that room and went back to the door behind the bar. It was locked, but proved to be an easy pick. It was a standard lock that you could get at any hardware store, and I was inside in seconds.
The room was small, but surprisingly neat. It had two desks, a computer with all of the associated paraphernalia and file cabinets.
I started at the nearest desk and went quickly through the drawers. It was a female’s desk, with nail files, lipstick and such in the top drawer. There were no papers in that one. I went to the deep file drawer on the lower left and found business bills, shipping manifests and accounts payable. All this was for the legitimate running of ‘The Green Frog’ and nothing seemed out of place. The rest of the drawers were filled with extra paper, erasers, pencils and mailing items. It was a very tidy desk.
On my way to the second desk, I noticed a copier and made a mental note of it, in case I came across anything incriminating. The second desk appeared to be Joe’s. It had liquor samples, some rags and a few bar glasses. It had catalogs for bar items as well as several books on ‘Mixology’. I opened a few books to see if anything was between the pages, but I figured that if one desk in the room was clean, so was the other.
I moved on to the file cabinets. They were broken down into separate files. The first had to do with payroll, job applications and W-2 forms. It was well organized and of no consequence. The second was old bills, some legal papers dealing with the building itself and a few letters to and from attorneys regarding minor legal skirmishes with the local neighbors who objected to having a drinking establishment with scantily clad females in close proximity to their homes.
The room was a wash, which was reassuring, as I had a good idea where the real good stuff was anyway. I turned off the lights and closed the door, but didn’t lock it, as I felt I might need access to the copier.
I turned off the lights from the bar, and let my eyes get accustomed to the gloom that reached back to envelop me. After a moment or so, I was able to negotiate my way across the floor to the mysterious door behind Mr. Gibbons’ table. This lock proved a bit harder to pick, and I might have damaged it a little in doing so. It finally yielded itself to my charms and I opened it cautiously, prepared to flee at any sound of alarm. There was none, and I slipped inside, pulling the door behind me. I turned on the light, it was the motherlode. His desk was piled with bags of what appeared to be cash, there were other bags stashed behind it with what could only be marijuana. I was surprised to see it out in the open, but then I figured that under normal circumstances, no one would be allowed in here anyway. The room was really just one big safe. There were pictures all over the wall, mostly of Harold Gibbons with a multitude of scantily clad females. He had been in the nightclub business for a long time, as there were earlier pictures of him that showed him as a thinner, but still muscular man, with more hair and a definite attitude. There was another wall, his ‘trophy’ wall that had him posing with celebrities, including Dean Martin and another with Ronald Reagen. It was hard to know if Reagen was president at that time, as he has looked exactly the same to me for the past thirty years. There was even a picture of Harold with Lassie, complete with an autograph of Lassie’s paw.
Somehow I was not reassured, and I confirmed the marijuana with one quick sniff in one of the brown bags. There were eleven in all, each a full grocery sized brown bag, with little individual Zip- Loc bags filled with pot, ready to be sold on the street.
The bags on the desk were randomly filled with bills, from ones to hundreds. I guessed each of the ten bags on the desk to have twenty thousand each.
This was good, but not what I was looking for. I would have to place a bug in Lieutenant Howard’s ear when I got the chance. He could tell the proper person and let him deal with it in any way he saw fit.
I sat down in Harold’s chair and began on the desk. The top drawer was filled with junk; including opened bills, old broken pencils, several pens and loose scraps of paper. I took a quick glance through it just to be sure, but it wasn’t what I wanted. What I was looking for was evidence that he knew Felix, Felicia, or Felicity. I was also looking for something that would indicate that he had off shore accounts, such as the numbers Felix had left behind suggested.
I didn’t find what I was looking for until the very last drawer. It was locked, but that was only a small problem for me. I am quite good at picking locks. It was a matter of minutes before I was in. This drawer was the only thing in the room that appeared to be organized.
Files were placed with names of people typed on each. There were papers inside with other names, dates, type of drug shipped, who took the drugs, how they were transported and all of that. I was totally shocked to see all of this out in the open, and I was hoping I had not misjudged the local police, as I felt one of them must be on the take for Mr. Gibbons to allow for such openness.
Then I realized just how sure of himself Mr. Gibbons was.
I rifled through the folders, finding one on Felix, another on Felicity, and even a thin one on me. I opened mine first, saw a slip of paper with a one thousand dollar expenditure for ‘expenses’. There was also a picture of me from the first night I was there, sitting at the table. I figured that one of the waitresses must have taken it.
They were certainly thorough. I was impressed.
I looked in Felix’s folder next. There was a recent picture of him as well, standing outside ‘The Green Frog’ with a few other guys.
He was smiling at the camera and seemed in control of himself and the situation. There were other sheets in the folder, detailing the drug runs he had made, the amount of money involved, as well as the people he had met for the transactions. There was an envelope in the folder, which I had to slice open. It wasn’t marked, so I figured I could replace the envelope with a fresh one after I was done with it. It had a contract for Felix’s demise in it. The hit was for $100,000.00. That seemed a fair sum to me, but there was no notice of its having been fulfilled. There were other notes on pieces of scrap paper. My name was on one, as being a possible accomplice of his. Felicia’s was as well, as being a possible accomplice. I had assumed Felicia was in the clear, but after hearing the answering machine’s message, it was obvious that she knew what Felix had done. She had basically hired me to find Felix, or lead her to the money. Whichever it was, it had cost her her life. I just wasn’t sure by whose hand. That was about it for Felix’s file.
I opened Felicity’s last. There were only a few sheets of paper, but tons of photographs. There were pictures of Felicity as a young girl, sitting on Harold’s lap. There were pictures of each stage of her life. There were pictures of Felicity at parties, and pictures of Harold and her that seemed to suggest that they vacationed together. These two were obviously very close. There was a picture of her, the Greaseball, and Steroids. There was another picture of Harold sitting at a table with the three of them. This last picture was fairly recent, but did not seem to be from any place I had seen in Hustle.
I assumed it was taken in Chicago, but had no proof. As near as I could gather, Felicity had been Harold’s companion for quite a number of years! I looked at the other sheets of paper. These were contracts. Apparently, Felicity had done a few jobs for Harold. She had done some early jobs for a few hundred dollars, but there was another job that involved a small time politician that had netted her twenty thousand. I was running with a very bad girl indeed. Then, I found the letter I was looking for. It was just a scrap of paper with some nearly illegible handwriting. As I’ve said before, my handwriting is terrible, so I can generally make out other bad handwriting.
The gist of the note was that Felicity was to gain my confidence, see if I was involved with Felix. If I was, I was to be killed quickly, if not, I was to be led along and see what I could dig up.
Steroids and the Greaseball were along for ‘support’.
I was almost totally caught up now, the only real question was the one I had started out with….was Felix still alive? No one seemed to know. I won’t say that I wasn’t upset to find that Felicity was involved. I won’t say that I hadn’t developed some feelings for her, and I won’t say that I was looking forward to catching her and bringing her to justice. However, there were a lot of people dying in her proximity, and that had to be stopped, hopefully, before I was added to that list.
I grabbed the three folders and made my way back to the room behind the bar, where I copied everything I could. The pictures didn’t turn out so well, but they were good enough. I felt I had some bargaining power if things went badly for me.
I found a clean envelope, and replaced Felix’s contract in it. I took everything back to Harold’s office and put them back in their proper spots, as best I could. I felt sure that no one would suspect anything amiss if they didn’t realize that they had been compromised.
I gathered up my papers, turned off the light, made sure I still had my sweatshirt back on inside out, put my picks in my pocket and turned off the light, locking Harold’s door as I left.
I threw the discarded envelope in the trash behind the bar and rechecked the office door; to be sure it was locked. I went to the front door and exited, only discovering at the last second that it had a tiny alarm on it. The red light went on and I knew I had to scoot.
I was sure that things were still OK, as they would assume that it was someone breaking in, not breaking out of the building. I decided to take up my spot across the street and see who showed.
It was a very short time before a patrol car pulled up. An officer got out and jiggled the door lock. He went back to the car and radioed something in. Before he was finished, Harold Gibbons arrived in his big car. One of the henchmen got out with him and went to the door, repeating what the officer had done. The officer got out, had a short conversation with Mr. Gibbons and got back into his car. I didn’t see anything suspicious, just a patrolman checking on a potential break-in. Mr. Gibbons and his man opened the door and entered. A few minutes later, another large car drove up and the other henchman got out. He went inside, and reappeared moments later, and began to prowl around the premises. A few more minutes and the first goon returned, hopped in Mr. Gibbons’ car and pealed out of the lot. It was getting interesting, and I wondered just what they had discovered. No more police came by, and there was no activity at all for ten minutes or so. The next car to pull up was the old blue Escort, and I saw Joe get out and enter the building.
Another five minutes went by and Mr. Gibbons’ car came back, pulling up to the door, and the driver got out. The passenger side opened, and lo and behold, there was my darling Felicity, going in to help assess the damage.
It was nearly four o’clock in the morning, and only a little more time until dawn would be breaking. I still had some things to do. I figured that all of the bad people were in one place, and that I could get around somewhat safely. I headed down the road to Felicia/ Felicity’s house. It didn’t take too long, I was getting to know the streets fairly well, and my adrenaline level was peaking off the charts.
I did make a slight detour. I had made an effort to discover where Jocko lived and had memorized his address in the phone book. I went to that address. I placed all of my copies of Mr. Gibbons’ nefarious doings in Jocko’s mailbox. I figured that if things went as planned, I’d be back to get them before anyone noticed. If not, between that and my letter to Lieutenant Howard, those two ought to be able to fit all the pieces together quite nicely. Hopefully none of the broken pieces would include me. The only problem was whether or not I would have any insurance if the bad guys caught up to me. I was counting on these papers to provide me with that much anyway.
I got past Jocko’s and made my way to Felicia’s. As far as I could tell, no one had returned her to the house, so I did a quick check all around and picked the simple lock on her back door. I got in and noticed that she had things fairly well packed. Boxes were labeled and stacked by the walls in various rooms. It seemed that Pastor James or someone from the church had been there, as some of the furniture was missing. It looked like the house was ready to go on the market. I was hoping that Felicity hadn’t had time to take her gun. I wanted closure and confirmation, and finding a .22 revolver would do it for me. I started in her bedroom and found the few clothes that she had brought with her to Hustle in a small case by her bed. I opened it and found the revolver, along with Mother Teresa’s deck of cards on the bottom of the case, under some of the clothes. I took the gun out and unloaded it. I wasn’t sure how necessary this was, but I felt that it improved my odds. I replaced it where I found it, careful to wipe my fingerprints off of it.
I didn’t like being in the house, and now that everything was confirmed, I was in a hurry to leave. I did want to check a few more areas out. I hadn’t seen the bathroom since I had repaired the grout, and I was fairly certain that Felicity would hide anything important in her room or the bathroom. I looked everywhere in the bathroom, checking medicine bottles and inside feminine boxes. Nothing in any of those places. I went back to her bedroom. I pulled up the mattress. Nothing there either. I figured, like brother, like sister, and I checked under all the dresser drawers. Sure enough, there was the envelope with Felix’s numbers in it taped under the same drawer.
I took it.
It was time to go, especially so, as I saw headlights coming into the driveway and the first glimmers of daylight were appearing. I got out the back door and ran through the yard, away from her house as fast as I could go. I retraced my steps and picked up the papers from Jocko’s mailbox. They had not been disturbed. I was trying to figure a safe place to stash everything when I saw Joe’s blue Escort turning the corner in front of me. It appeared that a fullscale search was on for me, and I needed to disappear quickly. I dashed off between two houses, and saw the car drive by slowly, Joe looking right to left in an obvious searching mode. I knelt down behind a large Forsythia bush and waited until he left. He continued up the street. It was obvious that the streets were not going to be safe havens, so I cut out and raced through people’s yards, occa[ 219 ] sionally causing a dog to bark. I was not really expecting to see many people up and about as it was Saturday, and no one was going to work just yet.
I found myself a few blocks from Roy’s Shoppe, and took a roundabout path to the building, approaching it from the back side.
A police cruiser was patrolling in a leisurely manner. I couldn’t tell if the driver was just driving past slowly or if he was looking for something in particular. I was trying to get past the paranoia, but couldn’t totally ease my mind that a cop might be on the take. Wouldn’t it be a shame if it was the Lieutenant or his Sergeant? I was positive that Jocko was clean, and had never really doubted him in any case, but I wasn’t sure he’d believe me if I told him I suspected a dirty cop.
I waited behind the dumpster until he had cruised on by. I snuck up to the back door, keys in hand and let myself into the Shoppe. I stayed very still, trying to sense if anyone was there. I needed time to think, and a place to do it. I knew that my purloined goods would not be absolutely safe anywhere, but I had a thought. I went to the stack of comic books and tore some pages out of several of them, inserting my copies into the missing space. I then replaced the books near the bottom of the pile, and wrote a note, stating that all books were to be held until further notice. I indicated that I had a buyer and to not let them go. I taped the note to the top comic book and felt that I had done what I could do. I wadded the torn sheets into a ball and deposited them in the trashcan behind Roy’s counter, well under the rest of the trash.
My message light was blinking. I rewound the tape and heard Felicity speaking. “After, I don’t know what you’ve done, but Mr.
Gibbons has me and says that I am in deep trouble if you don’t come forward. Please help me here, and he says that whatever you’ve done can be forgiven if you do what he paid you to do. Please call him at ‘The Green Frog’ at noon today. He says he’ll deal with you.
Please do it.”
I didn’t buy it at all. They didn’t know what I knew. Felicity had lied to me for the last time, but I still had to find a way out of this mess. I needed to know about Felix. I needed to be able to live my life without looking over my shoulder. I needed Harold Gibbons, his henchmen, and Felicity in jail forever. Even then, I wouldn’t be safe. I needed leverage. I thought that the papers I had stolen might do the trick, but I needed to be sure.
I dialed ‘The Green Frog’. A man answered, “Hello.”
I said, “After Coffman to speak with Mr. Gibbons.”
He said, “Just a sec.”
In just a few secs, Mr. Gibbons was on the phone, trying to sound in charge, but not scary. “After, what in the hell is going on? I thought we had a deal.”
“The deal includes me living to a ripe old age. I am afraid I had to take out some insurance.”
“After, After, After,” he purred, “I never had anything unpleasant planned for you.” “Harold, Harold, Harold,” I retorted, “I’ve been in your lower left drawer.”
He gasped. I continued, “I wasn’t interested in anything you had in any of the bags, they are intact. I did find several items of interest in some folders you had so very neatly filed away. You have the originals, but I have the copies.”
“I underestimated you,” he said softly. “It won’t happen again.”
“I understand that completely, and I don’t want you to. If you give me some unmoleste