Once Upon A Poet

by H S Peer

  “No more booze.”

  “No, not tonight.”

  Gael rose and left. I heard the catcalls as she left the bar. I finished my coffee and returned to my stool.

  “One more round,” I called to Biscuit.

  He looked doubtful. I gave him my 2,000-watt smile, and he obeyed. The drink sat on a coaster in front of me. In its amber depths, I could see salvation, at least temporary. But like Gael had said, that would never do. I had too much skill to become a drunk in my mid-thirties. I wouldn’t flush all that away.

  “She dwelt among untrodden ways,” I quoted to no one in particular. I tipped back the glass and said good-bye to Farrell and that voice that lulled my senses. My neck itched where she had almost ended my life. I put it out of my mind.

  I went home and to bed. I changed the sheets and had a shower. I slept for almost 12 hours without a dream.

  Chapter 31

  I awoke feeling slightly woozy but refreshed. My head was clear. The garbage of the night before had been flushed away in a torrent of Irish whiskey. I had to get back to my investigation and clear Bill Jenkins. I had to steal diamonds. I was a very busy boy.

  I showered and took my time dressing. My shoes needed a shine, but I could stop at a stand on the street and have that done. With three cups of coffee and six cigarettes in me, I was ready for battle. I walked to my garage and exited with my Saab.

  My first stop was at Jimmy the Net’s. He was still in his basement, looking like a ghoul. “How did you do?” I asked.

  “Just fine. For a bank, it was a piece of cake.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “Rainbow does have an account there. Currently, it holds just over $600,000. But in the last six months, it has been as high as 2.1 million.”

  “All cash transactions?’

  “How did you know?”

  Most banks take a dim view of large cash deposits without any source. Not so at the Greater Bank of New York. They didn’t discriminate or report any actions like that.

  “So what are they into?” I asked. “They’re not doing laundry.”

  “My guess is drugs. Where else do you get that much cash?”

  He had a point. “Did you get me access to their safety deposit box?”

  “I just need a name. What’s your handle?”

  I thought for a moment. “Andrew Marvell.”

  “Nice. Sounds like a superhero.”

  “A long-dead poet,” I said.

  He tapped at his keyboard and logged into the bank’s computer. He made the notation and was back out in an instant. “Done,” he said.

  “You’re a genius, Jimmy. There are not many of us left.” I paid him and returned to my car. I called Marty from my cell and arranged to meet him for dinner at the Liar’s Breath. That’s where I was headed.

  I drank coffee and looked through travel brochures until he arrived just after 6 pm.

  “I’m beginning to lose faith in you,” he opened.

  “It’s been a rough week Marty, don’t bust my balls.”

  “Let’s hope the alarm codes haven’t changed or you’re going to have to run really fast. The cops are never more than 5 minutes away from the diamond district.”

  “Everything will be fine,” I said. I hoped.

  Marty pulled a thick buff envelope from under his left arm and passed it to me. “Everything you need is in there. Keep your eyes open for emeralds, I have a buyer in California.”

  “Where did you get this,” I asked.

  “Ex-employee.”

  “He’ll get pinched after this goes down.”

  “No. I already advanced him some money, and he’s out of the country.”

  “Anything else?’

  “You have a sixth sense for stones. Use your judgment.”

  It was a quick visit, and luckily I didn’t have to foot the bill for a bottle of Dom. I ate a dinner of chicken, mashed potatoes and asparagus with hollandaise. I drank more coffee. There was little I could do until tomorrow when the bank opened.

  I kept thinking of the missing link to this whole thing. It had to be the mysterious Lenny who okayed the hit on Amber. Did he work for Rainbow? How could I locate him without a last name? There had to be some way to pin this guy down. Maybe it was John Smith using an alias? Was he behind all this or only a bit player? Again, too many questions.

  I left the bar at 10 pm. It would be an early night if I could sleep after all the coffee I had consumed. I wanted to hit the bank bright and early while the people were still groggy from the night before. Back at my apartment, I watched a bad made-for-TV movie about a group of thieves holding up a casino. I laughed a lot. I was in bed by midnight and asleep by 1 am. So ended another day.

  Chapter 32

  I awoke at 7 a.m. By the pale light coming in through the windows, it still seemed the middle of the night. I showered, shaved and found an old, out-of-style chocolate brown suit in the back of my closet and set it aside for later. I didn’t want to look like my dapper self this morning.

  I went to the vault for my makeup kit and found my night-vision goggles. I plugged the battery unit into the wall to charge. I would need them tomorrow night. I found a brown calfskin wallet with Andrew Marvell’s identification in it. Mr. Marvell, in this time anyway, was an investment banker with the firm of Price and Price. He had a social security card, a driver’s license, business cards and updated lunch receipts from Manhattan’s more trendy eateries.

  Back in the bathroom, I looked at the photo on Andrew Marvell’s license. He had brown hair, darker than my own, and a mustache. I opened the makeup kit. I spent some time volunteering with a theater company one spring. My only goal was to learn makeup. The makeup artist, a woman named Mabel, was a retired Broadway dresser. She showed me everything I ever needed to know, and it didn’t cost me a cent.

  I mixed up a vial of temporary brown hair dye. The box said it would wash out in five washings. That was never entirely true. I’d be chestnut brown for a couple of weeks and have to take a ribbing from my friends and customers. I combed to goo into my hair and wait the requisite amount of time before rinsing it out. After towel drying my hair, I looked at the result. The color was about perfect. My hair was a little longer than it had been in the photo, but with a little hair gel, no one would notice.

  In a plastic box, I found a sandy-colored mustache, the same one I’d worn in the photo. Using adhesive and stretching my upper lip tight I glued it into place. A pair of blue-tinted eyes glasses completed the look. I dressed in the ugly brown suit and slipped on a pair of loafers. In the mirror, it was hard to tell who I was. It was good enough to fool the surveillance cameras.

  I pocketed the wallet and strapped on my gun. If the cops stopped me, it would prove troublesome, carrying false identification and a piece. I’d be in hot water, but what were the chances of that happening? After locking up and walking a block, I hailed a cab and gave the driver, a young man with spiky hair and a nose ring, the address of the bank. I pulled out my cell phone.

  “Rainbow Productions,” said the bored receptionist.

  “Is Lenny there?” I asked.

  “Lenny?”

  “Yes, Lenny.”

  “Lenny who?”

  “You know. Lenny.”

  “I think you have the wrong number. There’s no Lenny here,” she said and hung up. An idea jumped into my head. I could pay Jimmy the Net another grand to break into Rainbow’s computer, or I could try something else. Every porno movie had credits. If Lenny worked on one of Rainbow’s films his name would be listed. All I needed was a complete set of Rainbow’s titles. I redialed the number.

  “Rainbow Productions.”

  “Hi. I want to purchase a complete set of Rainbow’s films. Do you offer a mail order service?”

  “Didn’t you just call here asking for Lenny?”

  “No. You must be mistaken.”

  She was quiet for a moment, she didn’t believe me, “No mail order service but all our titles are available
at the Stud Shack in a boxed DVD set. It retails for $249.95.”

  “Thank you,” I said and hung up. The cabbie was giving me a strange look in the rearview mirror. I shrugged, what else was there to do. He delivered me to the bank just after it opened at 9:30 a.m. I pushed through the doors and entered the lion’s den.

  This wasn’t entirely ethical. This was my bank. It was the bank of Marty, Jerome and many of my friends and customers. If they knew I was doing this thing might get a little sticky, hence the disguise. The fact the bank was owned and operated by the five families also entered into the equation. If this didn’t go right, I might end up washed up on the Jersey shore like Pete and Al.

  Inside it looked just like a typical bank. There was an area for customers to line up and wait for a drastically too small number of tellers, a counter for the tellers to work at, desks and computers beyond this, glassed-in offices down the left-hand wall and a vault. What a vault. They might have cut corners on the rest of the operation, but the vault door was brand new. It was open, and I could see the cage door closed. Beyond that was a wall of safety deposit boxes.

  I approached the receptionist’s desk. I could feel the security guard giving me the eye. He had three days growth on his face, a stained shirtfront and a large handgun in a holster strapped to his thigh like a gunslinger. I ignored it and continued.

  The receptionist looked like a stripper who had graduated from night school at an institution with classrooms above a fast food restaurant. She wore too much jewelry and perfume. Her smile was full, but her eyes were vacant.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I’d like to see the manager.”

  “He’s in a meeting.”

  “The assistant manager then.”

  “Can I ask what this is regarding?”

  I pulled my wallet from my pocket and pushed a business card across her desk. She looked at it blankly and picked up her phone.

  “A Mr. Marvell to see you, sir.” She hung up. “Have a seat, he’ll be right with you.”

  I took a seat and flipped through a copy of Newsweek from the last century. After ten minutes a small man with horn-rimmed glasses appeared. He was dressed in a grey pinstriped suit with a white shirt and burgundy tie. His loafers squeaked on the tile floor as he approached.

  “Mr. Marvell?’

  I stood and extended my hand, “Yes, Mr..,”

  “Hollingsworth. Alfred Hollingsworth.”

  We shook, his grip was limp.

  “If you care to follow me please.”

  He led me down a short hall to his office. Once inside with the door closed, he motioned me to a chair.

  “Now, if you care to tell me what this is about. I don’t usually see people without an appointment.”

  “I’m to be given access to Rainbow Productions safety deposit box.”

  “Do you have a power of attorney?’

  “No. This was supposed to be arranged quietly. I’m sure if you’ll check your computer everything will be in order.”

  He pursed his lips. “This is highly irregular.”

  “Most of the transactions at this bank are,” I said.

  “I resent that, this is a perfectly legal institution. I have a mind to...,” he started.

  “Relax, Alfred. Just check the computer,” I cut him off.

  He looked at me through his dirty glasses. For a moment I thought he would call security, but he didn’t. He turned to his computer and typed away. After pausing to read the screen, he turned back to me.

  “May I see some identification please?’

  I removed my wallet and passed over my driver’s license and a business card. He read the license, looked at the photo and then looked at me. After placing it on the desk, he picked up the phone. He dialed and said, “Mr. Marvell’s office please.”

  There was a pause before he said, “No, no message.”

  It’s amazing what $50 a month, and an answering service can do.

  “You’ll have to excuse me, Mr. Marvell There is some question of confidentiality here.”

  “Of course,” I replied.

  “I had to make sure you are who you say you are.”

  I waved a hand in the air as if to say it was nothing.

  “We do have a notation on the file,” he said, “You are to be given complete access. Let me find a key.”

  In most banks, the customer keeps all copies of his safety deposit box key. If you lose it, you have to pay a locksmith to drill the lock. But this wasn’t most banks. At the Greater Bank of New York, they kept a spare set, just in case. Most likely after they learned you were dead, they searched the box for anything valuable before the IRS sealed it.

  Hollingsworth returned after a few minutes. I had perused the certificates on his wall. He had an accounting degree and an MBA. Why he was working here, I would never know. He must have done something along the way not to be an executive at a real bank by now.

  “If you’ll follow me, sir.”

  He led me from the office, behind the counter and to the vault. From a key on a chain attached to his belt, he opened the cage door and showed me into the vault. What treasures were behind these little doors, I wondered. What ill-gotten booty was stored here? Just leave me in here for a weekend with a drill, some titanium bits, and a pry bar - I’d be a happy man.

  The box was number 211. Hollingsworth inserted the two keys and turned them before pulling the door open. Inside was a plastic box.

  “Did you wish to look at it here or in one of our rooms?”

  “Here is fine,” I said. He pulled the plastic box out and handed over before discreetly turning his back. I opened the box. Inside was a wad of bearer bonds. I did a quick count - $100,000 worth. I folded them the best I could and slipped them inside my jacket pocket. Under them was a black VHS videocassette. I slid the tape into my other jacket pocket. The box was now empty. I closed it and said, “All ready, Mr. Hollingsworth.”

  He took the now empty plastic box from me and placed it back in the wall. After closing the door he relocked it and removed the keys.

  “Will there be anything else today?’ asked Hollingsworth.

  “No, thank you. My business here is completed.”

  “Very good.”

  I shook his limp hand again before walking out of the vault. I walked around the counter and headed for the door. My jacket was bulging with bearer bonds. I think I was sweating as I walked past the security guard. Would my mustache stay on another five minutes? Through the doors and I was back on the street. I hailed a cab.

  I had the driver take me to the Stud Shack, a discount pornography and adult “novelties” store. I had him wait while I went inside and purchased a copy of Rainbow’s greatest hits. Then home.

  All this accomplished and it wasn’t even noon yet. I locked the bonds in my vault and showered. I washed my hair five times and hoped like the dye had promised, it would be gone. When I looked in the mirror, it was still there. Dressed in a robe, I made coffee and sat down before the TV. I looked at the VHS tape. What was I to do with this? This was like a modern soldier being handed a flintlock musket. Did I have a VHS player?

  A thought, Alfred and the local adult emporium. They had to have one. I quickly dressed and headed out. Alfred told me, yes, they did have VHS machines, and booths to view said tapes in. He led me down a short hall to a line of thin-walled cubicles containing a TV, DVD/VHS combo player. I breathed through my mouth, I wouldn’t sit in that chair for all the tea in China.

  Alfred retreated, and I popped the stolen videocassette into the machine. Never in a million years would I have guessed I was about to see what I did.

  It opened on a well-lit scene in the apartment at the Pointe Towers, the place I’d found the light bulb. The camera was shaky then stabilized as someone put it on a tripod. It showed a much-scarred table mounded at one end with two-ounce bags of a white substance I guessed to be heroin or cocaine. There were cases of videocassettes stacked against the wall. No one was visible, and the
re was no sound.

  The scene stayed static for several minutes. Two men entered the picture. One was rat-faced and carried a screwdriver; the other was tall and thin and wore a surgical mask. The rat-faced man picked a video cassette out of one of the cases and went to work on the bottom with the screwdriver. He pulled it apart and discarded the reels of tape before passing it to the man in the mask. The mask, his head partially cut off by the top of the screen, placed 4 bags of drugs into the empty shell of the videocassette and reassembled it. Finished, he popped the finished tape into a Rainbow Productions box. I couldn’t quite make it out, but I thought it was the cover of Cindy’s movie Crack Pirates.

  The scene continued for twenty minutes, all the same. The men worked and placed the finished cassettes in a large packing case. My guess was they would be shrink-wrapped back at the Rainbow warehouse. At one point a bag broke open, and the drugs spilled. To clean it up with his hands the tall man sent the drugs airborne. I remembered what the man at the camera shop had said about the camera covered in coke. Abruptly the tape ended in static.

  So it was drugs after all. Jimmy the Net had been right. It seemed too ambitious a project for Rainbow to be involved in themselves. There was a lot of coke on that table, which would take a lot of money to finance.

  Eight ounces per tape, 50 tapes per carton, that’s 25 pounds of chemical poison ready to be shipped out. Sure, VHS tapes were obsolete, but they were far from extinct. I guessed that they were a contractor for someone else, helping ship the stuff around the country. It was a perfect scheme. Inventive, I’d give them that.

  I didn’t recognize the men on the tape, but, I hadn’t been to the Rainbow Warehouse when people were actually working. Were they even Rainbow employees or just lackeys of some sort? And why the videotape of the operation? That was obvious, someone was covering the bases In case something went wrong. They wanted a record made of the operation to protect themselves, a little blackmail material. Little did they know that in the wrong hands, mine, for instance, the tape would bring the whole operation crashing down. Never record anything, never write it down, never leave a computer file, and never leave anything concrete that the cops can link you to, that was my motto, and it has served me well.