“Okay! Sorry!”
“As I was saying, this young woman in my parish asked for a confessional. She was Hispanic and told me that she had been recruited by a man here in Kansas City named Hector Corazon to smuggle cocaine from Mexico to Kansas City.”
“A drug mule!” Frank interrupted.
Paddy nodded.
“Oh, sorry! Please continue.”
“She was to be given transportation to Matamoros, Mexico where she was to meet with Corazon’s supplier. Now comes the sad and disgusting part of the story.”
Paddy paused and tried to compose himself.
“The poor girl was to have an operation in Matamoros and fitted with breast implants filled with cocaine. They offered her a thousand dollars when she returned to Kansas City and the drugs were surgically removed.
Frank shuddered. “Holy Crap!”
“The promise of that much money was too much to resist, so she agreed, but as the time grew near for her departure, she began to have second thoughts. She came to me the day before she was to leave. She told me that she was not going through with her commitment and that she was going to flee the city. I urged her to go to the police but she feared for her family’s safety. No one has seen her since that day.”
“I’m not surprised,” Ernie said. “The poor girl knew too much. A man like Corazon couldn’t leave loose ends lying around.”
“I’m afraid I agree.”
“So what now?” Frank asked.
Paddy thought for a minute. “It seems to me that we need to gather as much information as possible about this Corazon character and his drug operation. Then we’ll know where to start.”
Frank and Ernie both nodded in agreement.
“Good. Let’s hit the computers in the Whispering Hills Library. Ernie, see what you can find about drugs in the Kansas City area. Frank, check out the Matamoros connection. I’ll see what I can dig up on Hector Corazon. Let’s nail this guy --- for that poor girl!”
Captain Short was as perplexed as we were. “How could this have happened? Weren’t you both at the club?”
“Absolutely, Captain,” I replied. “I was in the workout area just outside the men’s locker room door and Ox was keeping an eye on the pool area.”
I left out the part where Ox was probably zonked out in the hot tub.
“The old gentleman that was robbed had been in the pool for about an hour in some kind of aerobics class. During that time there were maybe a dozen men in and out of the locker room. I saw nothing that would arouse any suspicion.”
“Then we’re missing something,” the Captain replied.
“The club is huge and there’s so much going on,” Ox ventured, “maybe we need a few more eyes.”
The Captain shook his head. “I can’t spare any more men. This is definitely an annoyance and troublesome to the victims, but we’re not talking a major crime spree here. I’ve got drive-by shootings and a car-jacking I’m dealing with right now.”
This wasn’t the first time Ox and I had been given ‘annoying’ assignments where we were basically on our own to come up with a solution. Two of the instances that came to mind were the Gillham Park purse-snatcher and the Senior Center mugger. On both of those occasions, we had enlisted the aid of my friends at my apartment.
“Uhhh, Captain, I think I might know where we can get a few more eyes into the club.”
The Captain rolled his eyes. “I suppose you’re talking about the ‘over-the-hill-gang’?”
“You have to admit they have a pretty good track record. All they’ll have to do is keep their eyes peeled for anything that looks suspicious. Ox and I will be right there if things get dicey.”
The Captain thought for a moment. “Then I guess you’ll be needing more membership cards.”
I called Maggie and asked her to assemble the troops in our apartment. She wasn’t thrilled with idea. I couldn’t imagine why.
It was an interesting group that had gathered in my apartment and was anxiously awaiting my arrival.
Three were octogenarians; my Dad, a retired, over-the-road trucker, who had been banished from his retirement village for lascivious behavior; Bernice, a little wisp of a woman who had become Dad’s paramour soon after he arrived, and the Professor, my mentor from my college days at the University.
Willie, my old friend, who had left a life of crime on the streets to become my maintenance man, and Jerry, our self-proclaimed comedian, were in their late sixties.
Anyone that says that life in the twilight years is dull and meaningless has never met this crew.
Maggie met me at the door. “Well, Columbo, you’ve certainly stirred up a hornet’s nest. I hope you know what you’re getting into.”
Dad was the first to speak. “I’m ready for a new case. It’s been dull around here since we whacked that Bondell creep. What’s our assignment?”
I launched into my explanation, and I should have known from the opening exchange that I had my hands full.
“We’ll all be going to the gym.”
Bernice, who had obviously forgotten her hearing aid, raised her hand. “Who’s Jim?”
“No, Bernice, gym --- not Jim --- a gymnasium!”
“Ohhhhh,”
After carefully explaining the case and emphatically emphasizing that their involvement was to be totally as observers, they were hot to trot.
Jerry wanted to know if they were going to be deputized and get badges. Willie called him a dipshit.
The Professor was his usual philosophical self and quoted President Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
“Heaven help us!” I thought as the troops scattered to gather their gym clothes.
Dad volunteered to drive the crew to the fitness center.
I was on the way when my cell phone rang.
“So what am I, chopped liver?”
“Mary?”
“Hell yes, it’s Mary! Ain’t I good enough to be in your little posse?”
“Oh, crap! I forgot about Mary!”
Mary Murphy is the seventy-something housemother at my Three Trails Hotel. She is an imposing two hundred pounds and keeps my ner-do-well tenants in line with a white ash baseball bat.
For a good-hearted, law abiding woman, Mary has compiled quite a rap sheet at the precinct.
She clobbered a hired killer that was about to pull the trigger on Maggie and me, shot an intruder that had threatened her with a knife and whacked a Russian mobster that had me in his rifle sites.
I thought my best defense was to lie. “Actually, I was on my way to the Hotel right now. I have a special assignment for you that I didn’t want the others to know about.”
Mary let that sink in for a minute. “Well then, I guess that’s okay. Special assignment, huh?”
“Uhhhh, yes! Hush, hush stuff. By the way, how did you know ---?”
“I called Willie. Old man Feeney stopped up the crapper again and I needed him to come over with the plunger. He told me to plunge it myself cause he was undercover. That’s when I told him that I’d plunge his black ass the next time I saw him.”
“No need for violence. The toilet can wait. They have three more. Pack your workout clothes. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
I made a u-turn and headed to the hotel, desperately trying to conjure up a special assignment. I certainly didn’t want my ass plunged.
“So what’s my special assignment?” Mary asked eagerly as she piled into the front seat.
“I need you in the senior’s aerobics class.”
It was the best I could come up with on short notice.
“Aerobics? You mean I gotta bend over and do squats and shit like that? My body don’t do that no more.”
“That’s too bad,” I said with as much disappointment as I could muster. “That’s a critical position and you’re the best I’ve got. I was really counting on you.”
I saw her wince a little. “Well, I guess I could do it --- but
no set ups --- they make me fart.”
It seemed that Mary and Ron, the drama queen, had a lot in common.
By the time we arrived and checked in at the front desk, Ox and the rest of the crew were dressed out and ready to go.
I was appalled to see that Dad was decked out in skin-tight, black Speedos that left little to the imagination.
Bernice’s ninety-eight pound frame was barely covered by a two-piece bikini that Dad proudly announced that he had picked up for her at Victoria’s Secret.
“I guess you two are headed for the pool?” I ventured.
“When I heard your dad was going,” Bernice offered, “I figured I’d better tag along. I wasn’t sure I could trust the old goat in a pool full of women in bathing suits.”
Given Dad’s reputation as a golden aged lothario, she was probably right.
Mary tapped me on the arm and pointed to a group of seniors being instructed by a lithe young woman.
“Is that where I’m supposed to be? If it is, then we got a problem. They’re touching their toes. I ain’t seen my toes in years. I have to pay Irma Krug five bucks to trim my toenails. Anyway, if God had wanted us to touch our toes, he woulda put ‘em on our knees.”
Bernice raised her hand proudly. “I can touch my toes.”
Dad couldn’t resist. “Touching them with your boobs doesn’t count.”
Bernice punched him in the arm.
Ox shook his head and whispered, “So this is our secret weapon to bring this thief to justice?”
I was beginning to have second thoughts myself.
Our little group dispersed to their posts.
The Professor found a low-impact rowing machine and nodded to the gray-haired lady on the machine next to him. “Good morning, my dear. May I join you?”
Jerry wandered over to a rack of dumbbells. The sign on the rack read, “Free weights.”
He stood there for a moment with a puzzled look on his face, then turned to a guy that had just walked up. “Does this mean I can take one home?”
I was just glad that the Captain wasn’t there.
Patrick O’Brian poured cups of dark, black coffee as his two friends joined him at his kitchen table.
“Okay, what have we learned? Ernie, you go first. What’s the drug story in Kansas City?”
“It’s an ongoing battle, I’m afraid. My niece’s husband is a cop. I bought him a six-pack one evening and picked his brain. It seems that a lot of the street drugs come from Mexico. Years ago, it was easy to smuggle the stuff across the border into the states, but the Mexican president agreed to a joint operation with the U.S.. It was successful enough that the drug lords had to come up with another scheme.
“It was pretty ingenious. The drugs would be shipped from Mexico across the Gulf to New Orleans. There, they would be buried under tons of sand on barges that were towed up the Mississippi, then onto the Missouri River. The barges would meet their contacts at isolated spots along the river or dock at ports along the way. The sand containing the drugs would be scooped off of the barges into dump trucks and taken to the dealer’s distribution center.”
“Wasn’t there a big shoot-out down by the riverfront a few months ago?” Frank asked.
“Sure was,” Ernie replied. “A fisherman spotted a drug exchange and reported it to the authorities. They set up surveillance along the river and nabbed a guy after such an exchange. The guy spilled his guts and that led to the big shoot-out. Thousands of dollars of drugs were seized along with several of the Kansas City drug lords.”
“So that pretty much closed the river pipeline into the city, I’m guessing,” Paddy said.
“You got that right, but with these guys, if you cut off their supply one place, they’ll just find another. That’s how this hiding drugs in implants got started.”
“That’s quite a switch,” Frank said. “I can see them shipping tons of the stuff on barges, but how much can you pack into a couple of boobs?”
“Funny you should ask. I have the answer. A Panamanian woman was recently arrested at the Barcelona airport. She had been given implants that contained three pounds of pure cocaine. The stuff is worth about $35,000 a pound. Do the math. That’s over a hundred grand.”
“Wow! That’s some high-priced tittys!”
“And they were going to give your poor girl a thousand dollars to endure all of that pain and humiliation,” Ernie said, “if she lived long enough to collect it.”
“Okay, Frank,” Paddy said, “what’s with this Matamoros connection?”
“Matamoros is right on the Gulf coast and is directly across the Rio Grande River from Brownsville, Texas.
“It has been a drug hot spot for years. Being right on the border, it was the perfect spot to smuggle drugs across the river into Texas, but that deal that Ernie was talking about, with the Mexican president, brought an end to that. There is an ongoing battle between the cartels and the Mexican military in that area and the U.S. Consulate has warned travelers to avoid that part of Mexico.
“Then, being on the coast, it was also the perfect spot to launch the boats that were carrying the drugs across the Gulf to New Orleans. Now that has been nipped in the bud, so apparently, their next scheme is this implant thing. Hard to keep a good cartel down. What about Corazon, Paddy? I’ll bet he’s from Matamoros!”
“So it would seem. He’s new to Kansas City. He bought a huge gated estate in Sunset Hills, just south and west of the Country Club Plaza. I drove by the place and I could see several Hispanic men patrolling the grounds, most likely armed to the teeth. Several of the Kansas City kingpins were taken out of the picture at that riverfront bust. I don’t think there’s any doubt that this guy was shipped in to fill the void. He’s undoubtedly the new drug lord in Kansas City, and we’re going to take him out!”
The morning went by without incident.
After her aerobics class, Mary huffed over. I could see that she was in a dither.
“The nerve of that little tart! She was barkin’ orders like a drill sergeant. All I said was, ‘Back off! This ain’t no commando training camp.’ She got her panties in a wad and told me I was disruptin’ the class, so I told her to bite me.”
I guessed that after our assignment was over, they would be revoking Mary’s membership card.
“Mary, why don’t you ride the stationary bike for a while. That way you can keep a eye on that row of machines.”
“A bike? I haven’t been on a bike in years. I’d fall right on my butt.”
“These bikes don’t tip over --- no balance required --- OR --- I think there’s an advanced aerobics class about to start.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll do the bike.”
As she mounted the thing and started pedaling, I heard her mutter, “Don’t know why I’m doing this. It don’t take me nowhere.”
About that time Jerry walked up lugging a heavy round object.
“This is the lousiest basketball I’ve ever seen! It must weigh twenty pounds and it won’t dribble.”
“That’s because it’s not a basketball. It’s a medicine ball.”
“So what’s it good for?”
“People toss it back and forth or up in the air. I’ve seen guys hold it on their chests and do set-ups. Here, let me show you.”
As soon as I tossed the heavy ball, I knew it was a mistake. Jerry weighs about a hundred and ten pounds and when he wears his bow tie, he looks a lot like Mr. Peepers.
To his credit, he caught the ball and hung on, but his momentum carried him backwards and he was about to take a header over a weight bench when Ox ran up and grabbed him.
“That’s it!” he said, stalking off. “I’m putting in for hazardous duty pay!”
“Hey, partner,” Ox said, pointing to his watch. “I think we neglected a very important detail in our undercover operation.”
“Oh really? And what might that be?”
“Lunch!”
I should have known that the big guy with the big appetite would be the first one
to contract a case of the munchies, but he was right, of course.
“We can’t just pack up and head to the nearest burger joint,” I said. “It’d be just our luck that the guy would hit the place while we were gone.”
Naturally, Ox was ready with a solution. “Pizza! We could order in pizza!”
“That definitely could work,” I replied. “I’ll get my cell phone and order. You round up the gang.”
We had all congregated on some benches in a small reception area in the front of the club.
I could only imagine what was going through the minds of the other club members as they watched two old dripping people wrapped in towels, one in a Speedo and the other in a bikini, a robust woman in leopard spotted leotards, a tall old guy with bony knees and my portly partner, Ox.
“Everybody hungry?” I asked.
“Not me,” Willie said. “Havin’ to look at yo daddy’s junk poking out o’dat thing he’s wearin’ kinda took my appetite away. Anyway, somebody outta be watchin’ in dere. I’ll do it, an’ if dere’s anything left, I’ll eat later.”
I really couldn’t blame him. More than once, when their towels had slipped open, I had to avert my eyes.
Soon, the pizza guy walked in the door carrying three large pies, a box of wings and sodas. I wondered if this was a first for him --- a delivery to a fitness club.
I cringed as I forked over sixty bucks including the tip. I figured I didn’t have a snowball’s chance of getting reimbursed by the Captain.
Soon, the aroma of hot pepperoni and cheese was wafting through the exercise room. Heads turned and we got dirty looks as the dedicated folks laboring to lose pounds and trim their bodies watched as we wolfed down huge slices, dripping with melted cheese.
When we were finished and the trash had been stowed, Mary announced that she was through with the stationary bike. “Can’t do that no more. The inside of my thighs is all chafed and red.”
I remembered Jerry’s joke and I was glad Mary wasn’t wearing pantyhose. They would have probably burst into flame.
“We’re heading back to the pool,” Dad said. Bernice giggled as he slapped her on the butt and led her away.
[Lady Justice 12] - Lady Justice and the Class Reunion Page 3
