Deception in Savannah: A Humorous Novel of Murder, Mystery, Sex, and Drugs

by Charles Dougherty

  "Well, then, I can sure put him to work. If nothin' else, he can check 'coon traps for me. I got an extra truck in the yard that's almost runnin'. I'll fix 'er up and go get some wheels and tires from the junk yard this afternoon, an' he can drive that. You tell him I'll pick him up at your place around nine in the mornin', soon as he's finished your van.

  Day 7, Morning

  True to his word, Billy parked at the curb in front of Lizzie’s a few minutes before 9 o’clock. Donald was almost finished cleaning Lizzie’s van, so Lizzie let Billy in and gave him a cup of coffee. She poured two more for herself and Donald, and showed Billy out into her backyard. She introduced Billy and Donald and excused herself, getting in the van to go pick up her clients for the day’s tour.

  Donald and Billy hit it off immediately. Donald liked Billy’s forthright, unassuming manner. He looked like the world’s worst redneck, but he treated Donald as if he was as good as anybody. He didn’t talk down to Donald; he asked him questions and seemed interested in Donald's answers. Billy recognized the intelligence behind Donald’s steady gaze, and he could sense the overpowering enthusiasm that Donald brought to whatever project captured his attention.

  Donald was blown away by the notion that Billy would give him a real job and would pay him to drive around and pick up raccoon traps from rich people’s back yards. Donald thought this sounded like a fine job. He didn’t know much about raccoons, being mostly a city boy, but Billy said he wouldn’t have any trouble.

  They closed Lizzie’s house up and walked around front, where Billy gave Donald the key to the truck. The truck itself was a sight to behold, held together for the most part by "rust and duct tape," as Billy put it. But it started and ran just fine; it had four good, mismatched tires fresh from the junkyard.

  Billy had Donald drive him out to his place on the Little Ogeechee River for a day of orientation. Billy introduced him to the raccoons that were currently in residence, and the little critters charmed Donald.

  "Donald, the 'coons are the key to this whole enterprise," Billy explained, going on to describe how the business worked, and showed Donald how to bait and set the traps. "It takes a while to get 'em trained up to make a mess where we want 'em to. Then, we catch 'em and bring 'em back here for a little rest before we put 'em to work again. Gotta take good care of 'em so's they don't run off on their own, you see."

  "But, Billy, do the trap hurt the 'coon?" Donald asked, a worried look on his face.

  Billy assured him that he needn’t worry. Billy had one of the raccoons demonstrate how the trap worked, and Donald felt better.

  "So, Donald, remember how to read maps from the army?"

  "Yep, Billy, I's pretty good at that. That's how come they make me a truck driver."

  "You don't reckon you'll have any trouble finding the customers' houses from the list of addresses and this here map book, then?"

  "That's easy," Donald assured him, "’specially 'cause I know my way 'round Savannah already."

  "You can most generally count on checkin' ten traps between about nine o'clock and lunch time, so it's fine if you start after you wash Lizzie's van, and then take the afternoon off," Billy explained. "Use the truck like it's yours, and I'll pay you thirty dollars a day. If'n we get the business built up to where you have to work more than half-days, we'll figure out a better deal for you, okay?"

  "That's fine, Billy. I 'preciate the chance you're givin' me. I'll do good for you," Donald promised.

  Billy was hoping Donald would free him up so that he could get more raccoons trained and sign up some more customers.

  Donald was so excited that he could barely contain himself. He wanted to start checking traps right this minute.

  "But, Donald," Billy explained, "I want to ride with you the first day or two. You gotta learn where to put the traps, and I need to introduce you to the gate guards at the Marshe Landes and get your name on their contractor's list."

  "Can't we do that now, Billy?" Donald begged.

  "Donald, it's better for the 'coons if we check the traps in the mornin'. Thataway, they don't spend the hot part of the day shut up in the trap," Billy said.

  That satisfied Donald, and they agreed that he would meet Billy at Lizzie’s in the morning after Donald washed her van. Donald rattled back to town in the truck, being very careful with his driving. He was a little out of practice; it had been several years. He was glad he had renewed his license, even though at the time he’d had no prospect of driving.

  Sam Alfano was sitting in his office in a tumbledown shack across a dirt road from one of the last working shrimp docks in the Savannah area. It was his dock, and he kept it mainly for show. The shrimp business surely wasn’t making money. His minions who worked there would buy shrimp from anyone who brought them up the creek to the dock. Sam’s own boats would periodically tie up overnight at the dock, which was when the real cargo was unloaded.

  During the daytime, the occasional car would follow the crudely lettered signs from the Tybee Road back into the marsh to the dock, where fresh shrimp could be had for a few dollars a pound. Sam could use the office for private meetings, and his visitors had the cover of buying shrimp. When the locals knew the shrimp were running, there would sometimes be enough traffic to be a nuisance, but Sam figured it was worth it for the cover it provided.

  His lookout at the little beer joint up by the turnoff had just phoned Sam to let him know Rick Leatherby’s Porsche had just turned onto the dirt road that led to the dock. Sam wondered what was on Rick’s mind. He had seemed anxious to see Sam, but he was bright enough not to say why on the telephone. He’d just asked Sam if the shrimp were any good, which was their agreed upon code for an emergency meeting. This was the first time the doctor had made such a call.

  "Pull up a crab trap and have a seat, Doc," Sam invited, but Rick had chosen a dubious looking chair instead of one of the rickety traps. Sam was enjoying the doctor’s obvious discomfort with the dirty surroundings. He could see Rick's nose wrinkle at the stench of shrimp heads drying in all the little nooks and crannies where they always got trapped. To Sam, it smelled like money, but to people who hadn’t grown up around shrimp boats, it just smelled unpleasant. Rick settled cautiously on the wobbly chair, afraid it would collapse with his weight.

  Sam didn’t say anything else, so Rick got right down to business. "There's a problem, Sam. Jimmy's been too clumsy about taking money out of the business, and Connie Barrera discovered some of what's going on. I have a way out for us, though. I've cut a deal with Connie to shut up and leave town, all for just a million dollars. That buys her out of the business at the same time, so we won't have any more worries."

  "Way to go, Doc," Sam played along, silently cursing this development. "Glad you found a way around her so quickly. I should've known Jimmy would cause trouble."

  Rick was a little surprised at how readily Sam bought his story. He seemed genuinely grateful to Rick for coming up with such a good solution. Rick couldn’t get over what a chump the guy was. How could such a fool make so much money? Maybe he should go into the drug business himself, Rick was thinking, as Sam was apologizing for how crass Jimmy had been, and how short sighted he, Sam, had been to underestimate Connie.

  "You were right to call me, Doc," Sam said. "Sure glad you were able to fix it all up for us. Million bucks is no problem at all, no sir. Just take a few days to get it together for you. How about some nice, fresh shrimp to take back to town with you? Right off the boat."

  Rick declined the shrimp. Normally, he liked shrimp, but after breathing that stench for a few minutes, he didn’t know if he would ever want to eat shrimp again. He shook Sam’s proffered hand as if it was day old road kill and walked back to his car, barely able to contain his glee.

  As the doctor drove away, Fat Tony joined his cousin Sam in the office. Sam filled him in on Rick’s report, and they both chuckled at the thought that Rick took them for such fools. Sam started right in on Tony’s marching orders.

  "Tony, find o
ut who's really behind this. I got a feelin' maybe the doc isn't bein' straight with us. Could be the woman, like he said, or could be he just wants a little extra for himself."

  "Well, could be the both of ‘em, Sam," Tony said.

  "Get Jimmy to wire up the doc's office, like when we had the nursing home," Sam told Tony. "Put your folks at the phone company to work on him, too. Then we'll know what we're dealin' with."

  Tony left and went to work. He had a network of drug users at the phone company, the banks -- anywhere he wanted information. These folks were always happy to oblige Tony for just a little extra ration of their favorite drug. His first score was the easiest, though. Jimmy told Tony right away that the broad had spotted his skimming, so she was clearly in on it, if not responsible for the whole problem.

  "She ain't been around the last couple of days, either," Jimmy reported. "The bugs in the executive offices are still there from when the nursing home was in business. I’ll just need to set up the tape machines, and we'll have a good handle on Leatherby."

  Rick stopped on his way back for a lunch date with Mary Lou, who found him somewhat preoccupied. Even so, he didn’t get back to his office until mid-afternoon, when he found a FedEx package on his desk. When he opened it, he found only an unlabeled DVD. Examining the shipping label, he saw that it had come from Miami Beach, so now he knew where Connie was.

  He decided out of curiosity to watch the video. He told Frances to hold his calls, locked his office door, and loaded the DVD. It was brief and to the point. Connie lined up all the facts, classified them as such, showed her supporting evidence on camera, zooming in on the spreadsheets and graphs, and drew her conclusions. She finished by explaining who she was and why she had made the video, disclosing that this was one of several copies. Rick was surprised at how damning it sounded when she laid it all out that way. She mentioned that at least one copy would be turned over to the news media if she failed to do certain things on a certain schedule.

  Rick was impressed with Connie, and frightened to think how badly it could have turned out if he hadn’t come up with a solution. He was glad Sam was such a pushover. He locked the DVD in his office safe and unlocked his office door. He had to get back to developing the business of Chromatic Nutrition, Inc. His first step was to deal with Connie’s departure. He needed another color consultant to handle the color analysis for new patients. It should be easy enough to hire somebody from the franchise Connie had been working for in California.

  After everyone had gone that evening, Jimmy unlocked Rick’s safe and took the DVD back to his cramped little secondary office behind the air-conditioning equipment room. The space didn't show up on the floor plans, so it was the ideal place to hide his surveillance equipment. He was pleased that he had found the DVD in the safe. He had worried that Rick might take it with him. Jimmy had used the bug in Rick's office to record the audio portion while Rick was watching it, but he was sure Sam would want to see the whole thing. He stuck it in the DVD drive on his PC, started the copying routine, and settled back with a cup of coffee. In a matter of minutes, he returned the original to Rick’s safe and locked up the office for the night.

  Jimmy was Sam’s brother-in-law, so he felt perfectly at ease dropping by Sam’s house on Wilmington Island. Angela Alfano let him in and made him sit down at the dinner table with them to have a glass of wine and a little pasta. When they finished dinner, Sam took Jimmy back to his real office; it was more like a den, but with all the equipment of a modern place of business.

  "I got a copy of the video the broad made to put the squeeze on Leatherby," Jimmy told Sam, handing it to him as he spoke.

  Sam poured out glasses of grappa and put the DVD in his machine. They watched it in silence, and when Jimmy finished the grappa, he left. Sam thought about what he knew now. The broad had the doctor by the jewels, all right. That bastard still had enough brass to try to scam him, though. Sam almost admired Rick for that. If he would quit looking at Sam like something stuck to the bottom of his shoe, Sam might be able to overlook his stupidity. He did seem to have guts, but Connie was way out front on brains. She had done such a good job on the video that Sam wondered if she had an organization of some kind behind her that Leatherby didn't know about.

  Sam knew he had old-fashioned views about disseminating critical information, and this episode reinforced his beliefs. Leatherby should have never let anybody get their hands on the detailed financial reports -- now he had to figure out how to salvage this situation. He needed Leatherby to run the clinic because he couldn’t afford to go through another shutdown / start-up cycle so soon. Rick needed to be taught a lesson, too. Sam thought maybe Rick would be smart enough to learn from other peoples’ mistakes. If not, some of Tony’s boys could personalize the lesson for him without doing permanent damage. If Sam could get his hands on Connie, she could star in another video for Rick with Tony's help, showing Rick what happened when you messed with Sam Alfano. He was sure she would be happy to give up the extra copies of the DVD once she understood what was at stake. He picked up the phone and summoned Fat Tony. It was time for a change of plans.

  Day 7, Evening

  Tony was on that damned, funky couch again, drinking malt liquor and trying to talk to that crazy bastard Ski Cat. This was definitely not how he had planned to spend his evening. In addition to everything he didn’t like about it last time he was here, this time Ski Cat’s boys were actively dealing dope.

  Every few minutes, one of them would knock on the steel reinforced door, and Ski Cat’s guard would check through the peep hole, unlock the big deadbolt, and open the door a few inches until it came up against a piece of chain that looked like it belonged on a tow truck. In a split second, money would come in and dope would go out.

  If Ski Cat got busted tonight, Fat Tony would go with him -- no way around it. Sam had been insistent that they get moving tonight. Tony was going to put his best soldier, Ski Cat, to work on finding Connie and bringing her back. He was briefing Ski Cat and Ski Cat’s number one man, Little Toby. Little Toby was a true giant. Tony would bet that he could probably crush a basketball, not just palm one. Little Toby would run the dope operation while Ski Cat was away. Ski Cat didn’t like this whole deal and he was letting Tony hear about it. Tony was trying to remember whether the "One Minute Manager" tape said you could shoot somebody in the foot to get his attention. He didn’t think so, but he was going to check, in case he ever had another situation like this.

  Ski Cat finally paused for breath, and in the ensuing silence, Tony said, "Okay, Ski Cat. Now you gonna listen to me or I blow your fuzzy black head clean off. Got it?"

  "Yassuh, boss, I’s ready," Ski Cat grinned, playing the fool because he had finally managed to provoke Fat Tony.

  Tony stood up, put his pistol in Ski Cat’s left ear, and screamed in his right one. When he was done, he put the pistol away and resumed his normal, torpid manner. Ski Cat, still grinning, gave a cool nod. Little Toby never moved, or even blinked. He never imagined anybody could talk to Ski Cat that way and live, especially a fat white guy. He wondered if he really wanted Ski Cat’s job, even temporarily.

  Donald was trying to get a good night’s sleep because he wanted to be rested for his big day tomorrow, but it sounded like Ski Cat was having some kind of loud party next door. Donald couldn’t quite hear everything that was going on and he was trying to tune out what he could hear. He didn’t want to listen because that would keep him awake. He couldn’t help hearing somebody screaming about not doing anything else until they found the broad and taught her a lesson. Donald pulled the pillow over his head. He wondered what Ski Cat could be up to. It almost sounded like they were watching a gangster movie or something. That must be it. The pillow helped, and they seemed to quiet down some anyway.

  Donald was going through everything Billy had told him about setting the traps and baiting them. Donald thought those traps were slick, the way they didn’t hurt the animal. He never knew there was such a thing. He moved on to rev
iewing the customer list Billy had given him. Donald had looked over the list, fixing it in his mind’s eye, as he thought of it, and handed it back to Billy. Billy had told him it was his copy and that he should keep it in the truck. Donald couldn’t understand why, but he didn’t want to argue with Billy, so he put the list inside the map book and both were now under his bed. As he tried to make sleep come, Donald conjured up an image of the list in his mind. He read the first address from his mental image. Then he visualized a picture of the map.

  When he noticed River Street on the map, Black Caesar popped into his head. Donald forgot about plotting tomorrow’s route -- he had already done that anyway. He worried over how to solve the problem of the flaming headscarf. He wondered how the ghost did it; then he realized the flames probably didn’t bother the ghost. He pondered whether the ghost had watched his attempt. Donald had never thought much about ghosts before and he wasn’t sure he believed in them. That Delia girl had a pretty good story about why there might be ghosts, but he still wasn’t sure. He wondered if she believed in them herself. He should probably ask her. He figured she had given it a lot more thought than he had.

  He thought maybe Delia had to believe in ghosts to get that job. The thought of her job reminded him that he had a job. He sure was lucky to have a good friend like Lizzie to help him find a way to make money to pay the hospital bill. Luther would be disappointed if he ever found out, though. All that time he had put into teaching Donald about free enterprise, and here Donald goes and gets a job. Luther would think he was an out-and-out failure. Donald consoled himself with the thought that it was just until he got the hospital bill paid. Maybe he should talk it over with Billy; he was probably a believer in free enterprise. As Donald grasped at the corner of another fleeting thought, sleep overtook him at last.