by Rick Outzen
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“Think positively, Mr. Holmes.”
We talked twenty or so more minutes about the petition drive. Daniels didn’t make any other comments about the acrimony between him and Wittman. He wanted to talk primarily about the petition, Hines, and how to get the baseball stadium built.
“My reporter, Doug Yoste, is working on a story about the petition. Can he interview you and Kettler?”
“Yes, we can set it up,” he said. “But I think he is traveling in Canada with his family this week.”
As I drove over to H&O Cafe, Summer called. I almost didn’t pick up the phone, but I owed it to her to answer.
There was no hello or other pleasantries. “The printer wants another check before they print the issue,” she said. “What do I do?”
This issue was too big to delay printing. “Cut the check. I’ll be back in an hour. Tell them we will deliver it by 2:30.”
Again, we would take advantage of the bank float. Missing the 2:00 p.m. bank cutoff would buy us another day or two. Goddammit, this was getting old.
Blocking the negativity from my mind, I parked in the oyster shell-covered parking lot behind H&O, navigated around a few deep puddles, and walked in to meet Razor.
Located at the corner of Hayne and Gonzalez streets almost under the I-110 overpass, the H&O Café was one of the first black-owned restaurants in Pensacola. Hamp Lee and his brother Booker opened the place in 1922 and named it for their wives, Hattie and Ola.
The H&O was first a grocery with a lunch counter and poolroom in the back. A popular hangout in the all-black Eastside neighborhood known for good soul food, it was listed in USA Today’s “Top 10 Iconic Soul Food Joints” a few years back.
In the 1950s, “Little Book,” Booker Lee’s son, nearly lost the restaurant when he almost beat a customer to death. The legend was a pregnant woman had tried to sit on one of the counter stools in a very tight, short skirt. Noticing how exposed the woman was, a man sitting nearby shouted, “My, my, I’m looking at paradise.”
Little Book, who stood over six and a half feet tall and weighed about three hundred pounds, took offense to the remark. One version of the story had the woman as his girlfriend. Lee came from behind the counter, dragged the man outside, and began beating him with a belt. He was arrested and charged with aggravated battery. Judge Beckham let Lee off with a fine. Ever since a sign hung over the H&O Café lunch counter: “No Pregnant Women Allowed on Stools.”
Little Book passed away in 1999. His nephew Curtis ran the place now. The grocery store and poolroom had long been abandoned, but the restaurant with its counter, five booths, and a handful of tables still operated twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, just as it had done in the 1920s.
When visiting Pensacola, politicians, and celebrities made sure to eat a meal at the H&O Café. On the wall were photos of Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali, President Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama, and local champion boxer Roy Jones, Jr.
Curtis looked up from a copy of last week’s Pensacola Insider when I entered. He said, “Finally found time to read you, I just knew you would show today. It’s meatloaf day.”
“Hi, Curtis. Meatloaf, mac & cheese, fried okra, and collard greens. What’s better than that?”
“Five hundred dollars in my pocket and a fine, big-butt lady on my lap,” he said laughing as he got up to make my plate.
I said, “Only if Ms. Delores doesn’t catch you.”
Percy Sledge was playing on the jukebox. You had to love a joint that played its jukebox during lunch. In the corner booth sat Alphonse Tyndall. The special agent had less than half of the meatloaf special remaining on his plate. A group of dusty day laborers sat at the long table by the window. The rest of the place was empty. Curtis’s daughter Natalia sat by the phone to handle any takeout orders, playing on her cell phone. The girl was eighteen and curvy, which explained why her daddy wanted to keep her in his sight.
Razor smiled and greeted me as I sat down. Natalia brought me my sweet tea in a Styrofoam cup and a plate of hot cornbread.
“Thanks for meeting on such short notice,” he said, as he reached for a piece of cornbread. “I moved back more than two years ago after living in Atlanta for nearly a decade and eating at all kinds of restaurants there and other big cities, including New York and DC. This may not be the prettiest looking establishment, but none of their food can touch this place.”
The jukebox switched to Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa.” I said to Alphonse, “This is one of my breakfast haunts on the weekends. Always can find a story here.”
Natalia delivered the lunch special with a bottle of hot pepper sauce.
Razor said, “You know this town better than I do. I’ve been away too long.”
“I’m glad you called,” I said. “I think a lot of your aunt, and having another source in the attorney general’s office is always good.”
“What we discuss has to stay off the record until I say you can publish it, okay?” he warned.
“As long as we are honest with each other, then there will be no problem,” I said. “Everything can be on background. We can decide later what needs to go in print or on the blog.”
“Fair enough.”
We ate our meals quietly for a few minutes. He wanted to ask me something, but I wasn’t going to rush him.
“Razor, what’s your background?” I asked after Natalia poured us more tea.
He said that he had gone to Howard University on a football scholarship. When he graduated with top grades, several alumni encouraged him to go to law school. He worked as a graduate assistant for the football program and enrolled in Howard University School of Law.
“It was tough, but the alumni stayed on my case. They weren’t going to let me be a football coach or pharmaceutical salesman,” he said.
He graduated with honors, passed the bar, and went to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, first in Los Angeles, then Chicago and Atlanta. He became an expert in catching hacking rings that operated in the cyber underground.
“I sort of made a name for myself a few years back,” Razor said. “An international hacking ring devised sophisticated hacking techniques to compromise the encryption used to protect data on forty-four payroll debit cards, and then provided a network of “cashers” to withdraw millions from over 2,100 ATMs in hundreds of cities in the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Italy, France, Japan, and Canada. They stole nine million dollars in a span of fewer than twelve hours before we realized what happened. We caught them operating out of an internet café in Boca Raton.”
When the Florida attorney general wanted to set up his Child Predator Cybercrime Task Force, he called Alphonse Tyndall first. Razor agreed, but only on the condition that he could work out of Pensacola.
“I’ve operated under the radar here. Passed the Florida Bar. Started coaching youth football and basketball with the Southern Youth Sports Association. And I’m an usher at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church.”
“What do you tell people when they ask what you do?” I asked, finishing my last bite of meatloaf.
“I say I work for the state.”
As I moved on to a bowl of banana pudding, Razor got to the point about why he wanted to meet me.
“Benny says you’ve been asking about a porn crew shooting videos around here,” he said, fixing on my eyes. He waited for my reaction. We weren’t friends yet.
I set down my spoon. My normal routine was to bluff my way through conversations like this, especially when I didn’t know much. The other party would usually share everything, thinking I already had the information. With Razor, I told the truth.
“Benny is a talker,” I said, taking a sip of tea. “He brought up the porn thing. I was checking on something for a friend who made a mistake.”
Razor relaxed a little.
I asked, “What does a porn ring have to do with child predators?”
“A couple of girls taped are still in
high school,” he said. “We’re close to shutting it down and don’t need any blog posts or news stories tipping them off.”
He explained to me how this operation was much bigger than just a few guys selling homemade porn videos on the web.
“They have set up a subscription-based website called ‘Deb’s Playpen,’ using Tor in the dark web,” Razor said.
He explained that Tor was software that enabled anonymous communication on the web. Created by Naval Research Laboratory employees to protect Department of Defense communication, The Onion Router, or Tor, later became available for free.
Computer geeks began to direct web traffic through the free worldwide, volunteer network consisting of more than seven thousand relays that concealed a user’s location and usage from anyone conducting network surveillance or traffic analysis. Hackers loved it.
“The website has over than twenty-seven thousand members and two thousand videos,” he told me. “Several feature children. The members not only download videos created by the website but also share photos and videos of the minors freely, thanks to Tor’s ability to conceal online users’ identities and locations.”
“Is the Pensacola crew a supplier for the site?” I asked.
“Most of the child porn has been supplied by users, but I think this area may be the headquarters, which is why we’re so sensitive to being exposed before we arrest anyone.”
“Can I get an exclusive?”
Razor laughed. “I will make sure you get a copy of the documents we file with the courts. That’s the best I can do.”
During a break in the conversation, Curtis poured us more tea and brought us the tab. Tyndall grabbed the ticket but he had something else he wanted to discuss before we left.
“Walker, I’m thinking about running for sheriff in 2012. What are my chances?”
“Let’s see,” I said. “A black Democrat—I assume you’re a Democrat”—he nodded yes—“with a very low public profile running against a two-term Republican sheriff that crushed his opponents the last two elections. Not good.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Bad but not impossible. The luster of Frost is wearing off. People are tired of his thugs and backroom deals. I just don’t know if they’re ready for a black sheriff.”
He said, “Raising money won’t be a problem. My friends around the country will write checks.”
“You need to start building some name recognition. The election is a little more than two years away.”
“I need to finish this operation first,” Razor replied. “Then I plan to join the Rockwell Theisen law firm.”
One of the top trial law firms in the state, Rockwell Theisen had three floors of Jackson Towers. T. A. Rockwell wasn’t a fan of Sheriff Frost.
“Nice career move,” I said. “Do they know you want to run for Escambia County sheriff?”
“Yes, the firm represented Aunt Joyce. Mr. Rockwell said he would do anything to help me. He’s onboard.”
“Well, that could alter the dynamics of the race,” I said. “When you make the switch to the firm, we’ll do a profile of you. You need to find a charity fundraiser to chair, and you’ve got to make the rounds to the black pastors.”
I finished my tea and Tyndall paid the bill. As we walked to our cars I told him, “This will be a long shot, and you might not win on the first try. But I will help.”
We shook hands and agreed to have beers again soon. Another crusade, I thought.
Mari would have been pissed.
17
When I got back to the office, Doug Yoste was huddled at his desk. Fittingly the rest of the staff had ostracized him. His excuse for missing the morning meeting was that his power had gone out, shutting off his alarm clock. No one bought it. His sunburned face and neck gave away that he had been fishing again.
After fifteen minutes of my third, and maybe final, “Come to Jesus” meeting with him about responsibility, deadlines, and teamwork, Doug filled me in on his research for the petition story. He had been busy calling all the principal players.
According to Doug, most of the Save Our Pensacola wackos were completely caught off guard when Wittman announced another petition drive. They saw the park project as a done deal, but right around when the police arrested Hines, Wittman fired up the PAC again.
“I got a hold of a Mrs. Ellis and her husband last night,” Doug said, reading from his notepad. “They say they are members of the executive committee of Save Our Pensacola. Mrs. Ellis hates you and tried to get me to understand how evil you really are.”
Yoste didn’t defend me, only asked questions. Mrs. Ellis was the lady with the orange hair who had run the meeting at New World Landing.
“Professor Ellis called you the ‘Spawn of Satan’ before he gave me a twenty-minute lecture on how the economic analysis for the park project was flawed,” Doug said. “Neither of them ever met Bo Hines before Monday night, but they were happy to have him and his money.”
The prior petition attempts had been underfunded. Wittman depended on free publicity from the daily newspaper, local talk radio shows, and anybody who believed in conspiracy theories, UFOs, and the Illuminati. He had never matched the money Kettler threw out for advertising and mailers to counter the naysayers. Hines’ money would be the great equalizer this time.
Wittman told Doug, “We must remember that the residents and taxpayers of the City of Pensacola own the proposed development site. I can’t sit idly and watch the city council hand over our valuable waterfront property to some millionaire for his hobby baseball team.”
Wittman insisted he based the petition drive on the hundreds of phone calls and emails that he had received to stop what he liked to refer to as a “giveaway” to Kettler. He never mentioned Stan Daniels.
After Monday night’s announcement by Hines that he was joining forces with his brother-in-law, Doug tried to get a quote from him and got nowhere, but he promised to continue trying.
I gave him Stan Daniels’ phone numbers. Daniels would help him reach Kettler.
The outline for his cover story was due by Thursday afternoon, and he needed to talk with Teddy and Mal about the artwork. The firm deadline for this copy was the following Monday morning. Doug agreed to not go fishing until after the final draft was turned in.
Mal and I tested the payroll database a few more times. The searches worked perfectly.
She said, “Do you think people will really want to look up the salaries?”
“Hell yeah,” I said. “Frost’s employees will check out each other’s pay. Girlfriends will want to learn how much their lovers make. And the public will see how Sheriff Frost rewards his henchmen.”
I had gotten the idea from the Boston Globe. They had set up an online database of the salaries of all government employees in the state of Massachusetts. So many people had logged on to the site that it had crashed. This project had taken us four weeks to pull together. I expected similar results tomorrow.
Thursday morning, I heard the rain when my alarm went off. As I was about to roll over and go back to sleep, Big Boy jumped on the bed with his leash. He liked running in the rain. There must have been something primordial about it, or maybe he just enjoyed hearing me curse as he pulled me through puddles.
As we headed back to the office, bundles of the Insider wrapped in plastic bags were stacked on the doorsteps of downtown businesses. I loved the anticipation of a new issue hitting the stands, especially when it had a blockbuster as the cover story.
Whenever I had a story published in The Daily Mississippian, Mari had teased me about being like a child on Christmas morning rushing to find what Santa left for me under the tree. She had to put up with hours of me obsessing over a story, listening to me bitch about my editor and faculty advisor, and fretting that I wasn’t good enough to do the story.
Damn, I missed her.
I dried Big Boy in the stairwell and stripped down to my boxers. My phone vibrated, and the display said, “Sheriff Frost.” I passed on
answering it. When I got out of the shower, there was a text message from him: “BIG MISTAKE.”
With a cup of coffee and Big Boy next to me on the couch, I wrote my first blog post of the day pushing readers to the cover story.
CHA-CHING!
Who are the big winners in Sheriff Ron Frost’s administration? The Insider has the annual salary for every employee in the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office available online. You can search by name, job title, or salary range. Enjoy.
My phone vibrated. It was Rueben Crutcher, one of my investors. Crutcher owned the Pensacola State Bank. Well, actually his mother owned it and let him sit in an office off the lobby. I recruited Crutcher to invest in the Insider when I launched the newspaper because I had heard he wanted to get back at the society columnist at the Pensacola Herald for mocking his Mardi Gras court. Recruiting the banker was a decision I often regretted.
Crutcher liked to tell people he owned the paper, but he didn’t enjoy any political pushback from the editorial content. He would email me story ideas that I deleted without reading. When he suggested an editorial position, we took the opposite side. We battled continually over the paper’s coverage during our monthly board meetings. Then Hurricane Ivan hit. The bank and his family investments took major losses. He quit answering my cash calls to help keep the paper operating, and I quit calling board meetings.
We had reached a tenuous truce that would last as long as I didn’t need any money. If I faltered, he would demand a board meeting and call for my ass.
“Walker, Crutcher here,” he said, not understanding that cell phones identify the caller. “Just got off the phone with Sheriff Frost—what the hell are you doing over there?”
“Reporting.”
“He’s threatening to sue if you don’t pull the story and write some type of retraction about his brother,” Crutcher shouted.
“He won’t. I had our attorney review the article,” I lied. “Frost has nothing to sue us over.”
“You think this is all a joke,” he said. “It’s important to some of us to have the sheriff on our side.”
I remembered that Crutcher’s son had been arrested for driving while intoxicated during spring break. It was his second such arrest, and for the second time the charge was dropped for insufficient evidence. Frost reassigned the arresting deputy to court security.
