The Parlor City Boys

by Arno B. Zimmer

  ***

  “Stop staring at the gun like a frightened girl”, snapped Rudy as Chick sat down next to him in Brattigan’s car. “We’re probably not going to need it tonight. I just like having it nearby; it relaxes me. After that incident at the passion pit, I guess everything has been patched up with your girlfriend, right lover boy?”

  Chick combed his hair and explained that Elsie had called him at home after work to confirm that the truck delivering the payroll had arrived as usual. It had been agreed that Chick would not be seen with Elsie that day – in fact all week – to avoid suspicion. Chick had made vague commitments to Elsie about going away from Parlor City together after the heist, enough to fill her mind with fanciful, exotic thoughts about a glamorous life with Chick at her side.

  “OK, let’s roll” barked Rudy as he flicked a cigarette out the window. The Clintocks sat impassive in the back seat while Chick Lester gulped hard and stared straight ahead.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Meacham drove around Parlor City looking for Mike DeLong with the picture from Santimaw sitting on the seat beside him. He checked Crater’s and was relieved that his old friend hadn’t returned. He also came up empty at all the other local hard-core taverns. Maybe Mike hadn’t launched into another binge – that would be a bit of welcome news – but then, where was he hiding out?

  He glanced at the picture again and said, “OK, what secrets are you holding back? Gimme some help!” But the picture just stared back at Meacham. He continued talking to himself, half out loud. “D.D.. Whose initials are D.D.? Why does that sound familiar? And why did he write ‘not Carver’? And ‘Grimsley’? What’s the connection? It has to be at the Institute. There is something up there or Santimaw wouldn’t have made the effort before he collapsed and died”.

  Meacham was gripping the steering wheel tightly with both hands and leaning forward in his seat when it hit him, like an unexpected slap in the face. He slammed on the brakes and pulled to the side of the road. Flipping on the overhead light, he held up the picture to the light to confirm what he suspected. Decked out in an evening gown and beaming into Frederick Hawkins’ eyes was the sultry Danielle Deschambault. Thank you Mr. Hawkins for lapsing into informality when you pointed out that Billy Meacham wasn’t in the same league with “Dede” before catching yourself. So, they were a cozy twosome back in Boston and she shows up in Parlor City as his assistant. Probably not a coincidence that Mrs. Hawkins would appreciate. And what would seduce a dish like her to leave Boston and come to this backwater town? Sure, Hawkins was suave but he was already wrinkly and old enough to be her father. It just didn’t add up.

  Something in his gut told Meacham that Hawkins’ marital indiscretion, improbable as it seemed initially, had a more portentous meaning and it was somehow linked to the missing gun, to DeLong’s latest relapse and quite to possibly Randall DePue’s untimely death. But what mystified him was the note “not Carver”. What did it signify? Meacham had to locate Carver and Santimaw seemed to be telling him to get back up to Crazy Hill. A quick visit with Gwen Braun would give him the confirmation he needed. And, he asked himself, could he find Mike DeLong before anyone else did?

  ***

  As the Brattigan car pulled up to the Parlor City Cigar Factory, beads of sweat were starting to form on the upper lip of Rudy Gantz as he cut the lights to the Buick Roadmaster. Poor Chick Lester had been frozen solid since they drove away from the park. In the back seat, the breathing level of the Clintocks was just above comatose, par for the course.

  “Pull around to the left and I’ll show you the side entrance where we go in”, Lester managed to utter meekly, secretly hoping that the heist would somehow be called off by miraculous intervention. Rudy scowled but followed directions.

  The plan hatched by Rudy was a simple one. One of the Clintocks would hike the feathery Lester over his head like the prelude to a Flying Wallendas trapeze act. Then, Lester would hug the brick factory wall, push open the large second level window to gain entry and then ease down inside onto a tall cabinet that Elsie had reminded him was right below the window. Lester would then drop to the floor, open the back door and the Clintocks would waltz right in and right back out, carrying the safe to the waiting Buick. The entire operation was to be completed in less than 30 minutes. Rudy would stand at the open trunk and supervise.

  Twice, the trembling Lester fell backward only to be caught by the other Clintock standing guard against such an event. Rudy swore to himself that his henchmen would beat the crap out of Lester later for messing up their timing.

  On the third try, Lester steadied himself at the window. He was mortified to see that it was locked so he started tapping the glass gently with a small hammer. “Harder, asshole, or we’ll be here all night,” yelled Rudy. Suddenly, Lester realized that if he didn’t hurry, he would soon pee his pants and irrigate one of the Clintocks. In terror of both the act and the consequences, the next thud of the hammer shattered the square pane above the lock as Lester grabbed the frame and held on for dear life. Smiling weakly, he turned his head and let go with one hand to give Rudy a thumbs up before pushing the window up. With an upward shove from the Clintocks, each of them now holding one of Lester’s feet, he somehow avoided the shards of glass and tumbled head first into the building.

  Lester fell awkwardly and pitched forward as he landed, causing the cabinet to wobble. As he tried to steady himself, the cabinet gyrated wildly and came crashing down with a thunderous clap. Luckily, Lester fell backward instead of forward and landed prostrate on his back on top of the now supine cabinet. Instead of being crushed, he was simply knocked cold when his head made contact with the cabinet.

  Outside, sirens grew louder as the Clintocks stood motionless and stared at Rudy, looking for guidance. What they saw was sheer panic that rivaled if not exceeded the look on Chick Lester’s face moments earlier.

  ***

  Woody sat in his room and could hear the murmuring voices downstairs. He knew Coach Meacham was speaking to his Mother but couldn’t even compel himself to go to the door and try to pick up what they were saying. Everything seemed so futile when just days ago he was ecstatic about finding the gun in the park, sure that a care-free adventure would ensue.

  Somehow, his thoughts drifted to the Father he never knew, who had vacated his life without reason or explanation. Had he seen something in Woody that convinced him to just walk away? He tried to console himself with the thought that his Father could have turned out like Mr. Kosinsky – but at least Jerry’s father was there!

  Woody sat on the edge of his bed aimlessly flipping baseball cards. He thought back again to the incident with Rudy two years ago that started everything.

  Every kid in Parlor City knew that Woody Braun had a unique talent for flipping baseball cards. In fact, he was legendary. Like a lot of boys his age, Woody was a card collector but always had a supply for flipping. The savvy collectors left their best cards at home but were always equipped with a 1-2 inch stack of “duplicates” in the back pocket of their dungarees, ready for the inevitable challenge. If you were in the mood to flip, you simply watched for another boy with the familiar square bulge in his back pocket or you advertised your availability by carrying a bunch of cards in your hand. Flipping with a younger kid was not cool unless for fun or practice. Woody never took advantage of a novice.

  Woody did not prefer the overhand flip since it was difficult to predict and impossible to master. You simply held your arm out straight over your head and brought it down to your side in a quick motion, releasing the card at about eye level. Based on how you let go of the card, it would “flip” end over end, sometimes erratically, particularly on a windy day. For Woody, there was no finesse, no need for a subtle touch with the overhand flip, not to mention that it was unpredictable.

  Woody was the recognized master of the underhand flip whereby you held your arm stiffly at your side and let the card cascade to the ground. The release was critical to the number of rotations the card would make
before it hit the ground. “Heads” was the player’s face and “tails” was the other side with his stats or biography. If you opponent matched your flip, he won and kept both cards.

  Woody had mastered the physics of this seemingly simple game. When he was on a roll, his fingers and thumb were in perfect harmony and, as a result, his collection of baseball cards was so large that he had commandeered three of his Mother’s shoeboxes.. He had even won some sought after collector cards from anxious flippers who didn’t know when to quit.

  Woody had his favorite team, the Boston Red Sox, but collecting and flipping was more to him about players who had proven themselves and who sounded like they were actually born to play baseball. He loved names like Wally Moon, Vic Power, Minnie Minoso, Dusty Rhodes, Duke Snider, Moose Skowron – but especially “Teddy Ballgame”. He couldn’t understand how any kid could clip these cards in their bike spokes with clothes pins but he had seen it and cringed. In Woody’s world, spokes should be reserved, if such denigration were to be allowed at all, for baseball cards with players whose names were Al Smith or Bob Grim.

  So it was with some surprise that Woody found himself challenged one day after school by Rudy Gantz who showed up on the playground chewing on a wad of gum and shuffling a pile of new baseball cards as he walked toward him. A small crowd gathered as Rudy taunted Woody, pushing some young kids out of his way. “Move back, ankle-biters. I don’t want to get cooties while I’m cleaning out your friend”, Rudy said almost fiercely before laughing. Watching with growing anger, Woody decided he would teach Rudy a lesson.

  As card after card flipped to the ground, Rudy grew furious, frantically switching from underhand to overhand while Woody calmly picked up his winnings. When the last card was flipped, Rudy’s face was beet red and he spit the spent wad of gum in disgust at Woody’s feet. The crowd cheered and when Woody grinned triumphantly, Rudy lurched toward him. At that moment, Jerry Kosinsky stepped forward from the back of the crowd and actually lifted Rudy off the ground by his shirt collar, holding him aloft for added effect as the laughter increased. As he brought him down slowly, Woody noticed another boy signal to him as he crouched behind Rudy. At that moment, Woody, emboldened and heady with victory, stepped forward with a wide grin as he knocked Rudy over backward. It was at that instance that Woody saw pure hate staring back at him and regret immediately set in. Amid the laughter and taunts, Rudy skulked off silently but not before Jerry yelled out “how do you like them apples, toadface?”

  Laughter erupted again and on the way home Woody asked Jerry why he taunted Rudy as he was walking away. “He deserved more humiliation, Woody, but to be completely honest, I couldn’t help myself. Heck, I always thought he looked like a frog and it seemed like a good time to point it out.”

  Reminiscing as he sat in his room, Woody acknowledged that his best friend came to his defense that day without even being asked. But why would he choose to go to Tee Shirt Smith’s house instead of the movies with him? It made no sense. And then, it struck Woody that maybe his friend was in trouble, too. Not the Rudy Gantz or gun in the park-kind of trouble – but something just as serious, if not more so.

  Woody thought about some of their adventures and almost laughed out loud. The time they bought a pack of cigarettes, telling the clerk that they were for Jerry’s mother , and then smoked them all under the trestle that afternoon, both of them throwing up right after sucking on orange popsicles to disguise the smell. Or the time they went into Buford’s Army & Navy Store on a dare and took pants into the changing room to try on but then put their own pants right over them. Well, they did waddle out of the store without getting caught but they were so frightened that they admitted almost wetting their pants as they shuffled home. They laughed uproariously for weeks afterwards while vowing never to repeat such a stunt again.

  It was at this moment that Woody realized that he needed to stop by Jerry’s house the next morning right after he finished his paper route. He also knew that his big lug of a friend was too proud to come to him. All this time, Woody had been aimlessly flipping cards and was conscious that the final card had just left his hand. He looked down at the floor and smiled. They had all landed heads up. Yeah, he still had the touch.

  ***

  “Reginald Carver is the finance guy at the Institute, Billy”, said Gwen Braun. “Don’t know his exact title but he reports directly to Hawkins. My recollection, but I can’t be positive, is that Hawkins brought Carver with him when he came from Boston – or shortly thereafter. Grimsley is one of Hawkins’ henchmen, not a pleasant man to see angry, or so I’m told. As for Miss Deschambault, you have probably already heard the talk about Hawkins and her. Should I ask why you care? “she finished with a quizzical smile on her face.

  Meacham knew that Gwen could probably get information out of him easier than the most seasoned interrogator if he wasn’t on guard, so he simply said “A lot of things are starting to make sense which will become clear very soon. Thanks. I gotta go”. Billy Meacham smiled into those beautiful eyes and then bolted for the door, making his second graceless exit from Gwen Braun’s house in less than a week.

  When he got to his car, the radio was cackling like an irritated hen and Meacham learned that Sgt. Whipple needed him at the Parlor City Cigar Factory as quickly as possible. Before he hung up, he put in a request to contact the Boston Police for information on a Danielle “DeDe” Deschambault and a Reginald “Reggie” Carver. Something told him he was probably going to come up empty with these two names.

  ***

  After Meacham left, Gwen sat at her kitchen table deep in thought. Since Tommy’s disappearance, she had not really dated anyone and had felt constrained not to do so. And, of course, legally she was still a married woman.

  However, she was not unaware of interest shown by two of the doctors, one a bachelor, that provided, at the very least, a sense of gratification maybe even relief that she was still attractive and desirable. Then, there was the new minister who, if her feminine antennae was working properly, had sent out preliminary signals of interest. If so, she was amused but nothing more and would have to deal with that situation tactfully should her suspicions prove to be accurate.

  And there was Billy Meacham. He wasn’t the kind of clever guy that picked up little signs that women emit when they are attracted to someone. She didn’t see it as a shortcoming and, in fact, saw it as an attractive quality. She was naturally cautious now and he was restrained but she knew it could not go on that way indefinitely if there was any chance for a relationship to develop. One of them would have to do something demonstrative. For now, though, she sensed a mutual attraction and decided that events would eventually take care of themselves.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Saturday, July 16 1955

  Hawkins paced the office waiting for Carver. He didn’t like it that Santimaw was inconveniently dead but the disappearance of DeLong – seemingly on the run out of sheer fright or embarrassment – seemed to play nicely into their hands.

  It wouldn’t be long now before he would be far away with the delectable Dede, unencumbered by the dreary present or the distant past. He felt a twinge of remorse for what he was about to do to his invalid wife but consoled himself with the thought that her family would swoop in from Boston to rescue her. He remembered what his father had told him many times as a child, “Kid, if you have power and money, life’s a game but for everyone else its work.” Well, if the old bastard was wrong about almost everything else, he got this right, Hawkins said to himself.

  Carver walked in with a smug grin on his face and Hawkins knew that meant everything was falling into place. “I moved the last of your funds into the Bank of Alderney and just received confirmation from the accountants in the Bahamas. You are set for life, Freddie,” said Carver, addressing his nominal boss with impunity as if he were speaking to one of the orderlies. Carver smiled again and Hawkins winced but said nothing.

  Carver opened his valise and produced a number of official documents, i
ncluding bank balance sheets, certificates of deposit and the accountant’s letter attesting to the fact that the Bank was not only sound but had over $72M in deposits on hand. Carver made a show of spreading everything out on the desk so Hawkins could see that each document was properly stamped and embossed. Despite his growing distaste for the man, Hawkins couldn’t suppress a smile as Carver stuffed the papers back into the valise and handed it to him. It was an elegant swindle and Hawkins, even if begrudgingly, had to admire the handiwork of Reginald Carver.

  Early on, when Carver had suggested Alderney, Hawkins had a twinge of suspicion. Why a bank on an obscure island off the coast of England that no one had ever heard of, he asked? When Carver had reminded him that secrecy was their friend and suggested Hawkins check the bank out if he had any qualms, he had done just that without informing Carver. And sure enough, his own banker had quickly confirmed that they were listed, in good standing, in Polk’s Bank Directory. After that, Hawkins didn’t ask any more questions.