by Mike Faricy
There’s something about calling folks for past due payments on coffins that can make for a long day. Not for the first time, I was on the line with a very nice, little old lady who probably still used a rotary dial phone.
“What was that you said?”
“I said I’m calling on behalf of Lindbergh Memorials regarding the past due amount on your account.”
The coffin had apparently been for her husband. It wasn’t like Andy had the option of digging it up and repossessing the thing so a bit of finesse was needed. Was there even a market for a used coffin? I didn’t think so.
“Clarence always dealt with that sort of thing, of course he’s passed on,” she said making it sound like he was out playing poker with the boys or just running to the hardware store.
“Yes, I’m sure he did, but there is a past due amount on your account and I’d like to work with you to help bring your account current.”
“Who did you say was calling?”
Things went downhill from there. At noon I walked into Andy’s office, we’d been pals for years.
“How’s it going?” he asked and attempted to look hopeful.
“Let me sum it up. I quit.”
“Already?”
“Andy, I’m hassling octogenarians on social security regarding their monthly payment that is impossible for them to make. Even if they could hear me, they wouldn’t understand what I’m talking about. I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”
“Maybe you’re being too nice.”
I placed a stack of files and an Excel spread sheet on his desk.
“You got the wrong guy if you want me to play rough with these folks, I just can’t do it.”
“You know anyone who could?”
A name immediately popped into my head, but I debated mentioning him. “I know a guy who has dabbled in it a bit, collections that is. I have to be honest and tell you he did time a while back, maybe a year or two ago.”
“Is he any good?”
“No, that’s why he got caught.”
“I meant with the collections.”
“Oh, yeah I think he’s pretty good, at least as far as I know. Let me check him out and I’ll get back to you.”
“Thanks for trying, Dev.”
“Sorry, Andy, but I’m just not the guy.”
Chapter Two
I’d known Tommy Flaherty since before I two timed his older sisters, Candi and Lissa. Even as a young kid Tommy had a reputation for getting into trouble coupled with an inability to realize consequences and an uncanny knack for always being the one who was going to get caught. Not the best of combinations.
He started his crime career early on in the primary grades stealing cafeteria lunch desserts. From there, he jumped to ripping off school lockers in junior high. He moved up to swiping cars in high school. Don’t let me forget filming me with at least one of his sisters. Breaking and entering became his passion after senior year, for which he served twenty-four months up in the St. Cloud Reformatory.
Unfortunately, the St. Cloud stint only seemed to serve as a sort of criminal finishing school and upon completing that sentence he graduated to armed robbery, whereupon he was once again arrested and this time served three-and-a-half years in Lino Lakes. At age twenty-four he’d already spent close to a quarter of his life behind bars which wasn’t the most sterling point to have on one’s résumé. The last I heard, Tommy had drifted into the collections area of the business world in an effort to go straight.
After I fled the basement all those years ago, Candi had phoned her sister Lissa in a drunken rage. The jig was up as the sisters quickly determined I had been dating them simultaneously. They threatened me with castration, filed restraining orders, and then promised further legal action if I ever attempted to contact them again.
I figured after a decade had passed and since I was attempting to help their younger brother I had at least a fighting chance. Well, and then there was the little matter of Tommy’s video which I never pursued.
“Hi, Candi please.”
“Speaking,” she said. I could feel the chill thru the phone.
“Candi, this is Dev Haskell. I…hello. Hello?”
I decided a slightly different tack might work with Lissa.
“Hello.”
“Hi, Lissa please don’t hang up. I’m trying to reach your brother, Tommy. I have a job opportunity for him, but I don’t have a phone number.”
“Who the hell is this?”
“Please, don’t hang up. It’s Dev Haskell.”
“Oh hi, Dev. Long time no talk. How are you?”
“Lissa, I’m the dullest guy in town.”
“I don’t believe that for one minute.”
“How have you been, Lissa?”
“Well, my sister’s talking to me again, if that’s your question.”
“Actually, Candi just hung up on me, not more than ten minutes ago. I called her for Tommy’s phone number, but as soon as I mentioned my name she hung up.”
“You really can’t blame her, Dev. Calling out my name at a rather intimate moment wasn’t the most romantic thing to do, and well, if you’ll recall it was all caught on film.”
“Yes, and if I recall the three of you made a tidy little profit selling that online.”
“You have to admit it was classic. What on earth were you thinking calling her by my name at that most inopportune of moments?”
“That was only because you were so good.”
“She was in therapy for a couple of years after dating you.”
“Well, you two girls and your little brother selling that video online didn’t help matters.”
“He’s always had a bit of an entrepreneurial streak.”
“Hiding in the basement and secretly filming us suggests a sort of warped entrepreneurial perspective, don’t you think?”
“Tommy’s always been the creative type. Besides, a naked woman swearing at you with a hunting rifle was kind of funny. At least all the YouTube folks seemed to think so.”
I thought it best not to go down that road. “Would you happen to have Tommy’s phone number?”
“I have to ask why. No offense, but is this something legitimate? Or, is it another sort of half-baked scheme you’ve cooked up? I hope you’re not thinking of revenge, you weren’t exactly lily white on that whole deal, Dev. That’s really the last thing anyone needs right now, Tommy’s been straight for almost a year and Candi’s finally been able to get off those meds.”
“Actually, that’s why I’m calling. I heard he was doing collections. I’ve got a friend who’s looking for someone and I thought of Tommy.”
“Is it legitimate?”
“Very, this guy is a straight arrow. You can check him out the company is C. Lindbergh Memorials. My pal is Andy Lindbergh he’s the president, third generation. They do headstones, coffins, and just about anything you can think of in that industry. Thing is, there isn’t much romance to it, but it could be a source of guaranteed employment for someone like your brother for, well, forever.”
“He was doing collections up until recently, student loans. Of course the problem is how are you going to collect from people who don’t have any money to begin with? He’s been looking for something else so from that standpoint your timing couldn’t be better.”
“Great, I think he and Andy would really hit it off. Can you give me his number?”
“Why don’t you give me yours and I’ll have him call you.”
“Okay, the sooner the better,” I said and gave her my number.
“Great talking, Dev. We should get together, just for old times’ sake.”
“Yeah, I’d like that, Lissa.”
“I’d really like it,” she said.
Chapter Three
Tommy called me the very next day. I’d already forgotten about trying to reach him and was sitting in my office hoping the phone would ring with business. Tommy Flaherty wasn’t exactly who I hoped to hear from.
“Haskell
Investigations.”
“Yeah, I’m looking for the video star that slept with both my sisters.” That sort of narrowed it down, but the charge caught me off guard and I had to pause for a half second.
“Dev?”
“Yeah, Tommy?”
“Hey, didn’t mean to scare you, man.”
“Nice to hear from you, Tommy. How are things going?”
“Well, I’ve been out of the video biz for quite awhile.”
I didn’t respond.
“Actually, thanks for asking, things couldn’t be better.”
In retrospect, from this point forward I don’t think anything Tommy told me was true.
“Here’s the deal, Tommy, I got a pal who needs help with past due accounts.” I went on to give him a brief run down on what, exactly, Andy wanted. Then, I finished up with, “I’ll be honest, I tried it and didn’t last half a day. I’m just not cut out for collections.”
“Most folks aren’t, Dev. You’ve got to really want to help people, not that you don’t, but I’ve been there, between a rock and a hard place. A lot of patience and a little luck can get you on the right track. I’d like to meet your guy, like to see you, too. We should get together, maybe grab a bite sometime.”
“Yeah, sure, Tommy, we should do that.”
“How about today? Say, maybe one-thirty. You free, man?”
“Free? Today? Well, yeah, I guess, I suppose I can do that. You pick the place, Tommy.”
“You know the Over Easy? It’s down on East Seventh.”
I did know it. It was a twenty-four/seven joint that specialized in a cardiac arrest menu and girls to go. They’d been shut down by the health department for a week at the beginning of summer and there’d been a shooting in the ladies room sometime earlier this month.
“The Over Easy?”
“Yeah, it’s just across from Doctor Romance.”
Perfect. The sex toy store. You could work up an appetite with battery-operated friends then drift into the Over Easy for a heart-stopping meal.
“One-thirty, yeah, I guess that’ll work, looking forward to seeing you again, Tommy.”
The Over Easy was actually two old train cars pushed together to form a restaurant. The place was featured in post cards from the 1930s and had pretty much been on a downward slide ever since. I was sitting in a back booth waiting for Tommy, watching the collection of characters and smelling hot griddle grease for the better part of a half hour. The table top and the red vinyl booth seemed to glisten from a patina of cooking oil.
Tommy pulled into a parking place across the street. He was driving a faded red, two-door Datsun sedan with a buckled hood and a tied down trunk. Or, was the dangling bumper tied up to the trunk? It was hard to tell.
He climbed out of the car, stared at the parking meter with the red flag showing time had expired, shook his head, muttered something then crossed the street against traffic carrying what looked like a paper lunch bag.
“Hey, Tommy,” some tattooed guy behind the counter called then went back to filling coffee cups.
Tommy responded with a nod as he scanned down the length of booths looking for me.
I waved.
“Dev, nice to see you, man it’s been awhile,” he said, sliding into the side opposite me. He needed a shave and he looked like he’d slept in his clothes.
“Good to see you, Tommy, been a couple years.”
“Yeah, ‘spose you heard I had a little vacation, compliments of the system,” he said.
I felt like asking “Which time?” instead I just nodded and glanced at the menu. “I appreciate you getting back to me so fast, Tommy. This company, there’s no romance to the product line, unless you’re maybe a vampire or something.”
Tommy looked at me straight faced and didn’t blink.
“It’s everything you can think of for the funeral biz,” I said, then went on to explain Andy’s business and what he needed.
“Sounds like just what I’m looking for, stable, with a future. God, my last gig was student loans and I was working on commission. I think I only had a four percent success rate and I was their top guy.”
“So here’s the contact information,” I said, sliding an envelope across the table. Tommy glanced at the envelope then quickly slipped it into his pocket without opening it. I sensed a number of heads watching us and probably coming up with all sorts of weird scenarios.
He dove into breakfast, about five pounds’ worth of greasy hash browns, greasy bacon, two greasy fried eggs and something resembling hollandaise sauce slopped over the entire platter. After a few minutes I’d pushed my platter to the side, but Tommy continued to diligently work his way through his.
“You gonna just let all that go to waste?” he said once he finished, then nodded at my heart stopping order.
“Help yourself, if you’ve got the courage.”
Once he cleaned my plate, he sat back and gave a satisfied sort of smile. Maybe a minute or two later he picked up his brown paper lunch bag and said, “Would you excuse me for just a moment.” He slid out of the booth and headed for the restroom.
He was gone for a good fifteen minutes. I wasn’t surprised. The food at the Over Easy probably had that effect on most people. It was one of the reasons I’d pushed mine to the side. When he returned to the booth, he looked clean shaven.
“Did you just shave in there?”
“Yeah, didn’t Lissa mention it? You might say I’m sort of highly mobile, right now.”
“Highly mobile?”
“Kind of living in my car, you know, just until I get back on my feet. Shouldn’t be too long, well, if this pans out, I hope. And I’m sure it will,” he said looking up at me trying to sound positive.
“Your car?” I asked and looked out across the street at the buckled hood and the Bungee Cord holding things together in the rear.
“Couldn’t you move in with Candi or Lissa? You know, just till you got back on your feet?”
“That sort of didn’t work out too well with either one of them. They thought some things were missing, they never really said anything, but I know they blamed me. I just figured it would probably be better for all of us if I was on my own. Be great to have a place to land, you know for maybe a day or so, couple of days, tops, just to tide me over until I got this job. And I’m gonna get it, I can feel it, Dev.”
If I was supposed to respond, I didn’t.
“Well, I suppose I should get going. I’ll call your pal right away, soon as I find a pay phone. I think there’s one a couple of blocks over, maybe.”
“You don’t have a phone?”
“That’s one of the first things I intend to address just as soon as I can. Well, that and I wanted to give some flowers to my Mom. I know, crazy, but it’s just something I gotta do. She just loves flowers.”
“I thought she passed away a couple of years back?”
“Oh yeah, she did,” Tommy said, not meeting my eye. “I just wanted to leave them on her grave, you know make it look nice and all. She was such a wonderful woman.”
“Isn’t she buried back in Ohio, some sort of family cemetery or something?”
“That’s why it’s so expensive, I’d have to send them. You know, sort of like Joe DiMaggio did for Marilyn Monroe.”
I was beginning to wonder about the wisdom of passing Tommy Flaherty on to Andy.
Tommy picked up the tab and looked at it for a long moment. “You mind if we split this? I just have a C-note and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to break it.”
“Let me get it, Tommy. My pleasure, besides it was nice to see you again.”
“You sure? I mean I can cover my half, if that’s what you want to do.”
“No, my pleasure. Why don’t you give me a call once you talk to Andy? Let me know how things went.”
“Yeah, I’d be happy to, Dev. Hey, thanks again, I’ve sort of been on the short side lately.”
“Glad I could help, Tommy, talk to you later.”
Chapter Four
>
Andy phoned me that afternoon. I was just about to head over to The Spot and meet my officemate, Louie, for just one.
“Hey, Andy, how are things?”
“Great, spoke with your guy Flaherty this afternoon.”
“Yeah, how’d it go?”
“Sounds like a real nice guy, polite, well-spoken. The last thing I need is some thug making calls. He’s coming in tomorrow, but unless he crashes into my car in the parking lot, I’d say he’s got the job.”
I wasn’t sure if I should offer congratulations or a warning. I decided to go positive. “That’s great, Andy. I’m sure he’ll work out and hopefully ease that list of past dues you’re carrying.”
“That’s my hope, too. Well, just wanted to say thanks.”
“No, Andy, thank you for being a good guy and giving him a chance.”
“Later,” he said and hung up.
I walked over to The Spot. Louie was sitting four stools in from the front door. I signaled Jimmy for a round.
“You’re certainly cheery for having accomplished absolutely nothing all day, again,” Louie said.
“I’ll have you know I did accomplish something today and I’m pretty damn proud of it.”
“Do tell,” he said then nodded thanks to Jimmy as he slid my beer and Louie’s next drink across the bar.
I proceeded to tell him my Tommy tale. How the guy was down and out just fighting for a second chance and coincidently I went the extra mile, was able to get in touch with him and give him Andy’s number.
“And, I just got off the phone with Andy. He said he was going to offer Tommy the job.”
“Well, you better watch it, much more of this sort of behavior and you’ll be confusing all of us who have you pegged as a complete and utter asshole,” Louie said then raised his fresh drink to me in a toast.
“Sorry to disappoint,” I said.
We toasted one another for the better part of the evening and I ended up taking the backstreets home. I pulled into my driveway, locked my car and was halfway to the front door when a voice called my name.
“Dev?”
I jumped a couple of feet, looked around, and there was Tommy stepping out of the shadows. “Tommy, God, you scared the hell out of me, what’s up?”
