by EJ Knapp
I sat back in my chair, pulled out a small sharpener and considered what Philo had told me while I ground down another quarter inch of my pencil.
“You said the operational costs are borne by the revenues from the meters and the tickets issued. What kind of money are we talking about here?”
“That would depend,” he said, reaching for his tea. “Are we talking your typical, hypothetical city, as we have been so far? Or are we talking about here?”
“Here is where the Mangler is,” I said.
For the first time since I met him, Tom Philo’s countenance turned dark, the teacup hovering half way to his lips. He set it back on the table and leaned forward.
“For that,” he said, “We’ll need a little history lesson.”
Nickles And Dimes And Quarters, Oh My!
Philo sat back in his chair.
“Before Jefferson Cooper took over as head of the DPE,” he said, “this town had roughly three hundred city blocks covered by meters.”
“How many meters would that be?”
“Well, on average, twenty meters to a block,” he said.
“So, six thousand meters in all,” I said.
“Close enough,” Philo said. “On blocks with a bus stop you might have eighteen meters. On a longer block, maybe twenty-two. All in all it works out to twenty per.”
“Okay,” I said, writing down the numbers in my notebook.
“These meters were concentrated in the downtown area, in and around the shopping areas. These meters were all of the two-hour variety and cost one dollar to park the full two hours. They operated six days a week, excluding holidays, from 8:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m..”
I did a quick calculation. “Five bucks a day,” I said. “Per meter.”
“Correct,” he said, “provided the meter was used all day, which most of them were. Excluding Sundays and holidays gives you about three hundred days of meter operation. Three hundred days at five dollars a day times six thousand—”
“Jesus,” I said. “That’s nine million dollars a year. I had no idea.”
“Few people do, believe me. They think just as you, nickel and dime. How much could that be? But it adds up.” He shifted in his chair, checked his tea cup and found it empty. “More tea?” he said.
“No thanks, I’m fine.”
“Keep in mind,” he said, pouring tea from a ceramic pot shaped like a frog, “we had a relatively low number of meters for the size of this town. There were also a number of city-owned lots leased out to private companies to be used as temporary parking areas for commuters. These were plots of land that might one day be built on. Rather than let the land go to waste, they were used for parking. The city collected a small fee from the lot operators; the operators were obliged to lay down asphalt and remove it should the site be sold for develop.m.ent. Everyone was happy.”
“And then Cooper came to town.”
“Humph,” Philo said, his expression turning darker. “Indeed he did. Right from the start Cooper doubled the number of city blocks covered by meters. They replaced the six thousand two-hour meters with half-hour meters that cost as much as the two-hour meters. To that they added another six thousand one-hour meters to the mix. In the last eighteen months, they’ve more than doubled that number again. Today there are something like twenty-six thousand meters covering thirteen hundred blocks. We have meters surrounding the park. There are meters out in the industrial part of town and on the residential streets nearest to the downtown area. On top of that, they began closing the temporary lots. You see ‘Under Construction’ signs going up all over the downtown area but never any construction.”
I had noticed and said so.
“Quite a phenomena, isn’t it? To drive through the downtown area, one would assume a boom town when in fact not a single new construction start has occurred in over three years.”
“So where did all the commuters go?” I said.
“Onto the streets, of course. And as those twenty-six thousand metered parking spaces began to fill up, the number of tickets the department issued doubled and doubled again.”
“Hold on,” I said, scribbling as fast as I could in my notebook. “I need to get this straight. You said there are twenty-six thousand meters operating in this town.”
“Close enough.”
“At five dollars per day, per meter?”
“More like double that. With the higher cost, lower time-limit meters, it works out to about a dollar an hour per meter on a ten hour day.”
“Okay,” I said, doing the math on paper because the numbers were now too big for my head. “Ten dollars a day, twenty-six thousand meters, three hundred days ... My god, that’s—”
“Nearly eighty million dollars a year,” he finished. “Assuming, of course, a full ten-hour day of meter operation. The actual figure is probably closer to seventy million.”
“Minus the four million operational cost?”
“No. Operational cost, in a normal city with an equivalent meter load, might be four million. Parking enforcement here is far more aggressive. Though I can’t say for sure, the number no longer seems to be on their website, but I would estimate the DPE’s operational cost at roughly double that.”
“So, sixty million and change profit?”
“About that.”
“And what about the tickets?” I said. “You said they doubled?”
“And doubled again this last year. Let me give you an example of just how out of proportion this city is. Our nation’s capital has a population of just over a half million people. We sit at just under that. The entire county, of which we are the center, has just over a million-five. DC has one of the highest ticket fines in the country at forty dollars for a standard ticket.”
Philo sipped his tea, cradling the cup in his large hands. “Our fines used to be ten. They now match DC’s at forty. Last year, DC issued one point six million tickets for a total revenue gain of sixty-four million dollars.”
“Hold on,” I said. “How can a city of half a million people issue a million tickets?”
“That’s easy enough,” he said. “Keep in mind that the resident population of a city is quite small compared with the transient population on a day-to-day basis. The majority of the people who work in a city don’t actually live there. They commute from the suburbs. And you have delivery and service vehicles. And you have tourists. We may not have the attractions of a city like DC, but we do get our share of tourists. Indeed, fully fifteen percent of the city’s revenue is tourist generated.”
“The park,” I said. “The monorail.”
“That’s perhaps the biggest draw, yes. And we have some fine museums and, of course, the hot springs north of town. That area is still pretty undeveloped and the people who go there, inevitably end up here.
“So,” he continued, “DC issued one point six million tickets last year. If my projections are correct, and I believe they are, the DPE will break the million mark in tickets written, though there are some allegations that not all those tickets issued were legal. Legal or not, the DPE stands to collect forty million or more in fines alone. That would see a hundred-million-dollar-plus increase to the city coffers by the end of the fiscal year on September first. Is it any wonder the city council loves them?”
“Whoa, that’s incredible,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “Wait, what did you say about allegations?”
“Well, so far, that’s all they are. They may well be growing out of the anger the people are feeling over the high cost of parking, but they are being made. More and more people are questioning the tickets they received, taking the time to make a court appearance. Not that it gets them much more than time lost at work, what with Gallagher on the bench.”
“What’s their complaint?”
“Simple. They claim they never received a ticket, only the notice in the mail that the ticket was overdue which, of course, adds a ten-dollar fine onto the forty. Once a ticket is overdue, it’s all but impossible to fight it.”
“Tom,” I said, interrupting him. “I’m afraid I’m suffering a bit of information overload here.”
“Understandable,” he said. “It’s taken me nearly a year of research to compile this information. I would hardly expect someone to absorb it all in a single sitting.”
“I appreciate that. Look, I’d like to discuss this further with you, at your convenience, of course.”
“Absolutely. I’m more than happy to help where I can. I would suggest, however that you, uh, call first before coming over. I tend to keep, uh, odd hours here at the shop.”
“Not a problem.”
We did the handshake thing and he let me out the back door. As I pulled out the parking lot, I noticed the kid, Willy T’s kid, was still sitting on the sidewalk, his ties laid out in a pile beside him, a dozen or more already wrapped about his neck.
All the lost and lonely children, I mused, and pointed the car toward home.
Department Of Parking Extortion
The following morning I was on my way to the Coney Island place for breakfast, having forgotten once again to buy groceries. It was a warm, late spring day; the sun bright, the sky cloudless.
As I passed it, I looked up at the town clock, a twenty-foot high, gaudy mix of Art Deco and Dali-wannabe sculpture. Twisted iron, copper filigree, chrome angels in agony, entombed in glass balls which dangled from the claws of grotesque fire-breathing dragons with barbed wire wrapped about their rust-colored legs. The clock face at the peak, wedged in iron spikes, had hands resembling, well, hands, arms and all, one extended, arthritic finger stretched toward winged gargoyles where the numbers usually went. For all its arty intricateness, it couldn’t keep time worth a damn.
The sound of laughter drew my attention from the clock. The laughter was coming from a group of people standing outside the Coney Island place, pointing at something back my way.
And it wasn’t the clock they were laughing at.
Or me.
Turning, I followed their gaze. A parking enforcement cart had stopped in the road, the meter maid dutifully filling out a ticket. It took me a moment to realize what the people were laughing about and when I saw it I laughed too.
On the back of the cart, where it normally read “Department of Parking Enforcement”, someone had plastered a decal over the last word so it now read “Department of Parking Extortion”.
The Meter Mangler had struck again and was escalating the attacks. Thus far, since they began three months ago, they had been coming at five- or six-day intervals. Sometimes as much as two weeks would pass with no hint of the Mangler’s presence. Why the sudden increase? Could it have something to do with Harrison’s death?
At that moment, another cart sped by and I noticed that it, too, had been defaced. I walked over to a meter, curious, and, sure enough, the department’s logo had been replaced with the same decal as on the carts. I tried peeling it off but the Mangler had used a permanent glue to apply them. The cleaning crew would have fun removing them. I started walking toward downtown, counting the number of defaced meters. At fifty, I gave up. Either the Mangler had help or had labored long into the night.
I looked back at the clock. It read 10:30 a.m. I checked my cell phone, remembering as I did that the time on it was wrong as well. I’d received no calls. There was no unusual police activity that I could see. The meter maids themselves would have been out and about by 6:00 a.m. Hadn’t they noticed the change? Certainly there were people on the street who had. Yet no one had reported it.
I looked back at the cart still sitting on N. Main. The Meter Mangler had done a very professional job of masking one word with the other. Same font. Same color. The background of the decal a perfect match to the color of the cart.
I called Felice.
“I sent two reporters down,” she said by way of greeting. They’ll be looking for you outside the Coney Island restaurant anytime now.”
“You knew about the carts then?” I said.
There was a long silence.
“Right,” I said. “I’ll go find them.” I thought of a question I wanted to ask HL. “By the way,” I said before she could hang up. “I need to see HL again.”
“He’s left the office,” she said. I noticed something odd in her voice.
“Is everything okay, Felice?”
There was another long silence. “I ... believe things will work out … and Teller, when the time comes, remember to give him the things you’ve found,” she said.
“Things I’ve found? What does that mean?”
“You’ll know when the time comes. You better get along. They’ll be waiting for you.”
“Right,” I said, confused as always over Felice’s strange pronouncements. “I’ll call later.”
I hung up, a bad feeling settling over me. Something was up with HL and Felice knew what it was. Or intuited it: One and the same thing, really. With her. But I knew from long experience that Felice revealed what she thought needed revealing and only when she believed it needed to be revealed. Obviously, whatever was going on wasn’t something she thought I needed to know yet. I pocketed the phone and headed for the restaurant.
They were waiting. One of each gender. Clean cut, eager looking, color in their cheeks, eyes darting up and down the street in anticipation. They spotted me and came bounding over like newly-weaned puppies.
I pointed out the parking enforcement cart and the decals on the meters and told them to interview anyone who would talk to them and to write down whatever they heard. I told them to eavesdrop, too. Sometimes people will say amongst themselves what they won’t say to a reporter or a cop. And I made sure they understood I wanted their thoughts and observations as well, separate from the facts, but clearly sketched out. Sometimes there is more valuable information hidden in what a reporter thinks is going on than to be found in a recitation of the obvious.
Suddenly, like dogs to a silent whistle, several of the little Cushman carts made abrupt turns in the street and started heading out of town. Several more appeared up the street and in a short time there was a whole parade of them heading off in the same direction. Obviously someone was recalling the troops to home base.
I sent the kids on their way and headed to where the action was.
A Complex And Difficult Ethical Conundrum
By the time I arrived at the central storage yard for the carts, a half dozen workers were busy pouring some kind of gloop on the decals, causing them to bubble but not much else. It didn’t look as though they were having an easy time of removing the offending decals. Someone had finally called the cops. Two detectives were inspecting several carts; no doubt looking for fingerprints or whatever else they could find that would constitute evidence. I flashed my news credentials to the gate guard and walked in.
I was walking along a row of carts, inspecting the decals, when I noticed something funny about them. I knelt down and ran my finger along the lower, right-hand edge. It was slightly rougher than the other edges of the decal. The corner had been clipped off. A printer’s mark, perhaps? I looked at eight or nine more carts, hoping the Mangler had missed one, knowing he hadn’t.
Walking over to where a group of cops were talking, I recognized one and stepped over to him.
“Hey, Jack,” I said. “Long time.”
“Hey, Teller,” he said. “How’s it hangin’?”
“About the same as always,” I said. “Finding anything?”
“Nada. This is one smart cookie, this Mangler perp. Hasn’t left us shit to work with.”
“So,” I said, “any idea how the Mangler got in here? I assume he must have done his work here. During the night.”
“We checked the perimeter. Didn’t find anything like a cut fence but hey, there’s a row of trees along the back a cripple could climb. And a gully back over yonder,” he nodded back over his should
er, “along the side fence. He could’ve pulled up the fence and crawled under that. Basically, we got squat, Teller. Like always.”
I thanked him and headed back out the yard. I made my own circumnavigation of the lot, noting the rusting razor wire circling the top of the fence. Though there were several large trees bordering the fence in the rear, only two had branches thick enough and close enough to the ground for a grown man to cross over the razor wire. I checked the trees carefully, looking for disturbances in the bark or some other sign that someone had recently climbed them. There was nothing on the first, a broken branch on the second. The break looked fresh. It could have been broken by a climber.
I looked around. I was back in the old industrial part of town, several blocks from the pawnshop. Several more from my old apartment. I saw the old railroad tracks, all but overgrown now, and realized that the DPE was using the south end of the old rail terminal as their central yard. I started walking toward the old railway station. If I were the Mangler, this was the way I would have approached the yard.
The old railway station was a classic of design. Red brick, sloped roof, a long portico facing the tracks; the columns once ornately carved were now chipped and covered in graffiti. The place had been abandoned for years, its sad windows boarded or covered in heavy wire. Back before I left town, I had tried several times to get some historical preservation types to develop an interest in the place. I had a thing for railroads. Especially old railway stations.
Thomas Edison had worked this line in his youth. Rumor had it this was the station where he'd been thrown off the train, the incident which left him deaf in one ear. I could see from the condition of the place that no one had taken me up on the idea.
I walked around the back of the station. Someone years ago had punched a hole in the bricks there. To break in, or just misdirected youthful energy, was hard to know. There was graffiti around the wound, the white paint distressed with the years. "In here, summer of ’52, Walter Kissed Kay." I had always found that strangely romantic.
