“I… you… we…,” was all Miss Planter said. She was going into an implosion; I had to talk fast.
“We didn’t hurt anybody or damage anything. We only fixed what was about to break. We only helped people, not hurt them. It’s like what you do; you help put people back together. Well, that’s what we did.”
“What… he…”
“And blackmail is such a strong word. We didn’t ask for or demand any money. Money wasn’t a factor in this operation.”
Miss Planter put her head in her hands. She covered her face; her elbows were on her desk. I hoped she wasn’t going to start crying. Women like to do that, especially when they’re upset. I hoped I didn’t upset her too much.
There was a knock at the door. Phyllis opened it and said, “Miss Planter, your 1:30 appointment is here.”
Miss Planter looked up. The receptionist probably thought I was taking up too much time. Maybe she was right.
“Guess I’d better make tracks,” I said. “I’ll call and schedule another appointment. I’ll head out the back way.”
Miss Planter just nodded, watching my every step as I left the office. She didn’t seem very happy.
Back at the Grill
“You did what?” bellowed Walter. “You told a woman?”
This reaction wasn’t expected. “What’s the big deal?” I asked.
Walter looked at me as though I had a hole in the middle of my forehead. Then he said, “Don’t you know that’s the quickest way to spread a secret around town?”
I had to laugh at Walter. “Don’t worry,” I said, “she’s bound by a code of confidentiality! Besides, I didn’t say anything about you or David. I didn’t mention your names, at least.”
“You’ve already said too much!” continued Walter. “It only takes one leak to sink us; loose lips sink ships! L-L-S-S, don’t you know that?”
I just laughed some more. Walter was going overboard with his ship references. David sat there with his drink, but he wasn’t laughing.
“I’m with Walter on this one,” he said. “You shouldn’t have said a darn thing.”
“Hey, I’m in therapy!” I said, defending myself. “We haven’t broken any laws; there’s no stealing going on; no crimes have been committed. What’s the harm in my clearing my conscience with my counselor?”
“Your counselor is a woman, that’s what,” said David. “What’s worse, a woman with credibility. She’s educated, probably refined and sophisticated. Somebody might believe her!”
“She won’t tell.”
“How do you know? How do you know that?” said Walter. “Women can’t keep secrets. They have to SHAAAARE,” putting great emphasis on that word while leaning over the table towards me.
“We’ll see about that. Kim!” I called. “You two are way off; you’ll see I’m right.”
Kim was a bit surprised to be called by a voice she wasn’t used to. Usually, only Walter hollered for her, but now here was another customer who might be getting a little bit too demanding. I hoped she didn’t find me to be that way. She walked over to our table.
“Yes sir?”
“Kim, Walter, David, and I are having a discussion on the trustworthiness of women. After a lively debate, we have come to an impasse; we need someone to break the tie.”
“Tie?” said David. “There’s no tie; it’s two-to-one!”
“My friends here feel that women, not you, but women in general, can’t keep a secret. I say they can. What are your viewpoints on the subject?”
Kim laughed for a moment; I guess she thought we older gentlemen were being silly. Then she said, “I think it would depend on the woman. If you mean women in general, I’d say ‘No,’ but if we’re talking about one woman, then I’d say ‘Yes.’ If a woman feels like it’s important enough, she’ll keep a secret. At least, that’s how it’s always worked with me.”
“There, gentlemen!” I said. “I win. Buy me another round.”
“Win? You didn’t win!” said David. “She said ‘No’ to women in general, which proves us right!”
“Are we gonna argue, or are we gonna drink?” I said.
“We might do a little of both! Kim, bring us some more drinks, please,” said Walter.
“Yes, sir.”
Kim trotted off, and Walter said, “Isn’t she the cutest thing? If I had a daughter, I’d want her to be it.”
“Didn’t you used to date her mom?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“You could have been her stepfather.”
“I’d have to give up my freedom,” replied Walter. “I’ve been in jail.”
“That’s right; I forgot,” I said, agreeably.
David laughed at the both of us. I guess we were a sad sight. David had married a woman of the Orient, bypassing all liberated western women and their tell-all flaws. But who knows what faults the women of the Orient possessed? I wouldn’t know; I guess he’ll have to find out on his own.
The Trip Home
Walter was driving me home, or at least to a place where he could drop me off, hopefully near my house. We talked about the past few days.
“Randall, I have some bad news for you,” he finally said.
“Uh-oh, what kind of bad news?”
“I didn’t want to break this to you in the grill, in front of David or Kim. I wanted to give you a chance to sort this out first.”
“What kind of bad news is it?” I repeated, trying not to sound too antsy.
“It’s about Franky Burke and Miss Chocolate…”
“What about them?”
“Now, you know I wouldn’t purposely do anything to hurt you; I remember your visits to the pen…”
“What about them?” I asked again, growing impatient.
“Things aren’t over with them. They’re still a couple, romantically linked.”
That felt like a kick in the stomach. It blew out our successful “high” feeling, plus I’d already assured Helen and Mindy that Dr. Burke was in the clear.
“How do you know this?” I asked.
“I know.”
Not trying not to sound exasperated, I said, “How do you know?” This might perhaps give Walter a little time to go into his technical expertise, which included bragging. I guess it’s not bragging if you can do it, however.
“I’ve continued tapping in on telephone conversations. Franklin is pretty slick; he bought a new cell phone, but he’s not fooling anyone.”
“Do you have any proof of this?”
Walter smiled and reached over to a switch on his dashboard and flipped it. What came over the speakers were the voices of Dr. Franklin Burke and, from what I could tell, Susan Lovely.
“You haven’t called me in the past few days.”
“Things have been busy down at the hospital. I’m always on call; I’m a doctor, you know.”
“I was worried you’d forgotten about our little Caribbean cruise getaway…”
“I hadn’t forgot, baby. Things just got a little hectic at work. Say, that reminds me. You haven’t been talking to anybody about us, have you?”
“No, nobody. I know what secrecy means to you.”
“Well, good. I need to tell you something… something strange. This might move our schedule up a bit, but… I’ve been found out.”
“By your wife? The hospital? Who?”
“That’s the strange part. I don’t know who. I was hoping you could give me some clues.”
“What happened?”
I reached over to the switch and flipped it to “off.”
“Don’t you want to hear the rest?” asked Walter.
“I’ve heard enough. Franklin’s still got a girlfriend on the side, and after I’ve told Helen and her daughter Mindy that there was nothing to worry about.”
“Wow, guess you talked to her too soon. So what happens now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure what else we can do. We’ve tried going to the source, tried to talk some ‘sense’ into Franklin�
��”
“I’ve already done something.”
I looked over at Walter, who was grinning ear to ear while driving his huge vehicle in the dark. We were entering the city again, and lights were beginning to appear, which showed Walter’s teeth; he must have been really pleased with himself. I started to worry.
“Uh-oh, what have you done?”
“Well, I got to figuring. Franky’s a hard-working doctor who wished he could have saved a little of his dough for a comfortable retirement, but his wife is a high-maintenance dame, see? Boy, you really missed the bullet there, Randall!”
He looked over at me for a second; I wasn’t laughing.
Looking back at the traffic, he said, “Anyhow, I got to thinking that this chocolate bikini model probably had so much appeal to him because…. Why do you think?”
“Because she’s so good-looking?” I guessed.
“Well, yeah, she’s good looking; there’s no doubt about that,” concurred Walter. “But his wife is just as good looking, even if she is a little bit older. Try again.”
I was growing a little annoyed, but this was Walter’s game. Eventually he’d make sense.
“Because of her family business?”
Walter laughed. “Close, but no chocolate cigar. You wanna know why?”
“Why?” I asked. I’m sure I already knew.
“Because she’s so dang rich, that’s why! If he married this broad, he’d have no financial worries for the rest of his life, even if Helen Ceraldi-Burke sues him for every penny he’s got.”
“It’s doubtful that he’s got any pennies left to sue; it would cost her more in lawyer fees than what she’d get out of him.”
“Well, perhaps,” said Walter. “So, do you wanna know what I did?”
“Okay, Walter,” I said, “what did you do?”
This is what Walter lived for. He could now explain to me his ingenious plan and its execution for my wonderment.
“I’ve been watching the news and listening on the phones and internet, and today was the day that the will from Old Man Chocolate, that’s Cornelius Lovely,” he said as he looked over at me, ”was to be read and probated, all within a few hours of each other. As everybody thought, Mr. Lovely left his granddaughter Susan the big prize, the bulk of his estate. She’s worth billions! Or at least, she was.” Then Walter stopped talking. Apparently I was supposed to ask questions.
“She was?” I said. “You’re using past tense, what do you mean, ‘she was’?”
Walter started laughing again. “Well, she was worth billions, but now she’s worth only bikinis!”
“Walter, what did you do?”
“I did a little internet banking, Randall-boy. When they transferred the wealth out of the old man’s estate to her bank account, I intercepted the money, and it’s all safely hid in anonymous bank accounts in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, even in the former U.S.S.R….”
Interrupting, I said, “Walter, don’t tell me anymore.”
He looked puzzled. This seemed to take all the fun out of his story telling. “Why? Don’t you want to know how I did it?”
“I suspect you had access to all the bank account numbers and made the switch online, but how you did it is beyond me. What I’m saying is the less I know the better it would be for you and me.”
A puzzled look continued to cover Walter’s face, who was still trying to drive, and then he became enlightened. “I get it! You’re saying if you’re the one who gets caught and the cops try to sweat the truth out of you, you won’t be able to tell them anything!”
“That’s it, precisely.”
“You’re covering for me. Gee, thanks, Randall. You’re a pal. But it sure takes the fun out of giving you all the details.”
“Just one question, Walter.”
“What’s that?”
“Why did you do it? And why didn’t you include me?”
“That’s two questions.”
“Okay, it’s two questions. Now why and why?”
“Fair enough,” he said. “I didn’t include you because there wasn’t time; the money was going to be changing hands today, and I only found out about it last night. I had to move fast. I didn’t have time for amateurs. No offense, Randall.”
“No offense taken.”
Walter smiled at this. He was reassured that our friendship was still in tact.
“And as for the first ‘why’…” he continued. “I figured that if Susan Lovely were broke, she might not be such the totally desirable woman that Dr. Frank Burke thought she was, and then he’d stay with his wife, the mother of his four kids.”
We rode in silence for a minute. I pondered this over.
“That’s logical thinking on your part, Walter. I can see your point.”
“Thanks!”
After a few more moments of silence, I said, “But this brings up a problem.”
A quizzical look covered Walter’s face. “Problem? What kind of problem?”
“The money. What do you plan to do with the money?”
After a bit of silence, Walter said, “I haven’t got that far yet. And that doesn’t seem to be a problem to me.”
“I mean, after all, what you’ve done is taken money from some poor girl to whom it rightfully belongs…”
Walter burst in with “Some poor girl! She’s been a successful bikini model; she’s not hurting…!”
“Let me explain,” I continued. “When I said ‘some poor girl,’ I didn’t mean to say that she was broke. I meant to say, in the arena of finances, she has done no wrong. The money is legally and rightfully hers. It was left to her by her grandfather, who built a chocolate empire and earned it fair and square.”
“She’s dating a married man!”
“Yes, she’s seeing Franklin Burke, but that doesn’t mean she has no right to her family fortune. It’s what Old Man Lovely wanted, and he hasn’t done anybody any wrong. Quite the contrary, he’s created jobs and employed thousands!”
Walter hunched over the steering wheel. “I’m listening,” he said. To him this was all new.
“Plus, what are your intentions with those billions? To keep it for yourself?”
“I thought about that. I thought about keeping it, but then decided we’d split the billions between the three of us.”
I said nothing here. I couldn’t. The idea of a billion dollars just falling into my lap was something to consider. But what would I do with it?
“Walter, we didn’t earn it!”
“I’m not finished! I said I thought about it; I didn’t say we’d actually do it!”
“Sorry. Well, what were you thinking, then?”
“I thought I’d just hold onto this money for a while, for just a little while, until the dust cleared and Dr. Frank Burke saw reason enough to go back home to be with his wife and children, where he ought to have been in the first place.”
“How long is a little while?” I asked.
“I haven’t got all that worked out just yet. Mebbe long enough to make some dough off the interest?”
He glanced over to where I was sitting, but could tell by my face that it probably wasn’t a good idea.
“Keeping the interest is stealing. It’s not ours to keep,” I said.
“Well, it’s all in my possession now,” said Walter, “and I’m the only one who knows where it’s all at, so technically, it’s only in my possession.”
“So, we’re back to square one. What do you intend to do with it?”
Walter grinned. “I finally came to the conclusion that I’d put it all back into Susan Lovely’s account, all at once from the different banks, under guise, of course.”
“Of course.”
“That way she’d get it all back, with interest. It’s just out of her control for a little while, a tiny bit, until everybody does the right thing.”
“I’m proud of you, Walter.”
That last remark seemed to cheer him up a bit. I’m not sure I could say that I was proud of what he did
, but I was happy with the conclusion he came up with, and all on his own.
“Just one more thing bugs me though, Walter.”
“What’s that, Rand?”
“That’s an awful lot of money. Are you sure you couldn’t be traced?”
“Heh! Not a chance.”
Just then a white light hit Walter’s RV, so bright we couldn’t tell from which direction it came. Everything was lit up, and Walter brought the RV to a screeching halt. The sound of helicopter rotors appeared and was getting louder, and the white light was getting even brighter.
We looked at each other, saying “the cops!” at the same time. A loud voice crackled over a loudspeaker, “Freeze! FBI! Don’t move; we have you under surveillance!”
Freeze? When anyone says that to Walter, he takes it as ‘Charge!’ or ‘Mush!’ or ‘Giddyup!’, because he floorboarded the gas and off we went. I was petrified, felt my heart and stomach sink, and yelled, “What are you doing? They’ll shoot us!” whereas Walter was yelling also, saying, “I’m not going back to the big house!” We screamed and yelled and the RV gained speed through the city streets, with the bright light following us from above. I hoped and prayed Walter wouldn’t have a wreck, and visualized us sprawled out all over the street like so much roadkill. Fortunately, it was late and there was no traffic; Walter ran stop signs and red lights, and I could see myself in handcuffs, being booked and fingerprinted and photographed, wearing orange jumpsuits and appearing in court and losing all my freedoms for the rest of my life, making license plates in the rehabilitation facilities furnished by taxpayers. This wasn’t something I wanted to experience either. I continued screaming, “Look out! Stop! Watch that pole!”
Walter came to a bridge, stopped the RV under it, and said, “Take the sewer!”
“What?”
“The sewer! Go underground!”
“What sewer?”
Walter had unbuckled himself and stepped out of the vehicle and swung open a compartment on the driver’s side.
I unbuckled and got out and ran around to see what he was doing. When he stepped back, I could see he was pulling something from the side compartment, something that looked like a bazooka.
The Lovely Chocolate Mob Page 14
