Bad Reputation: The Complete Collection

by Matt Hader

  The Saturn accelerated out onto Dundee Road and made its escape. John pulled the mask off his face as he pushed the gas pedal to the floor.

  Jason’s stubby fingers finally found the safety and snicked it off, but the Saturn was already out of view.

  After parking the Saturn, John made his way on foot through the darkness to where his Chevy wagon was parked. The Balmoral Fourth of July celebration was soon to be richer for his efforts.

  The Saturn sat empty in the very same spot it was previously taken from, as if it had never been taken in the first place.

  By John’s estimation and with his careful perusal of his town’s official government web site, complete with detailed past and projected village budget numbers plainly displayed, he needed to raise a shitload of more money to make the celebration match the previous years. He feared that he may not be able to pull off his plan in time.

  He never anonymously dropped off at the municipal building the exact amount he stole. He knew that if he did, the cops would probably figure out that the Baby Face Robber and the “Save the Fourth Money-Dropper,” were one in the same. He mixed up the amounts and sometimes delayed the drop a few days after the robbery. It seemed to be working out so far.

  But right at this very moment, John was more than ready to drop the money in the municipal building lobby, head home to “re-Vike,” and settle down for a little shut-eye.

  CHAPTER 6

  The ten customers inside Dink’s Diner was a hodgepodge of retirees and the hard-core unemployed. This was Balmoral, the sixth richest zip code for an area of its size in the United States, but people were still hurting. Maybe the occupants weren’t smarting enough not to afford a comforting breakfast of basted eggs, fluffy pancakes and Kona coffee, but still.

  John, bleary-eyed from the night before, sat at the corner table nearest the bathroom, the last table Lou, the Greek immigrant owner, would even consider giving to any of his customers, even the ones he didn’t like. The table was usually the place where Lou stored the dirty dishes when business was brisk and the dishwasher was getting backed up.

  John’s table had no silverware or coffee cup setups. It was up to him to get his own fork, knife and spoon. He also had to fill his own coffee cup from the Bunn coffee maker nearest the kitchen pass-through on the back of the eight-seat counter.

  Lou and the 80-year-old Emil commiserated in the booth nearest the front door. Both of the men took suspicious glances at John from time to time.

  As John got his own cup of coffee, he nodded a good morning to the dreadlock-wearing cook, Larry, who smiled and said, “What’ll it be, John?”

  Larry felt a kinship with John. Larry was a wise and compassionate man for his 21 years on earth. He also knew a thing or two about being on the wrong side of bullies.

  He grew up in Wilmette on Chicago’s North Shore as the son of a printing press operator who had purchased a broken-down piece of property in the midst of one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in America. His dad made an incredibly brilliant financial move by purchasing the house, which was originally built in 1910, and fixing it up. Larry’s dad tastefully renovated the home all on his own, tripling its value in just a few years’ time. He sold that initial house and purchased two more, living in and rehabbing both, while Larry attended high school.

  But Larry’s dad never took into account what it would be like for his only child to live among the country-club set as essentially a sensitive and artistic, blue-collar black kid.

  Larry didn’t receive a brand-new Mercedes on his 16th birthday like several of his classmates had. He was okay with that. He didn’t take European vacations in the summer or hit the slopes of Vail at Christmastime each year, either. But he did excel at his Trier High School art classes enough to be awarded a minor scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago.

  Painting just wasn’t enough for Larry, though, so he quit school. He wanted instant, artistic gratification. He wanted people to enjoy his work now, without him waiting to grow old and die to finally be noticed. That led him to a career as a tagger in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago.

  He was arrested for spray painting what he considered to be some of his best work, a rendition of Godzilla tit-fucking a stacked female Mothra, on the side of a yuppie couple’s brand-new garage. While recuperating after being beaten by some gangbangers whose turf he’d wandered into a few days after the arrest, Larry decided to try cooking instead.

  Cooking was artistry. It was instant. You immediately saw how your work turned out and if it pleased the critics sitting at the tables in the front of the house.

  And the best part was that he got paid money to do it.

  Larry was a master at presentation, even in tiny Dink’s Diner. Presentation was all about color, texture and height. His plates were beautiful, and the compliments he received buoyed him even more than the $10 an hour ever would.

  John said, “Surprise me.”

  Larry knew that meant corn beefed hash, poached eggs, home fries and rye toast. As he began preparing John’s order, the front door opened.

  John dropped the full cup of hot coffee on the floor as Jason, the owner of the Athenian, stepped into the diner.

  Lou jumped to his feet. He tried to greet Jason and berate John at the same time.

  “What the hell, man?”

  “I got it, Lou. I got it. Sorry,” said John as he located the waiting mop and bucket in the corner near the bathroom door. He carefully picked up the broken bits of coffee cup and eyeballed Jason as Lou hugged him.

  Wait, Lou hugged him?

  John was confused for a split second. The spark of realization soon flooded his brain, though. Lou and Jason were brothers. They had nearly the same frame, the same dead eyes. They had the same salt-and-pepper, curly hair.

  Jason took a seat with Lou and Emil, and now all three of the men peered John’s way. Jason seemed to take a special interest in John. He turned and began telling his brother a story.

  John couldn’t quite make out what they were saying in their hushed tones, but he knew that Jason had to be relaying what had happened to him the night before. Lou tried to calm his brother by patting the back of his hand, but Jason was in no mood. And he kept glancing at John.

  John, as quickly as he could, finished picking up the bits of broken cup, mopped the floor and replaced the bucket and mop into the corner.

  “There you go, John.”

  Larry slid the beautiful plate of food up onto the pass-through and John took it and his seat as fast as he could. He tried not to pay any attention to the large, Greek men eyeballing him and dug into his incredibly delicious food.

  Larry stepped from the kitchen with a cup of coffee in his hand and took a seat across from John.

  “Thanks, Larry. Perfect, as usual.”

  “Did you notice?”

  This was a game Larry liked to play with John called, “guess the new ingredient.” John smiled, chewed and closed his eyes.

  “Cumin?”

  “Get out of here, man. Nice. You know your herbs.”

  Larry studied John and said, “Why is it that you’re always so mellow? I mean nothing seems to bother you. These assholes talking their shit when you come in and you just sit there and take it.”

  John would have loved to tell Larry all about how the Hydrocodone and Paracetamol combination in the Vicodin he had ingested an hour ago was washing its way over his brain, rounding the hard edges off of the animate, inanimate, and emotional, but what he said was this.

  “I do yoga.”

  “Screw you, yoga.”

  John flicked his eyes to where Lou and Jason sat and said, “What’s going on?”

  “Lou’s little bro got tagged for a grand or so last night. That baby dude--”

  “Baby Face Robber got him? Shit.”

  J
ohn was acting cool, but trying to eat his food and get as much info from Larry as he could before making a quick exit.

  “He get a description this time?”

  John noticed Jason really staring hard at him, not wavering at all.

  “Nah. But they’ll get that asshole soon enough.”

  “I’d bet on it,” said John.

  Larry nodded toward the counter.

  “Lou’s got a cannon under there just in case,” he said and then added, “but I’ve noticed the son of a bitch never tags places in Balmoral. Strange, huh? Probably afraid of Jimmy.”

  “Jimmy the cop’s a scary guy.”

  Larry sipped from his cup and said, “Know what I’d do if that baby son-of-a-“

  “Baby face.”

  “-came in here?”

  “No, what?”

  “I’d applaud him, man, what do you think? Thumbing his nose at the man all this time. In this area, too. Cops are really pissed that they can’t nab the dude.”

  Jason, staring at him with cold eyes, stood up, and John nearly choked on his food. The Greek began stepping toward John and Larry. John, without making any quick motions, slid his free hand over and grasped the butter knife. But Jason walked right past him and the cook and entered the bathroom.

  John began shoveling the food down his gullet when movement out the front windows and across the street stopped him.

  Amy, the receptionist from the dentist’s office he robbed in Lake Zurich, was stepping from the dry cleaners with a piece of paper in her hand.

  John watched her for a brief moment, not remembering where he’d seen her before, until it finally dawned on him. This version of Amy looked more determined than terrified. This version of Amy was well-dressed and displayed a pleasant demeanor.

  John had to get closer. He had to see if she was okay. It didn’t hurt that she was a stunningly beautiful woman, either.

  He reached into his pocket, pulled a $20 out and tossed it on the table.

  Larry said, “You okay, John?”

  “I’m good. Hey, I just remembered that I have to be somewhere.”

  “What’s on for today?”

  “Thinking about heading up to Wisconsin.”

  “Nice, man. Fishing?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” said John.

  John got up just as Jason walked from the bathroom. After they bumped into one another, Jason and John stood nearly nose-to-nose. The angry, Greek man sized up John. John smiled, nodded and left the diner.

  Out on Balmoral Road, he caught up with Amy as she waited at the light to cross Main Street. He didn’t speak, but noticed that the piece of paper she was holding was what he had expected it to be, a job application.

  The walk sign illuminated, and they both began crossing the street, maybe John a little too close for her comfort. She nervously looked over her shoulder, but John stared straight ahead and continued along.

  John had heard through the Vike vine that the dentist closed up shop in Lake Zurich right after the robbery. He had been depleted of all of his cash and inventory of white, little, football-shaped pills.

  With the dentist never practicing any real dentistry, he was forced to immediately abandon the dingy offices and head to greener pastures. That, of course, meant Amy was out of a job.

  The somewhere the dentist ended up was Naperville, Illinois.

  A year after the robbery at the crappy office in Lake Zurich, the dentist was killed in a freak accident while working in his new office. Maybe “freak accident” wasn’t being totally accurate. And “working” was debatable as well.

  The dentist had found a new backer, a no-necked guy named Brick who lived on the West Side of Chicago. Brick had provided the start-up funds and initial inventory needed for the dentist to get his new Vicodin operation under way.

  Brick knew that a dentist’s office would be the perfect front to work a sizeable operation with “patients” coming and going - no one would be the wiser. But when the dentist was caught skimming a larger share from the agreed upon profit participation plan, Brick did something he’d never done before in such a situation.

  He called the cops - the Naperville police to be more specific. He knew that the dentist wasn’t stupid enough to give the cops his name. He just wanted to put a scare into him. Hell, if the cops shut him down, so what? He’d find some other floundering, dental professional to work with. There were plenty to choose from.

  When a detective from NPD arrived at the dentist’s office to question him about the anonymous tip, the dentist overreacted by barricading himself into his crappy, new office on Ogden Avenue. He quickly announced that he was armed and that he’d taken a patient as a hostage.

  The Naperville SWAT team shut down all the traffic on busy Ogden Avenue and had the office surrounded in less than 30 minutes. A negotiator began talks with the dentist shortly after the SWAT team was in place.

  After a couple of go-rounds of communications between the dentist and the SWAT negotiator, and offers of Domino’s Pizza and sodas in exchange for the negotiator’s chance to speak with the hostage, the police determined that the dentist didn’t have a hostage after all. Well, that and the dentist’s receptionist, a no-nonsense, Haitian woman that Brick had hired for him named Bert, telling them that there never were any real patients in the office - not ever.

  The SWAT negotiator and his team were also confused by the lack of effort by the dentist to communicate with the outside world.

  Usually barricaded individuals wanted to speak by phone, or in person (which was never allowed) to loved ones and friends. But the dentist made no such requests after his phone system was rerouted to the negotiator sitting in the command vehicle a block away. The equipment used to pick up any cell phone conversations was silent as well.

  The lack of communications on the dentist’s part made the SWAT leader believe that the dentist was depressed and a suicide risk. A plan of attack was set in motion.

  The dentist wasn’t a suicide risk. He was just lonely. He didn’t have any family or real friends who he could or even wanted to talk to. So he decided to sit in the examining chair and relax. The comfortable and ergonomic nature of the chair, coupled with the lack of incessant traffic noise on Ogden due to it being shut down, was enough to gently coax the dentist into a restful, napping state.

  The breach began when the SWAT leader fired a tear gas canister through the side window of the dental office. Unfortunately, in a morbid, Rube Goldberg-like scenario, the canister made a direct hit on one of the fluorescent light fixtures in the ceiling, ricocheted off a wall-mounted poster of a molar, continued along its zigzag course and knocked the top off a small, oxygen tank sitting next to the examining chair the dentist was reclining in.

  The dentist, having awoken to the sound of shuffling feet near the building, watched the whole thing play out as if in slow motion.

  The four-inch-long canister smashed through the window glass and demolished the light fixture above. Sparks fell everywhere. Next, the canister smacked into the molar poster with a thud, and the dentist heard the nearly instantaneous, pinging sound of metal-on-metal (canister to oxygen tank valve), and the sickening, hissing sound of escaping, flammable gas.

  He was able to determine his fate in a nanosecond.

  “Fuck me...”

  The explosion didn’t level the building, but the oxygen tank, ignited by the sparking, broken light fixture overhead, acted like a three-foot-tall hand grenade.

  The dentist left behind a nearly empty, ranch-style home in Schaumburg, a Porsche 944, a new Land Rover, with the sticker still on the window, a 26-foot Boston Whaler (with trailer), and a lawn service crew wondering who was going to pay them for the past month’s work on his property.

  Perturbed, Amy finally stopped in the middle of the street.

&nbs
p; John nodded and said, “Nice day, huh?”

  “Are you following me?”

  John continued on, passing her. They made it to the other side of the street and John turned left.

  “I’m sorry. Did I frighten you?“

  Amy said, “Sorry. God, I’m sorry. I don’t want to seem...never mind. Have a good one.”

  Amy continued north on Balmoral; John, west on Main. But John quickly stopped and backtracked. He watched as Amy crossed the railroad tracks and stepped into the BMW dealership. There was a “Help Wanted” sign posted in the front window.

  CHAPTER 7

  The surface of Lake Geneva was like glass and boat traffic was at 50 percent.

  “An anomaly,” thought John, as he maneuvered the 26-foot Crestliner from the private dock in Fontana, Wisconsin, where he had stolen it, to the public docks in the town of Lake Geneva proper.

  Lake Geneva was usually a freshwater, maritime, drunken madhouse this time of year. Even on a weekday, boats would normally choke the lake. “A guy could get used to this calm,” thought John.

  The boat, named “The ‘Nort’ Side,” was obviously owned by a wealthy Chicagoan. The Cubs and Bears stickers plastered everywhere on the inside compartments confirmed it. And like most Chicagoans, the owners must have believed that nothing bad ever happened in Wisconsin. That’s why they left the keys in the ignition. John felt comfort in counting on human nature.

  The area had been Chicagoland’s playground for over a century. The beautiful lake, rolling hills, quaint shops, hotels, spas and restaurants filled the R & R bill. And it was all only a 90-minute drive away.

  John had been on boat rides here in the past. White-knuckle affairs when he was a kid with his dad and his dad’s best friend, George, a lawyer who specialized in setting up trust funds. George was a Zen master at operating his 18-foot bass boat, unafraid of the real dangers of the overcrowded lake. John could remember the insane, crisscrossing maneuvers that George had to make just to keep from getting run over by the larger, faster boats.