Bad Reputation: The Complete Collection

by Matt Hader

  Enright let out a breath - looked bored.

  “I never realized that my grandfather was a criminal. I needed to find out if he was working alongside Sean Enright as an undercover cop while inside Joliet,” said Maggie.

  “My gramps was no undercover cop, lady. You got your head up your ass,” said Enright.

  “My hope was to try and clear my grandfather’s name by linking him to Sean Enright as a fellow undercover police officer. But that was just not meant to be.”

  Enright blurted, “It’s bullshit. And it’s going to get me kill-” He stopped from speaking further.

  She seemed to get an instant understanding of the situation. “There was a Russian man who came to visit me yesterday. He had a lot of interest in you.”

  Enright froze for just a moment before he continued, “Stop. Please. I’m asking nicely.”

  “Take it. It’s yours,” she said.

  Enright didn’t want to move for fear of getting shot. Maggie lowered the gun into her lap and nodded that it was okay. Enright got to his feet and grabbed up the thick folder.

  “After you broke in, I poured over that pile of papers. And then I finally got my 98-year old Aunt Ruthie to open up about my grandfather. She was too embarrassed to tell me all of this before. I got my answers, though. My grandfather, it turns out, really was a nasty son of a bitch. I have to deal with that. You can go about your day with the knowledge that Sean Enright was a stand-up guy.”

  Enright let her statement sink in. “No more articles.”

  “Just one more piece where I admit that my grandfather ran whores and booze and was probably a killer. A fluff piece.” She laughed humorlessly. “As far as you go, yeah, it’s over. No more Enright family lore in the papers,” she said. “You’re in the clear.”

  A relieved expression crossed over Enright’s face. Lopresta raised the gun with resolve, aimed it at his left eye, hesitated a moment, and then pulled the trigger. A little, harmless blue flame popped out of the top.

  Enright was so flummoxed and relieved by the meeting results that all he could do was nod before he stormed out of the house, file in hand.

  When he got into his car, he saw through his side-view mirror that the leather coat-wearing hunk of granite watched him from his parked BMW. Enright let out an anxious breath and drove away.

  ***

  Enright could see her in the driver’s seat of the parked car out in the parking lot of the restaurant. It was usually his job to follow other mopes, not the other way around. This was a new experience for Enright, one that he didn’t enjoy. He got her license plate information earlier when she was right on his tail after he left Maggie Lopresta’s house. Enright wasn’t sure if the woman following him wanted to be seen so easily, or if she was inept at tailing people. He immediately called in a favor to a buddy on the Park Ridge police department to get her registration details.

  His hunch was correct. The pretty, olive-skinned woman who’d been following him of late was none other than Rita Dimos, Tyler’s mom. He would eventually have to figure out why the mother of the kid who had hired him to locate the “Baby Face Robber” was shadowing him. First he needed to get his mind off of his new family revelation and the fact that Vasily was becoming a real pain in his ass.

  Sean Enright was a hero cop, not the crooked son of a bitch he thought he was. It was true. Shit. That notion alone shouldn’t have bothered him this much, but it did. Was his entire childhood a lie, too, he wondered?

  He sat in the uncomfortable Formica-laden booth of the fast-food joint on Milwaukee Avenue known for their tough, yet tasty, steak sandwiches, and silently mulled over his options as they pertained to his family’s past and his new future with the dangerous Vasily.

  “Sorry you lost the challenge this time,” said the woman.

  “Huh? Oh, right,” said Enright absently.

  “I don’t blame you for stopping. Those things will kill you,” said the homely 40-year-old woman named Evelyn, with a flirtatious chuckle.

  Enright bedded Evelyn a few times after meeting her at a church service. He instigated the very first tryst, but Evelyn made extra-sure to call Enright on a weekly basis thereafter. If no new sexual prospects came down the pike, Enright would hook up with Evelyn as a fallback strategy.

  Her ample bosom lay across the top of the plastic tray that held the remnants of her steak sandwich, shoestring fries, and extra-large diet cola. She eyed Enright dreamily.

  Enright had come to this fast-food joint nearly every week to partake in the hot-wing eating challenge. If a customer ate the required number of ultra-hot hot-wings in the prescribed amount of time, the meal, as well as the searing indigestion, was free. Enright never lost a challenge – until today.

  “At least you’ll have the opposite problem from what I got,” said Evelyn. She leaned back and gently patted her chubby belly. “I’m all bound up. Been eating a lot of cheese lately. I wish Wisconsin wasn’t so close, you know. There’s a place right over the state line that’s got the best stuff,” she giggled.

  Enright’s eyes snapped onto Evelyn’s. The silent funk he dwelled in was instantly gone. He slid out of the booth and said, “Thanks, um...”

  “Evelyn.”

  “Right. Thanks. I got to go,” he said.

  “But I thought we were gonna, ya know, go back to my- Jack?!” said Evelyn, as Enright shoved his way out the glass double-doors.

  ***

  In the darkened basement storage area of his shitty apartment building on Northwest Highway, Enright rabidly tore through his stowed forebear’s boxes and belongings.

  He snatched out various cheese-themed Wisconsin Dells thimbles, briefly examined them, and then placed them aside. After he found all the thimbles, he dug back through his father’s boxes in a secondary search. Most of the papers inside were old medical forms from the V.A nursing home in Zion.

  At the very bottom of the second box there was a dog-eared notebook with scribbled inscriptions on nearly every page. Most of the text was illegible, but the word “House” was clearly written a few times on the first few pages, capitalized, and underlined. Once he reached the twelfth page, the writing became utter chicken scratch.

  Enright tossed the notebook into the pile with the thimbles and started to rip into his grandfather’s stuff. After a few minutes he found an envelope addressed to his grandfather from a place called Independence House located in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. The cancellation date on the stamp was from July of 1980. Enright gathered up the thimbles, the notebook, the old envelope, and sprinted up the steps to his apartment.

  ***

  “I see that she not mention your family any longer,” said Vasily through the cell phone. “Too bad. Was interesting learning of these things. I guess she moves on to other stories. Today she writes of fabric softeners. Ha!”

  Enright’s eyes alternated between the road and his rear view mirror. The leather coat-wearing hunk of granite followed him in the BMW on westbound I-90. “It was all old news anyway,” said Enright into his hands-free cell phone device.

  He thought he had lost the BMW near Barrington Road, but spotted it again when he hit the tollbooth in Belvidere.

  He had to ditch Vasily’s man and sort things out. The tequila dream both haunted him and drove him toward learning the truth. He didn’t like admitting to it, but his life had been turned on its head. He was determined to dig deeper to understand what his very own family secrets were and why they were hidden for all of these years.

  “How does baby face man thing go for you? You find him yet?” asked Vasily.

  Enright knew that this was the real reason for the call and for the BMW that was on his tail. Enright figured that if he did locate the real “Baby Face Robber,” Vasily and his cohorts would be right behind him to swoop in and take their cut – or most likely the en
tire stash of money.

  “Still working a few angles. I’ll let you know if I find anything solid,” said Enright before they exchanged pleasantries and rang off.

  At route 20, Enright headed west. After he exited at Harrison Street in Rockford, he drove west again and turned into the massive Cherryvale Mall parking lot. As he slowly advanced up and down the endless rows of parked cars, he could still see the BMW in his rear view mirror.

  Up ahead, an elderly woman walked from a chain department store doorway and started to slowly amble across the main thoroughfare of the lot. Enright could see that another car was approaching from the opposite end of the roadway, so he sped up. He hastily maneuvered left around the elderly woman, cut off the approaching car, and then drove on at a high rate of speed. The BMW skidded to a stop - its path obstructed by a confused elderly woman and the angry male driver of the car Enright nearly hit.

  ***

  The address for Independence House in Wisconsin Dells was for an empty lot situated next to an enormous old home with overgrown bushes. Enright had taken back roads to the location in a successful effort to keep Vasily’s man off his tail.

  Through an earlier Internet search on his smart phone, Enright learned that Independence House was a rehabilitation facility catering to sick and injured individuals. Since it had closed its doors in the mid-1990s, Enright had one hell of a time finding any further facts about the place.

  The Wisconsin Dells addressed letter with his grandfather’s belongings was the only actual evidence he could locate to assist in his search. And really, he wasn’t sure what he was searching for, only that some part of the expanding secrets involving his family revolved around this area.

  The letter from 1980 was a personal, handwritten note. All it read was: “She’s gone. I’m so sorry.” It was signed: “Abby.”

  The day before, Enright had spent several hours reading through the heavily redacted files about Sean Enright and his exploits as an undercover cop.

  Jack Enright’s last sleep-deprived hours were spent full of speculation over what in the hell was going on with his family. The tequila dream haunted him every time he closed his eyes. It was so vivid and real, and it played on a loop in his head. His grandfather said over and over again, “Jackie, nothing is as it appears. Nothing you know is genuine.”

  He thought that having Maggie Lopresta shut down her report on the Enright family would be enough to get his mind right. He was wrong. He needed to get to the bottom of all this new information. If his head were in the right place, he’d be better prepared to deal with Vasily and his meddling ways. He was sure of it. After he read through the museum files several times, Enright’s curiosity only blossomed further, so much so that he began to allow the “Baby Face Robber” matters to slide to the back burner. Vasily could wait for Enright to find and take the robber’s money. Screw him, the impatient bastard.

  “You shouldn’t be there,” said the portly, and sloppily dressed, 50-year-old man. He had stepped from the enormous old home next to the empty lot where Independence House once stood.

  Enright spun on his heels, tried on a fake smile, and said, “Hey, how you doing? You know anything about the place that used to be here?”

  “Indy House? That’s been gone and torn down for years now,” said the man. “There’s a empty lot there now, you know. See?”

  Enright said, “No shit,” but then noticed that the man’s eyes never held on any one thing, and he seemed to lack intelligence.

  “You said a bad word,” said the slow man, slowly.

  “Nice house you got there,” said Enright as he motioned to the building the slow man stepped from. Enright didn’t wait for a reply. He simply made his way to the side porch.

  “Hey! That’s not your house. That’s my house,” said the slow man as he approached Enright. Enright made sure that he moved completely behind a row of bushes that hugged the sidewalk next to the house. He and the slow man were now out of any passerby’s field of vision.

  Enright spun on the slow man and roughly placed him in a three-point chokehold. “Take it easy there, big fella. You don’t want me to hurt you, do you?”

  The slow man calmed and shook his head. “No. Really I don’t.”

  “Good. We’re becoming friends now,” said Enright.

  “Don’t hurt me, new friend,” said the slow man.

  “Did you know the people who worked at Independence House?”

  “Lived here with my mom my whole life. I knew everyone who worked there. They gave me candy,” said the slow man with child-like innocence.

  “Did you know Abby? Did she work there?” asked a hopeful Enright.

  The slow man didn’t like the way this was going. He began to squirm from Enright’s grasp. “Ouch! Mister, let go!”

  Enright squeezed a bit tighter and even the slow man understood to not fight anymore.

  “Did you know Abby?”

  The slow man said, “Everybody knows Abby. Abby’s awesome!”

  ***

  Enright acted casual as he stepped around the vast outdoor pool area of the upscale retirement home on Gulch Avenue in Wisconsin Dells. It was the nicest retirement and assisted living facility he had ever seen. The establishment looked more like a 5-star resort than a place where old people went to wait out their final days.

  The slow man told him that Abby, a very popular employee of Independence House, and unofficial “Mayor” of Wisconsin Dells, lived at this facility. The slow man had also provided Enright with Abby’s full name before the private detective left him unconscious behind the bushes.

  There were only two individuals who currently sat poolside - an old man in a huge floppy hat and swim trunks, and an elderly woman, wrapped tightly in a robe, who read a magazine.

  A physically fit, gray-haired man in his 50s swam lap after effortless lap in the pool. Enright figured that he was probably an employee at the facility who was on his break.

  “Are you Don Abigail?” Enright asked the old man with the floppy hat. “Abby?”

  The gray-haired man in the pool stopped his swim and said, “I’m Abby.”

  After introductions were made, Abby got out of the pool and toweled dry. He then led Enright to his townhome on the grounds of the facility.

  “Don’t, off the top of my head, remember anyone named Enright at Indy House. But let me check the records I keep in my home office. What’s your name again?” asked Abby.

  “Samuels,” Enright lied.

  “Right, sorry, I forget things sometimes. Getting old,” said Abby, as he waved to an elderly woman who walked past them. They neared a row of well-built townhomes and Enright was very impressed by the sight of the building.

  “How do you swing living here? I figured they’d only allow in people after they turned at least 65,” said Enright.

  Abby stepped up to his townhome door, opened it with his key, and politely motioned for Enright to enter first. He said, “I’m 78-years old.”

  As an astonished Enright turned to say something, Abby closed the door and hammered him in the back of the head with a quick right jab.

  Enright was taken by surprise, but his Krav Maga skills kicked in, literally. He swept Abby’s feet with his right leg and began raining down fists and elbows. But Abby quickly worked his way back onto his own feet and into a fighting position. He squared off evenly with the much younger Enright.

  Abby was an excellent fighter, and Enright was taken by surprise at how adept he actually was. He was able to deftly counter every strike Enright had to offer.

  Enright was finally able to get a clean blow, elbow to temple, and the older man spun and nearly lost his balance. Abby used an entertainment center for balance, and to right himself, but Enright came closer for the kill.

  Abby reached into the top compartment of the ent
ertainment center and came out holding a .357 revolver. He stuck the gun barrel into Enright’s ear, clicked the hammer back, and casually said, “Who are you? Real easy now, I want some I.D. Slow, okay?”

  “It’s in my back pocket,” said the stock-still Enright as he panted out ragged breaths.

  Abby, with blood slowly pouring from his nose, quickly patted Enright down with his free hand, and then snatched his wallet from his back pocket. Abby was professional and calm as he flipped the wallet open and said, “Take out the driver’s license.”

  Enright carefully extracted the license, tossed the wallet on the floor, and handed the license to Abby. Abby shoved Enright hard against the wall and pinned him with his forearm as he read the information off the license. He lowered the gun and safely replaced the hammer.

  “Jackie?” asked Abby -- as his voice broke with emotion.

  ***

  “Yeah, sure, the thimbles! We tried to get your mom to work with her hands, you know, knitting, and stuff,” said Abby. “Mike used to find a new one for her each trip he’d take.”

  He and Enright sat at the back corner table of the no-name rundown bar in Wisconsin Dells. The owner of the place, a 70-year-old man with bushy muttonchops, locked the front door and said, “It’s all yours, Abby!” He then made himself scarce so that Enright and Abby could have some privacy.

  “You gotta know that your gramps loved you,” said Abby.

  “He had a strange way of showing it,” said Enright, softly.

  “He couldn’t cope with the shit-storm he created for your family. It ate at him, you know,” said Abby. “We’d come here, the three of us. They’d come up and see your mom and I’d bring them here to unwind afterwards. That was one of the last times I saw you. You were probably three or four years old. I hadn’t heard from anyone since I sent that note about your mom passing away.”

  “Why here? Why did she run away to Wisconsin Dells?” asked Enright.