by Bud Connell
“Like what?”
“Make a telephone call.”
“Hell, man. I’m running this show, you’re not.”
I stayed silent and Travis just looked at me until he finally took his elbows off the table and sat back in his chair and let out a loud exhale.
“Okay. You stay right here, where I can see you.”
“And bring a piece of paper. I want it in writing.”
Travis pushed away from the table and stood up, and under his breath just loud enough for me to hear, leaked out, “Asshole.”
He fished his cell phone out of his pants as he turned toward the walkway where I couldn’t hear him, and where he could keep an eye on me.
I searched around for Katya, and I caught her looking at me through the window. She was sitting at a small table across from the big brunette, and when the big woman wasn’t looking I slipped her the okay sign where Travis couldn’t see. Katya gave me a little nod. We might live through this after all.
Travis punched off the phone, disappeared for less than a minute and returned to the table. I guess he had the authority after all because he tossed a pair of identical forms at me that said in simple language that the department agreed not to prosecute if I provided all requested information with regard to… and there was a case number and some other scribbling and smaller print. Travis sat down, handed me a pen and pointed to a blank line.
“Sign both copies.” I did, and he pulled one back and signed it and pushed it back at me.
“Okay, buddy. You got it.”
I picked up the paper like it was a deed to the Trump Tower, carefully folded it, and put it my top shirt pocket right over my heart. The Joe Oaks creative know-how had come to the rescue. I wasn’t only good for record promotion; I was good for legal crap, too.
“Well, start,” he said.
“I don’t have it with me. All my stuff is in storage.”
“Dammit, where?”
52 – A Forgotten Factoid
The Travis and Perri team agreed to let Katya and me travel together for the drive south, which confirmed that Katya had said the right things, or they weren’t interested in her in the first place, which means they didn’t know how close she had been to the Cahoone action.
Four hours later, we were closing in on our little storage unit near Pompano Beach with the Lincoln Navigator containing the federal cavalry practically stuck to our butts. I guess good ol’ Travis and Perri with an “i” Mason didn’t want to take the chance that we’d try to run. That was no option anyway, and besides the famous Joe Oaks smart machine had come up with a plan. If my analysis was correct, the only person that would know we took the eight million simoleons would be one Darragh Cahoone, and he couldn’t complain to anybody because it was no doubt criminal cash that paid for the 32 million in counterfeit hundreds, which he was obligated to deliver. Therefore, if we could help Travis Macintyre and his bosses put Cahoone in a federal pen, Katya and I would be free to enjoy the eight million unless Perri with an “i” Mason threw a big wrench into my now well-greased machinery.
“One more time, go over the part about the money,” I said.
Katya rolled her eyes, “I’m tired, Joe, I’m really tired, and I’ve told you everything.”
“Just once more, it’s important.”
“She asked ‘where does Joe get his money’ and I told her you were a record promotion man when I met you, and the record companies paid you to get their records played on radio stations. And then, I told her that Darragh met you and offered you a job selling his stuff, which I thought was prescription drugs, and you took the job. She asked if you were still employed and I said no and that I thought you quit or got fired, but I wasn’t sure which.”
“Perfect.”
“Oh, and one more thing I forgot. She wanted to know where we got the money for this trip, and she asked to see the bills in my purse.”
“Go over it again. And?”
“And she glanced at all of them and asked me, ‘Don’t you have any larger denominations, like fifties and hundreds?’ I just shook my head no.”
Right then a forgotten factoid popped up from the considerable Joe Oaks knowledge base. The Secret Service not only guarded the president, they also investigated counterfeiting, which sent another cold chill down my spine, one of the day’s many.
The fire cleanup guy might have leaked to the wrong people, or—and that’s when I remembered the phony hundred that I spent at the station where I always bought my gas. The little rude sales clerk must have found his purple pen and turned me in.
But why were Travis and Perri with an “i” working together. There was only one answer that made any sense; the common denominator, Darragh Cahoone, the king of South Florida’s drugs and counterfeiting. Bingaringo!
I told Katya about the phony hundred, and how we should cover it if it came up.
53 – That’s What I Call Acing…
All four of us were standing next to the storage unit after I retrieved the desired papers, and the old dude on duty at Store-It-Here wanted us to move our meeting somewhere else and he was getting quite a bit impatient. I slipped him a twenty for his trouble and said we’d be another five or ten minutes.
I handed Travis my tally sheets with names, dates, addresses, products, amounts bought, and cash received.
“Cahoone would kill me if he knew I had this.”
You’d think I’d given Mr. DEA the map to the mother lode. He smiled and clucked and moved his head from side to side as he ran his finger down the considerable bonanza.
“What else you got?”
“Nothing else on paper, but I may think of some other stuff.”
“I’ll need your cell number and where you’ll be staying; I may want to meet with you tomorrow.”
I gave him the address of the motel in Pompano and wrote my phone number on the same paper.
Then, Perri Mason put in her request.
“I need to ask you a couple of questions, Mr. Oaks, before we wrap it up tonight.” She motioned me to the Navigator and we sat down in the back seat.
I was more than jumpy, leaving Katya alone with Travis; but there was no choice.
Perri Mason launched off with her pen poised over her notepad and got right to the point. “Do you shop at a gas station on Arthur Godfrey Boulevard?” Bingo again.
“Yeah, several times a week. I buy my gas there.”
“How do you pay?”
“Pay? Credit card… once or twice I’ve used cash.”
“When was the last time you used cash?”
“Let me think.” Play the game, play the game. “Well over a month ago. I remember exactly; the clerk was rude because I didn’t have anything smaller than a hundred dollar bill.”
“Did you have more than one of these bills?”
“No, just that one.”
“Where exactly did you get that particular hundred dollar bill?”
“Let see, uh––Kat–uh, Catherine asked me to buy her a couple cartons of cigarettes and she gave me the hundred. I remember she said she was out of household money and she looked in Darragh Cahoone’s desk drawer and found two stacks of hundred dollar bills, and she said she borrowed one. When I got gas, I’d already bought her cigarettes at another place, they were cheaper, and I used my own money instead of the hundred.”
She glanced at her notes. “Mr. Oaks, I don’t believe I have any further questions at this time.”
“Anything I can do to help, Ms. Mason, and please call me Joe.” And that’s what I call acing an interview.
+++
After we said goodbye to our new friends, Katya seemed preoccupied and tired, so we phoned Red Lobster down in Lauderdale from the car and ordered takeout. We picked up two Shrimp Trios, hot biscuits, iced tea and a couple slices of key lime pie, and checked back into the Surf Side Motel.
I was drained from the day of intense grilling, but Katya was something more. She flopped down on the bed and looked blankly at the ceiling.
/> “What’s up? What’s the matter?”
“Darragh,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“He can’t go to anybody and complain about the money we took. They’re gonna nail him, you know.”
“Let’s hope.”
“He’s gonna come after us before they shut him down.”
“If he can find us.”
“Oh, he’ll find us, even if he’s in prison. He’s got friends in the business.”
“Let’s try to think positive,” I reasoned.
“Darragh’s gonna kill us, Joe.”
54 – Face to Face, and Quick
The Florida sun kept its promise. After I laid awake most of the night, blue skies and the big ball of fire gave me some extra get-up-and-go, but the words, “Darragh’s gonna kill us, Joe” stuck to the inside of my skull like a dumpling in a dry pot.
Katya’s gloomy prediction made me rethink the past two weeks, and especially the last twenty-four hours. There was one sure way to keep her prophecy from coming true: get Darragh Cahoone locked up so tight that he’d never get out of the slammer or communicate with the outside world. The same went for his lieutenants, and that required a whole new chapter in the Joe Oaks’ book of genius solutions.
For starters, I called Ramon. He picked up on the first ring.
“Where ya been, man? Two weeks! We coulda banked a fortune! I left ya several messages and then got disconnects.”
“Forget it, Ramon, we’re out of business.”
“How come? Whaddya mean?”
“I’m under investigation by the feds.”
Ramon took an abnormally long pause before coming up with one of his usual profound remarks.
“Fuck! What’d you say about me?”
Naturally, his first thought was self-preservation. “Nothing. You didn’t come up yet.”
“Whaddya mean, ‘yet’?”
“I mean we better meet face to face, and quick.”
+++
We agreed on joining up at noon at the Steak ‘n Shake in Hallandale, and Ramon was last to get there.
“What’s she doin’ here?” The master of finesse said it right in front of my doll as he slipped in the other side of the booth. Katya just looked down and waited for me to intervene.
“She’s okay, she’s in this just as thick as you and me. This is Katya, and she’s my lady.”
Ramon looked Katya up and down like he didn’t know whether he liked her or didn’t. “You were the girl living with Cahoone, weren’t ya?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You know you’re playing with fire here, Joe, and this is no ordinary fire we’re dealin’ with.”
“Katya’s with me now and she knows everything.” I had to take control so I could call the shots from here on out. “The DEA–” A young guy in Steak ‘n Shake’s black and white garb leaned over our table to take our orders and I barked it out. “Bring three Steakburgers, three fries and three Cokes.”
“Hey!” Ramon said. “I might not want a burger.”
I shook my head and the young waiter walked away while writing on his order pad.
“We don’t have much time. Listen to me, Ramon. The DEA knows everything about our sales, what was sold, who to, and for how much.”
“Not possible.”
“Not only possible, but true. They got it all, and it’s just a matter of time until somebody connects you to me, and then your ass is grass.”
“If all that was true, you wouldn’t be here; you’d be locked up tighter than a tick on a––” Ramon cocked his head and squinted at me.
“It’s true, everything I said.” “You son-of-a-bitch. You told ‘em, didn’t you, chivato.” I just looked at Ramon and we all went silent.
The guy brought our Steakburgers and other stuff, and we ate and didn’t speak for another ten minutes.
Katya made a little small talk, but neither of us added to it. Then, I broke the silence.
“I had no choice; get immunity and then tell ‘em, or be put away for a long long, time. But I didn’t talk about you, and I believe you can get the same deal I did if you come forward and tell ‘em about Darragh Cahoone and your middle man.”
Katya opened her mouth and gestured like she was gonna say something, but must have changed her mind. Ramon looked like he wanted to kill me. I ignored it and kept talking.
“The feds know lots. All I did was confirm some of what they already know. When they start pulling in those phony prescription hawkers, your name is gonna come up, and that will lead to your other activities, and that will involve me again, and we’ll both go to prison.”
“You frickin’ snitch.”
“You probably would have done the same thing.”
The couple behind Ramon heard his last burst and had started to pay attention, so I dropped a twenty on the check and got up with the intention of carrying on our little meeting outside. Katya followed and Ramon, looking aggravated, brought up the rear.
When we got to the Mustang I put the main pitch to him. “My plan is we both go together, get you immunity, and lay it all out, the whole street drugs pipeline.”
“And after that, what would I frickin’ do for a living, for money, flip hamburgers? You don’t know what you’re askin’, Joe.”
“They want the people at the top. We can deliver. They don’t care about us. We’ll get off,” I hoped.
Ramon looked away and took a couple beats. “You fucked it up, long shot. “
“You need to decide now. They’re contacting me again in the morning, and they may already know all about you. If you go to them before they come to you, you can probably get the same deal I got.”
“Just one thing,” Ramon snapped. He turned to me in a flash, drew back and hit me in the mouth with a bare fist.
I went down on my knees and Katya screamed and I reached up and tugged her jacket. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I had it coming.” I spit out a mouthful of blood and Katya scratched around in her purse and dug out a little package of Kleenex and handed it to me.
“Thanks, baby.” I swabbed at my face and looked at Ramon, who was looking down like he regretted letting it fly.
“Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.”
“Will you do it?” I asked simply through my rapidly swelling lips.
“I dunno–maybe, probably not.” Ramon reached down, I clasped his hand and he pulled me up. “If I did and I’m not saying I will, how would I go about it? –Naw, forget it. I can’t do it.”
“I’ll call you tonight.” He didn’t respond. There was still a chance.
55 – Is That a Threat?
For personal safety, Katya and I moved a few miles up the coast to a motel apartment in the Carriage House in Deerfield Beach and signed in as Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Oaksley from California. Following a late fast-food dinner, Katya got interested in some dumb television talent show and I phoned Ramon. After answering with a rude ‘Yeah, Joe’, he was quick to get to the subject of the afternoon meeting.
“What makes ya’ think you could turn me? I am what I am, Joe Oaks. Your life will have to go on without my help, and right now your life isn’t worth much.”
“Is that a threat?” I asked. Katya turned off the TV and started listening to what I was saying.
“Not from me, but when I tell my supplier why I’m not truckin’ product, he’s gonna tell Cahoone and Cahoone’s gonna come after you.”
“They’re gonna take Cahoone down anyway, and they may shut him down before he can come after me.”
“You hope.”
“Join me, Ramon. You don’t really have a choice, and you know that’s true.”
The silence that followed was longer than any pause I ever experienced on the end of a phone line. I stayed quiet, but I could hear Ramon breathing. After a half-minute or maybe more, he spoke.
“Oh, I’ve got choices, but––” He sounded different, slower, beaten. “Yeah, Joe, you got yourself a partner, again.”
It was my turn to take a long pause. “I’ll do my
best to make sure you made the right decision.”
“I don’t want to be a crime-fighter. I just want to get out of this with my skin.”
“That makes two of us. I’ll call you around noon tomorrow with a game plan.” I punched off.
“Sounded like he gave you a yes,” Katya said.
“Yeah, and now I gotta make sure I don’t get us both in more trouble than we already are.”
56 – Locked Up for a Few Hundred
A little early morning Florida rain slapped at the concrete outside and Katya was still sleeping, recouping from the night session of relief sex, which we both needed in order to wipe out the tension of the last couple of days. I shut the door to the bedroom and made coffee.
At 8:30 a.m. Travis Macintyre called on my cell and requested that I meet him at nine in his SUV on the Coral Square Mall parking lot. He said he had a few more questions, and he wanted me to do a narrative, as much as I could remember into a tape recorder. I said okay; and I told him that I might have more to offer, and that it might require giving someone else an agreement like mine.
I didn’t know what Travis intended to accomplish, but my goal was to get Ramon immunity from prosecution so he could help in getting Darragh Cahoone locked up for a few hundred years. Travis asked about the nature of the info and I told him it was Florida street drugs. He said he’d bounce the proposition off his higher-ups.
I dressed, left Katya a note, grabbed some Mickey D’s breakfast midway through the nine-mile drive, and on the last half, rehearsed my Ramon pitch with the windshield wipers slapping at the hot Florida rain.
When I rolled into the parking lot, I spotted the Lincoln Navigator in the far corner, away from the other parked cars that obviously belonged to the earlier arriving clerks and store managers, and I noticed that there was another guy in the front passenger seat of the Navigator, a big black dude who appeared even larger and bulkier than Mr. Macintyre himself.
I pulled into the space on the right and cut my engine. Travis motioned for me to get into the Navigator, which I did, and I helped myself to the seat behind Travis.
