Breaking Point

by Jon Demartino

  I didn't see anyone else crazy enough to be out walking on the street. Only one car passed me and I saw it turn into the parking lot of French's up ahead. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a layer of ice building up around the edges of the fur lined hood. I felt the trickle of melting frost in my eyes and nose as I entered the warmth of the market. French called out a greeting from his butcher's counter at the back of the small store.

  "Hey, there. You look frozen."

  "Just about," I answered as I pushed the hood back and stamped my boots to knock the snow loose and restart the circulation in my feet. I picked up a six pack of Killian's Red, a pack of Oreos and several bags of jerky and went through the check-out. Francis was on duty and inquired about my health and the warmth offered by my canary yellow parka. He was thinking of buying one just like it.

  I pulled on the thick wool gloves and went back out into the icy night, a six pack in one hand and a plastic bag in the other. It seemed longer than three blocks walking back, probably because the wind was now blowing right in my face rather than at my back. It hadn't occurred to me that the easy part of this two way jaunt was the walk to the store. I passed the last of the new lamp posts near the cafe, a half block from home and was glad to see the dim light from my living room through the side window. Otherwise that section of the street was dark. The buildings on the near side of me were in bad shape and were currently vacant. On the far side of the old post office was a series of apartment buildings, set back a hundred yards from Main Street. Tonight, I wasn't able to see even a glimmer of the light from the apartment parking lot.

  My mind was filled with those tiny bits of nonsense as I started across the frozen expanse that was my paved front yard. I should have left the light on over the front door, so I didn't walk right by the place in this blizzard. I'd meant to turn it on. I thought I had. Wait a minute, I knew I had. What a lousy time for the bulb to burn out. As I stepped up to the door, I felt the crunch of broken bits of glass under my boots.

  My mind slowly assimilated the information. I realized something was amiss here and started to tense and look around. I could feel the adrenalin rush as my heart responded with an accelerated beat that pulsed into my ears. I whirled toward my left, then my right. As I leaned down to set the two bags on the ground at my feet, a dark form stepped out from the corner of the building beside the doorway and punched me full force in the stomach. I dropped both packages and sank to my knees in the snow, emitting that embarrassing "ooooff" sound as the wind went out of my lungs. I tried to say something, but was stopped mid-sentence by a powerful kick delivered to my right side by a very hard boot. My head dropped to the ground and I could feel the cold snow on my cheek. My arms were somewhere at my sides, I thought, but I wasn't really thinking very much. The man leaned down and knocked the hood back off my face. He put his face near my ear and spoke loudly enough for me to hear him in the yowling wind.

  "Be a quick learner, asshole. Keep your nose out of Wilson's business." His boot tip dug into my side twice more before he moved away. It was a good thing for him, too. In this cold night air, he could have gotten a leg cramp if he'd continued kicking me.

  As he trotted away, I lifted my head a little and tried to get a look at the man, but it was too late, and too dark. I heard an engine start around the side of the building and a skidding sound as he turned around in the parking lot and drove off down Cherry Street.

  A moment later, while I was trying to get up, I heard a car approaching. It slowed as it went by, then stopped on the crunching snow at the edge of my property and two doors opened. A woman ran to me and took hold of my left elbow.

  "Are you all right? Did you fall? Oh my, this ice is terrible. Wait, my husband will help you."

  By that time, a man had stepped up to my other side and gotten a firm grip on my other arm. Between the two of them, they got me to my feet and up to the door. I pulled off the gloves and found my key so the man could open the door for me. After getting me inside and onto one of the old wicker porch chairs I'd set near the front windows, the man went back out and retrieved my groceries, while his wife helped me pull my arms out of the parka. I was starting to stiffen up already. Damn.

  "Hey, this is your lucky night," he said when he came back in. "Only one beer was broken and your other stuff is fine. What happened? It looks like your light bulb froze and broke there above the door." He had a flashlight in one hand that he must have brought from his car. He went on, "That's the first time I've ever seen that!"

  "Yeah," I lied. "It popped and I jumped a little and went down on the ice. Thanks for your help. I'll be fine now." I started to get up but he held a hand out to keep me seated.

  "No, no. Now you just sit there until you feel better. Martha and I will let ourselves out. Is there anyone you want us to call? Do you need a doctor?"

  I assured them once again that I would be fine and they left me there, slumped back in the wicker rocker. After they had pulled out, I reached down and retrieved one of the bottles of Killian's Irish Red from its cardboard holder and opened it. Thank God for twist top bottles, I thought.

  About three swallows into the bottle, my head cleared enough to realize that I needed to look around at the side of the building for clues as to who had been waiting for me out there. I grabbed a flashlight from the office and, holding my right side, hobbled out the door. It was still blowing pretty hard and the snow seemed to be coming down in bigger flakes and falling faster now. It wasn't a good night for clue finding, but I trudged around the side of the building anyway and held the flashlight beam ahead of me on the snow-covered asphalt. I could barely make out one area where the snow seemed less deep, like the underlying cover had been packed down somewhat.

  It hurt to squat down and I groaned a little in the cold night air. The sound was muffled by the screaming wind shooting down Cherry Street from the west. I brushed a little of the new flakes away from the area and thought I could see the pattern of a shoe or boot sole. It wasn't really anything clear enough to identify though. Getting to my feet, I lumbered around a circle of about a dozen feet, looking for a cigarette butt or something else he may have dropped. I didn't see anything but more snow and was starting to really feel the stiffening in my right side. The punch to the stomach had taken the wind from me, but I was saved any real damage by the insulation of the thick parka. Those boots to the ribs had hurt though, coat or no coat. And I knew I'd really feel it in the morning.

  I went back inside and swallowed three aspirin tablets with the last of my opened beer. I carried the remaining bottles and my other snacks in and set them on the couch beside me so I wouldn't have far to go if I needed them. Then I watched the Discovery Channel until I fell asleep. There was a show on about modern detectives and how they can now solve crimes with the latest technology. There was no eight hundred numbers, or I would have called them.

  Chapter 13

  Sunday morning was as bad as I expected it to be. My side hurt and I had a headache from all the beer and Oreos I'd ingested the night before. Standing under the hot shower spray helped somewhat and I could actually move a little when I got dressed. After two cups of coffee and some toast, I drove over to the community center to walk a few slow laps around the track. Maybe that's what was causing my mental capabilities to diminish: lack of exercise. As if that guy hadn't booted me hard enough last night, I was kicking myself for not reading the signs in time to be ready for him. Woody was right once again. I'd better look over my shoulder once in a while.

  The rec center was mostly empty on Sundays. When I passed the library on the first floor, I could hear some of the high school girls who serve as volunteers, talking and giggling about something. It was probably over my head anyway, so I didn't try to listen. I made my way between the pool tables and the air hockey area and went up the open stairway. The track was on the upper floor and wasn't large, by track standards. The three lanes were posted for walking, jogging and running, with the walkers, including me, assigned to the innermost lane.
It took thirteen laps to complete a mile in that lane, with twelve and eleven laps needed in the others.

  The directional arrow was clockwise today, so I changed to clean shoes and started around the inner lane. As I approached the second turn, the gymnasium on the lower floor came into view beyond the iron rail. Two young guys in shorts and tee shirts were shooting hoops at separate baskets. I watched them until they were out of my sight and the railing was replaced by the block wall that surrounded the weight area. Ahead of me on the track was an older fellow, walking with a slight lean to the front, almost on his toes. The stiff legged gait didn't look easy to accomplish. He was wearing sweat pants and a bulky sweater that looked way too hot for me to exercise in, but he seemed fine. I'd seen him here occasionally and had always passed him several times as we walked. He and I were of comparable height so our stride length would be about the same, but I always walked faster than he did. Today, though, I figured to be seeing his wide back the whole time I was here.

  When I'd first started coming to the track I'd tried to keep track of the number of laps while I walked, so I'd know when I'd done a mile. That got old pretty fast and interfered with my thinking and sorting processes. I'd be walking and thinking about something and what I needed to do about it and there I'd be passing the starting point and having to remember to add another number to my lap count. Now, I just made sure I walked for at least thirty minutes and let it go at that.

  As I moved around the track I warmed up a little and even the stiffness and pain I'd felt this morning began to subside. The pace picked up a bit, but not enough to pass the older man. I tried to make my mind a blank and see what thoughts popped in. Suddenly I realized that the engine I'd heard last night was too loud to be a car and was that of a truck, probably a pickup. That helped but didn't narrow down the possibilities too much. I kept walking and focusing on the track ahead of me as I let my mind meander freely through the events of last night.

  Gears, I remembered hearing the grinding of gears as he turned around to pull out. He had shifted into reverse and was trying to get it back into first gear too fast. So it was a standard transmission, then. Trucks these days mostly had automatics so that was a decent clue and might actually prove helpful. I tried to remember his voice and what he sounded like, but in that wind, I'd only been able to catch the words and little else.

  The memory of the wind brought another clue. When he'd reached down to pull my hood back, I'd experienced a whiff of mixed smells. They'd immediately dissipated as he moved back and the forceful breeze pushed them away from me. I remembered them now, though, and tried to focus on what they were. There was stale smoke, like from cigarettes or cigars. There was another underlying, more acrid odor, too. Like cat urine maybe. I wasn't sure about that one. I walked the rest of my thirty minutes trying to focus more clearly on the two aromas but that was all I was going to get. I just had to find a guy driving a vehicle, possibly a truck, with a standard transmission, while he smoked a cigarette, or maybe a cigar, with a cat pissing on his arm. Why, the case was almost solved. I finished my thirty minute walk in the clueless zone.

  When I got home, there was a message on my machine. My sister wanted me to call her.

  Talmadge answered.

  "Hi. I'm returning Maxine's call." I didn't feel like shooting the breeze with my brother-in-law just yet.

  "Hold on, I'll get her."

  I could hear Max saying goodbye to him before she picked up the phone. A door closed in her house and she was on the line.

  "Rudy. I guess I owe you quite a debt now, don't I? I needed to know and, well..." I could hear the warning sniffles of impending tears. She caught herself and went on. "Anyway, Talmadge told me everything, including your part in finding him. He wanted to be honest about all of it."

  "How are you, Sis?"

  "I'll be all right, honey. Tal and I have talked a lot, probably more than we have in years, and we both want to make this work. I'm afraid the kids heard a good bit of it, though. I was pretty loud. We both talked to them, too, and I think it will be OK, although Tucker is very angry at his dad right now."

  "Well, Max, I guess it all came out for the best. Maybe you guys can kind of start over now." I needed to change the subject here, before I started spouting more of these simpleminded platitudes.

  "By the way Sis, Woody called me, so the cat's out of the bag about Thanksgiving. That was a really nice thing to do, inviting him out here. How about if I pick him up at the airport and take care of all the details? He'll just stay here with me."

  "Thanks, Rudy. You are one great little brother."

  "Yeah, well don't get too used to it." She told me what time to be there on Thanksgiving and we hung up. The holiday was only four days away. Time was really moving and I wasn't even having fun. While I was still basking in the glow of my sister's elevated opinion of me, I decided to take the plunge and call Caroline to arrange another meeting. This time I would be prepared for it.

  Caroline, or more properly, Sister Mary Grace, answered the phone at Saint Anne's Convent. She said that the sisters took turns and this was her stint at the front desk. I invited her out for a bite to eat at a little shop I'd frequented down in Iowa City. It was right near the Old Capitol Mall, and she said she'd find it with no trouble.

  In that familiar, encouraging tone, Caroline thanked me for the invitation and agreed to meet me at the Bread Garden Bakery and Cafe on Tuesday at one o'clock. Before she hung up, she thanked me again for the invitation and said how nice it was to hear my voice. Hearing her voice was a double-edged sword for me. I liked hearing it and I wanted to hear more of it.

  I was sitting in the kitchen looking through the Sunday paper and killing the twenty minutes it would take for Mama Lucia's frozen pizza to bake. Sears was having a big sale on men's clothing and I scanned through it looking for thermal socks. I flipped past two pages of men's dress shoes and smiled as I remembered Woody's story about the guy with the James Bond shoes. Suddenly, my hand stopped mid-flip, and I held the ad sheet suspended above the table. A little bell went off somewhere in my head. Bing. Dress shoes. Leather heels. Tiny things hidden therein.

  "Oh man," I said out loud. "I wonder if that could be it." Wilson had a whole closet full of fancy dress shoes and any one of them could have a hollow heel. It would explain why the negatives hadn't turned up yet. This was definitely worth a shot.

  I ate the entire pizza in as few bites as possible while I dialed Iris Wilson's number. For the first time in several days, I was feeling good about things. It was only a chance, but I hadn't any other great ideas. I only hoped that Iris hadn't gotten rid of the rest of her husband's clothes.

  She was home but said she and Gary were about to go out. They agreed to wait for me and let me in. Iris said I could just lock up when I left. In response to my question, she assured me that the clothes were all there. I told her I'd be right over.

  My car started in an instant, as if it had been sitting in the warm August sunshine instead of the icy Iowa wind. It didn't take long to drive the few miles to Iris's place in Iowa City. The traffic was usually minimal and the worst of it would be centered around the Coralville Mall, where 965 south and Highway 6 met. I avoided even that limited amount of congestion by shooting down Dubuque Street from Oak Grove and hitting Highway 6 several miles east of the mall.

  I said a quick hello and goodbye to both Iris and Gary Omar, who were waiting with their coats on, and headed straight for the bedroom closet and the seven pair of dress shoes. I tossed them all out of the closet and onto the bedroom carpeting and sat down to examine the heels. If my side was still sore, I didn't notice.

  The first several heels I grabbed seemed to be nailed or glued on as would be expected in expensive footwear. There were fourteen shoes in all and I only had three left to check when I found it. It was the tassel loafers. The left shoe had a trick heel on it. I could see a sliver of shiny metal along the front portion of the heel. When I pressed the metal down with my penknife blade, the heel wigg
led in my grasp. I had to pull it out away from the sole a little bit but as soon as I did, it swung free on some type of small hinge and two plastic wrapped packets fell to the floor. One was flat while the second one to hit the floor was an irregular lumpy shape.

  I knew immediately what I'd find in the flat one. When I peeled the clear tape off and unwrapped the plastic, three black negatives fell to the floor. A quick glance confirmed that they were identical copies of a group photo of some type. The other packet was heavier. When I held it up to the sunlight coming in through the window, I noticed a dirty yellow coloring as well as a familiar odor. It was the cat urine smell I'd remembered from Saturday night. It wasn't as strong, but the aroma was unmistakable.

  Suddenly things were clearing up and I was pretty sure I knew what was in this packet, too. I was right. Two rocks of crystal meth-amphetamine were wrapped in the piece of plastic wrap. A yellow tinged color and the odor of ammonia that remained from the manufacturing process were two good indicators. Why, Charlie, you were a fool in more ways than I gave you credit for.

  I checked the rest of the shoes but they were all standard issue. Snapping the heel back into place on the loafers, I returned them to the closet beside the rest of his shoes. I dropped the packets into a pair of plastic bags I found in the kitchen, slid them into my pocket and let myself out.

  Chapter 14

  Monday morning I went through the yellow pages looking for photography shops and found three in the area. The closest was just down in Coralville, not too far from Hawkeye Lens and Scope where Charlie Wilson had had the negatives made. Matt Barr was probably not involved in Charlie's scheme, whatever it was. I was through taking chances, though, and decided to stay away from that place for now. I'd have the pictures printed somewhere else.