A Fine Kettle of Fish

by Lou Bradshaw

  “The Bureau is going to ask you to take a little risk and help us out. We’re going to give you a chance to serve your country.”

  “I don’t know what I can do,” I said, “but I’ll do what I can. What kind of risk are we talking about?”

  “If this case progresses the way I expect it to, you may have to have some conversations with some pretty tough people. We may even ask you to get involved in a deal with them.”

  “That’s askin’ a lot.” I said, shaking my head.

  The agent leaned across the desk and laced his fingers together. He studied his hands for what seemed about an hour, but in reality was probably less than 30 seconds. He raised his eyes to me and said, “ Let’s try this story on for size.”

  “This young tow truck driver deals with a mule on a weekly basis. He may or may not be part of the operation, but he gets called out to haul in a wreck. When he sees who it is he figures there’s some pot in the vehicle. When he gets it back to town he goes through it and finds some stuff, nearly 5 pounds of heroin and maybe a couple of kilos of pot and maybe some cash. This tow truck guy doesn’t have a market for the heroin, so he comes up with a way to get it back to the cops.”

  “An interesting story – don’t you think? Be hard to prove, but it could sure drag a guy’s life through hell for a couple of years.”

  Sometimes I’m just not smart enough to get scared by veiled threats. All it did was piss me off. So, I told him that it all happened just the way I said in my statement. It was his own fault for saying it would be hard to prove.Wasn’t the FBI any smarter than Cowboy Cook and company?

  When I didn’t fold, my guess was he figured he’d had it wrong, and that I was just an innocent tow truck guy, so he tried another angle. “You know Lee, you’re dealing with the U.S. Government now. We have a lot of agencies, and they’re all connected in one-way or another. For instance, the Bureau pulls a lot of strings with the military and the Selective Service Board. They rely on us to run their security clearances among other things. What’s your draft classification, 1-A?”

  I could feel my ears getting hot. What the hell, I would get drafted sooner or later anyway. He was really going about this the wrong way. I wasn’t taking much notice of his threats, what he really needed to try was a bribe of some sort – I could be bribed if the price was right. I just shrugged and waited for his next assault. I didn’t figure his next shot would hit quite so close to home.

  “Have you ever had any dealings with the IRS? Probably not at your age, but I’ll bet your dad has. Let’s see, he has his own business – those things can be accounting nightmares, and there’s that sign shop venture, and maybe some income property.”

  My mind flashed to the dairy farm up north, and the problems they were having with the rental people; whatever that was all about. Suddenly, I was alert.

  The Fed guy went on, “You know they go back sometimes as much as 7 years; they can freeze bank accounts and tie up assets for months – even years. It can get really sticky if they only suspect something.”

  I had very little knowledge of such things. I didn’t have any idea what Brick’s records were like. I trusted him and knew him to be incredibly honest, but Curtis did the taxes. I trusted Curtis to follow the rules, but also knew that he would take things to the limit, just enough to cause some real problems.

  Special Agent Fletcher and I had reached an agreement, and he could see it in my face. “You’re one hard assed G-man ain’t you?” I said.

  “Got to be kid,” he said, “we got to be. We’re in an all out war with those bastards. This ring is operating in 7 states, supplying dope to many thousands of junkies and hypes; they’re muscling their way into legitimate businesses, and on and on. They don’t have any respect for life or property or anyone’s rights. Imagine the girl next door, or your sister, being pressed into prostitution and winding up in Tokyo or Beirut with no hope of ever getting free or ever being heard from again. It happens more than you would ever believe. The drugs are one thing, but the organization is what we want to break.”

  “If we have to step on a few toes along the way, or push some good people into the action, then I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be.”

  “What am I supposed to do, go under cover, infiltrate the mob, what?”

  He half chuckled at that and said, “No. Nothing like that. Here let me lay it out for you. First, I want you to keep your mouth shut. Say nothing to your best buddy, your girlfriend, nobody.” He didn’t have to worry about the girlfriend thing. Second, someone will contact you sooner or later looking for the missing drugs. When they do get in touch with me or Junior – Trooper Bradley immediately.”

  I cracked up at the Junior reference and he said, “Well he does look like a little kid. He’s a good man; who knows where he’d go with a little more education.”

  “Third, when you’re contacted just act dumb – you don’t know a thing, got it? They won’t press it unless they’re sure you know where the stuff is. At that point, you’ll try to set up a deal. We’ll work all that out when it happens.”

  “These people are mainly interested in getting their property back. We just want to get one of them in our hands, just to tighten the screws a little – or a lot. We want one of them doing a little bit of sweating. We need facts, names, and places – we need a crack in the wall so we can squeeze in.”

  I wondered just how many metaphors, if that was the right term, that guy could cram into a sentence if he really put some effort into it. He handed me a business card with the name ‘Tom Fletcher’ and a phone number on it, but nothing else. This will get me or my office 24 hours a day, or you can call Bradley. I took the card, put it into my wallet, and started to leave.

  “Kid, the worst thing you can do is rollover on me. You tell them that we got the stuff and we’ll grind you up. You hear me?” I nodded and left.

  * * *

  I was pretty sure that I was clean on the $ 4500. They either didn’t know about it or didn’t care. He was running a bluff about what he supposed had happened the night of the wreck and probably about the draft board. They weren’t drafting 18 year olds, and there wasn’t any kind of shooting war going on. But he sure got my attention when he started talking about the IRS and Brick’s taxes. I didn’t understand enough about that stuff to take a chance on it.

  I’ve been pretty low down from time to time, and I’ve got some sins to account for. In fact, I’m sure that I’ve broken almost all of the 10 Commandments. Of course, I don’t remember all of them, but so far I haven’t killed anyone and I honor my parents – mostly. Let’s see, 2 to the good, so that would make 8 ‘Thou Shalt Nots’ that I’ve busted. Well, I may have to kill sometime, but I can’t think of a time when I wouldn’t honor my parents, and I’ll damn sure do all I can to keep the FBI or anyone else from dishonoring them

  I found myself thinking, “How bad could it be dealing with those hoods? I would act dumb for a while and set ‘em up. It might even get to be fun, and wouldn’t I be hot stuff when it was all over. There wouldn’t be a red blooded female in this part of the country who could be able to resist an honest to goodness hero. I’d just have to pull up to any street corner and say, ‘Get in Doll,’ and boing.”

  “I could get me a new car and some sharp clothes and be the head rooster. Maybe I’d start lifting weights and build up a fine set of muscles. I could move out of the house and get my own place and get laid every night. I could have parties, even Wesson Oil parties, and the cops wouldn’t say a thing because I’d have FBI connections.”

  “Hey, this just might work out all right if the hoods don’t dump me in Table Rock Lake with concrete blocks for shoes, but that was just movie stuff. They don’t really kill people who messed with them, not really.” That was when I remembered the 2 bullet holes in Malcolm and the dead guy in Memphis.

  Chapter 20

  The next few weeks were pretty busy with pre-registration, placement tests, and getting classes lined up. That was besides the u
sual summer stuff of working, drinking beer, and in general screwing off. I was spending at least a couple of nights a week at the cabin. If I could have afforded to get electricity, plumbing, and a phone in there, I’d have just moved in, made payments to Brick, and bought it. Those were some pretty big ifs.

  It dawned on me that, actually, I could afford it. Funny thing, I had forgotten that money in the safe deposit box. It was like it wasn’t mine until after I did what I had to do for the cops. Somehow, it had stuck in my head that that money was some sort of payment for services rendered, but first I’d have to render some services. It was like a post-dated check; I had it but I couldn’t cash it.

  Mack had effectively broken off with legs. She only called him about 4 times a day that past week. When he had to talk to her, he was cool and distant, he thought she was getting the idea.

  He and I went down to Rockies last weekend, kicked up our heels, and almost got laid, at least that was what we told ourselves. I spent all day Sunday and Sunday night at the cabin. Mary Ellen came out in the early afternoon for a swim and a little sun bathing. She brought a bottle of wine. I left her there looking like a fine ’57 T-bird all stretched out on a blanket while I went into Marshfield (which was closer than Doubling) to get some fried chicken and fixings.

  When I got back, Mack was there with the girl he had met the night before at Rockies. Luckily, he had some beer, and I had gotten plenty of chicken, so we wouldn’t starve or perish from thirst. Mack’s friend was a cute little thing, what you might call petite, with sun streaked sandy colored hair and beautiful big blue eyes. She was 19 and worked in a Springfield bank. She had a good head on her shoulders and was far too mature for him; he was still working on teenyboppers. But she did have great legs.

  After our after dinner splash with everyone lounging around on the gravel bar, it dawned on me that Mary Ellen had just kinda showed up, so, I asked her how she knew where to find me. She said that she had called my house and Nan had told her where I was and how to get here. She also told her not to waste her time on a no account jerk like me. Nan may not have been the president of the Lee Brickey Anti-Fan Club, but she was a charter member. At least Moe thought it was funny.

  We spent the rest of the day just splashing, snacking, drinking, sunning, and totally enjoying ourselves. Fortunately, everyone already had a good basic tan so no one got burned. Mack and Peggy, which is what her name turned out to be, left about 7:00, and we went up to the cabin so that the critters could have the river for a while. Just before sundown, we went back to the gravel bar and built up a fire. As we sat there listening to the bugs and the tree frogs, we just sort of talked about stuff.

  “Mary Ellen,” I said, “when, how, or will I ever understand women?”

  She laughed and said, “Probably never, but don’t worry about it. Actually, not knowing or understanding makes it all the more fun. Mystery only adds to the excitement, but there are a few things that most women have in common; the key word is – most.”

  “Like what?” There I was again – beoming a man of few words.

  “Well,” she said, “for instance most women want to feel like ladies. They want to be pampered and put on pedestals; they want to feel pretty and feminine – and special. If you can find a way to treat a girl like a lady, you’ll do all right.”

  “But that means I’d have to be some kind of candy assed, twinkle toed, sissy boy, and I just don’t do that real well.” I argued.

  “Women don’t want sissy boys, silly. We’re comfortable with them because they’re like us, but a woman wants a man – period. Now that’s not to say that we want just any old burley hunk of flesh and muscle. He has to have something else going too.”

  “Looks are important. Let’s face it, a nice face and a good body are the first things one sees. Every woman is a potential mother, and whether she knows it or not she sees each man as a potential father for her children. She may not even give a guy a conscious thought, but she checks him out, and sometimes he registers sometimes he doesn’t. She wants to give her children good healthy bodies and nice faces long before she ever fixes them a healthy meal. So she looks for that in a man first.”

  “Next, women want security. They want a man who has the potential to provide a good living, either with his brains or his body. Security also means protection from harm. That’s why big guys are the first ones looked at. But big is only external and is quickly passed over if the guy is just big with nothing else to offer.”

  I started to say something stupid, but she went on, “After you get past the first 2 needs, you come to romance. This is where everything gets really screwed up. Women want romance, and some put it way out in front of everything else. That’s a real problem because romance is like this river, its liquid and flowing. It can run smooth or it can rage. It can run dry, or it can over flow, and it can change its course.”

  “Romance can mean different things to different women. It can mean flowers, candy, and a French restaurant, or just a French kiss. To some it may mean no responsibilities, just the open road on the back of a motorcycle. To most women, I think it means some excitement between man and woman. I believe that it can come from a man doing something special for a woman, even if it’s only treating her like a lady.”

  “As for L-O-V-E, that is by far the most important piece of the puzzle, but it can only come with time. I don’t believe in love at first sight. I believe in lust at first sight.”

  “Okay,” I said, “ women want to feel like ladies, but ladies are stuffy and don’t know how to have fun or cut loose now and then. And I can’t imagine the Queen of England enjoying sex.”

  She sat up and put out a pouty lower lip and said, “Does that mean that you don’t think I’m a lady, because I really do enjoy sex.”

  That hit home like a truck load of bricks, I was all over myself trying to apologize and make her believe that I didn’t think of her as anything other than special. I finally saw that she was having fun with me. I said, “Moe, I just don’t understand any of it.”

  “I know Lee,” she smiled and said, “I’m just teasing. If I didn’t think you respected me, I wouldn’t be sitting on this riverbank with you. That’s my point. A lady can enjoy life and its pleasures as much as a slut, but she doesn’t cheapen them by grabbing everything she can get her hands on. A lady is just a bit more selective and discrete. She chooses her pleasures very carefully.”

  “I see.” I said, not wanting to say too much and get in over my head.

  “So many men think they want a slut in bed, but the right man can turn the primmest lady into a raging tigress. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but we’ve already shared a few secrets.” I could swear that she blushed even in that low light. “When I was younger, before Daddy added on to the house, it was much smaller and my bedroom was next to theirs. They would wait until very late, and they were sure that I was asleep – I was a light sleeper. I would consider my mother as much a lady as the Queen of England and I guarantee – she enjoyed it.”

  “End of lecture,” she said, “now kiss me.” - which I did.

  It was a beautiful summer night on a gravel bar on the James River. The fire was flickering, and a light breeze was blowing. The male tree frogs and bullfrogs were crying out for mates. We had cold chicken and wine, and I didn’t once have to say, “Ribbit.”

  * * *

  Wednesday evening I was working on some show cards for the IGA when Lloyd Dickey came into the sign shop, and in his own inimitable way whined, “Hey Stud, how’s it hangin’?” Lloyd liked to talk dirty, or maybe that was the only language he knew. He wasn’t too creative and used a lot of tired old junk, and expected replies in kind. Everyone just sort of went along. I wasn’t everyone, so I just nodded and kept on working.

  Lloyd was sort of a local character, and folks just kind of looked away from his weirdness. He was a year older than me, about 5’6”, weighed no more than 130 lbs., and tough as old leather. I doubted if he ever practiced any kind of regular personal h
ygiene because he always looked pretty cruddy. He had more oil on his hair than I had in my crankcase. His wardrobe was right out of a bad movie, with black motorcycle boots, dirty jeans slung below his crack, and a collar that was always turned up.

  He came to Doubling in the 6th grade from Kansas City to live with his grandmother and aunt. There had been some sort of trouble in the city, and he was in and out of trouble here, but the Chief of Police took an interest in him and kind of watched out for him. He ran away a couple of times, and the chief would go get him. The last time he ran away he was 15 years old and in the 8th grade; the chief didn’t go after him. That time Lloyd wound up in reform school for a year and a half. When he came back to Doubling he was just a punk hood that everybody tolerated but no one took seriously.

  I had mentioned earlier about someone named Lloyd Dickey making me dance to the tune of a .22-pump rifle – the same Lloyd Dickey. After that dance lesson, I took Lloyd a lot more seriously. He wasn’t what you would call bright nor would you call him dim, but you could call him stupid.

  In the grand scheme of things, there are levels of fineness and levels of lowdown-ness. Among our non-human neighbors, there are top feeders and bottom feeders. For example, a hummingbird would be a top feeder – living off nothing but nectar. Whereas a buzzard would be a bottom feeder – we all know what they eat. A trout would be a top feeder living in the clear cold rushing water – eating things on the surface. A catfish would be a bottom feeder – eating whatever comes down its way. A white tailed deer prances around on tiny feet and eats the good stuff that nature provides. At the other end of the scale is the possum or opossum for city folk. Now, the possum is about as low as you can go; it will eat anything that it can get into its mouth. I’ve seen one crawl out of the carcass of a rancid stinking worm laden dead cow; just licking its chops. It’s a filthy animal – a regular hillbilly rat. Lloyd Dickey was a possum.