Return To Parlor City
Page 14
***
Bobby Mildrake avoided trial after an evaluation by the court psychiatrist, who concluded that he should be sent to a secure mental facility away from Parlor City. After opening up to Gwen Meacham and making his confession to police, Bobby Mildrake receded into an interior life and never spoke to his Mother again.
***
After receiving a letter from Adele Braun informing him of his Uncle’s death, Ludwig Von Braun concluded that his life was over as well. When word reached Stuttgart about the sensational murder trials taking place in a sleepy town in America called Parlor City involving German bearer bonds stolen from the local Bundesbank office, Ludwig stopped going to work and holed up in his apartment, making infrequent forays out after dark for food. Sensing he was followed one evening, he stopped going out all together and his already fragile frame weakened rapidly. One night, laying in his darkened bedroom and clutching the worn picture of Alice Hirsch, he heard a creaking noise outside his door and knew that the end was near. The intruder sent by Oskar Speidel left the picture clutched tightly in Ludwig’s hand but took the diary hidden under his mattress. It wasn’t long afterward that Ludwig Von Braun, working alone, was exposed as the rogue banker who had stolen the bearer bonds and conspired with his American uncle.
***
Woodrow Braun, in his perverse way, had altered his will in 1955 without telling his estranged wife. While he left her enough money to live comfortably, the bulk of his estate went to Woody Braun, the grandson he had ignored almost from birth. While it might have looked like a grand, loving gesture to an outsider, Braun was motivated solely by his desire to ensure that the family name would be maintained in style when the boy grew to manhood. Had he known that Gwen and Billy, with Woody’s eager consent, would change his name to Woody Meacham the very next year, there might have been rumblings under the Braun headstone at the cemetery.
***
Against the advice of his attorney and without the protective shield of the Wattles, Stewart Traber was a fountain of words, words, words. He spilled out in gushers everything from his indecorous past in the hope that something he disgorged might garner sympathy with police or the prosecutors. In the process, he dragged the Wattles and various government officials through the muddy sty with him. A number of women stepped forward, including the cigarette girl at the Casa Loma, to describe him as a lout and a boor. Soon, he was perceived as a pathetic egoist and public interest in the ex-governor waned. A broken man, he withered away in prison, ceaselessly mocked as “Governor” by his fellow inmates.
***
The Wattles wisely clammed up as soon as they were loaded into separate police cars at Traber’s horse farm and, through their attorney, denied the more serious allegations made against them, choosing to paint Bobby Mildrake as a misguided soul who acted on his own. As for Traber’s frenzied gush of revelations, they chosen to remain silent, calculating that he would eventually undermine himself and destroy his credibility. It didn’t help when Mildred Wattle’s brother, caving to pressure, recounted the late night call from his sister informing him of Woodrow Braun’s death at a time when only the killer and his accomplices could have known about it.
What shocked and galled both Wattles the most, though, was the behavior of their daughter and son-in-law. Having earlier, after the Mayor’s resignation, moved ownership of the funeral homes and other assets to Thelma to protect them from seizure, the Wattles were in need of ready cash to pay their lawyer. After several jailhouse calls went unanswered, the Wattles were informed by their lead counsel that their daughter was not prepared to offer financial assistance. It was no consolation to them that no amount of money would save them from the fateful judgment of the jury.
***
The Chrysler Imperial was stopped by state troopers as it crossed into Maryland a few days after Pinky flew home to Miami. It was being driven by one Vinnie Della Reese, a burly part-time bartender at a club in Pompano Beach. The car had been wiped clean and the trunk had been stripped of all remnants of Pinky’s traveling workshop.
***
Miami officials made a half-hearted effort to find Pinky Benjamin but knew it was futile. He had been sent on a European vacation by “The Nose” shortly after his return home from Parlor City. There, he spent days in the great libraries of Brussels, London and Paris studying a variety of ancient documents and perfecting his already considerable skills. As for “The Nose”, who was rarely given his due for an uncanny ability to smell out a rat, the authorities had nothing to connect him to Pinky, Siebert or the German bearer bonds, which had by then been redeemed at various designated banks around the country. The first anonymous tip to the Parlor City Police Department plus several telephone calls made to a motel in Parlor City as well as the Inn in Patchinville had all been placed from a pay booth on the outskirts of Miami. The final police tip that sent Meacham racing from Traber’s horse farm to the train station came from a payphone inside the Parlor City Airport terminal.
***
Stella’s Aunt made her second fateful trek in two years from Boston to Parlor City and this one was even more painful that the first one. She had introduced Stella to Siebert, then posing as Ripley Maxwell, at the very time she was herself being manipulated, conned and then seduced by this consummate huckster. It had taken a while for her to come to grips with the rage, jealousy and embarrassment that had consumed her for months. And now she was burdened with guilt.
Mildred Crimmons was shocked when she saw her niece. Her hair was growing out and the natural blonde roots were pushing through the brown dye to create a sickly mix. Normally fastidious about her appearance, Stella had not even bothered to comb her hair before sitting down across from her Aunt with a distant look on her face. All that Stella had in life was wrapped up in the distorted image she had created of the indomitable, god-like Winston Siebert III. Even now, she was certain that he was working on a scheme that would set them free. After a few feeble attempts by Mildred to engage her niece, Stella looked at her Aunt and calmly said, “Please go back to Boston, Aunt Mildred. There is nothing you can do here except make us both miserable.”
It would take months for Stella to come to the realization that her brilliant companion had been outsmarted and masterfully played by the person he derided as a “two-bit” Miami gangster. She heard the snide comments and laughing jibes from other inmates meant to provoke her but she had remained silent. It wasn’t until much later, when she was brought back to Parlor City for the second trial of Winston Siebert III for the gruesome murder of Randall DePue a year earlier, that the veil started to lift from Stella’s vacant eyes. She was worn and haggard to the point that Meacham actually felt a twinge of sympathy. If he had seen her years later, upon her release from prison, he wouldn’t have recognized the captivating blonde who had once turned heads wherever she went.
***
Winston Siebert III sat in his cell in Parlor City trying to come to grips with what had happened. Sure, he had skimmed some of the casino proceeds in Havana but he had been very careful, hadn’t he? If Bargani had found out, was this his revenge?
Siebert wondered if he had been too distracted by his growing infatuation with Stella to notice the clues that were so evident to him now. Pinky’s supposed fear of flying, the late nights where Pinky worked alone in the motel room demanding complete privacy, the telephone calls to and from Florida, the tutorials about the “Chinese Squeeze” and the “High Pillow” – and then that final touch when Pinky offered to take the real bonds on the plane when he had already made the switch, leaving Siebert with the second set of fake ones. Bargani had been certain that Siebert would never entrust Pinky with the bonds and he was right. It was a masterful ploy that, painful as it was, Siebert had to admire.
It never dawned on Siebert that overweening pride may have caused his downfall. Only much later did he fully appreciate that as he was seducing his hapless victims in Parlor City, Bargani was already working the double cross on him.
He stopped r
eading the newspapers that were brought to him, convinced that they were sent in by Meacham to increase his torment. Was it possible that Moe Bargani was that much smarter than him, as several of the newspaper articles suggested? It was pure agony to contemplate such a possibility and Siebert tried to dismiss it from his mind without success. The thought of seeing the look on Stella’s face if and when they crossed paths in the courtroom was almost more than he could bear. He thought about how Frederick Hawkins had orchestrated his own final scene, hanging himself in his basement right before Meacham came to question him. No, that was not an option right now. He convinced himself that he would somehow find a way out.
In a way, Siebert got his wish. After being convicted for the murder of Randall DePue, he was sent upstate on a life term. However, he was eagerly awaited by prosecutors in several cities, including Cleveland, Ohio, where the death of Sidney DelFonzo was now being investigated as a possible homicide. During this trial, he decided to avail himself of the option he had driven Frederick Hawkins to take. By the time Stella heard the news, she had been drained of all emotion.
***
Det. Billy Meacham, Jr. was once again trumpeted as a hero in town. Some wag labeled him the “Wyatt Earp of Parlor City” but he was a wiser man than a year ago and knew he was no archangel. His instincts had been right - he would take credit for that - but the boost he got from Fogarty when he grabbed his binoculars and spied on Wattle, and the tip on the Florida license plates passed on by Arthur Kosinky’s mysterious friend at the lake, where would they be right now without them? And then the two anonymous telephone calls – perfectly timed by Moe Bargani, right? – made all the difference in the end. He just put the final few pieces together.
And now he knew for certain that there would be another eruption in Parlor City as unpredictable as the past two had been. It was inevitable in the milieu that he had chosen for himself. Billy was becoming more and more comfortable with who he had become and he liked where he was in life. Whatever came next, he felt he would be able to take it in stride.
***
For Woody and Jerry, the German bond caper held their attention during the trials but soon faded away but not before Woody praised Jerry for being “prescient” – shocking his best friend with his lexicon. Priscilla continued to call them “lover boys” but there would be no more movie dates for a while. Candy Porfumo was starting to be noticed by the older boys and had no time for Jerry, who told Woody that she wasn’t worth the “investment”. As for Millie Coyle, Woody worshipped her from a distance and correctly sensed that the feeling was mutual.
What signified a return to normalcy, if any event could, was the beginning of regular Saturday morning visits to Lattimore’s Bakery, where Billy Meacham, Mr. Kosinsky and Jerry would wait as Woody finished up his paper route. There, the “boys only” conclave would sit and talk, laugh and soak in the comforting, aromatic atmosphere that only fresh-baked doughnuts can produce. It was a ritual that would continue for years and leave a fond, lasting impression on the four of them.
The End