by Mike Faricy
For J.W., Todd, and Cyril, things were about to get a little dicey. Following Val into Tampa, with the traffic picking up, they would have to pull closer. Even with two vehicles, it was going to be tricky. If Val was paying the least bit of attention, he had a damn good chance of spotting them.
“Todd,” J.W. commanded, “you stay on the damn phone from here on in. It can’t be but forty-five, fifty minutes at the most before he’ll land somewhere. You got to stay close to him. You hear? I didn’t drive all this way just to lose him in Tampa traffic. And do not let him see you!”
Val took the Jackson Boulevard exit, heading west toward the gulf. It was almost twilight. After two miles, he pulled into his parking lot that stretched as far as one could see. He parked across from 1209. The mailbox read “Mr. Val Harwood”.
It only took Val a moment to stack the two remaining boxes, one on top of the other, and carry them up the three front steps. He balanced them with his left knee as he unlocked the door and let it close behind him.
Todd had followed him around the corner. He instinctively knew Val would be turning into one of the parking lots servicing this unending length of townhomes. He slowed as much as he dared, watching Val’s red truck until he finally had to drive past.
“Shit, shit, shit, he’s just gone into the parking lot, just off Jackson Boulevard, right after the light, J.W. J.W.? J.W.! Christ, get him to answer. Where the hell is he, anyway?” Todd screamed and tossed the phone onto Cyril’s lap.
“J.W., did you hear that?” Cyril whined into the phone, looking out the rear window as they rolled past the lot entrance. “If we drive into the parking lot, he’ll spot us for sure. We’re going to turn around. J.W., where are you?”
“Oh, Jesus, Todd,” Cyril screamed as Todd, halfway into his turn, clipped the fender and taillight of a parked car.
“What? What the hell?” screamed J.W., waiting at the red light to make his left turn, listening, frustrated as his phone cut in and out, rendering any attempt at conversation useless. He could see the parking lot entrance from where he sat. He saw Todd a good hundred yards away in the Coupe de Ville completely blocking the street.
“Damn it,” J.W. shouted into his phone. “Never, ever, send boys to do a man’s job. This damned fool thing!” he screamed and tossed his cellphone onto the passenger seat.
He screeched through the red light, flying through oncoming traffic and horn blasts, barreling toward the lot where Val had parked moments before. He raced into the parking lot just in time to watch Val balance the two boxes on his knee and push the door open before quickly slipping inside.
They parked across the street from Val’s unit and remained in their respective cars another fifteen or twenty minutes. J.W. spent a good deal of that time berating Todd on the phone. Telling him he was a worthless and stupid. “And you’re going to pay every damn cent of any damage done to my Coupe de Ville. You hear me! So help me, I’ve half a mind to take it out of your hide! Right now!”
Eventually, with his anger more or less spent, he glanced over at Todd, sitting in the car next to him, no more than five feet away. “Todd, damn it, get your rear end over here. Lord, making me talk on this foolish little phone. Tell Cyril to watch and phone us if anything happens. We’ll get something to eat, find us a hotel to spend the night in.”
Cyril phoned about an hour and a half later. J.W. and Todd were only three or four minutes away, returning with tofu take-out for Cyril.
“Someone’s just arrived. He’s gone inside. What should I do? What if they leave? What if they see me?” Cyril whined.
“Well, they’re not going to see you, Cyril. Are they going anywhere? Are they next to their vehicles?” J.W. asked.
“I, I’m just not sure what they’re up to. They haven’t come out yet. Oh, I wish you were here. What should I do?”
“Cyril! I don’t give a damn what you wish for, son. Just watch them. We’re only a minute or two away. I can see the intersection from here. You just sit there and watch. If they happen to run out in the next 60 seconds and drive somewhere, you follow. Hear me?”
After a momentary pause, J.W., clearly agitated, roared into the phone, “I said, did you hear me, Cyril?”
Todd stared quietly out the window, glad that for once he wasn’t on the receiving end of J.W.’s tirade.
“Yes, J.W. Yes, I heard you but hurry, please hurry,” sniffled Cyril.
“Oh, the two of you,” J.W. snarled and looked over at Todd.
Chapter 33
Hub had been waiting the better part of the night for Val’s call that he was back in Tampa. Lately, he’d been in a frame of mind where he was half-expecting Val to tell him it was finally time to call it quits. It seemed to be getting harder and harder for Val to move items, to make any decent money. Quite honestly, with Hub’s nest egg nicely intact and growing, maybe it wasn’t the worst idea just to give it a rest for a while, take a break or maybe even shut down altogether.
After hiding behind the door from naked Shelly a while back, a break didn’t sound all that bad. Not only did Hub have a nice little nest egg. In truth, he was sitting on more money than he ever had in his life. For once, he wasn’t living from paycheck to paycheck.
He drove over as soon as Val called. Before he could say a word, Val handed him a cold beer and nine hundred dollars, cash. The payoffs had been getting leaner every week. Unbeknownst to Hub, Val’s half was twelve hundred, but that was beside the point. Two months ago, they both would have received four or five times what they had tonight.
“Val, what do you think about giving it a rest? You said it was getting tough to move stuff. Maybe we should look somewhere else besides Atlanta. Maybe we flooded the market up there, and we need to let the sales catch up. Or, maybe folks figure, since they got us over a barrel, they can lowball us.”
“You may be right, Hub. It might be a good idea to let the demand in Atlanta catch up with the inventory we got here.” Val leaned against his kitchen counter, pointing at Hub with his beer can. “But, we could still continue to build our inventory, don’t you think?”
“Build our inventory? Those folks up there in Atlanta, they don’t need to buy today. They know for a fact that you’ll be back up there in forty-eight or seventy-two hours. There’s no need for them to buy today because you’re always back in there tomorrow, begging to get the low dollar.”
“Look, Hub, we’ve been through this before. Just for safety’s sake, we’ve got to move this stuff out of Florida. Otherwise, we really risk getting caught. We think we’re running below their radar, but we don’t really know that for sure. That’s why we’re watching things right now, man, while at the same time, we work at maintaining our inventory level.”
“Val, let’s just think about it. It’s been sweet, and it can be sweet again. I just think maybe we give it a rest for a couple of weeks. That’s all I’m saying.” Hub was in Val’s refrigerator, hunting down another beer. “You got anything besides this lite stuff?”
“You’re just wigging out after the surprise at the Schmidt house. Shit happens, man.”
Hub shook his head. “No, I’ve decided I’m not going in anywhere for the next few weeks. Just a few weeks to give it a rest. I’m not saying quit. I’ll spend my days painting. I’m just suggesting that, in the meantime, we make sure things are as cool as we think they are, that’s all. Besides, that’ll give you time to look at other cities to improve our distribution channels. Maybe that would help make our customers up in Atlanta a little more willing to pay next time you’re in town.”
“How ‘bout, we revisit this tomorrow? Grab some lunch at the Crow’s Nest, around say 1:00? Sound good, Hub?”
“Yeah, okay. It’s been a while since I’ve been there. I’ll see you at 1:00 tomorrow. Good night, man, and thanks for your effort. Sorry you couldn’t get more for it. We’ll do better next time.”
“Yeah, better next time,” Val said and closed the door.
Chapter 34
Todd watched from a
cross the street. He recognized Hub’s Ford Ranger as soon as Hub began to drive away. He had forgotten about the Minnesota plates. He wouldn’t tell J.W. that little piece of information. The old man would just bitch and call him stupid again. But, the pickup confirmed in Todd’s mind it was one of the guys who had attacked him.
At J.W.’s instruction, Todd and Cyril followed the blonde guy in the pickup truck. They phoned J.W. every fifteen minutes, just to check-in.
J.W. walked through Val’s parking lot, wrote down his address and his license plate number. He actually walked up to Val’s mailbox, double-checked the name, and opened the mailbox just to see if any mail was inside.
“Well, Mr. Val Harwood,” he chuckled. “Nice to finally see where you live.”
Todd and Cyril followed Hub for the better part of twenty minutes. Cyril phoned J.W. twice, as promised. They almost lost Hub. Actually, they did lose him but fortunately found him waiting at a traffic light a half-mile further down the road. Todd pulled up right behind him, thinking he could jump out of his car and have his hands around the guy’s neck, strangle him before the light even changed. He could walk back to his car, drive off calmly, and never get caught.
But he knew strangulation at a traffic light didn’t exactly fit into J.W.’s plans, so instead, he made small talk with Cyril and thought about going back to the hotel room. He knew if he could just keep his cool, work it J.W.’s way, he would ultimately get the revenge he wanted. Just keep it cool, Toddy, he repeated to himself, just keep it cool.
They followed Hub to his apartment. Watched from a distance as he parked the truck and bounded up the outside staircase to the second floor. They watched as the light came on inside. They waited five minutes before they got out of their car and searched for something, anything, with his name on it.
“Get your ass up to that apartment door and see if his name’s on it,” Todd whispered to Cyril.
“What? You want me to—”
In case Todd’s look wasn’t incentive enough, his iron grip clamping onto Cyril’s shoulder painfully propelled him toward the staircase. “Get going. You’re wasting my time. I’ll check out his pickup,” Todd said.
Cyril timidly, cautiously, tiptoed up the stairs to Hub’s door. He was literally shaking, afraid his pounding heart could be heard inside the apartment. He looked back to Todd more than once for a reprieve. He lingered in the dark on the second floor for another minute or two before he approached the darkened doorway.
All the while, Todd stood in the parking lot, whispering invectives in a violent, raspy voice, urging Cyril on with frantic waves of his hand. Cyril finally tiptoed up to the door and, unable to find a name, he flew down the stairs and over to the car in just seconds.
“Well, what’s his name?” Todd growled.
“Now, Todd, promise you won’t get mad. I didn’t—”
“Jesus Christ,” Todd growled and slammed his fist into Cyril’s shoulder. “What the hell is his name?”
“Todd, there wasn’t a name or anything on the door. Nothing. I couldn’t see anything, and it’s dark.”
“Okay, relax, Cyril. That’s all you had to tell me. It was a simple question.” Todd climbed behind the wheel, started the car, and began to drive before Cyril had climbed halfway into the front seat. They drove back to Val’s and J.W. waiting in the dark.
Once in their motel room, J.W. said, “We’re going back to Atlanta in the morning. We’ve got more than we came for. We know where two of them live.” He immediately raised a hand to stifle Todd’s protest.
“No, don’t argue. Let’s think this through. I know you want them, dear, and you’ll have them in time. Remember, we not only want their money but all their goods as well. I’ll need to learn how they’re getting their inventory so we can take everything over. Let’s not be hasty. We’ll plan carefully. A little bit of patience now, Todd, will pay a huge dividend in just a few more weeks.”
“I’ll be patient. But when the time comes, I get the little blonde boy. He’s my toy, J.W., all mine. Promise me I’ll get him and twice-a-day workouts for me until then. I want to be at my peak, J.W. So I can pay them back ten times over.”
“Yes, Todd. Of course, you’ll have him. I only ask that you remain controlled.”
Chapter 35
After the latest in a series of unending meetings with the Tampa task force, Macey and Carlos had stopped for aspirin and Cokes. Nothing concrete was established or accomplished, again. The whole thing was beyond strange, and neither Macey nor Carlos could decide if they were dealing with a very shrewd group of operators or amateurs. Given what few facts they had, it could go either way. One thing seemed pretty clear, whoever was responsible for this rash of burglaries wasn’t moving any of the goods in Florida.
“My head is killing me,” groaned Carlos. “Those metro guys must be getting paid by the meeting. We sit there and talk and talk.” He was rubbing the bridge of his nose, keeping his eyes closed, willing the pain away. “Just sit there and talk about the same damn thing over and over again.”
“Oh, tell me about it,” Macey said. “At least you had a seat by the window. You could look out and pretend you were somewhere else. I got stuck in that damned back corner, taking notes for our office all in the name of interdepartmental cooperation.”
Carlos groaned, still holding the bridge of his nose. He opened his eyes and sat up straight. “Macey, it’s just more of the same. These so called victims aren’t even sure they should be filing a burglary report.
“Let me ask you something. If the reports we’re getting are from folks who aren’t even sure there has been a burglary, how many does that suggest aren’t even filing a report? What do you think? Another 75, maybe 85 percent? We’re dealing with the tip of the iceberg. There could be hundreds of people out there who just aren’t sure. Oh, my god in heaven, do I ever have a headache.”
He took a long pull on the straw jammed into his Coke. “And with all that, we still can’t establish any patterns, any methods. How are they fencing this stuff? God, these people. Who files a burglary report, not knowing if there was a burglary? What’s in the water these people are drinking?”
Feeling the stiffness in her neck, Macey moved her head slowly from side to side in a vain attempt to relax.
“The last hour and a half wasn’t bad enough? Now we’ve got to have our own meeting on this? God, I’d rather have my teeth drilled and my gums cleaned than spend another afternoon like this one. Maybe next week we should have a couple of drinks before we go in there, take the pain away or at least numb ourselves to the point where we don’t care. What do you think, Carlos?”
“I can assure you,” Carlos mimicked one of the reports he read, “I would never, ever, lend Mother’s silver service to anyone. Now you just go about your business apprehending these individuals.”
Something about the silver service registered with Macey, and while Carlos laughed, Macey made a mental note to review a file back at the office.
“Actually, Macey, I think my time could be better spent catching up on paperwork on my own cases. I’m thinking maybe we tell the powers that be this is just a waste of time and department manpower. What do you think about that?”
“Well,” she said, “I think you’re right. And whoever inserted us into this pain-in-the-ass situation isn’t going to care what we think. Just our being there shows our office is concerned, willing to work together, cooperate, all that crap. How shall I put it? Carlos, you and me, we’re screwed on this deal.” She sipped her Coke. “Simple as that, honey.”
“That’s not what I wanted to hear,” he said, getting off his stool, grabbing his bottle of aspirin, and walking out into the stifling heat.
Macey figured she would let Carlos just stand out there for a few minutes. She had the car keys. He could just wait in the heat, roast, and sweat while she finished her Coke. She knew he was right, and she knew she was, too. Especially the part about the two of them being screwed when it came to this assignment.
Chapter 36
Hub was content to continue painting during the day, at least a portion of the day. He was working his new system, four, four, and forty; four hours a day, four days a week, and forty weeks a year. It was a no-pressure way to pass the day. He made a few bucks and actually liked the sense of accomplishment. By the end of any day, things looked better than when he had started. He was booked out with referrals for at least a month, possibly six weeks if he took his time.
Val never stopped pushing him to ‘get back to working nights’, but Hub wasn’t in any particular hurry, and he knew Val wasn’t about to break into someone’s home.
As far as Hub could tell, Val hadn’t exactly been working overtime to find a new group of buyers. So he figured there was no point in taking any more risks until Val got his end of the deal squared away.
His little nest egg had continued to grow and was now around forty grand. He felt quite content just to roll paint onto walls and get paid at the end of every day. He was making enough to clear his rent, take Macey out for a couple of drinks, then snuggle up next to her on as many nights as he wanted.
He wasn’t all that worried, and in fact, he thought Macey working for the cops was kind of funny. They were a regular item now. Val never said anything other than a passing comment about Macey being attractive and a decent dancer. Of course, Val had no idea Macey worked in the County Investigators office. That would send him right off the deep end.
He was at Macey’s door at 7:30 on the dot. She saw him pull up and got the steaks out of the fridge. It was just what the doctor ordered after her day. The headache was still there, but it began to recede as Hub walked toward her door. Just like any other night, he’d grill the steaks. She’d have a glass of wine. Hub would stick to his beer. At about 9:15, she could count on a great back rub. By 9:45, they would be in bed. Hub would tiptoe out the door at 11:30.
