The rain suffocated the city like a heavy wet blanket that someone kept pouring more water on. The air hung with a dampness that seeped into every pore of the city. The sun had long ago given up on plowing through the clouds. It now only made half-hearted attempts at lighting the day.
I stood under the awning across the street from an old corner store, which was quickly losing the battle to keep water out of it. Through the fogged window of the bookstore behind me, I could see figures scurrying around, picking books from lower shelves in an effort to keep as dry as possible. I had no such luck. My waterlogged raincoat had ceased keeping me dry, but I wrapped it tightly around me anyway.
The restaurant door between the corner store and the pawnshop next to it was the real focus of my attention. Jake Newcome would soon be exiting his restaurant and walking the two blocks to the same pool hall he’d been the other night.
I had no trouble spotting him. Even in the pouring rain, he still managed to look neat and put together. His hat and coat looked sharp even in the pouring rain.
He stood on the door stoop for a minute like he was gathering the courage to venture into the rain again.
From where I stood across the street, I could imagine him swearing to himself as he headed for the corner store. As he ducked into the store, I crossed the street and stood by the restaurant door where he had exited. Within a few minutes, he came out of the store with a paper bag shoved into one pocket of his overcoat and headed down the street.
I stayed at a safe distance behind him. At the corner, he crossed the street to the next block. The rain had driven away any pedestrians who didn’t have to be on the streets. It was easy to keep him in sight without getting too close.
While we walked in the rain, I cast my mind back to a day ago. I was in my favorite bar, nursing a cold beer. The door jungled as it opened and closed. I didn’t pay attention to the noise until a shadow blocked the dim light coming through the front window. I looked up to see Otis Manning standing next to me at the bar.
Out of habit, I glared at him. “What do you want?” I gulped more beer.
“Man, I’m really sorry.” He tried to sound apologetic, but I knew better.
“Yeah, right. You’ll be sorry if Jake finds you.” His mustache twitched as he remembered how mean Jake was.
“Look, man, you gotta hide me.”
“And have Jake after me, too? No Thanks. You fucked up, you deal with it.”
I stared at what was left of my beer, trying to ignore him. He shrugged his shoulders and started to walk away.
“Okay, Otis. Where is it?” I turned to face him.
“Where is what?”
“The case. Stupid. Where is it?”
“Oh, that. I hid it.”
You hid the case?” He nodded his head yes vigorously.
He stepped close to me. “Shhh, not so loud.”
“You know what he’d do to you for a thousand dollars, much less that case?” He swallowed hard and nodded his head yes.
“Okay, let’s get out of here.” I tossed a couple of bucks on the bar as I got up.
I followed him outside. The midmorning sun came down the street, reflecting off the windows of the parked cars, blinding me and reminding me why I shouldn’t drink in the morning. The sidewalks were empty, but that didn’t stop us from constantly checking to see if anyone was following us. My car was parked about halfway down the block, so we didn’t have far to go.
The car doors slammed, sending a muffled echo through the empty streets. No one appeared to notice. As I started the car, a sudden chill ran up and down my neck, causing me to hesitate while my body caught up with itself.
The car roared to life as I pumped on the gas. Once we were well away from the bar and Jake and his reach, I started to breathe again. Sooner or later, probably sooner, Jake would start looking for Otis and, by extension, me. We had been seen leaving the bar together. Jake would decide I knew what he did with the bag since I was with Otis, which I didn’t. But you couldn’t tell Jake anything, once he made up his mind, which made me in this just as deep as Otis.
A half-hour later, I pulled into a deserted parking lot. The hotel next to it had closed several years ago. A few abandoned or burned-out cars sat scattered about among the weeds that had pushed through the cracks in the cement and taken over most of the lot.
Shutting down the car, I turned in the seat to face Otis.
“What the hell did you do?” I knew that Otis had found something he never should have, and worse yet, he had taken it. “Tell me exactly what happened, and don’t leave anything out. And don’t lie to me.” My voice was much calmer than I felt inside.
I glared at him. He squirmed in the seat, looking past me out the window, not wanting to look directly at me. His lips twitch slightly, causing his mustache to move in odd ways. I waited for his answer.
~~~
Redd Robinson glared at me. I had to make sure he believed me. A lot was riding on him accepting my story. I swallowed hard and squirmed in my seat, looking out the window to keep from looking at him. At that moment, I wanted a drink more than anything. My throat was dry, and my mouth didn’t want to work right. Eventually, I looked kinda sideways at Redd and got some words out.
“Well, you see, it was like this. I was at the pool hall, over on tenth, you know Lucky Balls?” Redd nodded yes.
“Jake came in with a couple of his guys—you know, the brutes who follow him around? They played pool for quite a while, mostly letting Jake win. After a while, another guy comes in. I was at a corner table with Frankie, and he was playing, so I watched what was going on. This guy comes in carrying a case. You know, like a bag or a leather bag of some kind.”
I took some time trying to remember and catch my breath. I’d been talking so fast I forgot to breathe. Redd had shifted back in his seat and seemed to have relaxed a little once I started talking. By now, I was starting to remember more, but I was still dying for a drink.
“So, Jake and this other guy disappear into the back room. His two guys wait in the pool hall. They come back out a few minutes later and shake hands. Everyone seems happy from the way they act.”
“Okay then, how’d you get in trouble with Jake?”
“After everyone left, I went to find the piss room, and there was a case lying by the door to the office. I picked it up, and, hell, I don’t know, I took off with it. It was heavy, so I figured there must have been something valuable in it. I heard later that they came back looking for the case. I’d been seen going back there right after they left, and not again. I guess they figured I took it, which I did.”
I was out of breath again. My breathing and heart raced, and I tried to calm down and breathe. I was getting good at it.
***
Otis looked like he was going to have a heart attack in front of me. For a second, it occurred to me it might be best for all concerned if he died of a heart attack, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Once he started to talk, the story rushed out of him like a waterfall. He only stopped once to catch his breath when I questioned him. I let him talk, marveling at the level of stupidity he’d achieved when he said he’d taken the case.
Straightening up in the seat behind the wheel, I looked at him. “Okay, what’s in the case? And where is it?” He leaned back into the seat as I started the car.
“Papers. From what I could tell, it looked like a lot of legal stuff. Jake’s name was on a lot of them, and I recognized some other names. All legal stuff, like deeds or something, I don’t know that shit. It’s all Greek to me.”
“You may wish it were before this done. Where is it?” I pulled into traffic and headed towards downtown. Jake’s stomping grounds were fast approaching. As soon as we arrived, someone would get word to him, and he’d be after us.
“No, don’t go down there,” Otis pleaded once he realized where we were. I pulled over and turned to look at him directly.
“We’re both in a world of shit because of your stupidity, both in taking that case in the first place, then coming to see me in public. Jake will not only want the case and its papers back but to make an example of us. So, tell me exactly where the case is, or I will drop you off in the middle of his patch, and I’ll leave the city forever.”
Otis nervously looked out the windows, even twisted round to look out the rear window.
“Right now, no one cares who we are....” I let it tail off. The implication is that Jake’s men would find him if we went further into his territory.
His mustache twitched again as he tried to find his voice. “Over on seventy-second, the brownstones. You know the ones that are boarded up?” I nodded and started the car, turning left at the next block and heading in that direction.
“I hid the case in a back room, under some old planks and a pile of old clothes.”
“You remember which building and floor?” He nodded yes, but the expression on his face didn’t instill confidence.
It didn’t take long to find the old brownstones that had once been the pride of the city. Now, only the hulls of buildings used for party pads, drug hangouts, and anything you wouldn’t do at home. There had been numerous dead bodies found there over the years. It was not a nice place to be, even in broad daylight.
He pointed out which building the case was in. I parked in front of it. I followed him into the alley between two buildings. The stench of old trash and rodents living on it was almost unbearable. He knew exactly where the old door had been pried open and pushed it closed again. Without a second glance, he shoved it and led the way into what had been a hall but now piled with debris from the decaying building falling in on itself and the remains of the transients who had used it over the years.
I wasn’t in any hurry to follow him into the building, but I didn’t want to lose sight of him. The narrow path led to a set of stairs, which looked almost usable. Otis barely noticed as he quickly mounted the stairs, and in a minute, he was on the second floor. I ran to catch up with him.
On the second-floor landing, he paused for a minute, looking around. Spotting an open door, he pushed his way through and straight for a pile of clothes and debris on the far side of the room. I didn’t enter the room for more than a foot or so. I watched him quickly remove the clothes, boards, and fallen plaster pile. He stood and turned toward me and held up a large leather bag.
“Okay, good, let’s get out of here.” It took more minutes than I liked to get back to the side door and into daylight.
I hoped no one noticed us as I pulled out onto the street. Otis started to open the bag while I drove. I told him not to but to throw it in the back seat and pretend it wasn’t there, which he did.
Returning from the brownstone to the other side of town took far too long. I had my eyes on the rear-view mirror the entire time, but as near as I could tell, we weren’t being followed.
We drove around for about half an hour. Part of me wanted to stop and look inside the case now, but I decided we needed to be far away from prying eyes. The only stop we made was at a small convenience store, where I got gas and a couple of cold drinks and snacks.
I finally settled on an abandoned warehouse down on the waterfront. I figured there would be no one around, much less anyone who could recognize us. Parking the car in the shade of the building, I shut it down and opened the windows to let the breeze off the water come in.
I turned to face Otis. “Okay, let’s have it.”
He reached across the back of the seat, fumbling around a little. He finally got hold of the case and pulled it onto the front seat. The bag had a top flap-style lock snap that held it closed. The case was leather and well-worn, with scuff marks along all the bottom edges and marks from being opened thousands of times. To my surprise, it wasn’t locked and opened right up. I couldn’t read the faded initials stamped into the flap just above the hold-down strap in this light.
I ignored Otis and handed him another cold drink to keep him busy while I looked into the case. Inside was a large stack of papers neatly slid into a back pocket, and several file folders lay in the main section—a couple of small pocket notebooks in the bottom of the bag.
Glancing at the papers in the back of the case told me they were legal papers without taking them out, as they were longer than regular paper. The cream color and their heaviness confirmed my suspicions when I pulled them out.
The top paper was a cover sheet with the lawyer’s name and address printed neatly across the top, along with several other names printed below the lawyers. In the center of the paper, in a fancy scrollwork lettering, was the word Deed. Flipping the pages, I learned it was the deed for the largest water reservoir in the county. I had always assumed it was owned by the county or state, not a private individual.
The rest of the papers were proposals for various projects connected with the land surrounding the water. I recognized Jake’s name on some of the project proposals and several other politicians and big business owners in the county. Some of the council members had co-signed several of the projects.
No wonder Jake wanted this case back. Not to mention whoever it belonged to. I had to assume he was in hot water with the people involved with the deals in the case. I stuffed the papers back into the case as neatly as I could and in the same order as I found them. I reached for my cold drink and thought for several minutes. There were several ways to play this, but I wanted to know more first.
The next thing to do was figure out what to do with Otis. I couldn’t stash him anywhere. It had to be somewhere Jake wouldn’t look, at least not immediately.
I knew a guy who wouldn’t ask questions. I threw the car in gear and headed out.
“Where we going?”
“Shut the fuck up! I’m going to try to save your stupid ass.” He sank back onto his seat, leaning against the door.
An hour later, I pulled into a tree-lined driveway behind big gates. Hedges growing along the fence hid property behind it. Otis perked up when we rolled up the driveway.
“Stay,” I told him as I got out.
I barely got around the front of the car before the front door opened. A tall, lean man came down the steps to greet me. His hands were out to shake my mine by the time he reached me. He led me into the house.
“Redd, we thought you left town ages ago.”
“Sometimes I wish I had.”
He nodded towards the car. “So, another lost soul to save?”
“No, a stupid idiot who got me into a jam with Jake.”
“Enough said. I don’t want to know any more than I need.” His hands went up to stop me from saying any more as he said it.
“His name is Otis Manning, and he’s annoying and stupid, but I need him alive for the foreseeable future.”
“Understood. Bring him in.”
I opened the car door. “Come.” He got out of the car and followed me reluctantly. Up close in the right light, one could tell he was older than he looked.
“Otis Manning, meet Ronald. You do everything he says. Don’t even fart without permission.”
“Ronald, you have my permission to do whatever it takes to keep him in line. No TV, no radio, newspapers, no phones. You know the drill.”
Ronald nodded yes as he shook my hand, leading me back to the front door.
“Good luck. Keep safe.” I nodded yes as I went out the door.
Back in the car, I sat for a minute. Otis was in for a surprise when he met Elisabeth. I grinned at the thought as I started the car.
It was dark as I reached town. I couldn’t return to my place, so I headed for a cheap motel on the other side of town. It was starting to rain when I reached the motel.
The clerk behind the counter in the main office looked bored out of his mind. The TV was playing with the sound down in the background. A pile of pulp magazines and books lay on the desk behind the counter. The top one was lying open. I recognized the cover as Mickey Spillane’s “My Gun is Quick,” the latest Mike Hammer novel.
I paid for my room and moved my car to the spot in front of my door. The room was small but neat. Once I checked the room, I headed back to the office. The rain continued falling hard, and I pulled my jacket around me. After dragging the kid from the world of Mike Hammer, I asked about the nearest place to eat. He pointed back the way I had come, telling me the closest restaurant was two blocks away, just off the new expressway. I thanked him and headed back to the car.
The windshield wipers worked hard to keep enough rain off the window that I could see where I was going. Thankfully, the neon sign glittered in the rain. Parking as near the door as I could, I dashed into the restaurant.
The restaurant, with chandeliers and linen tablecloths, was fancier than I expected. However, I was hungry, so this would do. The hostess greeted me and took me to a table in the back. I ordered coffee, which was excellent and strong. I ordered a twelve-ounce steak, a baked potato, and other fixings.
I took my time to enjoy the steak and potato. It was the best meal I’d had in a long time. I didn’t know when I would get to eat like that again with all that was going on. After polishing off a second cup of coffee, I paid the bill and returned to the motel, exhausted and needing a hot shower and sleep.
~~~
I rented the room for a week, but when I left that morning, I took what little I had with me. My first stop was coffee and food. Then I found a Goodwill store to pick up some clothes. There was no way I could go home to get any. Afterward, I needed someplace to look at the papers and figure out exactly what was going on. The rain was still going back and forth between drizzle and pouring.
As I drove past the library, I realized there wasn’t a better place to hole up and go through the papers in the bag. Doubling around the block, I parked as close to the door as possible.
At the front desk, I asked the clerk if there was somewhere I could do some research without being disturbed. She led me to one of the small study rooms they had for students. I pulled the blinds on the windows, settled in, and started by sorting all the papers according to either the type or the names on them. In the bottom of the bag, I found a neatly wrapped package that contained at least two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. No wonder Jake Newman wanted his bag back.
Porter Construction was listed as the construction company on most project proposals and was known for its Mob connections. I risked leaving everything in the room while I checked in the city reference section of the library. I found a book listing all the incorporated businesses in the city. I learned that Newman Industries, wholly owned by Jake Newman, was listed as a major stockholder, and he served as an officer at Porter Construction.
The plan was clear to me now. The money came from the Mob as their buy-in on the projects. So I not only had Jake and his cronies looking for me, but also the Mob, who wanted their money back. I was in more trouble than I thought I was.
I got paper and pens from the front desk and wrote out the scheme as best I could understand it, along with all the names of the players and any dates listed for the project proposals. The next question was how to get out of this mess. I could just give the case and papers and money back to Jake, but nothing was stopping him from killing both of us. Unless... I knew what to do.
The clerk at the front desk directed me to the copy machine. I gave her what money I had to pay for the copies and asked for privacy. It took several hours of fussing and copying. Eventually, I had three copies of every paper in the case. I even copied the money stacks.
I packed everything into the bag, which I could barely close, and left the library.
Hopefully, I had what I needed to stay alive.
The rain was still pouring when I left the library. By now, the streets were starting to flood. I hadn’t eaten since early morning, stopped for a burger, and returned to my room—time to decide what to do the next day.
~~~
The following day, I stopped at the post office and got two large mailers for papers. Once I had both packages ready, I made the call. I told Jake I had gotten the case from Otis and that he had to deal with me now. I also told him that the money was in the case. That got his attention, and he agreed to meet with me.
I parked near the restaurant he owned and instructed him to walk to the pool hall where he had been the other night. I would be in the back room. He wasn’t happy about walking in the rain, but I pushed him, and he gave in.
I hurried and was able to slip in the back door just as he went in the front door.
My raincoat was barely off when He appeared in the back room.
“Redd.” He stood in the doorway.
“Jake.”
“You have the bag?” I nodded yes and put it on the table between us.
“Good, can I have it?”
“Not yet. I also have this.” I plopped one of the packages down next to the bag.
“What’s that?”
I turned it slightly so he could see the mailing address was the US Attorney’s office. “My insurance that you and your money friends won’t come after Otis and me.”
He looked back and forth between the bag and the package and at me.
“Why don’t I kill you now?”
“Because this one is going into a safety deposit box. The second one is with some friends of mine. They have orders to mail it if something happens to either Otis or me.” I let it lie there.
“How many copies are there?”
“Just the two. But you can never be sure there isn’t another one floating around, waiting to surface. It’s a good scam you have going. Get the state to approve all the building projects, and Porter Construction will win all the bids. But they use substandard materials, cut corners, buy off inspectors, and profit the difference besides the original profit from the jobs. The money in here is the Mob’s buy-in to the projects. It is probably seed money to get things going, file the paperwork and fees, etc., and maybe even grease a few hands along the way. When you lost the case and the money, you were in it up to your ears with them, and you know how they don’t like things to go wrong. So you don’t have a choice. Deal with me and call everyone off Otis and me, and you get your papers and money back, or…” I let the possibility of not getting the case back come to him.
He didn’t try to tell me otherwise. I pushed him.
“So you and your local Mob friends aren’t rich enough off other people’s miseries? You have to put people’s lives in danger to make a few more bucks?”
“Well, It wasn’t my idea.”
“But you went along with it?”
“Look, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t do it.”
“But?”
“I owe some people some serious money.”
“The Mob? He nodded yes. “And this is your way out from under them?” He nodded yes again.
“You know you’re never out from under them until you die.” I paused for a minute and then brought the conversation to the matter at hand. “My deal?”
“Okay, you got a deal. You and Otis are in the clear. I’ll tell everyone to lay off you.”
“You make sure they understand I’m not kidding. If something happens to either of us, these papers will get mailed one way or the other.”
I handed him the bag, and he opened it and looked inside. Satisfied that everything was still there, he closed it.
“You’re dammed lucky I didn’t keep the money. They would have taken it out of you, one way or the other.” He nodded yes.
“We’re done?”
“We’re done,” I confirmed. He took the bag and headed for the front section of the pool hall.
He turned to face me at the door. “You know Otis is an idiot and stupid.”
I nodded yes.
“And he’s also a kleptomaniac. You know how he can’t help taking stuff. This time, he took the wrong thing, and it almost cost him his life.”
“Maybe this will teach him.” Jake pushed the door open and disappeared in the rain.
“I doubt it,” I said to myself.
I leaned against the nearest wall, willing myself to breathe again.
I checked out of the motel and headed to collect Otis from Raymond. The sky was dark and threatening, and rain continued to fall. It was slow going as the streets were flooded and almost impassable in some areas, but I made it and managed to
I finally had to tell Otis to shut the hell up on the drive back. His constant questions and nervous chatter made it that much harder to drive. It was late when I reached my destination—the Federal Court House.
We entered through the back entrance of the court and took the back stairs to the offices of the Federal prosecutor and his investigators. I left Otis in the waiting room where a police officer was stationed and entered the prosecutor Samual Watson’s office.
“Sam.” We shook hands, and I laid my bag on the desk.
“Redd, how did it go?”
“Pretty much as expected. I have the tapes and other documents here.”
I handed him a small reel-to-reel recorder and the mike that was attached to it. The documents included the surveillance report on the pool hall and pictures of the man Jake met that night.
To my surprise, the door opened, and Otis Manning walked it, grinning.
Watson shook his hand. “You can retire Otis Manning.” He turned to me and said, “Redd, meet our other undercover officer, FBI Special Agent Lewis Chambers.
“Thanks, I was getting real tired of playing an idiot for the whole town.” He turned to me. “Sorry, Redd, I was undercover months before you arrived because of the insurance investigation. Sam thought it best if you didn’t know.”
Watson nodded. “You did what was needed. To get into the world of Jake Newman and generally be around so much that didn’t pay attention to you. The klepto bit was genius. It gave you a bit of cover to steal, blaming it on your “problem.” So, what happened that night?”
“I’d been following Jake for a while. I knew he usually went to the pool hall when he wanted to do stuff off the records. So, I made sure I was there every evening when he usually showed up if he was going to.
I also had been watching that guy who worked for the mayor and knew he was forever forgetting stuff when he left. I don't know how he managed not to get fired. I saw him come in and meet Jake, so I knew something was up. And I waited, and sure enough, he came out without his bag. I figured it was my only chance to discover what they were doing. I risked getting caught and took the case. The rest, you know. I made sure to get Redd tied to me in public so that Jake would be looking for both of us. Redd played out the whole scenario perfectly to get to the point where he could tape him admitting what he was doing.”
I handed the files to Watson. “Here are the sets of copies.”
The DA played the tape of Jake and me. “That's enough, along with Agent Chambers's testimony, to get the judge to issue a warrant. We'll secure the original copies once we have the warrant to search his company and financials and the Porter Construction company.”
Chambers blew out a tired breath. “I think it’s time for Otis Manning to exit stage left. It could be dangerous being Otis around here for a while.”
We shook hands, and Otis/Agent Lewis Chambers left. I don’t know where they took him, but it was out of town and far away.
Epilogue
The clouds broke, and the rain finely cleared the next day, but it took the city over a week to dry out and the streets to get back to normal. Meanwhile, Jake Newcom and a mayoral aide, Lester Blake, were arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and attempts to cheat the city, state, and federal government out of millions of dollars in overrun cost and other bogus fees and bills for the projects that had submitted to the city council. My investigation into fraudulent insurance policies and claims paralleled the Feds’ case, which was why they left me in the dark about Otis. As they dug deeper into Jake’s business, more charges were added, and a grand jury indicted him.
Six months later, in jail awaiting trial, an attempt was made on both Jake and Lester Blake’s lives. Blake struck a deal with the Feds and testified against Jake and the Mob players involved in return for immunity from prosecution for any of the crimes he’d done at the time and witness protection.
After spending six months as Redd Robinson, low life, and generally a no-good loafer and drinker, I returned to my wife, kids, and grandkids in Florida and life as a federal insurance investigator. Other than testifying, I hoped the Federal government wouldn’t need Redd’s services again for a long time.
I stood under the awning across the street from an old corner store, which was quickly losing the battle to keep water out of it. Through the fogged window of the bookstore behind me, I could see figures scurrying around, picking books from lower shelves in an effort to keep as dry as possible. I had no such luck. My waterlogged raincoat had ceased keeping me dry, but I wrapped it tightly around me anyway.
The restaurant door between the corner store and the pawnshop next to it was the real focus of my attention. Jake Newcome would soon be exiting his restaurant and walking the two blocks to the same pool hall he’d been the other night.
I had no trouble spotting him. Even in the pouring rain, he still managed to look neat and put together. His hat and coat looked sharp even in the pouring rain.
He stood on the door stoop for a minute like he was gathering the courage to venture into the rain again.
From where I stood across the street, I could imagine him swearing to himself as he headed for the corner store. As he ducked into the store, I crossed the street and stood by the restaurant door where he had exited. Within a few minutes, he came out of the store with a paper bag shoved into one pocket of his overcoat and headed down the street.
I stayed at a safe distance behind him. At the corner, he crossed the street to the next block. The rain had driven away any pedestrians who didn’t have to be on the streets. It was easy to keep him in sight without getting too close.
While we walked in the rain, I cast my mind back to a day ago. I was in my favorite bar, nursing a cold beer. The door jungled as it opened and closed. I didn’t pay attention to the noise until a shadow blocked the dim light coming through the front window. I looked up to see Otis Manning standing next to me at the bar.
Out of habit, I glared at him. “What do you want?” I gulped more beer.
“Man, I’m really sorry.” He tried to sound apologetic, but I knew better.
“Yeah, right. You’ll be sorry if Jake finds you.” His mustache twitched as he remembered how mean Jake was.
“Look, man, you gotta hide me.”
“And have Jake after me, too? No Thanks. You fucked up, you deal with it.”
I stared at what was left of my beer, trying to ignore him. He shrugged his shoulders and started to walk away.
“Okay, Otis. Where is it?” I turned to face him.
“Where is what?”
“The case. Stupid. Where is it?”
“Oh, that. I hid it.”
You hid the case?” He nodded his head yes vigorously.
He stepped close to me. “Shhh, not so loud.”
“You know what he’d do to you for a thousand dollars, much less that case?” He swallowed hard and nodded his head yes.
“Okay, let’s get out of here.” I tossed a couple of bucks on the bar as I got up.
I followed him outside. The midmorning sun came down the street, reflecting off the windows of the parked cars, blinding me and reminding me why I shouldn’t drink in the morning. The sidewalks were empty, but that didn’t stop us from constantly checking to see if anyone was following us. My car was parked about halfway down the block, so we didn’t have far to go.
The car doors slammed, sending a muffled echo through the empty streets. No one appeared to notice. As I started the car, a sudden chill ran up and down my neck, causing me to hesitate while my body caught up with itself.
The car roared to life as I pumped on the gas. Once we were well away from the bar and Jake and his reach, I started to breathe again. Sooner or later, probably sooner, Jake would start looking for Otis and, by extension, me. We had been seen leaving the bar together. Jake would decide I knew what he did with the bag since I was with Otis, which I didn’t. But you couldn’t tell Jake anything, once he made up his mind, which made me in this just as deep as Otis.
A half-hour later, I pulled into a deserted parking lot. The hotel next to it had closed several years ago. A few abandoned or burned-out cars sat scattered about among the weeds that had pushed through the cracks in the cement and taken over most of the lot.
Shutting down the car, I turned in the seat to face Otis.
“What the hell did you do?” I knew that Otis had found something he never should have, and worse yet, he had taken it. “Tell me exactly what happened, and don’t leave anything out. And don’t lie to me.” My voice was much calmer than I felt inside.
I glared at him. He squirmed in the seat, looking past me out the window, not wanting to look directly at me. His lips twitch slightly, causing his mustache to move in odd ways. I waited for his answer.
~~~
Redd Robinson glared at me. I had to make sure he believed me. A lot was riding on him accepting my story. I swallowed hard and squirmed in my seat, looking out the window to keep from looking at him. At that moment, I wanted a drink more than anything. My throat was dry, and my mouth didn’t want to work right. Eventually, I looked kinda sideways at Redd and got some words out.
“Well, you see, it was like this. I was at the pool hall, over on tenth, you know Lucky Balls?” Redd nodded yes.
“Jake came in with a couple of his guys—you know, the brutes who follow him around? They played pool for quite a while, mostly letting Jake win. After a while, another guy comes in. I was at a corner table with Frankie, and he was playing, so I watched what was going on. This guy comes in carrying a case. You know, like a bag or a leather bag of some kind.”
I took some time trying to remember and catch my breath. I’d been talking so fast I forgot to breathe. Redd had shifted back in his seat and seemed to have relaxed a little once I started talking. By now, I was starting to remember more, but I was still dying for a drink.
“So, Jake and this other guy disappear into the back room. His two guys wait in the pool hall. They come back out a few minutes later and shake hands. Everyone seems happy from the way they act.”
“Okay then, how’d you get in trouble with Jake?”
“After everyone left, I went to find the piss room, and there was a case lying by the door to the office. I picked it up, and, hell, I don’t know, I took off with it. It was heavy, so I figured there must have been something valuable in it. I heard later that they came back looking for the case. I’d been seen going back there right after they left, and not again. I guess they figured I took it, which I did.”
I was out of breath again. My breathing and heart raced, and I tried to calm down and breathe. I was getting good at it.
***
Otis looked like he was going to have a heart attack in front of me. For a second, it occurred to me it might be best for all concerned if he died of a heart attack, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Once he started to talk, the story rushed out of him like a waterfall. He only stopped once to catch his breath when I questioned him. I let him talk, marveling at the level of stupidity he’d achieved when he said he’d taken the case.
Straightening up in the seat behind the wheel, I looked at him. “Okay, what’s in the case? And where is it?” He leaned back into the seat as I started the car.
“Papers. From what I could tell, it looked like a lot of legal stuff. Jake’s name was on a lot of them, and I recognized some other names. All legal stuff, like deeds or something, I don’t know that shit. It’s all Greek to me.”
“You may wish it were before this done. Where is it?” I pulled into traffic and headed towards downtown. Jake’s stomping grounds were fast approaching. As soon as we arrived, someone would get word to him, and he’d be after us.
“No, don’t go down there,” Otis pleaded once he realized where we were. I pulled over and turned to look at him directly.
“We’re both in a world of shit because of your stupidity, both in taking that case in the first place, then coming to see me in public. Jake will not only want the case and its papers back but to make an example of us. So, tell me exactly where the case is, or I will drop you off in the middle of his patch, and I’ll leave the city forever.”
Otis nervously looked out the windows, even twisted round to look out the rear window.
“Right now, no one cares who we are....” I let it tail off. The implication is that Jake’s men would find him if we went further into his territory.
His mustache twitched again as he tried to find his voice. “Over on seventy-second, the brownstones. You know the ones that are boarded up?” I nodded and started the car, turning left at the next block and heading in that direction.
“I hid the case in a back room, under some old planks and a pile of old clothes.”
“You remember which building and floor?” He nodded yes, but the expression on his face didn’t instill confidence.
It didn’t take long to find the old brownstones that had once been the pride of the city. Now, only the hulls of buildings used for party pads, drug hangouts, and anything you wouldn’t do at home. There had been numerous dead bodies found there over the years. It was not a nice place to be, even in broad daylight.
He pointed out which building the case was in. I parked in front of it. I followed him into the alley between two buildings. The stench of old trash and rodents living on it was almost unbearable. He knew exactly where the old door had been pried open and pushed it closed again. Without a second glance, he shoved it and led the way into what had been a hall but now piled with debris from the decaying building falling in on itself and the remains of the transients who had used it over the years.
I wasn’t in any hurry to follow him into the building, but I didn’t want to lose sight of him. The narrow path led to a set of stairs, which looked almost usable. Otis barely noticed as he quickly mounted the stairs, and in a minute, he was on the second floor. I ran to catch up with him.
On the second-floor landing, he paused for a minute, looking around. Spotting an open door, he pushed his way through and straight for a pile of clothes and debris on the far side of the room. I didn’t enter the room for more than a foot or so. I watched him quickly remove the clothes, boards, and fallen plaster pile. He stood and turned toward me and held up a large leather bag.
“Okay, good, let’s get out of here.” It took more minutes than I liked to get back to the side door and into daylight.
I hoped no one noticed us as I pulled out onto the street. Otis started to open the bag while I drove. I told him not to but to throw it in the back seat and pretend it wasn’t there, which he did.
Returning from the brownstone to the other side of town took far too long. I had my eyes on the rear-view mirror the entire time, but as near as I could tell, we weren’t being followed.
We drove around for about half an hour. Part of me wanted to stop and look inside the case now, but I decided we needed to be far away from prying eyes. The only stop we made was at a small convenience store, where I got gas and a couple of cold drinks and snacks.
I finally settled on an abandoned warehouse down on the waterfront. I figured there would be no one around, much less anyone who could recognize us. Parking the car in the shade of the building, I shut it down and opened the windows to let the breeze off the water come in.
I turned to face Otis. “Okay, let’s have it.”
He reached across the back of the seat, fumbling around a little. He finally got hold of the case and pulled it onto the front seat. The bag had a top flap-style lock snap that held it closed. The case was leather and well-worn, with scuff marks along all the bottom edges and marks from being opened thousands of times. To my surprise, it wasn’t locked and opened right up. I couldn’t read the faded initials stamped into the flap just above the hold-down strap in this light.
I ignored Otis and handed him another cold drink to keep him busy while I looked into the case. Inside was a large stack of papers neatly slid into a back pocket, and several file folders lay in the main section—a couple of small pocket notebooks in the bottom of the bag.
Glancing at the papers in the back of the case told me they were legal papers without taking them out, as they were longer than regular paper. The cream color and their heaviness confirmed my suspicions when I pulled them out.
The top paper was a cover sheet with the lawyer’s name and address printed neatly across the top, along with several other names printed below the lawyers. In the center of the paper, in a fancy scrollwork lettering, was the word Deed. Flipping the pages, I learned it was the deed for the largest water reservoir in the county. I had always assumed it was owned by the county or state, not a private individual.
The rest of the papers were proposals for various projects connected with the land surrounding the water. I recognized Jake’s name on some of the project proposals and several other politicians and big business owners in the county. Some of the council members had co-signed several of the projects.
No wonder Jake wanted this case back. Not to mention whoever it belonged to. I had to assume he was in hot water with the people involved with the deals in the case. I stuffed the papers back into the case as neatly as I could and in the same order as I found them. I reached for my cold drink and thought for several minutes. There were several ways to play this, but I wanted to know more first.
The next thing to do was figure out what to do with Otis. I couldn’t stash him anywhere. It had to be somewhere Jake wouldn’t look, at least not immediately.
I knew a guy who wouldn’t ask questions. I threw the car in gear and headed out.
“Where we going?”
“Shut the fuck up! I’m going to try to save your stupid ass.” He sank back onto his seat, leaning against the door.
An hour later, I pulled into a tree-lined driveway behind big gates. Hedges growing along the fence hid property behind it. Otis perked up when we rolled up the driveway.
“Stay,” I told him as I got out.
I barely got around the front of the car before the front door opened. A tall, lean man came down the steps to greet me. His hands were out to shake my mine by the time he reached me. He led me into the house.
“Redd, we thought you left town ages ago.”
“Sometimes I wish I had.”
He nodded towards the car. “So, another lost soul to save?”
“No, a stupid idiot who got me into a jam with Jake.”
“Enough said. I don’t want to know any more than I need.” His hands went up to stop me from saying any more as he said it.
“His name is Otis Manning, and he’s annoying and stupid, but I need him alive for the foreseeable future.”
“Understood. Bring him in.”
I opened the car door. “Come.” He got out of the car and followed me reluctantly. Up close in the right light, one could tell he was older than he looked.
“Otis Manning, meet Ronald. You do everything he says. Don’t even fart without permission.”
“Ronald, you have my permission to do whatever it takes to keep him in line. No TV, no radio, newspapers, no phones. You know the drill.”
Ronald nodded yes as he shook my hand, leading me back to the front door.
“Good luck. Keep safe.” I nodded yes as I went out the door.
Back in the car, I sat for a minute. Otis was in for a surprise when he met Elisabeth. I grinned at the thought as I started the car.
It was dark as I reached town. I couldn’t return to my place, so I headed for a cheap motel on the other side of town. It was starting to rain when I reached the motel.
The clerk behind the counter in the main office looked bored out of his mind. The TV was playing with the sound down in the background. A pile of pulp magazines and books lay on the desk behind the counter. The top one was lying open. I recognized the cover as Mickey Spillane’s “My Gun is Quick,” the latest Mike Hammer novel.
I paid for my room and moved my car to the spot in front of my door. The room was small but neat. Once I checked the room, I headed back to the office. The rain continued falling hard, and I pulled my jacket around me. After dragging the kid from the world of Mike Hammer, I asked about the nearest place to eat. He pointed back the way I had come, telling me the closest restaurant was two blocks away, just off the new expressway. I thanked him and headed back to the car.
The windshield wipers worked hard to keep enough rain off the window that I could see where I was going. Thankfully, the neon sign glittered in the rain. Parking as near the door as I could, I dashed into the restaurant.
The restaurant, with chandeliers and linen tablecloths, was fancier than I expected. However, I was hungry, so this would do. The hostess greeted me and took me to a table in the back. I ordered coffee, which was excellent and strong. I ordered a twelve-ounce steak, a baked potato, and other fixings.
I took my time to enjoy the steak and potato. It was the best meal I’d had in a long time. I didn’t know when I would get to eat like that again with all that was going on. After polishing off a second cup of coffee, I paid the bill and returned to the motel, exhausted and needing a hot shower and sleep.
~~~
I rented the room for a week, but when I left that morning, I took what little I had with me. My first stop was coffee and food. Then I found a Goodwill store to pick up some clothes. There was no way I could go home to get any. Afterward, I needed someplace to look at the papers and figure out exactly what was going on. The rain was still going back and forth between drizzle and pouring.
As I drove past the library, I realized there wasn’t a better place to hole up and go through the papers in the bag. Doubling around the block, I parked as close to the door as possible.
At the front desk, I asked the clerk if there was somewhere I could do some research without being disturbed. She led me to one of the small study rooms they had for students. I pulled the blinds on the windows, settled in, and started by sorting all the papers according to either the type or the names on them. In the bottom of the bag, I found a neatly wrapped package that contained at least two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. No wonder Jake Newman wanted his bag back.
Porter Construction was listed as the construction company on most project proposals and was known for its Mob connections. I risked leaving everything in the room while I checked in the city reference section of the library. I found a book listing all the incorporated businesses in the city. I learned that Newman Industries, wholly owned by Jake Newman, was listed as a major stockholder, and he served as an officer at Porter Construction.
The plan was clear to me now. The money came from the Mob as their buy-in on the projects. So I not only had Jake and his cronies looking for me, but also the Mob, who wanted their money back. I was in more trouble than I thought I was.
I got paper and pens from the front desk and wrote out the scheme as best I could understand it, along with all the names of the players and any dates listed for the project proposals. The next question was how to get out of this mess. I could just give the case and papers and money back to Jake, but nothing was stopping him from killing both of us. Unless... I knew what to do.
The clerk at the front desk directed me to the copy machine. I gave her what money I had to pay for the copies and asked for privacy. It took several hours of fussing and copying. Eventually, I had three copies of every paper in the case. I even copied the money stacks.
I packed everything into the bag, which I could barely close, and left the library.
Hopefully, I had what I needed to stay alive.
The rain was still pouring when I left the library. By now, the streets were starting to flood. I hadn’t eaten since early morning, stopped for a burger, and returned to my room—time to decide what to do the next day.
~~~
The following day, I stopped at the post office and got two large mailers for papers. Once I had both packages ready, I made the call. I told Jake I had gotten the case from Otis and that he had to deal with me now. I also told him that the money was in the case. That got his attention, and he agreed to meet with me.
I parked near the restaurant he owned and instructed him to walk to the pool hall where he had been the other night. I would be in the back room. He wasn’t happy about walking in the rain, but I pushed him, and he gave in.
I hurried and was able to slip in the back door just as he went in the front door.
My raincoat was barely off when He appeared in the back room.
“Redd.” He stood in the doorway.
“Jake.”
“You have the bag?” I nodded yes and put it on the table between us.
“Good, can I have it?”
“Not yet. I also have this.” I plopped one of the packages down next to the bag.
“What’s that?”
I turned it slightly so he could see the mailing address was the US Attorney’s office. “My insurance that you and your money friends won’t come after Otis and me.”
He looked back and forth between the bag and the package and at me.
“Why don’t I kill you now?”
“Because this one is going into a safety deposit box. The second one is with some friends of mine. They have orders to mail it if something happens to either Otis or me.” I let it lie there.
“How many copies are there?”
“Just the two. But you can never be sure there isn’t another one floating around, waiting to surface. It’s a good scam you have going. Get the state to approve all the building projects, and Porter Construction will win all the bids. But they use substandard materials, cut corners, buy off inspectors, and profit the difference besides the original profit from the jobs. The money in here is the Mob’s buy-in to the projects. It is probably seed money to get things going, file the paperwork and fees, etc., and maybe even grease a few hands along the way. When you lost the case and the money, you were in it up to your ears with them, and you know how they don’t like things to go wrong. So you don’t have a choice. Deal with me and call everyone off Otis and me, and you get your papers and money back, or…” I let the possibility of not getting the case back come to him.
He didn’t try to tell me otherwise. I pushed him.
“So you and your local Mob friends aren’t rich enough off other people’s miseries? You have to put people’s lives in danger to make a few more bucks?”
“Well, It wasn’t my idea.”
“But you went along with it?”
“Look, if it were up to me, I wouldn’t do it.”
“But?”
“I owe some people some serious money.”
“The Mob? He nodded yes. “And this is your way out from under them?” He nodded yes again.
“You know you’re never out from under them until you die.” I paused for a minute and then brought the conversation to the matter at hand. “My deal?”
“Okay, you got a deal. You and Otis are in the clear. I’ll tell everyone to lay off you.”
“You make sure they understand I’m not kidding. If something happens to either of us, these papers will get mailed one way or the other.”
I handed him the bag, and he opened it and looked inside. Satisfied that everything was still there, he closed it.
“You’re dammed lucky I didn’t keep the money. They would have taken it out of you, one way or the other.” He nodded yes.
“We’re done?”
“We’re done,” I confirmed. He took the bag and headed for the front section of the pool hall.
He turned to face me at the door. “You know Otis is an idiot and stupid.”
I nodded yes.
“And he’s also a kleptomaniac. You know how he can’t help taking stuff. This time, he took the wrong thing, and it almost cost him his life.”
“Maybe this will teach him.” Jake pushed the door open and disappeared in the rain.
“I doubt it,” I said to myself.
I leaned against the nearest wall, willing myself to breathe again.
I checked out of the motel and headed to collect Otis from Raymond. The sky was dark and threatening, and rain continued to fall. It was slow going as the streets were flooded and almost impassable in some areas, but I made it and managed to
I finally had to tell Otis to shut the hell up on the drive back. His constant questions and nervous chatter made it that much harder to drive. It was late when I reached my destination—the Federal Court House.
We entered through the back entrance of the court and took the back stairs to the offices of the Federal prosecutor and his investigators. I left Otis in the waiting room where a police officer was stationed and entered the prosecutor Samual Watson’s office.
“Sam.” We shook hands, and I laid my bag on the desk.
“Redd, how did it go?”
“Pretty much as expected. I have the tapes and other documents here.”
I handed him a small reel-to-reel recorder and the mike that was attached to it. The documents included the surveillance report on the pool hall and pictures of the man Jake met that night.
To my surprise, the door opened, and Otis Manning walked it, grinning.
Watson shook his hand. “You can retire Otis Manning.” He turned to me and said, “Redd, meet our other undercover officer, FBI Special Agent Lewis Chambers.
“Thanks, I was getting real tired of playing an idiot for the whole town.” He turned to me. “Sorry, Redd, I was undercover months before you arrived because of the insurance investigation. Sam thought it best if you didn’t know.”
Watson nodded. “You did what was needed. To get into the world of Jake Newman and generally be around so much that didn’t pay attention to you. The klepto bit was genius. It gave you a bit of cover to steal, blaming it on your “problem.” So, what happened that night?”
“I’d been following Jake for a while. I knew he usually went to the pool hall when he wanted to do stuff off the records. So, I made sure I was there every evening when he usually showed up if he was going to.
I also had been watching that guy who worked for the mayor and knew he was forever forgetting stuff when he left. I don't know how he managed not to get fired. I saw him come in and meet Jake, so I knew something was up. And I waited, and sure enough, he came out without his bag. I figured it was my only chance to discover what they were doing. I risked getting caught and took the case. The rest, you know. I made sure to get Redd tied to me in public so that Jake would be looking for both of us. Redd played out the whole scenario perfectly to get to the point where he could tape him admitting what he was doing.”
I handed the files to Watson. “Here are the sets of copies.”
The DA played the tape of Jake and me. “That's enough, along with Agent Chambers's testimony, to get the judge to issue a warrant. We'll secure the original copies once we have the warrant to search his company and financials and the Porter Construction company.”
Chambers blew out a tired breath. “I think it’s time for Otis Manning to exit stage left. It could be dangerous being Otis around here for a while.”
We shook hands, and Otis/Agent Lewis Chambers left. I don’t know where they took him, but it was out of town and far away.
Epilogue
The clouds broke, and the rain finely cleared the next day, but it took the city over a week to dry out and the streets to get back to normal. Meanwhile, Jake Newcom and a mayoral aide, Lester Blake, were arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and attempts to cheat the city, state, and federal government out of millions of dollars in overrun cost and other bogus fees and bills for the projects that had submitted to the city council. My investigation into fraudulent insurance policies and claims paralleled the Feds’ case, which was why they left me in the dark about Otis. As they dug deeper into Jake’s business, more charges were added, and a grand jury indicted him.
Six months later, in jail awaiting trial, an attempt was made on both Jake and Lester Blake’s lives. Blake struck a deal with the Feds and testified against Jake and the Mob players involved in return for immunity from prosecution for any of the crimes he’d done at the time and witness protection.
After spending six months as Redd Robinson, low life, and generally a no-good loafer and drinker, I returned to my wife, kids, and grandkids in Florida and life as a federal insurance investigator. Other than testifying, I hoped the Federal government wouldn’t need Redd’s services again for a long time.
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