Saving an Innocent Man

by Robert E B Wright

  “Do you kill these, too?”

  “We don’t. An Indian killed a panther a few years ago and everybody came down pretty hard on him. Even other Indians. He said he did it for religious reasons, but we all knew better. The white man wanted to string him up for that.”

  “What finally happened?”

  “He promised to never do it again. A committee of Indians convinced him it was wrong and wasteful. It’s such a beautiful animal. Perhaps the most beautiful of any in the Everglades.”

  The large tawny cat moved like silk. Silently, stealthily, head hung low. And then it stopped. Chance’s telescopic vision focused on the panther’s eyes. The panther stared back. The panther’s golden eyes penetrated through Chance intently.

  Forty

  The stone stare of Panthera Leo, a mature full-maned African lion, bore into him. Yet Marv Klempner was unaware of it. He sat on the bench in front of the cage-less African lion exhibit at the Brookfield zoo, just a fifteen-minute drive from the station house, oblivious to the magnificent animal on the other side of the protective moat.

  He extracted a small piece of paper from his trench coat pocket. It read LIONS 3, TIGERS 300.

  He checked his watch. It was 3:12 PM. He reached into his other pocket and withdrew folded money. He thumbed it and verified that it was three one-hundred-dollar bills. He replaced it carefully. He looked left and right. There weren’t many people there on this cool, blustery day. Then he looked at the lion. The animal sat there with his head on his paws, like a dozing house cat.

  Klempner checked his watch again and looked around. Still nothing. He just sat there like one of those bronze statutes of ordinary citizens that some cities have been putting on park benches and calling “art”.

  A grayish figure approached from the periphery. He shuffled rather than walked. He was stooped a little from poor posture. He wore an old fabric overcoat of very small black and white checks that make it look gray from a distance. It was unbuttoned and the collar was up. The man had tousled black hair and a generous nose. He had two days of growth on his face. All of this, plus his crooked-toothed hesitant smile, gave him an unattractive yet engaging caricature kind of appearance. When he spoke, his voice was raspy and his accent was definitely Brooklynese.

  “Starvin Marvin,” the raspy voice said to Klempner’s silhouette.

  “Mikey Mooch. What the hell took you so long? You think I’ve got all day for Christ’s sake? It’s almost three thirty.”

  “Hey, I said tree a clock. So it’s tree turdy. Big fuckin’ deal. I don’t gotta punch no clock fa you. Besides, da bride always keeps da groom waitin’. Specially when da groom wants what da bride’s got, hey Marvin?” Mikey Mooch sniveled more than laughed, and his smile flashed across his unshaven face in nervous spasms, like a neon sign, a crooked neon sign, going on the blink.

  “I don’t know if you’ve got what I want, but whatever it is, the police department of Chicago doesn’t want to give you three hundred dollars to find out.”

  “Oh, yeah! Wanna bet, Starvin Marvin? Wanna bet? I should get more than tree hundrid, so don’t get uppity on me. Udder wise, you don’t get what you want, ‘n I don’t get what I want.”

  “What do you have, Mooch?”

  “I got whatcha been askin’ me for, dats what I got.”

  “It took you long enough.”

  “I had to tink about it, alright? Hey, for a guy who just takes care a de old man’s cars ‘n sweeps da grounds, I tink I did pretty good. Unless you got information from somebody else, I’m your only way of knowin’ de identity of da guy in dat plane. Da guy who left de old man’s house wit four and a half mil, drove it to Miami, ‘n crashed in dat plane in da swamps.”

  “You expect me to pay you three hundred dollars for a description of some guy who you say is the guy? That’s only worth one hundred, Mooch.”

  “Oh, yeah? I got da pitchas to prove it. Dat’s worth tree hundrid. You buyin’?”

  “I’m buyin’.”

  From his breast pocket, Mooch pulled out a cell phone and poked it with his stubby dirty finger. “I had to install an extra gas tank in da trunk a dis limo so da guys wouldn’t have to stop as much. See? Dis was a sudden kinda ting, so I worked on it all night, I didn’t finish til just before da guys left for Miami in da mornin’. I did such a good job, I took some pictures so I could show da boss. Maybe get a little bonus. But, what the fuck, he didn’t give me da time a day!” Mikey Mooch pointed to the pictures he was showing Detective Klempner. “See, inside de open trunk?” Klempner squinted.

  “And ya see dis one?” Mikey Mooch poked again. “See des two guys standin’ on da side?” Klempner took the cell phone in his hands.

  “Dis is Galvo, he flew da plane. And dis is Sal. Sal Giaccamo. Tells everybody his name is Steel. Dis is da guy”

  There he was, the man who stabbed Galvo with a hypodermic syringe of curare poison. The man Galvo punched and kicked out of the plane minutes before the crash. He was all of about five-feet-five and bald. The aluminum case of money was in his hands.

  Klempner drew in a breath and spoke.

  “You did good, Mooch. You did good.” Mikey Mooch grabbed the cell phone out of Klempner’s hands.

  “What a’ya doin’, Mooch? I need the phone.”

  “Then I need a tousand dollas.”

  “Whadda ya mean, a thousand? You said three hundred.”

  “Yeah, tree hundrid for da pitcha, not da phone.”

  “Here,” Mikey Mooch took a folded piece of paper out of his coat pocket. He handed it to Klempner. “It’s a print out a da pitcha.”

  “I didn’t know you knew anything about computers, Mooch.”

  “I don’t. My seven-year-old son printed it out fa me. Kid’s a genius. Nothin like his old man, tank Gawd.”

  “Thanks, Mooch.”

  “Your boss, DiSantis, he’s gonna kiss your ass fa dis Marvin. He’s gonna kiss your ass.”

  “I don’t think so, Mooch.”

  “Why, cause a da tree hundrid?”

  “No. He thinks it’s a different guy.” There was a pause. “He’s after a different guy.”

  Forty-One

  The yellow taxi pulled up in front of an innocuous white concrete building in the industrial part of downtown Detroit. Tony DiSantis got out, walked up the four steps and opened a door with a sign that read MACKINAC TOOL & DIE. The reception room was small, dim, cheap looking and quiet. No one was there. The only sound was the buzzer that stopped as soon as DiSantis closed the door. A few moments later, a tall man with graying hair, mustache and goatee was in front of him.

  “Tony DiSantis?”

  “Yes.” They shook hands.

  “Come in. This way.” The man never offered his name. DiSantis didn’t ask. The place was a typical tool and die shop with industrial type flourescent lights hanging above and milling machines, metal lathes, vertical drills and hydraulic presses all over the shop floor. They walked to a long white Formica-topped counter that was cluttered with all kinds of small tools, gauges and devices, except for a clean spot about four feet wide. The tall engineer-looking man flicked on a switch and a bright light illuminated the area. He took some keys out of his pocket, bent down and unlocked a steel cabinet beneath the counter. With both hands, he took something out and placed it on the counter. It was a long black plastic carrying case, the kind that very expensive high-power rifles come in. With another key, he unlocked the two locks on the case, opened the three latches and raised the lid of the case.

  “There she is,” he said.

  DiSantis didn’t know exactly what to say as he looked into the case. He finally said the only words he could think of. “What is it?”

  It looked like a rifle. Sort of. It was completely stainless steel, except for the stock. It had a long barrel attached to a square box, which was attached to a black hollow-framed plastic stock and butt plate. On top was a long stainless scope with white knurled knobs on its sides and top. Nestled in the box, below the rifle-like o
bject, in spaces made just for them, were six stainless darts, each about three inches long. Each dart was about as thick as a pencil, had two thick stainless steel fins at the back and a hinged point at the front, the kind of hinged barb you see on the spears that spear fisherman use.

  Mr. Engineer took the weapon out of the case and held it up like an ordinary rifle.

  “It’s a targeting, tranquilizing, tracking device all in one. Here’s how it works.”

  He took one of the darts out of the case and held it up for DiSantis to see.

  “You shoot this into your target. These two barbs…” he opened them up with a screwdriver point. There were two barbs, not one, as DiSantis had thought… “open pneumatically in the target so the dart can’t fall out or be extracted. The only way to remove it would be through surgery, field or otherwise.” DiSantis already looked impressed.

  “This tube contains tranquilizer,” he was pointing with the screwdriver at the section behind the point. “These small holes in the needle,” DiSantis could see them now, “force the tranquilizer, under pressure, into the bloodstream.” Now he pointed to the thick metal fins at the back. “This is a radio transmitter. It stays outside the target, sending signals up to eleven miles.”

  The genius next to DiSantis now inserted the dart into the barrel. “You’ll notice that the barrel is slotted to accept the transmitter fins.” He pulled the dart by one of the fins until it clicked into position about halfway down the barrel. “You slide this small switch, this way, to arm the piece. It turns on the GPS, the infrared, laser-point fifty-power scope, and the receiver which is right here.” The screwdriver pointed to a gauge on an angled part of the box section of the gun. “The lights tell you to walk left…” he demonstrated, “walk right, or straight ahead. It also tells you how far ahead your…prey is.”

  DiSantis seemed dumbfounded. “Can this thing kill him?”

  “The darts were designed deliberately short in an attempt to avoid that. But if you hit a lung, break a rib, penetrate a vital organ, an artery or large vein…yes, it could, and probably would kill. So aim for non-lethal areas in meaty parts of the body, upper arms, shoulders, legs, ass.”

  “A dream come true,” DiSantis said with a big Italian smile.

  “There’s one more thing,” he reached into the case and pulled out a metal container that DiSantis hadn’t noticed before. He opened its lid. Inside was a hypodermic syringe. “This is the antidote to the tranquilizer. If it’s not administered quickly enough, the…subject could expire. If you don’t want that to happen, I strongly suggest you secure the subject and inject the antidote. That’s it.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “How do I thank you…a…Mr…ahh…?”

  “How about…you tell people who ask that you found this at an antique shop in Singapore?”

  Forty-Two

  Mildred was wearing her typical Granny half-glasses with the rhinestone chain that looped around her neck. She looked up from her desk outside Tony DiSantis’ office at the voice that was already speaking to her.

  “Morning Mildred. I understand Marv Klempner wants to talk to me.” It was Stan Goldman, the psychologist the city had contracted annually to identify and remedy subsurface emotional weaknesses and provide a sounding board to an overworked staff dealing with one of the most stressful environments in the turbulent city.

  “I don’t think Klempner really wants to talk to you, but somebody upstairs thinks you should be talking to him.”

  “What seems to be the problem?”

  “He brought some pimp in for questioning this morning, around ten o’clock, and put him in a holding cell. I guess he had to get some paperwork or something. But then he forgot about him for six hours. The guy didn’t have lunch, he didn’t go to the bathroom, he didn’t say a peep to anybody. If Jerry hadn’t asked him what he was doing there, he’d still be there.”

  “Where’s the pimp now?”

  “They let him go, Marv couldn’t find the paperwork and couldn’t remember why he was there.”

  “Where’s Marv now?”

  “He said he was embarrassed to sit at his desk, so he’s waiting in the interrogation room. It’s the only place I could put him that was private right now.”

  “Well, let me get in there and see what’s going on. Thanks Mildred.”

  As Stan walked toward the room where Marv was waiting, Mildred couldn’t help but think that Stan was a pretty nice guy. A shame, she thought, that he never got married. He sure looked cute in the wing tips and bow tie.

  As Stan entered the room, Marv turned toward him in his seat. He looked a little sheepish but managed an attempt at bravado.

  “Everybody thinks they have all the answers. All of a sudden, everybody’s an expert. There’s nothing wrong with me, Stan. Nothing that a little rest won’t fix.” His words were strong, but his eyes looked doubtful.

  “Hold on, Marv. No one has you judged and sentenced here.”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, I gotta tell you, sitting here in this room makes you feel like a goddamned criminal. And I ain’t done a thing wrong. Not a thing.”

  “Nobody said you did, Marv. The people you work with, the people you know and trust, are just concerned that you’re working under too much stress. At times, it gets to all of us. Nothing to be ashamed of or hide from. If we all didn’t know it exists, I wouldn’t have a job and I wouldn’t be talking to you right now.”

  Stan decided to pause for a few moments to let his words sink in. Marv’s shoulders relaxed and he adjusted himself more comfortably in his chair. He sighed and looked down at the yellow pencil he had just picked up to keep his hands busy.

  “Now, Marv, what happened with the man you brought in for questioning? Did you forget you put him in a holding cell?”

  “I just got distracted, that’s all. Too many things to do. Too many cases, that’s the problem. That’s all.”

  “And what about the paperwork you couldn’t find? Did you ever have the paperwork?”

  “Yes, of course I had it! You know these cleaning people. If you leave something in the wrong spot, it goes in the trash. Gone!”

  “But Marv, wouldn’t this have been in a file folder. Kind of important isn’t it?”

  “It could have been scooped up with the files going to the dead file. I don’t know. A lot of things could have happened to that file. Who cares anyway, the guy would have walked anyway.”

  Stan was quietly thinking now, with his hand up to his mouth, as if to clench his lips from speaking. He made some notations on a yellow pad. The room was silent.

  “So, there,” Marv said almost flippantly, “You see. There’s a simple answer to everything.”

  Stan let Marv’s comments go by. He just thought for a few moments. Then said, “Marv, you see the picture on the wall behind me?” It was a color picture of the current President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

  “Who is that a picture of, Marv?”

  “Oh, come on, Stan! Don’t insult me! I mean, that’s ridiculous. What are you doing that for? I mean, come on.”

  “No, Marv, I need an answer. I’m sorry.”

  “You need an answer,” Marv said, as if he just didn’t believe it.

  “Yes, Marv. I’m sorry, but I need an answer.”

  “Any idiot knows that’s JFK.”

  Stan didn’t change his expression.

  “You know!” Marv exclaimed, “John F. Kennedy, for Christ’s sake!”

  • • •

  Stan was saying “JFK, John F. Kennedy.” But it was Detective Tony DiSantis he was talking to. “That’s exactly what he said, Tony.”

  “So, what is it, Stan? Stress?”

  “I did some more tests after that little episode. I’m afraid to say, I think it’s Alzheimer’s.”

  “Alzheimer’s? Oh, brother! What a shame, after all these years with the Department… losing his wife…he’s got no one, Stan.”

  “It happens.”

&nb
sp; “Retirement can’t be far away for Marv. I don’t want to see him get reduced benefits or have a problem with his pension or anything else, Stan. Is it that bad? Is there anything we can do?”

  “You could keep him on desk duty. Then keep an eye on him. See if it gets any worse. Let him get to retirement that way.”

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s what we’ll do then. We’ll take care of him one way or another. Stan, I want you to take this one a step further. Five steps further. Please look after him, Stan. Give it all you’ve got.”

  “I promise, I will, Tony. I’ll look after him. Whatever it takes. Hey, by the way, Tony, are you OK? I heard you were out sick yesterday.”

  “Oh, ah, sure, just a, a dentist appointment, but a lot of pain, you know?”

  “Oh, man, I hate the dentist. Glad you’re OK.”

  The phone rang loudly on DiSantis’ desk.

  “OK, Tony. I’ll let you get back to work.” Tony motioned a goodbye wave and picked up the phone at the same time.

  “DiSantis.”

  “Ah, Lieutenant DiSantis?”

  “Yes, this is DiSantis, what can I do for you?”

  On the other end of the phone was a middle-aged man with black greasy hair and a face full of stubble. He had a business card in his hand. He took a quick swig from a small flask and spoke into the phone.

  “Come ‘n get ‘im.”

  Forty-Three

  The strong afternoon light streaming in the windows behind Detective Marv Klempner’s desk made his abundant white hair stand out even more against the dark, old wood furnishings.

  Although there was activity in the room, his little corner of the office seemed to be rather peaceful at the moment. He took his time opening his mail, slicing each envelope open with a letter opener as if he had done it a million times. From one envelope, he removed a folded letter. Out of it fell a lottery ticket and a five-dollar bill.

  Since he was a kid, Marv had a habit of moving his lips when he read to himself aloud.