Four Corners War

by Ted Clifton

  Mrs. Grimes rose slightly. “He really is a rude old bastard.” She offered a weak smile. “Would you mind showing yourselves out?”

  Once away from the guarded compound, they headed straight for the hotel to find Sue waiting out front with their luggage. Ray pulled up and quickly began tossing their bags into the patrol car.

  “I sense things did not go well,” she observed.

  “I think we need to go home for a few days and figure out what’s happened. But, for sure, I can say there’s going to be one angry governor in Santa Fe.”

  1964. The war in Vietnam continued to draw attention from anti-war protestors, political pundits, and the president. The beginning of campus unrest created doubt about the war for many. Lyndon Johnson, who’d assumed the presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy the previous November, was elected in a landslide victory. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law, signaling a change in the political environment and a reshuffling of party loyalties. The Beatles became the most popular band in America. Music fans also discovered The Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Supremes and Bob Dylan. The brash Cassius Clay won the heavyweight boxing title from Sonny Liston.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, lieutenant?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  “One more move like that, Grimes, and I will personally see to it that you do not fly for the Navy ever again. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lieutenant (j.g.) Lewis Grimes stepped smartly away from the angry deck officer to meet up with a deckhand, who muttered to him, “I guess you know—you’re nuts. Nobody in their right mind drives that F4 into the deck of this carrier the way you did. You knew you had the admiral’s chickenshit nephew in your back seat. They’re probably gonna kick your butt outta here.” Although such a relationship was certainly unusual for a naval officer, the deck hand, who handled planes after they landed, was the closest thing Grimes had to a friend aboard the carrier. And even he had trouble with him, because Grimes made it difficult to care what happened to him.

  “Well, fuck the admiral and his nephew. You’re supposed to pound them into the deck, right?”

  “Yeah—but not at that speed or that angle. You’re lucky that didn’t turn out to be one big fuckin’ fireball. My god, lieutenant—do you want to kill yourself?”

  “Okay, so you think they’re gonna kick me out? That admiral needs people like me to drive these machines into harm’s way, and people willing or able to do that aren’t standin’ in no fuckin’ line for the job. I’m the best goddamned Phantom pilot on this carrier, and he knows it. I’m older than any of these guys, and I’m still flying these fuckin’ machines. Why? Because I’m good. Maybe a pain in the butt, but I get the job done. Period.”

  Grimes was right. He probably was the best goddamned pilot flying the F4 Phantom off of the USS Kitty Hawk’s deck into high-risk operations over Vietnam and Laos, and yes, at forty-five he was the oldest pilot on the carrier. Even though he kept getting busted in rank he knew more than anyone about the task at hand. But the admiral’s sister had more power over the admiral than even wartime considerations, and to humiliate her weak-willed son was a step too far. The admiral had the wiseass lieutenant (who no one, not even the deckhand, really liked) mustered out. Even during a made-up war, it was an unusual thing to do to your best pilot. But family harmony held greater sway than national security.

  Still, Grimes was shocked that such a stupid thing could happen at all, let alone to him. He vowed to never again underestimate the power of rank and money, especially after learning that the admiral’s sister was married to one of the richest men in the country. Her moron son was in the Navy only because the admiral promised not to put him in harm’s way. The plan was that after two years he’d have built a fine enough résumé to run for the House of Representatives out of New York. Being shown up as a whiney coward by a hotshot pilot was not what the family wanted, and someone beneath them, namely Grimes, had to pay with his career.

  After months of paperwork maneuvers, Grimes was flown unceremoniously back to the states and discharged into civilian life in Miami, Florida. And, oddly, he’d also been given a handsome payment by the father of the admiral’s idiot nephew, on the condition that he accepted his discharge and kept silent about it. So, for his cooperation in getting the hell out of the picture, he had more than enough to begin a new life. He had no interest in politics—he was hardly aware of the damage he’d done to the nephew’s chances to run for office, and cared even less. He did what he did just because he couldn’t stand the pompous ass.

  Still, the Navy had given him a structure and a purpose. Now he was at loose ends. He had no idea what his next move would be. But the amount in his bank account, unimaginable for a lieutenant unceremoniously booted from the Navy, would be a big help.

  He settled into a sleazy part of Key West and enthusiastically began a sordid life of drinking, womanizing, and smuggling. Some of these came naturally to a man of his talents, and some he learned on the fly. The whole area was busy with smuggling cigars, rum, marijuana, women, coffee, and other temptations from Cuba. The operations were mostly run by Cuban-Americans out of Miami, in business with relatives still on Castro’s island. The Miami Cubans hated Castro and, to a lesser extent, Cuba. But business and family took precedence over politics.

  Grimes’s little operation running cigars and rum was mainly ignored by the Cubans. They did not want trouble with a white guy some thought to be insane. Law enforcement, meanwhile, kept a tacit understanding with the Cubans: so long as they didn’t interfere with the tourism business and didn’t kill anyone who wasn’t Cuban, the police would look the other way. The Key West cops had no desire to go to war, and for good reason. They most likely would have lost. Besides, the Cuban Miami connections were all active in local politics and could make things very uncomfortable, if desired.

  Grimes didn’t fit into the picture, but that tended to his benefit. The cops were never sure what to do about him. And the Cubans seemed reluctant to cut off his adventures into their part of the world.

  Being Lewis Grimes, however, he found a way to unsettle that nice, stable arrangement. He began an affair with the married daughter of the head man in the Cuban connection.

  “You know, Vickie,” he remarked drunkenly one day, “I think you’re about the best-looking woman I have ever seen.”

  The woman to whom he made that observation narrowed her eyes at him. “Lewis, you are nothing but a drunk and a con man. Although, I do think you’re very sexy. But you’re also a moron. I’ve told you dozens of times to stop calling me Vickie. My name is Angela—Angela Orlando. Got it?”

  Grimes being Grimes, he only shook his head. “I really like the name, Vickie. Angela is okay. But I prefer Vickie.”

  “Lewis,” she hissed, “you do know my father is Nathan Cruz, and if there is something called the Cuban Mafia, he’s the head of it. One word from me, and you’re dead. Do you understand this?”

  “Angela, I think you make an excellent point. I’d forgotten about Dad and his tendency for violence.”

  “Make a joke if you want,” she huffed, “but you are risking your life down here doing whatever the hell you think you’re doing. I think they’ve ignored you because they think you’re nuts, which means it would be bad luck to kill you. When they find out that you are just a wiseass drunk who enjoys playing silly games, you’ll soon be dead.”

  The next day, Lewis Grimes’s old dilapidated Jeep was blown to tiny bits by people who knew their way around explosives. He decided it was time to seek a new life somewhere else.

  With the Jeep turned into shrapnel and no insurance to settle, he packed all his belongings into a suitcase and walked downtown to the Greyhound bus depot. On his way, he stopped by the bank and transferred all of his money—the very large sum from his navy discharge and now his ample savings from smuggling—into an account he’d arranged at Chase Manhattan Bank. While his destination wasn’t New York City, he felt secure
with his money being housed in the nation’s largest bank.

  At the bus station, he settled on going to St. Louis for absolutely no reason other than it was far from Key West. The bus ride was beyond miserable. It took forever, and his traveling companions were generally most unpleasant. After one night in a clean but annoyingly noisy motel, he took a taxi to the airport and purchased a ticket to Denver with cash.

  He had no intention of actually staying in Denver—going there was just a ruse to confuse anyone who might be interested in following him. He didn’t know if that might be the Cubans or the federal authorities, but either way he wanted to disappear. In Denver he bought a rather tired-looking 1955 Ford and headed toward Albuquerque.

  Grimes had been born and raised in Manchester, New Hampshire, and he thought of himself as an east coast person. His parents were reasonably well-off, but he knew their snobbery far outstripped their actual wealth. After he’d left for college, he’d had almost nothing to do with them. Then when he surprisingly joined the navy, under threat of being drafted, he completely avoided his parents and intended to keep it that way. Going to New Mexico felt like he was headed to a foreign country, and that suited him just fine.

  He settled into an old motel on Albuquerque’s Central Avenue. He would go out occasionally for food but generally kept to himself. After about two weeks, he started exploring the city a bit more, venturing into the downtown area and finding a Merrill Lynch office. Thinking it might be a way to explore some local business opportunities, he opened an investment account with a hundred thousand dollars from his Chase account. It was enough to get a little attention from the staff, but not so much as to set off any alarms. He met with the manager and was introduced to an account executive name Larry, who assured him they could help him with any of his needs.

  For the next month Grimes went into the Merrill Lynch office almost every day to make trades. Most of these he directed himself, although Larry would always make time for him and offer suggestions. He had a nice run of luck, and soon Larry was asking him for advice.

  Grimes mentioned to the manager and to Larry, that he was considering making a substantial investment in an operating business in New Mexico. He wasn’t sure it was actually true, but he knew he needed something to do and thought that finding a small business might be a way of hiding in plain sight. During the second month of his routine, visiting the Merrill Lynch office daily, Larry asked if he would join him in his office.

  Larry shut the door in a conspiratorial manner. “Lewis, I want to talk to you about something-- but it doesn’t exactly follow Merrill’s policies, so I don’t want to do this if you might be offended in any way.”

  Grimes chuckled. “If this has anything to do with my roving eye when Miss Clarkson walks by, then all I can do is plead that I’m a red-blooded American man and can’t help myself.”

  This got a grin from Larry and seemed to relax him. “No, no—nothing to do with watching Miss Clarkson. That’s actually the main reason she works here. This has to do with a business opportunity outside of Merrill Lynch.”

  “Look, I asked you about local opportunities. If you know about something that might be a good fit for me, I’d be very grateful, and of course, I completely understand that it would have to be private, not in any way associated with Merrill Lynch.”

  Larry proceeded. “My wife’s older brother ended up owning a couple of gas stations in Farmington. Do you know where that is?”

  “I assume New Mexico?”

  “Yep. Farmington is in the northwest corner of the state; the area is called Four Corners because four different states meet at a single point. Well, not a whole lot is going on in Farmington, but my brother-in-law said he’s looking to sell, and I remembered that you asked about some kind of business. I wasn’t sure whether that would be something you were interested in, but I thought I’d bring it up to you.”

  “You said he ‘ended up’ owning these stations—what d’you mean by that?”

  “Well, he owned a trucking company operating out of Albuquerque and he was hauling gasoline from the refineries to independent stations. Not real sure my wife’s brother is much of a business man—he was just mostly a truck driver. Anyway, some guy who owned the stations ended up owing him a bunch of money and offered him the stations to settle the debt. No question that, in hindsight, he should have sued the guy and tried to get the cash, but he thought he could run the stations and make some money.” Larry shook his head. “Didn’t turn out that way. About a year ago he closed both stations and now he wants to unload them for whatever he can get. Thought it might be something you could at least look at.”

  “Sure. Not sure that fits me, but I’ll look at it.”

  For the next several months Grimes visited Farmington numerous times, exploring the gasoline business. He introduced himself to other station owners and soon discovered none of them were happy in the business. It seemed the only person making any money was the Phillips 66 distributor. Due to the remote location of Farmington—but the proximity to a refinery, which lay about a hundred and fifty miles south—Phillips had something of a monopoly. The local Phillips distributor, Bill McCullum, was universally despised by everyone who knew him, but amongst the gas station owners the degree and intensity of that hatred was unmatched. Grimes met McCullum and could immediately understand why he was hated—he was the most hateful person Grimes had ever spoken to.

  Grimes asked him if he would ever consider selling. McCullum said “hell no,” and that if he ever did, he sure the hell wouldn’t sell it to “no damn Yankee.”

  Still, Grimes was intrigued with Farmington. Its somewhat isolated setting and the possibilities he saw interested him. He rented a house there and spent the next two months meeting the dignitaries of its community. He also introduced himself to the leaders of the Navajo Nation.

  A short time later on a cold, rainy winter night Bill McCullum’s car ran off the road, down a steep embankment, and exploded in a deadly fireball. How it happened was not known. Speculation by the sheriff’s department was that a wild animal had run into his path and, in his effort to avoid a collision, he’d lost control. Any evidence otherwise was washed away by the rain.

  Everyone expressed sorrow, but few felt any real loss. Even his widow, the downtrodden Ann McCullum, seemed more concerned with what would happen to the business and their money than any questions about the untimely and slightly suspicious demise of her husband.

  Grimes sent flowers for the funeral and introduced himself to the grieving widow three days after. He told her he’d been in secret negotiations with her husband to purchase the business, and even if McCullum’s sudden death did unfortunately lower its value, he was still interested in pursuing the matter—if she was. There were many complications, including approval from the Phillips 66 company in Oklahoma, but after two months of negotiations and piles of legal paperwork, Grimes bought the distributing company and renamed it Grimes Oil Company.

  Within a few years, Grimes had purchased most of the gas stations in the area and had established a heavy presence on the Navajo reservation. He discovered his knack for business and fell in love with profit-making. He had come to town with a sizable fortune and in short order had amassed a business empire. Most people openly admired his business skills. Grimes just smiled.

  The flight to T or C was uneventful, and even Tyee was pleased to get on the plane since it meant going home. They had only been in Farmington a short time, but they had shared a sense of stress and worry. Something uncomfortable was going on in Farmington, and they wanted to be away. The comfort of home sounded much better.

  Until—

  “I have had it! Fuck this! I am quitting—right now!” Big Jack glared at Ray like he was the problem causing him to shout and stomp about the dock at his bait shop. “Look, Ray,” he paused to admit, “I know this is not your fault. But somehow, I decided I could be a normal person—and you were part of why I thought that. So, maybe it is your fault.”

  Ray had,
upon his return home, found Big Jack’s urgent message that he had to see him at once. Big Jack and Ray were partners in the PI business, but more importantly they had become good friends. Big Jack’s message conveyed urgency. So, early the next morning, Ray had headed over to Jack’s Bait, Boats, and Beer on Elephant Butte Lake.

  “Tell me what’s going on, and maybe I can help.”

  “First off, did you know that the mayor of T or C is not paid? Zero, nada, not one damn dime. Can you believe that?”

  “Well, I guess I hadn’t thought about it, but it doesn’t surprise me. These small-town mayor jobs are mostly ceremonial, anyway.”

  “Ceremonial! Ray, you do not know what you’re talking about. I’m getting twenty or thirty calls a day. Calls about trash pick-up, about jobs for somebody’s nephew, about the librarian being snooty, about the absurd cost of electricity—these people are driving me nuts!”

  For no sane reason, Ray started to laugh. He could not help it. After a moment of shock, Big Jack joined in. Happy, Ray’s dog, began to bark and circle the two men, who by now were bent over in something resembling pain.

  “Oh, my god, Ray,” Big Jack gasped at last. “I’m so sorry. I must sound absolutely crazy.”

  Ray collected himself. “I never really thought too much about the actual job while you were running for it. I guess I totally underestimated the hassles involved. As far as quitting—if that’s what you want, you know you have my full support.”

  Big Jack sighed. “I know. It just feels like I’d be doing something bad, though. Especially after all those people helped me get elected. How can I just walk away because the job is annoying? It would make me feel like a small, petty person if I turned my back on the people who put in time and effort to help me. What am I going to do?”

  “Hire an assistant!”

  Big Jack blinked. “What?”