by D. J. Herda
“Yes,” she said, “and he has some very understanding employees.”
Carrie hesitated, eyeing the woman suspiciously. “I’m sure. All right, then. I’ll see you in a couple of days, Darryl. At the jobsite. Bye!”
Deidre turned her mouth up at one corner. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything special, some big business meeting.”
“No, no. In fact, I thought when she rang the bell that it was you running a little early. She just had a little ... stuff to discuss ... about the replacement materials for the hotel. You know. That last order we placed with Omado?”
“Um-hmm,” she said. “I see. Oh, and you might want to take a minute or two to take care of that shirt.”
“Hmm? What?” He craned his head toward his shoulder.
“Otherwise, that lipstick’s going to stain.” She smiled. “And that would be a shame.”
“Oh,” he said, feeling himself blush. “Oh, yeah. Yeah. Thanks.”
Over the next week, the marketing director for Illinois Custom Design, Trey Salidor, reported three of their clients had decided to halt their jobs. Temporarily, they said. A fourth tore up his contract, claiming that ICD hadn’t performed satisfactorily. When Darryl went out to talk to him to find out what was going on, the man told him that he was sorry, but he had to protect himself. He didn’t believe Darryl was preparing to go out of business, but that’s what the marketing director had shared with him “in private.”
When Darryl confronted Salidor, the man feigned ignorance, saying that the client must have lied just so Darryl wouldn’t take the guy to court. But Darryl sensed that it went deeper than that. He just wasn’t sure how much deeper.
Back in the office, he telephoned Peeps to tell him the latest developments; Peeps was out, his secretary said, and he never called back.
Later that afternoon, he received a call from a woman who identified herself as the district attorney for the town of nearby Lincoln, Illinois. She said that she had received a complaint about a check he had written to a materials supplier that bounced. It was for more than eight thousand dollars.
Puzzled, Darryl said it had to be a mistake—a mistake that the D.A. gave him twenty-four hours to clear up, or else. Darryl quickly called his assistant in and asked her about their bank account, and she said it was twelve thousand dollars to the good. When she called the vice-president of the bank for further information, she told Darryl what she’d learned.
“Bad news, boss,” his assistant said after the call. “The gal in bookkeeping at the bank said that Stan Omado put through some twenty-four thousand dollars’ worth of checks he’d been holding. That put us in the red, so when that check came through from Lincoln, it bounced.”
“What? He wasn’t supposed to put those through. He was supposed to hold them until we could cover them. Until I told him it was safe to deposit them.”
She looked at him sheepishly and shrugged.
“Get Stan on the phone.”
But Stan never did answer. The girl who took the call said that he was out. But she informed Darryl that she had checked with their bookkeeping department, and the bookkeeper told her that Stan had instructed her to deposit the checks. All the checks. Whatever that meant.
Before long, the entire office knew of the problem. With a twenty-thousand-dollar payroll coming up the next day, things were looking dicey. Salidor said he’d go out and try to hustle up some more money, get some clients to issue releases for construction funds from their banks to help see ICD over the hump, but he wasn’t sure if he could do anything before Friday afternoon.
Deidre overheard them talking and stepped in to offer Hightower thirty thousand dollars that she’d made from selling some property she had owned. Stunned, he told her it would be for only a short time, and he’d sign a note, naturally. She refused, telling him that she trusted him before she grabbed her keys, hopped in her car, and headed to her own bank to transfer funds to ICD’s account by the end of the day.
Somehow, Hightower had managed to dodge a bullet. A second call to Omado ended like the first. Another call to Peeps failed to get a return. He called the D.A. in Lincoln to tell her he’d bring her a replacement check personally the first thing in the morning, and she informed him that would be fine, except that it would have to be cash.
That evening at home, Darryl was praying that the short-term infusion from Deidre would be enough to see them through Friday the Thirteenth—enough to replace the bounced check in Lincoln and meet the looming payroll for their employees. Without his crews, all work would come to a halt, and ICD—and Darryl—would be left hanging high and dry. Along with the Potash’s condo job.
As he popped open a bottle of beer, the front doorbell rang. He glanced out back over the patio where all his problems had begun several weeks earlier; it was deserted. When he went to the door, he was surprised to see a uniform standing before him and a crawler with a second cop behind the wheel parked in front of the house.
“Mr. Hightower?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Darryl Hightower?”
“Yes, I’m Darryl Hightower.”
“I’m afraid I have to inform you that you’re under arrest. We’re going to have to take you in for booking.”
He looked at the man incredulously. He was a cop. He knew that much for sure. He wore a royal blue uniform and a four-pointed blue hat with a short, black plastic bill and a star on the front. Another star glistened on his chest. His black shoes shone in the waning evening sun. Most of all, Darryl noticed the gun. Big and heavy-looking and black and ominous and still holstered. Thank God!
“Under arrest? You’re kidding. Under arrest for what?”
“The warrant here says, passing a bad check. It’s signed by the clerk of courts in Lincoln. Dated this morning, 10:52 a.m.” He looked up from the paper and handed it to Darryl, who read the words as though they’d been a death sentence. Insufficient Funds. Failure to Make Restitution. Second Notice. Death by Lethal Injection. No Reprieve. Notify Next of Kin.
“This must be some mistake. We did have a mix-up with our bank account, but I straightened that all out earlier today. We have the funds to take care of this now. This is all a mistake.”
Fully expecting the officer to back down, to apologize for bothering him, and to slither away in remorse, he was unprepared for what came next.
“Hold out your hands, please.” And, before he realized what was happening, he felt the cold, hardened sting of steel slapped across his wrists, the tautness of the bindings pinching his skin.
“Well ... I ... if you’ll just wait a minute. I have to ... let me lock up at least, will you? I have to ...”
“Do you have the house key?”
He shrugged, fumbling as best he could through his pants pockets before pulling out his ring.
The officer took the key from him, closed the door, and locked it before handing the ring back to him and leading him down the steps to the car.
Along the way, across twenty feet of cracked and heaving concrete to the curb, he spied half the population of Trinidale outside. Staring. At him. A neighbor woman watering her flowers. Four kids playing some kind of game on the sidewalk. A couple of painters working on a building across the street, gawking at him from their scaffold. A young couple walking their dog, eyes moving from Darryl’s face to the cuffs and back again. He glanced furtively toward the Potash back yard, praying that they hadn’t seen him being led away like a common criminal and yet hoping against hope that they had spotted him and would come running forward to lend him a hand. Obviously, something had gone very, very wrong. This isn’t the way the Lincoln D.A. said it was going to be. She never said he was going to be arrested. How on earth could he make good on the bounced check from jail?
Had the D.A. made a mistake? Had she filed a complaint with the court before he’d spoken to her, promising to make good for the check, and then forgot to notify the court to quash the warrant?
Or did it go deeper than that? Was this yet a
nother client of ICD who decided to put a halt to his job and stick it to the company’s owner? And Omado, too? Along with Dom Potash? And Peeps? He was even beginning to wonder about Carrie. And Christie.
Let’s see ... am I forgetting anyone?
One call. Just like in the movies. That’s all he got, and he prayed he got it right. It was to Deidre, and she said she’d grab her checkbook and be right down. And she was, A little more than two hours after being dragged in, cuffed in Admitting to the tubular frame chair with the black-vinyl seat and back, virtually ignored until someone thought to ask him what he had done and he said nothing he could think of that warranted his arrest.
So, when Deidre came to bail him out, he was more than relieved.
He was grateful.
And stumped.
What had gone wrong? When Deidre told him that Carrie’s lipstick-rich visit to him the previous night was a ploy to feel him out, he asked for what, and she told him for money.
“I don’t get you.”
“She and Dom and Christie have all been working with Peeps to put you behind bars.”
“What? Why?”
“Because Peeps thinks that’s the best place for you.”
“I don’t get it. After that night at the Potash’s when he asked me everything under the sun, and I answered his every question, why would he want to see me in jail?”
“You’re right. You don’t get it. See, something you haven’t quite come to terms with yet is that Stan Omado isn’t the only mobster in town. You don’t think the town of Trinidale is ninety percent Italian by coincidence, do you? The entire place is loaded with Mafioso. When someone new comes to town and plays ball, plays by the rules, everything is fine. But when someone moves in and starts upsetting the powers that be, all hell breaks loose.”
“You mean Omado and Sandalman and all the others? They’re all working together? With the Potashes?”
“Bingo.”
“Just to teach me a lesson? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“It’s not to teach you a lesson. You’ve already learned that: When you mess with the status quo, you get stomped on. No, what they want from you now is the turnip’s blood. That’s why Carrie was here the other night, pretending that she and her husband were breaking up, and she was frightened and angry and upset ... and desperate for a shoulder to cry on.”
Deirdre looked at him out of the corner of her eyes: he was stunned.
“How do you know all this?” he asked. “You’re not as close to them as I am. You haven’t been working with them as long as I have.”
“I haven’t, but the Dansons have.”
“Who are the Dansons, and what do you mean they have?”
The Dansons—they own that weird head shop down on Commercial, a few doors down from ICD.”
“Oh, yeah. I know who you mean. But how do they ...”
“The Potashes and the Dansons are good friends. The Potashes buy their drugs from them. Most of the people in town do. Dom even does some work for them, printing or something, from time to time. When Carrie got home after crying on your shoulders the other night ...”
“And leaving a little piece of her behind for a remembrance. I had one helluva time getting that out of my shirt!”
“Anyway, she told Dom what had happened. Probably told him you had money. Lots of it.”
“Shit. I just as much said so outright to calm her fears about our quitting their job before it was finished.”
“Uh-huh. So, even after the thefts and all the other stuff that’s gone on, she told Dom, Dom told the Dansons, and the Dansons told Peeps.”
“Peeps? You mean the D.A.’s own investigator is dirty?”
“You know who his closest friend was in town until recently?”
Hightower shook his head. “No. Who?”
“Kelli Powell.”
He sat back in his seat. “How do you know that?”
“It’s common knowledge. Powell and Peeps, that electrician who keeps calling up and trying to get work from you—Randolph or Rudolph or what’s his name—the Potashes, a bunch of Omado’s friends and his kids, even Scott Sandalman—they’re all a bunch of crackheads. And they all get their stuff from Dansons’ Design Works.”
“I can’t believe it.” He stood, feeling his mouth fall.
“Believe it. From dirty judges down to the dirty D.A.’s office, a dirty investigator, and dirty cops. Everyone is either using or peddling drugs. If they’re not, they know who is, and they keep their mouths shut and play by the rules. The Mafia’s rules.”
Hightower shook his head, not knowing how to respond. Kelli. Powell. Sweet. Sensitive. Innocent. Fun-loving. Or so she had seemed. Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe that’s where Powell went wrong. Going to work for Sandalman. Maybe she got in with the wrong crowd over drugs.
“Did you ever hear about that body they found face-down in the river a few years back? The one who had his head bashed in beyond recognition?”
Hightower shook his head. “No. What about him?”
“Well, rumor has it that he tried to muscle in on the Mob here, tried undercutting their drug business. When push came to shove, the Mob called on the police who beat the crap out of him, took him out to the river, and dumped him. Later, after someone discovered him, they investigated and came up empty-handed.”
“My God. It’s a wonder I’m still alive!”
“You’re still alive because you’re not a threat to them. Not yet, anyway. No, as for now, you’re nothing more than a cash cow.”
“Or so, thanks to Carrie Potash, they think.”
“Or so they think. There was another incident a few years ago. A private plane was coming in for a landing in an unmarked grass strip just east of town. It didn’t make it.”
“Why not?”
“Blew up on landing. No one knows how. Or why. The FAA sent some investigators down from Washington, but they couldn’t tell what went wrong. Speculation is that the guy was bringing drugs in from Mexico, and the Mob wouldn’t stand for it. So ...”
“Wow. These guys play rough.”
“You’re telling me. And that was just for starters.”
“Did they ever find the drugs?”
She frowned.
“Yeah, right. Stupid question. I take it back.”
“Seems to me as if you’ve surrounded yourself with all the wrong people. If you don’t mind my saying.”
“How about Salidor?” he asked. “He’s from downstate somewhere, Champagne-Urbana. University of Illinois.”
“He’s been coming up here for drugs he takes back down with him to sell to the college kids for years. You just happened to stumble upon him when he was looking for a cover. A way to disguise his reason for being here while still maintaining a home in southern Illinois.”
“I always thought that seemed a little strange. Owning two homes on the money we pay him. He just told me he could make more money here than down there, so he decided it was worth the weekly commute.”
“I’ll say it is. He owns a duplex here and a mansion downstate. And he’s working on salary for ICD.”
Darryl hesitated. “Is there anyone in this town who isn’t on the take?”
“Besides me and my family? Very few. Unfortunately, this week’s Sucker du Jour is Illinois Custom Design and its esteemed and allegedly well-heeled owner, one Darryl Hightower. Or, so goes the rumor.”
Sucker of the day? he thought. Or sucker of the century?
Hightower set the morning paper on his desk, picked up the telephone, and dialed the Chronicle. When a voice answered, he switched it off speakerphone.
“I’d like to speak to Tammy Loosen, please.” He waited an obscenely long time before he heard Tammy’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Darryl Hightower.”
“Oh ... hi, Darryl. What can I do for you?” Her words were empty, hollow, as if she knew damned well what she could do for him and dreaded having to tell him to go take a hike.
“I j
ust read the article on ICD in the paper. You did a good job.”
“Thanks. I try.”
“Well, next time, try a little harder, will you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, get the story right. You did all this research from the friendly halls of the bureau of records and the office of the District Attorney? And you interviewed some former customers who ducked out on our contract because of some lies someone told them? And you’re surprised that I’m upset about it?”
“Darryl, I just tell it like it is.”
“No, you just told it like people want you to think it is. There’s a difference. I thought you were a reporter. I thought we at least shared that common bond between us. Our desire to ferret out the truth and bury the ugliness of lies and false information six feet underground where it belongs.”
“I’m sorry, but I was assigned an article, and I ...”
“And you did your master’s bidding. I understand. But don’t you think for a moment you should have come to me first? I’m the subject of the story, remember? Source Numero Uno?”
“I ... I was going to ...”
“But, no. Instead, who do you quote? People who have an agenda, people with no integrity, morals, or scruples. People who have lived their lives playing their dirty little games in this dirty little town. You just scored a big hit for the Mafia, Tammy. I hope you know that. You’ve made the Mob very happy this morning. I can just picture Omado and Sandalman grinning from ear to ear.”
“You’re making a lot of accusations that ...”
“That are going to be proven true, with or without the help of the Daily Chronicle and the freedom of the press. And where did you get this information about four criminal charges pending against me? There are no criminal charges, nothing has been filed. But I guarantee you that you just signed a death warrant for Illinois Custom Design. If you think anyone can walk away from reading this hatchet piece and still consider hiring us to build a dog house for his pet pooch, you’re mistaken.”
“Darryl, I don’t know what to say. I had no idea you felt this way. I assumed, since I went to the source—the D.A. and the police department and the clients who used to work with you—and everyone told the same story ... I just assumed it had to be true. I mean, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck ...”