Match Play

by Poppe, D. Michael

  

  David parks the Rolls in the garage below the bank, takes his briefcase and rides the elevator to the mezzanine. He enters the lobby and walks to the preferred customer area.

  Everyone greets him. “Good morning, Mr. Steadman.”

  He nods, preoccupied. He can see that Jenny Wright is alarmed.

  “Hello, Mr. Steadman. It’s nice to see you back.” Her voice falters.

  “Hello, Jenny. I’d like to get into my safe deposit boxes please.”

  “Yes, right away, Mr. Steadman. I’ll be right with you.” She opens her desk drawer and retrieves her keys. As she walks away with David, she mouths to another woman, “Call the police,” then hurries to catch up.

  “I hope you had a wonderful vacation. It’s been so hot here this summer.”

  The vault guard greets David. Jenny Wright makes eye contact with him and mouths, “Call the police.”

  “Hello, Harry. It’s nice to be home,” answers David.

  In the vault, David says, “I only need 4598 today, Jenny.” He follows her down the aisles to the right bank of boxes. They each insert their keys. Jenny struggles to pull the box from its shelf.

  “Here, I’ll get that.” He hands the briefcase to Jenny.

  “Is this full of gold bullion, Mr. Steadman?”

  “Not exactly.” He pulls the box from its perch and carries it back the way they had come, with Jenny just behind him. When they reach the private rooms, Jenny is ahead of him and opens the door to the nearest room. She sets the briefcase on the table and turns on the light which also lights the occupied sign on the outside wall.

  “Just push the blue button when you’re done.” She walks away.

  When she reaches the door of the vault the guard is still standing there.

  “Did you call the police?”

  “The police? What for?”

  “Mr. Steadman is wanted by the FBI. Didn’t you read the internal memos regarding him?” She runs the rest of the way back to her desk.

  An employee rushes up to her and says, “I called the police. They should be here in a few minutes. What should we do?”

  “I’ll call the bank manager to let him know Mr. Steadman is here, but for now, gather everyone on the other side of the bank where we’ll be safe.”

  Chapter 73

  After Jenny closes the vault door, David bolts the steel door from the inside.

  He opens his briefcase and removes eight trophy jars from the recent murders. Then he opens box 4598 and removes four trophy jars from the previous murders. He lines them up on the table in chronological order.

  He unzips a pocket inside his briefcase and removes an envelope and from it, he removes a 3x5 picture. David caresses the face of the boy in the picture, and he stares at the other figure with a slow burn in his eyes.

  He remembers the exact day this picture was taken. He’s shocked at how small and young he was. He is taken aback by seeing his father’s wide smile. His father’s golf bag, full of clubs, is slung over David’s drooping shoulder, and David’s eyes are full of melancholy, his expression cheerless.

  He was caddying for his father at Oak Park Country Club. It was one of those Saturdays when his father had lined up some “suckers.” They were at the first tee, then out on the fairway. David Sr. asked young David for the yardage to the hole, it was only then that David realized he had brought the wrong yardage book.

  Not knowing the yardage, he ran to the markers in the fairway then back to his father. He could only approximate the distance. When he told his father that he didn’t have the right yardage book, he was shaking with fear, knowing David Sr. was playing for money and relying on him for accurate yardages to make his shots.

  When they were finished with the game, his father wrote checks to each of the other three players. He didn’t shake hands or leave on any kind of friendly basis. The three men who took his money didn’t miss an opportunity to rub it in. They could rarely compete with David Steadman Sr. and with each jibe, David’s father glared at his son.

  Once in the car, David realized they were headed downtown. He was confused; he had expected to be beaten and taken home. His father avoided the major streets, zigzagging his way through downtown and eventually pulling up in front of A-Prime Meat Packing.

  When they were inside, they encountered Art the watchman. “Leave,” David Sr. told him.

  Art disappeared without a word.

  His father took him by the arm, pulling him along as they passed through the processing room. David Sr. turned on every switch he encountered. The machines in the room were all roaring when they reached the conveyor line on the sixth floor.

  His father slapped him hard across the face, so hard that David fell back. He clutched his face with his hand and his hot tears rolled down his stinging skin.

  “Strip. Take everything off!”

  David stood there bewildered until his father punched him in the stomach. David’s knees buckled from the force of the blow and, as his crumpled body fell to the floor, he gasped for air and felt sick as vomit crept into his throat.

  He struggled to stand and he began to remove his clothing. It was cold in the processing room, and he was shaking from the chill and fear. When he was stripped down to his underpants, David Sr. knocked him to the floor, grabbed his feet and tied them together at the ankles with a piece of twine.

  David was screaming, struggling and crying…then his father did the unimaginable. He hung him on the conveyor by the ankles and walked away.

  The conveyor slowly moved him around the room. Screaming and pleading was useless, the roar of the machines made it impossible for anyone to hear. He tried to see where his father was; he strained his neck until he saw him approaching. Then he saw the butcher knife in his hand and a pail in the other and a look of madness in his eye. He came closer and closer, and he was carrying burlap sacks.

  He took the knife, slipped it between David’s bruised abdomen and his urine-soaked underpants and cut them off. David closed his eyes, knowing that his father was going to kill him. He felt the searing pain of the blade as it traveled from his groin down his chest. Suddenly his warm innards are coming out.

  David opened his eyes when he felt the slimy hot guts of his body sliding across his shoulders and over his head. The floor was covered with blood. His mouth was open in a silent scream, knowing he was dying, not knowing he had passed out.

  He was awakened by the shock of being sprayed with ice-cold water. As he hung there, his father sprayed the blood and guts from his body. He wasn’t dead, but he couldn’t speak or move.

  “Did you actually think I was cutting your sissy body? Felt real, didn’t it?” He cut the twine and let David drop to one of the stainless steel work tables. The drop was only a couple of feet but it felt like he had fallen from a mountain. He landed on his shoulder and the pain shocked him back to his senses. The table was cold, and David was wet and he let go of whatever urine was still in his bladder.

  His father threw his clothing at him. “Get dressed.”

  David slid off the table and tried to move as quickly as possible, knowing he would feel his father’s hand again if he didn’t do as he was told. As hard as it was to put wet clothes on his wet body, he moved as fast as he could.

  To this day, David doesn’t remember what happened after they left the plant. In fact, he didn’t remember anything for several days after. Sarah was terrified by the condition of his clothes and the bruises on his face and when she questioned him, there was nothing he could say.

  He never told anyone except Joan.

  Chapter 74

  Lou, Payne, Phillips, and Gibson jump into the FBI Suburban driven by Agent Sullens, who is on his speakerphone.

  David Steadman has been alone in a safe deposit vault room for the last ninety minutes.

  Sullens tells Lou that the bank is only fifteen minutes away and with lights flashing they speed to the downtown location.

  “Why would he go to the bank?” Phillips que
stions. “Surely he knows we’re watching him. Maybe he thinks he can get in and out before we get there. Maybe he needs money to get out of the country.”

  Lou shakes his head. “No, it’s got to be something else for him to take this kind of risk.” Looking at Sullens he asks, “Is the bank cleared out? No chance of hostages?”

  Sullens nods, still listening to the law enforcement chatter on the speaker while dodging in and out of traffic.

  “Judging from the last scramble: NOW IT’S LOSE MATCH leaves me to think he wants me there,” Lou says. “He knows I’ve been on his trail since San Diego, and he’s used a variation of my name on two scrambles.”

  They pull up to the bank amidst a tangle of FBI and police cars, with SWAT coming in behind them.

  Lou taps Sullens on the shoulder. “Any problem with us taking lead on this? We’ve been after him for a long time.”

  “You run the show, Lou. Just tell us what you need.”

  The group, with Lou in front, rushes into the bank while flashing badges. Chicago PD directs them to the cordoned off a`rea.

  Lou asks if anyone has spoken to David and what is being done to get him out of there alive. “We want him alive. I have a lot of questions. Let me try to talk to him.”

  The police guarding the door move back to allow Lou access.

  “David Steadman! This is FBI Agent Louis Schein. You know me and I know you. Why don’t you unlock the door and we can have a chat. I’m unarmed.”

  As Lou moves closer, he sees blood seeping from under the door. “Get this door open! There’s blood on the floor!”

  The SWAT team comes forward with their battering ram, all guns drawn, and the door is smashed open. SWAT personnel assess the room and give Lou the all clear signal.

  Lou steps into the room and sees David Steadman leaning back in a chair.

  The handle of a butcher knife is protruding below his sternum between his breasts. His clothing is soaked in blood, and there is a pool of blood beneath his chair. He turns and smiles at Lou Schein and falls to the floor. Lou isn’t prepared for what he sees. David’s hair is loose around his shoulders, his shirt is open and Lou sees a fully developed pair of women’s breasts.

  Lou steps over the blood and presses a finger to David’s neck. He is dead. His fingers are locked onto an envelope with LOU SCHEIN written on the front. A picture has been torn up and tossed on the table. Lou puts on a pair of gloves and reassembles the four pieces. He can only assume it is David and his father.

  Lined up across the front of the table are twelve small jars, open, each with a label written in neat black pen. Two nipples are floating in each.

  Lou hands the envelope to Phillips who opens it to find David’s last newspaper scramble: two A’s, one C, one H, one I, one M, one S, and two T’s, with one I, one A, and one M circled.

  The knife, unknown to anyone but David, is the same one Samuel Washington gave him so many years ago. David Steadman Jr. finished what his father started; he gutted himself.

  About the Author

  D. Michael Poppe was born in the Midwest and grew up on a dairy farm in Iowa. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War and was honorably discharged. He has had a love of art in all forms from a young age and after military service he attended the University of California and received a degree in Fine Arts. He painted for many years in California and Oregon and has much of his work in private collections. The writing bug bit him ten years ago and after dabbling in short stories, he started Match Play, which is his first full-length novel. He is presently working on several other literary projects. He and his wife live in New Mexico.

  Acknowledgements

  This is my debut novel, but I believe it will not be my last. However I am sixty-six and time doesn’t honor one’s often deleterious plans. “Play the cards you are dealt,” is the popular saying. This book has been a win for my personal life and my aspirations.

  I acknowledge my debt to the pathological, the deranged, and the malignant. Everyone who has helplessly fallen into that tragic category and acted horrendously at some time in their life. Perhaps some will think this book is an example; but it is also a window, a tableau, a chimera of a life gone awry and a pervasive reality that confounds us all. I owe this book to David Steadman and the experience that created him.

  Many people have unselfconsciously contributed to this book and I want to thank them as well:

  WiDo Publishing’s Allie Maldonado, who found merit in my writing. William and Karen Gowen, who took a chance with a senior writer. Shauna Bray for her guidance. And the rest of the WiDo staff for their efforts on my behalf.

  And I want to thank the Cube Commander for always keeping me squared away.