What Goes Up

by Allen Weiner

  Max intercepted Tex along the sidewalk outside the coffee shop and told his older, wiser friend he needed to talk for a minute.

  “What’s up?” Tex said with his ever-present grin firmly in place.

  “It’s that Raidler guy. He’s harassing me by moving my desk chair into the bathroom and made a nasty, anti-Semitic remark.”

  Tex stopped and leaned against the wall between the coffee shop and the cleaners down the bureau’s block. “Well, that sucks. I’ve heard lots of rumors about the guy, but I know he’s still angry from being sent to prison. I wonder if there’s more to it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know he’s friends with that guy whose trial you’re covering, and he probably wants to stick up for his buddy. What you said about Albrecht was none too flattering. Still, that is no cause . . .”

  “I take it you think the best course of action is to let it be, right?”

  Tex smiled. “Yep. That’s my advice. The thing about bullies is that if you ignore them, in most cases, they go away.”

  As Max entered the office, he noticed Ray a few steps from Max’s vacant desk. Ray had a look on his face that did not radiate warmth and support, so Max feared the worst.

  “What the hell took you so long?” Ray probed. “I expected you back an hour ago.”

  “I made a quick stop by the courthouse just to catch up on the morning news from the trial.” Max felt that being direct and honest was the best course of action.

  “Listen, I want you to put that trial on the back burner for now. You can go back when the jury deliberates, but other than that, I have plenty of stuff for you to work on.”

  Max was a bit startled. The trial, especially with his eavesdropping tips, would be a step to get him back in the newspaper’s good graces. He felt his stomach drop. Challenging Ray, however, was not a wise move if Max wanted to remain employed. “Yes, sir. I’ll ask the clerk to call when they wrap up closing arguments. Till then, I am ready for anything you need.”

  Ray turned around, and without saying a word, walked to the back of the office and sat down at his cluttered desk. While only on the job for a few months, his reporter’s intuition was beginning to grow; something about this whole trial thing didn’t add up.

  Max sat and poured through the papers stacked on his Selectric. On top was a school board meeting in Lehighton that night. Attempting to get as much background as possible, Max pulled some clips from recent school board meetings to acquaint himself with the players and issues. There was some discussion on a bond to pay for the high school gym’s renovation, but not much else newsworthy. All things pointed to the assignment being a snoozer.

  Raidler walked through the front door, mop and bucket in tow, and made his way up the aisle between the two rows of reporters’ desks. He slowed down at Max’s desk but didn’t say a word, instead conveying his feelings with a look that could kill and leave no evidence. Thinking about his chat with Tex, Max applied the “ignore the bully” idea and smiled back at the creep.

  Dealing with Raidler was the furthest thing from Max’s mind. His boss implored him to stay away from the trial until the jury went into deliberation, yet something about the arson case nagged at Max. He had a few hours before his school board meeting and decided to take a low-risk, yet bold, step that could hopefully confirm what he heard on his radio earlier in the day. While Ray told him to stay away from the trial, his boss didn’t expressly say to not go to the courthouse.

  Max typed a brief letter that he would take to the Mark Tobias, the county DA:

  Dear Mark,

  Have you checked as to whether Chris Albrecht had a recently filed second fire insurance policy (maybe under another name) that was for a large amount? It might be worth looking into.

  Sincerely,

  A Concerned Citizen

  Traffic was light between Nesquehoning and the courthouse in Jim Thorpe. Taking the lead from the mystery insurance salesman, Max parked around the corner from the center of all things legal in Carbon County. Relatively new to the Chronicle, there was little chance of anyone on the street recognizing Max, but he nonetheless walked briskly. He also didn’t want to dawdle in case Ray was keeping track of his movements.

  Max entered the building and took the elevator to the second floor. The DA would be in the courtroom, so the only person in his office was an assistant whose job was to answer the phones and keep track of Tobias’s appointments. Max gently placed his letter in the inbox that sat toward the front of the assistant’s desk and quickly headed out. On his way out of the building, Max got in the elevator, in a bit of luck, in which he and Barrett had planted their FM transmitter. Alone in the closed space, Max reached behind the ashtray and felt the device still firmly in place. How long do we have to keep this thing here? Max wondered. For now, though, its purpose was to ensure a local scuzzball didn’t get away with a heinous crime.

  As Max headed back to his car and then back to the office, his focus changed from giving the DA a gentle push to figuring out Albrecht’s accomplice’s name and background. If the DA took the anonymous note seriously, the truth should come out as well as the name of Albrecht’s partner in crime. Max contemplated a scenario that would put the two men together in this plot to escape justice. Also, what would be the motivation for Mr. Insurance Man to get involved in something that could cost him his livelihood, not to mention his freedom?

  Max had a lot to learn.

  Max returned to the office and kept a low profile before heading out to the school board meeting. Sue was sitting at desk of the reporter on vacation, offering Max a smile and a wave when he returned to his regular perch. He had about thirty minutes to get ready for his assignment, figure out what he was going to eat on the way, and, most importantly, whether Tobias would get his note and act on it.

  Sue got up, walked over to Max’s desk, and gently put her hand on his shoulder.

  “I haven’t seen you in a few days. How have you been?”

  “I’m okay, but I have been busy with a few assignments Ray pointed in my direction. How have you been?”

  “Frankly, a little bored,” Sue whispered. “I thought getting to work in a big newspaper would be more exciting.”

  Sue sensed Max was preoccupied. She took her hand off his shoulder and walked back to her desk. “We should get together next weekend outside of work,” she said, walking away. “Is that okay with you?”

  “Sure,” replied Max, taking the path of least resistance.

  With that personally nerve-wracking exchange concluded, Max headed out and decided to again make a quick stop at McDonald’s on his way to the Lehighton. Lehighton had just opened the county’s first Pizza Hut, but a pie seemed like a messy choice as an “eat while you drive” dinner.

  Lehighton was not on the top of Max’s favorite places to go. The city had nearly as many bars as people, and there were always drunks wandering around either looking to panhandle or start a fight. Even at 6:30 p.m., when Max pulled into a parking spot near the high school, there were plenty of derelicts wandering about.

  The school board meeting came in under an hour with barely enough news to warrant a three-paragraph story. The topic of renovating the high school gym sailed through without a discussion. The details, Max learned, would be ironed out during an executive session. Max’s mind went into full eavesdrop mode: I wish the high school had an elevator. I’d love to plant a bug to find out what’s going on.

  Max drove back to the office and banged out a recap of the meeting in Lehighton. Ray left a note on his Selectric that he had another feature idea for him and to come in early to discuss. Max was puzzled by Ray’s attitude, given the jury was likely to go out for deliberation the next day. Ray agreed that Max could head to the county courthouse once the jurors went into decision mode. Something about Ray and these assignments that could conflict with covering this important trial made no sense. For a moment, Max believed his boss was doing his best to keep him away from the arson case.

 
; The timing was perfect. At 11 a.m. the following day, Max walked into the office to meet with Ray and learn what hot story loomed on the horizon. As he walked by his desk, Max’s phone rang. He stopped to answer.

  “Chronicle, Max Rosen speaking.”

  It was the courthouse clerk informing Max that the jury left their seats in the courtroom and was headed into a conference room to determine the fate of Chris Albrecht. The courthouse was close enough that there was little chance the verdict would come down before he reached Jim Thorpe. Max walked back to Ray’s office as he prepared to leave, but the big man was nowhere to be found. Max left a note saying the jury was out, and as agreed, he was headed there for the verdict.

  The next thirty minutes became a fragment of time Max would relive and retell for decades to come. It was a turning point for Max as a reporter, being part of a spectacle he would write about, and people in Carbon County would read about in the Chronicle for a week.

  Max parked in his new secret spot around the corner from the courthouse. He walked with purpose the one block to the entrance and took the six steps two at a time. Max’s adrenaline was pumping, although he wasn’t entirely sure why. As fate would have it, the Max and Barrett Memorial Elevator was waiting on the ground floor and was ready to take him to the courtroom level.

  The jury was still in deliberation. Max took a seat on a long backless bench outside the courtroom. It was difficult to be patient in these situations, but Max closed his eyes and took deep breaths. When he opened his eyes, a surprise was waiting; seated a few feet away was Chris Albrecht. Albrecht appeared jumpy as his attorney stood twenty feet away on a payphone. The defendant in the arson case turned and faced Max.

  “You’re the guy from the Chronicle who has been covering the trial, right?” Albrecht said with more than a hint of sarcasm. “So, do you think I’m guilty?”

  Max was stunned. “Uh . . . I don’t know,” he meekly responded. “Does it matter what I think?”

  “Honestly, I don’t give a shit what you think. I was just curious as to what you might say.”

  Michael Wolf, seeing this tête-à-tête take place, hung up from his call and strolled over. The defense attorney whispered something in Albrecht’s ear, and the pair walked away down the hall toward the restrooms.

  The next fifteen minutes took place in slow motion for Max. The clerk appeared and proclaimed that the jury was done and would be returning with a verdict. Courthouse personnel and a few folks who had been in the gallery were told they could reenter. Among those making their way into the wood-paneled room of jurisprudence was Mr. Insurance Man. More than a head taller than Max—who stood at six-foot-two—Mr. Insurance Man looked familiar to Max in some way, though he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  As Albrecht, his lawyer, and Tobias stood, the judge returned, and the jury foreman handed the bailiff a piece of paper. In turn, the bailiff handed it to the judge, who glanced at it and, expressionless, handed it back to the court officer. The bailiff walked over to the jury box and passed the note back to the foreman.

  The judge then asked the foreman to read the verdict aloud. “In the case of Carbon County versus Chris Albrecht, we the jury find the defendant not guilty.”

  Albrecht pounded the desk and hugged Wolf. Those in the gallery were shocked at the ruling. Most sat motionless, mumbling and shaking their heads. It was infuriating to them that Albrecht got away with setting fire to his home. Little did they know there was a kicker in a big payday in the form of a secret insurance policy.

  Max was scribbling away in the last row of the courtroom as Albrecht and Wolf walked by. “How do you like that, asshole?” Albrecht sneered. “Go write that up in your shitty paper.” Wolf grabbed his client by the arm and ushered him out the door. Three steps behind him, Tobias followed with a mile-wide grin.

  “I know it was you who left me that note,” the county DA said to Max. “Follow me. I think you’ll enjoy this.”

  Max and the DA took the stairs, and waiting between the elevator and front door was the Carbon County Sheriff and three deputies. Standing on the bottom step, Tobias reached out to hold Max in place. “Sit tight,” he said. “The fun is about to begin.”

  Albrecht, Wolf, and Mr. Insurance Man left the elevator. Midway between the elevator and front door, the sheriff approached the men and uttered a statement Max could barely hear over the commotion.

  “Chris Albrecht and Tim Tomjanovich, you are under arrest for fraud.”

  Max did not hear the name of Mr. Insurance Man over the gasping crowd, which was getting the rare privilege of watching two crooks get nailed. The big man crouched and hung his head in shame. Max would get the man’s name from the DA later.

  Two deputies approached and put the pair in handcuffs. Their expressions went from exuberance to terror in one minute. The deputies ushered the men out a side door to a waiting car, presumably on the way to county jail.

  “Your note did it,” Tobias told Max. “I always felt something was missing from the investigation. Honestly, the local cops did a lousy job digging into the case. And after the two witnesses for the county shit the bed, I assumed it was a lost cause. Thank you, and I’ll be more than glad to give you an exclusive interview for your efforts.”

  Max was on cloud nine. He wanted to find a payphone and call his dad and tell him the good news. He left the courthouse and walked to the right to his car. Three strides away from the building, Max felt a hand grab his arm from behind. Max turned, and there standing in front of him was the giant of a man he called the boss. Ray stood, tears streaming down his face. His grip tightened on Max’s arm.

  “I wanted to personally thank you for getting my son arrested,” Ray barked. “Tim is a good man, and now he’s on his way to jail.”

  Chapter Eight

  Captain Lou Albano stood on the apron of the squared circle hugging the top rope, spewing epithets at the crowd. Sweat dripped from the salt and pepper beard of the greasy, forty-five-year-old wrestling legend as he taunted the five thousand rabid fans at Allentown’s Ag Hall. As one of pro wrestling’s most colorful icons, Albano sparked fury in the arena when he danced around the outside of the ring, tugging at his wild mop of hair adorned with multicolored rubber bands.

  Max, Barrett, and two of the Chronicle’s sportswriters sat ringside at a World Wrestling Federation championship night. That particular evening, Larry Zbyszko and Tony Garea defeated the Yukon Lumberjacks, managed by Captain Lou, to win the WWF World Tag Team Championship in the shade over nine minutes. Garea applied a Figure Four Leg Lock to Yukon Eric to end the match and secure the title.

  Max had been to Ag Hall years before. On a memorable night in 1975, Max and one of his best friends in college, Sandy Klein, stood on rickety wooden chairs in the rundown venue and watched Ali beat Frazier in The Thrilla in Manila on closed-circuit TV. That night remains one of Max’s fondest memories of his years in college.

  As the crowd headed for the exit, one of the sportswriters, Nick Bednar, grabbed Max by the arm. “Hey, Max, you wanna meet one of the wrestlers?”

  Bednar, one of the Chronicle’s senior reporters, covered Lehigh University football and Lafayette University basketball, two of the area’s collegiate programs. His years at the paper, plus his contacts with promoters and PR flacks, provided carte blanche to any backstage access.

  The four men were ushered into a dingy locker room in which the men on that night’s fight card were in the process of nursing wounds suffered from their night as theatric gladiators. Bednar introduced Max to Tony Garea, a personable grappler from New Zealand, and Ernie “the Big Cat” Ladd, a six-foot, nine-inch, 290-pound former lineman for the San Diego Chargers of the old American Football League. Max and Barrett were wrestling fans dating back to an era when matches were shown at off-hours on UHF TV stations. Along with their new sportswriter buddies, the pair left Ag Hall, grinning from ear to ear.

  In the three weeks since the Carbon County arson case hit the fan, Max had newfound popularity at the Chronicl
e. A four-part series on the trial, along with interviews from Tobias, the DA, and the county sheriff, made for great copy. The feedback from readers of the Chronicle was rewarding, but his colleagues’ respect was worth more than any raving letter to the editor.

  Among Max’s new friends was Bednar, who was not only impressed with the reporting and writing, but he had also discovered his co-worker’s passion for sports. He called Max a week after the series ran and arranged for them to meet for coffee. The two men hit it off, spending more time talking about Max’s days as a play-by-play announcer for his college football team than the arson case that grabbed the paper’s headlines.

  The outcome of the arrests after Albrecht’s acquittal took on a life of their own. Wolf and Albrecht were convicted of insurance fraud and sentenced to five years in state prison in Chester, with each one getting a $50,000 fine. Tim Tomjanovich agreed to turn state’s evidence against the lawyer and his client, and in return, had to serve two years’ probation and pay a $25,000 fine. Ray, Max’s boss and Tim’s dad, did not suffer any punishment from his attempt to block Max’s coverage, but did put in for early retirement.

  There was some additional fallout from Ray’s departure: Stan Raidler never returned to the office. It wasn’t clear whether he was fired or just stopped showing up for work. In Ray’s absence, the Chronicle didn’t feel ready to name a replacement, so Al Hickey and Ervin Swan rotated in as managing editor for the bureau. The newspaper business in the late seventies was turbulent, filled with mergers, Joint Operating Agreements, and flat-out failures, so the tremors caused by the events surrounding the arson case did little to disrupt day-to-day business.