The One Dollar Rip-Off

by Ralph Dennis

  Art and I arrived first. It’s a big ugly building and the jail is on the basement level. It’s a big lobby with displays of shoulder patches from police departments all over the country in glassed-in cases and there are a couple of hard benches and a wall phone and a listing of bondsmen. There’s a notice next to the listing that says that the police don’t recommend any of the bondsmen. No, that’s not the way it sounds. There have been some scandals around the state where there were some connections between the police and bondsmen. One sheriff even owned a big part of one of the bonding companies.

  There’s a glassed-in window at the back of the lobby. I left Art and went over and leaned on the counter for a time before anybody noticed me. They were having a morning coffee break and laughing it up like cowboys and I watched the banks of closed-circuit monitors. It was mostly cellblock hallways and a parking lot or two. After five minutes, I went into a coughing fit and a fat cop with a doughnut in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other came over and grunted at me.

  “Hump Evans,” I said.

  “The nigger?”

  “Black,” I said.

  “You his lawyer?”

  “A friend,” I said. “The lawyer’s on the way.”

  The fat cop went into an office off to the right. He rooted about on the desk in a pile of papers. He didn’t find anything. Then he made a call. It was a short call, just a few words. When he returned, he choked down the last third of his doughnut before he said, “He’s not charged yet. They’re still interrogating him.”

  I looked over my shoulder at Art. I made room for him. Art showed his I.D. The fat cop looked at it and said, “Is this Fulton County business too?”

  Art didn’t answer that “Who’s handling it?”

  “Bowser’s talking to the … black.”

  “Tell Bob that Art Maloney wants to see him.”

  “He know you?”

  “He knows me,” Art said.

  While the cop made the call, Art and I sat down on one of the benches and had part of a smoke. The fat cop returned to the window a minute later and yelled that Bowser was on the way out.

  Bowser’s office smelled of stale smoke and socks that needed changing and an armpit or two. Bowser was in his mid-forties but he looked younger and he carried himself as though he’d been a Marine drill instructor or thought he should have been. His hair was in a brush cut, tipped with gray, and his eyes were red-rimmed and tired. While I sat down and looked at him, he put his back to us and fiddled with the blinds. After he swung around and faced us, I could see that he’d dismissed me as not mattering. His attention was on Art.

  “Next week, Art,” he said, “I’m going to drop by Decatur Street and mix in your business some.”

  “We’d be glad to have you,” Art said. He kept it low and even. “Especially if you coming by kept us from making a mistake.”

  “What mistake? We haven’t charged him yet.”

  “You going to?”

  “We’re still talking,” Bowser said, “and he’s not giving many answers.”

  “No answers at all?”

  “All he’ll say is that he was with a James Hardman most of the afternoon and evening.” Bowser’s eyes pecked at me and slid away.

  “You got a time for the killing?”

  “Right about at 8 p.m. last night.”

  “That exact?” I said.

  “Within a minute or two,” Bowser said. “A man who lives next to the wooded area where Bottoms was found says he was in the bathroom on the side of the house next to the woods. He says he heard what sounded like a scream and a muffled shot. He didn’t think much of it at the time. He just went back in and watched his favorite program, one that comes on at eight.”

  “Evans was with me at eight,” I said.

  Bowser shook his head. “You’re too tight with him. And I know about you and your word stinks.”

  I turned to Art. “Marcy was with us.”

  “That’s two,” Art said.

  I worked it back through my mind. The call for Hump came in at about eight-thirty and we’d been there about an hour before that. “There are a lot more. From seven-thirty to nine we were in The Brothers Two. There ought to be a few people who remember Hump. He’s too big to forget.”

  “Give me some names.”

  “A waitress named Truckee. She talked to us at the bar before Marcy arrived. That was before eight. About eight we took a table. The waitress … I don’t know her name … had short dark hair, long legs and a little mole on her upper lip.”

  “You started eating at eight? You sure of that?”

  I nodded.

  The phone buzzed. Bowser talked for a few seconds. Mainly he listened. He hung up and looked at me. “A lawyer out there says he represents Evans.”

  “I called him,” I said.

  He let out a short, angry hiss of breath. “You sandbag people when you get a chance, don’t you?”

  I stood up. Art followed me to the door. I’d swung it open before Bowser called out.

  “I want a word with you, Art.”

  I waited in the hallway. Art came out three or four minutes later. He was sweating. “This better be the truth. I gave him my word he could believe you.”

  “It’s gospel,” I said.

  “He’s going to do some checking. I gave him Marcy’s number at work. I think we can count on him springing Hump.”

  “Fine with me.”

  “He wants to talk to you.” Art nodded at the closed door.

  “What about?”

  “A question or two.”

  I told him to introduce himself to James Fitch in the lobby. I’d be out as soon as Bowser finished with me. He left and I went back into the office. I didn’t sit down.

  “Tell me about the scratches on Evans’ hands.”

  I told him all of it. The pool and the one-dollar rip-off and the check Hump had taken as security for the hundred Joe Bottoms owed him. And I told him about the fight in the parking lot behind Hump’s apartment.

  He didn’t make notes. He didn’t nod. Just those tired, red eyes fixed on me. When I stopped talking, he said, “People have killed for a hundred dollars. Hell, they kill over a bottle of rotgut wine.”

  “Not Hump,” I said. “He might knock out a couple of Bottoms’ teeth. He might pass out some lumps. That’s as far as he’d go.”

  “The check … you got it?”

  I shook my head.

  “The two in the parking lot didn’t get it?”

  “No.”

  Bowser fumbled with a crushed cigarette package. He tore the top off. It was empty. I passed him a Pall Mall. “The check business bothers you, Hardman?”

  “Some.”

  He got the Pall Mall burning. “I’ve got to check out that part of it.”

  I nodded.

  “Evans didn’t mention the check,” Bowser said.

  “Can’t blame him. He’s not in the business of tying himself in a Christmas package for you.”

  Bowser pushed back his chair and stood up. There were a dozen or so angry words tap-dancing on the tip of his tongue. He closed his teeth over them and I followed him from the office and down the hallway to the jail lobby. James Fitch was on the bench next to Art. When he saw me, he uncrossed a leg and pushed himself up. I shook my head at him before he could gear up his pitch to Bowser.

  Bowser hadn’t swallowed those words yet. He swung away from me as though he wasn’t with me. I stopped next to Fitch. Art edged in close and said, “If this is done, I need some sleep.”

  At the window Bowser tapped on the glass. The fat cop leaned in. “Bring Evans up,” Bowser said.

  I tipped my head at Art. That’s what I’d been waiting for. “I’ll call you in a day or so.” Art nodded at Fitch and had a few words with Bowser before he left. Bowser stood with an elbow on the window ledge, face away from us, for the ten minutes it took to bring Hump from the cell. I think I figured him pretty well. He’d chewed and swallowed the dozen words and they gave hi
m stomach burn. And he wasn’t quite sure, if he talked to me, that he wouldn’t cough up a few of those soured words.

  The door to the left of the cage and window opened and Hump walked out. Another time he’d have been angry. In an hour he might be. This time all I could see was relief. He was glad to be getting out.

  Bowser met him. Fitch touched my arm and we hurried over and arrived in time to hear Bowser ask if Hump had gotten his things back. Hump said that he had.

  “I’ll need that check,” Bowser said.

  Hump tilted his head past Bowser. I met his eyes and nodded. Hump bent over, lifted his right trouser leg, and dug down into the elastic part of the knee-length sock. He straightened up and passed the folded check to Bowser.

  Bowser took his time reading it.

  Fitch cleared his throat. “I assume that Mr. Evans is free to go.”

  “You the lawyer?” Bowser hadn’t lifted his head from the check.

  Fitch said that he was.

  “He’s free for now. We’ll check out the girl who’s supposed to have been with these two and we’ll check the waitresses at the restaurant.”

  “It’s straight,” I said.

  He folded the check and walked away without looking back at us.

  In the parking lot, next to Fitch’s blue Duster, I stopped long enough to push a hundred in cash on him. He protested some that he hadn’t really done anything. The protest was weak and soft in the center, as if he really needed the money. I told him to think of it as a down payment on a job that wasn’t over yet. That if he’d take the money, I wouldn’t feel bad about calling him at 3 a.m. if the police made another surprise visit.

  Fitch drove off. I stood around while Hump took about twenty deep breaths. “God, that place stinks in there.”

  I drove him to his apartment. I made coffee and read the morning paper. He stayed under the shower for what seemed just on this side of an hour. Even after that, drinking the coffee I’d made and scrambling half a dozen eggs, he said that he hadn’t washed it away. The stink was buried far back in his nose and he hadn’t been able to reach it.

  Two days. Bowser didn’t call. Art Maloney dropped by for a free beer and remained long enough to say that the times at The Brothers Two had checked out. Hump was clear, unless the pissing witness had his times messed up.

  The Bottoms killing dropped off the blank end of the paper altogether. It hadn’t been front-page and now it wasn’t news at all. So much for that dumb life.

  The third morning I awoke to the sound of rain. It was a hell of a storm. I rolled around and enjoyed that sound for an hour or so before I got up and opened the blinds. The leaves, the ones that hadn’t fallen yet, looked like wet dark leather.

  I walked barefooted into the kitchen and put on the coffee water. I switched on the radio. I didn’t remember moving the dial but now it was on WPLO and Rex Allen, Jr., was singing about “Lying in my arms I find that you’ve been lying in my arms.” It didn’t quite fit the way I felt. Rainy days got to me. I wanted to be in some sweet woman’s arms, one that was telling me the truth.

  I’d had one sip of the instant coffee when my muted doorbell rang. It might have been ringing longer. After Rex Allen, Jr., there’d been Merle Haggard and Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris and all of it was so sad and unhappy that my feeling about the rain changed and it wasn’t loving anymore. It was a red-neck hurt.

  I unlocked the front door and Hump pushed his way in. He stood just inside the door and shook the rain from his coat as a dog sheds water. I was about to close the door when another man trotted up the steps and sprinted into the living room. This man wasn’t wearing a raincoat and I could see the rain smears and dots on his expensive suit jacket. The suit looked tailored and it looked to be about four hundred dollars’ worth of cloth.

  I put this man’s age at about fifty. His face was sleek and round and his head was bald in the center. The hair fringe was brown streaked with gray. He wasn’t wearing a hat and I could see, close up, that the top of his head was oily and drops of rain skated on the oil.

  “You got coffee, Jim?” Hump dumped his raincoat over the back of the stuffed chair and headed for the kitchen before I could answer. At the kitchen door, as an afterthought, he turned and said, “This is Frank Temple.”

  I blinked at him.

  “You know, the check.”

  It still didn’t mean anything.

  “The Frank Temple Construction Company,” Hump said.

  I had it then. I stuck out a hand. The one he offered me was soft and pampered. Maybe he knew the impression that the hand gave me. I’d decided just to touch the hand and withdraw mine. At the last moment he tightened his grip. He let me see the strength under the softness and then released the hand and stepped around me.

  “It’s good to know you, Mr. Hardman. Your friend has been telling me about you.”

  “Friend?” I looked at Hump. We laughed at the same time. Maybe it was the surprise. Nobody ever said that about us. To Marcy, we were Huck and Nigger Jim. To some of the blacks on the street, I was Hump’s winter shadow, that kind of thing. What the red-necks thought about my relationship with Hump, I hadn’t heard any of that recently. But I could guess.

  Temple didn’t understand. He looked confused and then he corrected himself. “Associate?”

  “That’s close.” I waved him into the kitchen and caught Hump’s wink. He was feeling his jolly for some reason. That was good. Bottoms and the rip-off were off in the background somewhere, put aside, and he appeared to have his balance back.

  Hump filled the kettle and put it on the burner. I cleared an end of the table and nodded Temple toward it. After he was seated, I got down two cups and spooned in instant. That done, I got the quart of milk from the refrigerator. Before I put it in the center of the table, I opened the spout and sniffed at it. Sour. I poured it down the drain and rinsed the carton before I tossed it in the trash.

  “I hope everybody takes the coffee black,” I said.

  “Black is fine.” Temple replaced a handkerchief in his jacket breast pocket. The top of his head wasn’t damp anymore and I knew he’d blotted it.

  I sat across from him and looked at his hands. He placed them palm down on the table top. I could see the thick, black wire hair on his wrists where the cuffs had pulled away. “Tell me what brings you out on a wet day like this, Mr. Temple.”

  “Call me Frank,” he said.

  I nodded. “In that case, I’m Jim.”

  “Two days ago I received a call from a policeman here in town.”

  “Bowser,” Hump said.

  “I believe that was his name.” Temple nodded. “It is not surprising that a check written on my company had found its way this far south. My company does business worldwide. I’d rather not give exact figures but the cash flow in my kind of business is considerable. Even with the recession this year growth has been acceptable.”

  I looked at Hump. I had the feeling he’d heard some of this earlier. Temple had paused. I realized he expected me to say something. “Stop me if I head in the wrong direction,” I said. “What you’re saying is that a two-thousand-dollar check written on your company wouldn’t ordinarily bring you down to Atlanta.”

  “That’s true.”

  “What changed all that?”

  The kettle hissed. Hump poured the water into the three cups. He handed the cups around and sat down to my left.

  “First of all, it was the matter of the check itself. When Mr. Bowser called, my secretary took the number from the check.” He reached into his right, side jacket pocket and brought out a notebook. “That check is numbered 223455.” Temple closed the notebook and placed it on the table in front of him. “And she made a notation of which account, which bank, the check was drawn on. Under usual circumstances it might have been a week before we’d have looked into the matter of this check. At the time it seemed to be a favor we were doing for the police down here.”

  “A part of Bowser’s investigation?”

 
; “Yes. That was how I saw it. But later that afternoon, I had a call from First Federal of Boston. The bank informed me that my account was overdrawn. That didn’t seem to be possible. Though our figures were not exact we should have had a balance of almost nine hundred thousand.”

  I could see the edges of the puzzle. “Why aren’t your figures exact?”

  “I wondered if you’d ask,” Temple said. “About two weeks ago there was a fire at our main office. The master computer tapes, the ones that recorded all the checks written in the last six months, were destroyed. That same fire burned up a check-writing machine and spread to the storeroom where the stock of blank checks was kept.”

  “You didn’t consider arson?”

  “Not at the time. Both the fire department and the insurance company investigations seemed to point to a hot plate that had been left burning after hours, a unit that was used by the office staff to heat water for tea or instant coffee.”

  That was likely. A good torch would make it look that way. Without some indicators, either increased coverage or business problems, there was no reason to suspect arson. “And you didn’t keep a copy of those computer tapes at another location?”

  “What they call son and grandson tapes?” He shook his head. “Banks usually do this. They have more to lose than a private company. We’d never had a fire and there was no reason to believe we’d have one.”

  “So, you weren’t sure what checks had been written?”

  “Not to the penny. But we could estimate on the basis of other peak months.”

  I sipped at my coffee. “But it wouldn’t be anything like nine hundred thousand?”

  “Not a quarter of that,” Temple said.

  I did those figures in my head. It was a healthy take. I pushed that aside and went back to the puzzle. I had the feeling that Temple was testing me, waiting to see if I saw the full shape of it. “Where does the check Joe Bottoms had fit in?”

  Temple smiled. I knew then I’d passed the test. Or a part of the test. I decided I might as well make the leap over the gap. Either I’d prove something or I’d splatter on the rocks.