by Tom Hansen
Phil reached for two Cokes from a mini-fridge, and then sat down in one of two brown, ripped and patched with strapping tape leather chairs in the customer’s lounge. Lew collapsed in the other one, then for the next half hour told Phil about everything that had happened since yesterday when he left to see Abby Charles at BoldMart. Phil sat in stunned silence. Thinking about all the mysterious deaths in recent weeks, he wasn’t sure he wanted to tag along with Lew, but he could see the man needed him. Although he only knew Lew for a little more than a day now, he felt like they had been friends since childhood. Phil wasn’t about to abandon a comrade in need. Friendship is unconditional.
“My pickup’s in the shop getting a new transmission,” said Phil. “But we can take an airboat back to the Estates. I can secure the glass with a couple of ratchet straps. Just a mile down the road is Gibby’s Glass Warehouse. Buck Gibson, the owner, is a friend and will deliver the glass over here. Getting the damn thing from the dock up to Brett’s place could be a challenge, though.”
“If Buck could get the glass here this afternoon, we could ride up there after dark and then Miguel can help us.”
Phil nodded. “Let’s see if he has it in stock. What are the dimensions?”
Phil called up Buck who was thrilled to have some business today. Nary a customer had stopped by the entire morning and Gibby was about to close early when the phone rang. He had the type of glass they were looking for, but would need to cut it down a bit to meet the specs. Buck said to give him a couple of hours.
CHAPTER 38
Wednesday, March 10, 1982
4:00 p.m.
T he Florida Department of Public Safety Internal Affairs investigation into the death of the old man in the BoldMart parking lot was complete. Deputy Willy Banks’ “reckless behavior unbecoming of an officer” was listed as the primary cause of the accident and Internal Affairs recommended his immediate dismissal. Willy was notified of his discharge via a certified letter addressed to his home. Sheriff Al Bonty didn’t want to explain the reasons for firing him face to face. Willy knew the sheriff wanted him gone, but how could Internal Affairs conduct a reliable investigation without even speaking to him?
No matter. Willy was fed up with the system. He was ready to wash his hands of the corrupt law enforcement administration and also the likes of Roy Jackson. He thought about becoming a bass fishing guide, and perhaps with just the right amount of marketing to those snowbirds up north, Willy could make plenty of money. However, although he had a unique talent for finding the ten-pound largemouths and hauling them in with his secret lure (a crankbait with a tiny piece of a nightcrawler attached for scent), creative advertising for a guide service was not his forte.
But every time that Willy thought about doing something different, he remembered his near-death experience at the hands of Roy Jackson. A month had passed since that night he lost his partner, Sam McCormick, and he himself had been left for dead to be eaten by swamp critters. Willy also knew that Roy was just waiting for the right moment to strike again and this time he wouldn’t rely on an alligator to finish the job. Willy thought he should try starting up his own private detective agency with himself as his first client! Unfortunately, Willy hadn’t accumulated or saved much money during his time with the sheriff’s department and commencing any kind of business would be more than he had ever put aside for this “rainy day.”
It was time to relieve some stress. Willy put on his workout shorts and went outside to lift weights in the front yard of his inherited, two-room, concrete block house that sat smack dab in the center of Yardlyville, a section of Seminole Bend that didn’t attract many visitors. Yardlyville really wasn’t the official name, but those who lived there didn’t know it by any other name. The white folks simply called it the ghetto. Willy paused a moment before gripping the barbell to remember his best friend Bo Yardly.
“God rest your soul, my main man.”
Droplets of sweat beaded up on Willy’s forehead. The temperature in southern Florida was hovering in the mid-seventies and the humidity was less than forty percent, a perfect day by both local folk and snowbird standards. But Willy always pushed himself to the breaking point while working out in his front yard and his perspiration puddles could water the lawn on any day, mild or muggy. His mind had wandered away from proper weightlifting and breathing techniques as he reminisced about the days of his youth. It was twelve years ago since he last fooled around with Bo and he missed him dearly . . .
* * * * *
Willy had spent a week fishing, jawing and playing checkers with Bo from sunup to sundown and well into the midnight hour back in March of 1970. Bo was on a short leave after completing basic training in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Willy was pissed that the Army had stolen Bo away from the NFL after a sensational rookie season, and Bo was pissed that Coach Bear Bryant hadn’t offered Willy a scholarship to Alabama so he could have blocked for him in college. Just for the hell of it, they drove down to Hudster’s Hardware store and bought two new transistor radios to break apart and put together again like the good old days when they were kids. Bo was excited to be joining the Signal Corp and heading to Colorado for specialized training the next week.
“Willy Boy, watch this.” Bo had taken a blue wire from his transistor radio and attached it to some metal gadget he had in his pocket. Willy had never seen a gadget like it: a small, cylindrical silver widget with a green wire sticking out both ends. Bo tied the green wire to the blue wire in the radio, then took out a fine point needle nose pliers and wound the wires onto the base of the antenna. He replaced the batteries and flipped the switch. A few minutes later Willy could hear a garbled, static-laced sound that he recognized as a communications transmission from a pilot to an air traffic controller somewhere on the ground. Willy shot a look at Bo, raised his eyebrows and smiled.
“Where did you learn that one, Bo?”
“Not much else to do up in Green Bay after the first Wisconsin snowfall. Half the bars close down because the owners go out deer hunting, and the ones that are open can smell an enemy a block away and they ain’t too friendly. The night before we were smoked by the Packers, I was tinkering around with the clock radio by my bed and I noticed something curious. There was a Radio Shack next to the hotel that was open ‘til nine, so I bought me some doodads and just started messing around with the radio. Bingo, this is what I discovered.”
* * * * *
A few tears fell from Willy’s eyes as he remembered that great week with Bo. Back then, he had no idea the next and last time he would see him would be during Bo’s funeral over at Calvary Baptist.
* * * * *
Willy dressed for the funeral in his finest military décor, including insignia and the service ribbons that displayed his Purple Heart and Medal of Honor. After the burial, when everyone had gone back to the church for refreshments, Willy walked over to the casket of his best friend and knelt down. The casket had been partially lowered into the burial vault, but the grave would not be filled until later that evening. The funeral home’s staff were fans of Bo’s too and they were back in the church sharing memories with the others. Willy unpinned his two priceless medals and laid them gently on top of the casket. He tossed a handful of dirt over them, whispered a final prayer and left for home. He didn’t feel like socializing. Even after surviving four bullets in the back, the pain of losing his buddy was the worst torture he had ever endured. Abby and his four-year-old nephew Tyrone gave him a long, well-needed hug when he had returned to the house.
CHAPTER 39
Wednesday, March 10, 1982
4:30 p.m.
W illy went back into the house and took a shower. Abby would be home from work in a couple of hours and Willy would have to find a way to tell her that he was fired from the sheriff’s department. Willy let Abby and Tyrone move into his mama’s house with Otis back in the fall of 1966 while he was stationed in Orlando. He served two more years, then came home to Seminole Bend in the fall of 1968.
* * * * *
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Abby thought Willy would make a fine husband and daddy. He was kind, respectful, heroic and shoot . . . pretty dang good looking! But Willy refused to start up a romantic liaison with the girlfriend, or fiancé, of his older brother. Abby was dazzling and quite the catch for any bachelor, but there was something wrong about stealing Tyrus’ gal even though he had walked out on her. Regardless, Willy promised to take great care of Abby and Tyrone until Abby could find a more permanent relationship.
Through the years, Otis, the youngest of the Banks brothers, kept moving in and out of the house. Each time he found a job he would go rent a room at Duff’s Motor Lodge for three dollars a day. Albert Duff was spending life in prison for murdering a customer who he caught fooling around with his wife Gertrude. Meanwhile, Gertrude took over the motel operations, but business came to a standstill after the trial. She wasn’t liked much by most folks around Seminole Bend. Citizens were mad at the jury for siding with Albert’s adulterous wife. Gertrude was forced to drop the rent to a measly three bucks a day just to get someone to stay there. Otis Banks was her best customer, that is, when he had a job. Otherwise, Otis spent his nights on the couch at Willy’s house.
* * * * *
The workout had cleared up Willy’s angry and confused mind and now his head and heart were filled with determination. Whatever Roy Jackson was doing out on his estate was illegal and the SOB had Sheriff Al Bonty and most likely other high-ranking law enforcement folks playing the crooked game with him. Willy and Bo had risked their lives in Vietnam for a better America and Willy decided that ending the corruption in Seminole Bend was his next mission. It could be his last.
It was late afternoon when Otis got up off the couch to make himself breakfast. He was working nights down at Mucker’s Produce and slept most of the day. Abby would be home any minute now and plop down on the couch Otis had just relinquished. She worked six days a week developing thirty-five-millimeter color prints on the fancy new photo processor at BoldMart. Her job was to remove the film from the cartridge using a picker and place it on the leader card. She did this with her hands in a dark box to prevent light from exposing the film. One mess up and Abby could lose her job. Handling film all day long together with the stress of perfection meant her daily collapse onto the couch was justifiably warranted.
Tyrone usually got home from school shortly after his mama’s afternoon nap began. His promising basketball season came to an abrupt end after the horrible deaths of Coach Berry and his wife. The last two games of the regular season had been forfeited and the Warriors lost in the first round of the regional tournament to Clewiston, the same team they had beaten twice by over forty points back in December and January. Team spirit and energy died on the highway that fateful night, right alongside their beloved coach. Tyrone planned to start looking for a job that would keep him busy and put food on the table until football practice began in August. He still used Abby’s bedroom to store his clothes and stuff, but he slept in a pup tent in the backyard. Somehow, sharing a bedroom with your mama when you’re a sophomore in high school didn’t sound too cool.
“Hey Otis,” Willy interrupted his little brother as he was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, “I need to ask you a question.”
“What’s up, bro?”
“You ever drank any Mad Dog Twenty?”
“Dang tooting, every chance I can get.” Otis smiled at the thought as he smeared strawberry jam over his colossal mound of peanut butter.
“Where did you buy it, O?”
“Can’t afford to buys it, even though it is dirt cheap. But I got a friend who will share a gulp or two on my way home from work.”
“Your way home from work? Otis, you come home way past midnight. Who you meeting at those hours?” Willy wasn’t sure he wanted his little brother messing around with winos in the middle of the night.
“Dude’s homeless, bro. Dang sure likes me for the company. But some nights I can’t find him, so I thinks he’s got some woman stashed away somewhere.”
“What’s the dude’s name?”
“I think he said Lars, or Lance or something like that. I knows its starts with an L. At least, I’m pretty sure. Why’s you asking me all these questions, Willy?” Otis shoved a double-wide portion of his sandwich creation into his jowls and began chomping loudly.
“Just curious about the MD Twenty thing. I called down to Mel’s Spirits Shop and found out that Mogen David doesn’t have a distributor in southern Florida. And the gal working there said you can’t find it in any of the liquor stores in Seminole Bend.”
“Well, that there friend of mine dang sure got it somewhere, Willy!”
“Are you planning on seeing him again anytime soon?”
“You betcha! I stop by his place every night, so I sees him tonight, if he ain’t with that lady friend.”
“Where’s his place? I thought you said he was homeless?”
“He is, but we all got a place to call home. That dude’s place is in the telephone booth down by Dixie Food and Drug.”
“You mind if I meet you there tonight, Otis?”
“Why? You got a hankering for some cheap wine, Willy?”
“You might say that.”
CHAPTER 40
Wednesday, March 10, 1982
5:00 p.m.
L ew dozed off in the leather chair while Phil prepped the airboat for the night journey across the lake and up the canal. He attached a hi-power spotlight to the top of the propeller cage and rigged two long ratchet straps to eye bolts on the front and rear of the boat. Then he went out back to the dumpster and pulled four, seven-foot metal support frames from two beds that had been tossed in the refuse bin a few nights ago. At the time, Phil was upset that people were using his dumpster without asking permission, but now he had a creative thought that might just work as a way of holding the glass on the airboat. He carried the supports back to the watercraft and grabbed his arc welding kit from the garage. It took an hour to vertically weld the support frames to the floor, one on each corner of the boat. On the six inch by four-inch bolt plates that were now sticking straight up seven feet from the floorboard, Phil slipped on several layers of hot pads he had stored in the gas grill cabinet that was outdoors next to the garage. That would provide protection for the glass during transport. He went back into his store and sat in the chair next to Lew, who was snoring so loud that Phil worried the fish in Lake Okeechobee would be scared and go into hiding in the weeds. Soon, Phil was singing the same tune. Lord help the crappies!
Buck “Gibby” Gibson delivered the newly cut glass at five o’clock on his way home from work. He woke Lew and Phil from their stupor and the three men carefully placed the glass onto the modified bed frame supports, then ratcheted the glass tightly to the eye bolts. The glass was now a clear boat canopy and Phil was thinking that maybe this could be a get-rich invention someday. The ride up to Seminole Bend Golf Course Estates would be a good test for the new contraption.
At 6:30 p.m., as the sun was setting on a cloudless night in southern Florida, Lew and Phil fired up the engine and navigated the rim canal slowly. The glass canopy could be heard rattling on its steel posts and both men hoped it would survive the journey. They were the only boat in the locks and operator Ernie Hyle barely noticed them enter. When he did see them, he jumped off the stool and dropped his Double Whopper on the Playboy magazine he was reading and walked outside the booth onto the ledge.
“What the hell is that?” shouted Ernie as he peered through the canopy. “Phil Bennett, is that you down there under that glass roof?”
Phil looked up and waved. “Yep, Ernie, it’s me and my friend Lew here. Like my newly redesigned boat? Just invented it and am trying it out tonight. What d’ya think?”
“Glass top boat in sunny Florida is going to roast all your customers. Have ya turned crazy on me or something?”
“Nope. This here’s a ‘moon roof’ canopy for night fishing, my man. During the day you can cover it with a piece of canvas to keep t
he sun out.” Lew was doing his best to keep a straight face as Phil poured out the lies.
“Okay, guess that makes sense. Well, are y’all fishing tonight?”
“No, not tonight. Just testing out my new invention, that’s all.”
“Well, I’ll be here when you come back. Damn Gordon Finch called in sick again. I’ll be working ‘til midnight. You boys are lucky you weren’t trying to come through a half hour ago. I had to close it up for an hour to get me a couple Double Whoppers over at Burger King.”
Lew and Phil grabbed the hanging ropes as Ernie closed the gate behind them. They emerged onto Lake Okeechobee as the moon was rising over the horizon in the east and the sun was vanishing below the skyline in the west. The result was radiant illuminations dancing around the surface of the big lake, which was calm in the gentle wind.
The crossing to the mouth of the Kissimmee River was effortless and the men reached the camouflaged entrance to the man-made irrigation canal as the last traces of sunset vanished. Phil turned on the spotlight and aimed the beam at the mangrove roots, then at the shrubs that covered the tributary. The glass canopy on the airboat prevented the men from inserting the plywood shield that they used yesterday to keep from scratching their arms and faces.
“I ain’t gonna lie to you, Lew. This probably ain’t gonna be pretty. You need to hold the front edge of the glass in place while I try to get us through this mess. Put your back to the bushes so they don’t hit ya in the eyeballs.”
“I’ll do my best. Got any Neosporin laying around? I got a feeling I’ll be needing some once we get to the other side!”