The Bootlegger’s Legacy

by Ted Clifton

  “Well, thanks again Betty. Not sure they are going to put me in charge anytime soon.”

  “Why don’t you go with us a little later and get a drink?”

  “I wish I could but I have to get home and make sure my cat is fed—but thanks anyway.”

  Ugh. How pitiful was that? Plus Michelle had made it up, she didn’t have a cat. It had been many years since her stupid marriage ended and she was increasingly lonely, but she still didn’t feel comfortable in many social situations.

  Michelle did not know what the future held for her—she did know that there was someone out there who was right for her—and that when she met him, she would know. Might not happen next week, but it would happen.

  Oklahoma City, Oklahoma / Las Cruces, New Mexico—December 1987

  Even with everything in his life changing—some good, some bad—Joe loved Christmas. He liked the cool weather, the hectic atmosphere, the lights, the Christmas trees—everything about it gave him pleasure. But mostly he just loved the feeling of joy that replaced gloom at this time of year. It was magical. Suddenly almost everything seemed to be better.

  Almost everything, but of course not everything. He had signed what he believed were the final divorce papers last month. He hadn’t heard if Liz had signed or not. None of that surprised him. His lawyer treated him with the same disdain as Liz’s lawyer. Liz had been very successful at convincing everyone that he was a loser who drank too much and was a lousy husband and a thoughtless father. She had a flair for the dramatic and took every chance to damn him for his evil ways. Some of this was extremely hurtful, and definitely uncalled for. He had agreed to everything she’d asked for. Now Joe was very done with Liz.

  He had closed down his accounting practice the previous month. As much as he had hated accounting, it still made him sad. He had been an accountant for many years—it was who he was, it was his title. Losing that identity was troubling. Even some of his clients seemed sad. That surprised Joe—he thought they wouldn’t care less. He had never formed friendships with his clients, except for Mike, even though he did try to give them the best service he could.

  Of course Lucille wasn’t happy. She actually became quite livid and called him names he had no idea she knew. Every day she had worked for Joe seemed like it was misery to her, yet Joe firing her was apparently cruel beyond belief. She claimed to have worked thankless hours to help build this business and now he was throwing her out into the street. She linked him numerous times, in her parting tirade, to the devil. Joe was mostly shocked by the passion—he had never even seen her smile. He briefly thought she might be dangerous—then he forgot about her.

  Everything was ready to close on the purchase transaction and Joe would officially take possession of Triples on January 1, 1988. He was excited and nervous. Just because you spent way too much time in a bar didn’t mean you knew anything about running one. In the last two months he had visited a lot of restaurants in several cities, observing and asking questions. He was struck by how open the restaurant people were, and how ready they were to offer advice and assistance. They all seemed like nicer people than he was used to dealing with, or maybe it was him who had changed. He knew he was feeling better about himself and, other than his children, he wasn’t worrying about much.

  Joe was headed to Will Rogers World Airport for the third time this year to make a trip to El Paso and then Las Cruces. His earlier trips with Mike had been hectic and always about Mike—this trip was just for Joe. He was going alone and looking forward to having time to reflect a little and maybe decide if he really was the bad guy Liz had so passionately described.

  Joe and Mike had taken a small cash withdrawal the month before from the Second Street vault, so Joe was feeling flush. He had booked a first class seat for his trip to El Paso. By his standards this was a lavish expenditure and it ran counter to his puritan ways, so he was a little nervous about paying for such luxury as he checked in. His worries disappeared when he was seated immediately and the hostess brought him a drink and some nuts before anyone else had even boarded the plane. Shit, he thought, this is the only way to fly!

  The flight was smooth and entirely enjoyable, and pampered as he was, Joe felt almost important. As they approached the El Paso airport, though, he grew melancholy. He knew that his relationship with Mike would never be the same, and he missed his friend. They had so many good memories.

  Joe had decided to stay at the Mason de Mesilla instead of the Holiday Inn for the variety and also because it was closer to the restaurants he had wanted to visit. He’d rented a full size car and he drove from El Paso to Las Cruces in great comfort.

  The hotel was decorated for Christmas, with luminarias along its walls and colorful lights strung in the trees. Joe couldn’t wait for nighttime so he could see the lights. After he checked in he went to his suite, and he was impressed with the old world charm of the room.

  Joe spent several days enjoying the ambiance of the area and visiting local restaurants, especially La Posta and Double Eagle. He knew that La Posta had the charm he wanted to capture at Triples if he could figure out how to accomplish it with his limited knowledge of running a restaurant.

  On his last evening he took a stroll around the Plaza to enjoy the Christmas atmosphere. The night air was cool, although without any wind it was very pleasant. There was a band playing mariachi music in the gazebo and several couples dancing. His melancholy was turning to depression. He felt great about what he was learning and how he could apply that to Triples, but he was lonely.

  As he sat on a bench listing to the music he thought about Pat and Sally. He wondered what they had really been like. And could the old man he knew as Mike’s dad really have had a love affair with a beautiful young mistress? It almost didn’t seem possible.

  Joe walked back to the hotel intending to go to his room—he ended up in the bar. He had a gin and tonic, but only one, and then went to bed. He dreamed that night about an angel named Sally. She was the most beautiful and exciting person he’d ever seen. He wanted to be with her. He didn’t want to be alone.

  Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

  Joe was sitting at the bar in Triples. Some years before he’d had the bar redone, incorporating some of the materials from the old Deep Deuce bar. He loved the irony of it, plus the bar looked great. Customers often commented on its massive size and the craftsmanship of the bar, which made it feel like it was from another era. Even when not drinking, Joe’s favorite spot was the bar.

  It was morning and Joe was having coffee while reading the paper. Damn paper sure seemed to be getting smaller lately. He turned to the metro section, where he knew there was going to be an article about Joe Meadows—one of OKC’s top restaurateurs. Restaurateur—Joe liked the sound of that.

  After Joe and Mike made their deal, things moved along pretty quickly. Joe made a low down payment deal to purchase Triples, borrowing a little cash from the Second Street vault. From that day on, Joe had given up accounting—he had always hated it. He fired Lucille—oh happy day!—and began his new life, sans Liz, as a restaurant owner.

  The divorce from Liz had started out very messy, but Joe quickly acquiesced completely, giving her everything. She got the house, furniture, cars, bank account, the kids—Joe got nothing; although his attorney was able to get Joe off the hook for any alimony or child support—the kids were almost adults anyway. This was possible because Joe declared that he was closing his accounting practice and was going to run a bar. From Liz’s point of view this was a sign that Joe was falling deeper into his alcoholism and she wanted to get as much as she could right now—she didn’t figure Joe would be able to pay in the future anyway, given the direction he was headed. What she got was substantial and it seemed to make her happy.

  Joe was sorry for the kids. But, after so many years under their mother’s control they weren’t very fond of Joe. Maybe someday, when they were thirty or forty, they could all reconcile, but Joe doubted it.

  Triples became his passion. He spen
t months researching every aspect of the food business. He already had a pretty good feel for the bar business. During the research phase, Joe went to several cities and observed some of the best restaurant operations. One trip, based a little bit on nostalgia, had been to Las Cruces. He’d introduced himself to some of the staff at La Posta and collected their contact information.

  Joe spent several days at the Mason de Mesilla hotel, an old adobe building with great character. During that time he ate at La Posta several times, as well as enjoying the ambiance at the Double Eagle on the Old Mesilla Plaza. The Double Eagle bar area was worth the visit—not to mention the room with the ghost. He loved the elegance of the place, took numerous notes, and enjoyed every minute of his trip.

  Step one was convincing Mike that they needed to do some major remodeling on Triples as a smoke screen for building a secure room in the basement for their newly found fortune. So within months of purchasing the restaurant, they began expansion. Along with the upgrades, Joe offered jobs to two of the kitchen staff he’d met at La Posta. They brought with them all of the food expertise he’d experienced at La Posta, along with a complete dedication to him for the opportunity he was giving to them and their families.

  Joe changed everything about the menu. The flavors of New Mexico blended in with Oklahoma traditions to create unique, delicious offerings in the restaurant and the bar—haute cuisine for the restaurant, with a unique Nuevo Mexican menu, and “truck stop specials” for the bar. Joe’s perfect place. Business doubled overnight.

  Joe was energized and enjoyed the daily activity of running a successful restaurant. He still drank a little too much, and on his bad days he still fought loneliness, along with his old friend depression. His new apartment was close to Triples, so on the worst days he just went home and took a long nap. Generally though, Joe was more content with himself.

  The years were also very good to Mike. He and Sam started their church, The Legacy Chapel. Mike was in his element. He had a slow beginning, but word soon spread. Before long they were expanding into a much larger building. Joe had never attended, but there were constant stories in the paper and on the television news about the rapid success of Oklahoma City’s newest megachurch. The chapel now had TV broadcasts featuring Mike and Samantha. Joe had watched one and could see why they were so appealing. Mike was a natural on television, and the couple’s interaction was obviously based on a deep love they felt for each other. Sam was still one of the beautiful people. Joe didn’t watch again.

  Joe read somewhere that Legacy Chapel had taken in over thirty million dollars in the previous year. How ironic that Mike had no need for the money hidden in the basement at Triples—although, of course, up until a few years ago Joe sent him a check every month anyway.

  Mike would call Joe every once in a while and catch up on the business and on how Joe was doing, but the last call had been almost two years before. Joe understood—in some ways Joe represented Mike’s past, something that Mike was no doubt trying to put behind him.

  The real estate holdings that came through Emerson had changed. Besides the remodeling of Triples, the office building on Classen had gone through an extensive remodel and was filled with first class tenants on long-term leases. Joe had been surprised that Mike hadn’t sold it, but the last time they’d discussed it Mike had said he wanted to keep it. The buildings on Second Street had become part of an urban renewal project and were sold to the city at a substantial profit. Joe had often wondered about those buildings and their history. He was sad when they were torn down.

  Joe handled all communications with the property management company that took care of the office building and the CPA firm that completed the tax returns. Everything had been put under a corporation called BDD II, though Mike’s name wasn’t on any of the publicly available documentation. Joe sent Mike quarterly reports regarding the buildings, but it had been years since Mike had asked any questions.

  The one area where Joe felt he had failed was in finding Sally Thompson. Mike had made it very clear from the beginning that he wanted nothing to do with Sally or the package that they’d found in the lock box. Since that day Mike hadn’t asked Joe about the package or ever mentioned Sally. Mike had uncovered a lot about his father and had managed to rationalize most of it to fit his image of his dad, but Sally couldn’t be explained away so Mike just pretended that that part of his dad’s life never happened.

  It was only a few months after they’d found the package addressed to Sally that Joe started his search for her. Finding her and delivering the package was the one thing he could do for Pat Allen that his son could not. He did not know Sally’s age when she was involved with Pat, but his guess was she was in her middle to late twenties, so he calculated that she would be about fifty when he started looking for her.

  For the first few years, Joe mostly placed ads in newspapers, and he covered as much territory as he could since he didn’t really know where Sally might have gone. He would occasionally get a response, but none of them ever checked out. Then, in 1990, Joe hired a local private investigation company, someone recommended by one of his bartenders—bartenders seemed to know everything.

  Price and Pope Investigations turned out to be Bob Jones—Joe never did get an explanation of the company name. Bob had quoted Joe a fair price to try to track Sally down and Joe had given him all the information he had, though he didn’t share anything about the package or Mike’s dad. Bob was mostly a researcher and he seldom ventured out into the world—not exactly your movie PI.

  It took Bob almost three months to find out anything about Sally. He asked Joe to meet him at his office. “Joe, I want you to know that I still have a lot to learn but there is something I thought you needed to know right now.”

  Joe waited. “Okay, Bob, what is it?”

  “She’s dead.”

  Joe hadn’t been expecting that, and he felt a great sense of loss. He had never met her, knew almost nothing about her, but she had become more important to him than he had admitted. At a very deep level she had become Joe’s Sally.

  “Dead? How do you know? Do you know how or when or where?”

  “The where and when, yes. She died in Chicago in 1954. I know because there’s a death certificate and the timing is right for when she most likely would have been in the city. The how, I’m not sure. Based on other information I have, my guess is that it could have been complications during childbirth.”

  Joe felt like he just wanted to flee—he was having a panic attack about a woman he didn’t even know. He took a few deep breaths while Bob waited.

  “There’s a child?” This wasn’t what Joe had expected either. He’d dreamed about meeting Sally, giving her a great gift from her past, and witnessing her joy. Now it turned out that she was dead and there was a child.

  “Well, I don’t know if there really is a child. What I know is that she gave birth to a girl at St. Joseph’s Hospital in 1953. The baby was named Michelle, Sally Thompson was the mother, and the father was listed as unknown. At this point I haven’t been able to determine what happened to the baby.”

  Dead end. Literally a dead end. Maybe Joe should just give up. Somehow the sadness of knowing that Sally was dead was overpowering. Why was it so important to Joe? Mike didn’t give a shit, why should he? But it was important. The package was a loose end and Joe hated loose ends. He had wanted Sally to know what was in the package from Pat and now she never would.

  “Bob, I’m not real sure where to go from here. I hired you to find Sally Thompson and I guess in a way you did. Now I’m thinking that I need to know about the daughter. For me to be able to close this connection I had with Sally, I need to talk to the daughter. So let’s continue with your current hourly rate and see what you can find out about the daughter, okay?”

  “It’s okay with me, Joe—this is what I do. But let me caution you. The child would have been a newborn when her mother died. She might have gone to relatives, or she could have been taken by the state and eventually put
up for adoption. If she was adopted, my chances of finding her are almost zero. Those records are sealed for the protection of the child and the adopting parents, so it would be another dead end. But if you want me to try, that’s fine—it’s my job.”

  Bob didn’t seem to lack self-esteem. “Yep. Continue on and see what you can find out. Any information at all will be appreciated. Thanks, Bob.”

  Joe went back to Triples, and in an unusual act had a gin and tonic at the bar—it was only 11:00 am.

  Joe felt bad about Sally, and it had stayed on his mind for a few days—but life goes on. He got busy with the restaurant and soon the pain lessened. Maybe part of the sadness was that there was no one to talk to about it. He was the only one who seemed to care, and that made it especially poignant.

  As time wore on, Joe heard from Bob once in a while, but never with any real news. Bob told him he had narrowed down the list of likely towns where he might find her to two, Dallas and Chicago. He now knew that Sally once had a brother in Dallas and had a sister in Chicago. He hadn’t been able to locate the sister and had determined that the brother had died in a construction accident. None of this seemed of use to Joe. He decided that Bob’s reports were just depressing him, so he asked him to stop searching and to send his final bill.

  Joe didn’t want to completely give up, though, so he continued to run ads over the years in the Dallas and Chicago papers for any information about a Michelle Thompson. As the internet came into his world, he placed some ads in various locations there as well. No responses.

  By now Joe hadn’t thought about the ads in months. The last ones he’d placed had probably been over a year before. He thought that someday he would open the package and just see what was inside, but he was still reluctant to do it, as if it might break some sort of spell. Gosh, he was getting more mystical every day.