by JN Lenz
“No we are not staying mother, we have reservations for seven”
Lilly’s voice drifted down the open stairwell as she began to descend from the top steps. My word she was beautiful that night, that same woman who had been very attractive with her hair pinned up and in uniform at the Nursing Home now standing in full blossom on the top step this stunningly beautiful girl whose long golden hair now hung freely to her slender shoulders.
Where the poorly tailored uniform gave hints of attractive figure under its unflattering design the form fitting skirt and tight fitting silk blouse she now donned revealed an epic body with Norma Jean like proportions. Only in a small city like this could such a beauty not be already held in some ones clutches.
“Wow, you look amazing” I attempted to not blurt it out as not to sound like an over exited little school boy as I thrust the packet of flowers towards her as I watched her descend the staircase and walk towards me from the base of the staircase.
“Well isn’t this nice, I love fresh cut flowers” Lilly replied as she reached for the flowers pulling herself close to me while gently kissing my check. Following the farewell to Lilly’s parents we headed out to the Cadillac where I would open the door to the front passenger seat of the car for her for the very first time.
The leaves on the trees had begun to turn colour and the last blooms on the summer flowers displayed their last bursts of beauty as I made my way slowly through the tree lined streets of Largo on the way to the Café. The sun had almost completely disappeared leaving a brilliant orange sky off the west side of the Café’s large patio which was had a large stand of maples with its accompanying colorful display of crispy leaves bristled in the breeze.
The unseasonably warm evening would have us enjoy that first meal together outside with the soft background sounds of the rustling forest complimented by the chatter of the various bird species flying about this little section of the Boreal Forest. The two of us talked nonstop through diner as we remained on the garden patio until the restaurant closed its doors at eleven PM laughing and sharing the many stories of our past, the red wine had masked the chill from the cooling night air. The attraction to each other was immediate and strong, following that first date Lilly and I would continue to spend more and more time together.
Within a year of Clyde moving down to the city to run the Avery Funeral Home, Lilly would move in with me in the upstairs apartment in the Shackles Funeral Home. The pair of us had been spending so much time together over the past year that it no longer made a lot of sense for her to remain living with her parents. As close as the two of us would become Lilly was never to realize the true scope of Clyde and my illegal business operations or the murders we had committed to ensure our financial success.
It appeared that Lilly and I had given credence to the old adage that opposites attract, where I had a history of dishonesty and had been part of a multitude of despicable and illegal activities Lilly stood solidly in stark contrast. There would be Lilly’s choice of work in the health care field hoping to make a difference in people’s lives which was just one way she demonstrated the genuine care for helping people.
Forever the optimist, Lilly always made reference to any given individuals positive traits and was quick to offer positive encouragement to those around her, in a nut shell she was everything I was not. Our relationship and the love we held for each other blossomed over the course of the following year and a half, by the time I was lining up our third Funeral Home purchase following the opening of our quad grow op set up the two of us had also made plans to be married.
Lilly had made several attempts throughout those first months of our relationship at setting Clyde up with several of her friends and coworkers all to no avail. I had explained to Lilly (forcing her to promise to keep the details in the strictest confidentiality) about the difficult upbringing Clyde had under gone as a child along with the severe scaring from the burn his father had inflicted on the then little boys penis. Because of this Clyde had always been unable to commit to any type of relationship with a woman and despite Lilly’s assurances that the women she attempted to match to Clyde would understand of Clyde’s deformed and scared penis.
I insisted that she refrain from playing match maker with Clyde. Perhaps this was one of the reasons Lilly cared so much for Clyde, the close friendship that developed between Lilly and Clyde made the decision to marry her that much easier for me. Clyde would always be family to me, there would be no way I could marry a woman that did not also consider Clyde in the same light as I did. Luckily for me this was not an issue with Lilly, it was not uncommon for Clyde to drive from the city back to Largo on any given night to have dinner with Lilly and I.
I would wed Lilly on the same month that Bill Clinton was sworn in as the President of the United States and two months after the purchase of our third Funeral Home, we would live together in the apartment until buying the Mansion of Gladys McGovern which had been sitting on the market since her death. With few residents of Largo having the funds to maintain the grand old Mansion and it’s substantial gardens, part of Gladys McGovern’s will would allow for the property to be attended to until it’s eventual sale.
The proceeds of the sale would go towards the future development of a recreational facility for use by all the residents of Largo, after three years with no luck in selling the property and the real estate market crashing in the early nineteen nineties resulted in my offer to purchase the house for sixty six per cent of the asking price, the offer was immediately accepted by the town council. Lilly and I would move into the grand old mansion sixty days after the signing of the agreement, the two of us would spend the next year renovating the grand old home. Adding modern paint colors and fresh stain after stripping all of the carpet Gladys’s had laid down years earlier over the solid hardwood floors which ran throughout the six thousand square foot home.
With the success of the Funeral Homes Lilly would leave her job at the Nursing Home shortly after the wedding, she would spend that first year dedicated to the renovation of the old McGovern mansion. By the end of that first year Lily would begin trying to get pregnant, we would work towards that goal for over two years before we both would seek medical advice on the matter. Lilly would be told that she stood next to no chance of becoming pregnant due to some issue with her Uterus that I did not have a clue about, since she possessed a Degree in Nursing that with our first and only child, the baby born would come into our lives three weeks ahead of the doctors predicted due date and would be the grandest fortieth birthday present I could have ever wished for.
Born on the sixth day of the sixth month in two thousand and six, Sidney Sly Smyth was a healthy tiny little baby. He was born with a full head of hair, weighing in at half dozen ounces over six pounds. It would be no surprise to me that Lilly was a natural at being a loving and caring mother; she would proudly push Sid through town in the beautiful European made carriage.
The third Funeral Home had been purchased in part due to the total number of pre-arranged funerals was always a factor in determining the value in purchasing a Funeral Home. The third home we would purchase was also located in the city of Toronto and although it handled less than four hundred funerals a year the level of pre arrangements they held meant there should be a steady increase of funerals in the coming years. Located in an upscale area of the city the average billing for services equaled roughly twice the amount we had been averaging at the Avery and Shackles Funeral Home and would easily absorb the cash fusion from our cash crops.
After those original days when we had first taken over from Fred at Shackles and chose to use the pre arrangements to dig ourselves from financial ruin I would never scrutinize the list of names registered for pre arrangements at any of the funeral homes we purchased. The further I would read into the files I realized Clyde had still scrutinized the pre arrangement lists of all our Funeral Homes throughout the years, upon opening the file numbered fourteen a familiar name appeared near the top of the first page
, Vito Poticini.
Turned out Clyde’s continued scouring of the pre arrangement lists of the Funeral Homes had unearthed the arrangements Vito had made for his own funeral service. Living in an upscale area close to the newly acquired Hedrick Funeral Home, Vito’s name had been listed on the file of pre arrangements when we purchased the business, a fact Clyde would not miss.
Discovering Vito’s name on the list, Clyde would seek restitution from the original monies we had been forced to pay Vito Porcini three years prior to purchasing the Hedrick Funeral Home. As I continued to read through Vito’s file headed by the number fourteen, I would realize Clyde had killed that piece of shit loan shark without ever mentioning a word to me about Vito or his murder. The funny thing is I never heard Clyde bitch or complaining about Vito Poticini after I had paid him off, the name never came up again for all could remember.
It would appear that Clyde got his own form of revenge on that loan shark fucker, and we recouped most of the cash we had been forced to pay him three years earlier. I still remember reading the papers after Vito’s death and the stories of his connections to the mob and their assumption that his death had most likely been a mob hit. The stories on Vito murder and his underworld connections would fill the front pages for weeks; the investigative reporters speculated the murder was part of a mob turf war. The truth of the fact it was no more than an undertaker and Funeral Home owner with a passion for killing.
The file on Vito was relatively a short one, detailing how once Clyde discovered Vito’s name on the pre arrangement list he began to track the movements of the hated loan shark. Being a member of the underground, Clyde felt it would be virtually impossible to get close enough to Vito to kill him without running the risk of being murdered himself. Because of this Clyde decided to take him out in the same fashion that he murdered Harry Winslow, using a high powered riffle.
Clyde detailed how he had perched himself on the roof of a building down and across the street from Vito’s bar, the roof tops vantage point would provide a clear shot to the front door of the bar. Seems Vito was a creature of habit, leaving the bar each evening at an almost identical time. Clyde simply sighted him in and blasted a thirty- thirty shell through his cranium as Vito emerged from the front door of the run down pub. Clyde would disappear down the back alley of the building he had been perched on long before the first officers arrived on the scene of the crime.
The apparent fallout from the murder was fodder for several of the local papers as they tied the assassination of Vito to a series of mob style murders that followed Vito’s death. It would appear that the Italian associates of Vito like the papers blamed his murder on a cross town rival mobsters. Following the burial of Vito the ensuing murders from the turf war caused by Vito’s killing would last a month and a half; this provided an unexpected win fall for both the newly acquired Hedrick Funeral Home and Avery Funeral Parlors. It turned out the rival crew that Vito’s old gang had accused of his murder controlled much of the criminal activity in the same geographical area that encompassed the downtown corridor which Avery’s serviced.
When Vito’s gang retaliated, the victims from the rival mob gang ended up at Avery’s. In that month and a half following Vito’s killing the Avery Funeral Home would provide the funeral services for three of the five killed in the week’s long battle. The three men buried by the Avery Funeral Home all resided within blocks of the Funeral Home, Hedrick’s would have a total of four services as a result of Vito’s death, the count of four included Vito and three of his compatriots gunned down during the ensuing turf war.
What a surprise this turned out to be that it was Clyde all along that had been the flash point in providing us with this huge sales spike. I had believed all these years that it was my well timed purchase of the Hedrick Funeral Home that had delivered these results. Not only had Clyde murdered Vito which resulted in his expensive funeral at our newly purchased property, but the unexpected ensuing turf war following the murder of Vito resulted in our two city funeral homes performed a stunning seven of the eleven services performed for those killed. Turned out I had little to do with the incremental sales after all, other than deciding to purchase the Hedrick Funeral Home when I did.
Grabbing hold of our recent good fortune in business, I used the nice bump in sales as an incentive to buy the biggest diamond I could find before asking Lilly to marry me. Lilly accepted my hand in marriage immediately and spent the next several months doing what so many girls’ love to do, plan her own wedding. Thankfully Lilly accepted my offer for me to stay completely clear of any of the planning, leaving her sister and mother to help Lilly in planning each and every detail. The guest list would be short on my side; Clyde would of course be my best man.
The addition of the third Funeral Home with its high margin services further enhanced my ability to legalize more and more of our cash from the grow houses. There would be little difficulty for me to add the additional thousands of dollars to the amounts entered on the all three of the Funeral Homes books each month. At the same time I would help the twins to invest in a series of Sub sandwich restaurants and mini storage facilities to hide their illicit funds.
The businesses would be run through a numbered company which filtered through a shell company which was controlled by a lawyer for the twins. Oliver and Fitch would never have any contact with any of the individual locations themselves; the lawyer contracted the operations of the businesses to an outside management services company. The numbered companies were held in both Oliver and Fitch’s real names; they would take direct control of the businesses only once the pair and all four of us had ceased production of the grow op. Along with the legal businesses that we all held, the four of us maintained a sort of cash pension or emergency fund, in time it would grow beyond a million dollars in cash for each one of us.
For years we retained a percentage of cash from each harvest, of that amount the twins retained a larger portion of cash as they had fewer opportunities to push it thru the numbered company and they required enough money to live on. For Clyde and I there had been no issues pushing eighty per cent of our cash through the books of the Funeral Homes. We used a small portion of the remaining twenty per cent for day to day spending cash; it would be rare for any of use to have under a few thousand dollars cash with us at all times.
The bulk of the twenty per cent in cash which we retained from each sale would be bundled into circles of under six inches in diameter so they could still be stacked then wrapped in plastic and water sealed before inserting the sleeve of cash into four foot sections of six inch diameter PVC pipe. The pipe’s ends would be capped and sealed tight to prevent water from entering the tubes, the tubes would then be buried in a series of remote areas of bush primarily on Government owned Crown land. During the nineteen nineties and the availability of hand held GPS units resulted in a more accurate marking of where the water proof tubes had been buried.
Our old methods of measuring by strides and the location of intersecting trees or rocks would no longer be required; instead a detailed record would be kept of each tubes location using the precise electronic readings of longitude and latitude. Each of us placed the tubes by the dozens in the Provincial and National Parks and Crown owned land throughout the province, in the years that followed Clyde and I would even bury tubes of cash in several locations across Canada often while traveling together on long distance motor bike journeys.
The sheer magnitude of the land which was available in the vast Parks’ system combined with its protection against being developed and ultimately dug up would for Clyde and I, make the governments land the safest location to hide our cash.
If everything else fails in our future and provided we can all keep ourselves out of jail there would be enough money to live out the rest of our lives in buried cash hidden under the hills, valleys and under trees of the government owned boreal forest. I could never fully appreciate how anyone involved in illegal cash funds could in turn trust it completely to someone else.
Like say a foreign bank, or even a safety deposit box in a domestic bank where if all your funds get seized or discovered by the wrong official you’re screwed.
If you’re smart enough to make the cash, you should never be so stupid to lose it. For the four of us the bush was the place to stash a life time worth of cash, each cylinder contained enough cash to live modestly for a year. After burying each tube the exact coordinates would be both recorded digitally in the GPS coupled with a written hard copy of our burial sites to back up the digital storage of the hand held units.
Clyde and I would usually bury our tubes at the same time and together, Oliver and Fitch claimed they did theirs both at the same time as well. The last thing I was worried about was Clyde stealing my money and it was better with two people. The shoveling and the use of the manual hand turned auger was much easier with two people or when we traveled to a remote enough area we would use a gas powered auger which of course was much faster and required two operators. Clyde and I had scattered the locations at first throughout the entire Province, in time we had even buried tubes in parks which sat on both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans from one end of the country to the other when we crossed the country on a pair of Honda ST1300’s, we joked that we could access money by way of land or water if need be.
Once when both Clyde and I had taken a pair of BMW Dakar motorbikes out east, we had been enjoying the Cabot Trail stopping in the town of Badeck for a bite to eat and a quick walk through the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. So inspired would the two of us be by the time we exited the museum we decided a ride to the top of the mountain where both Graham Bell and his wife were buried.
The large track of land surrounding the large Mansion the Graham Bell had built and where he lived was serviced by a pair of roads, Clyde and I stuck to the rough service road used a hundred years earlier for the dozens of workers Bell held on his payroll to travel up and down the vast property. Riding the BMW’s to the edge of the bush before parking them to walk out on the clearing and its magnificent view of the Badeck Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean where Graham tested the aqua foils and planes he had designed and built.