Frag Box

by Richard A. Thompson

  “This man was beaten to death last night, in front of Lefty’s Pool Hall.”

  “And you were a witness?”

  “No. I just have some information about the victim. I’m a bail bondsman, and he used to be a client of mine.” I also had the shovel, of course, but somehow I didn’t feel like sharing that information with her.

  “That would be Detective Erickson’s case, sir. He’s very busy right now.”

  “How about if we let him decide that? Could you transfer me, please?”

  “I’ll tell him you called, sir. If he needs your information, he will get back to you. I have other calls to take here.”

  “Can I talk to some other detective, then?”

  “To which detective did you wish to speak?”

  “I have no idea. Any detective.”

  The line went dead, and I could swear the receiver was flipping me the bird. I wondered what time the shift changed at the cop shop, so I could try again with a different professional asshole. Meanwhile, I wrote down the name of the detective, put on my coat and headed for my car.

  Outside, I was able to figure out, even without Super Duper Doppler Radar, that last night’s snow was melting, though the sky was the color of dirty dishwater and could spit some more of the stuff at any time. The sun was nowhere in sight and there was just enough wind to get your attention. It was all very October.

  I took my usual route downtown and parked the BMW 328i in the Victory Ramp. I mostly park there because I love the name. I like to think Winston Smith would have parked there, if the Thought Police had let him have a car. Then he could have made it with his darling Julia in the back seat, and he wouldn’t have had to worry about all those nasty rats. It may not be great literature that way, but it’s a favorite fantasy.

  Walking from the ramp to my office, I bought copies of both the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Minneapolis Star and Tribune from some paperboys disguised as tin boxes. If they contained anything about the fires in the gulch, it wasn’t on the front page of either. A quick flip of pages showed me that it also wasn’t on the first page of the Local News sections. What on earth was going on here? The Strib was often a day late in reporting local events on this side of the river, though they sometimes made up for it with better detail. But the Pioneer should have caught it. Hell, it was practically in their back parking lot. On a slow news day, which it was, it should have made big headlines. Or Charlie’s murder should have.

  As usual, Agnes, my indispensable Lady Friday, general manager, and confidante was at the office ahead of me. I think she does that just to make me feel guilty. She isn’t aware of this, of course. Someday I’ll explain it to her.

  She had already opened the mail and was having a nice dialogue with her computer, while off in another corner, Mr. Coffee was talking to himself in some belchy-gurgly appliance creole.

  I threw the newspapers on my desk, hung up my coat, and picked up a letter from the top of the stack. It was hand written on three sheets of lined yellow legal paper, the kind that cops give perps to write their confessions. The assault upon the language spoke for itself, but at least it wasn’t in crayon. And it was fairly polite, in its own way. It also came in a neat white envelope and was actually legible.

  Agnes smirked when I picked it up. Not a good sign. I smoothed out the smudged paper and read:

  Dear Mr. Jackson Bail Bonds

  I am writing about a bond you sold me that din’t work. I mean, they let me out of jail and all, even though I had to come back later, but I din’t enjoy it. I found out my woman run off with the bus driver lives down stairs from us if you can believe that shit and I din’t have no money to go get some ass or some booze on account of the bond and the lawyer. So my brother he come home from the U S Army where he was on absence of leave and I told him how I wasn’t getting none and even if I was to get unconvicted, I’d have to give the lawyer a bunch more money, too, which I ain’t got. So him and me we got all sad together and then we got some Colt 45 and got all lickered up a little and decided to go rob the Army Navy Surpluss Store on Payne Avenue. Just to even things up, like. But there was a alarm in the store, wun’t you know, and we got caught and now I’m back in the slam, and my brother too. And because of the first bond I can’t get no new one cause there dam sure pissed at me this time.

  So I just thought. I no you ecsplained to me that I don’t never get my bond money back, not in anny real money or nothing. But I thought maybe since the first bond din’t work and I ain’t got no more money since we got caught before we finished robbing the Army Navy Surpluss store, maybe you could see your way clear to make a free bail bond for my brother so he can get out of this awful place and go back to the U S Army and go get his self killed in some forn country like Irack, like a real solder. He is a good man and it seems like the least you could do for your country any how.

  I hope I don’t have to add that I still have lots of friends on the out side who can find out where you live, if you no what I mean.

  My brother’s name is Vitrol, like the hair tonic, and last name same as mine. Help him out, can you, and we will be all square again.

  Your frend in boundage,

  Remo Wilson but my friends call me Trick

  God, I love this business. It’s not the money; it’s the class of people you get to meet. I snatched a cup of coffee from the gurgling machine, pouring it quickly so not too much would drip onto the hot bottom plate. The plate hissed at me from under the pot, telling me I hadn’t been quick enough.

  I looked over the letter again. I could only count it as another triumph for the adult literacy program at the County Workhouse.

  “Why do you always have to do that?”

  “That? What that?”

  “Pour yourself a cup of coffee before it’s done brewing.”

  “Oh that that. Because it’s better then. And a lovely good morning to you, too, Agnes. Know anything about lifting fingerprints?”

  “Of course it’s better then. That’s because all the gunky, bitter stuff is in the last cup that drips through. Good morning.”

  “Then maybe we should shut it off before it gets to that part.” I took a sip and found the morning’s brew, as expected, really rather good. Later, it would be progressively more like battery acid.

  “Sometimes it’s abundantly clear to me why you’re not married, Herman. Fingerprints off what, the coffee pot?”

  “No, off a snow shovel.” It had better not be abundantly clear, or I’m in a lot of trouble.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  She went back to pecking at her keyboard, which is a sure sign that she sees she’s talking to a crazy person and would really rather not deal with it just now, thank you. Or maybe she was disappointed that I wasn’t going to talk about the deeply moving letter from my friend in boundage, Trick.

  I noticed, not for the first time, that she actually looked her best with a mild mock scowl, concentrating on her computer through a pair of thick glasses. Agnes is a hard person to describe, even harder to remember, somehow. It’s as if she had no prominent features to focus on. I had known her for eight years, and I still looked at her and tried to remember who it was she reminded me of. She had one of those oddly familiar faces that are neither young nor old, always pleasant but a bit self-deprecating, almost perky, almost pretty, almost sexy. Almost. Sometimes I wonder if I ought to be closer to her, but I’m not. And sometimes I wonder if she would like to change all that. But then I forget to wonder more. She definitely looked nice, though, scowling through her glasses.

  “Of course I’m serious,” I said. “In the movies, they’re always talking about dusting something for prints, right?”

  “Yes they are. So?”

  “So, what’s the dust?”

  “How should I know? Fluorescent bath talc, probably.”

  “That sounds reasonable. Got any?”

  If looks could kill, my day would have ended, right then and there. I decided t
o change the subject.

  “I got my Visa statement yesterday.”

  “Does that have something to do with fingerprints?”

  “No, that has to do with you not cashing your last two paychecks.”

  “Well, what did you expect? You can’t be writing payroll on credit, Herman. That’s worse than going to a loan shark.”

  “No, it’s not. Visa won’t break my legs if I don’t pay them.”

  “Herman, it’s economic suicide.”

  “More like slightly postponed disaster. Trust me, Ag, I can afford to go into debt better than you can afford to go without being paid.” I really couldn’t, but my only other options at the moment were to sell the BMW or go into one of my secret escape caches.

  “Look, Herman, we can…”

  Her voice trailed off as she was distracted by something out in the street, and her expression changed from plain vanilla anxiety to real, double Dutch resentment.

  “Here comes trouble,” she said.

  I turned to follow her gaze and saw a shapeless middle-aged guy in a sharp brown pinstripe. He crossed the street against the light without looking to either side, as if he either didn’t care about getting run down or simply expected everybody to get out of his way. Once across, he looked up, turned, and headed toward my door. I had never seen him before.

  “Friend of yours, Aggie?”

  “Not on the best day he ever had. He’s been here a few times, looking for you.”

  He was not a big man, but he had a certain presence, and his round face seemed on the verge of a sneer, as if he knew he intimidated people and was glad of it. He wore what was left of his brown hair slicked straight back under a classic dark fedora, a hat so out, it was back in again, and he walked with his lump of a chin out, as if it were a badge of authority. He dressed expensively but with just a touch too much flash, I thought, like somebody who spends all his time running away from an impoverished past. Or maybe some street muscle who has just graduated to middle management and doesn’t yet know how to shop. He didn’t look as if he was carrying, but his suit coat was cut large at the chest, possibly to hide the occasional holster.

  He let himself in, and when he spoke, his voice was gravel and oil, with a certain smugness to it and an accent I couldn’t quite identify. Some sub-species of New Yorker, possibly.

  “Mr. Jackson?”

  “The very one.” Following Agnes’ lead, I did not offer him my hand, but I did give him the courtesy of not glaring.

  “My name is Eddie Bardot, Mr. Jackson, I represent—”

  “The mob,” said Agnes.

  “Oh, please.” He gave me a stage smile and held up his hands in a palms-forward gesture of innocence. “Let’s not get melodramatic here, shall we?” He jerked a thumb at Agnes and said, “Missy Four Eyes here doesn’t like me coming around your office. I think she’s afraid I might make a pass at her.”

  And I swear to God, he gave me a wink. I didn’t think anybody ever did that anymore. I was not charmed by it, nor by the fact that he liked to stand less than two feet away when he talked to me.

  “You can take your ‘missy’ and your ‘four eyes’ and go wander off a cliff somewhere,” said Agnes. For her, that was pretty nasty, and I wondered what this guy had said to her in my absence.

  “Maybe we should talk privately,” he said to me.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t. How about if you just quit talking about Agnes as if she weren’t here, and we’ll see how that works? And back off, while you’re at it. We’re not conspirators or lovers, so get out of my space.”

  He backed off a step, but not as far as I would have liked.

  “All right, look, maybe we all got off on the wrong foot here. Let’s try again, okay? I represent…”

  He looked pointedly at Agnes, to see if she was going to interrupt him again, but she merely stared at him with one eyebrow raised.

  “I represent,” he went on, “a, um group of businessmen who are investing heavily in the bail bond business. You have a very nice little operation here, Mr. Jackson, but the word is, you have a cash flow problem.”

  “Oh really? And whose word would that be?”

  “With a bigger block of capital, see, and some better connections, some better layoff options, you could be—”

  “Squeezed out,” said Agnes.

  “I thought she wasn’t going to interrupt me.”

  “I didn’t hear her say that. I thought you weren’t going to talk about her as if she weren’t here.”

  “Could I please just finish what I came here to tell you?” The color was starting to rise in his face now, the veneer of civility beginning to wear thin. Silk over slime, I thought. Soon it will begin to seep through. But he went on in almost the same tone, with just a bit more open hostility now.

  “You’re a successful businessman, Jackson. You know what that means in this day and age?”

  “You bet. It means I can be fussy about who I talk to.”

  “It means,” and he paused slightly and drew himself up to his full height, “that you are a prime candidate for being bought out. In case you don’t know it, that’s a very big deal.”

  “Oh, I can see that, all right.”

  “You think I’m joking? That’s the American dream now. Nobody tries to make it on their own anymore. The real jackpot is when you get successful enough that the big boys want your operation. And they do.”

  “And why do I care what they want?”

  “Oh, you care, believe me. You’re about to find out how much you care. Anyway, you never think about retiring young? No more sweating the recovery rate of your bounty hunters? No more wondering if anybody knows you only run an eighty percent layoff rate? Think of all the trips you’d like to take, maybe with—”

  “Don’t even think about using that phrase again,” said Agnes.

  “What she said,” I said. “Just who are these so-called big boys, by the way?”

  Bardot reached into an inside pocket and produced a business card, which he handed to me with what I’m sure he thought was a significant look. It was an expensive-looking, low-key bit of embossed printing, and under his name, it said “Amalgamated Bonding Enterprises.” Without an “Inc.,” I noted.

  “This tells me diddly squat,” I said. “I’d like to know just exactly who all these wonderful, amalgamated, unincorporated folks are.” I stuck the card in my shirt pocket without being properly awed by it.

  “Oh, big people. Very big, very important. Venture capitalists, entrepreneurs. Totally above reproach.”

  “Who?”

  “Well, they like to keep a low profile. You know how it is.”

  “No. How is it?”

  “Mind your own damn business, is how it is.” Finally, the smile was completely gone, the gloves off. “This is a real opportunity here, Jackson.”

  “You’re absolutely right.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “About minding my own business. That’s what it is. My business. And that’s what it stays. It’s not for sale and it’s not open to extortion.”

  “Everything is for sale, Jackson. And everybody has their pressure points.”

  “In your world, maybe. So what happens now? Do you send Guido and Dutch over here to tip over my vegetable stand and break my windows, just to show me you’re serious?”

  “Do you really take me for a thug, Jackson?”

  “‘I would you were so honest a man.’”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means get the hell out of here.”

  He sighed and turned around. “It always starts this way,” he said. And without waiting for my brilliant retort, he left, once again crossing the street against the light and without looking either way.

  “Nice fellow,” I said, “but very confused.”

  “How did he know about your layoff rate, do you suppose?”

  “You picked up on that, too, did you, Aggie?”
r />   “He made it hard to miss.”

  “It could be a guess on his part,” I said, not really believing it, “but if so, it hit awfully close to the truth. I’m sure that’s one of the things he wants us to contemplate while he’s gone.”

  “I take it you’re expecting him back.”

  “Oh, I think we can count on that. And the next time, he’ll have something to up the ante with.”

  “What do you think his ‘big, important people’ really want, Herman? Is this whole act really just simple extortion?”

  “It’s some kind of extortion for sure, but I don’t think it’s so simple. I’m guessing they really do want to buy my business, but not before they’ve screwed it up somehow, so it’s not worth much of anything.”

  “I don’t like this, Herman.”

  “You’re right, Aggie, you don’t like this at all.”

  The phone rang, and since Agnes was still looking a little stressed out, I picked it up.

  “Jackson Bail Bonds.”

  “Herman?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Yeah, say, Frankie Russo here, Herman. I just wanted to let you know it was nothing personal.”

  “Of course it wasn’t. What are you talking about?”

  “Jumping bail.”

  “Your trial isn’t for four days yet.”

  “Yeah, well I can’t be there, is the thing.”

  “Are you crazy? Failure to appear is a worse offense than the one you’re charged with, which is completely bogus anyway. If you hadn’t mouthed off to the judge, you’d be ROR. You said it yourself: the cops just want to harass you because they can’t legally close down your strip joint like the Mayor so dearly wants them to. If you skip, you’ll be doing just what they want.”

  “Yeah, well, I gotta skip.”

  “Why on earth?”

  “‘Cause this guy named Eddie stuck a gun in my face and told me to, is why. He threatened my family, too.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “Yeah, that would be him, all right. Look, I gotta go, okay? You take care.”

  “Hey, wait—” The line went dead.