by Deforest Day
“You’re both right.”
They both said What!, and the boy became interested. “Yes, your son is old enough, and yes, they are too dangerous. You ever shoot anything besides that BB gun?”
“Yes, sure. .22’s. Shotgun.”
“Ever shoot your kid sister with them?”
“No, of course not!”
“Ever shoot the cat?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“John! No need for that kind of language. Billy, remember to remind your father to put a quarter in the church jar when we get home.”
“My point, sir, is BB guns teach youngsters to disrespect firearms. You wouldn’t dream of handing your boy a .22 and a box of ammo, tell him to go out in the back yard and have fun, anymore than you’d toss him your car keys the day he’s old enough to see over the wheel.” Justice turned to the mother. “Ma’am you’re right; guns, all guns, are dangerous. But so are cars. They kill fifty thousand of us every year, but we still use ‘em.”
“Well, yes; I guess that’s a fair argument. What do you suggest we do?”
“Ma'am, I can sell you folks a gun right now, Red Rider or Marlin, but I think it would make more sense for you to call the NRA, find a local club. They’d be more than happy to introduce your son to the sport. For that matter, both of you. If you learn how to shoot along side of him, you’ll feel less anxious about your boy doing it. And then, when you’re ready to buy him a gun of his own, I’ll be glad to fix you up.”
John gave his head a little shake. “You’re gonna go broke with that sales technique, fella.”
Justice thought the man was probably right. Over the brief course of his new career he’d spent more time talking people out of sales than into them. They came in with a credit card and a fantasy. Too often they wanted to buy a solution to a problem that only came with experience, practice, learning. The finest Orvis rod and reel won’t catch a trout if you don’t first learn to read the stream.
He watched the family leave the store and thought about his own introduction to firearms. Papaw, a rifleman like every Marine that ever was, had taught him to shoot as soon as he could cock the little single shot .22 without help. About six.
Two years later his great grandmother had started schooling him on using those marksmanship skills to put food on the table.
Not so many years after that he was using what both had taught him. To blow a man’s head apart, from a half mile distant.
It was Davy who had introduced morality to the mix. Thou shalt not kill. One of his Commandments.
They were on one of the countless islands that made up the Philippines, chasing Abu Sayyaf fanatics. At least the rest of the unit was; Driver and Justice were backup, lying atop a warehouse roof with a clear field of fire at a rusting trawler that intel said was the terrorist’s transportation off the island. Or not.
“Doesn’t it bother you sometimes? I mean, the Catechism spells out the Just War Doctrine, but still. It’s so cold blooded.”
Justice was double checking his spotter’s range card with the laser. Not that he didn’t trust Davy’s skills, but there was little else to pass the time. Except discuss philosophy. He shut off the range finder, saving the battery. “Killin’ a man who needs it ain’t no different from droppin’ a deer when you’re hungry.”
“Sure there is. A man’s different than a deer.”
“Says who? The feller- God, Moses, whoever- that wrote that Commandment of yours, just said not to kill. Didn’t spell out deer yes, man, no.”
“But Man is created in God’s image, so it goes without saying that He meant thou shall not kill another man.”
“I ain’t about to argue against your faith, Kemosabe. But, the way I see it, all life is sacred. In my book it’s worse to kill quail for sport than it is to shoot a man who’s turned wicked.”
He had mused on that, before asking for sniper school, and remembered Papaw’s advice on the subject. Like most combat veterans, his grandfather had not spoken in much detail about what he had done on those Pacific islands. But if you were a Marine, you had pulled your weight. And they didn’t give you a Silver Star for flippin’ pancakes.
Only it was not combat sniping Papaw had in mind when he told his grandson, age six and just learning the power of the firearm, that you never point a gun at anything you don’t intend to kill. Not much morality there, unless you studied on it awhile. Sorta like that sound of one hand clapping thing. Whatever; it had worked for Justice ever since.
The sun was hot and the gravel was sharp and they had been on the roof for seven hours. He checked the squelch on the radio. “It’s your momma, ain’t it? Got you thinkin’ about your beliefs.”
“It’s that obvious, is it? Yeah, it certainly came as a shock. I mean, she wasn’t that old. And she never had any heart problems.” Driver swung his spotter’s scope on its little tripod, scanned the jungle, searching for movement. “She was a good person. Why did God have to take her? It’s so senseless.”
“Partner, if it had to make sense before someone died, there’d be so many people on the planet you couldn’t stir ‘em with a stick.”
Chapter 14
Mabel Tomczak listened to Larry’s lawyer and the man, Mr. Beer, no, Bear, discuss her husband’s business. Mr. Bear had waited in the parlor while she changed into her navy dress for the event, and now she sat in the straight backed chair, knees firmly together and her purse on her lap, hands clutching it like a life raft. Before leaving the house she’d taken one of mother’s little helpers, and the men’s voices seemed to be echoing up from a well.
Mr. Bear was offering to buy Larry's company, and Mr. Pederson was advising, no, urging her to sell. Well, of course she would sell. What in the world would a widow with two children to raise do with a business she knew nothing about. It was all so confusing.
It hadn’t take ten minutes in the lawyer’s office for Tomczak Exterminating to become Big Bear LLC. During those ten minutes Baer sized up Pederson and found him adequate for the immediate future. Clip-on bow tie, sparse comb over, and a double knit sports coat.
Sharing a secretary with the insurance broker across the hall. He had dealt with his brethren in Cleveland over the past twenty years. Night school grads that never made the law revue, never clerked for a judge, and passed the bar on the second try. Adequate, if you needed a new will or a DUI defense.
“It’s none of my business, Mr. Baer,” the lawyer said, after Mabel Tomczak had left with two packs of hundred dollar bills in her purse, “But, between you, me, and the bedpost, you overpaid for the company.”
Now that Mrs. Tomczak was gone, and Curtis Baer was still very much here, any loyalties there had been between attorney and client were displaced by the possibility of representing a man with a substantial amount of money and little interest in securing the best deal possible. Or maybe he just didn’t understand the American marketplace. If that was the case, then George Pederson was just the man to introduce Mr. Baer to the mysteries and the mores of the small town. One friendly hand on the shoulder, the other pointing the way.
The sight of those crisp bills in their bank straps had drawn his eyes like sparrows to a crumb, and he’d followed the money from Baer’s pocket to the woman’s purse, then felt a twinge of deprivation as they disappeared.
Baer listened to the man pontificate, nodded. I’m so stupid I can’t walk and chew gum. Bumbling into town with a pile of cash, and eager to spend it. As long as everyone focused on the fool, they wouldn’t look too closely at his money. Yes. Pederson was perfect for his part in this drama; just smart enough to be dangerous, mostly to himself.
“Well, I defer to your expertise on commercial valuation. But Larry Tomczak saved my life over there. My driver and my bodyguard were killed-beheaded-in front of my eyes and a video camera, when I was kidnapped by some ISIS thugs. I won’t bore you with the details, but I was being held for a million dollar ransom, and ol’ Larry saved my bacon. He and I became close in those few short we
eks.
So, when he died, in my arms, I might add, during a rocket attack that I’m sure will be told and retold in the saloons of Shaleville, I made him a promise, a promise to take care of his wife and child. One that I kept this morning.”
The lawyer leaned forward in his chair, held captive by Baer’s tale. His closest brush with violence had been defending a drunk, accused of beating his wife with a lawn chair. “So, you intend to operate the business?”
“Doubtful. The three employees may be of some use, if lifting and toting is somehow involved.” Time to throw chum in the water. “The situation in the Levant is deteriorating as we speak, and I do not wish to put my life at risk again. I have decided to liquidate my overseas interests, repatriate my money to the good old USA, and start anew. Providence has led me to Shaleville. Can you see any reason that I shouldn’t begin my renewal here?”
Pederson had long teeth in a narrow face, and showed them now in a big smile. A man who had been held for a million dollar ransom was a man to cultivate. “None at all, sir, none at all.”
“Excellent. I’ll need an attorney, of course, on a regular basis.” He reached inside his suit again, handed over one of the remaining packs of bills to the lawyer. “Your retainer. Now, can you introduce me to a discrete banker? One comfortable dealing with large sums? In cash?”
The lawyer’s hand shook slightly as he put ten thousand dollars in a desk drawer, locked it, and pocketed the key. “Ab-so-lutely! The man is two steps down the street. Would you care to meet him?”
“Not a reason in the world for delay. By the way, Mrs. Tomczak said the garage was on a month-to-month rental. Do you know who owns it?”
“Who owns the building? Yes, sure. Schmidt, Russell Schmidt. He’s our Chief of Police.”
Now isn’t that interesting, Baer thought, following the lawyer down the stairs. As they reached the the sidewalk he casually asked, “Ballpark, what’s the garage worth?”
“The old machine shop? Huh. Twenty, twenty five. Why?”
“ Oh, just curious.” He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, looked at the lawyer. “Keep that under your hat, Pederson. Discretion is all.” He assumed that in Shaleville discretion was subjective and gossip was currency.
Discretion being all, the lawyer led him past the generic glass and concrete branch bank of a statewide institution located next to city hall, and entered the impressive granite edifice on the corner. First National Bank of Shaleville was carved above the soaring columns, and the cornerstone declaimed MDCCCLXX.
The lawyer waved a cheery hello to a pair of female tellers, and pushed through the swinging gate at the rear of the public space. A vault door, eight feet in diameter, its three tons of engine turned steel and bright brass workings announcing both substance and security, stood open, revealing the safe deposit boxes beyond. “Morning, Claire. Philip available to see us?”
She rose, led them to a paneled oak door with a brass plate announcing Philip Conover, president, and ushered them inside.
Introductions made, the lawyer reluctantly left the two men as they began the ritual of discovery; the one dogs perform by inspecting each others hind quarters. Baer had pretty much made up his mind, between the front door and the man’s office. The twenty foot ceiling, framed with ornate crown molding, and the trio of bronze chandeliers suspended from rosettes of acanthus leaves spoke louder than any P&L statement.
He’d been in dozens of similar banks in similar towns across Ohio, and had dealt with the same descendants of the founders. Fat and lazy fish swimming in sunny ponds. But feeling a cold current from the lean and hungry conglomerates that were gobbling up smaller fry, with their drive-through banking, online banking, free checking and home equity loans a point above prime.
Just such a bank was a few doors up the street, and Baer knew he could use it to his advantage.
The clincher was a large oil portrait of a stout gentleman with mutton chop whiskers and a gold watch fob above the current president’s desk. Looking down over pince-nez glasses was the same florid face and watery blue eyes that now studied him above the stern of a model sailboat with DADDY WARBUX on the stern.
The banker cleared his throat. “Just terrible news, about Larry Tomczak. Terrible. And the missus. Came as quite a shock to her just now; seems that her husband neglected to tell her he had borrowed against his life insurance.” Conover shook his head sadly at her misfortune. “At least she has the money from the business. Should keep her solvent, while she finds work.” The past dispensed with, he turned his attention to the present. “How can First Shaleville be of assistance?”
“I have interests across the Middle East. Not just Iraq, but Kuwait, Saudi, Lebanon, Turkey. The situation has become untenable throughout the region, and, after one too many close calls, I have decided to liquidate my positions, reestablish myself in the States. Circumstance has brought me here, and it seems a nice, quiet alternative to the constant conflict that is today's Levant.” He chuckled. “I’m getting too old to enjoy being shot at.”
Baer leaned back in the quite comfortable visitor’s chair and tented his fingers on his paunch. Time to see how the first course was being digested.
Conover added his own dry chuckle. “Not much of that in Shaleville, Mr. Baer. Aside from the board shoots at our gun club and first day of deer season, you’ll not hear gunfire in our town.”
Something he'd not considered. If this backwater was anything like those in Ohio, then there were more deer rifles than people. Replacing the government-issue Beretta was another item to put on the To Do list.
“As you may know, business over there is conducted largely in cash. Once I select a banking institution, I will be making several sizable deposits.” Baer shot his cuff and glanced at his watch. A subtle nudge toward urgency. You are in the presence of a very, very busy man. One wearing a Rolex.
“To be perfectly honest, the full service bank Pederson and I walked past on our way here most probably would be better able to meet my needs.” Pause. “But I grew up in a small town much like Shaleville, and my father was the vice president of a bank very much like yours. His bank was taken over by an outfit based in the Netherlands, and you can imagine what happened to Dad. So I have a soft spot for small and local, and a distaste for the large and impersonal.”
Conover smiled, shook his head in synthetic sympathy. “As you might surmise, First Shaleville is a family business. Granddad founded the bank, and my father built it to what it is today. Taught me many things, but the most important thing he instilled in me was a moral compass that had guided through seas rough and calm. ‘The customer always comes first’, he used to say. ‘Satisfy the customer, and you will prosper’. I’ve been well served by his tutelage.”
Baer nodded sagaciously. What a load of nonsense. You may be able to blow that smoke up Shaleville’s ass, but not mine. The only thing I learned from my old man was that losers finish last. Not a VP at a dusty old bank, but assistant manager at a tire and lube franchise with a hypochondriac for a wife. Mom and her stress migraines, nervous bowel syndrome. Claptrap and psychobabble. Audentes Fortunas Juvat.
Time for a pop quiz. He extracted another packet from the dwindling supply in his coat, and placed it on the desk in front of the banker. “I’d like to open a personal account with half of this, and a business account for Big Bear, LLC with the rest. Call Pederson; he has the details.”
He leaned forward and tore the bank wrapper, then counted the bills into two equal piles. “Five and five. That way you will not have to bother filing a CTR. Not that I have any problem with letting the IRS know about this; but I have already filed a CMIR with U.S. Customs, earlier today.” He smiled and added, “I’m pretty sure they talk to each other.” He sat back and waited to see Conover’s reaction.
Which was what any banker would do. He counted the two stacks of hundreds. As he did so he thought about Baer’s use of the phrase ‘to be perfectly honest’. In Conover’s experience that usually meant ‘I’m about to t
ell you a whopper’. We shall see. “Technically, you are correct, Mr. Baer. But, if I understand your intentions, there will be larger sums involved.”
“Yes indeed. In the neighborhood of seven, perhaps eight figures.”
“Some neighborhood!” One that Shaleville had not experienced since the mines closed and the railroad left. Conover balanced the bank’s use of a sum that large against any questions his board and the bank examiner’s might ask.
He squared the two stacks of cash. Just the tactile feel of the crisp notes helped calm him, helped him come to a decision. No risk at all, if the man took his business up the street. A small risk if the money embarked on the seas of commerce without a nod to the Harbor Master at the Infernal Revenue Service.
“I don’t see filing Currency Transaction Reports creating an impediment to our conducting business, Mr. Baer. I believe we can directly convert your cash to instruments that will put your money to work, and bypass any small formality imposed by the federal bureaucracy.” He turned his computer screen away from Baer and did a two finger exercise, then examined the results for a moment. “I can put you in five year CD’s in hundred thousand units, earning half a point above prime. Government twenty year instruments have a similar yield.”
“Excellent! I expect my couriers will be arriving in a day or two.” He stood and extended his hand to the banker. “I’ll also need an Amex card, platinum; same thing from Visa or Master card. And a box in your vault. A big one.”
He spent half an hour at the wheel of the rental, getting a feel for the place. Main Street ran North and South, was crossed by half a dozen streets named for trees. Maple and Pine framed the town square. The founding fathers had evidently exhausted their creative juices at this point. Side streets were numbered, starting with First, paralleling the river, where the houses were large and the lots were larger, and ending with Tenth, a meandering road that followed the contours of Mount Hagel. Now reduced to a hill after a century of open pit and deep shaft assaults. The Bay Park Number Three shaft head frame dominated the eastern skyline and the abandoned Pine Top Cleaning Plant was slowly disintegrating into a jumble of timber, brick, and glass on the weedy slope below.