by Deforest Day
A moldering town, long past its glory days. And ripe for an infusion of energy and cash from a new player. Take a seat, Conover.
He found that the major industry was a big box distribution center, sprawled across what was farm land a few years ago. A swirling horde of short dark men played lunch hour futbol in the shadow of a hundred loading docks. The third world had found rural Pennsylvania.
Of course the Three Stooges would have to go. Bumbling henchmen were not part of his vision. Henchmen; that had a nice sound, something you could bite into. Disposing of them would be a challenge. Even an amusing diversion.
Killing Tomczak had been an impulse. But the afterglow had left him with a sense of invincibility, and the actual deed had filled him with an adrenaline rush he hadn’t experienced since making a devastating hit on the football field. It was true what they said, about sex and about killing. The first time stayed with you, forever.
He ended his exploration at the Ford dealership on the southern edge of town, situated between a strip mall and a lumberyard. A salesman in an oxblood hairpiece and matching blazer came out before he had extracted himself from the rental. “Hello there,” the man said. “What can I do ya for?”
“This shoe box is too small. I need something that will fit.”
“Yessir. I see what you mean.” He palmed a card from his jacket pocket, offered it with his left hand as he extended his right. “Harry Masella, at your service. Did you have anything in mind?”
Baer pointed to a gleaming black behemoth inside the showroom. “That.”
That was a Lincoln Navigator, equipped with tinted glass and everything else. $2344 at signing, $957.80 a month, taxes and tags extra.
Baer drove his new car fifty feet, to the strip mall next door. Idled past the Hair Cuttery, Verizon, Lenscrafters. Nosed into a slot in front of Century 21.
A woman watched him through the window. Something about her stirred an image of another woman, long ago. He gave his head a little shake, and killed the engine. He had a lot of roads to go down today, and none of them was memory lane.
Cynthia Cross watched him slam the car door, head for hers. She stood, ran her hands down her hips, smoothing any wrinkles from her skirt, then swiped her tongue across her teeth, and put on The Smile. As he came into the narrow store front she busied herself by straightening an already neat stack of open house listings on her desk. “Hel-lo,” she said, brightly.
Baer nodded, did a quick recon. She was alone; another desk showed signs of use, the third stood vacant, waiting for an uptick in the real estate market.
“Looking for a rental. Short term, furnished.” He studied the woman. Early forties, trying with dress and aerobics to stay late thirties. With some success, he admitted. “Until I’m ready to build,” he added as a sweetener.
Ten minutes later he left with her card and an appointment to look at a few places in the morning. He bought a phone next door, then headed for the Shaleville Hotel. From the outside the three story pile of bricks appeared to be a contemporary of the coal structures on the mountain, and in only slightly better condition.
He pulled open the door, found one of his new employees explaining a cell phone to a narrow-faced girl with piercings. “Hey, it’s Mr. Baer! I was just showing Alice my new phone, setting up the speed dial. You got a number?”
As a matter of fact, he did. As of ten minutes ago. And communications could come in handy, if only to keep track of these morons, so he traded numbers with the kid, then turned his attention to the blue-haired elf. “I’d like a room.” He swung his gaze around the lobby. A line from some old movie came to mind. What a dump! “Assuming that you are not fully booked.”
The girl scurried behind the front desk, lifted a big register onto the counter, asked, “Night or week? It’s twenty five a night, hunnert a week.”
“A night should be more than sufficient.” He signed the register, and the girl selected a key from the slots behind her. “I’ll show you up, sir,” she said, and gave Chick a get lost flip of her chin.
Baer plucked the key from her hand. “Not necessary; I’m sure the room is adequate.” He dropped the key in his pocket and headed for the door.
“Sir! You didn’t write your car.”
Baer pointed at the street. “The black one. I have no idea of the plate number. You want it, go get it.”
He had been in Shaleville for five hours; more than enough time for his arrival to have spread throughout officialdom. Time to go buy a cop.
“I ain’t sure if I should write down ‘the black one’. What do you think, Chick?”
“I think you should write Lincoln Navigator, Alice.” So she did, with a bit of creative spelling.
Chick headed down the long narrow hallway to the barroom. The first icy beer was going to go down nice. Weird people; didn’t believe in drinking. It was a wonder how they got anything done, what with stopping to pray every couple of hours. Why America ever went over there was a mystery.
Howie came through the street door as Chick entered from the hallway. “He’s baaaack!” Howie said, arms spread wide, smiling at the girl in the Stones T-shirt behind the bar.
She came back with, “I didn’t notice you were gone.”
“Ain’t you the funny one, Pudge.” He pulled a hundred dollar bill from his pants pocket, held it aloft. “I’d like to buy the house a round!”
The girl, Pudge, a contemporary of Howie and Chick, said, “Ain’t you the big shot.” She put a mug of Coors and a glass of Yuengling lager on the bar. “Seeing as right now the house consists of you and Chick.”
“It’s the thought that counts. The gesture of a generous man.” He laid the bill on the bar. “Take it out of this.” He smirked, waited for her reaction.
She got a felt-tip pen from beside the register, drew a short line on the bill, where it made a faint yellow mark. Satisfied that Howie hadn’t gotten his hands on a color copier during his absence, she rang up the sale and made change.
Frikko. Guess hundred dollar bills ain’t as scarce as I figured. Must be she gets them from the weekend crowd. He turned his attention to Chick. “Got my new wheels outside,” he said, holding up a set of keys on a red Shaleville Ford fob.
“Well, dude! Let’s go check it out.” Chick finished his beer, put the glass on the bar, turned toward the door.
“Hey, Chick,” Pudge said. “Before you take off, your rent’s due on the room. Assuming you ain’t moving to a better neighborhood.”
“Man, you’re a regular laugh factory.” He took a roll of crisp bills from his pocket and handed her one.
She checked it with her pen again and watched the two men go out the street door. Both of them had horse chokers in their pockets. The one she got a look at, Chick’s, wasn’t ninety nine singles with a C note for show. She considered the situation for a moment, then yelled down the hallway. “Alice! Watch the taps for a couple of minutes. I’m going across to the bank.”
Outside, Howie and Chick had the hood open on a shiny red F-150 pickup. Why men were interested in the innards of vehicles was a puzzle. They either ran, or they didn’t. She crossed the village green and entered the bank, went past the tellers and stopped at the low gate.
Claire glanced up from her computer. “Hello, Ms. Talbot. Is there something I can help you with?”
“Yeah.” She held out the two bills. “I checked these with my pen, and they seem OK. Only, I got a feeling I’m gonna be seeing a lot more, and I wanted to be sure.”
Claire suspected the two bills were somehow connected to their newest customer, and wanted Phil know she was on top of the situation. So she opened the low gate, said, “Let’s ask Mr. Conover.”
Who stood, as he always did when a lady, regardless of age, entered his office. And explained that her pen only checked the paper. Currency paper is made from rag stock; the paper used in copiers and printers is made from wood. The pen contains an iodine solution that reacts with the starch in cellulose based paper, leaves a black mark. Way more t
han Pudge wanted to know.
He then went on to tell her breasts about the various security features that the U.S. Treasury had recently introduced to foil counterfeiters. Color change ink. Security strip. Micro writing. The watermark. “This series predates the new design, but don’t worry. Your notes are very real, Ms. Talbot.” As real as those lovelies distorting the big lips and long red tongue on your T shirt. He smiled and handed the money back. With a knowing wink he added, “And you are correct. I think you will be seeing a lot of these bills.”
Chief Schmidt had a big plate glass window behind his desk. Silver Mylar blocked the sun and gave him a one-way panorama of the town square. He had his chair tilted, feet on the wastebasket, and eyes on the big man coming across the street.
The chief had gone from Shaleville Consolidated High School to Bucknell, majored in Criminal Justice, then spent twenty years in the Air Force, dealing with drunks, thieves, and domestic abuse. He'd retired ten years earlier, returned home to command the Shaleville force. Only difference, the miscreants no longer wore uniforms.
He still did; now his own design. Gray shirt, and matching trousers with a black stripe down the side seam, black necktie, black shoes. A pearl gray hat, rolled four inch brim, six inch crown, center crease with a dimple on the sides. The same uniform his officers wore, except he had three stars on his collar points. A promotion he had given himself, to make up for the fact that he now was in command of four instead of forty.
He had eaten lunch, as he most often did, at the coffee shop down the street. Not for the quality of the food, but for the chance to touch base with the other members of the town’s ruling class, if such a thing could be said to exist in Shaleville. Pederson, the lawyer, and Conover, the banker, had passed along their impressions of the game’s newest player. Armed with the man’s name and vitals, Chief Schmidt had searched the FBI’s NCIC database, come up with no wants or warrants.
The man himself now stood in front of his desk. Big; bigger than me, both by inches and pounds, he thought. And I’m considered a big man. Has a military look, officer; never mind the story about expat businessman. “Mr. Baer,” he said. “Welcome to Shaleville. How can I be of service?”
Without waiting for an invitation Baer settled into the visitor’s chair. “A couple of things, Chief. One personal, one official.”
“Let’s deal with the official one first.”
Baer ignored the command; resolving the personal matter would make success on the official request more likely. “I just bought Larry Tomczak’s business from his widow. I understand that you own the garage he was renting.”
“Mother owns it. My father’s machine shop. When he died she sold me the house, moved into our assisted living community. Five hundred a month.” The Chief grinned. “The shop, not the condo.”
Baer returned the smile. “I’d like to buy it from you. Her. I think fifty thousand’s a fair price. I’ll pay you five thousand a month, for ten months.” He put the Century 21 card on the desk. “Talk to your mother, work something out with my Realtor.”
Chief Schmidt wondered what this character was up to. Nobody in their right mind would voluntarily move to Shaleville. Or offer fifty grand for a building worth half that.
Baer took the last stack of hundreds from his inside pocket, slit the bank band with his thumb, and counted out five piles of ten on the desk. “First month’s payment, or ten month’s rent, however it works out.”
The Chief contemplated the bills. New, consecutive numbers. What the hell. “You want a receipt?”
“Hey, if you can’t trust the Chief of Police, who can you trust?”
“And your official business is?”
“I’d like a concealed carry permit. You can run a check on me; never had any trouble with the law.”
“Already did. You own a firearm?”
“Not yet. Can you recommend a gun shop?”
“My brother-in-law. Across the street, two blocks down. Bosell’s Sporting Goods. Use my name.”
The Chief had met and married his first wife in Tacoma, Washington, taken her to Tachikawa AFB in Japan, dissolved the union eight years later, in Minot, North Dakota. No kids, no regrets. Guarding a B-52 base in the middle of nowhere was not her idea of married bliss.
When he left the service and returned to Shaleville he took up where he had left off with Karen, now also a divorcee. Everybody has baggage; hers was an older brother.
He swiveled his chair, looked out the window, watched the man get into a new Lincoln. Spreading money around town. For what purpose?
“For what purpose?” Danny Bosell asked.
The tubby little man reminded Baer of the research librarian at the accounting firm. “Self defense. Shaleville seems a quiet place, but I carry a great deal of cash, and-”
“No need for explanations, sir. What I meant was, do you plan to use the gun for target shooting, hunting, home defense? In the home, a shotgun is what you want. Pump action, because that sound alone is usually enough. Twelve gauge; fill it with three rounds of bird shot. Cut a man in half at ten feet, but won’t go through the drywall, kill your kids in their bedroom.”
“I don’t have kids, so a handgun in the bedside table will do the trick. A nine. Another one for the glove box. And something small, with an ankle holster. Also a nine; keeps the ammo simple.”
“Your decision, sir. But in my experience, size matters. Because in a gunfight you don’t get a second chance.” He opened the sliding door behind the handgun display, took out three cartridges. “Your nine millimeter, your forty caliber S. & W., and your forty-five ACP.” He put them side by side on the glass, went into his sales pitch. “Nine’s are all the rage today, but for my money you can’t beat old reliable.” He pointed to the .45, and took out a Colt with checkered walnut grips, placed it on the counter next to the cartridge. “U.S. Army sidearm for the better part of a century. Load ‘er up with 230 grain hollowpoints, she’ll blow a man’s arm clean off. ‘Nix besser’, as the Dutchies say.” He took another gun from the display case. “The Taurus Millennium Pro PT145. Six inches long, twenty three ounces. Carries ten in the mag, one up the spout. Ankle holster or belt clip, you won’t even know it’s there. I’d recommend the stainless model, for the sweat.”
Jesus. Whatever; way more than I need to know. “Yes, well, I’ll defer to your expertise, Mr. Bosell. Give me two of the big ones, and the little fella. And a cleaning kit, box of those hollow points you think so highly of.”
Danny Bosell wrote up seventeen hundred dollars worth of armament. Ran the American Express card through the machine, then called his brother-in-law to pass along the gossip as Baer left the shop.
Chief Schmidt saw the man park his big automobile in front of the station, and was standing in front of the soda machine outside his office when Baer came through the front door. The man was still a supplicant, and the Chief assumed he would follow social protocol. He fed a dollar bill into the slot, said, “Name your poison.”
“What? Oh, doesn’t matter. Coke.”
The Chief waited for the man to take the can from the machine, then repeated the process, and made small talk about firearms and his brother-in-law while Baer popped his top and drank. Back in the office he had a form prepared on his desk, a pen beside it. “Show me your driver’s license.”
Chief Schmidt examined the laminated card. “Ohio? I understood you lived in the Middle East.”
“I keep my U.S. license current; I’m in the states two, three times a year, and need to rent automobiles.”
The Chief handed the license back without comment. In exchange for his signature and nineteen dollars Baer left the building with a permit to carry a concealed firearm.
Chief Schmidt watched Baer cross the street, heading for the hotel. He used the pen to lift the empty soda can, and dropped it in his side drawer, then removed one of the hundred dollar bills. He photocopied it, then faxed it, along with a query letter, to an old Air Force buddy, now at the Treasury Department in Washingto
n.
‘Shoving the queer’ had nothing to do with abusing homosexuals; it was old underworld slang for passing counterfeit money. A few years back he’d come across an Interpol news release warning that both Iran and North Korea were suspected of running state of the art printing operations, to produce Euros and U.S. dollars. If you’re queer, he thought, I’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks.
Pudge put the bills in the register, then took them back out. Side by side, they were almost identical. Both were series 1996, had E206 beside Robert E. Rubin’s signature. The serial number on one was AB 21276308 V. She grabbed the calculator from beside the register and entered the eight numbers, then subtracted the other bill. A difference of 110542. She timed it by a hundred. Had had to write the answer on a piece of paper, so she could put the commas in the right places. Eleven million, fifty-four thousand, two hundred dollars separated the two bills. That didn't sound right, so she did the math a second time, and found he skills were still sharp.
She’s been hearing on the TV news it was a cash situation over there. Only, if Howie and Chick got paid at the same time, most likely by Mr. Tomczak himself, how come there was an eleven million dollar difference between Howie’s bill and Chick’s? Hell of a mystery.