Recurrence

by Dave Norem

  He recalled the woman’s face as best he could, and saw with relief that she looked nothing like the pretty Julie who lay quietly beside him patting him on the thigh. He remembered also that even though the woman’s face was slightly indistinct, she was much more beautiful and sophisticated. She was tall and auburn haired, and he knew instinctively that under other circumstances she moved with elegance and grace.

  He felt guilt as this thought flashed through his mind, but then relief that Julie was not part of it, whatever it was. He recalled a similar brief dream of the same, or a very similar woman. That dream had been during his liaison with Alice, in Virginia. He did not like speculating on past regrets.

  After his arm healed John returned to the work force as a Forney Welding Supplies salesman, a job that required him to be away for the weekend only once every two or three months. This made a good cover for him and still allowed him time for his other pursuits on other weekends.

  Julie knew that he was working his other life somewhere, but she never asked where. She finished her schooling, but with her dream of teaching diminished. Her relationship with her family had deteriorated when they found out that she was living with him without being married.

  Their life of travel began with touring randomly in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Two months later, they were preparing to leave Philadelphia for Tallahassee. While lying in bed the night before the departure, he gently stroked her hair and cheek.

  “Julie, I need to have you with me, but we can’t let things continue like this. Will you marry me when we get to Florida?”

  She was silent for so long that he thought she was not going to answer at all. When she did answer, he realized she had been holding her breath since he had first started speaking.

  The “Yes,” was an exhale so soft he could barely hear it.

  They were married on the steps of the Florida Capitol Building in Tallahassee on a spring Sunday, shortly after Memorial Day. A friend who was part of the next job lived in the area and knew a Justice of the Peace who would do it for twenty dollars. Fifty dollars more got them a photographer, who doubled as a witness. Julie wore a full wedding dress she had picked out less than a week before, and John wore a light-gray suit. She was the happiest he had ever seen her.

  They spent a week honeymooning in a cottage on the Gulf, but the bugs on the beach were so bad at that time of year that they had to stay indoors most of the time. Somehow, they didn’t mind too much.

  After the honeymoon, they crossed the peninsula and traveled back up the Atlantic Coast, enjoying the beaches and amusement parks. Julie had her skirt blown up over her head while exiting the fun house at Asbury Park, New Jersey, and it happened again at Coney Island in New York. They rode the roller coaster while there, and watched a trained bear ride a bicycle. Life was good, and Niagara Falls was next on their list.

  John was still part of a personal mailbox network, and still used a phone answering service anonymously. The members all forwarded or held mail for each other, and now added code lettering to the member’s names, so that it got to the right persons. When a phone was available, they relayed calls with messages to “check the mail,” using a similar code trick.

  While in Niagara Falls, John caught up with his messages and contacted Cramer, who was back in Cleveland, not far from them. He did not mention Julie to Cramer, and gave no indication of their marriage during a short visit with Cramer. She stayed in the hotel during his daylong trip.

  Julie had become more worldly and outgoing, meeting and mixing with people from different lifestyles. She became friendly with people without becoming close friends and adjusted to living in different cities without concerns for livelihood. She managed to fulfill her maternal instincts by writing children’s books and stories. Despite the traveling, she managed to get some of her work published within a year.

  When they returned to Tallahassee, the wedding pictures were ready. John sent some of them to Allen Wells in Lafayette, and some to Martin Levine in Fort Wayne. Julie sent some to her mother and sisters. Neither of them told how long they would be in Florida, nor where they were going from there. The second week after they returned to Florida, he left her there alone while he went to work the job that Cramer had contacted him about.

  CHAPTER 13

  The job was in Dothan, Alabama and far enough away to keep their location isolated. It was again taking illegal gambling money and lounge cash from the back room of an after-hours nightclub. Taking anything from criminal Southerners was risky business. John was skeptical when he first heard Cramer’s proposal, but it was feasible and well planned. Cramer backed it with claims of personal ties to an undisclosed insider.

  “I know the man personally. He’s solid and has good cause for this.”

  A verified personal motive for silent revenge was the kicker that intrigued John.

  They met in Montgomery to go over the plans, and they would go to Albany, Georgia for the wrap-up. To rendezvous in a different city or town when dealing with the smaller ones was typical of the way they operated. They picked a rendezvous point where they would blend in. In this case, building and highway construction projects were underway in the area. No one noticed smaller groups of similarly dressed men.

  Cramer was already there when John arrived, and they were ahead of the rest of the crew.

  “Do you remember James Hartson?” Cramer asked.

  “Sure,” John said. “He’s not only a good man; he saved my ass from getting hauled in by the MPs once and taught me a few things besides. What’s he got to do with this?”

  “He’s my inside man here” Cramer said. “James and his wife both work in the club and can’t afford to quit. They have a kid with some serious medical problems, and more bills than they can pay. James is the night bartender and supervises the cleanup crew after hours. His wife waits tables in the restaurant and serves drinks to the gamblers in the back room. A slick hustler who goes by the name of Catman owns the place. He’s white but can’t keep his hands off the black girls who work for him. That’s where Hartson fits in.

  Now John understood. Hartson and his wife were both black.

  “Catman is a tall, slender dude with an olive complexion, dark-brown hair and black eyes. James says he has a widow’s peak and combs his hair straight back. His right-hand man is a bald-headed dude who answers to Baldo, and doubles as a bouncer.

  James wants some serious hurt put on Catman but has to keep both of them working. We’re going to help him out both ways and deal a little justice on the side. Do you want part of that?”

  John was eager, “You bet.”

  “I thought so. Catman doesn’t know that James is aware he’s been putting hands on his wife, so we’ll give Catman something else to think about from another tie-in. The other guys in on this deal don’t know anything about the personal end of it. If they don’t know, they can’t give it away. You, I can trust not to let it slip.

  “I know something else about Catman that James doesn’t know,” Cramer continued. “Catman had a woman who ran off to Chicago to get away from him. He tracked her down and dragged her out of a lounge up there while she was working as a hostess and brought her back to Alabama. She’d already taken up with the manager at the place in Chicago. Guess what? It was George Rollo, at the same place where you got stabbed.”

  John laughed, “I love it.”

  There were four of them on the job, and nothing was done that would make this look like an inside job.

  The crew members entered the business during the evening at different times and worked their way to the back of the club. They waited until after midnight, for the next delivery from the cash registers up front. After that, all of the restaurant money and most of the lounge cash would be in the back with the gambling money.

  Hartman was at the hospital with his sick child for her Hemodialysis treatment that night. It gave him a nice alibi. When his wife, Lulu, was
clearing tables in the restaurant area, Cramer gave the signal, and they took over the back hall and gambling room.

  The baby-faced, bald-headed bouncer was moving money to the back office at the end of a hall with both hands full. He passed restrooms on both sides, a storage closet on the left, and the gambling room on the right. As he passed the gambling room door, Cramer stepped out of the office at the end of the hall. He had picked the lock after the man left from his previous trip and was waiting, along with one of the others, for the sound of lumbering footsteps approaching in the hall.

  While Baldo was saying “What the fuck,” John put the ice-cold barrel of a .38 against the back of his neck.

  “There are more of us Baldo, so shut up or die,” he growled into the man’s ear. Icing the end of the barrel by holding an ice cube from a drink against it, was a little psychological trick John had thought up at the spur of the moment. It had the desired chill-of-death effect on Baldo. Calling him by name confused him even more. He seemed to puff up and rise on his toes but gave a small whimper at the same time.

  Cramer beckoned from the end of the hall, and John prodded him forward. Once they had him in the office, it only took a matter of seconds to make him tell that they kept the money in a file drawer until the boss was ready to move it to the safe. They left Baldo in the desk chair, bound and gagged with duct tape. Cramer left the light on in the office and left the door open about an inch.

  It was several more minutes before someone showed up looking for Baldo. The big, dark, curly-haired man barged right into the office. All he could see was the top of Baldo’s head showing above the backwards-facing, burgundy-colored leather backrest.

  They easily overcame Curly too. Two other crew members had been watching the doors to the gambling room and hall from the restrooms to make sure there was no interference.

  Cramer and John entered the gambling room with their drawn guns at their sides and separated to cover the entire room as they raised them. It was a small room and there were five men in a cloud of smoke at a poker table. All of them were dressed as businessmen with their ties loosened or pulled off, except for the one who was obviously Catman.

  He was wearing a brownish-gold leisure suit with an orange knit shirt. A large Inca-type medallion hung from a gold chain around his neck. He had a surprised but irritated look on his face. He started to speak, but Cramer cut him off.

  “There are more of us outside, with shotguns. So, don’t get excited and do something stupid!”

  “Who in the hell are you, and?” Catman started to ask.

  “It doesn’t matter who we are, Catman.” Cramer said as he moved around behind him. “I have a message for you.” He threw a matchbook from the bar in Chicago down on the table. Catman reached for it and Cramer slammed the side of his heavy Colt Python revolver down onto the back of the outstretched hand. It was hard enough to jar the whole table, and everyone at it flinched.

  “Son of a bitch!” Catman bellowed, while trying to shove himself back.

  Cramer already had his foot planted behind a leg of the chair, making his effort futile.

  “Now look at the matchbook.”

  Catman reached out in a jerky motion with his other hand, but not quick enough. Cramer slammed the gun down on that one too, and even harder.

  Catman howled! “You bastards will pay for this,” and nearly tipped over backwards in the still anchored chair.

  “No, you will pay!” Cramer picked up the matchbook and held it in front of him, saying “greetings from Georgie Rollo.”

  One of the other players visibly flinched at the name.

  John was standing to one side of the door, and in front of stacked cases of whiskey -bottled in fifths- with the top case open. When Cramer stepped away, he grabbed a bottle by the neck and threw it directly into Catman’s face, hitting him squarely in the nose. Blood flew as Catman reared back in the chair with a squawk. A second fifth, thrown just as hard, hit him just under the chin, sending him on over. The others started to push away from the table, but Cramer stopped them by cocking the .357 Magnum.

  Catman was still unconscious while they worked their duct tape magic on all of the men and bagged the cash from the table and their wallets. It was a good haul.

  “Busted nose, broken hands, and empty wallets; be glad you’re still alive,” John said to the room in general as they left.

  As they drove back to Dothan to split the take with the others, Cramer Laughed, “maybe two broken hands will keep them off of other men’s wives for a while. Which one of those other fellows do you think will wipe his ass until he can do it on his own again?

  John laughed too; “If he drops his pants for James to do it, he’ll lose his balls.”

  “Think about The Redneck Mafia going after the Chicago Mob. Ha! Catman will be easy to spot with his face all plastered-and-taped up, and his hands in casts. Nice job with the whiskey, I never would have thought of that. I think you took his voice away too.”

  They both laughed at that one. The job had gone off without a hitch, as most of them did, and was very lucrative. John was on top of the world, and afterwards told Cramer about getting married, stating that he was going to take a few months off to enjoy life with Julie.

  “A damned fine idea,” Cramer said.

  CHAPTER 14

  Hot weather came early in the South, so John and Julie traveled north. Traveling was working so well for them that before leaving Florida they bought a used Winnebago motor home from a retired widow. John drove it to Nashville, Tennessee in a single day, quickly getting the feel of it. They spent a night and the next day visiting Country-and-Western tourist attractions, including the Ryman Auditorium, Tootsie’s Lounge, Earnest Tubb’s Record Shop and Printers’ Alley.

  Julie picked Jimmy Kelly’s for dinner one evening, where they had excellent steaks, and shared a table with a nice couple, Will and Karen, from Nashville. Will, a transportation executive, gave John some interesting perspectives on logistics, and distribution. He knew the best routes through and around major cities; and where the bottlenecks, speed traps and weigh stations were located. Karen was charming with her natural red hair, sparkling blue eyes, and gorgeous smile.

  Julie learned to drive the Winnebago the next day and they went on to Indiana, where they stopped to visit John’s friend, Allen, and then Julie’s mother and sisters. After short visits with each of them, they decided to travel west to Yellowstone National Park, and visit other landmarks along the way.

  They traveled across Wisconsin and halfway across the bottom of Minnesota before stopping. This was beautiful country and they spent the night in a campground, where they were entertained near a campfire. Their fellow campers played guitars banjos and mandolins, while singing old-time folk music and bluegrass.

  This was fun to be a part of and they shared drinks and laughs. Most of the people camping lived less than fifty miles from there but camped-out to get away from everyday life.

  The second night they camped late and alone in an unofficial rest area. They were on a bluff above the Missouri River in South Dakota. One of the campers from the previous night had told them about the place and assured them that it was safe.

  Just before 1:00 AM, a loud roar and lights passing over their windows awakened John. Julie awoke too, and they parted the curtains just in time to see a Chevy Blazer disappear over the riverbank.

  Believing that the Blazer had crashed into the river, John leaped out of bed and started to get dressed. Then they heard doors slam and people talking. A few minutes later, the newcomers started setting off fireworks. John and Julie grinned at each other, closed their curtains, and went back to bed. They made love with multi-colored fireworks exploding around them. John had the recurring nightmare long before dawn, and had difficulty getting back to sleep.

  After the sun was well up, he walked over to the edge to see where the Blazer had disappeared. It had gone do
wn a steep drop-off to where there was just enough room at the bottom for three or four vehicles to park, and very little room to turn around. This looked like a regular party spot for four-wheel-drive vehicles, but the partiers were long gone.

  When he returned to the camper, his hair almost stood on end. There was a four-to-five-foot-long rattlesnake pinned under the right front tire of the motor home. Its body was bigger around than John’s forearm and there was enough sticking out for its head to reach the step. John was familiar with the eastern diamondback and timber rattlesnakes but didn’t recognize this species. He was just glad that it was dead. It had five rattles and the end of them appeared to be broken off short. Julie looked at it by leaning out of the open door of the camper, but she would not step outside.

  After eating breakfast inside the Winnebago, they moved on across South Dakota, stopping to visit the Corn Palace at Mitchell and Wall Drugs at Wall. The attractions were different but still tourist-trap shopping malls as far as John was concerned. He speculated on how much money might be available for the taking at either place, and how difficult it might be to score. It was something to file away in the back of his mind: way back.

  They continued on to Rapid City and liked the way the city spread out in a panorama before and below them as they approached from the east. They spent the night there in a motel and enjoyed the larger tub and shower.

  After leaving Rapid City, they returned to the interstate, following it to Buffalo, Wyoming. Farmers had been baling hay in the median and right up to the shoulder of the interstates in Nebraska and South Dakota. This practice continued in Wyoming, but after they reached the Bighorn Mountains the farming activity ceased.

  While in the Bighorns, they stopped and helped a family who had broken down in another Winnebago. Their exhaust pipe had come loose, and the muffler was dragging on the road. A pair of wire coat hangers from their closet solved the problem and got John and Julie a free, home-cooked, meal. Their hosts, Mike and Theena Rae Cortson were from Decatur, Michigan.