by Martha Carr
Besides, Parrish always prided himself on being able to do a good job whether it was running numbers or cleaning up after himself.
By his calculations he only had about twenty minutes left before the tow truck would appear. He needed to make his move.
He got out and walked swiftly to the car, making a straight line between the two points. He came around to the back of the car, his hand already wrapped around his favorite small switchblade. He reached in and placed a heavy hand on her shoulder to hold her at the right angle as he brought his other hand up to slit her throat in one clean motion. Alice felt the pressure on her shoulder and lunged first, spraying him with pepper spray and shoving a very wide foot into his groin. Alice had never been a people pleaser. She was not about to wait and find out what he wanted.
Alice had never learned to trust anyone and had lost more than one job from jumping to conclusions without asking questions first. However, when she saw the knife roll out of Parrish’ hand as he tried to quickly catch his breath she realized it was all worth it. The next time someone called her a cynical bitch she would remember to smile and think back to this moment. She gave Parrish another good hard kick before he could get enough air and she started running toward the building.
It only took a few moments before Parrish was already trying to shuffle behind her. The lost knife had skittered under the car and he had to quickly lay flat on the ground to reach it, but the black was shortly back in his hand.
He wasn’t used to anyone putting up much resistance to his efforts, especially an old woman and was caught completely off-guard by this large woman’s deliberate attack. He had almost thrown up on his Florsheims.
He could hear her fumbling with the keys and knew he had a chance to get back on track. He was catching up to her as she swung the door wide and turned around with a wild look in her eyes, swinging a large cloth bag filled at the bottom with what felt like a pair of large shoes.
The bag landed squarely against his chin pushing him back a little as he tried to swing out with the knife and nick her, maybe catch her off guard. Alice lifted her leg and put a shoe squarely in the middle of his stomach, shoving him hard enough to land on the ground. She turned and ran into the building but he scrambled to his feet and caught the door just before it could swing shut and lock him out.
He was going to catch this bitch.
She was doing a fast run-walk down the hall, her elbows working at her sides as he kept gulping in air, holding his stomach and clutching the knife, trailing behind her, stumbling from side to side. The pepper spray was making his eyes water and his vision blurred as he wiped his eyes with his sleeve. He lurched against the wall, hitting with a solid smack against his shoulder before pushing off and propelling himself forward as he stay focused on his goal. Parrish had never left without completing a task and wasn’t about to start now. It would put a blemish on his record.
Alice took a sharp left toward the end of the long hall and it was a few moments before he could see where she was headed. She was weaving in and out around the low cubicles toward the far wall. Twice he almost caught up to her and just when he thought he was almost close enough to lunge she had lifted a chair over her head and thrown it at him with a force he didn’t think she could have possessed.
The last time he managed to dig the tip of the knife across her hand, drawing blood but Alice didn’t even flinch. Instead she let out a loud roar, her mouth wide open, as she brought the chair down.
She didn’t even wait to see if the chair had slowed him down enough this time as she kept up her fast walk, arms churning to the fire alarm on the wall just above a cubicle that had the name Alice Watkins on the outside. There was a small dish with wrapped caramels near the edge of the desk and a small fern but no framed pictures or memorabilia. Alice didn’t even look down as she reached toward the alarm.
She smacked her hand hard against the thin glass plate, ignoring the little splinters as they dug into her palm. She pulled down the lever and heard the loud whooping sound instantly fill all of the space.
Quickly, she climbed on top of her desk, huffing with the effort, and pointed up toward the corner of the room while looking directly at Parrish.
Parrish hesitated and wondered if the woman was going to try and escape through the ceiling or hurl herself over the low cubicle walls. He was curious to see if she could do it.
When she stood up tall and straight on her desk, her feet planted in a firm stance and her arm outstretched, Parrish stopped to see what she was telling him.
He saw how determined and angry she looked and followed the direction of her arm till he saw the camera tucked up high against the ceiling. He stopped moving and stood there looking at her.
The alarm had activated a live feed to the security company. The marina had expensive boats to protect. The guards would already be looking at the monitors wondering why some large, white woman was disheveled and bleeding so badly from her hand while pointing at the camera. They would surely be asking themselves what or who she was looking at, just off camera.
Parrish knew he couldn’t go any further and if he didn’t backtrack quickly he’d get caught coming out of the building. Their response time would be very quick. He looked at Alice Watkins and felt a sense of kinship with her. This was one tricky old lady. He smiled broadly at her and nodded before turning toward the exit. Oscar will not be happy, he thought. I’ll have to do something about that.
Alice stood right where she was until the guards broke in and came pouring into the main room. She kept thinking about all of the time she had spent coming up with escape plans and ended up telling herself that she was going to need to learn to calm down.
They were never able to find any trace of the intruder.
Alice wasn’t surprised and made them stay till they got her car working again. They said some kids must have messed with it as they replaced the carburetor cap. She didn’t even look back as she drove down the road toward I64 West and back to Richmond.
Damn that Wallis Jones, thought Alice.
Chapter Twelve
Richard sat in his Explorer along the quiet country road waiting for Robin Spingler to arrive. He was parked along Indiantown Road in King George County just past the bend of the road near the large, old oak tree. The sun was beginning to rise and the sky was already a clear, dark blue stretching above the thick stand of trees. It was going to be a beautiful day.
“This isn’t good,” he said, as he fumbled for the matches he had just dropped on the floor of the car. He lit a cigarette to try and calm his nerves and tried to think about how he could explain away any of this mess.
He took a long drag and held his breath for a moment feeling a little calm come over him just as he saw Robin’s black Lincoln Continental pull around the curve. He blew out the smoke and smashed the cigarette in his ashtray. She always complained about the smell.
He got out of his car slowly and waited by his door too unsure of what to do next. She had barked at him with more than her usual sour disposition when she called him last night. He had heard stories about what she had done to people in her line that was worse than the whipping he had endured. He knew they weren’t all legend but he didn’t want to find out the hard way if the darker stories of people who had suddenly gone missing were true. She was even the one who had first coined the term apparent suicide for some of their more troublesome operatives from the Circle.
“Stop standing there with your arms at your side like you don’t have a clue.” Robin spat out the words in disgust. She marched over to Richard and took a whiff of the air. “Still smoking. You have no discipline. That’s how the entire Richmond operation has gotten to be the stinking hellhole that it is. Leadership comes from the top down.”
She gave the dry, clay dirt around her a kick. “Pathetic.”
Richard couldn’t stop himself. He flinched as if she had made contact with his leg.
“Did you tell that weasel, Oscar to hunt down that Jones woman?”
&n
bsp; “No, I definitely did not,” said Richard, chopping the air with his hand.
“That doesn’t make it much better. The McDonoughs were your idea as we both know.”
Richard felt the sting in his back again from the beating he had taken on just such a lonely road. He had instinctively tried to pull away from her as she yelled at him to stop being a coward and take what he deserved. His jacket had been sliced to ribbons. He didn’t dare go to a doctor and had made his wife nurse him with a salve.
“You must have the worst kind of dumb luck to have a clod like Oscar loose in the city at the same time that certain factions way above our pay grade are paying attention to Richmond,” she said, letting out a snort.
“I’m very sorry about that. I’ll make sure something is done,” he said, as he tried to hold his voice steady and failed. He pulled the long, charcoal grey cashmere overcoat closer around him, trying to ward off the chill.
“You had better. Crap rolls downhill and if it starts coming toward me I will offer whoever I have to as a trade. You were only authorized to get the thumb drive out of Ray Billings and instead he ended up dead and no information. That wasn’t easy to clean up. A lot of people had to get a bonus last month to make that happen. Then you were ordered to watch the Jones woman’s house, that’s all and you manage to kill a neighbor.”
“We tried to avoid that one. It couldn’t be helped,” said Richard in a bleating tone. Robin looked him up and down.
“You have caused a lot of mayhem lately, Richard Bach.”
“None of this was really my intention.”
Robin narrowed her gaze at him. “You really are weak, aren’t you?”
Richard winced and wanted to wretch up the contents of the bagel he had eaten on the drive over but he swallowed hard trying to maintain some amount of control. He was still hoping to come out of this with his old life intact.
“Now, this Lilly Billings is dead and it’s already leaked that she was murdered. There’s not a chance we can make her look like the grieving widow who had to follow her tragic husband into death.”
Robin was pacing back and forth in front of Richard. He was doing his best to hold still and not make any sudden movements in front of her.
“You think Oscar was capable of that one?”
“Uh, nuh, no, I don’t, I don’t,” he got out, as Robin’s anger seemed to grow. “No, definitely not. He’s not that clever. Too clean, no one saw anything, a few pieces of jewelry were taken.”
“Then give me a name.”
“Parrish, Rodney Parrish,” he blurted out. “I’d say it was Rodney Parrish. He’s been known to break into places for extra cash when he needed it and he has a thing for violence. Talks about all the neighborhood pets he’s done in so that he could sleep peacefully.”
“You have a problem, then. You just named one of our better informants,” she said as she got closer and closer to Richard’s face. He could see where the bright, red lipstick had seeped into the small wrinkles around her mouth. “Mr. Parrish is able to get in and out of places without anyone ever knowing someone was there. I rescued him out of lockup myself before he was ever fingerprinted. There’s no record, anywhere. But if he gets picked up for a murder he may start talking and we can’t have that, can we Mr. Bach.” She slapped her hands together in a loud clap, making Richard’s legs shake.
“There are Circle operatives who sit on the bench. They know my name and would love nothing more than to see me put away for a while. I won’t let that happen. You find someone to give to the police for Lilly’s murder besides Mr. Parrish and I’ll overlook the mistakes you seem to be prone to repeating.”
Richard wanted to point out that he didn’t exactly make this string of mistakes but he knew better than to ever contradict Robin Spingler.
“I want to make sure there are no illusions about what can happen here. There is a grand opportunity here in Richmond to turn the tide against the opposition for generations to come and the rewards will be great for those who do their part. We have had an unexpected gift given to us by the most unusual source,” she said.
“A gift?” said Richard, letting his curiosity get the better of him.
“Yes,” said Robin, smiling as she licked her lips, inadvertently spreading a little lipstick to her front teeth. “Do you know something I learned a long time ago, Richard that has turned out to be true? Never failed me.”
“No, ma’am. What is that?” he said, feeling relief that the subject had somehow moved on from him.
“Everyone is weak and will try to grab more than they deserve at some point. Oh, they’ll have justifications and well thought out reasons why it’s for the better good. Such piety. But it’s wonderful, really because that’s when it’s possible to finally strike a deal. It’s a form of respect, really.”
Richard was a good lawyer. He caught on easily and knew there was an informant. “Your informant must be someone big,” he said, out loud, immediately regretting it.
“Oh, a regular emerald ash solution,” she said, her lips curling into a sneer.
“An emerald ash…?”
“Not your business. Way over your paygrade. It’s a once in a lifetime plea for help and it means millions to me personally. Do you understand? But in order for it to all come together I’m going to need the problems in Richmond to stop and a conversation with Robert Schaeffer. You need to break your losing streak. There won’t be another chance.”
Robin suddenly kicked him hard in the groin. Her pointy shoe felt like the tip of a knife. The pain shot out in every direction as he sank to his knees and let his head fall to the ground. He put his hands on the ground and pushed against the gravel while he tried to get a breath back in his body. He could hear Robin let go of a satisfied sigh.
“That’s just a little taste to remind you what you need to do next. Do it well or I’ll just cut to the end the next time.”
Robin had left him there on his knees and slowly pulled away in her car. It took a few minutes before Richard was able to lift his head and sit back on the ground, still working to get his breathing to normal.
“That bitch has got to go,” he choked out. “Another apparent suicide.”
The drive to the old tobacco warehouse in Shockoe Bottom took an hour. Richard spent the time thinking about what he could say to Rodney Parrish that wouldn’t get him killed by anyone but might make him turn on Oscar. Money is the only thing, he thought, as he slapped his hand on the dashboard. He was going to have to make him a deal.
He walked into the large room and tried to pick out Rodney from the handful of men standing around.
“Mr. Bach, you here to place a bet? We would have taken your combinatings over the phone,” said Davey. He was dressed in the uniform pinstripe suit and was busy checking on the morning’s payouts. The winners would be by soon to collect. Winners always came in person.
“I’m looking for Parrish.”
“Rodney? He’s been laying low. Picking up the payouts for his best customers and skedaddling the hell out of here just as fast. Something went south, I don’t know.”
“Where the hell is everybody?”
“At their regular jobs, Mr. Bach. I just stopped by to pick up a payment from someone behind on their loan or I’d be downtown at my city job too.”
“Is Mac here?” Mac ran the numbers business in Richmond and was everyone’s boss who worked in the warehouse. He was an affable fellow most of the time as long as money wasn’t involved. He took in a few thousand in profit a week and buried most of it in a plastic bag on land he owned in Hanover County but no one ever tried to find it. Mac would have chased them to the ends of the earth. The rest of the money he washed through a couple of restaurants he owned on the edge of the Fan District. Davey was his right hand man.
“No, he won’t be in ‘til later. He doesn’t normally get up this early. You can find him downtown having breakfast at Penny’s near the newspaper around noon. Does Rodney owe you money? Let me take care of it for you right no
w. How much is it, Mr. Bach? You’re a good customer. No receipt necessary. We can get it later,” said Davey, pulling out a thick roll of bills from his pocket. There was a hundred dollar bill on the outside.
“No, it’s not like that, Davey,” said Richard, running his hand through his hair. He was starting to sweat. “You know where Rodney lives?”
Davey looked a little surprised and slipped the money back into his pocket.
“Is he in trouble, Mr. Bach, because we can take care of that too.” Davey’s voice had dropped and he was speaking more slowly, leaning back. Richard realized Davey thought Richard was threatening one of their best runners.
Richard raised his hands in protest. “He’s not in trouble, at least not with me. I need to hire him. I have a situation,” said Richard, annoyed.
“Oh, why didn’t you say so from the start, I understand completely. I’ll let Rodney know right away and have him call you. That okay if he call you?”
“Sure, sure, but ask him to find me right away. It’s time sensitive and I have to move quickly on it. Tell him there’s a bonus for him on this one.”
“That ought to make the man move faster. My experience is money always does.”
Richard walked out of the warehouse without looking back. All he could think about was what would happen if he couldn’t give Robin Spingler a fall guy.
“Uh, Davey,” he said, turning back. “Can I hire you to let me know if you hear anything that might be important to me?”
“Everything is for sale in this world, Mr. Bach. You just need to have the green.”
Chapter Thirteen
The Federal Reserve not only set policy for the banking system of the United States, they also acted as a giant bank for other institutions, which gave them the power to cash over-sized checks at a fixed rate or create a discount window to loan money at better rates.