by Greg Aunapu
Linda did prove more reliable in her calling patterns than some of the other biker types the Billigs had encountered. She missed a day, but called on February 10 at eight-fifteen in the evening. She'd had no luck in West Palm Beach, so returned to St. Petersburg, where she'd flashed Amy's photo in the stripper bars.
"A girlfriend of mine says she saw a girl who looked like Amy, dancing in Satan's Den, here in St. Pete," she said. "I'm a bit worried, though, there are two escapees from Lowell and Raiford, and cops seem to think the first place they're gonna go is a titty bar!"
"Get a big guy to go with you," Sue suggested. Afterward, she called a friend in St. Pete, Jim Neiman, who was easily commandeered to check out the neighborhood strip joints for any sign of the Billigs' missing daughter.
Linda called breathlessly at nine-thirty the next morning. "I took pictures of a girl at a strip club," she announced. "Had to pay the bouncer fifty dollars to let me take pictures, so send me a postal money order, okay?"
Sue put her foot down. "If I sent money to everyone who sent me a photograph, I'd be out a million dollars already," she said. "We'll give you the $2,000 reward when we have physically seen Amy!"
"You look at the picture, and if it's Amy," Linda said, "then you wire me half, and I'll tell you where I found her. Okay?"
"Okay, okay!" Sue said in exasperation, and took Linda's address.
"I think it's her," Linda said.
Jim Neiman called hours later to say that he had shown Amy's picture around at the strip clubs, and workers at Satan's Den declared that Amy was working there. "They don't know where she lives, though," he said. "I'll go back tonight."
The two got into a conversation about Sue's recent investigations. When Sue mentioned the name Harry Kramer, Neiman, who was a motorcycle rider, exclaimed, "Harry Kramer! Straight, dark hair, about 160 to 170 pounds? Wears his hair in a ponytail?" "Yes!" Sue said.
"He's here in St. Pete," Neiman told her. "Works on my motorcycle!"
-12-
S ue gasped. "Kramer is in St. Pete? Do you know how long we've been looking for him?"
"He's got a wife and kids. I've seen the wife, and she's not Amy."
"The story is he left her in Oklahoma," Sue said. "But if he's in St. Pete, she might be, too. Please take Amy's picture to him and see if the girl he had in Tulsa is her!"
"Absolutely, will do," Jim told her. "And I'll go by Satan's Den later, too."
Things were definitely heating up again, Sue thought. But she had to calm down. The trail had been hot before, only to cool down in quick and depressing ways. She couldn't allow herself to get too enthusiastic here. Good thing, too. The girl did not come into Satan's Den that night, and Harry Kramer could not be found. "He's suddenly gone underground," Neiman said. "He's not at the motorcycle shop, and I checked almost every bar in St. Pete, and I can't find him. I'll keep looking, though."
Ned had the gallery to keep his mind occupied during the day, but all this was pure torture for Sue.
Two days later Linda called to see if the pictures she sent of the girl had arrived. "I've also tried to contact Big Jim and some other Outlaws in South Florida," she said, "but the heat is on there. No one is around. Jim hasn't answered the phone in days."
"I'll call you the moment the picture gets here," Sue said. "I'm waiting by the mailbox."
The mailman delivered a sheave of bills, circulars, and letters a couple of hours later. Sue hunted through the pile and found a thick letter with almost illegible handwriting scrawled across it, postmarked St. Petersburg. Her hands trembled so much she could barely rip open the envelope. Her heart raced and the entire world seemed to disappear around her as she slipped the photograph from the envelope.
The photograph was very dark and poorly exposed— the profile of a girl, long hair draped down, covering half her face. Sue could see instantly that this was not a secretly taken photograph in some dark nightclub, but a carefully choreographed fraud.
"Screw you, Linda!" Sue muttered to herself. "You little—" Sue hardly mouthed a curse in her life, and she stopped herself now.
Instead, she tossed the photograph on the dining room table and called Donna's mother to see if Linda could be trusted at all, or if she was just another complete parasite.
Martie answered the phone, the television blaring in the background. "Linda? I don't know her. But Donna was passing those photos around to some girls she trusts, so I don't know what to tell you. I don't think she'd give it to some hustler. I'll see if I can get her to call you."
It wasn't until March 3, just a few days short of the third anniversary of Amy's disappearance, when Neiman called to say, "I found Kramer. He tells me he hasn't been out of the state in ten years, and that he did not steal Paul's bike, did not take his woman, and does not know Amy! I showed him the mug shot of Paul that you sent me, and he knew him instantly as 'Pagan Paul.' Said he had sold Paul some pot once, but that was the extent of their relationship. He also says he's never been called 'Dishrag' or 'Washrag,' or anything of the sort. I believe him, Sue. I think Branch may have made everything up."
Sue had to fight for a breath. This was not the news she had hoped for, or expected. "So how does his name come up all the way in Oklahoma?" Sue asked. "It wasn't just Paul. Everyone, including the police, said they knew Harry Kramer."
"Must be another Kramer around," Jim said. "And I found that girl at Satan's Den," he said, and lowered his voice. "Sue, there's really quite a resemblance— could be her sister—but she isn't Amy."
It was amazing. Another Kramer? One who fit the description that Paul had first given her? At least more than one girl fitting Amy's description floating around? Either there was an amazingly coincidental world of doppelgangers out there or something really fishy was going on—or maybe both.
By now Sue had had enough of this nonsense. She commandeered a friend, Loraine, to chauffeur her up to Glades Correctional Institution in Belle Glade, a four-hour trip, to interview Rolando "Scar" Villandre.
They started early in the morning, driving up Route 27, through the sod and sugarcane fields of Central Florida. The narrow, two-lane road was one of the most dangerous in Florida, with convoy after barreling convoy of Mack trucks hauling tons of perishable produce at top speed. Even driving 65 mph, the trucks came towering behind you, blasting their horns and speeding by in the opposite lane, whether there was a passing zone or not. There was a terrible accident along this road at least once a week, especially when it rained or when the sugar fields were being burned and smoke cut the visibility.
The women's stomachs were in knots by the time they arrived in Belle Glade, a farm community on the banks of Lake Okeechobee, one of the poorest areas in Florida. They passed shanty communities with zinc roofs, every bit as poor as slums in Jamaica, where many of the laborers were shipped in from.
Built in 1932 as a prison farm to grow vegetables for other institutions, this prison was even shoddier than the one in Raiford. But the security procedures were not as stringent, being a medium security prison, and their body search was hardly more than perfunctory. Scar was brought in to see them without much delay. He was a wiry Latino with close-cropped hair, a face that had been bitten forever by adolescent acne scars, and, of course, the requisite biker tattoos. To be really different, Sue thought, a biker should refuse to get tattoos. That would show their independence!
His speech was barely clipped by a Spanish accent. Just enough to know it was there. He looked at Amy's picture and shrugged his shoulders. "Me? I never saw her. I don't know what date you're seeing on the records, but I been in jail for that false imprisonment charge since February 1974, and I don't know her."
"But you do know Paul Branch and Pompano Red?" Sue asked.
Scar looked at her with a pained expression. Plainly, he did not like to talk about his associations.
"Red is a frequent entry on your visitor list," Sue said.
He snorted in disgust. "So what?"
"Listen, I'm just looking for my daughter
," Sue said, giving the familiar litany. "Check me out with people like Jim Nolan or Red. We're not the heat. Jim was actually very kind to me, and put out some feelers. Unfortunately, there's a lot of heat in South Florida because of war with the Hell's Angels."
The familiar names slowly seeped into his consciousness and quelled his paranoia. Sue wasn't an outsider anymore. She told him about Paul and the trip to Tulsa to get his feelings.
"I don't think Paul would string you along for that kinda money," he told her. "I think he was probably telling you the truth. Probably not all of it," he added. "But I don't think he lied to you. Maybe there's another Harry Kramer. I don't know."
After a generous hour and ten-minute conversation, he finally realized he wasn't going to get rid of Sue too easily, and that she'd insist on seeing him again if he didn't help her. "Okay, already," he pronounced. "I'll write some letters and see what I can find out for you."
As always, the next day Sue sat down and wrote Scar a letter outlining their conversation and what she hoped he might accomplish for her, and sent it off directly. Somehow, people who forgot about you the moment you exited their presence, or hung up the phone, could be prompted to make heroic efforts on your behalf with a letter in their hand. When a person held that letter, it was as if they could feel the energy that had gone into the act of writing it, which somehow transferred into their own minds to a greater extent than any mere conversation.
Also, she realized, letters were very important to prisoners.
At the end of the week, Sue received a call from Sid Fast. She hadn't heard from him in a while, and told him she was very glad to hear his voice. His calls always turned out to be important.
"I know you've been looking for Paul, and I wanted you to know he's back living with Red in the trailer."
"Back with Red?" she said. "Have you seen him? I hear he's near crippled."
"I haven't seen him myself, but someone else has. He's walking with a cane. He sounds like he's really strapped for cash, so I don't think you should trust him.”
"He nearly got killed for me," Sue said. "And there's so much I have to ask him. I found Harry Kramer in St. Pete, but I don't know if it's the same Kramer that Paul was chasing. I've got all sorts of conflicting information now. Branch says he escaped from prison in seventy-four, and someone else claims he didn't. It's very important to get this all straight!"
"I'm just giving you my feeling," Sid said. "Take it from the voice of experience. I'm not saying you shouldn't have trusted him before. But he's gotta be pretty desperate now!"
Sue hung up the phone, clenched her fists and called Rex. "I don't know who to believe anymore!" she cried. "You call Paul and tell him to meet with me. He owes us, big-time!"
She was expecting to hear back from Rex the next morning when the phone rang. Instead, the voice was female.
"It's Donna," she said.
Her mother had pressured her to help Sue out some more. "I found Harry Kramer," she said, duplicating the information Sue already had. She also mentioned the look-alike at Satan's Den who Jim had already dismissed.
"Oh," Donna said in a relieved tone. "So you don't need me?"
"Of course I do," Sue responded. "Tell me more about where you knew Amy from."
Donna realized she wasn't getting off the hook so easily. "Last place I remember seeing her was a place called Sneaky Pete's in Hallandale. She wasn't dancing. Was a cocktail waitress . . ." The information was instantly suspect, as Donna had told Sue she had last seen the purported Amy in West Palm Beach. She had the feeling that Donna was trying to give them disinformation. Anything that would keep her from getting further involved.
Thus, another week was spent tracing dead-end leads, finding the former owner of Pete's, and showing Amy's picture to the girls there. Of course, no one had seen her. Another week of not finding Amy. Another week when Amy might have been found somewhere else if Sue had not been purposefully sent in the wrong direction. It was actually starting to look like a conspiracy to keep her away.
Further evidence of such a conspiracy seemed to come just days later. A Coconut Grove attorney, Martin Blitzstein—who often represented bikers and was also one of Branch's lawyers— met with Sue at the Billigs' home.
Blitzstein was a New York type, with a feisty can-do attitude. He came by the house, took a tour, scoped Amy's room, perused all the photographs on the wall, a virtual shrine to Amy, and gave Sue a hug.
"If the boys have her," he said, "I will get her back. Pompano Red owes me his life!"
Whether this contact drew the death threat or the culmination of all the other phone calls, no one will ever know. But suddenly someone was getting very worried. Rex received a three A.M. phone call from an unknown voice that he relayed to Sue the next morning.
"Definitely a biker," Rex told her. "He said he heard I could be trusted, so I should inform 'that lady with the daughter' that she was 'throwing names like Jim Nolan and Paul Branch around,' and she better quit— or else she's going to end up being used for target practice in the Everglades. Sue, you are really starting to piss people off. These guys don't make light threats. I'm begging you to slow down."
The words went through Sue's brain and amounted to nothing. If she stopped looking for Amy, she was as good as dead inside anyway. But coming from such a good friend, it was hard to take. "I am not quitting," she said. "I am going to continue doing whatever I have to in order to find my daughter. What if this was your daughter who disappeared? You'd do whatever you could, and you'd never stop! I know you, Rex."
This was becoming a mantra among her friends and in questions asked by reporters. Why do you keep going? Why don't you just accept that Amy is gone? Sue rarely responded, but in her mind she would ask, How could you be so heartless? How could you live knowing a person you loved so much had disappeared and probably didn't even know who they were?
Rex didn't fight her, though. He knew the depth of her commitment to the search. She filled him in about Blitzstein—and Rex said that if Blitzstein was as "in" with the bikers as he said, having him involved couldn't hurt.
Blitzstein reported a few days later. He had explosive information, but his voice had taken on a completely different tone. It seemed he was no longer Sue's advocate, but had jumped sides.
"Sue," he said, "first thing is, Amy's alive."
Great words, but Sue was instantly suspicious about the tone. "Alive?" she asked, excited, yet more apprehensive than ever.
"She's in New Jersey," Blitzstein said. "But she's there because she wants to be there."
"Impossible!" Sue interrupted. "If you knew her—"
"She doesn't want to come home," he interrupted. "She's a biker girl now."
"I still want her to come home. If she comes home and decides to leave again, that's her business, but she's been brainwashed. She needs help, and we'll get it for her."
"You don't understand," Blitzstein explained. "She's a different person now. She is not the angelic, innocent Amy that you remember."
"Marty," Sue said, "we will do anything to get her back. I don't care what it is. If everything goes smoothly, there doesn't have to be any heat involved. We don't want to send anyone to prison. But at this point we are prepared to get the authorities involved and throw some heavy weight around!"
Blitzstein seemed to make a decision. "Okay," he said. "I'll help you get her back, but be prepared for the worst. You may need money to buy her back."
"Absolutely," Sue said with conviction, not knowing where she would obtain the cash. "Whatever is necessary. We'll go up there as soon as you locate her."
Blitzstein paused, obviously mulling the scenario in his head. He decided it would be better to keep the Billigs in Florida. "You stay put for right now. I'll get her for you, and bring her back by force. If necessary," he continued, "in chains."
Sue was a whirlwind. She contacted a doctor who specialized in deprogramming cult members. Her neighbor across the street, a lawyer named John Lazarus, drew up "Baker Act" court
documents, in which a judge declared Amy incompetent, giving Sue and Ned the power to place her under emergency psychiatric care.
Blitzstein was suddenly out of the office all the time, distancing himself from the situation. He directed calls to his associate Granville Tracy, a former biker who worked for him. Granville knew virtually everyone involved in the case, so he hit the ground running, but ran straight into a stone wall of silence. Red wouldn't give him any information, Paul had disappeared and was again rumored to have been killed—or in Nashville, if still alive.
Blitzstein himself shut up and did not appear to be assisting Granville with whatever information he originally had.
Sue was outraged. "I feel it is morally wrong for Martin to withhold any information he has at this point!" she declared. "Other lawyers I've talked to say he could be charged with assisting in a continuing criminal enterprise if he refuses to talk"'
Granville traveled considerably trying to gather information. He arrived in Coconut Grove from Richmond, Virginia, and met the Billigs at the art gallery. He didn't look like a biker at all. Instead, he was a light-haired, all-American type. Picture him playing rugby at Yale, rather than wearing chains and biker leather.
"I showed photos of Amy to a dancer in Richmond," he told them. "She recognized them as being 'Loco's' girl, a strict vegetarian, who was also a dancer in Miami. They were all living at the Sunny Isles Hotel on Miami Beach!" he said. "I also showed the pictures to Red's wife, 'Banshee,' and she said the same thing!"
Blitzstein dodged Sue's calls until her friend Barbara pretended she was a potential client and was put through to him at his Coconut Grove offices. When she confronted him about dropping the Billig case, he denied that he ever told Sue he would get Amy back.
Sue finally strode unannounced into Blitzstein's modestly furnished Coconut Grove offices, located in an elderly concrete office building that has since been demolished. She was surprised at his cordiality.