Second Story Man

by Charles Salzberg

  The timeline was pretty obvious. For the first six or seven years, Hoyt was stealing jewelry, breaking in exclusively during the dinnertime hours. Then there was that gap of close to two and a half years when he was incarcerated. The past three years he had switched things up and was stealing very high-end, antique silver from wealthy homes up and down the East Coast. Each home held treasure troves of silver, ranging anywhere from a hundred fifty thousand dollars’ worth of antique candlesticks pilfered from the home of the former wife of a famous industrialist, to close to half a million dollars’ worth of silver, some of which could be traced back to Paul Revere whose vocation, many seem to forget, was as a silversmith.

  During the past three years Hoyt had been amazingly productive. He rarely took a week off once he started his “season.” Reading the reports from those five or six states and knowing he probably only got from ten to maybe, if he was lucky, fifty cents on the dollar, I figured he still took in close to a million bucks a year. Tax-free income.

  Even more amazing, was his work ethic. During the season, whether it be winter down south or spring/summer/fall up north, it seemed there was never more than a week between jobs.

  According to a report from one of the insurance companies, most of the antique silver was most likely fenced abroad, where its sale wouldn’t gain as much attention as it would here. The rest of it was probably melted down and sold at the prevailing price for silver. At today’s price of about sixteen dollars an ounce, a pound of silver was worth at least a couple hundred bucks.

  There were a number of photographs in the file. Most of them crime scene photos, but there were a couple mug shots of Hoyt. I turned them over to see if they were dated and found none of them had been taken within the last couple of years. Somehow, Manny also had gotten his hands of surveillance photos of Hoyt with various women. One showed Hoyt holding hands with a pretty blonde in a tight mini-skirt and tank top. Another was of Hoyt and the same woman standing outside a restaurant. There was also a photo of him with an attractive brunette. They were holding hands. In another shot they were kissing. I wondered who’d taken them and how wound up in Manny’s folder. I turned them over to see if there was any information.

  On the back of the photo of Hoyt and the brunette Manny had written in a script so perfect it looked as if it had been typed, “Melinda Shaw, New York City, suspected girlfriend of Francis Hoyt.” The date was last August. On the other photos of Hoyt holding hands with and kissing the blonde, Manny had written “Evelyn Kerns, Fort Lauderdale, suspected girlfriend of Francis Hoyt.” It was dated this past December.

  I spread the photos out on the table and stared at them. I wasn’t quite sure how, but I sensed this might be a way to get at Hoyt. I was just closing the file when Joe showed up.

  “Man, I’m sorry, Charlie. I couldn’t get out of the office. Damn paperwork. It never ends.”

  “No problem, Joe. I made good use of the time.”

  “That’s my Charlie. What say we get started? I’ve only got a couple hours.”

  We cruised the city for close to forty-five minutes until we found a couple of hookers who Joe thought might lead us to Ricky. He was right. After I parted with a little cash, they mentioned a place called The Pigs Eye Pub over on Asylum Street. When we got there, it was pretty empty, just a few guys at the bar watching a ball game and a few tables filled with the late lunch crowd.

  We sat at the bar. The bartender, bearded, stocky, wearing a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, exposing a sleeve of tattoos kept his distance.

  “He’s made us,” said Joe.

  “Must be you,” I said.

  “Really? You think you don’t have the look anymore?”

  “I’m a chameleon, man. Now that I’m retired I’m just another every man.”

  Joe snorted. “Yeah, right. Once a cop always a cop, and these dudes can smell one a mile away.”

  Joe turned his attention to the bartender. “Hey, you, you gonna do your job, or what?”

  He didn’t break any speed records moving down the bar toward us.

  “Yeah, what can I do you two for?”

  Joe flashed his badge. The bartender didn’t look surprised.

  “You see any minors in here, dude?”

  “From what I see, business isn’t that good. But that’s not why we’re here. We’re looking for a dude named Ricky B.”

  “Don’t know no rappers.”

  “Wrong profession.” Joe pulled out his phone and called up a mug shot. “He’s a pimp, one of Hartford’s finest.”

  The bartender shook his head, grabbed a rag out from under the bar and started wiping down nonexistent wet spots. “This ain’t that kinda place.”

  “Let’s cut the song and dance, pal. I just want to know if you know this dude. I’m told he hangs here. Take another look.” Joe shoved the phone in his face.

  The bartender’s eyes dilated slightly, his head tilted to the left. You do interrogations long enough you recognize that look on a man’s face. He was concocting a lie.

  “You’re working too hard, man,” I said. “Just tell us the damn truth and we’ll be out of your hair. It’s so much easier than telling us something we know is a lie.”

  I opened my wallet and slipped a twenty across the bar. He stared at it a moment, then pocketed it.

  “We don’t allow that kind of stuff in here. We’re on the level. No gambling other than when the Pats are playing. And no solicitation.”

  “But you know him, right?” I said.

  “Yeah. He comes in here sometimes. Has a drink. Shoots some pool. But he don’t do business in here. Like I said, we don’t allow that kinda thing. We’d lose our license.”

  “We just want to talk to him,” said Joe.

  “I wouldn’t know how to reach him if his fucking house was on fire.”

  I took one of my revised business cards out of my pocket and handed it to him.

  “How about you just let me know when he’s in here again?”

  He turned it over in his hand. “Charlie Floyd. Name’s familiar. Don’t you work for the state?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “No more?”

  “Not since last year.”

  “You’re the one looking for this dude?”

  “I am.”

  “What for?”

  “Parking tickets.”

  “Very fucking funny.”

  He shoved the card in his breast pocket. “Like I said he only comes once in a while and he don’t stay long. Unless you live nearby, he’ll be gone before you pick up the phone.”

  “Let’s say we forget the phone call. Just give him this, when he comes in.” I opened my wallet and counted out five twenties. “You got a paperclip?”

  “Yeah, sure, in the office.”

  “Go get one.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I asked you to.”

  A moment later the bartender dropped several paper clips onto the bar. I took the twenties and tore them neatly in half. I clipped one of my cards to the half twenties and handed them to the bartender.

  “You tell him he gets in touch with me I’ll have the other halves for him.”

  “Ain’t this against the law, tearing money up like this?”

  “Tell you what,” said Joe, “you turn him in and we’ll split the reward. How’s that sound?”

  When we got back outside Joe was shaking his head. “You really think you’re ever going to hear from Ricky? I’m mean come on, Charlie. It’s only a hundred bucks.”

  “I’ll hear from him. A hundred bucks is a hundred bucks, Joe.” I took the half twenties out and waved them in front of him.

  “He’ll be wanting these.”

  Francis Hoyt

  I am the Muhammad Ali of the criminal world. Ali knew how good he was and he didn’t fake that humble shit. Neither do I.

  Having two lawmen hot on my tail doesn’t bother me. I love it. It makes me work harder. It makes me focus. I can’t afford to be sloppy. I can’t af
ford to make mistakes. I can’t sleepwalk through the process, doing things strictly by the numbers. I have to be creative. I have to take charge. I have to be the one calling the shots. I have to be what I am. The best.

  I’ll just rope-a-dope them till they’re dizzy and drop to the ground.

  I keep a small studio apartment in Westport, Connecticut, one of the wealthiest suburbs in the Northeast. It’s where Paul Newman lived with wife, Joanne Woodward. A couple years before he died I saw them walking around town, holding hands, if you can fucking believe it. I wanted to go up to him and tell him how much I loved his performance in movies like Cool Hand Luke, The Hustler, and Hud. He was a lot smaller than I thought he’d be. Bigger than me, but not by much. It’s that silver screen thing. Makes them much bigger than they are. But he still had that thing about him, the charisma thing that let you know he was someone important, someone to be respected, someone not to be messed with, someone you don’t just go up to on the street and say hello to. That kinda charisma is rare. People envy and hate you for it. I want to be like that. I want to be feared. I want to be respected. I want to be hated. Do I give a fuck? No, I don’t.

  The plan was to work north of Westport, up the coast a bit, into Fairfield and Litchfield counties. No sense hopping the train every morning from the city, like a fucking commuter. I leave that to the suckers who do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. When I pick the houses to hit, I’ll check into local motels and work from there.

  I did some research on Floyd and Perez. There was plenty out there on Floyd. He made the papers when he led a manhunt for a killer named John Hartman. He was on that case for years and still wasn’t able to bring him in. The dude just up and turned himself in. Floyd must have been pretty pissed about that. I mean, come on. You spend two years of your life on something like that and the guy just walks in one day and gives himself up? Man, that’s gotta suck.

  He was also involved in a bunch of other high-profile cases and according to newspaper reports he fancied himself quite the cowboy. Except for the Hartman thing, he was damn successful. His retirement as chief investigator for the state of Connecticut, not long after Hartman turned himself in, was front-page news. That meant he was important. If he was after me that made me important. I liked that. I don’t want just any asshole on my tail. The better he is, the better I’d have to be.

  Perez, that roly-poly Cubano asshole that tried to take me down last fall in West Hollywood, well, I already knew more than enough about it him. He was another so-called star of law enforcement. He’d risen pretty quick in the Miami department. Probably because he knew how to deal with all those Cubanos down there who think they’re fucking Tony Montana. I gotta give it to him. He’s a gutsy little guy, coming after me like that. But he fucked up. Went rogue. Didn’t have a warrant so anything he found, which wasn’t going to be much, wouldn’t have been admissible in court. And if he thought he was going to get anything out of me even if he brought me in, he was going to be one disappointed spic. I remember looking back at him chasing me, huffing and fucking puffing, like he ever had a chance of catching me.

  They probably think they’ve assembled some kind of Dream Team to bring down Francis Hoyt. Too bad they’re going to be disappointed.

  Bring it on, Charlie Floyd and Manny Perez. Bring. It. Fucking. On.

  I got the car keys from Mel. Told her I had some calls to make upstate. She knows better than to question me. She knows it would piss me off. I don’t lose my temper much but when I do it isn’t pretty. I get that from my old man. I’m not proud of it. I’m not proud of anything I might have gotten from him. But I know how to make it work to my advantage. Plant it in people’s mind that you’re dangerous, that you have a hair trigger, that you aren’t one to be messed with, and you never will be. This is something I learned in the joint. You act the part good enough you don’t have to be the part. Besides, Mel knows any answer I gave her would be a lie. These broads create a picture of who you are and what they can make you into. Let her think whatever the fuck she wants to think, just so she doesn’t get in my fucking way.

  It was one of those beautiful spring days. Not a cloud in the sky and the temperature clocked in at a perfect seventy-two degrees. I’ve always loved May and June because it means the end of something bad—winter, school, being stuck in the house—and makes the promise of something better—freedom. That meant getting away from my old man. Every spring and then again in fall, the slate is wiped clean. I get to start all over again. Every spring brings the hope of something better. When I was a kid it meant one month closer to freedom. Let’s face it, I was lucky to graduate high school, and that was mostly because my teachers couldn’t wait to get rid of me. I was an asshole with a chip on my shoulder. If there was trouble I was usually in the middle of it. That’s the way I liked it. I got the reputation of being a badass and that wasn’t by accident. No one messed with Francis Hoyt, not even teachers. People kept their distance, which was exactly what I wanted. When no one is anywhere near you, you can get away with murder.

  I found a parking spot on the street, maybe half a mile or so from my place. Before I got out I wiped the steering wheel clean of my prints. I did the same thing with the rearview and side-view mirror. I took a Dustbuster I keep out of the trunk and vacuumed the floors and seats. I made sure there was nothing in the car that might be traced back to me. Like I said, I’m a fucking ghost when I want to be.

  I retrieved my oversized backpack from the trunk and flung it over my shoulder. In it were my essentials:

  A pair of black jeans

  Black, hooded sweatshirt

  Black sweatpants

  A couple pairs of brand new black Chucks

  Six brand new pairs of athletic socks, three pairs my size, three pairs two sizes larger

  Two ski masks, both black

  A black watch cap

  A package of latex gloves

  An electric shaver and razor

  A bottle of silver testing solution and two small empty vials

  A roll of duct tape

  Three screwdrivers, various sizes

  Wire cutter

  A dozen burner phones

  A loose-leaf folder filled with pages of notes and diagrams of various alarm systems

  A pair of night vision goggles

  An electronic device used to deactivate alarm systems

  A brand-new Mac Air

  Assorted magazines: House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, House and Garden, the Smithsonian, Vanity Fair, New York, Entertainment Weekly, People, The New Yorker

  An up-to-date copy of Who’s Who in America

  Current copies of several local country club newsletters. I subscribed to these under various pseudonyms and had them sent to a P.O. Box I kept down in Miami. I kept another one, under a different alias, in the FDR branch of the post office on Third Avenue and 54th Street and switch deliveries to up there for the spring and summer months.

  I opened the apartment windows to let in some fresh air then unpacked, laying everything out neatly on the sleeper couch. I picked up all the furniture either at a yard sale or from a thrift shop. And if I can’t get it back myself, it stays where it is. I’m not totally off the grid but I’m damn sure on the edge of it.

  I’d hang out in the apartment a couple days, researching various houses and the people who lived in them. Rich people think they’re invulnerable. They’re so fucking arrogant and full of their damn selves. It’s like they never heard of the word privacy. Some of them even go out and hire fucking publicists to make sure they get into the media. They invite the press into their homes and let them take photographs of every fucking room. When I’ve finished researching, I know their lifestyles, their habits, and the layout of their houses. Thanks, assholes. Why not mail me a fucking blueprint while you’re at it? Maybe I ought to send them a fucking thank you note.

  Some of them brag about their alarm systems, about how state-of-the-fucking-art and impenetrable they are. The more impenetrable they
claim they are the more of a challenge they are to me. I haven’t found one yet I can’t beat. I don’t think I ever will.

  After I finished researching I’d make a few field trips to the houses. I’d find a cheap motel a town or two away, then check in under an alias. I’d case the houses a couple days to see what kind of security they have, and how many people go in and out and at what times. If the house is open for a tour, and yes, that’s what these assholes sometimes do for charity events, I sign up for it. It’s like being invited in for a preview before the main event. I’ll find a good spot to watch the house deep into the night, just to get a feel for what I can expect. Once, I even activated an alarm just to see the response time. I was not impressed.

  When I’ve collected enough information, I’ll come back to Westport for a day or two till I feel the time is right. I’ll check into a motel at least twenty miles from the area I’m going to work. I’ll decide on how many houses I’m going to hit, in what order, and over what period of time. I’ve even done two or three in one night. Other times, I’ve spaced them out over a period of several days or even weeks. There’s no particular rhyme or reason to it. I figure if I’m not sure what pattern I’m following, how will the cops figure it out?

  Once I settled into the apartment, I called Pfister.

  “Francis, you are not going to fucking believe this but I was just ready to get in touch with you.”

  “It’s like we share a brain, Tommy.”

  “No. Really. I was. Honest to God.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why were you going to call me?”

  Asshole. It was like talking to a fucking retard.

  “Oh, yeah. Well, I figured a few days have passed and I thought maybe you wanted me to give that Charlie Floyd guy a call. You know, to tell him what you want me to tell him. I’m right, aren’t I, Francis?”