by David Archer
“Yeah, come to think of it, you do sort of look familiar. Let me see…”
“I’ll save you the trouble. I’m Sean Higgins. We were in a couple classes together.”
“Sure, now I remember, so how are you, Sean?”
“Oh, I’m doing fine. I just started working in the Philadelphia area [not so], so I thought I’d look up an old classmate.”
“Okay, and how did you know I had moved to Philly?”
“I went back to Trenton for a visit and somebody said you did.”
“I can’t imagine who. I’m having a hard time thinking back that far. Did we ever date? Judging from the guy I see standing before me—oh, have a seat, by the way—I may not have said no.”
“Sad to say we did not. For a long time, I was too shy to ask any girl out, then, when I finally did, I ended up going with Flora Kelly for the rest of the time. We got along OK, but then she went to Penn State and I went to Georgetown. We drifted apart after that. I still wonder what would have happened if I had been bold enough to ask you out instead.”
“At this point, who knows? In any case, you’re a little late, as I’m sure you can tell.”
“Yeah, I just missed. I see you’ve only been married a few months.”
“Oh, you missed by a lot more than that. Frank and I were engaged for quite a while and living together for a while before that. Would have made for a mighty awkward date between the two of us.”
“It sure would. Well, it was nice to see you and say hello.”
“Say, I just thought of something. Do you remember my little sister Arlene? She was a freshman when we were seniors.”
“Not really. I guess I only had eyes for you…oh, and Flora of course. Mustn’t forget Flora.”
“Maybe you should have paid closer attention. She was a very pretty girl and is quite a looker, even today. I’d say she is even prettier than me. I can admit that now that I’m happily married. Anyway, reason I bring this up is that, for all my sister’s good looks, she’s had rotten luck with men. Tell you the truth, I think it’s because she’s always set her standards too high. Time and again, I’ve told her, ‘Jesus Christ is not going to come down from Heaven just to marry you,’ but it never seems to register. Meaning no insult, I’d guess you fall a little short of Our Eternal Savior, but you may do in a pinch. How about I set the two of you up? I’m guessing you’re available, or else why would you have come sniffing around here.”
“:Hey, I only came by to say hello.”
“Of course you did, now tell me, do you want to meet my sister or not? Here’s her picture.”
“Yeah,” Sean beamed as he looked at the photo of Arlene Gomez at the beach, “I guess I do.”
Chapter 5
To live in such close proximity to the Lehigh Avenue Rude Boys and still function as an informant for Detective Lawrence “Biggie” Hilton, the man they all knew as Rasta Pete had to be one crafty soul. Part of his game was that he would get an item or two of misinformation from Delroy MacGregor or one of his lieutenants, then pass it on to Hilton, who would know in advance it was bogus. If he could, Hilton would instigate a real Keystone-Kops type of investigation, knowing the more foolish his men looked, the better it worked for him in the long run. The plan worked. The Rude Boys considered Rasta Pete to be their best agent, even while Biggie considered him to be his best snitch. That was because Pete kept the detective well informed of all the serious stuff that went down, and not just in the case of the Rude Boys. He had provided a wealth of information on the late Spencer Bennett before Mr. Bennett had become late. Hilton would leave the dope dealing to the beat cops. Whether they busted the dealers or accepted their cash was almost mox-nix to him. He figured he had bigger fish to fry.
“Hey, how did it go?” Biggie asked as he saw his partner emerge from Lt. Grimes’ office.
“Let’s just say that this would be a good day to keep a low profile. It was like trying to talk to Ivan the Terrible in there.”
“I hear ya,” Biggie said as he returned to his paperwork. About three seconds later a thought struck him, triggered by his partner’s mention of Ivan the Terrible.
“I wonder what really became of Ivan Johnson?” he thought. Frank had said he heard from Delroy that the kid went back to Kingston, but when had he been from Kingston in the first place?
In the course of questioning him after an earlier drug bust, Hilton had learned that Ivan Johnson was born right here in the U.S. of A. His mother Millie was supposedly living in Wilmington where, the kid half-boasted, she once worked in a record store that Bob Marley owned. It was not exactly the top priority in his in-box, but maybe, Biggie thought, when he had a minute or two to spare, he should check into this. Maybe Rasta Pete knew something he didn’t.
“About time I had a chat with that boy,” Biggie muttered, then put it out of his mind for the time being.
Jennifer Staples was a tall, slender beauty with striking red hair. She was also a very successful pharmaceutical rep for one of the top companies in the business. She was not only unafraid to call on black doctors in the city’s worst neighborhoods, she knew they would be easy marks for her good looks and her charm (that is to say, her really good looks). Month after month, she moved more product than any other rep in the city. Just in case, she carried a small-caliber revolver in her purse, but had never had cause to even consider using it. You could almost say she lived a charmed life. Of course it didn’t hurt that she always called the local police precinct to let them know her itinerary whenever she was making a call in a dicey part of town. Most of Mayor Rizzo’s cops would jump at the chance to beat the tar out of a black mugger trying to assault a beautiful white woman.
It was on such a sales mission that she noticed a particularly disturbing sight as she drove along Lehigh Avenue—right out in broad daylight, of all things. As soon as she reached the office of the physicians she was calling on, she asked to use the phone.
She was quite sure, she told the police, that she had seen some colored boys dealing drugs, just as plain as day, on Lehigh Avenue, not ten minutes ago. Now what were they going to do about that? The irony of a lady in Ms. Staples’ profession turning someone in for dealing drugs in broad daylight was apparently lost on the lady.
Given the spot on which they had been put, the police had no choice but to take the two Rude Boys in for dealing controlled substances in the street. It was quite a haul. There were five big bags of top-grade ganja sitting on the front counter of the evidence room. They looked to be at least half a pound each. Rasta Pete could not help but notice the unburied treasure as he walked past on his way to a meeting with Detective Hilton.
“If only, if only,” he thought. A few steps later, he paused at a water fountain so that he could hear the conversation involving a very pregnant officer who sat in a nearby desk, trying to finish up her present task so that she could start processing those bags. The officer was talking to a lady friend who had never been through the experience of carrying a baby.
“Girlfriend, it is one thing after another. You’ll find out someday,” Wanda Peters said. “Worst thing is goin’ to the bathroom. Feels like my bladder’s gonna explode, then when I get on the toilet, it’s nothin’ but two little tinkles. And that’s over and over and over again. I’ll just be glad when this thing’s outa me.”
“Well, you don’t have too much longer, do you?”
“I’m due in five weeks. Five very long weeks.”
“When you gonna start your leave?” Wanda’s friend asked.
“I haven’t quite decided yet, but not just now. We’ll see.”
“Well, good luck,” the friend said as she made her way down the hall.
“Do I hear the knock of opportunity?” Pete wondered as he continued on his way to the detective’s desk, which was not all that far away on the same floor.
About five minutes into his interview with Detective Hilton, Rasta Pete announced he had to go to the men’s room.
“I may be a while,” he told
his handler. “I gotta do number two and I been blocked up some lately.”
“Way too much information,” Biggie said. “Just go, okay?”
Actually, Pete didn’t have to do number anything. What he did have to do was to cast a surreptitious eye at the pregnant cop’s desk. To his great joy, the lady was in the room set aside for her gender, coping yet again with her cantankerous bladder. Pete looked all around, as quickly as he could, then made his move. Eventually Wanda would get around to processing the three bags of ganja that had been lying on the counter all that time.
In less time that the detective thought it would take, his informant came back into the room, set his briefcase down and sat back in the chair he had recently vacated.
“So, you want me to find out about dis punk Johnson, dat right, mon?” he asked Biggie.
“Yeah ‘dat right, mon. Thing is, he’s not with the Rude Boys anymore. I hear he’s gone off to Kingston, but I’d like to make sure somethin’ didn’t happen. I had it in mind to open a line of dialogue with the young man, before he disappeared in a puff of smoke…or maybe just a smoke screen. I need you to find out what’s what. Think you can do that?”
“Uh, I don’t know. Suppose I find the punk and you get your…uh…dialogue. Does that mean I just beat mah self outa a job?”
“Hell no, Rasta. You still the man with the plan.”
“How can I be sure? I don’t think I like where this is goin.”
“Yeah, I know exactly where this is goin’,” Biggie sighed as he slapped a couple twenties down on top of the fifty he had already placed before his source. “That put your mind at ease?”
“Damn straight, mon!” Pete grinned as he scooped up the money and stood up. “I be right back to ya wit’ all da hot poop, ‘fore you know it.” All in all, Pete figured as he treated himself to a cab home, it had been a very productive day.
Chapter 6
Sadie Mueller had learned from long and frustrating experience that her sister Arlene did not do well on blind dates. It mattered little whether or not the fellow was a good match, although Sadie really did try to do the best she could for her sister. Other friends and relatives were not quite so conscientious. Still, all such experiments in the general area of romance and the particular area of getting Miss Arlene Gomez fixed up ended in failure. It was Arlene herself who usually torpedoed the date. Sadie figured it was because she would become over-anxious. No matter who the stranger was, he was still a stranger, and that was not merely strike-one against the guy, it was actually strike three, right then and there.
Sadie’s solution to the problem of getting her sister acquainted with her handsome former classmate was for her and Frank to throw a cocktail party for a number of their friends. Arlene, of course, would be among that number and so would Sean Higgins. Absent the pressure of having him presented to Arlene as a date, she and he might have a chance to hit it off. Sadie was certainly willing to give it a try and Frank said, when asked, sure, what the hell, we haven’t thrown a party as a couple yet. Could he bring…”
“Anyone but Ernie Campanella,” she snapped.
“Well, DUH!”
In the end, they decided, since they had more spare cash than spare time, it would be best to have the party catered. Sadie remembered the smart crew that had served at their wedding reception. Ernie Campanella and his shenanigans aside, they had done an excellent job. Numbered among that crew was the guy who had been at the meat-carving station—a fellow who called himself Rasta Pete. In keeping with his boast that he was a Pete-of-all-trades, this time, he found himself tending bar.
“Arlene, Sweetie, do you remember Sean Higgins? He went to Trenton Catholic with us,” Sadie told her sister as she gestured toward the mystery guest of honor.
“Um, I don’t think I do. You weren’t in my class, were you?”
“Madam, if I had to guess I would say there are very few people in your class…or your sister’s, of course. No, seriously, I was in the same school class as Sadie, so I graduated after your first year.”
“OK, that would explain why I didn’t remember you. You weren’t, like some big-time super-jock were you?”
“Varsity basketball, junior and senior years, but second string. I got into about half the games. Hardly headline material, right?”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Arlene said. “Judging from your appearance, I would be almost willing to bet you’re doing better than some of the big stars. I’ll bet most of them are selling encyclopedias door-to-door, considering how they performed in class. What do you do, Mr. Higgins?” Sean blinked twice and, for an instant, his eyes hardened. Then they resumed their pleasant expression.
“Oh, I work for the government.” he said with a shy smile. The pay’s not bad, but it’s hardly what you’d think of as stimulating. Just a paper-pusher, really.”
“Okay, and what kind of paper do you push. Anything interesting?”
“Depends on where your interests lie. I’m actually an accountant.” Although he was no such thing, it was a cover story Sean Higgins could live with. Agents had been encouraged to study accountancy ever since the feds nailed Al Capone for income tax evasion when they could get him on nothing else. If required to do so, Sean could certainly find his way around a ledger.
“Any interesting hobbies?”
“I like to tinker with cars and collect stamps. Maybe, someday when I get rich enough, I can collect cars and tinker with stamps.”
“Well, I hope you get your wish.”
“Say, I just realized, this has all been about me. What about you, Mystery Lady?”
“What do you want to know, I mean beside the obvious: no I’m not seeing anyone at the moment.”
“Good to know, but I was not going to lead with that one. No, the burning question on my mind was cheese-steak or pizza? Which do you prefer?”
“I choose C: none of the above. I can’t eat dairy, for some reason. Pretty sad state for a girl who’s half Sicilian.”
“So you’re lactose intolerant.”
“Yeah, that’s what my doctor said. I didn’t think regular people knew the term.”
“Oh, I keep my ears open.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
“And my options.”
“Don’t we all.”
Sadie sidled up to her husband and gave him a gentle poke in the ribs. When he responded, she inclined her head toward her sister and the handsome fellow she was chatting with.
“I hope I’m not speaking too soon, but this seems to be going well,” she said.
“I hope it does,” he agreed. “About time Arlene caught a break.”
While Frank and Sadie and their guests enjoyed the party, Ernie Campanella readied himself to go on shift. He was still on graveyards, so displeased was the precinct captain with his general demeanor and appearance. When it came to looking sharp, Ernie had no more use for spit than he did for polish. Not only was Ernie stuck on the graveyard shift, he was still stuck with Luther Porch as a partner. To Ernie, his partner presented a constant enigma: was he even stupider than he was lazy or the other way around? Either way, he was about as useful as a feather toupee. Ernie thought about getting his act together and looking real contrite for the captain in an effort to get his old partner Leonard Tompkins back, but never followed up on it. He did not like to be put in the position of owing the boss a favor, even if the “favor” was to get off his case. It only registered in the farthest recesses of his mind that he wanted to exchange a white partner for a black one. But, in the forefront was the continuous reality of putting up with the white one.
“Man, if this keeps up, I’m gonna say something to Sergeant Korpal,” Luther whined. “Day shift was so slow gettin’ their ass in gear, I had to stay over for fifteen minutes! Hey, if I wanted overtime, I’da put in for it.”
“Ah gets weary, and sick er tryin.” Ernie began singing to mock his partner. “I’m tired ‘a livin’ and skeerd ‘a dyin’,:
“What the hell are you goin’
on about?” Porch grumbled.
On the positive side, Greg Martin, his remaining friend on the force, had just rotated off of evenings, back to days. The two of them would have a brief window in the morning to catch some breakfast and shoot the bull.
“You managed to square things with Frank yet?” Greg had asked him the other day.
“Nope, we’re still whatever copacetic isn’t…discopacetic?”
“You want me to talk to him?”
“I thought you said he bit your head off, last time you tried.”
“Yeah, he did, but maybe he’s mellowed a little. Maybe I could try a different approach. I just want to get the three of us back together, like in the old days.” That was true. In an effort to be the diplomat he never was, Greg had stopped referring to Ernie as Leroy and Frank Mueller as Francis the Talking Mule. Even he must have realized that a joke stops being funny after the thousandth time. Still, his efforts had gotten him nowhere. Both of his friends still liked him well enough, but it was crystal clear they had no further use for one another.
“Just outa curiosity, how is the good detective doing these days?” Ernie inquired. “Obviously, I haven’t heard squat.”
“Seems to be doing OK. Say, maybe if he gets a real tough case, he might decide to bury the hatchet and reach out to you. Frank’s peculiar that way. He actually thinks duty is more important than holding a grudge.”
“Well, don’t expect me to hold my breath waitin’ for that to happen. Pass the pepper, willya?”
As the Muellers’ party got livelier, furniture had been pushed back and couples had begun to dance. Just to keep his very bright sister-in-law from catching on that she was being fixed up, Frank asked her for the first dance, and chatted amiably with her throughout about anything other than the guy who had been taking up so much of her time. Sadie, seeing that Sean Higgins had been momentarily consigned to the lurch, quickly stopped her tidying up and asked him for a dance. Once husband and wife were able to reunite in a slow dance, they compared notes.