Calling Card Capers

by Dan Kelly

  The piano player appears to be in his late forties, early fifties. He’s a six footer with a slender build, thick wavy dark brown hair that’s starting to turn gray, dark blue eyes set in a handsome face that reflects a self-confidence that comes with the experience of many past performances in front of all kinds of audiences and a welcoming smile. He’s definitely getting Janet’s attention along with every other lady’s in the room. Maybe I should adjust my expectations for the evening. There’s always a good book or TV to pass the time away.

  When the waitress leaves with our orders, Janet starts telling me about her day and the awkward moment fades away. “My day was filled with surprises that completely massacred my carefully prepared daily agenda as I spent most of the day chasing confirmations of bits of gossip generated by my rumor mill.

  “Did you know that some guy in Texas who’s made a fortune in solar energy put up a quarter of a million dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the Crusader? It took me forever to find out who he was, Franklin Spaulding, and to contact him to verify the rumor.”

  “I just found that out myself from Ericson a few hours ago.”

  “Humph. It must be nice to have the inside track with the FBI.”

  “I’m sure he would have shared the same information with you had you called him the same time I did. I called him just twenty minutes after this guy made the offer to the FBI office in Dallas and somehow it got leaked to a local TV station and then the story spread throughout TV land like a fart in a phone booth. Don said the phones haven’t stopped ringing since.”

  The phone booth comparison got a smile out of her and I followed it up with the attempted murder of Piedmont and Ericson which hasn’t seen the light of day yet, so it would be a scoop for her and maybe put me in a significant lead over the piano player. The FBI might not be too thrilled with me when the story breaks and they trace the leak back to me, but I don’t play fair and I’m aiming to put that piano player so far out of the running he’ll be walking.

  I’ve never seen anyone punch in a number on a cell phone as fast as Janet did to reach her paper. I have a first row seat watching a top notch reporter do her thing and it’s amazing to me how quickly she’s putting her thoughts together and dictating her story on the latest Crusader escapade.

  As if on cue, when she finishes her story and disconnects the waitress appears with our drinks and Maestro Reardon sits down at the piano and begins to play. As Sadie said, he’s very, very good and like an old favorite of mine, Victor Borge, carries on a humorous dialogue with the diners. It’s readily apparent that the 88 keys on the piano are his keys to the hearts of his listening audience. Everyone in the room is totally enthralled with the music this man is producing and when he starts playing and singing his rendition of an old Perry Como tune, Your Just In Love, I start thinking about what book I’m going to read or what TV show I’m going to watch. The guy has a beautiful voice to go along with his skill on the 88 and I quickly realize I’ve been left in the dust.

  I’ve been at dinner clubs before and at all of them people were engaged in conversation as they ate while the musicians were performing, but that’s not the case tonight. People are eating, but no one is talking. This guy has connected with his audience big time.

  It doesn’t look like we’re going to be discussing any ideas about the Crusader trap tonight, but at least we’re getting a little reprieve from worrying about what the Crusader is going to do next.

  At eight-thirty, Reardon takes a half hour break, so we try to get some creative thinking going, but Sadie has other ideas. She stops by our table presumably to find out what we think of the entertainment and to ask us if we like the flowers, but it is soon obvious what her real intent is. She spends the rest of Reardon’s break trying to convince us to call her cousin Harry to take advantage of a special deal his travel agency has put together for a cruise to Aruba. “It’s a fantastic deal and it’s a beautiful place for folks to get to know each other better.” She said this with a twinkle in her eyes so intense that I was expecting her to sprout wings and a quiver of arrows on her back and a bow and arrow in her hands. Her audacious yet good intentions completely blow me away and I can’t keep myself from laughing. Looking over at Janet, she quickly joins in with her laughter and says, “Sadie, until the Crusader is caught we aren’t going to have the time for taking cruises up the Potomac. Besides, I get seasick in the bathtub.”

  In an attempt to get Sadie to back off on her matchmaking quest with a little humor I say, “Sadie, what makes you think we want to get to know each other better. What we’ve learned about each other so far has completely turned us off. Did you know that she puts all of her laundry in the same load and never reads the washing directions? Did you know that she puts garlic in everything she eats, even her coffee and what really floored me was when I learned she actually like calves liver. But the coup de grace was when she told me that she has a drinking problem. She can’t drink a can of soda without burping.”

  Janet quickly jumps on the band wagon with, “And you know what he does at the dinner table? He mixes all of his veggies together before he eats them and he feeds his dog scraps from the dinner table. He only reads comic books and has to keep a dictionary close by to look up the meanings of words he doesn’t know. And what really astounds me is he can’t wiggle his ears. Now why we would want to get to know each other better, huh?”

  Realizing she’s being put on Sadie says, “Okay, I’m getting the not so subtle message to butt out, but I’m seldom wrong about people and I’m picking up vibes from you two whether you like it or not.“

  I say, “Those vibes aren’t from us. Morey’s mixer probably needs a muffler.”

  In a phony miffed way she responds with, “Very funny.” As she turns to walk away she looks back over her shoulder at us and with a smile and a mischievous gleam in her eyes says, “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

  As she walks away Janet says, “She’s a real sweetheart. I hope we didn’t hurt her feelings.”

  “Hurt her feelings? Did you see the look on her face when she walked away? She’s having a ball!”

  As dessert is being served, Reardon comes back into the room, but instead of going straight to the piano he heads for our table. Uh, oh. What is that little Cupid wannabe up to now? “Sadie asked me to ask you if you have a particular song you would like to hear. I usually don’t do requests, but she said you were special folks to her and asked me if I would make an exception and I agreed.”

  We both burst out laughing as the same song crosses our minds and we manage to blurt it out in perfect unison, “Getting to know you.”

  Our laughter gets a big smile from him and he says, “I’d be delighted, double entendre intended.”

  When he finishes playing and singing the song, everyone in the room is delighted and they give the man a well-deserved big round of applause.

  Reardon continues to captivate the audience until he says goodnight at ten o’clock. We have to be on the phones at six in the morning, so we decide to call it a night too. As we are saying goodnight to Sadie, she’s beaming from ear to ear. “I thought the song you chose was ideal for the occasion. Isn’t Ray wonderful?”

  Janet answers with, “You better start thinking about adding on another room. When word gets out, people will have to make their reservations weeks in advance.”

  “That would be nice. Have a good night you two.”

  As we’re leaving Janet leans over and whispers, “She’s not going to stop is she?”

  Chuckling I say, “Apparently not. Where did you park?”

  “I found a spot in the parking lot. How about you?”

  I point where I’m parked two doors down and say, “I lucked out and beat an old lady to the punch at the cost of being flipped off. Come on, I’ll walk you to your car.”

  When Janet unlocks her car and before she can get in, I did something I’ve been thinking about all night. I kissed her. Her response was encouraging to say t
he least, but we were interrupted by other dinners going to their cars so we had to knock it off. Getting into her car, she looks back at me and says, “I’ve never had a friend kiss me like that before. I like your idea of friendship, Chet. Goodnight.”

  I couldn’t think of anything suave to say, so I just mumbled goodnight with a silly grin on my face.

  Chapter 25

  After we complete our shift on the phones the next morning, Janet and I follow Ericson down the hall to another conference room where the other attendees to the meeting called to put together a trap that will ensnare the Crusader without any collateral damage are already assembled.

  After we introduce ourselves, we immediately get down to business and the next three hours fly by. When we decide to break for lunch, we’ve got a pretty good idea about how we’re going to do it. There are some details that have to be worked out, but we figure that will be done a lot faster if we take some down time to refuel.

  We’ve determined the location of the ‘press conference’, the size and position of the portable podium, where the lectern with a microphone will be situated on the podium behind which Andy Barrows will be standing, where the portable sound equipment and a couple of speakers will be located, where and how close Nora Sinclair will be standing to Andy yet have a clear view of the approaches from the front of the podium and where the other SWAT team members will be positioned.

  One SWAT team member will be on the podium with Nora and Andy, but will take up a position at the back of the podium, so he can see anyone approaching from that direction. Eight of them will be posing as reporters and standing in a semi-circle in front of the podium with Janet enclosed in the semi-circle and the rest of the SWAT team members will be posing as normal people doing what normal people do at a medical center and circulating within a specified area adjacent to the podium. The SWAT team will be dressed in civilian clothes, but every one of them will be wearing a bullet resistant vest underneath their attire as will Barrows in case the Crusader gets trigger happy.

  A portable canopy will be erected over the podium and the area where the ‘reporters’ will be located in case it rains and this will also prevent any accurate targeting from above, say from a window on an upper floor of a nearby building.

  The press conference will be scheduled to begin at 11:00 a.m. and last for a half hour. Everything and everybody will be in place by nine. Janet will write the script for Andy to follow, something that will focus on America’s fighting men and women and the challenges they face when they return home, physically, mentally, socially and economically.

  As at just about every appearance the President makes off the Whitehouse grounds, Andy will entertain questions from people who may gather behind the reporters to watch and listen to what’s going on. The staging of this event will appear normal in every aspect, so the Crusader should buy it as the real thing. Andy will have to wing it during this part of his performance, but judging from his informal audition for us this morning he’s more than capable of pulling it off. Other than the two people on the stage behind the ‘President’ there appears to be no other immediate hurdle the Crusader would have to clear to have a go at him.

  We’re feeling confident that Aldrich wants to exact his revenge on the President so badly that he will make a move in this scenario even if he deems it a suicide mission. From what he told his wife, he won’t be taken alive, so he has no fear of being shot and killed. His ideal aim, of course, is to succeed in assassinating the President and making a successful get away, but his main goal will be to kill the President no matter what the cost to him.

  Don still has to designate a field leader for this group of people, communications gear must be acquired that the Crusader can’t tap into and pictures of Aldrich must be distributed to the entire Swat team so they’ll recognize the Crusader if and when they see him.

  There’s one major remaining factor that must be addressed. How do we get the Crusader to hack into the President’s office computers within the next two days so he can learn of the scheduled press conference at Walter Reed? I’m surprised he hasn’t tried already, but then again he has been kind of busy and probably hasn’t had the time.

  Don had pizza and soda pop delivered and we recharged our batteries on that and then returned to putting the finishing touches on our Crusader coup d’état.

  By three in the afternoon, we had everything worked out except for how to get Aldrich to hack into the President’s computers ASAP within the next 48 hours so he can learn of the scheduled press conference with a handpicked small group of reporters.

  I suddenly get a brainstorm. “We know that the Crusader is feeling the pressure from the media blitz from what he told his wife and by the increasing amount of time that has elapsed since his last killing. He’s got to be royally pissed. What if the President, the real one, were to join his press secretary tomorrow during his daily news briefing to make some inflammatory comments about the Crusader, something that would really pound on his hot button? That might make Aldrich angry enough to want to retaliate immediately. If he stays true to form, stays with his established MO, he’ll be punching holes in those firewalls quicker than butter melts in a hot frying pan.”

  For a minute or more no one says anything. I attribute that to their taking time to seriously consider what I just said, but I soon begin to think that my idea isn’t getting the reception I think it deserves. Maybe I should have used a different analogy.

  Janet breaks the silence with, “I think it will work and the kick in the ass coming out of left field is an ideal way to get him to react without making him suspicious.”

  Soon the other folks hop onboard and we put our heads together to write a script for the inflammatory comments. We want him spitting mad and Janet comes up with the perfect starting point.

  “Let’s have the President bring up the topic of the Crusader investigation by making reference to some new information that has come to light that raises considerable doubt about Junior’s courage, something like, ‘It now appears more certain than ever that this young man did not die on the battle field because of a malfunctioning rifle, but was shot in the back as he was running away from the enemy. His father has been misled by spurious information largely from unreliable sources and should stop his senseless and groundless killing and surrender to the authorities.’ We can flesh this out a little with comments about how the President feels about cowards and people who defend them.”

  This gets the ball rolling and it is all downhill from there. At a little after four, Don brings the meeting to a close by saying, “Okay, folks, I’m confident that we’ve put together something that will work. Thank you for your contributions and tolerating my badgering. Janet do you think you can email me the finished scripts for Andy and the President by six tonight? As soon as I have them, I’ll call the President to let him know what we’re up to and what we want him to do.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll do the final editing here before I leave.”

  “Great. Thanks again everybody. Let’s call it a day.”

  As everyone files out of the room, I hang back to tell Janet I’m heading back to my office to get caught up on things and ask her if she has plans for dinner.

  “I’m kind of beat, Chet. I think it’s going to be a pre-packaged salad with a cup of yogurt for dessert and a glass of pinot noir to wash it down with kind of night and then an early sack time. Can I have a rain check?”

  “You got it. Sweet dreams.”

  When I get back to my office, everyone is leaving for the day except for Felicity who is deeply engrossed in something that has her shaking her head. I ask, “What’s got you doing the St Vitus thing?”

  She is so engrossed in what she is reading that she doesn’t hear me. She is really tuned out of her surroundings. I rap on her desk to get her attention and she is so startled that she lets out a yelp that has Bob Forsythe and Shirley Simpson running back into the office to see what has scared her so.