Franklin's Bennies - Episode 15

Chapter 51: These Are The Homeboys From KC

At 3 AM Gil came through the mud room door. “I let myself in.” He sat on the couch for a moment collecting himself and assessing what to do with the bodies.

“Okay, Peter, I know this is a rough one on you two. And I can’t help feeling somewhat responsible but…”

“Should we call the police?” 

“You did. One better, the FBI. But here is what has to happen now, although you are the arbiter of that and can wrestle within yourself. But make it a quick wrestle. 

He got up and moved toward my study, the wind chimes still hanging from the door knob. Wind chimes which Nora had just brought home from work and that had warned us of the break in. Another coincidence. What had she called the chime, it started with an A, something to ward off evil. 

Gil gestured at the man lying face up.  “Bullet went through him.”  He stepped into the study. “And it’s lodged here,” he called back, stretching to pick at the bullet hole, pointing above the window shutter. “We’ll need to get it. Bullets are easily traced”… The phone of the man in supine rang again, then stopped.  

Gil stepped out of the study, over the men and into the small dining area. Heavy breathing. “The second shot went through that man into the wall here above the picture of the little Victorian boy. Need to get it, too.” 

I listened as Gil bent over the man with the cell phone. He slipped on blue forensic gloves and pulled out the device, then dug out car keys. He scrolled down. “He’s made KC calls, at least by the area code.” Studying the phone, finally said, “Looks like this one’s name...” 

He was about to tell me, but then said, “No need for you to know. That way if you are asked, you don’t have to lie about whether you’d ever heard the man’s name. Capish?”

“Capish.”   

He did the same search for the other man, getting a cell out of his pants pocket, then plopped down on the couch, with a groan, depositing the phones in his coat. He surveyed the ceiling of the room. “You don’t have any burglar alarm or security cameras do you?” He reached behind him and ran his fingers under the lamp shade. 

“No. Now just our wind chimes.” 

“I should have done a sweep of your place when the Treasury boys were here. I know they didn’t visit your other rooms in your house when you were here. Hope they didn’t plant a bug somewhere when you weren’t home.”  

He shook the thought off. “ So listen up,” he said. “These are the homeboys boys from KC.” He paused… “But not wearing a lot of bling for drug pushers, though… Uh, I did a look and see of your neighborhood before I came here. Seems, the boys parked their vehicle down the hill, near that little park and off in a cul-de-sac, so as not to be seen. They apparently walked up the hill to your place.”

“They had no guns,” I said. 

He dangled the car keys he’d taken from dead-man one. “I’ll check the car out to see for sure if it belongs to them. The one down the hill is an Esplanade. High dollar. Drug business is very good. My car is parked down the block, too.” 

“My thought is that in matters like this, calling the local police might seem like the thing to do. But here’s my take. Man one, there came at you threatening, and to defend yourself you shot him given his attack stance. Man two, attacked you with a knife and you shot him in the chest; evidently your own kitchen knife. Your little lady told me about her coming downstairs and warning you. These guys often don’t pack when they burgle. If they get shot, and they aren’t carrying, they got a lawsuit. Thus, this is where we are, Peter.”

The dead man’s phone rang again. Gil took it out of his coat and looked at the cell screen. “No number, ”he said. The jingle stopped. 

“So, Peter, to be clear my good friend, these two men are black and you are white. While this is a stand-your-ground state and they obviously weren’t invited into your home, man one there doesn't have a weapon. If cops show and the easy take on this is, man shoots perps in his own home. He has the right to do so. 

“But then, in comes the charging prosecutor, not to mention the press, who will be right behind the police if you call them, and viola, in the afternoon paper, headline reads, two unarmed men, Afro American men, I might add, shot in the home of a local doctor. I know you are not a doctor, but whatever they choose to call you. Right away you have a news story, which likely reaches beyond this little college town. So…” 

“So, what you are saying…”

“Let me take care of this. We need to get these boys out here before the copper smell of the blood becomes part of your fixtures. Where is your weapon?”

I reached behind me and moved the newspaper covering the gun. 

Chapter 52: So, In This Little College Town There Is A Network

I listened as Agent Gil admonished me that calling the cops would open a world up to inquiry. A world that might not end well for me and Nora. He then dismissed me to spend what was left of the early morning to give Nora comfort in our bedroom. I’d left him on the couch, contemplating the next move.

I grabbed some little bottles of Jameson’s along with a plate of cold pizza from the refrigerator and headed up the stairs, not that I was hungry.  

Nora was asleep. The shooting had zonked her. Van Morrison was crooning, low volume, her headset on the pillow beside her. I cracked the window slightly and set my whiskey bottles and pizza plate on the night table, then slipped in. The moon glow shone through our shutters. I listened for any sirens or noise from the neighborhood. Nothing. I curled up and bit my thumb so as not to break into a tearful rain. I’d killed two men. 

Downstairs I could hear Gil talking in a direct manner to someone on his phone. I’d seen him take two cells out of his jacket, his phone and what seemed to be a burner, in addition to the ones he’d confiscated from the dead men.

He’d given me a low down on what I could anticipate in the coming hour. He said he’d checked out our backyard and sized up whether a van could squeeze itself past our Escape in the driveway to access the basement, best not to move our car. He said the two dead men would be taken down to the basement and then transported to points beyond. I didn’t ask where and what that meant. 

I tried to discern what he was saying on his phone, but most were utterances of “yes, right”  and “uh-huh.” I sat up, chewed on a piece of pizza, chased by some Jamesons and closed my eyes. I felt stomach acid gurgling up.

Nora whimpered in her sleep. I shook my head at my predicament. Had I not pursued the matter with Gil, would that have made any difference in whether or not these two men had broken into our home? And how did they get in anyway? 

Another part of the puzzle. But the men somehow had the knowledge that Franklin’s sister, or cousin had sent a letter to Wanda. Had I just told Wanda from the get-go, I couldn’t help her and done the same with Franklin, then possibly, well possibly…

I always told my inmate clients to forget about what might have been. These men showed up with no weapons, surprisingly. Gil said it was no surprise they were weaponless because a psychopath has no sensitivity to the possibility of harm. His take on the two was that one was the likely trigger man who killed Mr. Franklin’s little nephew. I didn’t ask how he knew that.

I sat up, chewed down more pizza and gently pulled up the covers until I heard voices downstairs. Sweepers, aka cleaners. 

Nora’s whimpers had stopped, but she was still asleep. I pulled on my robe and quietly moved closer to the noise, situating myself on the landing, out of sight of the activity just feet below. 

A woman whispered directions. “Take them out one at a time, down to the basement. Watch for blood spatterings. Take the head-shot first,” she said.  

The man shot in the head had bled more profusely, I remembered. In fact, all over the hardwood floor. I’d numbed myself to that image. 

For more than one reason, Gil had ordered me to stay put up stairs. What I didn’t see, I couldn’t comment on. And he knew Nora and I had seen enough for one morning, 

There were grunts of lifting. A minute later the basement door opened. Some cursing. The woman spoke. “So, both go to the Vet. Is that right?”

“He’s been called. You know the way,” Gil said

“And also there is the banger’s car, an Escalade. I walked down the hill and checked the key. It fits,” he said.  “Good bet it is stolen. Yours to do what you want. Take it to Simpson Salvage. I called them too. He knows the low-down. Or keep it. Simpson will probably give you a fair dollar for it, though.” 

Hard to believe, in this little college town there is a network for this type of thing happening. 

I felt a cold touch to the nape of my neck. Nora had taken a seat behind me in the stairwell. I kissed her hand, turned and gave the shush sign. Several minutes passed with both of us sitting in the darkness, listening. The woman and Gil talked in low mumbles away from the landing. “You know that two will cost you more than one.”

“I thought I’d get a discount,” Gil quickly chuckled. “I am throwing in the Escalade.” 

“I’ll run it by Lester,” she said. “If I can reach him. He’s in Europe. Always thinking, aren’t you Agent…” More commotion. “Ok, gentlemen,” the woman said, “this other one is not as heavy. Just keep him tightly wrapped. No blood spatter. Clean up, before we vamoosh out of here. It is after 4.” 

Nora squeezed my hand. I got up and pointed her back to the bedroom. She’d heard enough. On our futon, she curled up into me. I knew she had a million questions. “Is this going to be alright?” she said. I half expected she’d tell me that she’d had enough and was packing her bags for a Christmas visit back to Donegal. A surge of acid reflux hit me. I coughed.

“You don’t need any more of the Jameson,” Nora said.

I made it to the bathroom, in time to spit out saliva. I stuck my head down to the facet to let cold water spray up. I’d gotten my little family in a jam, a scenario out of some movie. Downstairs more commotion. 

Chapter 53: Two Black Men Killed In The House Of A White Man

I headed back to the landing and Nora followed me. Gil and the woman seemed to be squaring up on matters. Gil told her to get with him once she and her crew had finished the job, which apparently meant depositing the two dead bodies with a veterinarian. I had to think that meant using the vet’s cremation services. 

The woman interjected, telling him that the rest of the clean up would only take another 30 minutes. “Good thing is the blood hasn’t been on the floor long. No time to seep into the hardwood. I am guessin you want it swept so there is no trace for a luminol reading,” she said.

“Whatever you used before that has worked,” Gil said. You're the expert.” 

The woman gave orders to the other workers and said, “We want to be out of here before the sun comes up.” 

”I’ll be back shortly,” Gil said. The mud room door opened then closed.

The woman barked-out more directions to her people. “Did you guys check the ceilings, the study and the doors?” 

Silence, then a meek, “Yes, from what sounded like a young man.”  

“Check it all again. This room and the dining room. I don’t want to be here after sun up. And I need to run a luminol test.” 

Then a minute later, a low hum of a vacuum cleaner started.  Nora and I sat for a moment, then she took my fingers and walked me back to the bedroom. She slipped off her t-shirt and guided me under the sheets, but just for cuddling and a little dozing. 

Clock said, 5:46 AM when Gil called up to me. 

He met me at the stairway. He had the Colt 45 in his hand. The cleaners had left. He nodded toward the crime scene. “Not a trace of anything. Nothing untoward happened here,” he said. 

I studied the room, then traipsed to the dining room. Gil followed, explaining how the cleaners had taken out the bullets, scrubbed the floors and surroundings to make sure no blood traces and spatterings were left. And how luminol spray was applied to check for crime scene evidence. 

He didn’t comment on the whereabouts of the two bodies. And I didn’t ask. “But I don’t anticipate that we will ever have to worry about whether anyone will come knocking on your door to investigate two missing persons, though,” he said. “You’ll need to caulk where the bullets went sometime soon.” 

Gil motioned for me to sit on the couch, Colt in hand. “Now, my good friend. And I feel like I can call you that, a couple of matters. First, how is the young lady?”

I said so far so good. Gil said, better that I didn’t ask too many questions about the clean up. What I didn’t know I couldn’t comment on.  

He pulled out two bullets from his jacket which had been dug out of the walls. “These are 250 grains. Surprisingly the first man’s head wasn’t blown off. Again, so owns this?” he said nonchalantly, lifting the weapon up.

I told him the story of how I was holding it for my cousin who owned it and I had inadvertently just picked it up from a friend of his who was cleaning it. “It’s a pretty piece,” Gil said. “Let me keep it for a bit just to wait and see if anyone starts nibbling on the whereabouts of the two men.”

I didn’t ask him to elaborate. “Whatever you say.” 

He let the gun lay in his lap. “I’ll keep the bullets too.” He nodded to himself. “So, my friend, I have cased your house and the neighborhood for any suspicious persons who might have seen our cleaners come and go. But saw no one peering out a window. We can only hope the neighbor across the street, you said she is a widow and sometimes is up at all times of the night, chose to sleep in on this day. Seems all was quiet.” 

“Peter,” Nora called out from the bottom of the stairway. 

“Ms. Cleary,” Gil said, “It might be better if you stay upstairs for a while. If that is alright.”

“I will be up shortly, honey,” I said. 

Nora pulled her bathrobe around her, sniffled, grabbed the railing and went back up the stairs. 

“This will take a while for her to adjust to it all,” Gil said. “But had we called in the cavalry, matters would become much worse.” 

I knew living in a very blue county of a red state, with two newspapers and one of the country’s leading J school’s, in fact the oldest, two black men killed in the house of a white man had a bad ring to it.  

“But here is what has to happen,” he said. 

“You guys rest up today. Do not talk about what happened. Not to your cousin or anyone. I am taking it, you don’t have to go to work today?”

“Right.”

“Mums the word.” 

I nodded. “As to this baby,” he said, holding up the Colt. “As I said, I am going to keep it. “We don’t want this thing lying around.” 

“Make up some story if your cousin asks about the gun, it has been stolen or you misplaced it. Something.” 

“We have gotten rid of the physical evidence, the weapon, and as far as we know there were no eyewitnesses. So we should be good… But, Peter. We need to get on with why I sat down with you at the coffee shop several weeks ago.” 

Part 3 

Chapter 54: Should This Thing Backfire?

Gil beeped the horn of his Jeep Grand Cherokee at 7 am Sunday morning. I kissed Nora and told her with any luck I’d be home in the early afternoon. We’d discussed the contract Gil had left. Nora understood the reasoning behind it, to a point. We were both still numb from the Saturday morning episode and hadn’t talked about it.  

Gil had explained to me Saturday sitting on the couch after the shooting as the sun came up what was to happen today; two dead bodies just removed by cleaners. He’d said given the recent happenings, we needed to strike while the iron was hot, to retrieve the money, which ultimately was about nabbing lawyer Weintraub. 

I got into his jeep and gave the signed contract to him. I’d copied it for my records. And told Nora where it was. All seemed odd. I also checked out the company which held the life insurance policy for legitimacy too. The best I could. 

Gil handed me a coffee. “From that bagel shop you like so much. Got a blueberry with honey walnut cream cheese, too.” 

I sipped the coffee and opened up the sack to a bolt of the hot bakery as Gil took my street out of the neighborhood toward the interstate and KC. “If it’s any consolation to you, Peter, the two men who broke into your house were home-boy gangsters. I checked out their names with the KC organized crime database, pictures and all. So, no loss. Plus, we are pretty sure they did some bank robbery jobs up and down the interstate.”

“How was the rest of Saturday for you two?” 

“We slept, mostly.” 

“No visitors.”

“Not even a phone call.” 

“And the little lady? How is she and how is she with this little trip today?”

“She is going Christmas Shopping with a new girlfriend. She understands, to a point.”

Gil nodded, gave me a quick look-over, to assess my overall compatibility with what we were embarking on. “Best you didn’t lay it all out for her.” 

“Don’t think I could, Agent. Since I really don’t know myself. You are a real FBI agent, aren’t you” I said, smirking some, but half-serious, too.

Gil chuckled. “No. This whole thing is a ruse and you are the patsy boy…  Yes, but only until the end of the year, then this ruse of a Gman is retiring from her majesty's service.” 

“Just so I know,” I said. 

“But here’s what you need to know. I am going to keep this as simple as possible.” 

He checked his wristwatch with the dashboard clock. “By no later than 9:30 we should be in the Paseo area of KC. We will meet my CI, Swing. He is cooperating with the sting.” 

“Swing. You mentioned him before?”  

“When you meet him, you’ll understand where he gets his name. Actually, his real John Hancock is Anthony Alabaster Cukin. Odd name for a black man.” Gil chuckled. “If you are worried about that antique Colt of yours...”

“Cousin’s.”

“It’s in good hands. You don’t need to keep it around should this thing backfire.” 

I chewed on my bagel, sipped my coffee not wanting to get into my counselor, analytical mindset today, wishing Gil hadn’t thrown out words like, should this thing backfire.

He checked his wristwatch with the car digital again as we made it down the ramp to the interstate, west to KC. “Traveling this early, we'll make good time. And the Paseo area of the city won’t be up yet. Back to Swing.”

“He and Big Mike, who is the bouncer at the club where you will meet them, said this is the time of day to do whatever you want to do, because the BC, that’s what the gangster home boys are calling themselves now, stands for Black Cartel. Real original. That is what Swing said, his words, colored people don’t get up early and young black hombres really don’t like early, unless they are just coming in at that time.”

Two behemoth semi’s passed by going 90. For a moment we both were mesmerized by the glistening beasts, governors of the road, the tail truck following the lead within yards. 

“You will take this baby,” he said, patting the steering wheel of the jeep after I get another vehicle at the DEA compound, you’ll follow me to meet Swing. What you really have to do is simple. Swing will take you to your boy Franklin’s aunt’s place. Big Mike might be with him for security. Don’t know. Probably not necessary this time of day. 

“Swing has told this Weintraub that you will only turn over the money to him, Weintraub. So, Swing and obviously Weintraub, know about the money. Possibly, Big Mike too. Don’t know about Franklin’s sister-cousin, whatever he calls her. Swing filled the lawyer in on who you are. I am sure he’ll check you out. You don’t have a presence on the internet. Just so you know that, you are a doc at the prison, that type of thing. Now, we know that Weintraub has not visited Franklin in his lock up or communicated with him. We can’t be sure that some AB boys might not have found out about Franklin’s stash. Don’t know how far Weintraub’s reach is. But you talked to your boy, right?”

I said, “I made a call to Franklin from the prison. But you knew that, how..?” I knew Gil couldn’t have known about my call to Franklin without DOC contacts, all which led back to prison director, Buelly Knox. 

Gil squinted. “Thought you told me you called Franklin.” 

“I might have,” honestly not recalling whether or not I’d told Gil. I dismissed the matter, realizing it was a better thing that Franklin’s behavior was being monitored by a higher up, Buelly Knox, no less. No use having Gil come clean about his contact with DOC director Knox, even though he’d said they were friends.     

“Back to Swing,” Gil said. “He is very believable. He has a deep, melodic pitch to his voice. Hypnotic. In a different world he could have done something with it. Not that you need to know, but he has been my CI for years, since he got out of federal prison for an interstate scheme selling bogus insurance policies to old ladies. His voice charmed them, these grandmothers, who lived all over the country.” 

“Anyway, Weintraub believes Swing is his boy. Weibtraub was Swing’s lawyer. But the thing of it is, is that Swing did time, almost 10 years. And once inside prison, Swing began to learn that Weintraub didn't do him any favors. Could have gotten Swing a better deal. Swing had some money from all the old ladies he’d defrauded and paid too much to Weintraub given the long sentence.” 

Gil sipped his coffee, paused, collecting his thoughts. “I heard about the insurance fraud crime when I moved to KC, and began a relationship with Swing when he was in Leavenworth. Made it my mission to visit him weekly. Anyway, this narcissistic Weintraub had the belief that he’d gotten Swing some deal with his sentence. But I pushed for Swing to get an early release. Anyway after Swing was released he looked up Weintraub, who was now deep into money laundering,”  

Gil eyed the road checking the console of the jeep and retrieved a paper. He handed it over to me. What’s it say?” 

“A 1516, uh, I can’t read the street name.”

I handed the paper back to Gil. “Looks like the Brooklyn area.”  He punched the address into the GPS. 

Chapter 55: All Neat And Tidy, Bricked Up

“The Brooklyn district is smack dab in the Paseo district, according to the GPS.  At night the area is hopping,” Gil said. “And while I haven’t frequented it recently, it wasn’t too friendly to white boys in years past. But Swing and Big Mike are well known entities in the area, so whomever we run into they’ll have your back.”

“My back?”

“I know my friend that this whole thing must seem like a dream, but if it goes well, then it will be nothing but get the money, hand it over to Weintraub and you can head home.”

Unassuming counselor type in the middle of a fed sting. My own doing.

“That’s what you say. Time out here, Agent about to retire. The whole reason I got into this whole nefarious, what can we call it, caper, called a sting is because of the FBI’s involvement...”

“I know, “Gil said. “And you’re wondering how does Franklin get his money, if the set up is to give it to Weintraub? And if all the money is dirty.”  

Gil glanced out his window to the river bottom as we took the new and improved Rocheport Bridge across the Missouri river. He checked his rear view and side mirror, then digital dashboard, as if to get some reassurance that he was on the right roadway before telling me the rest of the story. 

“You should know,” he said, like a good friend telling some dark secret, “that after you gave me the letter, your boy gave you about where the money was hidden, we investigated the aunt’s house and the garage.” Gil checked his rear view mirror again, then sped around a flat bed hauling some equipment.  “That ol boy thinks he’s on some country road.”

“And,” I said, “What did you find out?”

“The money is right where Franklin said it was, all neat and tidy, bricked up. My friend, guess how much is in that, if stacked right?”    

“I have no idea.”

“A brick of C notes, Ben Franklins, is a little over 400,000 dollars. And also he had other money in the wall of auntie’s garage.” 

My stomach sank at the description of how much money was in the mix of this whole thing. 

“So, let me get this straight, Agent. If this Swing has talked to Weintraub, you are thinking that this lawyer will show up on a Sunday morning, not knowing me, just say thank you sir, for your service, shake my hand and all is done.” I shook my head. 

Gil had a habit, circumstantiality, which took him off in tangent conversation; sometimes useful as a distraction technique, to distract a suspect, and get him to spill the beans, unknowingly. I wasn’t a suspect though, at this point anyway.  

“Timing is the key,” Gil said. He glanced over at me staring into my coffee cup. “Clearer, Peter?”

“Well, Franklin did say something about the money being stacked in C  notes, I can’t remember if he told me in person or related it in the letter you have. He took the money from the gangster boys as a pay back for killing his little nephew. So, they must have packaged it. But where was any money he had? I mean…” 

“So,” Gil said, nodding. “Remember, I said, after running the two gangster boys' sheets, it came up that they were suspects in some bank robberies.”

“I remember.” 

Gil turned up the heat a notch. “That OK?” he asked. 

“Feels good,” I said. 

“Myself and another agent, who will take over my caseload, checked on the loot in the garage. The packaged cash was in kind-of-like mail bags, and it seemed like Franklin’s cash from his work was there too. So, right, he didn't package up his money in bricks. All the money up front in the wall and what you hand over to Weintraub will be the money that is bank money, we believe. Make sense? Money he took from the home boys you, uh…”  

I downed the last of my coffee. 

“Just to educate you Peter.  Banks secure, what are called, straps, around a group of bills of the same denomination. And they color the straps. A strap, mustard colored, of 100 dollars equals 10,000 dollars. Ten straps make up a brick. So, one brick of 100 C notes has 100,000 in it. Follow? Called a honey bun.” 

“Uh, I’d have to see a visual too…”

Gil chuckled and sped up around another flatbed truck. 

“Well, my friend, in a very short while you’ll get your visual. But had there been a dye pack in the stolen straps, these boys took they wouldn’t had gotten far. It would have exploded. And of no use to them. But, evidently the clerk didn’t hand over money which had dye packs. Or something happened.”

Nora crossed my radar screen, worried I’d never see her again. Gil took another quick look in my direction. “You okay?”

“Self preservation,” I said. Gil put the jeep on cruise control at 75, as he steered us, one hand on the wheel, toward the western side of the state, out of the Missouri river bottom. The fantastical part of me wondered what Weintraub’s role was in my shooting of the two men, only yesterday morning. 

“I am a little concerned that I am handing over the money to this guy, no protection and you are telling me you will be nearby. That’s one thing. The other..”

“I will be nearby, along with KC police,” Gil said. 

“Oh, there is more to the story,” I said. “Now the local police are involved.”