Franklin's Bennies - Episode 14

Chapter 46: It will be Christmas soon

I was late and Nora was sitting on the bus stop bench talking to an elderly lady with a cane. 

She patted the woman on the shoulder and said something to her as she climbed into the Escape. “Have you been with your girlfriend, Peter Cleary?”   

I teetered a laugh, not in the mood for humor even though gentle sarcasm was Nora’s way of showing she was miffed about my tardiness.   

“Getting tough to juggle two women,” I said. I quickly apologized for my late arrival. I’d figure out whether to tell Nora about Wanda’s warning later.

Nora’s clinic was overly crowded for a Monday with those needing attention. “We have more virus cases. Thought we were done with that. And we seem to be having more sick people under 30,” she said.

I let her chatter which she usually did after I picked her up, never pushing me for answers to her queries, letting me just nod to her talk. She had the habit of just saying, “I don’t know how you feel about that, or I was wonderin how you might think, (tink) about that. “All more rhetorical than something that required my response.

For a couple in the first decade of their marriage, we’d done well. Full-time work and few debt responsibilities other than a mortgage helped our relationship. I wasn’t a man who needed toys and Nora shopped at second hand stores for clothing and household goods. That was more related to her Irish character, I thought, one steeped in a history of famine and scarcity. 

“Tuna wraps are fine for dinner.” I said, confirming her wish, taking a turn down our street, checking the rear view. 

Nora grappled for her keys and unlocked the outside door to the mud room, an add-on addition we had done. I followed her in. I caught her elbow. “Hold up.”

I opened the French door to the living room and stepped up and inside. “Peter, what are you not tellin me?” 

I held up my palm and listened for commotion other than the creaks of the old home. “Can’t be too careful.” Nora breezed by me toward the kitchen dropping her tote bag on the floor.

“If there (tear) is somethin I need to know and you’re not tellin me, I am goin to be pretty mad. You better fess up, lad, if you know what’s good for you. That’s what my uncle Kevin always told the gurriers he rounded up when he was with the Garda,” she hollered back.  

Once Nora began to broach the English for the Irish, gurrier the Gaelic slang for criminal, I knew she was becoming miffed. I followed her. She turned, crossed her arms, leaned against the counter and said, “Peter, you have been distracted ever since Agent Cummings last visited. In all the years we have been here in this house, you have never told me to hold on before stepping into my own home. “She shook her head, auburn locks tousling about.

Come clean or not?  I said,“ I think I need to sign that contract with Agent Cummings. And it can’t hurt with your immigration status.” I waited. 

Nora shook head some more, stared out the kitchen window toward the creek which meandered along the edge of the property. She pulled a band out her pocket and tied her hair in a ponytail. “I don’t know. Tis all seems strange. You can pour me a glass.”

For the next several minutes we both changed out of our work clothes. I kissed the back of her neck as she stood in her bra and panties, me in my boxers. “No funny business now, Mr. Cleary.” 

She grabbed a terry cloth robe. I slipped on a sweatshirt and sweatpants and did my duty pouring a Merlot. I clanged my bottle of Blue Moon against her wine glass. “Slainte,” to health. 

“I hope so,” she said. 

We ate our tuna wraps, dill pickles and small sacks of chips at our little kitchen table. I told her I was thankful I had a wife who took such care and caution to make a sandwich. My conundrum about the contract was telling Nora about the life insurance piece which suggested I was stepping into dangerous waters.

She studied her phone, reading a text from her sister in Donegal filling her in on the happenings of northwest Ireland.

Nora and sister Margaret were several years apart and were close. Margaret was a vet tech, which meant that, unlike her sister she had more of an apprentice job, not university trained like Nora. “I wish there were a way to get everyone over here. It will be Christmas soon. But I don’t know if they have even bothered to get passports.” 

News from Ireland always distracted Nora from any concerns inconsequential or other.  “I guess we could get a second mortgage and build a mother-in-law house out back. And whether Margaret and Maura Ann or just your mom would come, once they are here, and settled in, you’d not have to miss them.”

“You are forgetting Margaret’s other half. She’d not leave him. But that is sweet Peter Cleary.” 

I gulped down my beer and poured a glass of Soy Milk. Promise her the world before I unload matters of Wanda’s visitors. I needed to call Agent Gil. 

Nora was fitting our dinner dishes in the washer and I was going over my schedule for the morning in the study when my cell buzzed. 

“Peter. You were going to call but I saved you the quarter. How ya doing?” 

“A little worried.” 

“I understand. These guys barks are often worse than their bite.” 

“Key word, often, I take it, Gil.” 

“I am living nearby now,” Gil said in the most reassuring tone he likely could muster up. We need to get this thing moving. Just don’t answer your door to any suspicious characters.” 

I took off for the prison early the next morning. Nora guaranteed me she could get a lift from the clinic’s secretary. I kissed her on the cheek and said, “Call me when you get to your office.” 

I took two loops around the roads into and out of my neighborhood looking for suspicious cars. Confident that no gangster types were hiding about, I headed off. 

Forty minutes later, I stopped by Wanda’s, to get more low-down on her visitors. But her place was closed. It was a weekday. Odd. But then, it made sense, if she was scared. She had a tough girl way. But the boys who stopped by, threatened her. And she was privy enough to the type, knowing their volatility. 

Chapter 47: “It's Apotropaic.”

I was on worry-rewind. With Maria still out, as Acting Director all was going well. Mr. Downy was on call. Fingers crossed there’d be no suicide attempts or completions for the rest of the week.

I was late again picking Nora up due administration paperwork. She hopped right into the car off the bench. A clang rang from inside her tote bag. “If you are so worried about your lady, Peter Cleary, you’d not be leavin her waitin.” Her brogue was working. I was in trouble.

I told her I got held up with Acting Director business. “You could have called, texted,” she said. “New responsibilities, I understand. Just so no forlorn, what do you call them, young female COs, need your counsel.”  

She pulled out a wind chime from her bag. “We exchanged gifts for Christmas and Dr. S gave me this.”  

“Kind of early.” 

“It’s about on us, love.” 

The instrument had metal rods, really tubes, attached to a cylinder wood umbrella-like handle that chimed when rubbing one another.  “It's apotropaic.”  

“Apotro… uh, ” I said,

“Ah. A word you don’t know. Something (someting) to scare off evil spirits. Also, it is said to slow down negative energy.” 

“Oh. So, Dr. S thinks we need something to protect us.” I tried  to let my reasonable mind not be overtaken by mystic symbolism. 

“You Okay? ” Nora asked. “We don’t have to put it up, if… Dr. S probably just recycled this, for something she had at home.”

“Tomasso’s?”

“I hoped you’d suggest that.” On the ten minute drive back into the downtown, Nora related her day, seemingly forgetting my neglect about not calling her. Her clients were one step above the water line as they compared to my clients in the prison. While most were women and children, many had significant others serving jail or prison time. Such is the plight of the destitute underclass. At Tomasso’s I pulled into one of many open parking spaces. 

Arianana was doubling as a waitress and hostess, hugged Nora and gave me a, “how are you Peter”? And took us to one of many empty booths. “You are doing double duty,” I said to her. 

She let us settle in for a moment and said, “Tomasso can't get help. I mean we have servers and a chef, uh cook jobs open, but no one comes to apply. He says it is because of the covid and the uh, …stimu… uh.”

“Stimulus money,” I said. “But that was sometime ago.” 

“Yes, still.” She headed toward the kitchen. Tomasso appeared from the kitchen, lit up seeing us and headed over. He scooted in next to me, a bit discombobulated. 

“Slow night?” I said.

He gave an uncomfortable chuckle. “In past weeks it has been this way. All of sudden my people quit. Young students need jobs, I thought.” He rubbed his fingers together, fidgeted with a glass, then reached across the table and took Nora’s hand. “But I am very grateful that I have good customers, like family who come in.”

Arianana returned. “Your usual?” she said.  “Volken and Merlot and the Tomasso Special?”

Tomasso lingered at the table, inquiring from Nora how she was settling into her adopted country even though she had been in the states since our marriage five years earlier. It was an opportune time to ask him about problems he was having with his landlord. Cousin Pat had done research on Weiner, the owner and had found the man had a record. I asked, “Has my cousin been in to talk to you?”

Tomasso nodded, looking around to the near empty restaurant and then at Nora.

“It’s OK,” I said, “she is getting used to her husband living on the edge bringing a suspicious person into our life.” 

“Not… getting used to,” Nora said.

“Your cousin filled me in on this Weiner. Good to know about him, but not so good, he is not a good man. But what can I do?”

“You said weeks ago that he is asking for a rent increase. I remember the police had been in to visit you. Have they been back?” Weintraub and Weiner. Sounded like a law firm. 

“No, just that one time. And I haven’t seen Weiner around either. But my rent will be due soon. I have been paying it. But with business like it is… well, I don’t know.”   

Arianna served us our meal. Tomasso patted Nora on the hand and said to me, “But it will work out. Thanks, Peter, for asking. You are a good friend.” He left to attend to kitchen matters. 

Chapter 48: Gil’s Contract In Hand

Nora was fretful after our meal, shaking her head, exasperatingly, sensing the old restaurantuar’s angst. “Is he going to go out of business because his landlord is increasin his rent?”

My worries were more about boys from the hood dropping by Wanda’s eatery. “It’s also the fact that Tomasso can’t get people to help out, seems from the covid thing and stimulus checks,” I said. I steered the old Escape home through downtown where merchants had begun putting up Christmas lights. 

Nora fixed herself on a manger scene in the window of the town's oldest drug store D and H; nativity depictions still allowed in this part of the country. I squeezed her hand. 

“Goggle said there were gunshots fired last night in downtown, Peter,” she said, clacking the car door lock shut. 

I checked my rearview, a new precautionary habit I’d picked- up over the past weeks since falling into this mess with Mr. Franklin. 

At home, Nora let me lead the way inside. She hung the wind chimes she got at work on my study door. “Just so I know where you are, Mr. Cleary,” she said. 

Bedtime, the lights out, she said, surprisingly, “Peter you do what is best with agent Gil. I trust you. If there is somethin I should sign, I will. I just want this thing over.”  

I was off early in the morning. Nora’s got a ride in again. I did my circle of the neighborhood just in case bad hombres were about, then took off to the prison. On the way in, Maria called from Phoenix. I assured her all was well at work and said to take her time with her dad. There were hesitations in her conversing, my paranoia wondering if she was waiting for me to confess something now that she was 1500 miles away. She said text or call if I needed to.

With Christmas upon us, Thanksgiving behind us, and many men in a forlorn way there was a fear their emotions would escalate and we’d have a surge of behavior troubles. But the rest of the week went by without incident. 

Friday arrived and I stopped off at the town’s popular brew-inn, Beck’s, with Mr. Downey, Laurie and the crowd before making the journey home. I honored my commitment to Nora to just drink a diet coke if I had to do any long driving, especially on the highway. I hadn’t kept to that code when imbibing near home, however.

I was glad I was married and reminded myself I’d found a gold mine marrying an Irish lass. Drinking in mixed company with no Nora present, I knew could lead to troubles, especially during the holidays. I was careful to just stay for a perfunctory visit at the pub. 

Nora caught a lift home. When I arrived an hour later than usual, she had made Irish potato Farls, which was a recipe of mashed potatoes and what else I didn’t know. Irish Soda bread accompanied the meal. 

“How was your day, love? Did you stay with your prison family at the pub there? I used the bread machine. No bad smell this time.”  

I took a whiff. “Smells good.” I had learned Irish soda bread, at times, can smell like ammonia if cooked wrongly. 

We sat at the kitchen table. I’d taken Agent Gil’s contract and perused it while we ate. I filled-in the specifics as it related to the life insurance clause, with Nora as my beneficiary, explaining the policy was just a formality, hoping weren’t those my famous last words. 

“You said you are good with this. All you have to do is sign it.”  She signed the document without question, as her cell vibrated. It was a signal for a zoom call from overseas. Social media to save the day.

I retired to my study with Gil’s contract in hand, all very odd I thought. If I met my demise Nora would get a handsome chunk of change. 

Chapter 49: Moon Glowed Showed A Silhouetted Figure

At 2:02 I was nudged awake. “Peter. The wind chimes!”

“Wind Chimes?” I said, groggy. “What is it?”

“Listen. The chimes are inside. Not outside.” 

I perked up, trying to hear any suspicious noise coming from downstairs. “I don’t hear anything.” 

“I am sure I heard them.” 

I slid out of bed, grabbed my robe, leaving Nora bedside, lights off. I listened, edging myself down the steps, stopping midway at the landing. 

Dead of winter outside. The heater was on. Through the trees the sound of a solitary car in the distance. I eased myself down the last steps, now sensing an eeriness that someone was in the house. At the bottom of the stairs I instinctively moved to the closet where I’d placed my cousin Pat’s Colt revolver. You don’t know what you are doing. It was still wrapped in a plastic grocery sack. I pulled the weapon out of the holster. It felt heavier than when I’d last held it. I froze against the wall.

Across the living room, in my study, a silhouetted figure stood in the moon glow, dreadlock hair do, his back to me, a flashlight fixed in his mouth. He was standing, staring at my desk. I glanced behind me to make sure Nora had stayed put, then eased around the couch in the middle of the living room. My cell upstairs. Should have called 911. 

I stepped toward the man, my weapon pointed at the floor. What did I think I was going to do? My heart pounded triple time. Sweat. I clicked back the hammer, one click, two clicks, three clicks, four.

From upstairs there was a creak in the floorboards. The man jerked around! I froze. He let the flashlight drop out of his mouth to his hand, seeing me in the shadows, he took two huge strides through the study doorway into the small living room. “Bitch, where is the money?”  

I stepped back. He reached into his jacket. Without hesitation, reflex on automatic, I raised the Colt and pulled the trigger. Nothing. No bullets left in the chamber from my day with Issac Peterman? “You white fuck, better put that toy down or I’ll slice you up. And that pretty bitch upstairs, too.” 

I cocked the hammer again and squeezed the trigger. A blast. The man fell against the study door, wind chimes, clanging. Smoke.

I swallowed. Deep inhalations. Drymouth. Palpitations. I stepped toward the figure, lying face up, eyes bugged open. The bullet had struck him, my bullet, square in his forehead. I knelt down, my back to the living room and kitchen. Where was his weapon? Didn’t he try to pull something out of his jacket? Hands, palms open, symmetrical to one another. No weapon. Fuck!

“Peter, behind you!” Nora screamed. 

Squatting, I pivoted, pistol still in hand to another man, coming out of the kitchen. He put on his skids seeing his buddy. “You mother fucker,” he said. 

This time I saw a long carving knife in his hand. He lunged at me, not caring about my gun. I cocked the hammer and shot. He staggered back, stunned, then grabbed his chest, and fell toward me, inches from his buddy’s feet, head smashing on the hardwood floor, face down.

Silence, then, Nora screeched,“ Hail Mary full of grace… Hail Mary, full of grace,” repeating the prayer in rapid succession. 

I blanked-out for a few seconds, longer possibly. The man gasped, gurgled, sighed, then went quiet. I scooted myself against the nearby wall, inhaling quickly, waiting for any movement out of either man, young men. Surely they had guns.

“Oh my God,  Oh my God, Peter, what’s happening?” 

Nora knelt by me, quickly curling up into me, our backs against the living room wall, breaths in cadence. 

I reached behind me, moving the shutter enough to open the window. Sweat. The cold night air bolted in. Nora sniffled. Silence.

“What are we going to do, Peter? …They are dead aren’t they?” 

“Could you get me my phone upstairs and one of the little airplane bottles of Jameson in the refrigerator?” 

She heaved herself up, leveraging herself on my shoulder, sniffling and cautiously stepping over the bodies, looking away from the men. 

From upstairs, she returned with my cell, holding her rosary beads. “I’ll get you the drink. Are you calling 911?”

“I think not.” 

“Oh.” She started to pick up the carving knife which had fallen from the second man’s hand. And was no doubt from our kitchen. 

“Leave the knife, sweetheart,” I said.

Momentarily she looked at the man then rounded the corner toward the kitchen. I inhaled deeply and dialed up Agent Gil. He answered after three rings, groggy.

“Can’t sleep, Peter?”

“We have a problem here,” I said.

“Here?”

“At my house.” I breathed in deeply. “Two men broke in and I…” I hyperventilated, trying not to explode into tears. “I shot them.” 

Slow down I said to myself. “They are dead.”

“Okay,” Gil said, calmly. “You are sure the men are dead?” 

“I am sure.” 

“Where are you? In the house?”

“I am in the living room. They are right in front of me.” 

Chapter 50: Do Not Call Anyone

Big breath, “Peter,” Gil said, flatly. “Don’t touch them. Listen to me closely. Go outside. Take me with you. Use your side entrance.”

I stepped over the men, secured the safety on the Colt, still glued to my hand and carefully laid it on the table by the couch under a newspaper. The two bullets, left in the weapon at Issac’s art gallery, unintentionally or not, had saved me. I took a look back at the two dead men, then stepped across the room and opened the mud room to the outside, calling back to Nora in the kitchen. “I am going outside, talking to agent Gil.”

“Peter, I don’t want to stay here alone,” Nora called back.  

“Only for a minute. Go in the kitchen.”

“Only for a minute,” she said.   

“Ok, I am outside,” I said to Gil, standing on the steps just outside the door.

My cell said 2:10 am. How is that possible? I was awakened by Nora at 2:02. 

“Alright,” he said, his tone calm and reassuring. Look around, up and down your street. What do you see?”

“Uh. Nothing.”

“Are there lights on anywhere, across the street, next door?” 

“No. A kitchen light looks like it's on in the Wendell home. But..Uh..”

“Anyone standing on their porch or in the window?”

“No one. And Marge Wendell, is a widow and lives alone. She has a dog, she’s in her mid 70’s, probably asleep. But I remembered though she once had told me she had insomnia.”  

“So no one. No barking dog?” 

“No.” 

“Scan the neighborhood. Any cars, lights on anywhere?”

“Nothing.” 

“Okay, your backyard, if I remember right from my visit, has a creek and woods and the nearest neighbor behind you is through the woods.”

“Right.” 

Nora opened the mudroom door and handed me a glass with Jameson in it, along with my galoshes. “I don’t like being in there alone. What are you doing?” 

“Gil is helping us square things up,” I whispered. 

“Peter. Give your phone to Nora and I will try and settle her. You check out the back yard for any lights.” 

I handed my phone to Nora and took a first sip of Jameson. 

“He wants to talk to you.” I tightened the drawstring on my bathrobe, snuggled more into my galoshes and took the driveway down to the backyard. 

In the backyard, silence. The woods and the creek provided a privacy border for us, so there was no sharing of a fence. Our lot was about an acre. Distance, an owl hooted. Another one, off in the opposite direction. 

Carbon dioxide puffs into the night. Confident no one had heard the two shots, at least enough to turn on lights, I headed back inside. 

Nora was sitting on the couch nodding into the phone, sniffling. Her right hand held the rosary beads. I nestled next to her. She handed the cell back to me and got up. 

“Okay,” Gil said. “She is very upset, obviously and for good reason. How are you?” 

“I am calming myself.” I gulped down the whiskey.

“So Nora said the men are there. I am guessing feet from you and quite dead. Here is what needs to happen. I will be over shortly. Coincidence, I am house sitting at my daughter's place in town. I told Nora to get a bottle of wine and go to the bedroom. Which is upstairs, right?” 

“Right.”

“She is to stay there. Sleep if she can. The next several hours will be busy. Do not call anyone. Certainly not 911. There are people to help with these matters. You sit tight. And wait for me. Capish?” 

“Capish. Should we, uh, call…?” 

Gil hung up. From my vantage point on the couch looking at the men dead before me, there was a large entrance hole over the right eyebrow that had blown away part of the first man’s forehead. “Did the bullet go through?” I’d let Gil check that out. 

The other man, face down at the feet of his partner, did have what appeared to be a bullet exit in his jacket. It must have hit somewhere in the dining room area, just off the kitchen. Another matter for Gil. 

A cell phone rap song rang in the pant pocket of the man shot  in the head. I let it ring until it stopped. Did the caller have one of those cell tracers to ID him?

It was 2:34. Only 32 minutes after the shootings. Fuck. I could count my blessings, that it was the weekend and I didn’t have to go to work. 

The two men, boys, probably no more than 22. The dreadlock-do man was likely the one who Wanda said intimidated her and her helper. The other one was probably there too. Their pants were not gangster homeboy attire as seen in the movies. Each had worn khaki pants, their jackets were high end. Shoes were Air Nikes. 

They had come looking for Franklin's money. And had no problem tracking me down. Who else had our address? Curiously, for thugs, they had no weapons. I closed my eyes, hoping for some relief.