Time and Chance (4 page)

CHAPTER 6

Real Time

Saturday, April, 14

07:09:10 P.M. CDT

At Guy Pickle's home
in Nashville, after dinner, a candid discussion between Guy Pickle, Bonnie
Castiglioni, and Joyce Kensington took place.

Bonnie said, “It could
get sticky, Joyce. I mean, real shit on a stick. These guys are Marquis de Sade
clones, they may come at you, demand whatever you ever dreamed you could never
imagine.”

Joyce—gray pantsuit,
white dress shirt, inch heel black pumps—sat back and crossed her long shapely
legs. Her rum-colored eyes moist, she didn't have to think about it long. She
said “Let's go.”

A plan was devised and
Bonnie said, “S.O.P, we'll set up a new identity for you, work history, throw
in an arrest record. Do a makeover, hair, whole ball of wax. You shouldn't have
any problem getting a job at Snakebite’s dump once they see you in one of those
peek-a-boo Felix The Cat kitten outfits.”

Pickle laughed.

Bonnie paused, “You
have been there, Mr. Pickle.”

“Just casing the
joint.”

Smiles.

Pickle: “I interviewed
Walker's assistant, Stella Pastorini, worker's comp fraud, premium avoidance,
year ago, Walker paid up.”

Bonnie looked at
Joyce, “You involved in that?”

“No.”

“Ever been in Felix
The Cat?”

“I prefer the art
museum, symphony.”

* * *

The conversation
proceeded and Pickle suggested that Joyce should move out of her house in the
country, rent an apartment in Nashville.

Bonnie said, “What do
you live way out in the country for anyway?”

“It was my parents' home,
willed to me.”

Bonnie knew of her
past. “You need to get an apartment in Nashville.”

Joyce said, “Just in
case, for whatever, should we get my name off the house deed?”

“Yes, and don't go out
there.”

“I have to, once in a
while.”

“Is there a phone listed?”

“Yes.”

Bonnie, “Get it out of
there, and okay, once in a while, you can go there but watch it. Anything
else?”

“Rural mail box, names
on it.”

“Change it.” She
looked at Pickle, “Pickle, you just bought a house and change the name on that
mail box.”

Pickle: “How ‘bout G.
P. Heinz.”

Chuckles then they
discussed more details, Joyce would take a crash course in undercover work,
then Castiglioni said, “Phoenix, something tells me Phoenix. You just moved
here from Phoenix, you needed a change.”

CHAPTER 7

Jack’s Time

Leaving The Gray Fox,
I dashed through the rain, entered the leather and walnut fineness of Winston
and paused for a moment. The rain pelting the canvas top, I contemplate the
phone conversation that, as I was going out the door, I had returned to answer.

It was from weekend
news producer, Wendy Trotter. She said Joe Galbo had called, her words, “in a
state of asshole”. Seems he was concerned about the flashflood watch reports
from the National Weather Service, and our weather coverage needed to be beefed
up, the other guys (TV stations) were cleaning our clocks.

I suggested that Wendy
check with Luther. She said she had. Luther had reminded her that it was only a
watch, not a warning, and that she should educate Joe the next time he called
as to the difference.

Sounded good to me and
as we signed off lightning flashed and I counted one-thousand-one … and a sharp
crack of thunder split the air. It proved one thing, one thousand two and three
are not always necessary.

 
Winston shook gently.

I turned the ignition
on, the fuel pump engaged, and I pressed the starter button. Throatily, Winston
responded and I pulled from The Gray Fox parking lot.

Down Hickory Hollow
Boulevard, shifting through Winston's gears, the wipers flapped a monotonous rhythm,
a gust of wind buffeted the canvas top and rain pranced over Winston's hood
like a thousand little Fred Astaires. I settled back, lit a Salem, inhaled
deeply, and flowing over the slick seal skin streets, I glanced at the time.
Little after 7:15. I turned the radio on and listened to our sister station,
WTNN-AM:

“…and in local news, Pastor Jimmy
Ray Carter led a group of protestors who camped out in front of the The Pink
Poodle show bar. The show bar is allegedly a front for prostitution and offers what
Pastor Ray called “A Sodom and Gomorrah cesspool of debauchery.” Owner Mike
'Snakebite' Walker, out of town, was unavailable for comment. Sheriff Wilson,
in removing the demonstrators, said only that we have to respect the legal
process. Mike Walker is also the owner of popular night spot, Felix The Cat.

“In a recent raid, several Walker
Enterprise employees were arrested for prostitution.

“And in local weather news,
Channel 12 senior meteorologist Luther Mays says keep that umbrella up, it
looks like more rain but the good news is, only one of Luther's shoulders is
aching. That means sunshine in 24 hours.

“In other news….”

I snapped the radio
off and glanced, tucked under the dash, at my two-way radio (Berry had given me
a pager but it kept breaking, getting lost. Same with the cell phone he handed
out). Pondering a call to the news room, I thought of my twenty reasons not to
call. Number one was I didn't want to get suckered into another message from
the newly appointed Assistant General Manager, Joe B. Galbo. Number two through
twenty were similar.

Stay lost tonight
, I thought.

I stopped for a red
light on Haywood Lane, ten miles southwest of Nashville. Twenty minutes to
Felix The Cat, pumping the accelerator, anxious for this always torturous red
light to turn, my liver commented,
hang
in there, we're in this thing together.

* * *

The light flashed
green. I punched Winston through three gears and turned the radio back on. The
second white pearl button tuned in classical station, WPLN. Mozart's Piano
Concerto No. 21 filled the cockpit. The wipers flapped, Mozart played, and as I
drove the music brought back vivid memories:

Vanderbilt campus …
warm June evening … fresh cut grass … the orchestra tunes itself … melodic
strings, a clarinet trills, a trumpet hits high C, a kettledrum reverberates …
the meandering notes fill the night air. People gather on the lawn, a blanket,
a folding chair, a pillow. The bushy eyebrows of Professor Strunk as he taps
his music stand … meandering notes cease … the crowd hushes … Strunk raises his
baton … for a moment stillness, Terri’s hands poised above a Steinway’s keys …
Strunk slices the night air with a swing of his baton … through Terri's
fingers, the Steinway responds and the night air fills with Mozart's Piano Concerto
No. 21, C major…. “
Fuoco
!” Strunk mouths fire and fury and the music
explodes. Then, in a fog I hear myself standing with the others, cheering,
“Bravo!” Terri stands and bows….

I remembered a musical
term Terri had recited many times when I was getting ahead of myself:
Da
Capo
. I said to the flapping wipers, “
Da Capo
, from the beginning,
take this mother from the beginning!” Then I thought, “But there is no
beginning and this is not new.”

I shifted to fourth
and flowed onto I-24 north.

***

Anxious to arrive at Felix
The Cat, I nudged Winston to 65 mph. Recently one of my second homes, Felix The
Cat is a montage of crumbling red bricks squeezed, similar to a homemade
wedding cake, into three layers. Owner Snakebite Walker was reported to reside on
the top level. I had never been invited up to Snakebite's living quarters, but
I was told they exemplified his simpler needs in life—mirrored bedroom,
mirrored bathroom, mirrored kitchenette, and mirrored office. All windowless. I
was told this by, guess who, Felix The Cat's bartender Angelo Rich.

On the street level,
the ‘fine dining’ restaurant, The Haute Cuisine, seats around fifty people in a
Roman garden atmosphere (Snakebite isn't Italian but the word around town is
that he likes to pretend that a Sicilian conqueror lives in some dark crevices
of his DNA). The Haute Cuisine's menu fare is what Snakebite bills in local
media advertisements as
Seafood &
Ribs
. Items, printed in gold script on parchment-like paper, are things
like
Catfish Memphis
,
Jail House Ribs
, and
Ham Steak Nashville
. The house special
is
The Snake Eye
, a two-pound
porterhouse with two fried eggs on top, side of rigatoni.

I always pass on The
Haute Cuisine, opting instead for the basement lounge (affectionately known
around town as simply ‘The Cat’) where many rivers of Jack Daniels flow in the
sway of country and western music, and see-through ladies, called Kittens,
serve cocktails, snacks and finger food.

Angelo confided that
Snakebite had personally designed the Kitten's outfits—black plastic cat ears,
plunging crimson blouses, green miniskirts, white garters attached to white
tongs attached to white fishnet nylons. All this was presented on red four inch
stiletto heels. Sources had it that Snakebite supplied Kittens for high-rolling
customers’ pleasure.

Finding Winston had
dutifully turned off the expressway at Woodland, I turned left at Third, right
at Church and there it was, green and white, warming the rain-misted night: the
arching Printers' Alley Marquee.

I turned left onto
Fourth Street and, down ten cars, snuggled into a curb parking space.

CHAPTER 8

Real Time

Saturday, April 14

07:45:35 P.M. CDT

On the way home, Sago
Yu pulled his red Jeep pickup into a Krystal. He went inside and got a takeout
order: four bacon cheese Krystal hamburgers, two large fries, two bowls of
chili, and two large root beers.

* * *

Home, a one-bedroom
Airstream trailer that sat in the middle of a four acres plot, twenty miles
east of Nashville, his registered bloodhound Tony Longtoe yelped in joy.

Sago spread on his
kitchen table two of the bacon cheeseburgers, fries, a bowl of chili, and a
root beer for himself. The other burgers, fries and chili were put on the floor
for Tony Longtoe. Sago poured the second root beer in Tony's beverage bowl and
got out of the way.

Sago, seated at the
kitchen table, eating, read an article related to S-Stuff:

 
…people have gone missing in many States. One
is Texas where police have filed more than 2500 missing person report this
year. The number reached 2000 last year. Most people missing are under 18. One
example is a sixteen-year-old who went missing six months ago. Her mother
reports last speaking to her daughter about 10:00 P.M. the night she
disappeared. When she called police she was told they would treat the case as a
runaway because there was no evidence of foul play. Theresa told them that was
impossible. She had found $200 in her daughter's dresser drawer and none of her
personal items, clothes, nothing was missing.

Finished eating Sago
logged onto the internet to do some research. He typed into Google: “missing
kids transplant organs”.

A thousand hits, he
clicked on the first item and read:

Numerous studies show that human
organ transplantation are feasible, and enormously beneficial and considered to
be the best treatment option for thousands of patients every year. Kidneys,
livers, and lungs may be transplanted from a living donor. A heart, pancreas,
or cornea transplant must be from people who are brain dead but on artificial
life support. Even though they are technically dead, their body is still
functioning, which means the organs remain healthy. Organs deteriorate very
quickly after death, making them unusable for transplant.

Unfortunately, the demand for
transplants far surpasses the supply of donated organs. Patients who need an
organ transplant may become trapped in an elaborate organ distribution system
with thousands of people needing an organ being placed on prioritized waiting
lists. The lists are made up by boards of directors who decide who will get
which organs and when. Simply put, there aren't enough organ donors, so
patients must wait months, even years, for their chance at recovery.

He read another hit:

Black Market in Transplant Organs—An
international group is capitalizing on the organ shortage by kidnapping and/or
smuggling live donors into countries. They are whisked to a bootleg clinic
where their organs are removed and sold. The organized crime ring profits from
the vast need for lifesaving organs and the scarcity of supply. Thousands of
people currently waiting for an organ transplant, scores of individuals die
waiting. A source who spoke on condition of anonymity called the organ-for-sale
ring global and said it operates in several countries including the U.S.A.