Switcheroo (4 page)

Chapter
7

It was one of the most beautiful
guns I had ever seen.  It was about two feet from my nose and quivering
slightly.   The edgy crack-head punk who was holding it did not inspire
confidence and I was starting to get more than a little nervous, sweating out
the smell of beer and garlic from last night’s extended happy hour at Orby’s.

Yes, I remember getting home the
night before.  Even now with a gun pointed at me, thoughts of my new friend and
client Tammy filled my head.

I had locked the door to my small
house behind me, brushed my teeth hard and gone to bed.  Even with all these
precautions, somehow a rhinoceros must have gotten into my bedroom and pissed
in my mouth.  There is no other way to explain the foul taste and smell
emerging.  After I shaved my tongue, showered and dressed in Dockers and a golf
shirt, the Mr. Coffee starting doing his good work. Better.

A small desk on the other side of
my kitchen counter represented my home office.  On the weekends I forwarded the
office phone and fax to the house just in case.  I checked my fax machine and
found that there was a LISA work order there.  I also had a voice mail from my
contact at             LISA, Lender Investigation Services Associated.  Joel
Axeman was his name.  He said, could I please do one more call for them this
weekend.

It seems, Andrew Osgood, one of
our local bankruptcy attorneys, had some delinquency of his own on a Jaguar XK
convertible.  Due to his slow pay history, the bank holding his auto loan wanted
someone to assure the body damage repairs had been made to the Jag before they
released the $15,000 in insurance money to Mr. Osgood.

The car was parked where they said
it would be, in the garage behind the attorney’s office in the Farragut Building downtown. It would be there until at least noon today, while Mr. Osgood
finished this week’s work, or finished boffing his secretary or what ever he
does Saturday mornings.  I grabbed my briefcase with the digital camera in it
and put the top down on the Chrysler and headed down town.

This is how I ended up in the
State Street garage next to a Jaguar with my hands up, staring at a punk who
had a shaky grip on the Chrome 45 with the pearl grip.

The gun was entirely
nickel-plated; its filigreed engraving shone even in the dim light of the
parking garage.  Probably a Colt MK IV. The only way I was going to get that
gun from his hand to mine was to get this mugger talking. He made it easy by
speaking first.

“Give me the camera, the keys and
your wallet and step away from the Jag ‘fore I blow your fuckin’ head off.”  My
assailant, a kid age sixteen to twenty-five (hard to tell with gangster
types).  He was a wiry dude with crazy eyes and a shiny face, definitely on
something. His clothes were crummy and faded, nice Nikes, though. His hat was
turned backwards. He was not even trying to hide his identity. Not smart. He
must be needing cash in a bad way. A joy ride in a Jag would help his morale,
too.

“Here’s my camera and my keys, but
I’ve got to tell you, that’s not my car. I wish it was,” I said, nodding at the
Jag.

It was a 2010 Jaguar XK with
twenty pounds of beautiful burgundy paint and a tan convertible top.  This
model had twenty inch chrome wheels and was sold with an optional baseball bat
to keep away the hot chicks who were constantly throwing themselves at the
driver of this impressive machine.

“Stop fuckin’ with me. I saw you
walk up to it. And give me the wallet!” The punk said, snatching the keys and
camera out of my raised hands.

He told me to move slowly as I
reached for my wallet. He kept the gun on me while he started trying different
keys in the Jag.

“I said that’s not my car. That’s
my car!” I said this, pointing over my shoulder at the grayish brown Chrysler
that was white under the dirt. I have several keys on my ring and the punk was
getting visibly agitated as he tried to jam each one into the Jag’s keyhole. I
braced myself just in case he decided to shoot. Thoughts about getting shot and
the pain it would involve flooded my head.  The garage pirate glanced over at
the Chrysler then back to me. I pushed back my fear.

“Why did you pick this garage? 
Don’t you know there is a security camera on every row?  Even if you kill me,
they got you on tape.” When he looked toward the end of the empty parking level
and I made my move.

I took two quick steps forward and
slapped the chrome gun out of his hand with a wide sweep of my left arm.  I
kept coming and brought my right foot up and delivered a kick to his groin that
Al Del Greco would have been proud of.

He dropped like a sack of feed,
holding his aching nads. I almost kicked him in the head, but there really was
a security camera there, so I kicked him in the stomach. Less brutal.  I aimed
my cordovan Bostonian at his gut twice more and then walked slowly over to
where the gun lay.  As I bent over and picked up the nickel plated Colt, I
noticed my right foot hurt a bit.

I turned around to look at my
attacker, my prisoner now. He was balled up on the concrete floor drooling,
hardly able to breath.

“What’s your name?” I said,
stooping to pick up my keys and my camera.

“Cfedwic!”

“What?”

“Cedwic,” he slurred, barely
audible.

Cedric, ok. I frisked him and
found a small revolver in his left sock.  I dropped it in the pocket of my
windbreaker.

“Where is your car, Cedric?” I
asked.

“Downstairs, on the first floor.”

He was starting to sound a better.

“I’m sorry I have to do this but I
do not want you getting away from me.”

I kicked him in the stomach three
more times so that I could drag him down stairs without him getting away or
resisting. It was like dragging luggage.

My eyes burned from my hangover
and I was sweating out more coffee and beer as I dragged Cedric down the musty
stairwell.

His rusty ‘84 Caprice was parked
across from the steps.  I took the keys from him and told him to get into the
trunk.   He told me I could shoot him, but he would not get in the trunk.  He
was flopped on the chilly slope of the garage floor.  In his business, he had
probably seen people shot through their own trunk lids, I guess.  I told him,
not to worry. He wasn’t worth killing.

I picked him up, gently crammed
him into his own car trunk.  I shook the ammo out of his revolver and threw the
gun into the trunk.  I was about to put the Nickel plate in too, when something
came over me and I stuck the Colt in my coat pocket.  I don’t usually do stuff
like that, but I figured as long as they found a gun in the car no one would
notice.

“Don’t do this, dude! Let me go.”
His screaming trailed off into unintelligible rambling.  It hurt my head. I
closed the trunk lid.  This muffled things nicely. I could barely hear him
through the old Detroit metal of the trunk lid.

As I walked back to my car, I
heard Cedric screaming at me, pleading for me not to kill him. Shooting
somebody through the trunk of their own car was cold.  Not my style.  I was
calling the cops.

When I got back upstairs, I took
two more pictures of the perfect paint job on the Jag and hopped into the
Chrysler.  On my cell phone I called Officer Billingsworth at KPD and left a
message as to the whereabouts of the mugger, telling the dispatcher to check
the security company’s camera records for evidence of the attack.  I hoped that
these records would not make it seem that I over reacted.  I took the loaded
nickel-plate and tossed it into the glove box with my police special.  I had
never bothered to reload my own pistol after Billingsworth had taken my
bullets.

Downtown Knoxville was pretty much
vacant late Saturday morning. It was a good time for a mugging. No one would
hear the victim, or the mugger, cry for help.

Back at the ranch, my little house
was in need some work.  After a very busy afternoon of grass cutting, leaf
raking and, believe it or not, car washing, I decided to check my email.

Afterward, I typed the word
“teleportation” into my best search engine and hit “go.” My internet search for
“teleportation” hit five million web listings. After looking at a few, I was
reminded that all I had learned to do in physics class was play spades. Most of
the web sites were both condescending and nerdy. Theories on how teleportation
might work flew back and forth. Then the listings quickly trailed off into a
bunch of Star Trek Sci-Fi crap.

I got cleaned up from my afternoon
chores, and left to take the long way to Orby’s Place.  I swung by Ashes for a
bottle of wine and drank most of it at Savelli’s with fried ravioli and a
salad, table for uno.

At about nine and I drove over to
Orby’s Place for the second night in a row.  Imagine the Alamo made out of
cinder block and neon, that’s what it looked like.  Tammy must be a hell of a
woman to have me hanging out in a dump like this.

Loud country music blared and the
parking lot was a repeat of last night.  The only difference was the gleaming
white Chrysler convertible in the parking lot doing its best to be snazzy.  It
was still a pretty wimpy ride by Orby’s standards: no V-eight and no four by
four.  This could be my last visit to this place. Tammy could be a no show. Or
she could have changed her mind or her story or both.

She was there. Looking just as
pretty in a red shirt, knotted above her waist, showing a little of that
midriff.  I waved and sat at a table and she waved and brought me a Budweiser a
moment later, without even asking what I wanted.  She leaned in and said hello,
told me to relax, she would be done pretty soon.

The next two hours seemed to last
for about three days.  I was being pounded with the worst in country music and
electric slide type wannabees. The PA was being pushed beyond its limits into
distortion. No one seemed to notice me. I watched Tammy bob and weave through
the increasingly busy room.  I was day dreaming about that old movie
The
Fly,
where the scientist is stuck in the spider web at the end screeching
‘Help me! Help me!’  I wondered what kind of web this beautiful siren could be
weaving for me. She seemed too straight to have anything up her sleeve.   Right
then, she tugged on my sleeve and I looked up and saw her holding her apron. 
We said hello and attempted small talk for a minute.  Her hair was dark and too
puffy for my taste.  Her body made me forget her affinity for excess hair
spray.

I asked if she wanted a drink and
she told me she was ready to go to home.  Works for me. We split.

As our feet crunched on the gravel
walking up to my car, she spoke.

“Your car is nice and clean, did
ya wash it today?” Tammy asked.  She had her hands in her pockets and was
shrugging her shoulders against the October chill.

“Just for you.  Nice, isn’t she?”
I said, laughing at my own sarcasm.  The LeBaron had one hundred and sixty two
thousand miles on it and looked like a car with that many miles that had just
been hastily washed.  It had a few door dings, small whiskey dents and the
leather was pretty cracked.  Still, like me, it didn’t clean up too bad.  I had
thrown on a silk sports coat to try to impress my date, I mean my client. No
tie today since it was Saturday.

“It’s a little chilly out. Do you
mind putting the top up?” Tammy asked. Whatever you say, lady.

“You bet,” I replied. Thirty
seconds later we were on our way.

“I told you all about me last
night. What about you?” This question was too wide open.

“I’m not sure what you are
asking.  You mean what kind of music do I like?”

“No, like why are you going over
to my house, instead of staying home with your wife and kids on a Saturday
night?” That was the meanest question anyone had asked me in a while. She
smiled sarcastically when she asked, so I decided to torture her by answering
the question in full. It was a twenty minute drive to Straw Plains.

I was born into wealth. For some
reason this has always caused me to be a bit of an under-achiever.  My high
school English professor was first one to break it to me. He said it just like
that ‘Rust, you’re an under-achiever.’ By my junior year in high school it did
not surprise me to hear this from Mom and Dad. Heard it before from teachers,
coaches, etc. Not my first rodeo.

How could I possibly measure up to
parents, who were perfect Knoxvillians in every way?  They went to all the
right city and private functions, gave to all the right charities, never made a
bad investment and, with the exception of their only son, had never failed at
anything.  I was one of those students who thought that high school would never
end and I behaved that way.  For me and my friends, a perfect evening was a
trip to Uncle Sam’s Disco on Alcoa Highway and a half gallon bottle in a paper
sack. Most of the booze we drank had an old man’s name like Johnny Walker, Evan
Williams or George Dickel.  I’m lucky to be alive.

Unless I really liked my teacher,
I never made better than a B or a C in most classes. I never brought home F’s. 
The phrase ‘does only enough to get by’ had been written on a few report
cards.  I excelled in sports, but the pursuit of book knowledge did not appeal
to me.  I was shocked when high school ended and I was forced to do something.

Something turned out to be Vanderbilt University (Dad’s alma mater), a school I had been taught to hate by all my Knoxville peers who were, of course, Volunteers.  I found a bar at Vanderbilt called ‘The
Library’ and I took up a study of the brewing arts.  I was admitted to a club
for people who drank one of every beer that The Library served, not all in one
night of course.  Once a person’s name was added to the 'Around the world
club,’ they were usually ready for some sort of twelve step program.

It was here that I drank with a
few dormitory pals.  This allowed me to write truthful letters home saying that
I was spending a great deal of time at the library.