Moments In Crime

Friday's DOUBLE Scary Tot Shot

Looks like they expect something to shoot out of the back of that bird...I'd like to take this opportunity to thank www.Plan59.com for making the art work available for this week's blog.  They have a truly impressive collection of vintage graphic art work.

Friday's Scary Tot Shot

Disembodied heads just love TOAST!

Friday's Read: Finito!

TGIB = Thank God It’s Bourbon.  Munch Cami’s artichoke squares as you read but don’t get any oil on the pages – this is the unedited al dente beginning of my next novel BUY BACK, scheduled for Spring 2010.  Hope you’ve enjoyed the week of free lunch and entertainment. 

And if you haven’t, it is probably because you haven’t bought FEELERS and have been

eating the bologna roll-ups with Miracle Whip and Sanka. 

Cheers!  BMW

 

 

CHAPTER  1

Did I want four cats?  No.

That bastard Snuggles spewed vomit around the apartment like a fire hose.  Lady Fuzz sat in the litter box but managed to crap over the side every time.  Tigsy was diabetic and needed shots twice a day.  Herman wouldn’t eat.

Then why did I have four cats?

I asked myself this question every day, usually as I was cleaning up barf or shit from my rugs and furniture.  But then I asked myself a lot of questions about why I did the things I did, and the answer to my questions was invariably the same:  It seemed like the thing to do at the time.  That is to say, circumstances seemed to indicate this was the best thing I could do given a series of scenarios, a set of options, especially those that lead to possible gain.  Love or money.

I was in corporate recovery, a CR.  Some liked to joke that’s shorthand for criminal.  That’s a little unfair, I think.  I recovered stolen art, sometimes documents or antiquities or collectibles.  This meant I had to find the person who took it.  Only I didn’t get the cops on the crooks - if I did my entire network of information, my ways into the underworld would have collapsed and I’d been nothing better than the cops or Interpol at finding the things these idiots lost.  I brokered the goodies back to the insurance companies, for a percentage.  A finder’s fee.  A vig.

I said these museums, collectors and institutions ‘lost’ pricey stuff.  Well, they’re stolen, sure.   But the screw-ups at the museums, at the collectors and at the corporations who own this stuff are more criminal than the actual gig. 

That’s my opinion.

Then look at the facts.

Look at the 1990 Gardener Museum gig.  Two goofballs dressed as cops knocked on the door at 1 AM and the guards let them in.  These two goofballs didn’t even have guns or anything, and they managed to overpower all the guards and tie them up.  Over the next hour and a half, these two nabbed a bunch of Rembrandts, a Vermeer and some other goodies.

Look at Edvard Munch's "The Scream" – it was swiped a few years back using a step ladder.  In broad daylight, the crooks bopped in a second story window of National Gallery in

Oslo, scrambled in and snatched the painting.  Hardly broke a sweat. 

Look at the São Paulo Museum of Art, which even more recently lost a Picasso when three men used a car jack to crawl under a security gate.   Then they smashed some giant glass doors, somehow without alerting the guards, who were between shifts but somewhere in the building jacking off because they sure as hell weren’t on the ball.  In three minutes the burglars were in and out with some choice art. 

Look at the famous estate in Ireland, known for its fine collection of Goyas and Vermeers, which has been robbed successfully no less than four times over the last thirty years or so.  You’d think they’d maybe lock the doors at night.  Or latch the screen door.  Or whatever.

Look at what’s called the Kinglands Hoard.  A musty old eccentric named Kingsland died on

Manhattan’s upper east side and his apartment was loaded with stolen art – including a work by Picasso and a million-dollar Giacometti bust Kingsland was using as a doorstop.  The goodies were missing from various collections from over the last fifty years.  When I say ‘missing,’ I mean the museums didn’t know exactly what happened to the pieces.  They weren’t reported stolen, they just went missing, probably from storage.  All 300 of them. Nobody was particularly looking for them, either.  

This is not the work of cat burglars, of slick hondos like Tom Cruise or Matt Damon tip-toeing around roof tops.  There are no laser beams to dodge, usually not even motion detectors like suburbanites use to protect their patio furniture.  Just some rent-a-cops and cameras to watch the goodies go bye bye.  You should see the video of the three hooded thieves walking across the lawn of the Oslo museum – in broad daylight – with the Munchs under their arms.  I kid you not.

And this is only the stuff the public hears about.  Art is stolen all the time from private collections, all under the radar.  Insurance companies don’t like it, and try to get their clients to improve security.   Any idea how much museum guards get paid?   Any idea how hard it is to plug all the holes - even obvious ones - in museum security?   Any idea how expensive it is, and how the museums don’t like using a lot of their operating budget on high-tech security?   At this point it’s all the insurers can do to contain the situation to acceptable losses.

To keep the museum from calling the cops.  The insurers know that as soon as the police get involved, the crooks wink out and the art is never seen again. Almost never.  At least I can usually get it back and recover most of the insurer’s losses.  Sending a goofball to jail gets the insurance company bupkis;  it doesn’t service the bottom line.

Ever been to a museum and see a little sign where a famous painting used to be saying it’s on loan to some other museum?  Or that the masterpiece is being cleaned?  Yeah, right.  Those signs usually means me or someone else is working on getting it back from a goofball.

Art and antiquities theft is a routine for the insurance companies, like if you own a car you have to fill it with gas.  Like with the price of gas going up, you don’t sell your car.  You live with it.  It’s part of doing business and passing along the expense.  The museums pay the higher premiums because they have wealthy patrons, some that probably own the insurance company.

Everybody who pays health insurance, or runs and eye along Manhattan’s skyline, knows insurance companies have big buildings and deep, deep pockets.  Anywhere there are deep pockets people will come looking to slide a hand in and ease out some loot for themselves.  Not every thief is up to jacking art, mainly because most crooks are stupid, and can’t plan much beyond holding up a liquor store or jarring the back door of a bodega after hours.  This is why they became crooked to begin with, by default, because they’re not bright. 

If you’re a little bit smart, and a little ambitious, it’s no stretch to steal art.  Turning it into cash, on the other hand, can be a problem.

Three things you can do with a stolen Monet:  swag it, shop it, or settle it.  The three ‘S’s.

Swag means you have to find a fence to sell the goodies.  This is messy.  The fence will try to rip you off, maybe even forcibly take the art from you at the payoff.  And if you don’t like it, what, you’ll call the cops?  Even if the fence does pay you, it will only be five percent of the value.  The value that the fence decides it’s worth.

Shopping accounts for more than a few unsolved art theft.  A sponsor interested in growing his personal collection instructs a crook to bring him, say, a handful of specific impressionists from the walls of a museum.  It’s like the thief is shopping for his boss.

Settling a Renoir would be to sell it back to the insurance company for a percentage of its value.  To accomplish this, the insurers need me, a CR, to network and find the thieves and cut a deal for the return of the masterpiece.  I have one foot in the corporate world, with the insurers, and one in the underworld world, with the thieves.  I have to know a little about art and antiquities, too, that’s helpful.  Got a degree in art history from Brooklyn College.

So as I said I had four cats I didn’t want, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.  It was a way to get what I wanted, which was a particular woman.  For Love.  Vegas show girl.  Figure like the mud flap girl.  There are killer bodies, but Yvette’s was death itself.  She was in a financial jam, so I let her move in with her cats.  In my defense, no hetero guy with a pulse would have thought twice about this.  Then one day she’s gone with my check book. But the cats were still there slowly destroying my apartment.

Likewise, it seemed a good idea for me to both shop and settle at the same time.   For Money.  I saw easy to steal then lined up the boys to steal it, ones I knew who’d successfully boosted something else.  Then the plan was to broker the goodies back to the insurance company. I was carrying some of Yvette’s debt and needed to whammy some major cash in a hurry.  It seemed like the thing to do at the time.

How good was that?

About as good as the four cat idea.

CHAPTER 2

I sat across from Bertie LaMouche at one of those little cafe tables, surrounded by one of those little cafes.  The French kind, with Lautrec posters and croissants and coffee that makes my belly hurt.  It was a sunny Monday morning in Brooklyn, cold and October.

And Bertie says:  “Il y a un problème.”

            So I says: “In English, por favor? You grab the goodies or not?”

            Bertie wore a pastry apron, checked chef pants, and nervous lips that struggled with each other.  He had short white hair and long, furtive eyelashes.  His veiny hand stirred a mug of coffee:  Tink, tink tink…

            “We arrived to the target, Tommy, et tout va bien.  Everything was good.”  His eyes met mine briefly, those furtive lashes fanning.  “As you said, at that hour, the entrance to the museum kitchen was open.  With the duct tape, we tie the prep chefs.”

            “Bertie?” My big hand stopped his veiny one from stirring the coffee:  tink, tink, tk-. “Did you get the goodies or not?”

            His lips fell into a frown, like I’d said his croissants were soggy.  “Absolutement!”  But his eyes dropped again.

            “Then what, Bertie?  You had to drop and run?  Caught with your pants down?  What?”  I looked up and saw his wife, Ariel, behind the pastry counter.  Short graying hair and short.  The look she was giving me?   It could freeze ice cubes. Twice.  She turned away.

            “We lifted the paintings, all three.”  Sunlight from the shop windows sparked the blue in Bertie’s eyes.  “But someone took them from us.”

I stood, my chair falling backward.

“Someone absconded with our goodies?”

“Abstructed?” Bertie looked confused. “No, they took the good stuff.  By our van, they were waiting for us.  Two men, with guns, in black, with ski masks.  We had only the stun guns.  It was necessary to hand over the good stuff.”

            “The word is goodies, not good stuff!”  My shout turned the heads of the few patrons who sat in back.  I smiled at them as best I could and leaned down close to Bertie.  My voice was back to a whisper:  “Who?”

            “Who?”  he says.  I was close enough to smell the Pernot on Bertie’s breath.

            “How drunk are you, Bertie?  One of your guys set us up.  Assuming you didn’t decide to rip me off yourself, it had to be one of the other two.  Who else would know we were taking those paintings last night, to be waiting for you at that van?” 

Now we had a rat, and no paintings.  That’s no way to start the day.

I reached across and took Bertie by the apron.  “You think it was Frank?  Or Bootsie?”

            “You think one of them —?”

            “What do you think I’m talking about, Bertie?  I don’t know about you, but I was counting on that money.”

             “Please, Tommy, my apron.”   I felt his little hand on mine.  “People are looking…”

            I’m a big guy in every respect, and didn’t quite realize I’d lifted him out of his chair.  So I eased Bertie back into his seat. 

If ever there was a time for Delilah’s Tantric exercises, that was it.  Delilah was my masseuse. 

Breathe slowly in through the nose; close the eyes.

Breathe slowly out through the lips; stroke back my hair and beard.

Breathe slowly in through the nose; open the eyes.

Breathe slowly out through the lips; focus on that goofball Bertie sitting across from me. 

“So which was it?”  I says, all quiet.  “Frank or Bootsie?”

            He shrugged, as only the French can, with his palms up and the mouth down around his ankles.  “How would I know?”

            I straightened my tie and buttoned my top coat.  Then I whispered.  “You’re a pro, Bertie.  A pro keeps an eye on his string to make sure there’s no monkey business.  Does Frank or Bootsie gamble?  Does a woman have her hooks into one of them?  Find out.  You have twenty four hours.”

            Bertie followed me into the vestibule, which wasn’t easy.  There was only room for me and a sheet of paper.   

            “Twenty four hours?”  He was looking up at me, like some scared kid at the class bully. “Then what?”

            “I like you, Bertie.” I put a hand on his shoulder, and not lightly.  “But this is business.”  I patted him on the cheek.

            I left him standing in the vestibule. 

What was I planning to do in twenty four hours?  I was no mobster, no goon, no hard ass.  I was the chump with four cats at home:  Snuggles, Lady Fuzz, Tigsy and Herman.   Damaging people or animals wasn’t my hustle, mainly because people who hurt eventually end up hurt.  Even at my size, because guns change the equation.  Like Pop used to say, a pistol can turn a monster into a mouse.  I didn’t much like the idea of being tortured or killed, so a long time ago I decided there was a line I wouldn’t cross.  Just a little rule I had.

            I knew that the first thing Bertie would do after I left would be to tip off Frank and Bootsie.  Intentionally or unintentionally.  This meant I’d have to put a tail on all three of them, using an investigator kind of guy, an associate.  I had already put a fix on where they all lived because I liked being careful.  As soon as Frankie and Bootsie realized they were suspect, they would start acting mutable.  Mutable means losing your cool.  People who act mutable always make mistakes.  And they never get the money.

            Which is why I found my emotional center at Ariel’s Patisserie Bistro and stopped being mutable. 

            I could either freak out or figure out. 

Guess which pays?

###

Friday: The Final Lunch Recipe

Bourbon For Lunch – Hooray!

 So much for yesterday’s healthy crap.  Virtue is for mid week.  It’s Friday, and that means cocktails and appetizers are full steam ahead.   Frankly, I try to eat a light lunch of just fruit and hoard my calories for later, especially on Friday.  But don’t let that stop you from kicking off work early and have a few cocktails and snacks for lunch.  Life is short, don’t postpone joy, or bourbon.

I refer to almost any sour mash, Tennessee or Kentucky

whiskey as bourbon.  My favorite brand is George Dickel Sour Mash, but when I can’t find that in a bar will order Makers Mark or Wild Turkey. 

 

 

 

 

Brooklyn Imperial

This is my version of a Manhattan, which are OK but I thought needed improvement, mainly because I prefer lemon over cherry, and because sweet vermouth is a poor quality ingredient:

3 oz Maker’s Mark or Wild Turkey (80 proof)

Tawney of choice

Orange Bitters

Lemon Twists

In a cocktail shaker, chill the bourbon with a few dashes of the bitters and a dribble of the tawney.  Pour into a chilled martini glass, garnish with the lemon.

 

Slack Tide

This highball is the cocktail of choice for watching boats on the Hudson, and is clearly a cold remedy as well as a refreshing libation:

2oz Wild Turkey (80 proof) or other bourbon/whiskey of choice

2oz Pineapple Juice

1oz Club Soda

Orange Slice garnish

Pour ingredients over ice in a double old fashioned or zombie glass, garnish, swirl, imbibe.

 

Ol' Thurston would most certainly drink these on 'The Island' in lieu of an Old Fashioned.  Assuming he could get the professor to make him bourbon - which as we see here did in fact occur.

 

 

Cami’s Artichoke Squares:

This is an appetizer passed along by a friend from Porter’s Lake Hunting & Fishing Club, so you know it’s gotta be A1.  This could of course be modified into a quiche:

Chopped:

4pc bacon

1 med onion

1 clove garlic

14oz drained artichoke hearts

8 oz shredded Swiss or Alpine Cheese of Choice

4 eggs beaten

¼ cut bread crumbs

Sautee bacon, onion & garlic – add to eggs with cheese and crumbs

Fill greased 13x9 baking pan, bake 375 for 25min

 

And while were at it. let's fry up some Hillshire Farms Lil' Smokies - so good, and so good for you!

Friday: Peas Please, and make em CREAMY!

LOOKING FOR A GREAT FRIED CHICKEN RECIPE

Like Batman under the spell of Poison Ivy, I am intractably smitten by batter-dipped bird meat.  A deplorable admission, I know.  Obviously, some fried chicken is better than others, my favorite made fresh and spicy at Dale’s Market in Culver Lake,New Jersey.  But I succumb to the dubious charms of Banquet’s spicy frozen version as well, even though I have the MSG jitters and sleep apnea for days afterward.  I’ve made quite the study of what constitutes great fried chicken.  For example, I’m convinced The Colonel had it right, that deep-frying is not the preferred method, that pressure cookers do the best job with chicken.  You can even buy specially made fried chicken pressure cookers for use at home.  I have various recipes that are supposedly contain the Original 11 herbs and spices devised by Mr. Sanders.  Never batter chicken – dip it in buttermilk, then dredge in your flour mixture, then subject it to hot oil suspended in a gas under pressure.  And for all this, the worst admission of all is that :

a)  As obsessed as I am, I almost never eat  fried chicken.   When I do, I have a hard time not gorging, even if the fried chicken is of poor quality.  Horrible thing to wake up in the morning in a pile of chicken bones.  I drive by Dales, not stopping, averting my eyes each time.

b) I have experimented with home recipes and none are near as good as some of the most mundane fried chicken commercially available.  I had this same problem with biscuits until I stumbled – quite by accident – on the correct recipe.  You see, the same people that circulate fried chicken recipes circulate those for biscuits, and I’m convinced they leave out key ingredients.

So:  this gloomy panegyric is a cry for help.  I need a great fried chicken recipe, one where I can omit the MSG and the trans fats and try to shed this cycle of denial and gluttony.  I need the recipe so that I can leave the shadowy, neon-hum world of Chinese fast-food chicken, Chik-fil-A and Perdue Chicken Tenders.  I need a great fried chicken recipe so that I can emerge from this deep-fried gastro-grotto into the sunshine, arm and arm with The Colonel and Mr. Bojangels, and walk no more in their shadow.  *sob*

Thursday: Almost forgot the peas!

It seems that there was a time when they thought slathering a main course in creamed peas automatically made it fancy.  I'm guessing the red bits are pimentos, which back then were almost as fancy as creamed peas.  Not sure what the main course is here, I'm open to suggestions.  But I dig the red flower bud salt and pepper shakers...how much you think they'd go for on eBay?

Thursday's Scary Tot Shot

OK, I'm going to ask for comments from the studio audience on this one...

Thursday's Read

How about another mob story to go with your healthy lunch?  This one is as yet unpublished but slated for publication in an anthology to be published early next year.  This story is based on a character Sid Bifulco from my novel “Sleep with the Fishes” and takes place in the town of Hellbender Eddy.  It involves fishing, and fish are healthy, right?  Don’t worry, tomorrow we’ll have you drinking bourbon for lunch.  Hopefully this story will hold you over until then

Granite Hat

           

            “So let me get this straight…”  Sid swirled a glass of VO thoughtfully.  “You want I should fit you for a hat?”

         Leon stopped pacing at the far end of the cabin, an eyebrow raised at Sid.  “Hat?”

             “It’s what you call and expression.” Sid was perched on a red tartan sofa nursing an impish grin. “You want I should kill you, fit you for a granite hat, like a tombstone.”

            “Then it is true?”  Leonran a trembling hand over his thin blond hair.   “What they say down at the diner is true, that you were a hit man?”

            Sid stood and turned to the bar cart.  Were. Was.  Had been.  No so much hit man as a soldier, an enforcer, though he guessed that sometimes that amounted to the same thing.   Those days were behind him.  He had retired after prison.  Why else would he be living in Hellbender Eddy?  Sid lifted out a bottle, popped the cork and splashed some more vodka into

Leon’s glass.  “Lemme ask you, Leo.  Can I call you Leo?”

Leon gulped some vodka and pulled on his tie.  “Leon.”

            “Why do you want to die so bad, Leo?”

            “I have my reasons.”

            “That palace you have up river makes this log cabin look like an outhouse.  That’s your Bentley sports car parked in my driveway.  Those are thousand dollar shoes on your feet.”  Sid cocked his head.  “Looks to me like you’ve already died and gone to heaven.”

           

Leon turned toward the wall, eye to eye with a mounted carp.  “How much will it cost?  It has to look like an accident.”

            “You like that fish?  I caught that.  Right here in Hellbender Eddy.”

            “In the Delaware River?” 

Leon blinked rapidly.  “I didn’t know there were big fish like that in the river.  So will you do it?”

            Sid rattled the ice in his glass.  “You don’t fish, do you, Leo?”

            “If you won’t kill me, then can you refer me to someone who will?”

            “So let me guess.” Sid couldn’t help himself and began to chuckle.  “You’d kill yourself only you’re afraid you’ll botch it.  And because you don’t have the nerve.  That about the size of it?”

            “I don’t see the humor in my predicament.” 

Leon wandered away from the fish, his eyes red and his lip trembling.  “When you want something done right the first time you don’t do it yourself.  You hire a professional.  If you’re not that professional I don’t see any reason to torment me.”

            Sid put a hand on Leon’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.  “I apologize. Here, siddown.”  He guided Leon onto the sofa next to the floor lamp, handing him the refilled  glass of vodka.

            “Leo, I only laugh because you’re going to get arrested going around asking for referrals for a hitter.  To tell you the truth, I should do you and your family a favor.  I should put the cops on you and get you onto a shrink.  Suicide means you’re mental.”

           

Leon buried his face in his hands.  “This is a last resort.  This is what’s best for my family.  This is what’s best for me.”

            Sid splashed some more VO in his glass.

            It wasn’t hard for Sid to see what was troubling Leon.  He needed his murder to look like it was an accident for the life insurance, and to save face.  The reason he needed the money could be any number of things, but probably one of the usual reasons.  Bankruptcy, financial ruin, gambling debts, investments zeroed out, business belly-up.  There was a lot of that going around.  And that Bentley in the driveway?  It had dealer plates.  Sid recognized Leon. He owned a string of dealerships. His flashy smile, blond eyebrows and buttery tan was on billboards all over that part of Pennsylvania boasting zero percent financing for cars: Leon’s got your number: zero!

            Seeing the way cars weren’t selling at that time it was easy to see how Leon could have gotten in a jam.  And the way he played with his wedding ring – sliding it on and off his finger – could have meant he had practice taking it off.  Most devoted husbands had trouble getting their rings off.  

            It was enough to know the basics.  The combinations of the usual details weren’t important.   

            “You sure?”  Sid swirled his VO.

           

Leon lifted his face from his hands and fixed eyes of resolve on Sid.

            “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

            “Because once you’re dead, there’s no changing your mind.”

            “I’m positive.”

            “One way ticket.”

            “I have no reservations about this--”

            “That last second before you go you may wish you were staying.”

            “No hesitation.”

            Sid squinted down at the broken man.

            “Where would the money come from to pay me?”

           

Leon’s eyes were alight with the flicker of grim hope.

            “I can raise sixty thousand, cash.  There are assets.  Either you or the bank would get them.”

            Sid turned to the taxidermied carp on the wall, admiring its golden girth.

            “One condition.”

            “Name it.”

            “You have to go fishing with me.”

            “What?”

            Sid turned and pointed his glass at Leon.

            “You have to go fishing with me three times.”

            “Fishing?  But I don’t see what—“

            “Of course you don’t see. That’s why I’m the professional and you’re hiring me, because you trust me to do it right, to know how to make this go down to your satisfaction.”

           

Leon stood, his trembling hands making the ice in his glass chatter.  “I understand that you used to kill people….quietly.   I mean, no blood or shooting or…”

             “Wouldn’t look much like an accident if you were shot, would it?  Unless we staged a hunting accident.  But we’re not going hunting.  We’re going fishing.” Sid grinned.  “Leave it to me.  Be back at your palace day after tomorrow, five in the morning.  Tell your family that you’re going up to your river place alone to take up a new hobby, fishing.  And bring the first twenty grand, and don’t tell anybody, and I mean nobody, that we ever met.  Otherwise, when you’re dead, and they get back to me, the whole thing will come out that it was no accident.”

            “Yes, OK, perfect.” 

Leon went to the bar cart, glugged more vodka into his glass and drained it.  He picked up his blazer and put out a hand to Sid.  “Then it’s deal?”

            “Never shake hands with death, Leo.”  Sid winked.  “Punch him in the face, if you dare,  but never shake his hand.”

            Two days later Sid drove the foggy, winding road to the turn off for

Leon’s palace.  The sign on the gate read: Riverview Manor.

            The driveway curved gently down to the white columns of a Georgian mansion, the brick façade covered in ivy.  He parked his late-model Mercury next to the Bentley sports car, and when he got out he found Leon approaching from the house, a cigarette in his hand.   It looked like he’d had a shopping spree at LL Bean for the occasion, the outdoor clothes new, plaid shirt still with creases.

            “I was afraid you might have changed your mind,” Leon tried a smile.

            “I was afraid you might have changed your mind.  Money?”

           

Leon lifted a thick envelope from his vest pocket and handed it to Sid, who flipped through the contents.  He knew how twenty grand in twenties should be – about two inches, used.  He tossed the envelope into the open window of his Mercury.  “Ready to fish?”

            “If I have to.”

            “You have to.  Ever cast a fly rod?”

            “No.”

            “Spinning rod?”  Sid opened his trunk, which looked to Leon like it contained an entire tackle shop.  Sid held up a rod – in two pieces – and pointed to the reel.  “This is a spinning reel.”

            Leon tried to contain his exasperation.  It seemed pointless to learn anything new, much less fishing, just before dying.  But as Sid said, Leon had hired a professional, so this exercise must have some purpose. “Maybe once when the kids were little, I dunno.  Snoopy rod.”

            “Shoe size?”

            “Ten.  Why?”

            “Me too.  Here.”

            Leon took the waders Sid extracted from the trunk.  “They look like rubber pants.”

            “Don’t worry.  I have rubber pants for me, too.”

            A half hour later the two men in rubber pants descended the grassy embankment in front of Leon’s palace to the stony shores of the Delaware River.  The fog had lifted some, but still shrouded the tops of the trees and diffused the sun’s early light.  Sid had a tackle pack and a net.  Leon held the spinning rod, a flashy metal lure dancing at the end as he tromped down the shore.

            Sid began walking into the river.

            Leon stopped.  “You’re not going to drown me are you?”

            Knee deep, Sid looked back at his uncertain client.  “We’re going fishing three times.  Come on.”

            Leon gingerly followed Sid out to the middle of the river.  The current wasn’t fast, and only came a little over Leon’s knees.  Sid stopped upstream of some large boulders.  The guide waved his hand, asking for Leon to hand over the rod.  Sid demonstrated how to cast, then Leon took the rod, and after only a few minutes practice, found he was able to flip the silver lure almost as handily as his guide.

            Leon grinned.  “That’s kind of fun all by itself.” 

            Sid waved Leon to follow him downstream closer to the boulders.  The guide put a hand on the client’s should and pointed at the rocks.  Leon sent the silver lure sailing through the air and it splashed down within a few feet of the boulders.

            “Reel faster,” Sid said, rolling a hand in the air.

            “Maybe I should practice some more?”

            “We’re fishing, not practicing. Cast again.”

            Fifteen minutes and four boulders later, Leon was wondering what Sid expected to happen.

            Then it stopped. 

            Halfway back to the rod tip from the boulder, the lure just stopped.

            “Rod tip up!”  Sid shouted.  “Up!”

            Leon lifted the rod and felt whatever he was stuck on move, and then wobble.  The water burst and a small brown fish leapt from the river.

            “Reel!” Sid shouted.

            The little brown fish sailed through the air again, and Leon laughed with surprise.

            The fog parted upriver, and a ray of sun made the little fish look yellow when Sid netted it.

            “I caught a fish.”  Leon was amazed.  “I caught a fish.”

            Sid smiled.  “You did.  You caught a fish, Leo.”

            That day Leon caught twenty smallmouth bass, none much larger than a drumstick.  But each astounded Leon as much as the first with the force of their resistance, their refusal to give up.   Many escaped and were not caught at all.  All those landed went back into the river.  As Sid explained:  It doesn’t seem right to kill these little guys when they want so badly to live, does it?

            When the sun arced over the river and went down over Little Hound Mountain, Leon invited Sid into his palace, where they drank expensive scotch and ate sandwiches.  Leon wanted to know everything about fishing.  After a few hours discourse on the merits of various fish and techniques in front of a fieldstone fire place, Sid excused himself to drive home.

            “Thanks for the cocktails.  See you again tomorrow, at five thirty.”

            The next morning, Sid had Leon drive to a small lake, where they waded the weedy shores catching pickerel under cloudy skies.  The green barracuda-like fish attacked the twirling surface plug viciously.

            “I’ve never heard of these fish before,” Leon gaped at the prickly jaws of a pickerel in Sid’s hand.  “Why are they so, so…”

            “Ballsy?”

            “This fish must be starving to attack the lure so violently.”

            “Not starving.  And the reason they’re not starving is because they don’t let opportunities escape.”  Sid let the fish slide into the lake, and it flashed off into some nearby lily pads. 

            The afternoon was spent in a cool mossy creek under a canopy of trees.  It was such a small trickle Leon had a hard time believing that it could contain a fish larger than a minnow.    Sid had him cast with a tiny rod not much bigger than the Snoopy rod from all those years ago.  At the end of the wispy line was a small gold lure with a spinning blade and a tail of feathers. 

            Sid pointed to a deeper pool under an overhanging pine.

            Leon cast.

            As the lure came toward him, a bulge in the water did, too.

            “Keep reeling!”  Sid rasped.

            The creek surface boiled, and a foot-long trout shot out of the water, the lure on its lip.

            The fish raced around Leon’s feet when Sid tried to net it, and before the fish could be captured the lure spat out of the water.

            The trout was gone.  Escaped.

            “Where’ he go?”  Leon squinted at the water in disbelief.  “We had him.”

            Sid sighed, patting Leon on the shoulder.  “You don’t have a fish until you have him.”

            “How could there even be a fish like that in such a small slip of water as this?”

            “Just when you think you know where all the good fish are, and aren’t…” Sid winked, “… the fish prove you wrong.”

            “Can we get him again?”

            Sid was already headed to shore.  “You get one shot at some fish.”

            That evening Leon made martinis and grilled steaks for Sid, who told stories of arctic red salmon, great silver tropic tarpon and beefy Amazon bass the colors of the rainbow.

            As Sid headed to his car, Leon followed.  “So what are we going to catch tomorrow?”

            “Tomorrow we fish the Big D.”

            “For what?”

            “Big fish.”

            “What big fish?”

            “The big fish.  See you at five.”

            More than the martinis tingled Leon as the Mercury’s taillights disappeared up the driveway, another twenty grand on the seat next to Sid.

            It was drizzling the next morning.  Standing up to their waists in swirling current, Sid positioned them in front of a bend in the river where a rock wall ascended hundreds of feet.  The pool before them was deep and dark, murky as a smoky cave.  A large, almost circular hook was at the end of a stout rod that seemed to Leon like it was made to catch whales.  A few feet above the hook was a lead weight the size of his thumb.

            Sid skewered a piece of garlicky liver onto the hook, and pointed at the pool.

            Leon hesitated.  “What’s in there?”

            “Let’s find out.”

            “You mean you don’t know?”

            “All kinds of things might be in there.  But we won’t know exactly what until you chuck that in there.”

            Leon was afraid.

            But he did as he was told, and the liver and the hook and the weight splashed down in the pool and vanished into the cave.

            “Do I reel it in?”

            Sid shook his head. “We wait.”

            The sound of the river swirling around his waist seemed to get louder and louder as Leon blinked at the dark recess of unknown.

            “Rod tip up!”   Sid shouted.

            Leon didn’t see anything move, didn’t feel anything, but the shout made him obey.

            The line was tight.  The line was unmoving.  The line seemed stuck. 

            Then Leon looked at the rod tip.  It began to bend.

            “What is it?”  Leon shouted.

            Sid’s hand shot out and grabbed Leon by the back of the collar.

            Leon found himself underwater, but still holding onto the rod as he struggled to get free of Sid’s grasp.  Then he felt the rod yanked from his hands.  Had the fish taken it?  Or Sid?

            Then Leon swallowed some water.  His lungs felt like they were turned inside out, and he couldn’t get a hand around behind him to free himself from Sid’s grasp. Leon could hear himself squealing with panic under water. 

            His vision began to flicker.

            Brightness.  And air. Sid had yanked him back to his feet.   Water vomited from Leon’s  mouth as Sid grabbed his arm to keep him from falling.

            Then the rod was shoved back in his hands.

            Leon couldn’t speak, exhausted from having almost drowned.  He could barely still stand, though he found strength in his rage over what had happened and swatted Sid’s supporting hands away.

            And Leon found strength in that rod.

            After a twenty minutes battle, Leon was on his knees in the shallows at a gravel bar, wheezing.  Before him, corralled into a shallow pool, was a muddy catfish the size of a small dog.  Barbels splayed like slick worms from the fish’s flat, gasping lips.  The eyes we smaller than shirt buttons, black.  Man and fish: subdued.

            Sid waded ashore and picked up the fishing rod from the gravel bar.  He thought about saying something but instead walked back to his car and drove home.  To his way of thinking, the sixty grand had come honestly.  He had killed Leo.  The Leo who had asked to die, who wanted to die, was gone.

            Leon went bankrupt.  Leon got divorced.  Leon moved to Myrtle Beach where he managed his cousin’s gift shop and sold driftwood sculptures he made in his spare time.

            He never picked up a fishing rod again. 

            Only in his dreams.

###

Thursday's Lunch

Oh No!  A Healthy Lunch

We’ve had some pretty rich lunches here, so I think it is about time to delve into something virtuous.  That sounds like a drag, but I eat health discs all the time because they are both low-calorie and tasty.  I suppose these could be called quesadillas, but that lacks the cache of health disc, don’t you think?  Check it out:

Health Discs

Ingredients:

Whole Wheat Tortilla or Wrap

Low-Fat or Fat Free cheese of choice, grated

Chopped spinach (I like using fresh baby spinach)

Chopped onion of choice

Chopped red bell pepper

Diced tomato (I like grape or plum variety)

Cubed zucchini, browned(optional)

Black bean paste (optional)

Roasted Corn (optional)

Salt & Pepper

Sauté onion and bell pepper in garlic and olive oil - once brown add and cook down spinach, until most of the water is gone.

Brush both sides of tortilla with olive oil, place on non-stick pan.  Top with sautéed veggies, then cheese, then tomato.  If you want a MexiHealth Disc, lay down bean paste foundation on tortilla before adding toppings.  You really can add anything to the top of this, including left overs and  meat, but for me this is strictly vegetables.

Bake at 375 for 15 – 20 minutes – I like to brown the cheese on top.  Salt & Pepper. Then I slice with a pizza wheel and consume, possibly dotted with

Tabasco

.  I don’t know how many calories these are, but not a ton, and they are of course virtuous what with all the plant matter and whole wheat.

Wash all this down with good clean water of choice and feel the virtue course through you body.