The Extortionist Page 3

  Henry catches wind of it and assumes a scowl that could melt the brown paint off the brick walls.

  “You got a problem, Jobzy?” she says.

  Her using my name instead of calling me, beyotchhhh, takes me more than a little by surprise. I pull on my shirt collar, undo the top button, and loosen my necktie.

  “I was just about to say it’s hot in here, for God’s sake,” I lie.

  Henry shifts her facial expression from nasty back to I’m-so-in-love-with-Detective- Miller-nice. She’s also still got her hand on his thigh.

  “Don’t mind him, Detective,” she says. “He’s in love again. And we all know what Jobzy gets like when he’s in love.”

  “What do I get like exactly?” I pose.

  “Silly,” Henry says.

  “New lady in your life, Jobz?” Miller says. “Good for you.”

  “Maybe,” I say, picturing the sweet Brit in my head. “She’s a little young but a mature young, if you know what I mean.”

  “One of you has to be the mature one,” Henry says. Then, “So, the answer is yes, Detective Miller. Mr. Jobz is at your service. In the meantime, how shall we handle Mrs. Carter’s request for Unemployment Insurance?”

  He sips more of his beer, gently places the bottle back down.

  “Well,” he says, “she hasn’t been charged with anything yet, even if the DA is chomping at the bit for an arrest and arraignment. That will be Jobz’s job . . . to investigate her and see if she really is capable of extorting hundreds of thousands from the school before we go off half-cocked and bust the poor old woman.”

  “She got a family?” I ask.

  “Here’s what I know so far,” Miller says. “She’s a widower and lives alone in a humble home in Albany’s Pine Hills district. She still drives, but her ride is nothing fancy. An older model two door Honda. No idea about kids.”

  “That sound like an extortionist to you, Jobzy?” Henry asks.

  I shake my head. “I say we approve her claim,” I offer. “If, in the end, we discover she’s had her hands in the till for a lot of years, we immediately cut it off.”

  Miller slides off his stool. “Listen,” he says, “don’t let Mrs. Carter’s sweet, elderly face sway you. You were a cop once, Jobz. You know as well as I do that some seemingly sweet old people are just older versions of their criminal past. Charlie Manson died a crippled, gentle old man. But he was still Charlie fucking Manson, if you pardon my French, Henry.”

  “No apologies needed, Detective Miller,” she says. “You say that F word with such conviction and dignity, it don’t sound like no swear.”

  I can’t help but picture my mother sitting at the round table in the Anne Lee Home dining room. Can’t help but see her face just as made up as Gladys Carter’s is in the school yearbook picture, but far lonelier. Breaks my heart to see her like that. But Miller is right. Extortionists, con men and women, bank robbers, and even murderers come in all shapes, sizes, and configurations; and many of them can appear to be just like your normal, garden variety, next-door neighbor, when in fact, they are rotten to the core.

  “I promise not to make any assumptions now that might come to bite me in the ass later on, Miller,” I assure him.

  “That’s why I’m hiring you again, Jobz,” he says. “Plus, you’ve got a face an old lady like Gladys might trust. You’re still youthful.”

  “You saying I look like a kid?”

  “He act like a kid,” Henry says a little under her breath.

  “Thanks for that, Henry,” I say. Then, to Miller. “I suppose looking young is better than the opposite.”

  “That’s the spirit,” he replies.

  “Then, I assume you want me to interview Gladys?”

  “She’ll probably want her lawyer present,” the old detective says. “But I suspect she’ll be willing to talk with you like she’s got nothing to hide.” He drinks the rest of his beer and slips off his stool. “But don’t start with her. Start with the school principal. She’s the one lobbing the allegations.”

  Henry laughs again.

  “Something funny, Henry?” I ask.

  “Sorry,” she says, a giant smile on her big round face. “But it just dawned on me that Miller is sending you to the principal’s office.”

  Miller nods and grins. “I guess I am sending you to the principal’s office, aren’t I?” he says.

  “Excellent,” I say, raising my hand to catch the attention of the bartender, “that means I’ll feel perfectly at home.”

  After two more beers, and that Jameson shot I promised myself earlier, I bid Henry a fine goodnight with a kiss on the lips and an offer to sleep at my house. Naturally, she responds with “In your dreams, Jobzy. You wouldn’t know what to do with me if I gave you the opportunity, which ain’t ever gonna happen.” As a convincer, she concludes with one of her dramatic, wide-eyed, hip twisting, finger pointing, “Beeeeyotch(es)!”

  “My loss,” I say as we head out to the parking lot together. “But can’t blame a man for trying.”

  As she steps away from me toward her car, I gently pat her nice round booty, which elicits not a hashtag-me-too tongue lashing like most males might expect these days, but instead, a very non-PC giggle. What most people don’t know about Henry is that she might be a single black woman, working in a state-run agency in one of the most powerful, liberal, Democrat run sanctuary cities in the United States of America, but she is solidly Republican and even more solidly anti-PC.

  “You are one beautiful piece of work, Jobzy, you know that?” she says.

  “They broke the mold,” I say. “It’s a shame there won’t be any more of me when I’m gone.”

  My powder blue 1966 Mustang convertible is parked not far from Henry’s fire engine red Volkswagen Beetle—a vehicle that appropriately bears the vanity license plate “BEYOTCH1.” How New York State ever let her get away with that one is anybody’s guess.

  Slipping behind the wheel of the topless car, I fire the engine up and let it purr a little. It’s September already, and Fall is coming on fast. It gets cool in the evening now. Too cool to have the top down, I guess, but I’m one of those dudes who just can’t let go of the summer. You get to be my age, and you begin to realize you don’t have that many summers left. When you’re young, you have a lifetime of summers to look forward to. You have an infinite amount of time to live and the fact that you might die one day is a surreal concept you just can’t wrap your brain around. Then, ten years pass by, and another ten, and another, and you wonder where the time went. How did one old woman who wrote her own obituary put it? I was born, I blinked, and it was over.

  I toss in an old cassette tape of the Beach Boys Pet Sounds. Brian Wilson belts out “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake up . . .” and just like that it’s not only summer again, but the summer of 1979 or 1980. Teenage summer.

  I pull out of the parking space and turn onto the road that will take me through the wealthy hamlet of Loudonville and past Loudonville Elementary School where Gladys Carter worked as the greatest lunchroom lady ever until just a few days ago. The school is empty now, but come tomorrow, I’ll be dodging dozens of snotty nosed kids as I make my way to the principal’s office. I’ll probably catch a cold.

  For now, I speed through the hamlet and catch Broadway at the bottom of the hill beyond the Albany Rural Cemetery. Driving south into the city, I head for the Port of Albany where my houseboat is docked. The lot is empty, except for the old Jeep Wrangler my detective pal, Dick Moonlight, owns. He parks it outside the metal sliding door to his warehouse loft which he converted into an apartment a long time ago. For a brief second, I think about stopping in unannounced and maybe popping a couple of beers with him. But knowing the dark mood he’s been in lately, since the love of his life, Lola, has been recovering from severe head trauma, we’d probably end up drinking the heart right out of the night and early morning. If I’m expected to perform tomorrow as a deputized member of the Albany Police Department, I’ve got to keep t
he hangover in check.

  Parking the Mustang, I take a good look at a sun that’s rapidly descending behind me to the west. The sky is so clear and the sun so bright red, it reflects off the calm, still surface of the river. Pulling the keys from the ignition, I get out, and shut the door.

  “Red sky at night,” I whisper to myself. “Jobzy’s delight.”

  The point being, I don’t have to put the top up on the Mustang tonight which, in my world, is always a bonus, especially if I’ve had a few pops. Heading onto the houseboat, I unlock the door and head to the galley kitchen, toss my keys and phone onto the counter. Grabbing a beer from the fridge, I pop the top and return with it to the butcher block where I left my laptop and boot it up. I type Gladys Carter into the search engine and wait for whatever might appear in the search results. A bunch of results come up including several White Page hits for the name. By the looks of it, there’s more than just one Gladys Carter hanging around. In fact, a couple of them are dead. I don’t bother with those hits. Instead, I click on the first, most popular, result.

  It’s a report from the local Fox Cable News affiliate by a reporter named Anya Tucker. A hot reporter, I must say, and one I recognize from her many years of Albany media darling service. The lead on the story reads, “Lunch Lady accused of stealing nearly $500K from local elementary school.”

  Scanning some of the article, I read, “Gladys Carter, 77, of Albany, New York, who oversaw the cafeteria at Loudonville Elementary School, has been accused by the school’s principal of stealing close to half a million dollars in cafeteria revenues over a period of nearly five years.”

  “Okay,” I whisper to myself, “I’m already aware of all that.”

  I drink some beer and decide that, instead of reading the report, I’ll allow the gorgeous Anya Tucker to read it to me. Sometimes in life, you just have to make an executive decision. I click on the video portion of the story, and Anya appears inside what looks to be the Loudonville Elementary lunchroom-slash-cafeteria. The stainless-steel food bins are empty, and no one is presently occupying the cash register. No kids are running around either, so I can only assume this was filmed when lunch was over.

  Anya is a tall blonde, her hair cut at mid-neck length. She’s got blue eyes and a face that looks like it was captured from a Renaissance painting. Her teeth are also perfect, and the lips that cover them, succulent. With a mic held to her mouth, the story she begins to tell is precisely the one written down on the news website. I pretty much just pay attention to the way her amazing chest fills out her baby blue blouse until she starts in on something I don’t already know.

  “While no warrants have yet been issued for Carter’s arrest, rumors abound that she will soon be charged with first-degree larceny by defrauding the community, an offense that could land the lunch lady behind bars for the rest of her natural life.

  “School principal, Anita Simon, also of Albany, who is leading the charge in the allegations against Carter is pushing hard for an arrest. Principal Simon has consulted with the school board who have been briefed in detail regarding the stolen cash. Simon, who is said to possess a detailed accounting of the missing cash, insists Mrs. Carter has been stealing from the cash register for over five years. Simon also says she has CCTV video to back up her allegations.

  “Albany DA, Daniel Soros, has stated publicly that if Carter is convicted, he intends to aggressively prosecute this case to the letter of the law. Just this morning, he told Fox Thirteen News, and I quote, ‘Gladys Carter didn’t just steal from Loudonville Elementary School or the Albany school district, she stole from the children, some of whom, barely have enough money to afford their lunches.’

  “According to Principal Simon, Carter never counted the money in her cash register at the end of the day. She, instead, bagged the money and then counted it in a basement office with the door closed. Closed circuit television footage of Mrs. Carter allegedly backs up Simon’s statement. Footage is said to also show her taking large bills from the cash register.

  “For now, Gladys Carter has been placed on Administrative Leave which, in essence, means she’s been laid off without pay. Sources confirm that she has filed for Unemployment Insurance.

  “This is Anya Tucker for Fox News Center Thirteen.”

  The video goes still. I might close the laptop, but I take a moment or two to stare at Anya and her tight-fitting blouse. I hear she’s married. The good ones always are.

  I was married once. It didn’t work out. She accused me of wanting to live like a college kid. I married her right out of college when I was still operating my fly-fishing guide business. Ironically, she didn’t divorce me until I found respectable work as a cop. Maybe the real reason she left me had to do with the teenager I had no choice in shooting when he was about to blow away a convenience store clerk. I was forced out of the department and mocked in the press as being racially insensitive. The fact that the kid was about to commit Murder One never entered the equation. I was let go from the force. I was also lucky to avoid prison time, or so they told me.

  Since then, I’ve been in and out of relationships. Mostly out. But I have my job, thanks to Henry who took pity on me since no one would hire me. Now, I’ve sort of become a cop again, thanks to Detective Nick Miller. I can honestly say, I’m still trying to do the right thing. Still trying to serve and protect in my own unique way. Still trying to keep my head above water and look on the bright side, if you’ll pardon my mixing clichés. But I’m still lonely. Still alone. Still getting older. Maybe that’s the way it will always be.

  Stealing a sip of beer, I type Loudonville Elementary School into the search engine. I click on faculty. The person who resides at the top of the list is Principal Anita Simon. She’s smiling in the small headshot positioned beneath her name. She’s attractive with thick red hair. Her eyes are big and green. I peg her for maybe forty.

  Below her headshot is her email address. I copy the address and paste it in the required space for outgoing Gmail. Typing “Meeting Re: Gladys Carter” in the subject heading, I then type a formal request to meet with her first thing in the morning. When I tell her that I’m investigating the alleged crime for the APD, I know she’ll have no choice but to agree to it. I also sense that she will write me back right away, even though it’s getting late. Anyone under fifty is always checking their emails and texts. It’s human nature. I send the email.

  Grabbing my beer, I carry it out through the open sliding glass doors onto the narrow gangway attached to the houseboat’s port side. I gaze out onto the river. A bass jumps, catches a mosquito, and drops back into the still water. For a quick second, I consider grabbing one of the fly rods hanging by hooks from the boat’s ceiling. But I’d rather just think for a minute.

  Motives come to mind. What would motivate a nice old lady to steal that much money from a school cafeteria’s cash register? Was she in serious debt? Did she owe on her credit cards? Did she owe the IRS? Did she owe a loan shark? Nice old ladies don’t go to loan sharks. Or that could just be my opinion. Or what the hell, maybe she just got greedy. Maybe she saw the cash just sitting out there in plain sight and thought to herself, what the hell?

  So, what does she do? She steals a single five-dollar bill. She feels a little guilty about it, because she’s not dumb and insensitive. She knows that by stealing from the school what she’s truly doing is stealing from the very kids who supposedly adore her. But eventually, the guilt wears off. Another day dawns, and this time she spots a crisp ten-dollar bill sitting inside its designated cash register tray. She picks it up and slips it into her blouse, storing it in her Playtex brazier. She begins to experience something she hasn’t experienced in years. Excitement. The kind of excitement that only comes when you’re young and immortal. The kind of excitement that comes from taking real chances, despite the risks.

  With that ten-spot pressed against her skin, she feels an endorphin rush like never before. With those cat-eye reading glasses perched on her nose, she stares down at all that
cash and suddenly wants to empty the entire drawer into her purse. But that’s when logic takes over. She knows if she’s going to pull off what will amount to the heist of the century, at least as far as the Albany School District is concerned, she has to be smart. She has to go slow, take a little bit here and a little bit there. That way, no one will know the difference. There’s always a five or ten percent discrepancy in the books at the end of the day, anyway, so why would anyone suspect? At least, that’s the logic she’ll convince herself of.

  She’s the sweet old lunchroom lady. Everyone loves her. The kids love her like she’s the grandmother who bakes chocolate chip cookies for them on Sundays. She’s got the perfect cover, just by being herself.

  When it’s full dark, I head back inside, check my email.

  “Bingo,” I say aloud as I spot the new email from Principal Simon.

  I open it and read, “I would be happy to meet with you, Detective Jobz, first thing tomorrow morning, 8 AM.”

  I reread the note several times. But it doesn’t change. Simple and direct. I like that. Closing the laptop, I drink down the rest of my beer.

  I pop another, make some dinner, and call it a night. Tomorrow, I’ll visit the principal’s office. In a way, I hope this cafeteria lunch lady extortion thing is one giant misunderstanding. But in my ex-cop’s gut, I sense that it’s not. The sweet old lady is an extortionist, a con woman. The sweet old lady is gonna do time. Lots of it. The sweet old lady is gonna die in prison.

  The next morning, I’m up, showered, and dressed by seven-thirty. The grammar school day starts early, ends early, so no choice but to get an early start. I pull up to the drive-thru window of the North Albany Dunkin Donut. I order two large black coffees with creamers and sugar packets on the side along with a dozen assorted donuts. I then make my way to Loudonville Elementary School where I park in the back lot.

  Coffee and donuts in hand, I walk around to the school’s main entrance. For security reasons, the door is locked.