A Family Matter

 

Just as I had gotten comfortable in my beige lazy boy, there was a knock at my door. Slowly, I got up and headed towards the front of my office. My left knee cracked and my head was already sore.

 “Hello, are you Mr. Appelle?” she said as she delicately put a long stemmed cigarette to her lips and blew out a billow of rose colored smoke.

“Ya, that’s me, what can I do for you?”

“My name is Rebecca Casings. A friend of mine has recently… gone missing. I need your help to find her.”

“What’s her name?”

“Kelly… Kelly Roberts.”

I was barely listening to what she said. Couldn’t focus I suppose—never can when beautiful women are involved.

“What do you need her for?” I grumbled in my baritone, hoping I sounded tough.

“Does it really matter?” she asked, as she opened a case full of one hundred dollar bills.

“I guess not.” I used to be a top notch cop, but had recently retired to be a Private Investigator. The cases weren’t as exciting, but at least they paid well.

*    *    *

I looked out of my office window. The office itself was shit, but the location… I felt like god looking down on the world from my window seat. The street was still shining from last night’s rain, it looked like black ice. Two trees framed my view of the action down below, and the swish of the cars going by was like music to my movie. Two boys on bikes across the street were yelling at each other, something about a candy bar...

It seemed as every time I came close to some clue about Mrs. Robert’s whereabouts, I was stopped. I went to the police station to get an old friend of mine to look her up. Just as he was going through the records, there was an emergency call summoning all units—gang activity had caused a commotion down-town. I stayed around after everyone had left and did a little research on my own. All I found about Mrs. Roberts was that she was a rich old orphan, with no record of any brothers or sisters. That left her with no family, and me with no where to turn.

I got a lead on an old acquaintance of Ms. Roberts. On my way to the restaurant to meet him, my car was hit. They didn’t even stop to apologize, or for that matter pay for the damage of my old, green Cadillac. I had to reschedule. When I called her old friend up, it seemed he had unexpectedly “moved”. These were just a few of the many incidents that seemed to stop me from finding Mrs. Roberts. I decided I needed to see Ms. Casings a second time.

*    *    *

I answered my office door and expected to see Ms. Casings in a tight red number surrounded by pink smoke; instead I got a black eye.

“Hey, Mr. Appelle, how’s life treating you?” a huge greasy man chuckled.

He was wearing a tux, yes a tux, the whole shebang, bow tie and all. It was two sizes too small. The cuffs of both the pants and the sleeves were two inches above where they should be.

“Who the hell are you?” I said as I stumbled back, holding my left eye.

“I work for Junior Derenzo. He sent me here to encourage you to hurry up finding Kelly Roberts.”

“What does he have to do with it? I was hired by Rebecca Casings, not some rich little mobster’s son.” Junior Derenzo was the estranged son of Sally Derenzo, a big time mobster that I put in the can a few years back. Sally and I had never really gotten along.

“You’re not much of an investigator then are you? Mr. Derenzo hired Ms. Casings. Mr. Derenzo wanted his name to stay out of it. But now that you aren’t doing you’re job, he decided he needed to step in. I’m not here to chat. Just finish your shit Mr. Appelle,” he said as he left.

I went to bed confused that night.

*   *   *

 

 

My head was pounding the next morning. I rolled over on to my right side and carefully opened my eyes to check the time. Sitting on the end of my bed, smoking a cigar, was a stout, bald man in a pin stripe suit.

“Get up,” he said.

 I tried to ignore him, rolled back over and closed my eyes. I was hoping it was all a dream, but soon found out, with a cold barrel of a gun at the base of my neck, that it wasn’t. The smoke in the room was thick. Even so, the fat, frog-like man who sat across from me continued to puff at his cigar. His name was Frank. He was the right-hand man of Sally Derenzo. I had met Frank under unpleasant circumstances a couple times, and this was the first time I had seen him since. I didn’t know what he wanted from me; if he had wanted to kill me he would have already done it.

“Do you remember me, Mr. Appelle?” he croaked.

“Yeah.” How could I not—he smelled exactly the same.

That case was the reason I had stopped being a cop. Now I made my living solving cases of “he-said-she-said” cheaters.

“Do you remember Ms. Roberts—Kelly Roberts?” he almost whispered the last part.

“Sure I do. Your boss’s son wants me to find her.”

“Well my boss doesn’t. He wants you out of it.”

How did I get myself into this mess? I was caught between the most powerful mobster in the city and his equally dangerous son.

“I’ve already been threatened by Junior.”

“I don’t give a shit and neither does Sally.” The entire city and I knew about the falling out between Sally and his son. Since then, gang activity here had doubled.

“This Ms. Roberts must be something special,” I snorted.

“Don’t worry about it, Mr. Appelle. It’s a family matter.”

A few hours after Frank and his men left my house, I was still laying in bed trying to figure out what happened. I now understood why I had run into so much trouble during my investigation of Ms. Roberts. It seemed every time I was close to finding something, someone would knock me down—literally. But what did either of these powerful men care for this rich old woman, and why had Frank said it was a family matter when I mentioned her? I got up, took a cold shower and got dressed. If I was going to figure this out, I needed a drink.

I headed down to Joe’s, a small bar that I had been going to for years. I walked in and was engulfed by the familiar smell of cigarettes, booze and stale urine. I went straight to Bud, the bar tender, and asked for a drink. Just as my rum and coke arrived, a tall thin man sat down next to me. He looked out of place and was sweating bullets.

“You look like you need a drink.”

“Are you Mr. Appelle?” he replied.

“Who wants to know?” I asked

“My name is Mr. Hopkins. I’m Mrs. Roberts’ butler.”

“Oh yeah? Do you have any idea where she is?” I asked sarcastically.

“Well no.” He sounded uncomfortable—like a liar. “But, she told me to give you this, if anything should happen to her.” He handed me an envelope with my name on it and practically sprinted out of there.

I took a sip of my drink and ripped it open.

 “Dear Mr. Appelle, find my brother. He will help.

Sincerely, Mrs. Roberts.”

I thought Mrs. Roberts was an only child. I needed to get the records of her adoption.

*   *   *

    “Excuse me, Miss, can I get Kelly Roberts’ file?”

“We have a confidentiality oath with all our clients,” she grumbled. She didn’t want to be there, and I could tell. Her wide, gaping mouth looked permanently down turned at the edges, which only emphasized the hundreds of wrinkles at her brow.

“You see, Miss, I really need that file. Ms. Roberts is my sister, my adopted sister, and now she is on her death bed and needs to see her file. She would come down herself, but she is too sick,” I lied.

She looked at me for a few seconds, and then gave up.

“Fine, but only this once,” she muttered and handed over the file.

I sat down in the white lobby of the records office and slowly opened the manila envelope. Her records only told me what I already new. Ms. Roberts was 57 with no family and very little “record” of anything. As I was about to walk out the door the nurse called me over to sign the visitor’s sheet.

“J. A. at 3:25 pm, 2/23/56.” The sheet asked for initials, time, date and phone number—but I never leave my number. As I finished, I glanced over the sheet. Two spaces above my own initials were the letters “K.R.” with time, date AND number. I wrote the number down on a receipt from my pocket and glided out the front door.

*   *   *

There were three dial tones before she picked up.

“Uh, Hello, Ms. Roberts?” I mumbled.

“Who, may I ask, is speaking?” she replied in a shrill voice. She was trying to sound confident but was failing miserably.

“My name is Mr. Appelle. I believe you sent me a letter with your butler.”

“Yes, Mr. Appelle, that was me. My brother told me to stay away from you, but I never did listen to him.”

She gave me her address and told me to come alone, as soon as possible, and to make sure I wasn’t followed. I arrived at a beautiful town house with a fire engine red door. I would have to ask her how she made all her money—I sure as hell needed some.

I was ushered into the living room by a familiar face. The butler, who I had met earlier at Joe’s, now looked calm and collected. He even refused to admit we had ever met. I sat down on the plush, forest green couch and waited for the mysterious Ms. Roberts to enter the room.

“Hello, Mr. Appelle,” she said after clearing her throat. I had dozed off.  

“Hey, Ms. Roberts, you are one tricky woman to find,” I said trying to recapture my lost dignity. “I’ve got some questions for you.”

“Yes, I imagine you do, but before we start I must ask that you be… searched by Pierre.”

I agreed to let the butler rub me down, but didn’t understand why this old woman had so much to worry about. Pierre took my gun and my lighter, and turned out to be a lot stronger then he looked.

“Now that your butler is done feeling me up, I’d like to get to those questions.”

“Yes, fine, go ahead,” Ms. Roberts said more calmly then I expected.

“I looked up your adoption records, and they said you were an only child, but twice now you’ve mentioned your brother.”

“My brother and I were orphaned at a young age, I was seven and he was thirteen. Our parents died in a fire. My brother didn’t think we needed new parents; in fact he was very against it. He vowed to always take care of me. He told me some day I’d be rich. At fifteen he got his first job, down at the fish markets, or so I thought. I actually didn’t know exactly what he was doing until we were both in our twenties. My brother is Sally Derenzo, he started his “business” at age fifteen, and since then has kept his promise to me.”

“Shit! You’re the sister of the biggest mobster in town… no wonder you’re so hard to find. You’re like blackmail waiting to happen.”

 “Yes, thank you, Mr. Appelle. Now may I continue?

“Oh sure thing, go ahead.”

“I have everything I need and more. Sally has always babied me. The only reason I found out about what he did at all was for my own safety. As you suggested, Sally didn’t want his “job” to put me in danger. So when I turned twenty he told me everything. Sally erased our relationship from every public record and created a secret bank account for me. He’s put quite a bit of money in it over the years, but no ones cared enough to look in to it until recently. When Sally had Junior I got to see him up until age three. After that, Sally couldn’t risk him remembering me. Junior was the cutest little boy I have ever seen. However, after Sally and Juniors falling out, Junior has been after Sally’s money. Looking into every account, every bank. And of course, he found a whole lot of money going to a women he didn’t even know.”

“And that leads us up to today. Sally wants to protect you, and Junior wants to know why some woman is getting his inheritance.”     

“Exactly,” she replied seeming, all of the sudden, exhausted.

“So what do you want to do about it?” I asked, knowing it wasn’t exactly my place.

“Well that’s why I brought you here, Mr. Appelle. I need your help.”

*    *   *

I can’t believe I agreed to this. Ms. Roberts just seemed so helpless. She sure as hell didn’t seem so helpless after she miraculously pulled this plan out of her ass. She wants me to help her change her identity. Her brother can’t because he has to stay away from the law (and because he is too proud to ask for help), and she can’t go to the police department because she would have to tell them about who her brother was and incriminate him. That’s where I come in, me and my big mouth. I agreed to go to the police station and secretly do the identity switch myself. Sally will create a distraction and I’ll just inch on into her file and change her name and get rid of her paper trail. There will no longer be a Ms. Kelly Roberts—instead, a Ms. Donna Pearl (she chose the name). Sally will change her account to an offshore account that will be near impossible to trace and Ms. Kelly Roberts will die and her money lost. Junior won’t know what hit him. All this will be orchestrated by yours truly. You better believe the payoff is huge, if I can pull this off.