Squatter with a Lexus
By Tom Lichtenberg
Copyright 2010 by Tom Lichtenberg
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be resold or given away to other people. Thanks and enjoy!
Katie Parsons
When Katie Parsons received a letter notifying her that she had thirty days to present the key to the strongbox or its contents would revert to the state, she realized that either this was a mistake or else her ship had finally come in.
It was a mistake.
When she inspected the envelope she discovered that the letter was addressed to a Mr. Pearson Holmes. She had never heard of any Holmes outside of Sherlock.
"Oh well,” she sighed. "Easy come, easy go,” and tossed the letter into the kitchen garbage pail. It sat there all day Wednesday, all day Thursday, and most of Friday, until her husband, Keith, finally took out the trash. Then the letter sat in the yard beside the garage for the rest of Friday, and well into Saturday morning.
It was retrieved by Freddy the Freegan on Saturday, June 23rd, at 11:47 A.M. That is when our story begins.
Lieutenant Mike
Going through people's junk mail wasn't his usual thing, but Freddy sometimes made exceptions. A man has got to pay some bills, after all, no matter how far off the grid he'd like to get. There's some wiggle room in the freegan ethics, and sharing information doesn't pose any major contradictions. He looks, he finds, and if he can make a little something on the side for sharing, it's all good.
"Those Parsons keep it clean,” he tells Lieutenant Mike.
"They've got their reasons,” Mike replies. He's got some sort of feeling about Keith Parsons. The information sharing goes one way, as far as he's concerned.
"I mean no scraps, no junk, no reusable anything,” Freddy relates. "They've got some mighty consciousness going on in there,”
Mike speaks Freddy's language by now. There's been a history of sharing. Not usually a patient man, he lets Freddy ramble on. His coffee's getting cold as they sit there in the Main Street Diner. Freddy would like another slice of pie but Mike is holding out.
"So they got a disposal,” Mike says. "Come on. Tell me what you saw,”
"Nothing,” Freddy says. "They do recycling too. Someone drinks a lot of Gatorade and Red Bull. Or maybe one of them drinks the Gatorade and the other one the Red Bull. I could dust for prints and find out,” Freddy chuckles. He thinks he's being funny. Mike doesn't even smile. He's staring at the cream congealing in his cup.
"What else,”
"They get some junk mail,” Freddy says, "I'm surprised they don't recycle it. Catalogs especially. What a waste. She likes furniture and gardening, I'd say. I'd guess they own the house because of all the mortgage re-fi junk they get. Someone's getting old - they get a lot of cruise brochures and retirement shopping specials. And some other banking stuff,”
"Banking?” Mike looks up.
"Yeah, a couple of things,”
"What bank?" Mike asks.
"Fourth Fidelity was one. Hedgerow Funds the other. First was bogus, though. It wasn't addressed to them," said Freddy, handing over the mail.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, somebody Pearson. No, no. Pearson Holmes. Mailman probably mixed it up. Parsons, Pearson, easy. "
"What about the Funds?"
"Brochure. Pamphlet. Nothing personal,”
"Damn,” Mike is disappointed. "Nothing else?"
"Nope,” says Freddy, wishing he had more to say. "The rest was basic trash. Paper towels, wrappers, peach pits - love that summer fruit, you know."
"All right,” Mike gets up, peels out a twenty and throws it on the table. He's a very large man, barely squeezes out of the booth. Freddy swipes the bill and sticks it in his pocket, nodding.
"Any time,” Freddy says.
"I'll let you know,” the cop replies, and walks away. Freddy waits until he's gone, then slides the cooling coffee over. “Waste not, want not,” he tells himself, as he calmly drains the remains. Thirty days, he thinks, only now it's more like twenty-five. Who the fuck is Pearson Holmes and where'd he put that key?
Benjamin Holmes
A procession of text lines falling across the screen had no indication of a Pearson Holmes. There were plenty of combinations of the name, notably a captain of industry in Britain and a semi-famous poet who once knew a somewhat more famous poet. This led him on to a search of moguls in general, and a sidetrack about romanticism, but he knew he had to hurry. In this house the younger male roommate tended to come home unexpectedly on Saturdays.
Freddy lowered the laptop lid and slid out the second floor bedroom window of the pleasant beige suburban mini-manse, and just in time. The silver Range Rover made its appearance at the end of the block, and no sooner had he slipped through the hedge than it presented itself on the yellow brick driveway. Young Rob was cheating on boyfriend Peter again. Two mid-twenties men in tennis outfits chuckled and murmured their way into the front door.
Freddy was annoyed, but on this side of town he had no other easy online access. Guess I'll try the phone book, he decided, and meandered down to the local post office. There were seven Holmes's in the book. Stepping outside with the silently sliced page, Freddy punched some numbers into the last remaining pay phone. Somewhat surprised that the numbers still worked, he started down the list.
He presented himself as a bank representative, inquiring on the whereabouts of the mystery Holmes. One after another, the answering Holmes had nothing to give him, nothing until the last.
"Pearson Holmes?"
"Yes, thank you. We'd be glad of any information,” Freddy said.
"Why?"
"Official bank business,” Freddy intoned. "Confidential, you understand."
"And you're calling me out of the blue asking if I've ever heard of him? Some procedure you got there."
"We'd be much obliged,” Freddy continued.
"Sorry,” the man at the other end replied, and hung up the phone.
Aha, Freddy thought. That was a definite nibble. Benjamin Holmes. 422 Maple. Next stop, strongbox.
Marcus Holmes
As soon as he hung up the phone, Ben picked it up again and called his brother Marcus. After waiting through the obligatory thirteen rings he was greeted, as expected, with a mumbled "Yo.”
"Marcus,” he said, "Somebody just called about dad."
"What are you talking about? Who called?"
"Said he was from a bank, but didn't sound like a bank. Sounded like snooping."
After a long silence, Ben heard Marcus sigh, and then say,
"I don't know what the fuck you are talking about,” and he hung up the phone.
Ben called back right away but this time had to wait through twenty six rings before hearing the familiar "Yo.”
"Maybe it's got something to do with money!" Ben exclaimed.
"You think? Bank calls and you think it might have something to do with money?"
"Maybe he left us some money,” Ben continued, ignoring his brother's sarcasm.
"Dad never had any money,” Marcus replied.
"Maybe he did,” Ben said. "Maybe it was a secret,”
"No,” said Marcus.
"But,” Ben began.
"Did you call the bank back?" Marcus asked.
"No,” Ben admitted.
"Well, little brother, maybe you should,” and with that, Marcus hung up again, and Ben knew it would be useless to try and call again. Marcus would never answer the phone more than twice in one day. He had his rules, and stuck to them no matter what.
"Fuck,” said Ben. He paced around his tiny apartment for a minute. Gloria would be home soon. She'd know what to do.
Gloria Holmes
All day Sunday Gloria brooded. She had tried to get through to someone at the bank, but the answering service referred her to the fact of office hours. It seemed ridiculous to Gloria. These days they are glad to take your money any hour of the day or night and any old day of the week, but help you? No. Nothing.
She had already made up her mind to camp out first thing Monday morning and be there at the main branch of the Fourth Fidelity downtown on Piney Street before the doors even opened, and it fell to poor old Mr. Moot to have to deal with all her pent up curiosity.
"I'm his daughter-in-law,” she explained, "My husband is his youngest son. You sent us a letter."
"Yes, so you said. Do you happen to have a copy of this letter?" Moot inquired.
"Do I look like I have a copy?" Gloria replied, "of course I do not. I assumed that since you sent us a letter you would know what it was about."
"It would help to see," Moot tried to imply, but Gloria was all over his desk again, jumping up from her chair and pacing around, wagging the occasional finger at the row of tellers lined up beside her.
"Does anyone know? Who do I have to ask? Who's in charge of sending letters to people around here anyway?"
"I checked the computer,” Moot spoke up.
"Well, check again,” she demanded, and she came up behind him and for a moment considered shoving him out of his wobbly chair and taking over the machine. At this point the Bank Director, Harley Swink, made his appearance on the scene.
"Please take a seat,” he imperiously directed. Swink was clearly accustomed to obedience. At his gesture even Gloria complied.
"Now then,” he proceeded, once she'd calmed a bit. "What is all this about, Mr. Moot?"
"The lady,” Moot nearly whispered, "is inquiring after a letter she claims to have received from our office, regarding a Mr. Pearson Holmes.”
"Pearson Holmes?" Swink said, "Are you quite sure? Pearson Holmes?"
"He's my father-in-law,” Gloria said.
"Quite,” replied Swink. He appeared to be deep in thought, standing there with his arms crossed and his thick white hair just so.
"Quite a feat,” he continued after a bit, "to be the daughter-in-law of someone who was dead before she was even born,”
"Then you know him,” Gloria replied, ignoring the condescension. "Of course my husband was only a child when his father died. He barely remembers him at all. Nevertheless."
"Quite,” Mr. Swink insisted, "And so you have the key?"
"The key?"
"You did receive our letter, did you not?"
"Of course,” Gloria lied.
"The key, then, to the strong box. You have precisely twenty-three days to produce the key, or else the box, and all of its contents, will be forfeit. According to the contract, naturally."
"What's so important about the key?" Gloria wanted to know. "You could just open it, couldn't you?"
"The contract,” Mr Swink sighed, apparently weary of repeating himself. "It's all in order. Quite. Wait here,” and so saying, Swink vanished behind the tellers into some secret chamber well concealed. Gloria felt conflicted. Happy to have found out more about it, but puzzled about the contract. She knew so little about her husband's dad. Only her brother-in-law Marcus seemed to know anything about the man, and getting anything out of Marcus was, well, a fucking pain in the ass! “Marcus,” she thought. “Goddamn freak.”
Swink returned with a copy of the contract. It was several pages long and made no sense to her at all. There was no indication of the contents of the box. No mention of Ben, no mention of Marcus. No mention of their mother either, no details of anything, really, mostly legal clauses. The party of the first and the party of the second. The interests of the state. The key must be produced. That much was clear. The expiration date as well. July 19, this year.
"You may keep it,” Swink declared, and with that he sort of waved and turned away.
"Bring us the key if you can,” he casually mentioned as he disappeared for good.
Outside on the pavement, clutching the paper, Gloria stood for a while and just one thought pervaded her mind.
The key.
Gary Grasz
By the time that Gloria Holmes had parked herself in front of the Fourth Fidelity on Monday morning, waiting for the bank to open, Lieutenant Mike had long since seen what she was about to see and learned more than she was about to to learn. He had rousted Swink out of his golf game Sunday, police business, you understand. Swink understood business, police and otherwise, and ever since the Holmes case had come to his attention, he had become more than slightly interested.
"The salient feature of the contract,” he dictated to his secretary, Lila, "is that it doesn't matter who brings in the key, as long as someone does."
He had said the same thing to Mike, as they stood there in the secondary vault, gazing at the box. It was, as the name suggested, a big hulking object on the floor in the corner of the room, around two feet on every side, and as black as death.
Monday morning Mike was reading through the contract yet again, after he squeezed himself into the very front booth at May's Cafe. It was all a bunch of nonsense to him. He had understood nothing each time, which was why he'd invited his lawyer buddy, Gary Grasz, to breakfast.
Grasz was running late, as usual. All of his clients were either out on bail or trying to get out on bail, which meant he was tied up in the courts or at the bondsman's almost all day every day. When Grasz puffed in all scattered, Mike waved him over, and before he even got settled, Mike had pushed the pile of papers across the table at him.
"Greek to me,” Mike muttered as Grasz started piecing together the pile to make sure all the pages were in order. The waitress knew what he wanted and had a glass of orange juice in front of him before he even noticed her.
"Criminal case?" Grasz queried, already knowing the Lieutenant wouldn't tell him. He didn't bother listening to the silence that followed his question.
"A lot of stipulations,” he said, rifling through the contract. "Party of the first, party of the second."
He pushed the papers around with one hand on the table while his other hand groped and finally reached the OJ. After taking a big gulp, still focused on the pages.
"Nothing about the contents of the box,” he said. "Angie? Can I get a bagel? Onion. Toasted? Yeah, lots. Thanks."
"Sure I want to know what's in it,” Mike was saying, "but more than that I want to know why. Think it's authentic?"
"No doubt,” said Grasz. "No one but a lawyer could put together shit like this. As for why, I cannot tell you."
"Got a guess?"
"Maybe,” Grasz paused to take another swig. "Might be this Holmes guy wanted to leave something special for someone, but he maybe didn't trust them. No, maybe he didn't even know who. He wanted to leave it for someone, but didn't know who."
"I don't get you,” Mike was eating nothing. The case was making him hungry for something other than food.
"Whoever he gave the key to,” Grasz said. "Or whoever would know where he put it, that would be the person who deserved it. Just a guess. Lot of factors. How old he was at the time, was he married, things like that."
"Huh,” Mike grunted. He was not going to tell Grasz anything. Now that Grasz knew about the key and the guy's name too, he already knew too much. “How many people know about this?” Mike wondered, as Grasz flew off to his next emergent crisis. Keith and Katie Parsons. Freddy. The bank manager. Himself and now Grasz. The one thing none of them seemed to know was, who the hell was Pearson Holmes?
Peewee
422 Maple was in a crappy part of town. Freddy usually avoided neighborhoods like this. The houses were too close together and open, visible to each other. He preferred the fancier parts, where hedges and high wood fences made it much easier to slip in and out unseen.
Here, also, the people had really gross garbage - old pizza, spit sodas, and everything reeking of beer and piss. And their dogs were either mean or noisy or both. Lucky for him, the Holmes's were an exception. They had a sweet little terrier named Peewee who just wagged his tiny tail and licked Freddy's hands all over, nice and quiet.
Once inside, Freddy relaxed. He'd seen the man and wife head out pretty early in the morning, so he figured they'd gone off to work. The house was left a mess. Freddy felt a bit grubby just standing there looking around. The wife was kind of gaudy - favored bright yellows and reds. Some kind of Hawaiian chick, he thought, from her photos and her wardrobe. Not to mention the travel posters lining the walls like some perpetual reproach - see what I left behind for you?
The husband seemed to live for his jazz recordings. “Never understood that shit,” Freddy thought. Between the two of them they had quite a collection of ashtrays. You had to admire the rat pack mentality. There was stuff piled all over the living room floor, the closets were overflowing with stuff, they had stuff in the small laundry room out back and the kitchen was littered with dishes and trash.
Problem was, none of the stuff was useful. “It's all just waste,” Freddy thought, “Resources down the drain.” Usually Freddy would liberate something, recycle and redeploy, try to extend the life of the product, but these people had nothing but bottles and cans - and it looked like they didn't even recycle.
"Just info, I guess,” he decided. The fridge in the kitchen was the first place to look. Freddy copied down numbers and names from the various scraps taped and stuck on with magnets (Hawaii!!). Some relatives, he judged, maybe friends. There were photos of Gloria and Ben on a trip (Hawaii!!), and a picture of somebody's child. They didn't seem to have one of their own.
He looked through some drawers, found some bills. Everything was on credit and installments. TV, furniture, everything. These people were deeply in debt. Encouraged, no doubt, by the hyperconsumptive mentality. Rat race. Working to buy shit they don't even need. Ugly shit too, like that couch. Feeding themselves crap like those Fritos and Cokes. They are going to make themselves sick and for what? They can't even pay for this stuff so they have to work harder and more.
Freddy filled up his list with the names of the banks and the stores and the credit card companies. He wanted to get out of that place. Feeling guilty at leaving recyclables behind, and yet not wanting to leave any traces, he snuck out the back, gave a pat to the dog, and slipped off into the morning just as Gloria walked up the front steps.
Marla Rainbow Sky
Gloria opened the door and was surprised that Peewee was not waiting for her as usual.
"Peewee!” she called out. "Where's my little munchkin?” The dog came clattering from the kitchen, slipping and sliding on the bare linoleum floor until she scooped him up and smothered him with kisses.
"There's my little darling. There's my sweetie peewee.” She carried him back to the kitchen while muttering "what a fucking shit hole. Who's gonna clean this place up?” She headed straight for the cupboard and grabbed a Snickers bar, tearing off the wrapper with her teeth and letting it fall on the floor. With her foot she opened the refrigerator door and leaned in to grab a Coke. With one hand still holding the dog, she had to put the candy bar in her teeth to grab the soda with her other hand. All things accomplished, she marched back to the living room and plopped onto the recliner, letting Peewee settle into her lap. She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.
"Can't believe he turned the fucking volume down AGAIN!” she shouted, as she pressed the button with her thumb repeatedly to get the maximum sound. Some advice doctor was telling some whore to stop fucking her husband's best friends all the time and she was like, "but I need to fuck. I just need to fuck all the time.”
Gloria wasn't listening. That thing about the husband reminded her of her husband's brother, who she hated almost as much as he hated her. “I will never get a damned thing out of Marcus,” she thought, “and Marcus is the only one who would even know.” Gloria reviewed the facts she had. Fact one, Ben and Marcus’ dad died more than thirty years ago. Fact two, Ben was only two at the time. Marcus was seven so he actually remembered the man just a bit. Fact three, their mother took off when Marcus was nine and Ben was four. Fact four, nobody knows whatever happened to that bitch - Marla Rainbow Sky or whatever the fuck her name was. Fact five, as far as Gloria knew, nobody had any papers or pictures or records or anything at all about the late Pearson Holmes. He was some kind of hippie, she recalled. Lived off the grid, as they say.
"Fuck!" she blurted out and Peewee gave her a really sad big-eyed look. "Oh no, my precious,” Gloria patted him, "not you. You're my baby. My darling. My pumpkin.” To herself she added, “What the hell am I going to do? I have got to find that key.”
SmudgePot
Marcus Holmes lived surrounded by machines. He had at least twelve computer monitors lined up neatly on rolling racks arranged in a semicircle around an old oak desk that featured a Betty Boop ashtray, a keyboard, a mouse, and a whole lot of switchboxes and cables. The bottom shelves of the racks were filled with handmade tower computers all running different flavors of Unix. A couple of UPC's hummed noisily along with the PC fans and CRT displays, but otherwise the only sounds in the apartment were the clickings of mice and the keyboard. The one-room studio was dark except for the monitors.
Marcus spent his days in front of that desk, studying the screens. He maintained a number of systems for outside sources and only left his hovel for occasional shopping expeditions. Usually he took delivery and a boy from down the hall came Sundays to cart away garbage and do a little straightening in exchange for pirated video games.
On a typical Monday Marcus took in lots of email assignments and requests and dispatched with necessary duties quickly. Cron jobs took care of most of the work. For everything else he had a script and if he didn't have one, he made one, and if it was for something that would need to be done more than once, he would stick it in a cron job. He had once met the guy who invented the cron but he couldn't remember his name. That was in the old days, anyway, when Marcus still had some interest in people.
Now he had interest in data. People in the aggregate were more his style. Individuals were always disappointing. Sooner or later you always found out they were boring, and Marcus hated being bored.
Hating was his other hobby. Data, then hating, then waiting to die. He was already on the list. He had kidneys that weren't any good. Already it hurt him to sit all day, and he was researching various recliners. It pissed him off that he had to use a browser for this work. He preferred to use Lynx but now everyone had those stupid "shopping carts" and other so-called user-friendly interfaces and it drove him crazy.
People are like dogs, he thought, except instead of having to sniff at everything they have to look at everything, as if they wouldn't know what it was if they couldn't see it. More looking meant less language and less language meant less thinking and that's why people today are so stupid.
Marcus lit another cigarette and muttered about users. The idiot CEO from SmudgePot or whatever that stupid startup was had forgotten his password again and needed his login ASAHP. Marcus toyed with the notion of giving him the password "password" but decided instead to give him 'a:sjdUY22n'.
The telephone rang. He let it ring thirteen times, then answered.
"Yo.”
"Marcus Holmes?" A deep heavy voice inquired.
"Could be,” he replied, "who wants to know?"
"Police business,” said Lieutenant Mike.
Gramm
Lieutenant Mike was not happy. As a rule he followed his ample gut, played his hunches and refused to believe in coincidences. There was something he didn't like about this case. He was sure that Katie Parsons was kiting checks and yet he couldn't get anything on her. Also, she was way too young for that husband she had, and way too good looking too. That was the first thing that got her under his microscope.
Mike Gramm was a legend for his hunches. He could sit out at a Cinnabun in any mall anywhere and point out every single person with a criminal record passing by. "Larceny,” he'd grumble with his mouth full of stickiness. "Prostitution. Narcotics. DUI,” His new partner would think he was full of it, but he'd learn over time not to doubt. Lieutenant Mike was almost never wrong.
He'd spotted Katie Parsons at the mall one day, checking out Renaissance DesignWare. No way she can afford that stuff, he said to himself, and he wasn't judging by her outfit but only by the way she walked. "Gutter trash," he said. She was just his type. Then when he saw the old man, he knew. She was taking him for his money. Satisfied, he turned away, but then the rookie said, "hey look, she's paying," and he had to turn around and notice she was writing a check, while the old man stood by watching.
It didn't seem right. It didn't fit in. Later he'd gotten her name off the check by asking the cashier for it. Got the address, got the phone. Got the California driver's license number too, and when he ran her through the system he got jack. She seemed legit. He didn't buy it.
Now it led him to this Marcus Holmes guy. Strong box. Dead guy. Missing key. He was curious about the box, but more than that, he wanted something on Katie Parsons and the case just wasn't going that way.
Holmes had nothing. Didn't know his dad. Didn't know anything about the box, not even the name of the bank. Had a brother, though. Tuesday morning Mike got a call from Swink, who told him all about Gloria. Gramm added three more names to his list of people who knew about the box. He was sure - his gut was certain - that one or more of the people on that list were going to end up in a room alone with him someday.
Llewellyn
Freddy's home was a dirt brown bungalow set back behind a mass of broken concrete and weeds. On one side was a junkyard. On the other side, the ground was being prepared for a series of new condos. In the front of the house, a forest green Lexus LS 311 sat clean and largely unused.
Inside, Freddy's co-rewilder, Llewellyn, was concocting a meal composed of rescued scraps and foraged vegetation. These items, combined with water from the construction site's hoses, were combined in a long-handled pot of her own invention, and dangled over the fireplace's blaze of furniture and driftwood.
Llewellyn was dressed in revitalized fabrics, and sported a lion's mane of wild blond hair piled up and around her square-ish face. As Freddy entered the house, she turned and pushed up his glasses to give him her customary kiss on the brows. Llewellyn was a mass of trade secrets.
"Smells good,” Freddy said as he plunked himself down on the salvaged love seat.
"Hecka foraging today,” she replied. "Wait ‘til you see the reads.”
Llewellyn's favorite passion was books. She'd read anything, as long as it was found and not bought. She had not bought a thing all year, not a single item of any kind. Freddy sometimes made up the difference when there was something she wanted but just could not find, but he usually kept it quiet from her. As far as she knew, neither of them had any use for money at all.
They didn't pay rent. They were squatters. They didn't pay bills. They used water that was otherwise paid for next door. They didn't bother with lights, when candles or oils and wicks would suffice. They had no need for electricity at all. They needed no phone, no computer. They walked or they ran or they fixed up a bike and used that. The car out in front was for show. Who would think of a squatter with a Lexus? So nobody came by to check.
"Got something going on,” Freddy said.
"Oh yeah? Is it cool?" she wanted to know. Freddy knew not to tell her too much. If she knew what it was, that a bank was involved, and possibly cash, or anything with capitalist connections, she might get upset. It was better to shield her from details like that.
"Yeah, it's a mystery,” he told her, "some guy whose been gone a long time. People are trying to find out who he was,”
"Was he someone important?" she asked.
"No,” Freddy said, "that's the thing. It seems he was totally out of the system, but a long time ago, like a hippie. They can't find anything on him.”
"Awesome,” she said, "it's so cool we have roots in the past.”
"Yeah,” Freddy agreed, but he was thinking what a pain in the ass it was that this guy had been so good at it. He was wondering how he was ever going to find that key.
Mary Ellen Leipzig
As Attorney Grasz' private legal secretary, Mary Ellen Leipzig was used to working on constant interruption mode, so it didn't faze her one bit when she was asked to assemble every single piece of information known to the system regarding one Mister Pearson Holmes.
She went about this business with her usual efficiency, notwithstanding the nauseating effects of her latest round of chemotherapy. Cancer didn't stop for work, so she wasn't going to let work even pause for cancer. She was going to beat that thing one memo at a time.
Mary Ellen would not rest all day Monday and all day Tuesday until by Tuesday midnight she had a fairly thin dossier to present to her boss. Inside that dossier was the known legal record of Holmes, his parents, his spouses and his children.
Shandar Devi Holmes and Luisa Castle Holmes had produced the Pearson offspring one cold morning in the month of March. Almost precisely 30 years later, long after the parents' untimely demises, Pearson too was recorded deceased in a multi-car pileup on the 238 near East 14th and the Mission. At that time he had two boys, aged seven and two, and a wife, Marla Rainbow Sky. It was recorded that Pearson was the driver and proximate cause of the entire accident, which claimed three other lives as well: Martin Beasley, aged 49, Barbara Beasley, 47, and Rikki Octavius Beasley, 11.
The parents had passed when Pearson was only nine years old. The rest of his childhood was well documented by the various State and County homes where he was placed. After the age of 16, and until the death certificate, only one more legal record survived: a telephone installation charge at a bungalow in Berkeley. Otherwise, Pearson Holmes did not exist, according to the government. He never filed any taxes, never had his name affixed to any lease, never bought a car, never bought a home, never had a credit card, never had a bank account. He never had a payroll job, and he never had a social security number.
Mary Ellen felt obliged to list all of the records she did not find, but had expected to. The more she researched, the more intrigued she became. She was itching to ask Mr. Grasz about the case but knew that it was not her place. She continued to search all public records from her computer at home, but only found one more item - a contract for a strong box placed in the Fourth Fidelity Bank vault on a July 19 nearly thirty years past. As Mary Ellen read the terms of the deal, her eyes widened and she knew she'd stumbled on the essence of the matter. As a legal secretary Mary Ellen, more perhaps than anybody else, understood the hidden logic behind the seemingly twisted terms.
And she thought she was beginning to understand what Pearson Holmes was up to.
Cuero de Canela
Ben knew he had to take a roundabout approach if he was ever going to get anything out of Marcus. The brothers had not spoken face to face in years. On the telephone, he could only get one chance to ask one question, and he almost always blew it. He didn't understand his brother at all but at least he'd come to learn the rules, and he realized he didn't have time for the standard approach.
For two days he thought and thought and came up with nothing. He considered anagrams. He contemplated riddles. He reviewed the concept of codes and secret messages. Each of these notions had some merit, but they required someone more skilled than he to pull them off. Marcus would see through anything he came up with, and probably within minutes. He would have to think of with something else.
Wednesday morning he had a dream, and the dream supplied him with the weapon he required. In the dream he was surrounded by people very much larger than himself. He was in a tight spot, possibly an elevator, and slowly being crushed by these obesities. They were all turning slowly around, as if being roasted on a spit, and their pink flesh threatened to absorb his own brown skin, to squash it, to crush and liquify it out of existence like a grape in a wine press. In the dream he was about to scream but then he smelled a smell that made him recall his mother and he woke up with the understanding of how to smoke his brother out.
That morning he went to a dollar store and bought some assorted items. From his haul he selected a cinnamon stick and an oblong leather patch. He lit the cinnamon on fire and while it smoldered he rubbed it all over the patch. Then he carefully placed the remaining cinnamon stick inside the patch, and rolled the patch in newsprint, and put the rolled up collection inside an empty toilet paper tube. All of this he put inside a manila envelope, addressed the envelope to Marcus, took the bus across town to Marcus' apartment, placed the envelope in the mail slot, rang the doorbell and went home.
All the way on the bus ride home he smiled and knew he'd won a very important victory.
Kristin O'Leary
First thing Wednesday morning, Gary Grasz sat down at his cheap metal desk and studied the papers left him by his secretary. "Damn good work,” he muttered, and then he thought "it'll be a damn shame when I have to replace her. It won't be easy to find somebody that good for that price. But, already the insurance premiums are making a dent. It's probably got to be sooner than later.”
Grasz had three court dates by nine, some bondsmen to meet, parole officers too. He had to check in with the warden as well. “Time's wasting,” he thought as he glanced through the lists. Everyone who ever knew Holmes was in there, everyone on record, that is. All of his teachers, all of his classmates, all of his relatives, all of his friends. Up until to a certain point. And then nothing. “Hmm,” Grasz snorted. “Not much to go on now, is there?”
He
quickly decided that it would be useless to look up those former
acquaintances. He might find a lead if he had a detective, but he
wasn't paying for that. Besides, all the time it would take to track
down these people and talk to them when the chances were good that
they would know nothing, even if they even remembered the guy.
The
relatives were easily managed, since they were all dead. The wives
could be a different matter. Marla McCann and Kristin O'Leary. Both
were reportedly missing, but both had left more recent trails. He
might put Mary Ellen on that. Judging from what she had gathered so
far, she could probably sniff up some clues.
“OK then, the wives, but that's it. And the kids. I could talk to the kids. We know where they are, but what would they possibly tell us? They're already in on it, aren't they? Maybe they know what's inside. Could be. I'll bet you they'd clam up at once. Get suspicious. Okay, just the wives. Mary Ellen.”
He dashed off a note and left it for her. Then he picked up some papers and shoved them inside his already bulging portfolio, and scattered himself off to court.
Mama Rosetta
You don't get along without getting along. No one knew this better than Freddy, who seemed to know somebody everywhere. He was always dealing, always trading, always exchanging favors. "It's not what you know,” he used to say, "it's who you know and who knows you.” He was on the margins but he tried his best to stay inside of the law. He had information for the cops. He had salvage for the yards. He had "surplus" for the neighborhoods and could "find" an awful lot of useful stuff for anyone who needed it. Part Robin Hood, part Dodger, Freddy roamed the streets in search of every and all adventure. Now, when he needed information, he began to make the rounds.
Old-timers knew a lot but weren't so reliable. Drunks knew more than you would think but it wasn't easy getting it. Freddy started with the madams. Some of them had been around so long it seemed that they knew every man who'd ever lived. They all come back to mama. Mama Rosetta that is.
Freddy knew her taste in foreign films and would often find unusual ones for her. He'd got her started on Japanese Noir and she still owed him big-time. Freddy wasn't interested in her typical transactions.
“Did she know of Pearson Holmes?”
“Of him? Yes. Knew him? No.”
Wednesday night June 27th was hot. At nine o'clock it was still clocking in over ninety. Rosetta was out on her patio in the back of the old Victorian, sitting in front of a window fan that was blasting out high. She mopped her patchy balding head with washcloths wrapped around ice cubes. Two cigarettes going continually and a bottle of scotch nestled tight in her crotch, Rosetta was set for the evening. Freddy had hopped over the low stone wall and pulled up a chair beside her.
"Pearson Holmes,” Rosetta repeated. "Now we're going way back. I knew his best friend once upon a time. Used to tell me stories,”
"Who's the friend?" Freddy wanted to know.
"Fellow by the name of Hansen. Charles, it was. Called him Charles, not Chuck,”
"Where's that guy now?"
"Oh, long gone. Long time now," Rosetta replied. "Drank himself to death like near everybody else,” She paused to take a swig out of her bottle as the thought occurred to her. "They found him floating in the river up in Boston. Funny thing. Charles was bobbing in the Charles,” Rosetta cackled, then sputtered up choking for a few. Freddy waited quietly, until the old bitch calmed herself.
"Holmes, though, piece of work from what I heard,” she eventually went on. "Moral high ground was his game. Holier than you and me. Wouldn't sully his hands with no honest day's work. Wouldn't let the system drag him in and drag him down. Charles used to tell me about those speeches. He'd go downtown every now and then and stand out on the corner giving lectures, whenever he was good and angry enough. Then after he'd raked in some bucks he'd suddenly feel better about old Babylon and head back home. Wouldn't see or hear from him again for awhile.”
Freddy thought that lots of people might remember a man like that, but where would you begin? Can't go around asking every random old guy about a homeless bum who used to rant and rave down by the terminal! "Head back home,” though, that's what he asked her about next, but Rosetta couldn't tell him. She knew where Charles lived at the time. By the waterfront, near the houseboats. That made a lot of sense. There were still camps down there nowadays. Somebody might remember.
He left her with a copy of 'Branded to Kill'. She was going to like that one, he knew, and he clambered on his bike and started pedaling waterward.
Black Angus
Lieutenant Mike didn't make Lieutenant by trusting other people. He also didn't make it by doing a lot of work himself. Those two principles had served him well and remained his guiding star, so as he sat there in his booth at the Burger Joint, he considered whom he trusted least that day, and who was likely to do the most work for him. He was not surprised to discover that the same man fit both bills, or, at least, his office did.
He had needed Grasz to decipher the legalese, but knew that Grasz would take that ball and run with it, straight to his devoted assistant, the steady and persistent Miss Leipzig. Mike also didn't like leaving a booth too soon after scrunching into it, so he grabbed his phone and placed a call instead. The ever obedient secretary was soon motoring across town to bring the Lieutenant his very own copy of the dossier.
He invited her to join him and even offered her a lemonade. Gramm was being generous that day. Mary Ellen sat in the booth across from him, sipping on her straw and watching him turn page after page of names and connections as he chewed on his medium rare burger.
Occasionally Mike asked her a question. She was delighted to answer. Yes, the Kristin wife came first. No kids from her. Yes, the Marla was the same one later booked as Rainbow Sky in various disturbances. No, she didn't know if either of the boys had any contact with their mother in recent years. Yes, those were all the "students" known to have attended that particular "boarding school" during those intervals. Yes, it's possible that Pearson Holmes had gone by other names at times but she had no proof of that. Yes, Grasz was mostly interested in the wives.
Naturally, Gramm told himself, not surprised that Grasz would choose the easiest and most obvious leads. Well, let him chase the wives, Mike thought. He would have Miss Leipzig follow up on classmates and former professors. He himself would do what he did best - nothing at all for now.
He had no more questions and dismissed Mary Ellen with a grunted thanks. She was glad to help him anytime and would certainly do as he requested. Lieutenant Mike was very pleased with himself. Now, he thought, digging into a butter-soaked baked potato, who else can I use in this matter?
GriftCom
Marcus didn't receive the package until the pizza delivery guy handed it to him along with his garlic-peanut-artichoke-onion pizza. Marcus set the manila folder aside until he'd finished dinner and was ready to take a long look at the state of his various systems. It was his custom to never do only one thing at a time, so he was unable to inspect a suspicious item of dubious origin unless he was also working. Or sort of working. It bothered him when everything was going right and there were no "fires to put out,” as the lame engineers would say.
With no damage to control, Marcus was stuck with admiring his handiwork. It didn't even strike him as odd at first when he pulled out the toilet roll containing the leather patch rubbed down with cinnamon. Maybe he thought it was something he had ordered online and then forgotten about, but after he pulled it out of the folder and gave it a glance, he sat it down on his desk next to the mouse and returned to inspecting monitor six. Was it possible that the CIO from GriftCom had really tried the same wrong password more than ten times in a row? With the caps lock on? Marcus smiled and then he felt a memory of his mom coming on.
He was eleven. His dad had been gone for some years already. Mom was struggling to pay the bills. She had an obsessive notion that somewhere in the house there was a pot of gold. Literally a pot of gold. Marcus was sure his mother was going insane. She was digging through the pantry, pulling out every assorted coffee can and mason jar and inspected their contents as if there was going to be a pot of gold in one of them.
"Come on, you stupid motherfucker,” she yelled in his memory. "Where the fuck did you put that fucking pot of gold?"
"Um, mom?" the young Marcus tried to interject, "like pots of gold are for leprechauns?"
"Or rainbows,” she muttered, not glancing over at him, "like rainbows in the sky? Get it?"
He got it. She had changed her name to Marla Rainbow Sky a long, long time before and never hesitated to bring up rainbows or "rainbows in the sky,” to distinguish them from the kind of rainbows you can see on oily parking lots.
“Mom never found that pot of gold,” he told himself, and wondered why he even thought of it just now, and this is when he noticed the toilet paper roll again. This time he picked it up and studied it, turning it around and inspecting every angle.
"What the fuck?" he said out loud. It was definitely a puzzle. Who would leave a thing like that outside his door? He pulled the leather patch out and unrolled it, pulling out the cinnamon stick as well. Holding the patch in his left hand and the cinnamon in his right, he forgot all about his monitors and his scripts. Instead, he thought about his father and the time he brought a bicycle home that he claimed he'd found in a dumpster. It was just the right size for Marcus and it was his favorite color, too. Marcus was five and felt a little queasy about it. He knew it was exactly what he wanted and at the same time he felt guilty, like he'd stolen it. He knew that it was wrong.
Marcus never rode that bike, no matter how hard his father tried to get him on it. Later on, when it was still collecting dust out under the stairs in the back, Ben rode it when he got old enough, and never gave it a second thought.
"I thought it was what he wanted,” he heard his father say and somehow he heard his mother's voice, as clear as day, say back,
"That child is not like one of us,”
Willa Gonzaga
Gloria had absolutely nothing to go on, but if anyone deserved to find that key, damn it, it was she. Nobody else had to put up with that loser of a husband who, after all, was the son of the man who had left nothing else to anyone else as far as anyone knew in this world. Therefore, logically, the treasure rightfully belonged to her. She carefully brought the subject up on Thursday, while gossiping over the fence with Willa Gonzaga, her elderly next-door neighbor.
"What if you wanted to find a thing,” she had said, "that somebody hid a long time ago, and you didn't know where to even begin?”
"Private detective,” Willa replied. "It's obvious. They're all the time solving cases that nobody else could solve.”
"That's on TV,” Gloria said. "There's no such thing as a real one, is there?”
"Of course there is,” Willa said, "of course most of them are kind of seedy. Go around taking pictures of husbands and wives out screwing around,”
"If only,” Gloria sighed.
"But some of them do an honest day's work,” Willa went on. "Like finding things or kids that went off. Only thing is they're expensive."
"Oh yeah?" Gloria asked, "how much?” She figured that as long as Ben's name was on the credit cards, she could spend as much as she wanted and not have to worry about it.
"Don't really know,” Willa answered. "It probably depends on the job, on the thing that you're looking for. They'd probably all want a cut.”
"Huh,” Gloria didn't like the sound of that. "Wish there was someone who was cheap but good.”
"You could always try Dawn Debris,” Willa said, "I hear that she don't charge nothing, but you got to watch out. She won't even go near any case if she thinks you're looking for something worth money."
"What did you say?" Gloria was sure she'd misheard.
"Oh yeah, she's an odd one I hear. Only finds things that aren't worth nothing. You know, like lost teddy bears, sentimental items like that."
"What is she, some kind of retard?" Gloria inquired.
"Something like that,” Willa nodded. "You can find her in the Yellow Pages under "Things: Lost and Found.”
"No shit,” Gloria said. She would have to check that out. “A private detective, for free? But nothing worth money?” Hell, she could easily make up some story. Who'd know?
Cindy Buck
Thursday, June 28th. 20 more days until doomsday. Ben sulked at his desk in his office. It was another slow day. Outside in the shop, it seemed that nobody needed anything packed up and mailed. Nobody needed a notary. Hell, nobody needed any stamps! He was thinking about going out there and sending young Cindy Buck home. She was the teenager he'd hired to fill in a few days a week. She was working her way through community college and Ben always felt guilty when he sent her home early. He figured he was costing her classes or books or a meal, though she seemed quite well-fed, and she never complained.
She never said much about anything, in fact. She was a sizable girl, and hated to move. She preferred it when no customers came. Then she could flip through her Cosmo collection, pausing to sniff the perfumes. Cindy Buck never wore makeup, but she knew a whole lot about it. She often passed the time discussing makeovers with the housewives who stopped by to check on their mail. At Ship’n’Go, there was usually somebody wasting their time. Today hardly anyone came by.
It didn't help that it was ninety degrees in the shade, and this corner of the strip mall at the far end of the lot was the hottest and least shady of all. Customers would have had to make an effort to sweat all the way there from the grocery store, and they could always check on their mail another day.
Ben finally worked up the shame to dismiss her and Cindy rolled off out the door. Ben waited before taking the seat. He didn't like to sit where she'd sat until her warmth had cooled off and the red plastic cover had reassembled its shape. He stood there sweltering and fussing about the twenty days left till the state took possession of his father's only legacy. He was depressed about his tactic with Marcus. "I should have heard something by now,” he moped. "I might have to go to Plan B,”
Manson
Armed with a case of those airline-sized bottles of assorted alcohols, Freddy made the rounds down by the waterfront. He'd kept up these casual visitations for some time, on the theory that it's always better to be in good with the locals than not. To the drifters and the homeless and the professional bums, Freddy was someone reliable. He couldn't save your world, but he'd come up with something you desired every now and then, and that was more than almost anyone else would ever do. For the old guys by the docks, that usually meant whiskey.
In bits and pieces he heard some legends surrounding their former compadre Holmes, and was not surprised that some of those stories were the same as he'd heard told with other names attached as being the subject. These fables go around. The time the cops were looking to bust up drug rings, where they'd go to ground, get hid and never found. The lottery winner who distributed his cash with all the neighborhood. The guy who'd filled a shopping cart with books and walked right out of the bookstore, once again sharing the wealth with all. Stories that usually surrounded the myth of stuff being given away.
There were also legendary outlaws, pulling famous scams, and getting away with them. If you were giving booze away and asking about a name, that name would show up as those outlaws too. Or how he hung around with Manson. Or how he'd robbed a bank and fooled the cops. Or how he'd jumped once from the bridge and didn't even get a scratch. Or how he was supposed to be dead but people had seen him since. Some of these as well - he faked his death, he killed his friend instead, he paid somebody off, he moved away but promised to return with pots of gold for everyone.
Resting up at home, Freddy was sure that he knew little more than when he started out. Some said he'd gotten hitched a time or two, and finally settled down, had kids, did dock work on the side, some carpentry, odd jobs. He'd found some folks who said he'd done some work for them. He was known as a sort of community leader. Bossy, in other words.
A lot of old-timers laughed and laughed when they recalled him trying to organize along the principles of anarchy. He took a few things seriously. Politics, marijuana, music. They said he knew his way around boats, a natural sailor who sometimes did crew work as well. He was pretty well-known there for a time. A fixture on the waterfront. Old men still remembered him.
"I am going to have to do better than this,” Freddy told himself. The man was a phantom. He had been around, there was no doubt about that. But he wasn't looking for a myth, he was looking for a key.
Eric "Peanut" Haskins
Mary Ellen amused herself by thinking up nicknames for the various former "classmates" of Pearson Holmes. Richard "Catfish" Junker of Jackson, MI, for example, now aged 69 and retired from a career as a private security guard. Carl "Soybean" Ellis, 68, of Dayton, OH, former tractor salesman. Henry "Pinky" Trellis, 72, of Long Beach, longtime food and commercial workers union representative. Most of those ex-wards of the state had found quasi-stable stations in life and managed to eek out a decent existence. Some had died young, like Eric "Peanut" Haskins, a dockworker who'd fallen from a cruise ship on his one and only dream vacation. Almost none of them had even remained in the state, let alone locally, after their release from ‘education’. It was as if they'd all been given marching orders to get out of town by sundown.
Some of the warders remained, but of those only one was still coherent, a maven by the name of Adrienne Knacht. This was long ago, of course. She didn't remember Pearson but she did remember "Catfish" and was not surprised to hear of his long confinement followed by a spell as a prison guard. "He had a powerful need for security,” she recalled. Once when a gang of boys had busted out, he went straight back to the front gate where he stood, dripping in the rain, begging to be let in so he could squeal on the others right away. Purvis Anders was her other pet project. This young man ate nothing but buttered toast in the seven years she has known him.
The Lieutenant will be disappointed, Mary Ellen thought, as she crossed off every name. It had taken all day long to come up with nothing. There must be something else, she told herself, and started over from the top of the dossier. Births, marriages, deaths. Everything seemed in order there, or was it? She looked again at the police report about the multi-car accident. The Beasleys were all accounted for, but Pearson Holmes? He'd been identified by a California driver's license. Mary Ellen was surprised she'd overlooked this commonplace detail before. Pearson Holmes had never been issued a driver's license in the state, and yet? She entered the number into the DMV database and discovered that the name assigned to that number wasn't Holmes. It was Eric "Peanut" Haskins.
Baby-wets-her-pants
In her drab little walk-up, Dawn Debris was already wishing she had not opened the door and let the creature in. Now it was in, and it was sprawled all over her couch, disturbing the papers she'd deliberately left strewn to discourage anyone from sitting there. The Gloria-thing (or whatever it's name was) was not given to getting clues.
It was, however, given to yapping, or was that the little dog-like creature she was carrying in her shoulder bag?
"And so my husband is just totally distraught,” it was saying, as it went on and on with an obviously made up story about a key to a locker (or to something) that was oh so crucial to her hubby's mental health. And that awful squirmy voice, like it was programmed in like a Baby-wets-her-pants.
"Listen,” Dawn broke in, "a key is only to open something, right? But it's never the only way to open it. You can always smash it open, am I right?"
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-25 show above.)