What a Week!

"Okay. Hang up and I'll wake Anita up and call you on her phone. Expect a call inside five minutes."

I went in and gently woke Anita. She woke up as soon as I said her name and touched her, but she was disoriented. She stared at my face and said my name, but clearly she didn't know where we were or what was happening. About half a minute was all it took for her to get her bearings, and then she sat up.

"Sis, where's your phone?"

"Wait. I had it right here. Oh, here. I was lying on it."

"Turn it on and let me have it to make a call."

She handed it to me with the screen glowing with a picture of her three kids. I called Vincent's number and got the two of them talking to each other. A minute later she came out to the living room and set the phone on the coffee table with the speaker on. I went into my office and fetched my little voice recorder, and put it alongside Anita's phone. We could hear people moving around, chairs scraping on a floor, and then a policewoman said the usual stuff about where and when and had everybody give their name and occupation.

Vincent's voice came through. He sounded calm and pleasant, trying to put his suspect at ease. "Mr. Brown, where have you been living, and for how long?"

"At The Blackout Club, since May."

"Can you tell us a little about The Blackout Club?"

"It's in an old warehouse. The building is deserted, but the back of it, from halfway back to all the way to the outside wall, and not quite all the way to the walls on the sides, it's all blocked off. That's where it is."

"You mean that there are walls that go all the way up, isolating this club from the rest of the building?"

"Yeah. It's like a building inside of a building."

"What's it like inside?"

"There's a kitchen, that's open to a big room where everybody eats and we hold meetings there. Then there's rooms, like bedrooms. A lot of 'em. Mostly two beds to a room. Then there's a big bathroom, toilets all along one wall an' big sinks on the other wall. Mirrors over the sinks. Showers down at the end. Clean towels in a pile on one side, an' a big trash can for dirty towels by the door. Outside the bathroom there's a lot of washin' machines an' dryers."

"Can you tell me about the meetings?"

"Once in a while Bailey calls a meeting. Usually he tells us about it like in the morning, so we'll all be there whatever time he says to meet. Mostly they're just before supper, but sometimes they're after, like if it's gonna go on for a long time."

"So this Bailey is the leader of the club?"

"Yeah. It's like his place. He supplies everything."

"And what are the meetings all about?"

"Oh, he'll have somethin' that has to be done, an' he'll pick out the guys who can do it. Then he'll tell us to forget all about what we just heard, about the mission. That's what he calls them, missions. Then the guys that are goin' on the mission have a special meeting with Bailey, in a room off the side, with the door closed."

"How'd you happen to join this club?"

"Well, I got out of the county lockup an' I didn't even have a ride or nothin' and I was standin' out by the road an' this big car pulls up. The guy asked me what I was doin' and I told him I didn't even know, that I'd just got out an' I didn't know nobody in town. So he says to hop in, an' he took me to the club. He said I could get clothes an' food an' a clean bed, an' it wouldn't cost me nothin'. I asked him how come, an' he said that once in a while he might need my help at somethin', an' if he said to do it I had to do it. So I said 'count me in,' so I was in. He took me to the club an' told ever'body my name an' that I was a new member."

"How many people are in the club?"

"Prob'ly fifteen. They come an' go. An' then there's Bailey an' Herb, he's the cook, an' Blue, he does the laundry an' tells the guys on cleanup duty what to do."

"You said the guys come and go. When they go, how does that work?"

"Well, sometimes they just don't show up, like they go out in the mornin' an' never come back. But sometimes a guy says he wants to leave, an' Bailey takes him in the car to where he can get a ride, an' gives him some money. The payoff, he calls it. He's real nice that way."

"Did you ever ride along on any of these going away rides?"

"No. It's just the guy an' Bailey."

"What kind of missions have you gone on?

"The first one, we robbed a store. It was at night. One of these all night stores, like a Seven Eleven but it wasn't a name brand."

"How many guys went on the mission?"

"Well there was four in the store, an' me outside on one side, an' the driver outside on the other side. So what's that, six?"

"Did you wear anything special?"

"We all had black hoodies, an' the inside guys had ski masks."

"Did anybody have a gun?"

"They said they did, but they didn't."

"What other missions?"

"I went on two others where we robbed a store, about like the first one. Then there was one when we had to grab a guy an' take him to Bailey. I didn't even know what was goin' on. I just stood outside an' watched for anybody comin' by, an' cops. Two of the big guys, they grabbed the guy an' pulled a trash bag down over his head an' body, an' walked him out to the car. They had him in the back seat an' they had to hit 'im to make 'im shut up."

"Any more missions?"

"Once I had to snatch a pocketbook from a lady. Bailey give me a picture of her. She was real pretty. I had to watch for her when a lot of people was comin' out of a building, an' pick a spot where she wasn't all surrounded by people an' grab her pocketbook an' run like the wind. That's what Bailey said, 'run like the wind' so I did. I went to a alley two blocks away an' waited there an' the car came an' picked me up. Bailey was real happy with how it went an' he let me keep all the money that was in the pocketbook."

"Would you recognize this lady if you saw her again?"

"Oh, sure, I still got the picture. She's so pretty an' sometimes before I go to sleep I get it out an' look at her."

"Where's the picture?"

"Right here in my pocket. Here, see?"

"Let the record show that Mr. Brown has shown a photo of Melanie Sanger, taken outdoors in front of a house that resembles 1226 East Aurora Avenue."

I looked over at Mel. She was fuming. We weren't supposed to say anything with the phone right there, but she pantomimed her feelings by balling up her fists and jerking back and forth with her teeth clenched tight together. I was afraid she might pass out. Finally she got up and stomped off. The bathroom door slammed and then I heard her muffled scream, "You rotten motherfucker! You fucking cocksucker! I'd like to rip your balls right off with my bare hands!"

I made a mental note not to get her that pissed off. Ever!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

FRIDAY AND FOREVER

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The police SWAT team raided The Blackout Club the next day, and brought in seventeen people who were questioned and charged with a total of fifty-some crimes, from stealing hubcaps to attempted murder. Most of the members of the club were petty thieves, who were quick to roll over on the more hardened members of the gang. Several car thieves spilled their guts, and from what they said the police were able to raid an automobile chop shop, and a paint shop that was a front for running high end stolen cars to Mexico. In all, thirty-eight people were arrested that day, and the DA is confident that he has enough physical evidence and inside testimony to get convictions on thirty-five of them.

Bailey Franklin was officially identified as Luigi Francioso, which was important because of the corpse in the closet, that turned out to be a member of the gang that had operated out of 1226 in the 90's. A lot of the bundles of bills in the $68,000 were consecutively numbered, and between the serial numbers and the printed paper bands on the bundles, it was established that the money had been stolen from the Merchants' State Bank. Seth Warren, Professor Sanger's attorney, seemed incensed over the idea of turning a big batch of found money over to B of A or the insurance company, so he launched a crusade to get as much as he could for all of us who were involved in helping the police. Rudy Berg was paid out of it, and of course so were Seth and his paralegal. Mel, her parents, Anita, and I all got very nice amounts. It helped that when we were deposed, Mel remembered that it was my suspicion of the closet's dimensions that led me to pace it off and call in Rudy to check it out. That made me the finder of record, so I got the biggest reward of all. It didn't make me rich, but it made the difference between a nice honeymoon and a wonderful one.

Yes, you got that right, honeymoon! Mel and I are married now. Various well-meaning friends tried to tell us that one week was not enough time to make such a serious decision. We thanked them heartily for their advice, which we then ignored completely. Anita had been the first person, aside from Mel and me, to see that we were meant for each other and should get married. I was surprised and pleased when the next voices of support for our marriage plans came from Mel's mom and dad.

I'd met university professors before but we didn't travel in the same circles, and I was a little nervous about Mel's dad. He turned out to be a regular guy, sharp as a cactus thorn, witty, and anxious to learn everything about me. I think in her conversations with him, Mel had painted me coming out of a phone booth in a blue leotard with a big red S, so he didn't know what to expect. Verbally, we circled each other for about two minutes, until he asked me what kind of beer I keep in the refrig. That broke the ice, and we've been close friends ever since. He's ready to dish out well-reasoned advice if I ask for it, and equally ready to mind his own business if I don't. He's also a dynamite Euchre player, and he's now my partner when we get together with card-playing friends to harvest a little pocket money.

The latest advice I asked him for was about having our first baby - specifically, whether we should start trying now or wait a few years. "Pete, don't get into the routine of waiting until you're ready for a child. Raising children is one of the most complicated endeavors in the world. It alters everything in your life. No one is ever truly ready for it."

He looked all around to see if anybody was listening. "We had Mel, and we wanted to do the whole parent thing right, but there we were, two well educated, intelligent people, and we hadn't a clue. As we got into it, we found just how unprepared we were, so we read books and magazines and talked to people who knew a lot more about it than we did. Every bit of advice we got had a grain of truth in it, but yet they all seemed contradictory. The problem was simple - they were all telling us what worked with their kids. But we were raising our kid, and they're all different. We had Doctor Spock's book, and - this is no exaggeration - we found it was just the right size to prop up a broken leg of our coffee table.

"But what could we do? We worked at it together and paid attention to Mel, because if we could just understand her needs, we reckoned we'd be on the right track. Eventually we came to understand what she was going through and what she needed from us, and we did our very best to be the kind of parents she needed, for all these years. The result is the wonderful girl that you and I are both in love with.

"I really wanted another child, but Mildred couldn't have any more. I'm so glad that we didn't wait, or we never would have had Mel. Once you start waiting till you're ready, there's no end to it. Then you'll never have any children and we'll never have any grandchildren. And we want some. Soon."

Mel and I celebrated our first anniversary two weeks ago. My lovely little bride is lovelier than ever, even though she's temporarily lost her waistline. She's past the morning sickness stage, and handling pregnancy pretty well. It helps that she's always kept herself in great physical condition. We already know that we're having a girl, and although it's supposed to be a big macho thing for daddies to want sons, I'm as happy as I can be that I'll have a daughter, so I can fuss over her and she can wrap me around her little finger. I'm hoping the next one will be a boy. He can grow up with a big sister to guide him through life, just as I have. What could be better?

Mel's parents are named William and Mildred, and to their peers they're known as Bill and Mill. But from the start I called him Prof and her Mom, and those are the names I still use. It seems to me that they are properly respectful names, and they deserve all of my respect. Bill went through a lot to earn the his doctorate and the title of Professor, and Mildred was the prime influence in my Mel's upbringing. So when I say those names, Prof and Mom, they deserve a flourish of trumpets and a drum roll. The two of them are the best in-laws I could imagine, and I know they'll be wonderful grandparents. After they got back from their cruise they lived with us for close to a month, while their house was being converted from a crime scene back into a residence. It was a great opportunity for us to bond, and we all worked hard to mold four strong-willed adults into the nucleus of that wonderful thing I've always wanted - a big, happy family.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that we all have the right to pursue happiness, and that's just what we're doing. Our immediate adult relatives are few - Prof, Mom, and Anita - but they're all close and they're a big help as Mel and I pursue happiness - for each other, for our baby daughter-to-be, and for however many come after her.

What more could I possibly ask for? Remember the end of that wonderful movie "Moonstruck" when the old grandfather raises his arms toward heaven, and identifies the most important thing in his world, "La famiglia!"

Trust me - that old guy got it right!