Eve's cabin was up in the mountains to the east of town about 150 miles. It was very remote and there was no phone service. There was a small lake a short walk from the cabin, but there wasn't a lot of draw there. Frank and Eve spent the first few days in and out of bed. They built fires in the fire place at night and stayed in bed till late in the morning when the sun had warmed the cabin up enough to make it inhabitable. Frank tried his hand at fishing a few times and had actually caught a few. Fresh fish fried with bread crumbs and herbs was a real treat. They took long walks, they made love in the grassy meadow filled with daisies and they talked. Frank opened up. It was like a padlock had been removed from his personality. Now that Eve knew the truth, now that she had accepted him for who he really was, he was free. Eve found that a lot of their conversations were so one sided, all she had to do was nod and smile. Frank's life had been very different from Glenn's. He'd grown up in the city. It'd been rough being a kid in Chicago on the streets. His father had taken off when he was about 12 and he'd been left to fend for his mom, his little sister and himself. He'd done okay. He'd worked for the news paper, first delivering it to houses and apartments, then distributing it to businesses and offices. His big mistake had been trying to find the easy way out. School had never been his thing, too organized and strict. He worked outside the box.
His little sister was NOT going to work the way he did. She was smart. She was pretty. She was going to go to school, then college, then have a great life and marry a lawyer and move to the country. Frank had it all planned out for her. For him though, life had it's own ideas. One day while he was dropping off a load of news papers at a news stand, a man in a suit with a silver chain and a matching pinkie ring walked up to him.
"Hey kid," The man smiled at Frank. He seemed okay but Frank wasn't dumb, he knew you just couldn't trust people in this city.
"yeah?" Frank looked at the man but didn't stop working. Whatever he had to say wasn't worth loosing his job.
"You wanna make some cash?"
Frank paused and looked the man over. He was well dressed, clean and had expensive shoes. He probably had the cash. Frank went back to work.
"For what? How much?"
The man grinned. The kid wasn't dumb.
"Just for droppin off a package at your next stop. You're goin there anyway."
"I'm not drug dealer. No thanks." Frank didn't miss a beat. He'd finished unloading his papers. He was closing the back of the truck and heading for the cab.
"Hold on, hold on there kid. This aint no drugs. It's just a simple letter. That's all, no drugs. Nothin illegal." Frank eyed the man suspiciously.
"Let me see."
The man grinned wide. He had him. This kid was smart and he'd be good at this job. He went to all the right places every day and no one would ever suspect him. He handed Frank an envelope.
"Give this to Ed at your next stop. I'll be waiting at the following stop with $500.00."
Frank knew something wasn't right. $500.00 just for delivering a letter? He knew Ed. Ed wasn't Einstein but he wasn't a bad guy either. And this smooth guy knew his route! They must have been watching him. Still, $500.00 would do a lot of good for his mom and sister. Frank took the letter, looked around and nodded once. He hopped into the truck and pulled away from the curb.
At the next stop a short, round balding man was standing on the curb scratching himself as the city traffic passed by honking and braking and yelling out their windows. Frank pulled to the curb, hopped out of the cab and walked around the back to open the truck. The short round man walked to the back of the truck.
"Hey Frankee!! whatcha got for me today?"
Frank hated being called Frankee, but Ed wasn't worth wasting a lot of time on.
"Just the same ol' same ol', Ed. OH and here." Frank handed Ed the envelope. All the color drained out of Ed's face and his eyes grew wide with fear.
"Oh, I..I didn't know." Ed stammered staring at the envelope.
Frank's brow furrowed and he looked a little confused. Ed didn't look so good. He was starting to sweat.
"Know what, Ed?"
"N..nothing.. sir.." Ed smiled feebly and went around to the news stand and disappeared inside.
Frank shrugged and unloaded the rest of the news papers. He did his job. It would be up to Ed to move them in to the news stand and unpack them.
Frank closed the truck doors and walked back round to the cab, hopped in and drove off to his next stop. Something bad had been in that envelope, something Frank didn't want to know about. He sighed and shook his head and tried to think only about the $500.00 he'd be getting at his next stop. He did try, but he couldn't get Ed's pale sweaty face out of his head. Frank decided to tell swifty at the next stop that he wasn't going to do any more mail deliveries for him..AFTER he got the $500.00. That, at least, would take care of Christmas for Mom and Stephanie. They deserved something nice. Something the whole family could enjoy together.
Swifty was waiting at the next stop sure enough. Frank hopped out of the truck and walked around the back to open it up.
"Ya did good kid." The man was leaning against the side of the truck.
"You were watching me?" Frank worked as he talked with the man.
"Well, not me. I had business here, but my associates were very interested in you. They called me." The man handed Frank another envelope. "This one's for you!" Frank could feel the stack of bills inside. He slipped it into his pocket.
"Thanks, now look. I Don't think I can do any more deliveries for you. That last one, Ed nearly had a heart attack. He's no rocket scientist, but he's not a bad guy."
Swifty laughed and shook his head.
"That's a real shame, kid. See, me and my associates were so happy with your work, we were gonna offer you a full time position. We'd want you to drop off similar envelopes at each of your stops on Delaney Street once a week and occasionally pick up some envelopes too. We'd pay you $1000.00 an envelope."
Frank stopped working and stared at the man. He had eight stops on Delaney. That meant at least $8000.00 a week! and more if he was picking up envelopes as well.
"I, uh, I'll have to think about it."
Of course Frank had thought about it, and the idea of being able to send his sister to college, any college she wanted, pay off his mom's mortgage, get out of debt and maybe get a new car, well it was more then he could turn down. He worked for them for 3 years. He made a fortune and saw three of the news stands on Delaney burned to the ground. His route had expanded to take in three other streets and at the end of three years he had been making $12000,00 a week. It wasn't until he saw a man killed that Frank's conscience got the best of him and he wanted out. He wasn't supposed to see it, he'd been running a little early. He'd got to the fifth stop and Charley, that was Swifty's name, was there. He had a gun to Dave's head inside the news stand. Frank was standing in the doorway too stunned to say anything and when the gun went off, He jumped. Charley turned and saw Frank standing there.
"Oh Frank, this is not good!" Charley was still holding the gun. A dead Dave laid on the floor. "I'm afraid Papa will want to see you. I think maybe you'd better come with us."
Frank started to balk but Charley was still holding the gun. Frank slowly backed out of the news stand with Charley right behind him. Charley stopped at the door and tossed his lit cigarette onto a stack of news papers that had obviously been doused with something because they immediately went up in flames. Charley directed Frank to his truck and told him to get behind the wheel. Charley took the passenger side and told Frank to drive. Frank thought about crashing the truck and trying to run, but he knew that was dumb. They'd find him or worse, they'd find his mom and sister. No, Frank had to see this through one way or another. Charley guided them up in the hills, to a large house, a colonial with a long winding drive that looped around a fountain with grass all around it. Everything was very well maintained. The shrubs, the trees, the grass was all well trimmed and dark healthy green. There were steps leading up to double doors with a huge brass knocker. Frank sat in the drivers seat and stared at the doors. He'd never in his life been so scared. Charley opened the door and hopped out. He walked around the truck and headed for the door but stopped when he realized Frank was not moving. He waved his gun hand at Frank and towards the door.
"Common Frank. He aint gonna bite ya." Charley laughed. Frank opened the door of the truck and slowly got out. He walked up to the front doors with Charley who knocked. A very large man with a crew cut and tan polyester pants answered the door. He had a gun holster around his shoulder and the handle of a large gun protruded from the holster under his arm.
"Wha.. Oh hey Charley." The man's voice sounded like he'd had a six pack a day habit since he was about 6. He grinned at Frank. "Who's your little friend? It looks like he's about to puke." the man chuckled a deep unholy chuckle.
"Suddup Mac. Where's Papa? I need to talk to him. We had a small ..incident today. He'll want to see Frank here."
Mac looked Frank up and down. "Frank huh? Is that like wiener?" Mac chuckled again. Frank was to terrified to say anything or even smile. He just stared straight ahead. When Mac saw that he wasn't going to get a rise out of Frank he turned to Charley. "Papa's in the solarium. He aint gonna be pleased about no incident with Weiner here.' Mac grinned. He thought he was pretty funny. Charley rolled his eyes and pushed past the big man. He beckoned Frank to follow and they walked down a long marble hall to the doors leading into a sun room at the back of the house. Charley held up both hands to Frank and motioned for him to sit on a bench outside the room and stay very quiet. Frank sat and held his breath. Charley nodded, took a deep breath and entered the room. from what Frank could see there were several men gathered around a large wicker chair and table at the far end of the sun room. Frank could hear Charley's voice before the door closed "Papa!, it's good to see you..." the voices became mumbles as the door closed after him.
Frank leaned forward on the bench and placed his head in his hands. He would die here, he was sure of it. He heard raised voices and a lot of movement coming from behind the closed doors. The glass windows flanking the large doors did little for easing his fears as he saw hurried movements and flashes of light on steel. He was pretty sure those were guns being pulled out of holsters. They must be getting ready for him. The action quieted, the voices lowered. Frank waited. It wasn't long, but it felt like hours, they came for him. He stood and slowly walked in the sun room. Plants, trees, ferns and flowers hung from the ceiling and grew from enormous pots all around the room. Light shown in from the glass ceiling and glass walls. it was a veritable jungle all around him. At the far end of the room a set of wicker furniture supported a very large older man in white slacks and a white button down shirt open down to his chest.
More to come, Im just too tried to write any more tonight.
