PAPER GHOSTS

by

AJ Davidson

CHAPTER ONE

It was the rib-shack delivery wagon that set alarm bells ringing inside my head. The pick-up was fitted with a glass-fiber shell and had been treated to a customized paint job - black with tongues of orange flames rising from the sills. Nothing unusual in that, but it had made a delivery at the Cronin's house, and for the four years that I had known them, my neighbors had been committed Vegans. He was a retired flight steward, and claimed that thirty years of airline food would have made a vegetarian out of Colonel Sanders. His wife, tiny as a sparrow, had followed her husband's lead. Folks who refuse to wear leather on their feet do not suddenly develop a craving for a rack of honey-roasted.

My partner, Andy Kove, had instilled in me the need for constant vigilance, to be forever on the lookout for anything that was just little out of the ordinary. Stay alert had been Andy's refrain for the nine months we had worked together. I had thought him a little paranoid; now I wasn't so sure. In ominous mood I climbed the stairs, my insides as empty as a drum, to a side bedroom and made myself comfortable in a cane armchair set back against the inner wall. From the shadows I had a clear view of the Cronin house.

The phone rang twice in the first hour, but I let it ring. A car had cruised slowly past the house a couple of times, though the woman driver didn't glance over. After three hours, my patience was rewarded. Two men dressed in slacks and sport shirts, bent low and hugging the hibiscus hedge, darted through the Cronin's rear yard. Ten minutes later, two other men left by the same route.

I went downstairs and, having already made up my mind about what I had to do went about it calmly and methodically. As I had suspected, my house was being staked out. How long they had been there? I had no way of knowing, nor did it really matter. They were there now and that was all that counted.

I carried all that I would need into the kitchen, away from prying eyes, and carefully arranged it on the table next to the ice-box. Reaching above the stove, I clicked on the extractor and turned the dial to maximum. Not being a smoker, the only gas lighter I could lay my hands on was the one for the stove. I sat down next to the table and positioned a metal waste bin in front of me, then lifted a bunch of dollar bills from the stack on the table, fanning them out like a hand of cards. Five of a kind. Five Federal Reserve C-notes.

The lighter's battery was weak and took a couple of tries before shooting out a blue flame. Holding the corner of the first hundred-dollar bill to the naked flame, I watched, fascinated, as the flame ate along the paper, igniting the others in turn. Setting the lighter aside, I plucked another five bills from the pile and lit them from the dying flames of the first five. I dropped the burning remnants into the metal bin. As the leaves of white ash floated gently down, a ghostly Benjamin Franklin stared back at me.

It would take time I knew, but I wasn't expected anywhere and it was not a job to be rushed. I made some mental calculations. At two thousand dollars a minute, it would take ten minutes to burn twenty grand. One hour for one hundred and twenty thousand. Eight hours and twenty minutes for a million. It would be well into the following day before I finished. Would I be given that much time? How long before my watchers grew tired of eating out of foil trays and made their move?

CHAPTER TWO

Three years later.

On the Sunday morning of my release from Lake Butler State Penitentiary, I was handed two bits of paper: the address of a Miami halfway house for ex-cons and a warrant for the bus ride to take me there. I tore up both and tossed the pieces in a trashcan as soon as the gates had closed behind me. Three years of the Florida Department of Corrections accommodation was enough. No thank you, as far as Steve Stricker was concerned, they could stick their hospitality.

Floyd Benedict s convertible was parked across the road and my friend was leaning against it. The hood was down and the sun up.

Floyd pushed himself off the trunk and threw a half-smoked cigarette into the gutter. He was black as coal, six-six, and as thin as a rifle pull-through. He looked at me and his worn face lit up in a huge grin.

"What's been keepin' you?"

"You know what it's like when you get talking." I shielded my eyes from the sun's glare, as Floyd looked me over.

"Hasn't done you much hurt. You're in good shape."

"It's good to be out. How have things been with you?"

Floyd pulled a pair of sunglasses from his shirt pocket and handed them over. "I'm gettin' by, a little of this, a little of that. You've put on body. Been workin' out?"

"Some. There wasn't much else to do. See anything of Andy?"

"Nope."

I paused before putting on the sunglasses. "He didn't try to contact you?"

"He must have skipped after you were picked up," Floyd said uncertainly. "I ain't heard a word from him since."

Throwing the plastic refuse sack with my sole change of clothes onto the rear seat of the convertible, I walked round to the passenger door. Floyd tossed me a bunch of keys on a Miami Dolphins' fob.

"Here, slide across and drive. My leg has stiffened up."

Floyd Benedict's gimpy leg was a legacy from a trip to the speed track in Daytona. A racecar had sheared off a couple of wheels when it had spun into the perimeter wall, one of which had landed in Floyd's lap. The surgeon at County had saved his right leg, but the knee didn't work too well any more.

I started the car and took one last look at Lake Butler in the rear view mirror.

"I feel bad 'bout not visitin'," Floyd said, turning serious.

"You're here aren't you?"

"You know what I mean."

"I would have done the same thing if it had been me on the outside."

"But it wasn't, and that's down to you. With my jacket they could have put me away for good."

"Forget it " I was watching out for myself. Taking an arson rap was always going to be a better deal than heavy federal time on a counterfeiting conviction."

"You could have cut a deal and given my skinny ass up. It s what most white men would have done."

I grinned at him. "Don't go thinking I didn't consider it, because I did. But it was never an option; I would first have had to hold my hands up to printing C-bills with no guarantee that I would have walked. I ain't that dumb. Uncle Sam doesn't take kindly to people messing with his greenbacks."

"Sure was a cryin' shame, though, after all the work you and Andy put into those dead presidents."

"He warned us it could happen. Slave your butt off for nine months and one slip up leaves you without a cent."

"What tipped you off that the T-men had your place staked out?"

My memory of that afternoon was as clear as if it had been yesterday, but until now I hadn't spoken of it. Floyd was the first to hear it.

"Burnin' the money sure was a sharp move," he said, when I had finished.

"What else could I do? That they hadn't already busted the door down could mean only one thing: that they didn't have the whole picture and were sitting tight to see who would show up. But if I had tried to run, they would have moved in straight away. It was their bad luck that I made them, but at least it gave me time to destroy the evidence."

"What did three million dollars burn like? That's a sight I sure would have liked t'have seen."

"Real slowly. Each note had to be lit individually; wouldn't have burnt otherwise."

Floyd shook his head. "What I can't understand is what made you go and torch the house as well? With the money gone, they had nothing on you."

"You can't burn that amount of paper without leaving traces that a forensic lab could convict you on, the ash was spread everywhere. Setting fire to the house was the only sure way I had of getting rid of it and warning you off at the same time. I doused all the furniture and drapes with kerosene, and the clapboard was as dry as tinder. By the time the fire department had finished pouring water on it, there was nothing left but sludge."

Floyd cackled and slapped his thigh. "I saw the smoke a dozen blocks away. Must have made your landlord spittin' mad."

"Not nearly as mad as the Treasury agents. One in particular didn't see the funny side."

"Who?"

"Mike Morrell, a Secret Service supervisor. He grilled me for hours, and you could see he was busting to slap me around. I played dumb and refused to take a polygraph test. He showed me a bunch of forgers' mug shots and asked me to point out the guys I had been working with. Andy's picture was in there."

"That would explain why he didn't hang around for a long goodbye. With his sheet, he would have been expectin' to be pulled in sooner or later."

"That the Secret Service ended up looking like a bunch of jerks was down to Morrell; it was his decision not to go in straight away. He needed to salvage something and I was all he had. He's one mean and tenacious sonofabitch. Eventually the cops had to tell him to back off."

"Lucky for us he didn't know 'bout the print shop."

There had been a lot of Lake Butler nights when I had lain bathed in a cold sweat thinking the same thing. "Andy would have made sure it was dismantled before he left town. You haven't been back?"

"No. Thought it best to stay well clear for a couple months. After that there didn't seem much point."

I was following the signs for the Turnpike, which would take us straight down to Boca and Miami. The slipstream helped blow away the fetid stink of the penitentiary. It felt good to be behind a wheel again. I pressed down on the gas and watched the needle climb. Floyd kept the car in good shape and the engine sounded like it could deliver a lot more once we were on the Turnpike.

"Fancy a beer before we reach the ramp?" I asked.

"Sure. I guess you could use one."

For the last six months I had thought of little else. "You ever see a movie called 'Ice Cold in Alex'? It's about a bunch of Brits lost in the Sahara and they talk a lot about the beer they're going to drink if they make it back to Alexandria. There's a great scene at the end when the barman sets up the drinks and they all just sit there with their parched throats and blistered lips, watching the condensation run down the side of the glasses and wondering if it will taste as good as they thought it would."

"I bet it did."

"Let's find out."

I pulled over at a lakefront bar called Eddie's Pier. It was still an hour before midday, but the bar was full of old-timers smoking roll-ups and pacing their drinking until happy hour. A television was tuned into football reruns on cable. We found an empty banquette and ordered two bottles. Floyd asked the barkeep to make sure they came from the back of the chiller.

"How was Butler?" Floyd asked, after the drinks had been brought.

"Bad enough for me to know that I'm never going back. And I had it easier than most. They put me to work in the kitchen. I was forced into cracking a couple of heads in the first month, after that I was left pretty much alone. And I picked up a lot of things they don't teach at art school."

"What are your parole conditions?"

"The usual: no associating with known criminals, no drugs, I'm to notify the authorities of my address and report to the parole office twice a week."

"That's the usual bullshit routine they put everyone through for the first couple of weeks. If you've kept your nose clean, they'll cut you some slack later."

"That's good to hear."

"Who did you pull as your case officer?"

I lifted my beer and drained half the bottle before answering, "Dave Shapiro. He turned up at Butler last week and gives me his pre-release sermon. He hoped that I had seen enough of prison and would make an effort to change my ways. The word in Butler is that he's a hard-ass, but if you play straight with him, he'll play straight with you. He's fixed me up with work an Exxon filling station. You have to admire the man's optimism " giving a convicted arsonist a job pumping gas?

"How s the beer?"

"Like nectar," I said, standing up. "That movie I was telling you about, Sylvia Syms was the female lead, but the scene with the beer stole the show. Order again while I m in the can. Having a door on the stall is something else I've been looking forward to."

"Take your time."

I walked through to the washroom and picked up a newspaper that had been left on top of the hand dryer. I quickly scanned the headlines. There was nothing which made me want to read on, but I found a stall with a working catch and spent the next few minutes perusing the sports section. A man walked in, stood for a moment, before walking out. Most likely returned for his paper, I thought. All I had seen of him were the cuffs of his charcoal flannels and his black and white loafers, like golf shoes without the cleats. His choice in footwear would be easy enough to spot among the trainers and canvas deck shoes favored by the seasoned booze-hounds outside.

After rinsing my hands, I checked myself in the mirror. I had allowed my hair to grow a few inches at Lake Butler and the sun had bleached it almost white. I had turned thirty while inside, yet might still pass for twenty-five, thanks to three years abstinence and celibacy that would have cost me a fortune at a Betty Ford. I traced the line of a scar that ran upwards from the corner of my left eye until it vanished into the hairline. A souvenir from my first encounter with Switch Deacon, an enforcer for the Aryan brotherhood who controlled Butler's drug network. I had been a Golden Gloves boxer for six years without suffering a mark, but a sock filled with nickels packs a harder punch than a sixteen-ounce glove. If Floyd had noticed the scar, he hadn't mentioned it. That was the sort of thing I liked about the man.

There was no sign of Floyd in the banquette. No fresh beer either. I waved the barman over.

"You didn't see where my buddy went?"

The man shook his head. "Sorry."

"He was tall, black and walked with a limp."

"I told you, I didn't see him."

I headed outside. The car was where I had left it - I still had the keys in my pocket. The sidewalk in either direction was empty. Floyd would be back in a minute, I told myself. Probably walking off a charley horse in his bad leg.

Back inside the bar, I went around the customers, asking if any of them had seen Floyd leaving. Most of them had been concentrating on the football and hadn't noticed anything. A couple of the others thought they remembered a black man leaving but couldn't be sure. I checked their shoes as I talked to them, but none of them was wearing black and white loafers.

Two hours later, Floyd still hadn't showed up.

There was an apartment key attached to the Miami Dolphins' fob. I had no way of knowing if Floyd had moved while I was in Butler, but his old North Miami Beach apartment would be as good a starting point as any.

It was early evening before I made it there. I pulled up outside the white stucco building and walked into the foyer. There was no super around, but Floyd's name was still on the mailbox for 314. I climbed the staircase and let myself in. There was nobody at home. Like Floyd and his car, everything in the apartment was worn but well cared for. There was a lingering smell of the liniment that Floyd massaged into his knee. Leafing through a telephone book beside the phone, I came on a few familiar names and considered calling a couple of them, but decided against it. I went through the other rooms, searching closets and drawers and feeling like an intruder. Under the only made-up bed in the apartment was an old and battered suitcase. Flicking the catches, I took a look through it. There were a couple of Playboys and a bunch of personal papers and photographs, including a few of me in the ring.