Jeff,
finds himself in Atlanta Magic
Town
Chapter 20 of Magic Town ...
Sunday 4:34 PM: Laying the Net
Jeff finally
meets Joel, the congressman’s chief aid, and Jeff is disgusted with this
arrogant ass. He and Shonna take a drive to see the crooked city council
members, then to the chief of police who pulls a gun on Jeff, but he shrugs it
off leaving the Chief stunned. Then they go to see the mayor who pulls a gun on
them, but thanks to Arnie they have a little surprise in store for the mayor …
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- Chris Lamela
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Magic Town, Chapter 20
Sunday
4:34 PM: Laying the Net
Ten minutes later Jeff found himself standing erect as a man named Joel
circled Jeff slowly, inspecting him. “Jesus, he could be the congressman’s twin
brother, where’d you find this guy?” Jeff had been introduced to this man named
Joel something, the Chief Aid to the
congressman as it had been announced by him to Jeff. He instantly disliked this
man’s presumptuous and arrogant manner.
Shonna watched this process, “That doesn’t matter, anything we need to
fix?”
“He’s just a little taller, I don’t know, maybe a half-inch, but he
can’t slouch because the congressman never slouches. But other than that,
congressman’s hair is a little straighter, but everything else is perfect! I can’t
believe they’re not identical twin brothers!”
Joel stood in front of Jeff, “Say something.”
Jeff turned to Shonna half-smiling, back to Joel, “The Gettysburg
address?” He thought about suggesting saying how he loves his slut, but he was
sure that this Joel character looked a little too straight to be let in on
their little joke.
“Go ahead, say anything,” Joel instructed.
Jeff took a deep breath, spoke some words. Joel made the same comment
about his voice needing to be a little lower, much more gruff, that’s almost
always how the congressman speaks. They spent the next twenty minutes with Jeff
practicing the word son-of-a-bitch, the only curse the congressman ever says––though
it is his favorite curse that he says in about every other sentence, with that
certain roll off the tongue––how to walk in the congressman’s aggressive gait, how
Jeff probably could not be gruff enough even if he tried so not to worry about
going overboard being the biggest prick he could possibly muster. And being
proud of it! Wow, this must have been
quite a fun guy to be around was all Jeff could think.
A woman walked up to Jeff with an eyebrow pencil. He offered his chin up
as Shonna smirked, “This one won’t rub off!”
Joel turned to Shonna, “So
what’s this all about? Where is Frank? Why is this guy impersonating the
congressman? And what the hell was that press conference?” He turned to Shonna
with a scowl, “Shonna, what the hell is going on here, and who is this guy and
who is trying to run this show?” Jeff was concerned as he watched this man
change character so quickly from warmly smug to almost whiny. And what was who is trying to run this show?
Shonna saw Jeff’s concern, gave him a quick sharp look as in let me handle this pulling Joel aside. Jeff
could tell that she was saying absolutely as little as possible, what he heard
make it clear that she was feeding him all sorts of wrong information. He
gingerly took a half side-step toward them, listening in while pretending to
look away, it was clear that the information she was feeding him wasn’t random,
there was a clear strategy to what she was saying. He didn’t recall any
discussion about this with the team. Was she winging it? Was this discussed in
that little meeting while he was out in the backyard?
Soon they walked back to Jeff, in a minute Joel shook Jeff’s hand with a
confused face, “Well, good luck, whatever it is you guys are doing.”
In a few more minutes they were at the door. Once more Jeff was handed
the little Colt Cobra––this time he
didn’t question the wisdom as he slipped it into the stinky coat pocket.
Ten minutes later Jeff found himself sitting in Shonna’s car as they
headed toward downtown once more. “Someone asked about him in the meeting and
you brushed it off.”
She glanced at him, back to the road, “I knew he was going to be
coaching you, I didn’t want you to be nervous.”
“How involved is he?”
“We don’t think too much, but he is certainly the telegraph between the
gang and the congressman.”
“So your bringing him up to Roswell
“We did that deliberately.”
“You wanted him to know that
you’re FBI and the Feds are all around this?”
“Yes.”
“When was this decided?”
“It was my decision. We keep talking about wanting to get these guys off
kilter. This is an extension of that with a little divide and conquer. If Joel
knows that we are circling around this he will start trying to figure a way out
of this if he is involved, or at least be willing to give up some names if he’s
not. He’s got to be near the top of this or at least knows who is.”
“But if you knew this, why did you nominate Antonio? I thought that you
guys all voted on that stuff.” They drove on. “So the only reason why I didn’t
know about this guy was because of the coaching.” Jeff watched her as she
nodded.
Something in her expression whispered there was more to the story.
“I don’t believe you.”
She didn’t take her eyes off the road, “Actually, we think he is very involved. We just don’t know how
much. Even with all of the congressman’s famous absences, there’s no way he
could have enough time to be involved that much in the gang. And he wasn’t
really all that bright. There has to be someone else. And Antonio is just too
much of an outsider for that group, there is no way that Antonio could be doing
much more than just moving money around and sending out the monkeys to raise
hell.” She glanced quickly at him. “Joel could be a much bigger player, we’re
just not sure.” Pondering silence. “We just don’t know. There are also some
other players, but I suspect we are going to learn an awful lot in the––” she
glanced at the car’s clock, “in the next twenty hours.”
Fifteen minutes later they pulled into the garage at the main Atlanta City Hall
Soon they were being led into a room with the door marked Private City Council
Chambers. They walked into a room with two women and eleven men sitting around
a long table with the head of the table obviously reserved for them. The two
walked into the room, stopped, standing at the door causing many to twist
around in their chairs toward the visitors.
Jeff worked hard to keep a determined frown as he spoke. “You all know
who I am, what you don’t know is why I’m here.”
“Well actually,” said a short balding black man in the rear of the room,
“we have heard certain rumors of why you are here. We all are here because we
take those rumors very seriously. And what about that press conference? Are you
really going to spill us all to the Feds?”
Jeff ignored him as he scowled around the table from face to face
getting thirteen concerned frowns back.
Jeff spoke firmly practicing the gruff tone, looking at the man who’d
just spoken, “I didn’t come here to answer your questions you little bald son-of-a-bitch,
so shut up!” The man cowered lowing his head as Jeff turned to the whole group,
“Listen all you sons-a-bitches, we’ve had our nice little business here now for
four years since I’ve been involved, and things have always been working fine,
a lot of it thanks to a couple of you. Maybe.” He tightened his scowl. “But
suddenly things have started getting a little crazy.” The faces around the
table turned more grim. “If we don’t act, there’s no telling where this will
go. I don’t need to tell you the downside. For you. For your families! Just ask
the mayor. He will tell you in case you have any doubts!” A low grumble arose
from suddenly terrified faces.
Jeff turned, walking down one side of the table with people turning
around to look at him as he passed. He slowly circled the table with a menacing
glare face by face, each turning away with a frightened jerk.
“I am getting grumbling that the split’s not fair, that some of you are
getting more than you deserve from this operation.” The grumbling became louder
as the fright turned to anger. “But I’m not so sure.”
A voice was heard, “Why are you here, why isn’t Joel here telling us
this?”
Jeff felt a startle that he turned into a flash of anger,
“Son-of-a-bitch! WHO SAID THAT!” Nobody offered up a hand. Jeff thought what
the hell is going on?
Improvise! Improvise!
“It’s because––”
Shonna stepped forward, “You know it’s not your place to ask any
questions!” She glared at the room. “You little shits are lucky to even be in
this business. We could have pulled this off just fine all these years without
you––you know it!” She looked from face to face with stern hatred. “That’s why
they want to cut you stupid bastards out!”
The room was perfectly quiet except for the roar of seething faces
pressed against Shonna, enraged silent expressions that swung to Jeff, back to
her.
Jeff stepped forward, “There’s a meeting at Magic Town
“If you sons-a-bitches want to continue to be part of this, just be
there tomorrow!” Without another word he and Shonna walked briskly through the
door.
They got into the car. Shonna pulled away screeching her tires in the
echoey enclosed parking lot. Jeff finally gasped, “Oh my god, I thought I was
going to die in there!”
Shonna looked at him sideways smiling, “But you did good! For a second
even I thought you were the congressman!”
They turned out of the lot, turning left. She sat pondering quietly as she
drove. “Why was Joel mentioned? What is his role?” She spoke softly almost to
herself. “He must be the go-between, the messenger between these creeps and the
congressman. Yeah, that all makes sense. It’s what we suspected, right?”
Jeff shrugged looking out the car windows at the approaching darkness.
She glanced at him, “Good recovery back there. I was surprised too. I
expect we’ll hear his name again tonight.”
Soon they were pulling into the
parking lot of the main Atlanta
She signaled to him to wait getting out of the car, Jeff noticing her
holding a gun with both hands raised in front of her chin. She emerged from the
car very slowly, scanning in all directions, closed her door slowly, bumping it
with her hip to latch it. She looked down signaling with her gun for Jeff to
get out, he did the same routine with his door, bumping it closed. They walked
toward the door, Jeff walking forward as Shonna walked backward continuing to
scan the parking lot they were leaving, gun in front of her face as they neared
the building.
Soon they found themselves exiting an elevator. A policeman was waiting
for them, without a word signaling them to follow him down the hall to an
office with only one word on the door, “CHIEF.”
The door was closed behind them. There sat the man Jeff had seen in one
of the photographs from yesterday, behind an enormous desk. Four men were seated
on his left in a row, all with badged hats in their laps. Without a word the Chief
pointed to two chairs, they both walked up standing behind the chairs.
The room was an enormous office, Jeff guessed it was the size of his
living room at home, all in rich wood paneling, shelves of trophies and
commendations along both sides, family photos, grown kids maybe, a woman who
could be his wife.
The chief wore a closed expression with dark eyes even for a black man. Jeff
guessed he had to be more than a hundred pounds overweight at least, sitting his
belly extended over his belt laying in his lap.
“Well, congressman,” said the Chief in an almost warm expression. “What
brings you out here on a Sunday night?” he looked intently at them standing
there, “And why are you here and not Joel?”
Jeff scowled, “Why are to asking me anything? Why are you talking to me!
I’m the one who came here to do the talking so shut up you son-of-a-bitch!”
Jeff could tell the Chief was used to controlling conversations, he was
certainly not used to someone talking like this to him in his own office. The
Chief squirmed in his chair ever so slightly––Jeff knew he was in control!
He felt himself swell with confidence.
After everything he’d been through in the last forty-eight hours Jeff
was in no mood to be screwed with.
They wanted a pissed off
congressman? They were going to get a
pissed off congressman!
“I came here only for one reason. Seems word’s getting around that you
guys aren’t doing a very good job in this deal.”
The Chief jolted out of his chair to half-standing, his fat belly
bobbling, “What the hell are you talking about!”
“SIT THE HELL DOWN!” The Chief scanned the four to his left with a
dumfounded expression, back to Jeff, slowly lowering himself back into the
chair, hands on arm rests to steady his huge frame, clasped on the handles like
he was ready to jump up again as Jeff took a half-step forward pointing to the
Chief’s face, “And don’t you dare raise your voice to me again you
son-of-a-bitch!”
Jeff’s expression suddenly softened, the slightest smile of sorts,
“Look, look, we’re all friends here, right?” Nothing. “But it seems like
there’s been a lot of bodies floating around Atlanta
“We don’t know nothing about that!” the Chief scowled.
“Of course you don’t! YOU’RE INCOMPETENT!” Jeff paced in a small line back
and forth as though in deep thought. “You are getting paid a lot of money from
this deal and all we ask is a little order, but all you do is sit there on big your
fat ass while some shooter goes running around killing people!” He found
himself so worked up that he was nearly spitting the words, “You and your
stupid cops are screwing this whole thing up!”
The Chief started to speak, Jeff put up his hand to stop him. In a
softer, almost consoling voice he continued, “So you see the problem. Seems
like certain of our partners are beginning to question how committed you are to
our little business venture.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that people are talking about wanting to re-do our little
understanding, maybe change it up a little.” He thought about his little press
briefing yesterday, “Maybe give some names up to the Feds, that would certainly thin the roster out!”
The Chief jumped up again, “If anybody tries to cut me out there’ll be
hell to pay! You go talking to the Feds and we’ll kill you!”
“You mean like you TRIED TO KILL ME YESTERDAY?” The Chief looked to his
captains in vain for support. Their eyes locked forward staring into space.
Jeff caught his breath putting up his hands in a calming fashion, “Look,
we understand that things can happen, but next thing you know people
misunderstand, start thinking that maybe we don’t really need you.” His
expression changed to deeply questioning, “And then we see you coming out of a
house with bodies laying all around inside?”
The Chief gasped as though choking for air, “I had nothing to do with
those murders. NOTHING!”
“I said…” leaning toward the Chief, “SHUT UP!” Jeff paced the room
throwing his arms around in theatrical fury, coming to a slow stop in front of
the Chief again, deliberately performing an exaggerated act of calming down. Man, I better get an Oscar for this! he thought to himself as he looked eye-to-eye
at the Chief.
“So as I was saying, there are some who think you should not be part of
our little club anymore. The Chief choking in his anger, Jeff continued firmly,
“Not me, mind you!”
“Who then!”
“I just hear rumblings, and I don’t want any trouble,” continuing his
consoling tone.
The Chief shook his head, “I knew it, that greedy bastard mayor!”
“Look,” Jeff continued, “All I know is that we’ve got to get this
straightened out before it gets even uglier. We have a meeting tomorrow, noon
at Magic Town, a meeting that we have been needing for a while, and it has been
decided––”
“Decided by who!”
Jeff ignored him, “Like I said, it has been decided that we need a
meeting, tomorrow. Noon. Whoever doesn’t show is out. Period. We have too many
players and the cuts keep getting thinner and thinner, and given all the bad
stuff that’s been happening we need to rein this in so it doesn’t get even more
out of hand.”
Jeff turned to Shonna with his gruffest voice, “We’re done with these
sons-a-bitches! Come on!”
They reached the door when Jeff heard the clicking of a trigger being
pulled back. He calmly turned around to see the Chief standing with his arms
extended holding a gun on Jeff. Jeff was surprised at his own calm, “Now Chief,
this is a nasty place for a murder, isn’t it?” He glanced at the four captains
who had sat with those silly blank expressions without a word the whole time, back
at the Chief who raised his gun even higher.
“Tomorrow! Noon!”
Jeff took a few extra seconds to smile condescendingly at the Chief.
They turned and left as the word Oscar!
flashed in Jeff’s mind.
They retraced their steps, Shonna did the same routine with gun to chin,
only this time she was guarding all sides of them as they walked quickly to the
car. Jeff was relieved that nobody happened to be in the garage either time
when she was doing her Dick Tracy pose,
but he was very happy that she was doing it.
Jeff closed the car door as Shonna got in beside him, “I think I pissed
my pants!”
She shook her head turning to him astonished, “You were amazing in there!”
He looked at her, they burst out laughing as she turned the key, the
engine started as they laughed again. She pulled out of the parking lot, “Okay,
one more stop. This will be the tough one.” Jeff flopped his head back with a
thump on the head rest, she glanced at him, “But we have a little surprise for
them that I think you will like.”
She headed to the freeway, turned south for a change explaining that the
mayor wanted the meeting at his house. Jeff looked at her worryingly asking if
they would be away from people on their own. She laughed saying that they have
suspected him of so many things that his house has been wired for years.
Soon they were passing the
Hilton on their left, his Sheraton on the right. He smiled as he watched the
tall building pass, remembering the event with his little slut yesterday. That
building passing by seemed like a metaphor for this weekend, so much passing so
quickly, every moment a distinct distant memory.
Every moment streaming by uncontrollably.
As they drove she leaned slightly to the steering wheel looking to her
right at Jeff as though she was inspecting him. He returned a puzzled look with
a little smile. “You know,” she said softly, “I have no idea where you get this
amazing courage from. I mean, you are what we call feet off the street, you
have no training in this at all. But I swear I saw our asshole congressman in
there, maybe even better than the original.” She leaned back again. “I just
want you to know that I am way beyond impressed. Way beyond. I really admire
you for doing this and putting your whole heart into it.” She glanced at him
with a thankful smile, “What I said about not being impressed when we first
met? Cancel that. At this moment there is no limit to my respect for you.”
He felt a little embarrassed by this sudden gush of accolades, nodding,
“Thank you. I’m not sure who I’m really doing this for, who I’m trying to
impress.”
He knew it was for her.
Jeff asked her about the mayor’s involvement, what she knew about the
murder of some of his family ten years ago. She explained what he had already read
before about Atlanta
“There are just too many people involved in this stuff, sometimes
justice is contrary to peoples’ interests.” She glanced at Jeff, “Monetary
interests.”
As they drove, Jeff suddenly got curious. “You’ve been with the FBI now
for what, a couple of three years?” She nodded, head forward. “So all these
bodies, is this the first time you’ve ever seen this? I mean your first
murdered bodies?”
She took her eyes off the road to give him a long look. “Once while I
was still interning there was a case when I saw one dead man, similar kind of
crimes, but not nearly as big as this.” She shook her head slowly, “But this is
like nothing I have ever seen. They did a lot to try to prepare us in training.
But it’s impossible to train you for this. Impossible. You just have to go
through the experience.”
Jeff turned to her in the darkness, the instrument panel light outlining
her face. He couldn’t help but admire her courage. Her grace and style still came through even with all this pressure. He
felt that rush in his chest again hoping it was too dark for her to see his
flushed face yet one more time.
They drove for over a half-hour, long past the airport. Jeff looked up
out his window seeing a bright starscape overhead so far away from the city
lights. He laughed to himself that he could see only two stars when they
stepped out in front of the filthy little coffee shop yesterday morning in the
dark, now the stars were so bright that they nearly lit up the landscape even
without the moon.
Soon they pulled off the freeway, turned right, headed through what
looked like a tunnel with tall trees on each side arching over the road, the
canopy blocking the stars overhead. Soon took a left, went a mile or so, turned
right into a driveway with imposing pillars and a gate. Shonna rolled down her
window as they heard a crackle of a voice, “Congressman Frank Schedz and
escort.” A few seconds later the gate began to open with a low hum, they drove
through.
Jeff guessed the driveway to be two hundred yards long at least, leading
to an enormous house, lit up grandly with floodlights. A man greeted them at
the door, leading them toward the back into a large room, well lit, five men
sitting on couches or large stuffed chairs. One man stood up walking up to
Jeff, “Good evening, congressman, thank you for coming.” Jeff recognized the
mayor from the photos. The other men stood up in turn shaking Jeff’s hand, Jeff
recognized two of them from the pictures.
“Sit down, please,” the mayor motioned Jeff to a chair.
Jeff immediately went into character, “I didn’t come here to chit chat
you son-of-a-bitch, I’m pretty sure you’ve gotten calls already, you know why
I’m here.”
“Yes,” the mayor smiled as he sat down, “I’ve gotten a number of
interesting calls, but one call in particular was very interesting.”
Jeff looked intently at the man, trying to keep his best scowl.
“So tell me, congressman,” the mayor looked down at his hand as though
admiring his fingernails casually, looking back up to Jeff, “How well does an
eyebrow pencil work when making a fake mole?”
Jeff gave a startled turn to Shonna whose eyes told him she had already
anticipated this treachery, before he could look back he heard the click of a
gun’s trigger being pulled back. His only thought was how tired he was of
hearing that sound as he slowly turned to look at the mayor standing holding a
gun on him. “Funny, there congressman, you sure fooled everyone else.”
“Let me guess,” Jeff shook his head, “Joel, right?”
The mayor nodded, “He’s our eyes and ears. He’s our main man. He’s our
everything, but you already knew that, right?”
“So what are you going to do, shoot us?” Jeff looked around at the men
sitting next to the mayor surprised at their blank expressions. How was it that
rooms full of grown, supposedly responsible men could just sit in this kind of
situation expressionless? He saw it in the Chief’s office, now here it was
happening again. At least the city council people looked more engaged for god’s
sake. All he could think is who the hell are these people?
“Whatever it takes to keep you from going to the Feds tomorrow. But shoot
you here? Oh, no, no, no, I like my furniture way too much. And blood is so
hard to get out of expensive carpets.” He motioned to the outside glass door
with his gun, the door pitch-black with darkness behind it, motioning the same to
Shonna.
Suddenly Shonna stepped toward the mayor, “Mayor, you really don’t want
to be doing that right now.”
The mayor smiled, “And why is that?”
“Can I use your phone?”
“Why would I let you do that seeing as I am just going to kill you, that
could be inconvenient. Seems unnecessary really.”
“I just wanted you to talk to the man who is watching us.”
The mayor gave a startled expression, Shonna moved slowly toward the
phone on a desk to his right without asking his permission again, picking it up
pushing buttons. “Arnie? Let me put you on speaker phone.” She pushed another
button, “Can you hear me?”
In a second they could all hear the scratchy sound of a voice on the
line, a familiar voice, “Now Shonna, why would you just go over to the mayor’s
house all by yourself? Oh, you’re not alone, hi there congressman!” The mayor’s
eyes widened. “By the way, mister mayor, I hate that blue polo you’re wearing.
My wife gave me one just like it, I gave it to the housekeeper for a rag. So
mister mayor, please put down the gun.”
The mayor turned his gun to the phone as though he was threatening the
caller, “Who are you? You’re the Feds!” the mayor yelled glancing from phone to
Shonna to Jeff, back to Shonna, back to the phone, gun still pointing to the
phone.
“Now mister mayor,” Arnie continued with a chuckle, “shooting the phone
is not going to help you here,” Arnie made a big out-loud mocking laugh.
The mayor slowly lowered his gun looking back at Jeff and Shonna,
continuing a confused round of looking between the phone and them standing
there. Jeff noticed the four men turning to each other, finally showing
expressions––of worry.
Arnie’s voice continued on the speaker phone, “Let’s just say we’re
people who are very interested in getting this whole situation calmed down,
there’s been way too much shooting lately, we want to find a way to get this
operation all resolved.”
“You’re not with the Feds? How––how––how did you wire my house?” the
mayor stammered speaking to the phone.
“Mister mayor,” Shonna smiled tersely stepping forward, “we’re all
friends here, right? But everyone is getting so jumpy. The reason why we came here is because we’re hearing all
sorts of nasty things about how you’re screwing up the operation, there are
people who want to cut you out.” Now the four silent men sat up taking frightened
notice as they scanned back and forth between each other, Shonna, the mayor, Jeff,
glancing at the phone.
“So mister mayor,” Shonna stepped forward, “we’re going to invite you to
a meeting tomorrow at Magic
Town
The mayor scowled at her, at Jeff, “Look congressman, or whoever you
are, you and this bitch are not
reducing my share! Not one penny! I don’t care who told you what, I’ve been
holding up my end, so has my staff,” he nodded to the four sitting next to him
each responding with exaggerated expressions of approval.
Shonna pulled Jeff by the sleeve, “Come on, let’s get out of here,” turning
to the mayor. “Here’s the deal. Show up tomorrow. Noon…or get cut out…period!”
Without another word she turned to the door walking out as Jeff followed
her. Jeff looked back to see the mayor’s defeated expression, gun dangling by
his side.
Jeff looked out the window into the darkness as the Mustang turned onto
the freeway, “God, I am sure goddam tired of getting guns pointed at me!” He
laughed, “But I sure as hell am glad that nobody’s shot at me!” He glanced at Shonna,
barely able to see her face from the dim light of the dashboard. “At least not
yet.”
They both laughed out loud.
“So Joel warned him I was fake?” Shonna didn’t answer. “Joel.”
“Yep.”
“You knew it.” He remembered again when someone asked about the
congressman’s aids in the meeting when she jumped in to deflect the question.
She glanced at him, turned looking forward to the road. She knew what he
was thinking. “I told you I didn’t want you to be nervous when he was coaching
you.”
“But you had him coaching me…” his voice trailed off. They drove for
another ten minutes, “You did that deliberately to let him into the
investigation, you set him up!”
“Yep.”
She continued. “I knew there was absolutely no way to fool him with your
impersonation, so I decided to let him feel like he’s one of the good guys,
maybe at the same time make him start doing desperate things as he starts
feeling the jaws closing on him and the whole operation.”
“And we just found out that he’s the main man!” he said with a big
smile.
“Yep, quite an evening there, mister congressman!”
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