The Ville: Volume I

A Louisville-based Crime Novel about Unspeakable Happenings in your Average, Mundane American City

 

 

 

 

 

Aaron Stephenson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright 2023 by Aaron Stephenson

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

 

Author’s Note

I am not big on the idea of forewords, prefaces, or (to some extent) introductions.  For the most part, I am fan of letting a book speak for itself.  But, I am going to allow myself a brief moment to indulge in what I call “pre-clarifications” before you begin what I hope to be a highly enjoyable ride.

First, any time a story of any kind is created about a city, there is always a breakdown that occurs analyzing how accurately the author captures the particular city in question.  For readers of The Ville, you will likely find that in some ways this novel effectively captures what Louisville is and in some ways it does not.  That blend is intentional as this novel is simply some imagined version of Louisville, part real and part not…simply a version that seems ripe for storytelling.  Any events in the novel that are in settings based upon real places are for entertainment purposes only, and should not be viewed as representing the real life practices of these places.

Second, I discovered that certain moral questions arise when writing a crime novel.  I’m not simply talking about the existence of fictionalized violence itself.  Many regular, hardworking people are used to unwinding by binge watching their favorite crime shows (or perhaps binge reading their favorite crime novels).  I won’t get into psychological analysis about the impact of violence in entertainment.  It is likely that most of us can separate real and fictionalized violence.  But there was one thing that did stick in my craw a bit more when creating this novel…It became apparent that in creating villains, at times you have to create innovative ways for them to do terrible things.  It has been my goal in writing this novel to create interesting villains, so I have attempted such innovation.   My end goal in creating innovative criminal wrongdoing is simply entertainment—the last thing I want it to serve as is inspiration for any wrongdoing.  This statement is my way to make peace with putting criminal thoughts out into the ether…and hoping that they are simply received as the source of entertainment that they are intended to be.  

Finally, I have been fortunate to hear that those who have read the book thus far have enjoyed it.   However, one observation that they did make is that it was difficult to pin down the protagonist’s personality.  They felt that his behavior and thought processes were inconsistent.  Readers believed that they could describe who the book’s other characters were in a cohesive manner, but not the protagonist.  This was an observation that I did think about quite a bit, but ultimately I realized that this confusing version of him is who this character is.  Many writers come to know their characters and come to see deep inside of them.   This protagonist is an interesting mix of genuine and grounded, but also being one of those people in the world who can not be easily understood, even by himself.  Thus, if you are confused by the protagonist then you are probably reading him correctly.

All things considered, I hope you will be entertained by this little yarn I have spun that I have called The Ville.  It’s always a bit presumptuous to boast about one’s work, but since I have decided to create a brief, foreword-like section, this is the place where I’m supposed to do my sell.  It is my hope that you find this book to be fun journey…One that is rich, visceral, character-driven, with snappy and strong dialogue, suspenseful, something that makes you think, and a romp that interweaves hard questions about life into its narrative.  Thank you for reading the first volume of The Ville, which will be the first of many deep dives into this little world.

 

 

Chapter 1

Jared Longley was a community college professor.  There was nothing particularly special about his life, but it was comfortable and a life that he enjoyed and valued.  For the year 2020, he was a bit of a throwback.  He drove a 1994 Volvo that he had refurbished, with a meticulous royal blue paint job.  It’s not a car that was typically considered a classic.  But there was something about the boxiness, the barred seats and that sachet-pattern grill on the front end that did something for him.  It reminded him of a simpler time, but was also a very casual status symbol during that simpler time.  It was the kind of second-hand car that was given to many of the cool kids during Jared’s high school days that was sort of low-key, but to a degree still separated the haves from the have-nots.  It wasn’t the most ostentatious car that the rich kids would get from their folks, but its beauty was in its understatement.  You just sort of knew that if a kid drove a 1994 Volvo in the late 90s or early 2000s, that they had to have a particular type of parent…It that was the type of second-hand car those type of people could give to their kids.  But it wasn’t flashy like a Mercedes.  It was the sort of car that said, “I’m the type of person that doesn’t have to try that hard, because I’m in”.  It was a very casually elitist car.  At this stage of his life Jared could care less about which cars are considered cool or are status symbols.  But there was just a bit of nostalgia to those sorts of things that made him feel like buying them.  If he were nostalgic for a different era, like the 50s or 60s, we may be talking about Jared buying a smoker’s jacket with elbow pads.  Those jackets screamed elitism at the time of their use.  But now those jackets just have a “vintage” feel and are fun to own.  Similarly to how people buy those jackets…to amuse himself and get a serotonin lift every time he saw it and drove it, Jared bought that 1994 Volvo and fixed it up.

Jared was a relatively slender 6-foot-1, and he had a head full of wavy, medium-length blonde hair.  He was decent looking but saw himself in a very average sort of way.  And he did live in a very average place—Louisville.  Not too big, not too small.  It’s the type of American city where in comparison, literally half of the country lives somewhere bigger and the other half lives somewhere smaller.  It is the Goldilocks’ porridge of American cities.  Louisville is the quintessential average American experience.

Jared had been divorced for six years, with a four-year marriage having ended with no kids.   Jared wasn’t cheap, but he liked not having to overspend on the house he owned, the car he owned, or the smartphone he owned…He liked the idea of having more money and working less, so he could enjoy spending his money on travel and dining.   But his ex-wife was a travel agent who had an appetite for owning expensive things that did not fit within their budget.  She was one of those who had to own a new Lexus, so she would spend an extra 20 hours a week working Door Dash on top of the 40 hours she spent at the travel agency, just so she could afford her 800-dollar-per-month car payments.  As Jared thought this was silly, he refused work a second job to support these things.  Thus, earning the money to pay for this car fell entirely upon her.  He just couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea of breaking his back to own a fancier piece of metal on wheels that he would only have the time to appreciate while moving from one labor station to another…Considering that in such a situation he would be too busy working to have time to enjoy anything.  But his ex was like that in general; she couldn’t tolerate their perfectly adequate 1,150 square foot house.  It was built in the 1970s in a humble neighborhood on a back street of Taylorsville Road, somewhere between the Watterson and Hurstbourne.  But his ex needed something larger…something more posh and manicured on the northeastern end of Jefferson County.  That was the type of place she saw them having a kid.  These ideas fit the picture that she wanted to paint on Facebook. The strain from not getting Jared on the same page as her regarding these goals is what ultimately led them to dissolve the marriage…well before a kid would ever come along.  Ultimately, Jared kept the house and paid her out the equity.  He doesn’t keep in contact with his ex anymore, but last he heard, she’s living in some nicely-trimmed condo on that upper east side of the county that she’s so fond of.

Though not one to dazzle anybody with flashy spending, Jared’s life was comfortable in its own right.  He had started a side hustle several years back of buying used cars at the local auto auction and selling them for profit.  It did well enough that he was able to buy a small lot on a remote part of Brownsboro Road, as well as building a garage there to keep the cars.  His system became efficient enough that he was eventually able to only attend auto auctions once a month and buy three cars, and then just hire someone to field the offers to sell them.  This was a pretty good deal for both parties involved.  Jared had a rule of always selling the car for two thousand dollars profit.  He would then keep a thousand of the profit for himself, while the person managing the sales would get paid a thousand dollars per car they sell.  He had now stashed away a little over a hundred grand from doing this side hustle.

Louisville, or “The Ville” was a pretty easy place to be comfortable in.  It had a nice urban history, but was mostly spread out and suburban, so that a man could have some space.  It was quiet enough that you never felt like you were trapped amidst Mardis Gras or anything, as most areas had a moderate smattering of people.  Although a person will drive themself nuts trying to get a parking spot at St. Matthews Mall, if that’s your thing…But such is the case with any major mall in consumerist America located in a city of a relatively decent size.  Though Louisville will never make any travel lists, it has a zoo, large malls, an amusement park, casino, race track, a riverfront, and large parks.  It had its old urban neighborhoods like Old Louisville, the Highlands, Clifton, and others like Nulu (newer and on the come up), to make scenesters happy.  And for the half of the county population that lived in the suburbs outside of the Watterson, there were plenty of places to eat and shop to where one’s basic daily living activities were covered.  If you were affluent and got bored, you would just go somewhere else for vacation.  Though Jared did not consider himself either affluent or bored, he did take the occasional trip.  But if you were an average person and didn’t want too much noise…but didn’t want to strain too hard to find daily necessities, then Louisville was just right for you. 

Every obscure, mid-sized town in fly-over country is interesting in its own way.  Louisville’s character is somewhat unique, as it is located on the northern border of the northernmost southern state.   If you go and eat dinner on the deck of Joe’s Crab Shack on the river, you are sitting in the southeast.  But as you look across the river at the Colgate Clock in Clarksville, Indiana, you are staring at the Midwest.  Also making the city seem somewhat midwestern was the fact that it got cold and sometimes icy in Louisville.  Between the Catholic churches, large but old and often abandoned downtown buildings, and Victorian architecture, one might associate Louisville with the north…or even the rust belt.  But people still spoke with a mild southern accent, which spoke to the relatively laid-back place that it was.  But like every place, Louisville had its underbelly.  Though the town may sound vanilla, we must remember that vanilla ice cream is partially made of cow pus.  So the vanilla of the world can get nasty at times. And 2020 was definitely a year in which Jared had to wade through sewage to find his way back to homeostasis.

If you fell asleep while hearing Louisville described, then you’re getting the appropriate feel for what the city is.  Average American life isn’t Times Square or Hollywood Boulevard.  But average American life also is not bailing hay and crop dusting.  It’s Costco, Trader Joe’s and Olive Garden. Average American life is best described through a dry write up in a brochure at your town welcome center.  But after the average American leaves the self-checkout line, life often becomes its own little dramedy of errors.  Life in The Ville is no different.

Louisville tried to brand itself as being a moderately electric and eccentric place.  I mean, you can’t blame a town for trying to market itself.  But innovative The Ville’s branding was not… adopting what was meant to be a hip slogan for the city in “Keep Louisville Weird”.  Heck, there had already been both “Keep Austin Weird” and “Keep Portland Weird” slogans.  So Louisville wasn’t even a copycat.  It was a copycat of a copycat.  No one would confuse Louisville for being anywhere near as hip as Austin or Portland.   But many locals would say that this shortcoming provided a worthwhile tradeoff.  It is better to be generic and genuine than to be actually drinking from the bottomless well of nauseating American hipsterdom. 

So despite its best efforts, more so than being thought of like Austin or “Portlandia”, Louisville is known more as a fried chicken headquarters, a place with a lot of bourbon and horses, as well as being a major UPS hub.  Being a place known for a lot of workers wearing brown and delivering packages doesn’t exactly put you on the map.  In fact, despite there being over a million people in the Louisville area, when residents call customer service lines for various companies, the out-of-state reps would invariably pronounce the city’s name as “Lewis-ville” instead of “Louie-ville”.  Which meant that they had never heard of the place.  This mispronunciation brings to mind those old Jay Leno skits where he would interview average people on the street to test their general knowledge.  He would ask people questions that ultimately highlighted the failings of the American education system.  The answers would usually indicate things such as Americans believing that whales were fish and people not knowing that “e” equaled “mc” squared.  But the out-of-state phone reps thinking that Louisville was pronounced “Lewis-ville” is essentially the sniff test that shows what Louisville actually is.  If your city is not well known enough as a place to be known by people who would lose Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?, then it means you are stuck in obscurity…by the standards of the average American, anyway. 

But Jared had indeed grown comfortable in The Ville.  He wouldn’t say that he had exactly gotten into a rut, but there were some things that were growing a bit stale.  He knew that he was lucky in the current academic climate to have a job in the field, even as a community college professor…but it was all teaching.  There was none of the newness and goal chasing that came with being a research-focused professor at a four-year college.  He would teach a full load of four courses each semester and though it involved two different courses spread over four different classes, he at times felt that teaching the same courses for several years was a somewhat rote experience.  He had maintained his charisma when instructing…but he could feel this charisma beginning to wane.  But Jared was good at what he did…which was basically teaching community college students about how American policies and laws kept corporations fat and happy and kept the rest of us struggling. He prided himself on the fact that many kids who barely graduated high school left his classroom intellectually curious and finished their four-year degrees magna cum laude.  Other than selling cars, he would spend his evenings and weekends getting meals at Levi’s Cafeteria off of Westport Road and playing in a softball league at Tom Sawyer Park.  He was the best hitter on the team, but was often accused of swinging for the fences every time.  But he was a .500 hitter and 70 percent of his hits were home runs, so his strategy worked.  He looked at softball analytically.  Every soft ball pitch was pretty much exactly the same and served up to the hitter the same way each time.  He knew how he had to hit the ball in order to hit a home run, so why not try to hit it that way every time?  On occasion for fun, Jared would go spin the wheels at the local slot hall.  There was something he loved about the smokiness of the rooms at those places.  With a glass of bourbon in his hand, the smell and scene made him feel like he was in 1970s Las Vegas on Fremont Street.  That was Jared, forever trying to step back into an earlier time.  To satisfy his sense of spirituality, he would go to weekly mass at an old Catholic church located downtown that was built in the 1880s.  It was a nice life, so he couldn’t complain about it being boring.  Everything was stable for him and there were plenty who had it much rougher.  Like his friend who sold life insurance door to door…This friend had to put in 60-70 hours a week just to bring in enough to avoid getting his car repossessed.  Thus, Jared counted his blessings.  

He would see friends on occasion.  They would have game nights and make Manhattans.  They would go see plays at The Brown Theatre, as if they were on New York’s Broadway and not Louisville’s…and everybody would go eat at Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse afterwards.  But one thing Jared had gotten a bit lax with was dating, as he had not been on a date for two years…mostly due to a lack of effort.  Until now.  He had taken the plunge and now had an upcoming date with a woman he met on PeasInAPod.com. 

Near his house, there was this old bar in a strip mall off of Taylorsville Road that Jared would go to every Thursday night to have a beer.  The bar was called “Marty’s Irish Pub”, though not much work was put into making it look Irish.  It was just an old, dingy little bar, probably no more than 1,200 square feet.  But Jared loved it, mostly because of Marty, who had led Jared to frequent the place for the past seven years.  Marty was in his early 60s and had owned the bar for 34 years.  Marty spoke with a Boston accent, because well…he was from Boston.  In his youth, Marty had gotten a baseball scholarship to U of L for college and when he thought about moving back home afterwards, he realized that he liked the housing prices better in The Ville than he did in Beantown.  Even though it was a Wednesday night, because Jared had secured a date there was reason to celebrate.  So he walked the half mile from his front door to Marty’s Irish Pub to sit at the bar and have a drink with Marty.  It was 2020, so while no one was happy about the devastating pandemic, Jared did like the fact that the ordinances accompanying the bars reopening meant that everyone had to sit three stools apart.  This meant that he could talk to Marty without having someone else right on top of him.  Jared knew that it would be good for Marty’s business to eventually get back up to full capacity, but nonetheless, having some space was nice.

Jared walked into the bar and The Bangles were playing on the radio.  The thing about Marty was that he always had 80s music playing in his bar.  While the age range of the patrons varied from young adults all the way up to senior citizens, Jared often wondered if the day would come when there would be nobody going to the bar who was even old enough to recognize the music Marty was playing.   But Jared was stuck in the 90s himself, so who was he to judge Marty for being stuck in the 80s?  The 80s music further helped to give Marty’s bar the vibe of an America that existed before everything was so hard, when life was just life…Not that such an idyllic America probably ever existed.  But nonetheless, the music added to the feel of Marty’s bar being an escape from modern day problems, which was consistent with Jared’s general goal in life…Jared felt that his own personal career choice had allowed him to sidestep the capitalist muck of modern day America.  And Jared was a guy who did not like to roll around in that mud.

Jared sits down and Marty asks, “Hey, Jared.  What can I get ya?”.

“Hey, Marty! Give me a Dos Equis draft, with a lime”.

“No Bass or Guiness?  You realize this is a dimly lit Irish Pub and not a beachcomber bar in The Keys, right?”, Marty says as he lets out a chuckle.

“Yeah, well I’m feeling festive.  I’ve got a date tonight”, Jared says.

“You don’t say!”, Marty returns.

“Yeah, with a woman who’s an actuary”.

“An actuary?  What the hell is that?  Speak English, Jared”, Marty jokes.

“It’s a person who analyzes how long people will live, for insurance purposes”.

“Wow, that sounds like an uplifting job.  Where’d you meet?”, Marty asks.

Jared answers, “On PeasInAPod.com”.

“Man, oh man. Times have changed.  A good-looking, smart guy like you and you have to pick up women on the web?    I think all that professorial work, having your head in a book and computer all day is getting to ya”.

“Well Marty, we don’t all have your charm and confidence to be able to pick up women at fine establishments such as this one”.  Jared says as he smiles and takes a drink of his Dos Equis.

“I’m just busting your balls.  I hope it goes well!”, Marty says.

“Me too.  I have a good feeling about this for some reason”, says Jared.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2

Louisville had a surprisingly large Irish population, at least in terms of Irish Americans.  With any superficial category created for human beings, you have your saints and you have your sinners.  America lays claim to both Abraham Lincoln and Jeffrey Dahmer.  England lays claim to both Robin Hood and Jack the Ripper.  And for the highly specific category of Irish Louisvillians, it was comprised of both the lovable, affable, give-you-the-shirt-off-his-back Marty the pub owner…as well as the frighteningly vile McAfee brothers.  The McAfees consisted of ten brothers: Jim, Ben, Keith, Kevin, Charlie, Justin, Kyle, Todd, Jack, and Andrew.  The McAfees were essentially a ten-man mafia within the city of Louisville.  Everything done within their organization was done by the brothers.   Although ten was a small number of members for a mafia organization, their leader Jim insisted on calling the brothers “the mafia”.  Of course, they could mostly only enjoy amongst themselves the feeling of power and dominance that came with such a designation.  “Mafia Representative” didn’t look good on a resume, nor was it a term that you could toss around when talking to the cable guy.  They also did enjoy their throwing around their self-proclaimed “mafia” designation with the various associates they worked with throughout the criminal networks they had used to build their organization.  And those criminals knew not to cross the brothers.  But ten men were more than enough to create a system of terror within the city of Louisville…In many cases it was only nine of them participating, because Jack McAfee was a bit squeamish and unwilling to do anything violent. His contributions were mostly heists carried out through misdirection (rather than threats of violence) to rip off large companies like Walmart.  Jack had a conscience on him, so he needed to feel like there was no clear victim for any crime he committed.  As a group, the McAfees ranged in age from 34 to 48, with the two oldest, Jim and Ben, being the leaders. 

In the time they had been operating, they had brought in a healthy 90 million dollars to be split according to each brother’s contribution level amongst the ten of them.   It was necessary for the McAfees to remain an unknown quantity within Louisville, on the whole, in order for them to continue to be effective.  They had their hands in many things, including partnerships with cartels.  They transformed Louisville into a stopover for gun shipments from Chicago to Mexico and Cuba (via Miami).   They had also set up an extensive Oxycontin distribution system throughout the state.  All of this was done through sophisticated networks the brothers had created.   For many years, Louisville remained none the wiser to the existence of The McAfee Mafia.  The city would note sprinklings of different people being killed over the years.  Everyone knew the deaths were associated with some sort of criminal activity, but they weren’t really sure what criminal activity that was.  And of course, many deaths of people involved in questionable lines of business never become known to the general public to begin with. 

The drugs and guns were purely business for the McAfees.  But even though drugs and guns were where their bread was buttered, Jim and Ben had gotten a bit bored.  They wanted to expand their efforts to include local terrorism.  They knew that they had Louisville by the balls, but they wanted to be able to really enjoy and relish in that fact.  As anyone does, the McAfees loved their freedom, so they could never out themselves and take full credit for whatever mischief they decided to cause.  But they wanted to be able to sit back and watch the local news and see Louisvillians terrified by something that they did…and know they made that terror. The McAfees wanted to be able to kick their feet up while enjoying a bourbon and cigar, watching Louisville piss its pants…and watch Louisvillians feel like there’s nothing that they can do about the bully who has entered their lives.

As Louisville reached the latter stages of 2020, the first year of Covid, Jim and Ben saw the prevalence of mask wearing as an opportunity.  They didn’t really care about the political divide surrounding mask wearing or about anything particularly partisan.  To them, masks just presented a criminal opportunity to fuck with people’s heads.

The McAfees decided to dip their toes into this terrorism project slowly.  Jim and Ben wanted to start with a bank robbery.  Sure, they would only net like 80 grand from that, which financially really wasn’t worth the trouble.  But it would get the city’s attention in a way that dumping a cartel member into a back-alley dumpster doesn’t.  A bank robbery had the live stage element that the brothers wanted for kick starting their terrorism tour.  It is actually relatively easy to rob a bank and initially get away with it.  You just point a gun at the head teller, have them give you everything that is in the vault, and leave the scene quickly before the police arrive. It is the aftermath of the bank robbery that generally shoots the robber in the foot.  To succeed, the robber has to not be individually identified on camera and not be identified through their get-away vehicle.  Jim and Ben had toyed with the idea of having the brother who committed the robbery leave the bank on foot.  But as they were just getting their feet wet in the public crime arena, they decided to exercise an abundance of caution.  This meant making somewhat elaborate choices just to steal 80 grand. But hey, if it meant putting the scare into Louisville, it was worth it to them.

For their little bank heist, Jim and Ben assigned two of the brothers to coordinate a combination of a car theft and bank robbery centered around a bank off of Preston Highway.  One brother walked into the bank with a Covid mask and a UK cap on, and asked for the head teller. The brother pointed a gun at the teller, who proceeded to dump about 78 thousand dollars worth of cash into the brother’s bag.  The brother was then picked up by another brother, driving a red GMC Sonoma, and the two drove off.  This did, of course, make the local news.  No one was really sure how to identify the brother.  Between the mask and cap, facial features were virtually unidentifiable to the teller.  Images were even murkier on the camera.  The brother was wearing a solid, navy blue hoodie that had been in the back of his closet for the past three years, so there was little meaningful to be drawn from the outfit.  No witnesses were able to give a precise description of the brother’s age.  Authorities ultimately estimated the brother to be between 25 and 50 years old, a pretty broad range.   Basically, all that anyone could say for certain was that they didn’t think this bank was robbed by either a child or an elderly person.  The final description read, “White male, about 5’10 and 180 pounds, wearing a navy blue hoodie, between 25-50 years old”.  Such a broad, generic description might have some value if there was anything on camera that was remotely identifiable in terms of the robber’s face.  But without that, good luck finding that needle in a haystack. 

Of course though, the other thing the brothers had to worry about being seen was the vehicle.  To counter this problem, the brother responsible for the vehicle portion of this heist stole the truck at gun point about an hour prior to the bank robbery.  This brother was also wearing a navy blue hoodie, a mask and a UK baseball cap, and was described by the car theft victim as a “white guy, about 6 feet tall and 165 pounds”.  Once again, there was no good look at this brother’s face…so not much for authorities to go on in terms of sending out a search.  The brother who stole the car simply drove it to the area near the bank, and drove in a loop around nearby roads until the brother who committed the robbery walked out.  The brother was then picked up and they both drove off. 

The brothers took the truck to an empty parking area alongside a ridge in Jefferson Memorial Forest.  They made sure the parking spaces did not have security cameras and then dropped the car off there.  They then started walking through one of the park’s two-mile trails that would eventually feed into a different roadway.   They took off their hoodies and put them in their backpacks before beginning the path.  When they were well beyond any points of identification, they called a third brother to come pick them up, so that they could leave the entire crime scene behind them.  It took a couple of weeks for anyone to figure out where the Sonoma was.  Of course by that point, the plates directed the police to some random guy who had his car stolen, who had nothing to do with the bank robbery.  A bank robbery alone did not yet produce the level of shock and awe that Jim and Ben were shooting for with their terroristic plans.  But it created some buzz, with the city talking about how two guys wearing masks, UK hats, and navy blue hoodies teamed up to steal a car and rob a bank.  It was the talk of the town until there became bigger things to talk about.

From there, Jim and Ben’s terroristic plots became much more violent and fear-inducing.   Next on deck for the brothers was a casino shooting.  They knew that a get-away car would be the traditional play on such a scheme; but they decided to be a little bolder and set things up to where a videotaped killer could just walk off into the night.  For this shooting, the chosen brother would wear a mask, with a red hoodie pulled up over his head, further reducing facial recognition.  At this stage, America was still pre-vaccine, so it did not shock anyone at River City Slots to see someone with a heavily-covered face.  But despite the pandemic, people still had to blow off steam, so it was not surprising to see a packed house of gamblers there.  But all were masked when they weren’t drinking or smoking.  The brothers had specifically chosen “twilight night” as the perfect night for this.  The casino floor was to be darkened, with special club-style lighting to keep the place somewhat aglow…But visibility was certainly compromised.  The chosen brother was out at the casino on this night, with a gun with a silencer in his pocket.  The brother proceeded to walk past the gambler on the machine closest to the front exit, put the gun up to the gambler’s head and blew his brains out. The brother then strolled out the slot hall’s front door with the gun back in his pocket.  The machines were so loud, with no noise coming from the gun, it took the distracted gamblers a full 60 seconds to even fully notice what had happened…as the lady nearest to the dead gambler managed to pry herself away from her game long enough to notice the victim’s bloody head slumped against the screen of his machine.  This woman then let out a scream of terror. 

Doing something so horrific in such a public fashion required the brothers to do some careful planning.  They knew that they would be successful at getting the firearm in, as River City Slots does not have metal detectors upon entry.  However, as they have to check for age at the door, you must briefly take your mask off to show the front attendant your face upon entering the casino.  So the brother’s plan was to walk in with a jacket on (as it was a cold Fall day), and to take it off later, so that his outfit could not be linked to the initial viewing of his face upon arriving at the casino.  The tricky part was how to take the jacket off without being seen on camera as the person who was taking the jacket off.  The brother wasn’t so much worried about the disposal of the jacket, as he had been sure to wear a backpack under it to later put said jacket in.

It would seem like the easy thing to do would be to make the change in the bathroom, where there were no security cameras.  Theoretically, this would make it difficult to link the man who walked in with the jacket and showed his face to the masked man with the hoodie.  The problem with this strategy, as Jim saw it…was that if security footage was viewed that focused upon the man in the hoodie coming out of the bathroom, as there are only a dozen or so men in the bathroom at once…it would be noticed that the only person whose outfit did not match coming in and out was the man with the jacket and the man with the red hoodie pulled over his head.  Though there are no direct-facing cameras when you show your face to the security guard at the door, there is the risk of certain dots being connected.  There is the chance of the security guard remembering your face and being able to produce a composite sketch.

This situation required going the extra mile.  The brother involved had to go there early in the day, at 10 AM.  Fortunately this was a Saturday and as businesses had reopened in recent weeks from Covid shutdowns, Americans were rabid to fill any setting that offered a party atmosphere.  So there were plenty of gamblers to blend in with.  Jim had considered having the brother stay the entire night the night before; but he ultimately concluded it would look too suspicious to be there as the crowds died down early in the morning and continuing to remain there as the day went on.  The killing was not to be until 1 AM, 15 hours after arrival.  Because there was such a long wait involved, Jim decided he should be the brother that committed the murder.  He knew that as time dragged along, it was going to require quite a bit of adrenaline to keep one’s head in the game.  As he thrived off of this terroristic scheming like no other brother, he knew it should be him.  After arriving at 10 AM, Jim had another brother show up at the casino at 11 AM.  Then, as Jim went to the bathroom to take off the jacket, leaving just the red hoodie on, the other brother took the jacket (having it slid to him on the ground in the neighboring stall).  This way the jacket would not be left at the scene.  His thought process was that when the footage was viewed, it would not be anticipated that the man with the red hoodie would have been there for 15 hours.

This meant that matching up the man with the red hoodie and the man with the jacket would prove to be difficult for those who viewed the footage.  He was correct, because after six hours of going back through the tapes , authorities concluded that they could not figure out when the man with the red hoodie had entered.  Due to the poor lighting outside, investigators were not even able to pinpoint the man with the jacket having changed into the hoodie on camera.  Between all of the misdirection, investigators concluded that there must have been some inefficiency in the security cameras that caused vital information to be lost.  Just for good measure, Jim had made alterations to his appearance, in case any connection was made by the casino worker who took his ID upon entry…in hopes that doing so would throw off a composite sketch.  Jim had naturally dark brown and gray hair, with no beard, but he had dyed his hair red for the shooting and had also grown a beard, which he also dyed red.  After the shooting was complete, he dyed his hair back to his natural black color (and figured the grey would come back later) and shaved his beard.  Fortunately, those precautions weren’t necessary, but Jim wanted to make sure his bases were covered. 

As for leaving the scene of the murder, Jim walked through the large casino parking lot, as the masses took several minutes to piece together what had happened.   The crowd was not sure if there was still an active shooter or not, so those couple of minutes of panic distracted people further.  Jim was able to stroll completely out of the parking lot and past the point of cameras. He then took the jacket back out of his backpack and put it back on, covering both the hoodie and backpack.  As he walked down the main road, cops sped past him, racing to the scene of the murder.  Jim received no reaction from the cops, as he was seen as just a typical straggler walking down the street.

He was walking about a mile away from the crime scene, to a Big Boy’s diner.  Despite all of the misdirection that had been used in this killing, Jim figured it may be a good idea to dump both jacket and the hoodie (as well as the backpack).  He would then be left wearing just his t-shirt.  So he dumped those items into a dumpster at a strip mall (which had all of its businesses closed at that time of night) about a half of a mile away from the casino.  There was no context for anything over there, so no video footage was checked.  Nor did anyone notice a red hoodie, jacket, and backpack exiting the dumpster into a landfill a few days later.  It was a particularly cold fall night, so it was a little uncomfortable wearing just a t-shirt, plus Jim had been awake for 18 hours.  But his glee from having pulled off this very public murder and act of terror carried him through the cold, all the way to Big Boy’s.

When Jim arrived at Big Boy’s, he had three of his brothers waiting for him.  They had another jacket waiting for him to relieve him from the cold.  Jim ordered a bacon cheeseburger and chocolate milkshake.  He looked at his phone and reveled…as he saw newsfeeds filled with the breaking story of a shooting at River City Slots, by a masked man.  He high fived his brothers, as they read about and celebrated their accomplishment…To remain vague about the source of their joy to the other diners, they cheered, “Go, Cards!”, to appear to be reacting to the results of a football game.  A buzz began to develop in Louisville about men with “Covid masks” wreaking havoc.

After a week or so passed, Jim and Ben had just the idea for the exclamation point to their masked-man experiment.  Through the use of connections and a significant payoff to someone on the inside, they were able to determine that an enclosure glass had to be replaced at the regional zoo.  The glass on the tiger cage that was temporarily in use was not bulletproof, falling short of the typical standard.  The zoo felt okay with this, because it was still built strong enough to sustain two tons of force and their tiger weighed under 500 pounds.  As the public did not know that the glass was not bulletproof and there had not even been a whiff of an incident where it had mattered before, zoo officials saw no reason to feel alarmed about this temporary glass.

Of course, Jim and Ben saw this as an opportunity to be exploited.  This time, the assigned McAfee brother was to wear a cardigan sweater, Covid mask and a U of L hat.  He again kept a gun in his pocket, with a silencer of course.  Fortunately, the zoo did not employ the use of a metal detector as standard practice, nor did they require guests to take off their masks during entry.  They did require guests to pay for admission.  This could have been a potential point of identification, but the brother paid with cash at the gate.  When the brother got to the tiger enclosure, he stood at the glass for a period of time, appearing to admire the tiger.  He waited until no one else was close by or watching.  Then he fired a shot directly from his pocket into the tiger’s enclosure glass, so that there was no show of pulling out a gun.  While the zoo was active that day, it did not have the level of noise that slot machines in a casino have.  So, the silencer needed to be particularly effective.  The brother used a Russian SP-4 for this project, as it is highly effective in keeping gas from escaping the chamber (and thus noise from occurring) and was plenty small enough to fit in his pocket. 

When the bullet shattered the glass, the brother called out, “Oh, Jesus!”.  To zoo-goers who were turned to the side, the brother appeared shocked that the glass for a tiger enclosure had just been broken and compromised.  People began screaming and frantically running for the exit, and the brother joined them.  He had thought he might have an edge on the rest of the zoo-goers by taking a short cut out of the zoo into nearby John Garnett Park, but he figured it was best to just blend in with the frantic crowd.  This turned out to also be a fortuitous decision from a survival perspective…because as the tiger burst through the broken glass and out of the enclosure, it made a roaring bee line for a distressed, stocky, 56-year-old woman…who had begun running solo in a different direction than the rest of the group.  The poor woman had her throat slashed by the tiger’s claws and it began gnawing away at her midsection.   The tiger had focused upon her, because she was isolated and the large crowd of other guests seemed like a pack to the large cat.  The commonly held belief is that tigers do not attack humans, especially a tiger kept at a zoo that may have gotten lazy and tame.   But you have to remember that even house cats have a hunting instinct that leads to them to dive bomb insects they find at home.   This large kept-cat had been in captivity for eight years (since birth) and had been given no opportunity to hunt a live target.  He was chomping at the bit when the time came.

The brother managed to make his way out of the zoo with the rest of the pack.  He felt confident that he would survive, because if push came to shove and the tiger came at him…he still had a gun.  The tiger made its way out of the zoo as well.  But those present were not really sure how and where the tiger had gotten out.

The tiger had disappeared for a day or so, as it made his way through the fields of Bellarmine and the back yards of the Highlands, until he was spotted downtown the following day.  He rummaged through some back alleys until things came to a head on Market Street.  There, the tiger stared down and roared at a suited man standing outside of a downtown office building.   He leapt on top of the man and began clawing away at his face and once again went for the neck, but this time with a bite.   The people on the street were horrified as they looked on, and the tiger began to scamper away from the dying man.  Another man pulled out a gun and took a shot at the tiger and missed, accidentally shooting a nearby woman in the belly.  The woman later bled to death at the hospital.  Meanwhile, a brawl had developed on the street from the chaos, with two others being shot.  As this was happening, the tiger sprinted down Second Street, to the Second Street Bridge, and into Indiana.  The tiger went largely unnoticed for two days, until a Ford Edge on I-65 just outside of Sellersburg, Indiana accidentally trucked it down and turned it into roadkill. 

But for three days, all of the Louisville metro area lived in terror, thinking that a tiger was going to show up on their front lawn at any moment.  This was exactly the kind of fear and spectacle that Jim and Ben had hoped for.  Besides the tiger, during this period of time, everyone was also terrified of being the next victim of “The Covid Bogeyman”.  That was what the people of Louisville began calling these mysterious men, who were wreaking havoc and destruction while concealing their identities through these surgical masks.  The FBI did come to town to investigate this spree of terror, but few leads were developing very quickly.

Kentucky Governor Alex Bernard was being grilled daily about this threat. 

Reporters would ask, “Governor Bernard, as the perpetrators are always wearing Covid masks, do you believe that their motivation is to send a political message?  Would you consider mandating that Kentuckians don’t wear masks?”

He responded, “The FBI has begun a thorough investigation into this spree, and while they do not have any suspects at the moment, the bureau remains excellent at analyzing human behavior.  They have concluded that there does not appear to be any political motive behind these crimes.  Terror seems to be the motive, more than anything that relates to the pandemic.  As far as mandating that people don’t wear masks, I would never seek a mandate that would prevent people from having the right to protect themselves from this deadly virus.  These perpetrators are evil and they are the ones causing these deaths.  But we have to remember that our state it experiencing nearly a thousand Covid deaths a month, so banning masks would do nothing to improve public safety.  Or to save lives in the big picture.  What we need to do is figure out who is doing this and punish them to the fullest extent of the law”.

The brothers knew that their efforts to make their organization noticed had been a success.  They gathered together for a big meal to celebrate and revel in it, with bourbon glasses clinking and smiles around the table.  There was one exception to these smiles—Jack McAfee, one of the younger brothers.  As they toasted themselves, Jack slunk back in his chair, gnashing his teeth.  The brothers didn’t think much of it, ask Jack had never had the stomach for such violence.  That was okay by them, as they felt the nine others could carry the weight of the organization.  He was their brother and they loved him as much as a group of psychopaths could, so they accepted that he was just along for the ride.

Of course the brothers knew that “The Covid Bogeyman” would only get so much mileage as an effective terrorism technique before it gave authorities too much too analyze, discover, and prepare for.  Their terrorism would have to shift gears, but Jim was ready for that.  It would take much time to prepare for and lay out, but Jim had some future home runs up his sleeve.  He had started laying the groundwork for plans to blow up one of the new double-decker buses that Louisville had started running as an urban marketing effort.  He also planned to borrow a page from the Las Vegas handbook…and have one of the brothers open fire with a machine gun from a hotel window into a crowded popular local party street, on a busy night.  It would be several weeks or months into the future before those plans could come into fruition, but Jim knew that when they did it would be glorious.

 

 

Chapter 3

It was amidst all of the local chaos that Jared Longley was having his semi-blind date with the actuary.  That’s the thing about the craziness you watch on the news—99 percent of the population sees what is happening and just goes on about their relatively mundane lives…All part of the American cog that keeps on churning.  Jared referred to his date as a “semi-blind date”, because as is the case with most dating websites, he had seen her picture.  She was cute; he knew at least that much.  Perhaps it was his being rusty at dating, or perhaps being a maverick, but Jared had shirked most first-date conventions when it came to the evening’s preparations.  Typically, one would try to impress his date.   A guy might choose either a fancy place downtown, or a chic place in the hipster areas of the Highlands or Clifton.  Jared had chosen Trevor’s Steakhouse in the blue-collar neighborhood of Highview.  While the restaurant still got steady business, it had already seen its heyday in the late 80s and early 90s.  It was dimly lit and in need of remodeling.  But it specialized in rib eyes and its salad bar, and had also maintained a solid beer and bourbon list.  By nature, Jared was a throwback.  So while the Highlands was big on revitalizing Louisville’s urban core to its mid-20^th century glory, there was nothing throwback about that neighborhood…as such a practice had long been modern and chic.  Jared didn’t shirk such places out of pretentious rebellion.  He was simply a man powered by nostalgia and Bardstown Road just didn’t do it for him.

The selection of this venue was perhaps subconsciously a bit of a test that Jared was throwing out to his date.  But if so, he was okay with that being the case.  Jared had dealt with his ex-wife’s hollowly Type-A, “basic” nuances, and this time around it was important for his date to know who he was and be comfortable with it.   So in walks his date, 31 years old, about 5-5 and 115 pounds.  Her light brown hair was in a pony tail.  Her grey eyes were pretty, but had a softness to them.  Her eyes did not light up the same way that many blue, brown, or greens one might.  He could tell right away that this was a woman who would be okay eating in a dimly lit steakhouse.  He had shown up 15 minutes early and as she walked in he got up to get her chair.  He remained standing up and shook her hand, introducing himself… “Hi, Jared Longley.  Nice to meet you”.   “Nice to meet you, as well.  Jaclyn Simmons”, she said. 

Jaclyn sat down and said, “Awesome choice of restaurant!’.

“Are you being sarcastic? Haha”.

“Not at all.  I like vintage”, she said.

They sat down to order and Jared began the conversation. 

“So, you’re an actuary.  What’s that like?”, he asks her.

“I like it.   Which is because I’m a bit of a nerd.  Of course, it is a bit morbid to make a living by placing bets on when someone will die.  I’m actually trying to get my finances in order, to open up my own firm that both performs actuarial services and sells life insurance.  As cliché as it sounds, I want to be my own boss.   Working for yourself just creates a different feel to the workday, ya know?”.

“So, what are you going to call your firm?”, Jared asks in return.

“Fortune Insurance Services.  The logo will have a fortune teller with a crystal ball.  All of the actuaries and agents will have crystal balls on their desks.  You know, as an actuary I’m sort of an analytical fortune teller.  So I felt like that would be a fun little gimmick”, says Jaclyn.

“Are you serious?  That’s so cool!  And a marketing slam dunk.  Okay, do me”, Jared says.

“What? Do you?  Well, you are a forward fellow, aren’t you!”, Jaclyn exclaims, laughing.

“No, I mean, you’re an actuary.  So, evaluate me.  How long do I have, Dr. Simmons?  How long will I live?”.

“Well, let’s see…From an actuarial perspective, hmmm …Well, you’re a male.  You’re thin.  You’re divorced.  But the statistics say that you would be likely to remarry, but unlikely to have kids at this point.  You’re a professional.  However, your favorite restaurant specializes in red meat.  But people are living longer these days.  Scientifically, my guess is you’ll live to be 82.   But science and analytics are boring.  I have checked out a book or two from the library about palm reading, as any truly serious actuary would.  Give me your hand; let me take a look at your lifeline”.

Jared gives Jaclyn his hand.

Jaclyn continues, “Oh, this is a long one.  You are going to live a long time, my friend.  Based upon your lifeline, you’re going to make it to at least 95.  You are indestructible.  But it’s interesting what I’m seeing will happen in your life very soon.  The pattern of your line is heavily disrupted at the 40 percent mark, which is about where I’m guessing you are right now.  I hate to break it to you, but your life line is telling me that you’re about to encounter a lot of trouble.  But the good news is that you survive it and it looks like that within a couple of years, it’s pretty much smooth sailing from there.  I wonder what trouble it is you’ll be running into?”, Jaclyn takes a sip of her drink and leans back in her chair.

“Oh well, shit, that part sucks for me.  Maybe I run into that masked Covid Bogeyman that Louisville’s so up in arms about”, Jared says.  They both start laughing, then he adds, “Maybe we shouldn’t laugh about that.  It’s probably too soon, what with what those creeps have done to innocent people and all”.

They continue their meal.  After having finished off their rib eyes, Jared gets up for a second trip to the salad bar.

Jaclyn says, “A second trip to the salad bar, really?  We each just finished off a ten-ounce ribeye and you have room for seconds at the salad bar?  I swear, between the bacon bits, cheese, croutons, and dressing, salads are the biggest con in the diet world.  How do you eat all that and stay so thin?”.

“I snort a lot of cocaine.  Only kidding…”, Jared laughs.

“I swear, you have the metabolism of a ten year old.  I’m so jealous”, she says.

Jaclyn goes on, “So, what about you, Jared Longley?  You are a community college professor in Political Science, right?  How’s that going?  What made you get into that?”.

“Well for one thing, I love hearing myself talk.  You know how some people record professors’ lectures?  I record my own lectures and listen to them in my spare time for my own entertainment”.  Jaclyn laughs and spits out a bacon bit, as Jared continues, “No, but seriously…It’s not a perfect job, but some of what’s great about it is what you say about being your own boss.  In the classroom, I have something to say and I deliver my own message.  It’s a message about society, but one based upon real things that are happening in this world.  I know that people say that nothing kids learn in college will lead them anywhere professionally.  But as cliché as it sounds, I just hope that they think about the world around them a little more after they leave my class than what they had previously”. 

Jaclyn replies, “No, I dig it.  Wow, this restaurant is awesome—the food is good and it’s such a blast from the past.  Even the patrons are from another era.  You know, whoever I parked next to on the way in even had one of those old boxy Volvos from the 90s.  It looks like they took good care of it, though”.

“Guilty as charged.  It’s my Volvo”, Jared admits.

“You’re dating yourself there, Jared.  Is that old Volvo some sort of early mid-life crisis?”.

“It’s the type of mid-life crisis that makes me endearing…like when my parents would go to KISS concerts in the 90s…well after their prime.  But driving an efficient Swedish car known for its safety features and that is beloved by soccer moms isn’t exactly a mid-life crisis.  I think for a real mid-life crisis, I’d probably need to be growing a line beard or dating some twenty-something”.

“Are you saying that I’m not mid-life crisis dating material?  I’m not trophy-girlfriend material?  I am offended”, Jaclyn jokes.

“You are most definitely mid-life crisis material”.

“No, it’s okay.  I’m getting up there in age, too.  I’m only a few years younger than you.  I can hear my biological clock ticking”.

“Well, if it’s ticking, then I take that as a call of duty for me”, Jared says in an attempt at what he hoped came off as witty flirtation.

“You know in most cases, I would take that as kind of a creepy joke.  But the fact that it seems charming to me tells me that we do have some kind of spark.  But no call of duty for you tonight, my friend. I am mildly old-fashioned about the whole first date thing.  But I do see good things coming.   When Madame Jaclyn looks into her crystal ball, she sees a call of duty in your not-too-distant future”.

“I’ll keep the troops on standby, then”, Jared replies as they both laugh.

Jaclyn takes another drink from the Four Roses bourbon she had ordered, sets it down on the table and asks, “So what next after dinner, Mr. Longley?”.

“I thought that we would go ride around on one of those new double decker buses.  I haven’t been on one yet and I’m as anxious as a school boy to try it out.  Maybe take it from the Highlands, down into Frankfort Avenue, and into town and back”.

“I would not have figured you for a Highlands guy”.

“Hey, I just want to sit on the second floor of a bus, okay.  I am very easily amused”, Jared replies.

As they head out to the Highlands to catch the double decker, Jared stops at a Walgreens to pick up a copy of The Courier Journal.

Jaclyn says, “You’re kidding, right?  I know you’re a throwback…But it’s 2020 and you’re still reading newspapers instead of checking your newsfeed?”.

Jared answers, “Well, no.  Even I’m not that outdated.  It’s all part of the experience.  To get the full vintage experience of riding a double decker, you have to be sitting on the second floor and reading a newspaper.  In fact, can you do me a favor, Jaclyn?  I’ll get on the bus before you and sit at a window seat on the second floor, holding up a newspaper like I’m reading it.  Can you stand outside and take a picture of me doing that before you get on?  I’ll save you a seat”.

“You are easily amused”, she laughs.

Once they’re riding on the double decker, Jared jokes in a British accent, “Well, I feel like I’m back in jolly ol’ England, Mate!”.

“Oim a chimney sweep, I am, I am!”, Jaclyn jokes back.

“You know, we really should join forces.  We can call ourselves Cockney and Lacey”.

“Sounds like a plan, Jared.  I’ll be Cockney and you can be Lacey.  I’ll probably have to let you borrow my underwear to pull that off, though”.

After an hour-and-a-half of people watching both the street walkers and bus riders…along with more conversation…the double decker had ambled through its loop of Bardstown Road, Baxter Avenue, Frankfort Avenue, Broadway, and Main Street to get back to Jared’s Volvo on the side of the street.  He then takes Jaclyn back to the steakhouse to drop her off at her car.

They get out to walk over to Jaclyn’s car and she says, “Well, obviously this has been fun.  I would say let’s go to my place next…But like I say, I need to be an old-fashioned girl for at least a couple of weeks.  But a good night kiss is certainly permitted”.  She leans upward and pulls his mouth down to hers and kisses him for a solid seven seconds, breathing a little heavily afterwards.

Jared is all smiles and says, “I’ll call you, soon”.

“Not if I call you, first”, she returns.

Two days later, when Saturday came, they were already seeing each other again…This time for a hike.  As they went on a road trip to a remote trail about an hour southeast of Louisville, the GPS stopped working.  So a one-hour trip turned into a two-hour trip. Jared didn’t care, as long as it was Jaclyn in the car with him.  Jaclyn managed to steer them back in the right direction.

“It looks like we have two different roads to take.  517 or 1993.  This sign has an arrow saying that 1993 is this way.  I know that has to be the right way”.

“How do you know that is the right way?”, Jared asks.

“Well, it takes us to 1993.  Look at the car we’re in.  Surely you want to follow a road that goes back to the 90s…Old Timer”.

Jared smiles, and gently throws a wadded-up straw paper at her, as she laughs.

As the car ride continues, Jared reaches into the floor of the back seat and picks up a box. He hands it to Jaclyn, saying, “Hey, I got you a gift”.  She opens it and says, “Oh, my God, a crystal ball!  This will be the very first crystal ball I use when Fortune Insurance Services opens”.  She gives out a bright and beaming smile and leans over towards the driver seat and begins to kiss Jared.  He starts drifting over the yellow line and she moves off of him saying, “Whoops, sorry, Jare Bear!  Eyes on the road.  We’ll save it for later”.  Sure, he knew “Jare Bear” sounded cheesy.  But each of them felt a bit dorky at heart and none of the more generic pet names felt very “Jared and Jaclyn”.  So Jared was more than happy to be “Jare Bear” for the time being.

Walking hand and hand down the three-mile trail, throughout the hike Jared is getting chills from her touch.  He never felt that way with his money hungry ex-wife.  But returning home from the road trip, Jared and Jaclyn’s work schedules got pretty busy during the week.  Jaclyn had to sprinkle in meetings with her bank throughout the work week, to discuss financing for Fortune Insurance Services.  And while Jared loved his classroom lectures, over the next couple of weeks just making it through the school week and getting to the weekend to see her was all that he could think about.

 

 

Chapter 4

Aside from being smitten, Jared also had business to tend to.  His side hustle of flipping cars was bringing in more pocket change than normal.  The guy he had working for him the past couple of months, Kyle, had actually insisted on getting paid less than what Jared was offering.  Jared typically let whoever agreed to handle the sale of his cars keep a thousand dollars of the per-car profit.  But Kyle insisted on only taking 500 dollars per car.  Kyle said he didn’t feel right about taking a thousand, because it was too much money for a job that was so easy.  Kyle would say, “all that I do is respond to someone’s message on social media, meet them out at the lot, tell them about the car, and count some money”.   Kyle was a high-character guy.  He was old- fashioned too, calling Jared “Sir or Mr. Longley”…even though Jared wasn’t even really his boss and they were just doing a side hustle together.  Kyle was great at selling too, selling the cars at the rate of about five per month, compared to the three per month Jared’s previous partners had sold.  So things were looking good in Jared’s checking account…Which meant he could think about things like what sort of trips he and Jaclyn could go on someday.  Maybe like a trip to Europe during the winter break…They could ride a real London double decker.  Maybe they would even sit next to an actual chimney sweep.  No, winter would be too cold for that trip, Jared thought…but maybe Spring Break would work.  But one thing Jared was certain of was that Kyle was going to find his way onto his Christmas-card list in a couple of months.  Jared was thinking that Kyle probably even deserves to have a gift certificate to that fancy restaurant next to the Galt House thrown into his Christmas card, for Kyle and the Mrs…Heck, Jared thought maybe he should even get them a gift certificate to actually stay at the Galt House for the weekend.  These days, Jared felt like he was really nailing it at life.  Great new girlfriend, loved his job, he was making money on the side…What more could he ask for?  

But while Jared’s honeymoon with Jaclyn was ongoing, unfortunately his honeymoon with Kyle was to be short lived.   One day, Kyle had brought in an old 1991 Toyota Tercel hatchback.  Jared was going to the garage that day to do his weekly money pick up and being the sucker for 90s cars that he is, he had to check it out.  “Oh, I love these things”, he told Kyle.  “I have to check out the trunk on this beauty.  I know that it’s shallow, but tall.  But I just enjoy opening the back of a hatchback.  I always tell those who know me that I get amused very easily”.  Kyle interjects, “Mr. Longley, I wouldn’t open that if I were you.  There’s a bit of an exhaust issue going on.  The fumes have gotten into the car, which unfortunately we’ll have to factor into the price of the sale for the next owner.  There’s really no need for more people to breath in those fumes than what is necessary”.

“Nonsense, do you know how many beaters with bad mufflers I drove in my youth?  I have an iron lung by now”.

Jared opens the hatchback and sees what must have been about 20 rifles laying in the bed of the trunk.  Not being the biggest cheerleader for the 2^nd Amendment, or particularly knowledgeable about guns, Jared was not sure exactly what types of guns they were.  But he knew that what he had seen was not a good thing.  He let out a gasp and slams the trunk shut.

“You never saw that, Mr. Longley.  It will be better for everybody involved if we can both agree that you never saw that”, Kyle says.

“I never saw that Kyle.  I swear that I didn’t.  I like being alive.  In fact, now is a very nice time to be alive.  So, we both can indeed agree that I never saw that.  I’ll see you next week, eh?”.  Jared nervously ran a zipper motion over his mouth, along with motioning that he was throwing away a key.

Unsurprisingly, Jared couldn’t sleep that night.  What the hell was the deal with those guns?  But he thought, “What did it matter? No explanation can be good.  And is there any clear way out of this interaction, without being killed?”.

This little game that Kyle McAfee was running with the guns and Jared’s cars was just one of the many pipelines that the McAfees had established to keep the cash flowing.  The brothers had seen an ad on Facebook, with a guy (Jared) saying that he needed someone to help him sell flipped cars.  Ben McAfee saw this as an opportunity.  Ben was a whiz at setting up criminal pipelines through spotting obstructions and complications in transporting various goods, guns, and drugs.  He had figured out some method of selling guns through second-hand vehicles and determined it to be a helpful rung on the black-market ladder…by allowing these weapons to be moved more easily.  While Jim McAfee didn’t fully understand the system that Ben had developed for this, he trusted Ben’s skills in this arena.  Ben knew his stuff and his plan was working for this part of their business.  The previous quota the brothers wanted Kyle to hit for his portion of the gun trade was about 75 thousand dollars a month in revenue.  But in the last two months, Kyle had moved nearly 400 thousand dollars worth of guns.

A couple of nights had passed since Jared Longley saw what he saw in the trunk of that Tercel… and Kyle knew that an awkward silence wasn’t going to cut it in this situation.  So he called Jared.

Jared answered, “What’s up, Kyle?”.

“Well, Mr. Longley.  I feel bad about what happened the other night.  I know that must have surprised you.  The truth is, I am quite active in gun shows.  I know it’s not for everybody, but it is a legitimate past time in America.  So, I do sell a lot of guns to the affluent enthusiasts who run these shows.  But we often feel uncomfortable exchanging the guns and money in highly public areas.  Even though it’s all very safe and above board, large numbers of guns attract a lot of attention from bystanders.  Most people simply don’t understand it.  While many may see these things as instruments of death, these enthusiasts are just trading them to admire the wondrous pieces of machinery that they are.  At any rate, I know seeing them made you uncomfortable.  I don’t want to offend your sensibilities.  So I’d like to meet you at the shop tonight and turn in my key, so that you can partner with someone who is more in line with your beliefs”, Kyle says.

“Um, okay”, Jared says back to him.  Jared wasn’t buying Kyle’s story.  But what were his options?  It seemed crazy to meet a man that he had last seen with 20 firearms.  I mean, Jared’s shop was just this remote 20 by 20 garage that he had gotten for cheap.  It was out in this field on Brownsboro Road near the Oldham County line, a mile-and-a-half away from the nearest business.  Not exactly a safe location to meet someone you now realize is probably a gangster.  But what could he do?  Option 1…Should he tell Kyle that he doesn’t feel comfortable meeting him?  He had a feeling that would surely end with him getting murdered at his home, in his sleep.  Option 2…Should he call the cops?  No, surely there must be enough people involved in this gun operation who had enough knowledge about Jared to put a bullet in his head before the cops would be able to do anything.  There were simply no good options.

So instead Jared chose Option 3 and made the aimless drive out to his shop on the county fringe, where he saw Kyle and two other men leaning on the side of an Audi...waiting for him.  “Great, three men. That can’t be good”, Jared thought.  Obviously the right choice was Option 4, to skip town with Jaclyn and start a life together reading palms in Vegas.  When Jared got out of the car, Kyle walked up to him and said, “Mr. Longley, I’d like you to meet my two brothers, Justin and Todd”.  Todd reached out his hand and shook Jared’s and said, “Nice to meet you, Jared”.

Todd continued, “Okay, Jared.  So my brother tells me that he has shared with you the fact that we are gun enthusiasts.  I’d like to show this to you”.  Todd pulls out a gun and continues, “Now, there’s no reason to be alarmed by the fact that I have a gun in my hand.  This is just to make clear the fact that I have the leverage in this situation.  But you aren’t going to die tonight…If you don’t want to”.  Jared began sweating.

Todd continues, “But just to make it abundantly clear who is calling the shots tonight, Kyle and Justin, please show Mr. Longley two items from our gun collection that you each have brought with you today”.  Kyle and Justin each pull out guns as well, making clear to Jared that he is now dealing with three armed men.  “Now, go stand about 20 feet that way”, Todd points in the direction of the garage.  “I am going to walk over with you and hand you a fourth item from our gun collection.  Now, I know you’re a novice.  So don’t get impulsive.  You’re a smart guy; you’re a professor, so you can do math.  You are about to have a gun in your hand.  Don’t start shooting that sucker at us out of fear, because you’ve got three guys pointing guns at you…and there’s only one of you”.  They both walk over and Todd hands Jared the gun.  Jared holds it limply in his hand, like he’s holding a wounded dove.  As he stares at it, he has a lost look in his eyes.

Todd continues, “You see Jared, our operation is one that we like to keep underground.  Some businesses just work better that way, you know.  Think of it like one of those private clubs or speakeasies that no one gets to know about unless they have the password.  That’s a fun way to think about it, right?”.

“So anyway”, Todd continues, “When Kyle told me that you may have caught a small glimpse of our operation, my first instinct was that you had to die.  But Kyle liked you, so he tried to talk me out of it.  You must be a real charmer, because 99 percent of the time, Kyle is a soulless sociopath.  So wait to get through to him, good sir!  But we’re not really in the business of just letting ordinary schmucks pinky swear that they’ll never say anything about us.  So, I tried to reach a compromise with Kyle on this one, as brothers do.  So, we’re going to ask you to do something for our family that will allow us to breathe a little easier when we think about you still being alive.  Kyle, hit the garage door opener”.

Kyle hits the garage door opener and a stocky, balding man of about fifty with what appears to be the top of a dark mustache is letting out muffled screams through several layers of duct tape as the sits tied to a chair.

Todd goes on, “You see, Jared, this man is someone that we definitely need to have dead.  It’s all part of our normal business operations.  I figure that if you pull the trigger and shoot him that you probably have enough skin in the game…to where I can feel better about you keeping quiet.  That will make me sleep so much better at night.  Of course, we will have to kill you if you do not agree to do this.  I know, I know…You could kill this guy and still go to the cops anyway, claiming that you did so under duress.  But I think you’re smart enough that you won’t want to bother with trying to convince authorities that you were forced to do this…while also trying to convince them that you had no clue that we’ve been running guns through your shop for the past two months.  That would be a tall order for you.  The simplest thing for us to do would be to just kill you, but I’m a softy and want to make my sweet, sociopathic sibling happy.  But don’t worry about anybody coming to look for this guy you’re about to kill.  He is a loser and we’ll take care of the body.  But I need you to pull the trigger for me to feel good about our relationship.  I’ll even throw in a couple of hundred thousand bucks a year to make you feel a little better.  I know it’s a bit disappointing for a nerdy professor to have his used car business taken over by gun dealers, so a little money in your pocket will soften the psychological blow you’ve suffered.  Nobody can accuse me of not having a softer side…”

 Todd continues, “Anyway, just walk right into the garage and face him to get ready for the kill.  I know you’re a rookie, so the reason these guns look long is because we’ve put an attachment on them called a silencer.  This means no one will hear us.  Think about it like the whole ‘if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it really make a sound’ kind of thing.  We’ll give you a moment to collect yourself before you pull the trigger.  But the three of us will be out here with our guns pointed at you.  You know, just to be on the safe side”.

Jared timidly walks with the gun over to the mustachioed man in the chair.  “Go on  Jared, point it at his head.  Then take a deep breath and mentally prepare yourself for the moment”, Todd calls out.  Jared points the gun at the man’s head and now the guy’s brow is sweating bullets.

Jared has his finger on the trigger but freezes and loses himself in his head.  What can he do in this situation?  There are three guys, 25 feet away, with their guns pointed at him…and they surely are pros, who have killed others before.  But then there’s this guy tied to the chair…Who knows what this guy has or hasn’t done in his life?  But he is a human being.  It is clear that the brothers desire his death for some business purpose.  That’s not a good enough reason to kill somebody.  And Jared goes to mass every week…So he knows that getting away with it and staying alive isn’t enough of a reason, either.  If he killed this guy, Jared will always have to live with that and this man will always be unjustly dead.  Jared has a moral compass and a god.  On the other hand, if Jared doesn’t pull the trigger, then he himself will surely be dead…and unjustly so, because his only mistake was opening a small-scale used car business.  And if he doesn’t pull the trigger, then after the brothers kill Jared, they will surely kill this guy anyway.   But that doesn’t change the fact that killing this man to save his own ass will haunt Jared’s soul for the rest of his life.  So, what acceptable choice is there in this situation? What choice will allow Jared to feel okay about facing his priest later, while also protecting himself?  It would seem that the only choice would be to shoot the three brothers who are standing over there pointing guns at him.  They are all threatening murder, so their deaths resulting from self-defense would seem to be justified.

But is that even a realistic option?  Jared had flashes of every relevant experience he had in the past that could help him in this situation.  When he was 14, his uncle who was a turkey hunter would take him to a shooting range, as this turkey-hunting uncle was a fan of all forms of shooting.  They did this throughout the summer and by the end of these lessons, Jared was a dead-eye shooter.  Motivated by a general sense of anxiety, Jared had always had a way of becoming adept at things that required hand-eye coordination or reflexes.   Such was the case with Tae Kwon Do, when he was 12.  Jared had always loved using his reflexes in backyard sports, but his father was concerned that having never gotten into a fight that he would be too pussy to handle a bully if he ever came across one.  So his dad forced him to take Tae Kwon Do lessons.   As the children never hit each other in the face in these organizations, Jared was able to stomach these lessons as being just another sport.  Once again, his coordination led him to be a quick study, as over the course of two years he moved up to a red belt…a progression much faster than the other students.  This being the final belt before the black belt, Jared pissed his father off greatly by quitting karate, out of protest.  He refused to celebrate the idea of being a good fighter as an accomplishment.   But Jared knew that while it was unlikely that he would get to directly use Tae Kwon Do in a gun fight, he felt that tapping into the martial-arts mindset of quick and precise movements could aid him in this situation.

But his reflexes were consistently strong as a kid.  He could even recall the time in little league, when he was playing first base and a towering lefty hit a screaming line drive down the base line…and he snatched it with the palm of his right hand, sans glove.  It hit so squarely in his palm that he felt no pain.  Had it hit anywhere else, he was looking at a broken finger.  Nowadays, as a grown man, he had few occasions to tap into these reflexes…other than swinging at lazy softball pitches thrown by middle-aged CPAs with dad bods and that time at a recent Christmas when he deftly saved a cocktail glass from sliding off a table.  At this stage of his life, he was much more used to using his intellect than tapping into source of physical prowess…He found it ironic that he found himself trying to draw upon skills used during childhood playtime to get out of a decidedly adult situation.  He just had to hope that all of these skills were like riding a bicycle—something you would never fully forget how to do.  And he had to hope that all of these skills could be quickly synthesized into something useful for his ultra-frightening here and now.  

Though perhaps less demanding than these other experiences, what Jared most fondly remembered in this moment was playing Duck Hunt on Nintendo when he was a boy.  He had spent thousands of hours playing it and was quite good at it. It was often sold as a tandem game with Super Mario Brothers.  People frequently saw it as a throw-away game, with Super Mario Brothers being the main feature.  But Jared loved Duck Hunt as a kid.  But could his love of Duck Hunt and the thousands of hours he spent playing it really help him out of this situation?  He wished the present was as simple as pointing aplastic gun at a screen, trying to accurately hit two-dimensional eight-bit ducks.  So Jared thought of the shooting range, Tae Kwon Do, and baseball to inform him…and he imagined Duck Hunt to calm his nerves.

He knew that even if he hit one of the brothers, another would immediately shoot at him.  “Damn it”, he thought…Is there something to jump behind to take cover?  Unfortunately, the garage was pretty empty.  All that he noticed was the rolling red tool chest about six feet away from him.  That was going to have to do.  “What else will I need in order to make this move?”, Jared asked himself.  And he realized that the answer was balls.  Big fucking balls.  Because he very well might die if he tries this.  But at least he would be proud of the way that he exited this world.  He knew there was such a thing as adrenaline allowing people to lift cars off of the ground.  He could only pray that adrenaline also gave people super-fast and accurate reflexes.  Maybe there was a type of adrenaline that helped someone hyperfocus.  Maybe there a type of adrenaline deep in the annals of human biochemistry that was like eating a pound of Adderall.

All of those thoughts ran through Jared’s head over the course of about two minutes, which was enough time to make Todd impatient. “Come on, Jared, I’m gonna need you to go ahead and pull that trigger now!”, Todd calls out. 

So Jared did.  He quickly turned and shot at Justin and hit him squarely between the eyes.  Jared instinctively knew to fall to the ground as he was taking the shot, so that the shot that came from Kyle would sail high and miss him…which it did.  Sitting on his back side as he frantically crawled backward to get behind the tool drawer, his next shot was as Kyle, which hit Kyle right in the left cheekbone.  Todd joined in the firing, but had a bad shooting angle.  Jared’s crawling angle placed him behind the guy tied to the chair, which blocked Todd’s shot.  So in shooting at Jared, Todd shot the man tied to the chair in the shoulder.  Not that Todd cared about shooting the man in the chair, but he knew that he had a live shooter on his hands and needed to focus on Jared.

Jared had now made his way behind the tool drawer, so Todd’s shots were hitting metal.  Thankfully, besides the steel of the drawer, the inside of it was also loaded down with a ton of metallic tools.  When it came to tools, Jared didn’t know a monkey wrench from a Phillips-head screwdriver.  But the previous owner of the garage had left the tool drawer to him, saying, “Every man that deals with cars needs one of these”.  He had never opened the thing a single time, but as luck would have it, all of that of metal was enough to impede the bullets.  Crouched down, Jared pokes his head out from the left side of the drawer to get a shot on Todd.  Shooting with his left hand, Jared can’t muster quite the same Duck Hunt-level precision that he had with his right hand…so his shot sailed to Todd’s right.  Todd keeps aiming his shots just to the right (Todd’s right) of the tool drawer, but Jared bobs quickly enough for Todd not to get in a good shot on the tiny sliver of target Jared has left him.  Jared is able to correct his left-handed shooting enough to hit Todd in the right hand on the next shot.  Todd drops the gun a few feet to the right and winces in pain, but quickly realizes he better get his hands back on the gun.  As Todd is bending over to pick it up, Jared leaps to his feet from behind the tool drawer.  He has his feet set well enough to get off a clean, right-handed shot at Todd and shoots him right in the face.

At this point, Jared has landed head shots on each of the three brothers.  They all lay there dead, in the dirt lot in front of the garage.  The man in the chair was grimacing a bit, but it appeared by all accounts that the shot he suffered to the shoulder was not going to be fatal and that he would be okay.  Against all betting odds, Jared had managed to pull off the impossible.  His swift and accurate application of geometry was going to allow him to walk out of the garage with his life.  He realized that it probably wasn’t completely skill, but also a stroke of luck…the equivalent of someone getting hot shooting those little basketballs on a Pop-A-Shot at Dave and Buster’s…but obviously with much higher stakes involved.

Jared’s relief was intense, but only lasted for a moment and then turned to thinking, “What the fuck just happened?  I just shot three people!  Besides karate lessons, I’ve never even been in a fight in my life.  I’ve never even thrown a punch!  What has happened?”.  He turned to the man tied to the chair and said, “I want to let you go, but how do I know you’re not going to turn around and kill me?”.  The man answers back, “My friend, at the moment, you have a gun in your hand and I don’t.  Besides, you saved my life.  I’ve done a few things I’m not proud of, but there’s no way in hell I’m killing a man who greatly risked his own life to save mine.  Anyway, I’m actually not that bad of a guy.  I mostly just trade some things for money so that my family can be taken care of.  I don’t get into all of this violence like these McAfees.  That was some crazy good shooting, though!”.

“Thanks, I suppose.  What’s your name?”

“Arthur”, the man answers.

“Well Arthur, I hope that you take this as a reprieve and do something good with your life”.

“I am.  I was getting out of this life, anyway.  I’m going to start going to church, to give thanks to God and find some good to put my life towards.  Well, I should say ‘go to the synagogue’, since I’m Jewish”. 

“Glad to hear that”, Jared says, as he begins to untie Arthur.  “So, what do we need to do here, now?”.

“Well…The least I can do is help you clean up this mess”.  Arthur stands up, grimaces some more, and walks over to the tool chest.  “Oh good, there is a first aid kit in here.  Thankfully, you don’t seem to be the tool-using type, so this kit is unused.  So long as I can use something from these drawers to get the bullet out, I will be fine.  I’ve been shot like this once before, and this isn’t bad…but it will require tending to, before we can clean up this mess”.

Arthur continues, “Thankfully, nobody will be coming out here, so we have time to do what we need.  I will take care of the hard part, because you saved my life.  But if there is not a saw here, I’m going to need you to go and get me one.  It’s only about 10 PM, so we have plenty of hours of darkness left to get this done.  You get me that saw and I will cut off their limbs and load them into duffel bags.  If you can bring three old duffel bags from home, that would be ideal.  It’s best for things like this to not be tracked to a recent purchase.  I will drive the McAfees’ Audi out to the river and then dump the bags into the Ohio.  I think this plan will work better than Plan B…which is me handing the limbs to you in garbage bags and having you burn them in your fireplace…But it’s not like your fireplace is a crematorium.  So will go with Plan A and I will then take their car somewhere several hours from here and find a good place to abandon it”.

“So, you are experienced with sawing off limbs?”, Jared asks.

“Well, I used to work in taxidermy”, says Arthur.

“I’m going to choose to believe that, because otherwise my head will explode.  So…this was self defense on my part.  Why exactly can’t I go to the cops?”, Jared asks.

Arthur answers, “My friend…You just killed three brothers out of a family of ten brothers who run a very dangerous criminal organization.  You killed three of them, but there are seven of them still living.  And they are smart, as well as ruthless.  The cops will not be able to put things together quickly enough for you to avoid either having one of those seven brothers kill you…or for them to get someone else to kill you.  You’d be putting a huge target on your back by sticking around and going to the cops.  You’re going to have to deal with this more covertly”.

“Okay, I follow you”.

“Good.  You saved my life, so I’m going to tell you what you need to do.  Aside from getting rid of the car and bodies, you’re also going to have to get us some bleach.  We’re going to have to try to get as much blood out of the grass as we can.  It’s hard to get blood out of grass.  But we’ve got eight hours, so we can do it.  What they were trying to do to you and me today is actually small potatoes in the grand scheme of their operation.  Basically, the brothers who run the show just wanted there to be enough weaponized coverage for this meeting at your garage…Or at least what they thought was enough coverage, by putting these three turds you killed tonight on the job”. 

Arthur continues, “Tonight was supposed to be a slam dunk for them…The three of them round me up with guns and then have you kill me.  And if you don’t follow their orders, they just shoot my tied-up ass and kill a wet-behind-the-ears professor.  This was supposed to be an easy job, so the crew the McAfees brought out for this meeting was relatively light.  Their organization is handling big business in Chicago this week, so the other seven brothers are up there now.  They’re not coming back for three days.  So, you have some time to make your getaway.  But realistically speaking, the other brothers knew that these three were here doing this job tonight…So probably after a day of these three not answering their cell phones, things will seem a little weird to the other brothers.  So, I would expect at least one or two of the brothers to be back here checking on things by the morning after next.  Thus, we will pull an all-nighter tonight to clean up.  But then you need to pack up and get out of state to some place away from here.  You’ll have to catch up on your sleep on the road somewhere”.

“Wait a minute, so you’re saying I have to skip town?  Fuck!”, Jared exclaims.

“I’m afraid so.  There is no other way.  I will be doing it too.   I will even have to take my family with me.  But hey, I’m alive.  So there’s that”, Arthur says.

 

Thank you for your readership.  To continue reading, please go to amazon.com and the books section, and place B0CG8FYBF in the search bar to purchase the full book and continue on Chapter 5.  The complete novel is available for $4.99.