Flying Too Close to the Sun by George Jehn (novels for beginners .txt) 📕

Although there was no beard, with slick money written all over him, this had to be the scumbag. The guy got into a shiny black Mercedes with New York plates and drove off. Erik kept repeating the plate number aloud until he got back to his car and jotted it down.

The Montgomery houselights were being extinguished as Erik walked toward his destiny. The doorbell was answered by a smiling, heavyset woman, dressed in what appeared to be a white linen skirt with a large crucifix encircling her neck. Erik surmised she was Woody’s wife.

“Billy, I thought you were leaving…”

So Billy is the guy’s name.

“Excuse me,” as the smile vanished, “I thought you were someone else.” The woman stood perfectly still until she finally asked, “May I help you?” She was nodding her head, like she ought to know the person standing on her doorstep, but couldn’t quite place him.

“I wanna speak with Woody,” Erik brusquely told her, quickly measuring her assets versus liabilities. The latter easily won out.

“May I say whose calling?”

“Erik Preis.” He almost heard the blood rushing to her head. Would she puke? Faint? “And tell him it’s urgent.”

She stepped back and wiped her hands briskly on the side of her skirt for a long moment. Erik thought she would slam the door in his face, but finally whispered, “I’ll see if he’s in.” Leaving him standing outside, she disappeared inside.

“Erik Preis!” a smiling, very married looking Montgomery bellowed as he offered his hand, which Erik ignored. The devils we anticipate are never quite as intimidating when we meet them face-to-face. “C’mon in,” Woody finally half-heartedly uttered while motioning Erik inside, a deer in the headlights look on his face.

Erik scrutinized the entranceway where the walls looked soft, perhaps weakened by lies? “I’ll cut right to the chase, mister Airframe and Powerplant mechanic,” he commanded in a loud voice. His heart was thudding as he held back the pent up anger wanting to release itself with the fury of a summer thunderstorm. The woman was peering over Woody’s shoulder with dark eyes darting back and forth between the two men. Her face was the color of paste, like the guy who just left. Pointing to her Erik said, “She knows?”

“That’s Ingrid, my wife. What does she know? What are you talking about?”

“I won’t play your fucking game all night, so I’ll talk turkey. I know you took our money.” He let the last sentence just hang in the air, begging for a reply. None came.

Woody reassumed his plastic veneer expression and replied in a voice full of self-righteous, but phony-sounding indignation. “What money? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“I also know that Billy, the prick who just left here and got into the shiny Benz was the one.”

Woody’s complexion turned whiter than Santa’s beard as he began to reply, “But...”

“I want our money; every last fucking dime.” Although it was obvious Woody wanted to say something, nothing came out. His skin tone changed to beet red and he took a wobbly step backwards. Did he have a gun? With response mechanisms revving in high gear and at the ready, Erik nodded in the direction of the street. “I got his plate number so it will only take some simple checking to unearth where Billy lives. But he fit my partner’s description to a tee, right down to his ugly fucking face and birthmark.”

“But...”

“By the way, just in case you never discovered my associate’s true identity—”

Ingrid roughly pushed Woody aside and spat out, “We know. He’s—”

With makeup thick as cake frosting that tried to mask a complexion riddled with pock marks, Erik pointed and commanded her, “Shut up!” From what he had just witnessed, maybe Woody must have met this bimbo at an anti-testosterone rally. These two people, including the female who looked like she had more cosmetic surgery than Joan Rivers, were definitely the ones. Although trying to contain his fury, Erik discovered a restrained response wasn’t possible. There’s a very fine line between justice and revenge, and this made for a difficult path for Erik to walk. He struggled to keep a balance—too far to one side of that line or in the other direction wouldn’t work. He hissed, “Since you think you already know so fucking much, allow me to fill you in on a few more details not on the voice recorder. My associate is a paisan who would love to even the score with every person responsible for his beating.” He added with a haughty grin, “Once your buddy whacked him he developed a bad case of Italian Alzheimer’s; when you forget everything but the grudges.” He paused to allow his words to sink in. “Wanna hear more?” Only silence. “But I’m here to offer you a deal.”

“Go ahead,” Woody replied in a quavering voice with a mix of what Erik took to be either embarrassment or self-loathing.

“Wait a goddamn minute!” Ingrid shrieked in surround sound, throbbing arteries clearly visible in her puffy neck, her face actually looking like it might crack. “You don’t have to cut any deals with this prick. What’s he gonna do? Go to the cops? Fuck him. If he does that he’ll—”

“That wasn’t what I had in mind,” Erik hissed. “Maybe you read about those recent murders in Brooklyn Heights?” recalling some headlines in that morning’s NY Post. “The cops don’t know who committed them but I do. Wanna hear more?”

Woody looked like he would cry, his face contorted. Was it rage or fear? He shouted, “Ingrid, for once just shut the fuck up!” Turning around, he rubbed his face with one hand and offered in a subdued tone, “What’s your offer?”

“Offer? Fuck you. This is no offer. It’s a demand. I want it all, every last dollar. In exchange, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

Pushing Woody aside again, Ingrid screeched, “How the fuck do we know that?”

“I’m afraid you’ll just have to take my word. The way I see it you have no choice.”

Woody began, “I