The Bootlegger’s Legacy (29 page)

Mike unlocked the padlock on the front door of the first building, which had been a night club. Second Street had changed a lot from its heyday. Joe had been told that back in the 50s this had been a high traffic area, with lots of pedestrians. There had been numerous shops and small businesses that served the community—barber shops, shoe repair shops, and a couple of appliance stores that did a booming business. Now there was little automobile traffic and almost no pedestrians.

The door seemed to be jammed, but they were able to force it open. Once they were inside, they could see the remains of what had been a bar or restaurant. A huge bar counter wrapped around one side of the building, while off to one side there was what appeared to be a bandstand with a dance floor in front. Everything was filthy, but it didn’t appear to have suffered a great deal of damage.

“Some of this old stuff, like that monster of a big bar, could be worth some money.” Joe was amazed that everything was in relatively in good shape. They looked into what must have been the kitchen area. All of the equipment had been removed, and there appeared to be some damage to one wall, maybe where something had been taken out.

“This is a huge kitchen. Must have done a hell of a business at one time. Kind of strange to grow up in a town and not be aware that places like this even existed. I mean, we were just kids, but it still seems like it should be better known than it is—don’t you think? I bet it was an interesting place back then.” Joe was much more interested than Mike, who said nothing.

They poked around for a while without finding much. “Looks like the building is in better shape than I would have guessed but still, in this part of town right now I’m not sure you could rent it for much of anything. And it would take a bunch of money just to clean it up. Maybe you could find someone opening a bar with a 50s theme who would pay to have some of this stuff, but that would be a long shot.”

Mike agreed with Joe. It was an old building full of a bunch of interesting junk. “Look over here.” Joe was standing in front of a door. “Stairs going down to the basement—shall we complete the tour?”

Mike was not real sure they should, but Joe had his flashlight on and was headed down. “Watch your step! Coming down I found a couple of places where there are some loose boards.” Great—inherit a million bucks and kill yourself inspecting this old death trap.

Joe was at the bottom. He poked around for a while, but mostly just found junk. “No need to bother coming down Mike—all I see is more junk and dirt.” Joe cautiously went back up stairs. “Just one big goddamn mess down there.”

Mike said, “Joe please watch your language.”

Joe wished he had the old Mike with him, because this new one was a pain in the ass.

“Guess we should look inside the building next door. Do you know what it used to be?”

“No, all I could find out was that it’s been vacant longer than the night club building, so more than likely the inside is in even worse shape. Keep in mind, Mike, you basically paid nothing for these buildings and someday the land might be worth something.”

Mike grunted something Joe couldn’t make out and they headed next door. Surprisingly, the door to this building opened more easily than the one in the first building. They entered what obviously had been a small lobby area in a hotel. While incredibly dirty, the overall condition of the inside was amazingly good.

“Never would have guessed that this had been a hotel. Must be about fifteen or so rooms. Man, I bet there are some stories about this old place.”

Once again Mike hung back, standing close to the front door, as Joe ventured off to explore. The building had only two stories. On the first floor was a small dining room and kitchen, the lobby, an office, and five guest rooms. Joe started opening doors and looking into the rooms.

“Hey, Mike. Don’t just stand there, help me out. Why don’t you go upstairs and look in the rooms there?”

“Look, Joe, I know you still think we’re going to stumble across millions, but I don’t. I’ve seen enough of these old broken-down buildings. Let’s go before we hurt ourselves.”

Joe couldn’t believe this was the same Mike who used to be the adventuresome one of the pair. Joe poked around the front desk area as he listened to his one-time best friend whine. Suddenly Joe stopped.

“Son of a bitch—look at that.” Joe was pointing above the key area behind the front desk.

Mike walked up and looked where Joe was pointing. “Son of a bitch!”

Faded but still visible were the words
St Francis Hotel
.

They both recalled the letter from Mike’s dad.
And remember, your path to financial independence goes through Deep Deuce at the St. Francis.

“I’m not sure I’m believing this.”

The boredom had left Mike’s face and there was something close to the old Mike’s gleam in his eyes. They quickly looked around the front desk, as if there might be stacks of money just lying around. They looked at each other and began laughing—it felt like old times.

Joe began organizing their search. He had Mike go upstairs and check each guest room, looking for anything out of place. Joe searched the main floor—guest rooms, lobby, offices, and kitchen.

After several hours they stopped and sat down on the floor, dirt be damned, in the lobby.

“I don’t know, Joe. Maybe my dad really was crazy and this is just some kind of old man’s sick joke.”

Joe started to laugh. Soon they were both laughing. Sweaty, dirty, and tired, now everything was funny. No matter what happened today, at least they’d enjoyed a few good laughs, just like they used to.

“Well we’re not done, yet. There’s an area in the kitchen I was going to explore some more. Come on, let’s finish this and go have a drink.”

“Not sure about a drink, but let’s finish.” The new Mike was back.

Joe showed Mike what he was talking about. There was a large cabinet that looked out of place. Joe said he wanted to move it and see if there was anything behind it. The cabinet was empty, so with both of them they were able to move it aside. Behind the cabinet was an unusual door—it looked almost like a small elevator door.

“I think that’s some kind of dumbwaiter or freight elevator. Jeez, I think there must be a basement.”

There was no visible way of opening the door. Joe went off looking for some kind of tool to pry it opened. He came back with a fire hatchet.

“I guess if I can’t pry the damn thing open, I can always just chop it up.”

Mike looked sullen again. The time for joking had passed.

Joe managed to pry the door open. It was a small freight elevator, about five feet high inside, so a man could get in but would have to stoop. It appeared to be a mechanical operation, with a pulley in place. Joe grabbed the pulley chain and pulled—the elevator started to move down. He reversed the action and the elevator moved back up. Neither Joe nor Mike were anxious to test the thing. They decided the better course of action was to look for stair access to the basement, but after another lengthy search they decided it didn’t exist, as odd as that seemed. Joe got his flashlight.

“I’m going down. If I’m not back up in about thirty minutes, call the fire department.” Cautious Joe had become Indiana Jones.

He climbed into the elevator, testing each step. Once inside, he worked the pulley and the elevator crept slowly down. The basement had a low ceiling, so the distance he descended wasn’t great, but to Joe it felt like it took forever. There was no door on the basement level, so Joe could immediately see into the room with his flashlight. The area was large, with a huge, room-like structure in one corner. It was surprisingly uncluttered. He got out of the elevator and yelled up to Mike that he was down. Looking around, he found a set of stairs going up to a door. He couldn’t believe that they hadn’t found the stairs from above. He went up the stairs and opened the door—and there was another door. The second door slid sideways, and he found himself in the office area behind the front desk. Joe stepped out and saw that the door had been carefully hidden. It matched the wall perfectly—no wonder they hadn’t found it. He went to find Mike.

They went back down the stairs. Joe went over to the boxy structure and cleared away the accumulated junk from the front.

“This thing looks like a safe.”

“Did you say a safe?” That seemed to get Mike’s attention.

“I guess—at least that’s a safe door.” Joe pushed some more stuff out of the way. “My god, this thing is huge. It’s a fucking room.” Mike made a face. “Look at this. It must be thirty feet long by about fifteen feet across and eight feet high.”

“Probably used it to store food or something.”

“Why would you have a safe to store food?” Joe was not enjoying new Mike’s attitude. “Wait a minute, look at this—this is a combination lock. Son of a bitch! Do you have that piece of paper from the lock box?” Joe was excited—could that be the combination to this gigantic safe? He knew it sounded farfetched, but Mike’s dad was connected to all of this—the safe in the basement of his old building, a combination code in a lock box owned by his dad—why the hell not!

“I think it’s in my briefcase in the car. You really think that could be the combination? And even if it is, no doubt the thing will be empty, or full of old rotten food.”

“Just go get the paper, Mike, and let’s see. If it’s full of rotten food we’ll shut the door and leave. Okay?” Joe almost hoped it
was
full of old food—just what sourpuss deserved.

Mike was getting pretty good at making holier-than-thou faces, and he made one now, but he went back up the stairs to get the briefcase.

It took Mike what seemed like a long time to get the briefcase and get back down the stairs. Of course, standing in the middle of an old creepy building next to an old spooky safe might have had something to do with time moving slowly. Joe began to imagine all sorts of things that could be in a safe that large—things that might jump out and grab him when they opened the door. Blimey, he was going to have a drink after this was over.

Mike handed the slip of paper to him. Joe began turning the dial, which was surprisingly smooth. Don’t build them like that anymore. Joe completed the combination and looked up at Mike, “Ready?”

“Yeah, open it.”

Joe moved some more stuff out of the way to clear a path for the door, then turned the handle and opened it. Joe shined the light inside: there were hundreds of boxes, wooden crates that all looked alike. They were heavy duty and most were marked as restaurant supplies.

“What do you think they are?” Even Mike sounded a little excited.

“No idea. Let me get something and let’s see if we can open one.” Joe went off looking for something to use as a lever, something less dangerous than the hatchet. He searched for a while without any luck, then went up to the kitchen and came back with a mallet and knife. “Probably not the safest tool, but it was all I could find—still better than the hatchet.”

Joe stepped into the safe and began working on the closest crate. It had been put together very well. He had some trouble, but eventually got the knife under what he thought was the right board and hit it with the mallet and it came off. Inside the crate was money, lots and lots of money. “What the fuck?” The old Mike seemed to come back for a moment.

“Jeez, look at this. These are twenties and hundreds. This crate is full of money.” They stared at the mountain of crates. Mike sat down on the floor.

“What the hell have we found?”

“I think we’ve found my dad’s millions.”

“I can’t believe it. He was telling the truth about everything—I thought he was out of his fucking mind, and he was telling the truth.”

Mike didn’t look well. Something was going on in his head. “My God, Joe, this is money from bootlegging—this is money from selling booze illegally. How—How did he accumulate this much money?”

“Don’t know Mike. But this is a bunch of money. There are hundreds of crates in here. If they’re all like this one it’s millions for sure.”

“What the hell are we going to do now?”

Good question. Joe hadn’t expected this to actually happen. Mike’s father had buried millions in an old safe in the basement of an old building in Deep Deuce—fucking amazing!

The first thing they did was seal the crate back up and lock the safe. Joe even pushed some of the junk back up against the door. They went upstairs and re-locked the building, making damn sure it was secure. Suddenly the neighborhood didn’t feel very safe. Back in the car they just sat there for a minute.

“What the hell are we going to do?” Mike seemed dazed.

“Well, Mike, I think we should revert to our old selves and go to Triples and have a drink.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

They went to Triples and found that the new bartender didn’t know them. The world had moved on while they weren’t looking. Joe got a gin and tonic, but Mike pulled himself together and had a diet Coke.

On the drive over, Joe had started giving this thought. While on the surface it was obviously a good thing, there was also a lot of risk. This much money could cause serious problems. First do you keep it? Obvious answer, yes! Now what do you do with it? Where do you keep it? How can you spend it? Lots of issues. But the biggest problem was Mike.

“First, Mike, you can’t tell anyone about this. I know the new you doesn’t lie, but you mustn’t tell anyone—and yes, that means Sam. We’ve got something going on here that, if we handle right it will be great, and if not could be really bad. So number one, you can’t tell anyone, okay?”

“I don’t know, Joe. This is so confusing to me.” Mike was looking like his thinking had stalled. Joe was very concerned that events were overloading some critical function in Mike’s brain. He knew that Mike was changing and that he was trying to get everything sorted out about his dad, plus Sam seemed to be exerting more and more control over him. He was being pulled in too many directions.

“Mike, just promise me you won’t tell anyone until we can put together the right plan to deal with this. And no, I don’t know what that is. So we’re going to have to think and then decide what to do, but you cannot tell anyone.”