I Am Not Your Enemy

There are some bad people who've been around a long time. They're so tough you'd need a force field to go up against them.


I Am Not Your Enemy

chapter one


“Another freakin’ hogsweat, hot day in S. Florida and I get the opportunity to dodge cuesticks in an ex-con convention center . . . it’s probably not even air conditioned.”

I walked down Canal street, turned into Q’s Pool Hall and scanned the room. It was an old building with twenty-foot ceilings, complete with ornate designs molded into the plaster. The kind of monolith architects loved to build back in the 1920’s. The walls probably used to be white, but now they were the color of a long time cigarette smoker's teeth with a few frozen pizza stains added for decoration.

The lighting overhead was dim, while the light over each of the dozen pool tables was intense. The room was about sixty-feet long by thirty-feet wide, and in its heyday was probably a dingy bar. There was a counter where the boss sat, right as you entered. I dropped my bag on the grimy counter and looked around.

At least thirty people were in there playing pool, milling around, calling each other names; and waiting for the next bad thing to happen in their lives which they can blame on someone else. There were also six or eight people gathered around two cheap folding-tables playing what appeared to be Cutthroat Pinochle.

I finished scanning the room and brought my attention to the big musclebound mutant playing nine-ball at the first table. “Shit,” I muttered, as I studied the size of this brute.

I walked up to the table where he was playing and waited while he skillfully ran the six, seven, and eight balls. He paused, cocked a bloodshot eye my way, took a breath, and missed an easy shot on the nine ball. He watched as the nine caromed off the rail to stop in front of the side pocket, leaving a 'duck' straight-in shot for the next guy. He turned, looked me in the eye and said, “I hope you’ve got a good reason for messin’ up my game, otherwise I’m gonna stomp ya.”

“Is your name Mel ‘the brick’ Limski?” I asked.

“Yeah. What are you, a cop?”

“No, I’m a reporter with the Daily Sentinel. I want to ask you some questions about your fund raising tactics on behalf of candidate Ortiz's mayoral campaign.”

“I don’t raise no funds for nobody.” Mel said.

“I wonder then, why all the boys down at the Union Hall are grumbling? They say you hit ‘em all up for cash and if they don’t give, they don’t work. They say you broke old Al Grundle’s knee when he threatened to call the cops on you.”

I watched Mel’s face turn three shades of mean, and I watched the other two to make sure they weren’t going to flank me. I knew there was no one behind me, I also knew that any second I could expect a cue stick flying at murderous speed toward the side of my head.

There it was. This conversation couldn’t last much longer because Mel had already used all the words in his peabrain vocabulary. He shifted his feet, flat, a little further apart, while his right arm stiffened holding the pool stick. He started his swing, but I had already taken a step inside. My right hand locked on his neck, while I looped my right foot behind his legs, and pushed him by the neck backwards. As he fell, I made sure his head struck the hard edge of the pool table. Just as he hit the floor, I lifted my right leg and drove the heel of my wingtip into his face.

The blood was already flowing out his nose as I stepped back and faced the other two, who were shocked but moving towards me. “You want some too, you buzzard-lipped freaks?” I asked calmly. "Your buddy here made one of the biggest mistakes a man in South Florida can make—he got my full attention. Do you want my attention?”

Both of them stopped and looked first at Mel, who was lying on the floor moaning; then at me, smiling. This was my practiced get-out-of-here-without-hurting-anybody smile. The kind of smile that sends criminals looking for a phone to call the police. They backed up and went to the other side of the table, pointedly ignoring both me and their injured cohort.

I went over to the counter and got my camera out of the small brown lunch bag I had carried in with me. It was one of those auto load, auto focus, auto advance, auto everything 35mm cameras designed for monkeys like me who just want to shoot clear pictures without twisting dials, carrying six different speeds of film and learning the entire body of scientific theory concerning light. I refused to use those digital cameras. I shot a dozen pictures of Mel crying, covered with blood and holding his face.

“Come by the Sentinel office tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll give you some prints for your scrapbook.”

I noticed the staring, hard-eyed faces of the dive's occupants tracking my movements as I left. They were used to this sort of thing, and had only stopped to make sure nothing was headed their way. An ex-con convention hall wasn’t such a bad place to get quotes after all.

I headed for the paper to finish my story and get the film developed. I already had signed statements and enough evidence to have the greasy, porkchop-swallowing, pinhead would-be mayor arrested; but I’m not a cop. I’m a reporter,The Best Damn Reporter south of Disneyworld. My by-line, Larry Russell, the Miami Muscle; and this story was good enough to buy me at least six months of screwing off, writing pap before Editor Hoyt got tired of my puff-work and called me into his office to question my ancestry in loud and less than endearing terms.

“Kiss my ass Hoyt!” I said, as I passed his office. It was a signal that I had something good enough to get him invited to the big bosses, big boat for a weekend of fishing, drinking and backslapping. I could hear the big man now, ‘Hoyt, that was a fine job of reporting your man did; why don’t you come out this weekend for a bit of fishing?'

I sat behind the terminal and called up my unfinished copy. I spent ten or fifteen seconds pondering the ramifications of the story I was about to file. Councilman Jesus W. Ortiz, frontrunner for the upcoming Mayoral election; former frontrunner, I was about to blow his campaign back to city dogcatcher level. It felt good. There’s nothing like ruining some immoral, pampered, pencil-necked, limpwristed, public servant. That thought charged me as I finished the piece.

I had the right dishonorable Ortiz in the vise. He’d used his union influence to raise money, and he’d used a gang of morons to do it. If it hadn’t been for my father telling me about his friend, Al Grundle’s busted knee, I might never have caught on to Ortiz. My old man retired an Ironworker. He’d worked, drunk and fought alongside Big Al for twenty years. It took three of those idiots to bust Al’s knee, and he was nearly 65 years old.

“Russell, you dog turd!” Hoyt’s shrill voice broke my daydreaming. “Did I hear you cuss me a few minutes ago?”

“No, you old fart. I told you to get a hearing aid. I been asking for a raise the last six months and you still haven’t heard me,” I replied.

Hoyt was managing editor of the Sentinel. The consummate newsman: started out in the 40’s setting type using liquid lead or some shit, eventually learned how to spell, avoid lawsuits, and scream like a damn fire engine; all of which qualified him as an editor.

“Cut the crap Russell. I can tell by the leer on your ugly face that you are about to use this paper to publicly humiliate someone.”

“Yeah boss, I staked out your house and got pictures of the competition's paperboy making a three-hour delivery to your wife.” Before he could make a snappy comeback like, you’re fired; I told him all about Councilman Ortiz’s fall from grace.

We spent the next hour-and-a-half in legals office going over the signed statements and other bits and pieces of corroboration I’d obtained. Then they brought out the pictures I’d taken of Mel’s facial reconstruction.

“What the hell is this?” one of the lawyers asked.

“It’s a picture of an asshole in extreme pain,” I said.

“Come on Larry.” This from Sal Arreyman, the papers chief attorney and the only mouthpiece I’d ever met and liked.

“That’s Mel ‘the Brick’ Limski, right after he tried to hit me with a pool cue. You’ll remember Mel as the chief armbender for Ortiz's union fundraising unit.” I explained.

“Jesus! He must be in the hospital by now. Larry, you’re going to get into real trouble one of these days. You may be 6'5", weigh 260 pounds and have the disposition of a wolverine, but one day somebody is going to kill you deader than my sex life.”

That was Hoyt, I think he cares about me. “Hoyt, don’t get your blood pressure all out of control. I only went to see him so I could get a quote. I’m thorough.”

“Don’t stroke me Larry. You knew he was brain-dead before you went to see him. You also knew he wouldn’t say anything. He must’ve worked over one of your old man’s buddies, and you felt obliged to go scrape some skin off his face under the pretense of doing your job. You probably charged the paper for bus fare to the joint, and a big lunch after you exerted yourself,” said Hoyt. “I don’t know why you took pictures of him though. Are you getting weird? Do you need a vacation?”

I knew Hoyt liked the pictures and I could even pick the one he’d run. I could also see an editorial sidebar, written by him, outlining how dangerous a job gathering the news and protecting the public's 'right to know' really is.

First, he had to express his misgivings, feign alarm at my tactics and align himself with the civilized yuppie lawyers in the room. Everyone else in the office thought I was some kind of vicious lunatic, and he didn’t want to give the impression that he condoned this sort of behavior.

“Hoyt, those pictures are for me,” I said. “I’m putting together a resume for Soldier of Fortune magazine. I’m tired of justifying my bus fare and lunch habits.”

“Up yours Larry. Go finish your story—fix your punctuation, it sucks. I’ll make copies of all this and bring them to you.”

As I left the office, I heard Hoyt say, “That was good work Larry.”

I finished the story and sent it to layout. From there I walked the three blocks to Smitty’s Bar-B-Q, with emphasis on the Bar. I ordered a bowl of Smitty’s Meandog Chile and a beer. This was a reporter hangout, and one of the mouthflappin lawyers had already tried to impress his secretary by telling them about my trashing of Ortiz. It fanned out in a wide arc from there—Shit, CNN probably had rumor of it by now. Anyway, the rest of the crew were looking at me, waiting for my triumphant tale.

“All right you clowns. Why are you looking at me?” I asked.

“We heard you had something on Ortiz. Something big,” said one of the young guys, who I remembered, worked the graveyard police beat.

“Yeah, I got him. Extortion, hanging out with criminals, looking at Penthouse centerfolds, you name it. You can read the story in a couple of hours.”

They kept at me, buying me beers; and I told them a little at a time so I could get more beers. There’s an art to stretching and embellishing a story with meaningful pauses and lively gestures. It also builds a powerful thirst.

After three bowls of chili and a forgotten number of beers, I noticed a man still sitting in the corner. It was the darkest spot in the bar. He’d been there since I came in and hadn’t moved. Hadn’t even gone to the toilet, but he’d had at least five or six drinks. I’d had a vague feeling of being watched for at least a week. Just a minor, mental itch, not worth a scratch. Now it was fast turning into a rash. I resolved to limit myself to one more beer just in case the mystery man wanted to do me bodily harm. Just then someone brought in the first edition, and I admired my handiwork. Top of the front page, 48-point headline, ‘Forced Financing for Ortiz Campaign’. I had five columns across the top, by four-inches deep, and a jump to page three. Scratch one mayoral candidate.

The stranger with the incredible kidneys was still sitting in the dark. After a few pats on the back from my peers, I got up to leave. My unknown friend got up also.