As I tilted back my chair for a better view of the ceiling in the windowless office I occupy at the Mass. Department of Abandoned Property, I couldn’t help but contemplate how far I–Mike Sheetz–had fallen since that fateful day back in 2011 when I foolishly filched a Topps Carl Yasztremski rookie card from a collection that had been left in a bus locker in Boston’s South Station. I figured nobody’s gonna miss it, but in fact the state auditor had “salted” the apparently abandoned packs with high value cards for the express purpose of finding out if low-level drones like me was honest. I usually am, except when nobody’s looking.
So I was busted down from Examiner to “Customer Service Representative” at a significant cut in pay, pension and amenities, I might add, which I just did. Now, instead of an office that afforded me the opportunity to look out the window all day, I had to find a way to do nothing with just four walls and a ceiling. There’s no way I’m gonna spend all day lookin’ at the floor, not for what they pay me.
My duties, if you can call ’em that, is to handle consumer questions about abandoned property before it “escheats” to the state if nobody claims it–the Escheat Beat is what we call it. There’s not much chance of graft in that, which I assume is sorta the point of my placement here. Used to be I’d go to a bank and say “Hey–you got any outstanding money orders or traveler’s checks that ain’t been cashed? If so, escheat ’em to me.” Or maybe I’d shake down an insurance company that hadn’t reported cash surrender value on a life policy. Those guys, they look at me when I pull myself up to my full 5′ 10 1/2″ stature, they don’t wanna mess with me, so they find a way to–I think the word is “accommodate” me. Tickets to sports events from the marketing department, golf umbrellas, cool fleece pullovers. It makes up for the meager salaries one is forced to accept working in the public sector.
I was about to put my head in my hand, which was attached to my arm which was propped on my desk in order to take a refreshing mid-morning snooze when I heard the dulcet tones of a slender throat clearing itself. A customer! Geez’d it’d been so long, I’d forgotten how to ignore one.
I got up against my better instincts and, since there was nobody around I could shoot the breeze with in order to stall for time, mouthed the four little words that are so hard for a bureaucrat to say, and yet mean so much to the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, yearning to get their state government business done and breathe free.
“Can I help who’s next?” Okay, so that’s maybe five.
“I was wondering,” she began, and so was I, but not about the same thing. She was two, maybe three inches taller than me, but that was jake with me since I lusted after every centimeter of her, notwithstanding the difficulty of making the metric to British (Imperial) conversion on the fly. She had pale skin that she highlighted with just the right touch of rouge on each cheek; a hat with netting in the front that lent her an air of mystery, and didn’t charge any interest.
She had on a chemise dress which I know a lot of people say dames use to hide the fact that they’ve lost their figure, but I didn’t care–I’d help her find it. And lastly–I can barely get the words out of my mouth I’m choking on ’em so hard–she had on a stole made out of little foxes that sent me into paroxysms of passion. If she could be so cruel to an innocent little animal that eats other innocent little animals, imagine what she could do to me.
She’d been polite at first, but now seemed impatient, probably annoyed by the internal reverie I just recounted for you. She looked like she was ready to file a complaint, so I hit the charm accelerator as hard as I could. “Yes?”
“I found these checks,” she said, tossing a stack of paper down on the counter. “I took them to my bank, but they said they were stale. I didn’t know little three-and-a-half by eight-and-a-half inch pieces of paper could get stale.” She batted her eyelashes at me, so I wound up and threw one right back at her.
“Technically, a bank don’t have to cash a check that’s more than six months old,” I said, leaning on the counter to get a better look. And a whiff of her cologne–I believe it was Evening in Worcester. “These checks–they’re all from 1997, 1998. Nobody’s gonna let you cash ’em now.”
“They gave you a toaster oven–just to open a new account?”
“So what can I do?” she said, giving me a look that said she needed a knight in shining armor.
“You’ve come to the right place, dear,” I said. “This money, all–let’s see, $276 of it–has escheated . . .”
“S-cheated?”
“The reverting of property to the lord of the manor . . .”
“You’re a lord of the manor?”
“You didn’t let me finish, ma’am. To the lord of the manor in feudal times, but in modern times to the government, in this case the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
“It sounds so . . . complicated.”
“It is and it isn’t. We should be able to get your money back to you, pronto.”
“Oh, how wonderful!” she squealed. That’s the kind of gal she was, an “Oh, how wonderful!” woman, comma and everything.
“My name’s Mike–Mike Sheetz,” I said as I extended my hand to hers, letting it linger longer than perhaps was legit, and try saying that five times fast.
“My name’s Florence–Florence Dalby.”
A lot of your seamier escheat guys would’ve used this opportunity to make time with this dame if they was interested in her; after all, no woman is ever more vulnerable than when filing a claim with a State Division of Abandoned Property. So many questions; let me see a photo ID, do you have any unpaid parking tickets, do you owe any back taxes? You can really drag somebody through the mud if you’ve a mind to. Or you can ask for some consideration in exchange for . . . bending the rules ever so slightly.
“So what’s the story behind these here checks?” I asked as I pulled a Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office of the State Treasurer and Receiver General Form ABP-10 out of the drawer and took my pencil out from behind my ear.
“How much time do you have?”
“All the time in the world–for you,” I said.
“Do you have a couch, a sofa or divan that I could lie upon while I recount my sad tale of woe?” she asked, throwing her hand up on her head in a gesture of despair. God it drives me wild when dames do that!
“Sure,” I said, “right over here.” We keep the sofa out in the open so that there can be no accusation of illicit hanky-panky as between claimants and customer service reps. All hanky-panky has to be on the up-and-up.
“Well, when I married Charlies, he promised my father that he’d take care of me,” she began. “And he did–at first.”
“Um-hmm,” I said, and I could tell what was coming.
“After the euphoria of the wedding, the tough reality sets in. We returned a few gifts–the extra Cuisinart, the gravy boat, the counter-top donut maker . . .”
“The Dough-nu-Matic?”
“No, the Donut Factory–in white. Like my wedding dress.”
She started to sniffle, and pretty soon the sobs were coming like water through the sluice gates at Bagnell Dam, Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri.
“There, there,” I said as I gave her a tissue.
“Where, where?”
“That’s just an expression,” I said. She dabbed at her nose and continued.
“We both had our yuppie jobs, but we couldn’t save a thing because I wanted to be happy–now.”
“And so you did the things that young people do,” I said. “You go out to dinner, you buy nice clothes, you treat yourself to a pedicure . . .”
“Or a mistress.” Her face clouded over, like a Kansas wheatfield before a tornado. So that was it.
“Charles took up with the girl who cut his hair–‘Tawni’,” she continued.
“Just guessing, but did she dot the ‘i’ with a little smiley-face?”
“How did you know?”
“You been in the business as long as me, you get a sixth sense about these things. And so . . .” I said, picking up the thread.
“All of a sudden, there wasn’t enough money. We started to argue about the littlest things. Utility bills, rent, groceries.”
I’d heard it all before. “And then?”
“And then he left me.”
“But he forgot to change his address for the delivery of first-class mail–correct?”
“You . . . you’re clairvoyant.”
“Actually I’m Catholic, but I don’t go to church that much. Anyway . . .”
“So his mail kept coming but I wasn’t in touch with him–”
“Because you were bitter, so you just tossed it in a pile. Until finally . . .”
“Finally, I thought–perhaps I can learn how I failed to satisfy his needs by riffling–”
“I think you mean ‘rifling’–”
“But a rifle’s a gun.”
“There’s a secondary definition. ‘To ransack.’”
“Whatever–through his mail. Oh, I know it’s a federal crime, but can you blame me?”
“I couldn’t blame you for anything,” I said suggestively, “except maybe stealing my heart.”
Our eyes locked like the face masks of a couple of peewee hockey players who collided. Suddenly I was on top of her, in express violation of the Massachusetts State Code of Ethics, Rule 3.01(a): “Exchange of sexual favors between state employees and citizens who seek services, permits or licenses is forbidden except in the case of members of the executive, legislative and judicial branches.”
“So you’ll help me then?” the kitten purred at me once our tongues were untangled.
“That’s why I went into public service.”
________________________________________
The next day I found myself at my computer, trying to piece together the broken chain of corporate transactions by which the drawer of these checks–The New England Provident Puritan Colonial Life Assurance & Indemnity Company–had become “NewLifeCo.”
I know insurance is boring, but so’s your brother-in-law. The difference between the two is that insurance turns into money, while your brother-in-law bounces around from job to job without ever amounting to much. Speaking of not amounting to much, right now all I had was a bunch of small dollar checks made out to Charles Dalby, which nobody could cash but him.
Apparently Charles had taken out a life insurance policy on himself–supposedly for Florence, but really just as a low-yield investment vehicle. Those little checks represented dividends, but I knew there was a bigger payday in the offing–if Charles was insanely lucky and his mutual insurance company went public. If he was insanely unlucky, he’d kick the bucket before he had a chance to change the beneficiary from Florence to his floozie.
I decided to give my newfound love interest a call, at 57 Beacon Street, Boston, the address she’d left me, right down the street from Abandoned Property. I pushed the buzzer and heard her voice, distorted and tinny-sounding, through the little brass loudspeaker on the door.
“Hello?”
“It’s Mike, from the . . .”
“No need to explain. I’ll never forget our first passionate kiss on the couch.”
“Me neither, sweetheart. Buzz me in.”
She let me into the vestibule, then greeted me at the door of a cramped, two-level apartment, half-basement, half on the ground floor. My guess was she could barely afford to split the rent with Charles, and was facing eviction since he took it on the lam.
“Listen,” I said after I’d doffed my fedora. “This Charles guy. . .”
“Please, don’t mention him.”
“I have to, otherwise the reader might not know who I was referring to.”
“All right, if you insist.”
“Anyway–is he in good health?”
“I don’t know and don’t care.”
“You’d care if you cashed in a full one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollar life insurance policy–wouldn’t you?”
She gasped–I don’t think she’d realized just how much money was at stake. Enough, I guessed, to buy the crummy apartment if the building went condo.
“My goodness–that’s a lot of money!”
“And it could have been yours. But now you’ll never see a dime of it if Charles cuts you out for Tawni.”
Her eyes narrowed to grim little slits. I could almost hear the cynical synapses popping in her brain. “Why that low-down, conniving, good-for-nothing . . .”
“Easy on the hyphens, babe,” I said. “We got work to do. I can’t have you getting all emotional at a time like this, not when I need you to be cool as Hoover the Seal.”
“Who’s Hoover the Seal?” I hod ta loff, as we say here in Boston.
“He’s the world’s only talking seal. He could say ‘How are ya?’ and ‘Well hello deah’ with a Boston accent.”
“And–what would this ‘Hoover’ say right now?” she asked, playing the coquette, which is not an instrument they teach you in high school stage band.
“He’d say ‘Tough luck, Charles,’” I said.
“Are you serious?”
“Deadly serious.”
——————————————————————
Our plan was simple, and elegant in its simplicity, not stupid simple. Florence would lure Charles to Charles Street for what she would portray as a final attempt at reconciliation. I’d hit the sap with my sap as he came in the door. Once he was out cold, Florence would give him two in the head with a cute little pistol she’d bought to defend her virtue in case of a break-in.
It would look like a deadly mistake; she didn’t know he had a key, thought he was an intruder, and had plugged him. Me and her would collect on the policy and live happily ever after.
“You all set?” I asked as we prepared for Charles’ imminent arrival.
“I . . . I guess. Oh, Mike–are you sure this will work?”
“Nothing’s for sure in the crazy, mixed-up world of unclaimed property and whole life insurance,” I said as I clasped her to me.
“I’m not sure if I want to go through with this,” she said as she sifled a stob. I mean stifled a sob.
“Don’t back out on me now,” I said. “You’re already an accessory.”
“You mean like a belt, a brooch, or a scarf that contributes in a secondary manner to an otherwise-drab fashion ensemble?”
“No, one who aids, abets or incites a lawbreaker in the commission of a crime.” I looked deep into her eyes. “You know you incite me, babe.”
We heard a knock. “You know what to do,” I said. “Do it.”
I took my place behind the door, and Florence called out “Who is it?”
“It’s me, Charles.”
“Let yourself in.”
Charles turned the key and as soon as I saw his head, I swung. Unfortunately, as I was positioned on the top step of the stairs to the basement, I didn’t connect squarely and just grazed him.
“Ow,” he said, and he seemed sincere. Then he grabbed me by the neck and any further doubts on my part were dispelled.
“Grackelagaga,” I said as he blocked my windpipe. I wasn’t at my most articulate. Then he got his knee up on my chest and any further hope of resolving the situation amicably was irretrievably lost.
“I told you, you’ve got to use the security bolt . . .” Charles began, then looked up to see the barrel of a Pink Lady Undercover Lite Aluminum .38 special, glaring at him from the right hand of Florence, who’d changed into her wedding dress while I’d scuffled with her cheating husband.
“You told me a lot of things,” Flo said with an air of menace. “Now I’m gonna let this little lady here do the talking.”
“Sweetie, please, be reasonable!”
“Reasonable’s got nothing to do with it. Was it reasonable for you to shack up with a hairdresser?”
“Don’t shoot, it’s not worth it!” Charles pleaded.
“I’m going to enjoy every penny of that $125,000 life insurance policy you took out and never told me about.”
Charles looked at me, then back at her. “So that’s what this is all about, huh?”
“All’s fair in love and life insurance, pal,” I said. “Especially when you leave a trail littered with dividend checks behind you.”
His face took on a desperate look, like a trapped rat. “What if I cash in the policy and give you the money? Would you spare my life then?”
I saw Flo’s upper lip quiver. This was, after all, a man who she’d promised to love, and probably did–at one time. I could tell her resolve was fading. “Well, I guess . . .”
It was time for me to intervene. “Look, schweetheart,” I said, throwing in the extra diagraph so I’d sound tough, like Bogart. “Cash surrender value in the first five years is nothing. Don’t let him play you for a chump.”
“C’mon, Flo–we had some great times together.”
“Any money built up will be wiped out by the surrender charge.”
Flo’s eyes darted from Charles to me, then back again. She could have used a financial advisor, but there was no time for that. “I . . . don’t know what to do,” she said finally.
Charles was distracted just long enough for me to wrest my right arm free and land a punch on his choppers, sending him backwards into the door, which his head hit with a “clonk.” He was out cold this time.
I scrambled out from under his slack body and stood up to confront Florence. “I thought you were in this all the way with me,” I snapped as I grabbed her by the biceps, untoned and flabby, the way I liked them.
“Oh Mike, don’t hate me. It’s just that . . .”
“Just what?”
“Well, Charles was unfaithful–but he never escheated on me.”
Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Everyday Noir.”