Birth of a Monster (21 page)

This was not going according to plan.
He and Mr. Brass had discussed a few possible obstacles, one of
them being where the secretary claimed Mr. Hoffmeyer was too busy
or was simply not seeing anyone today, another being where the
secretary insisted a lower-ranking manager could help
him.

But this was unexpected, and
furthermore, Tats believed the secretary. And even if he didn’t,
the only option left at this point would have been to pull out his
sword, put it to her throat, and tell her,
Now, we’re going to take a little trip to Mr. Hoffmeyer’s
office and see if we can’t find that rascal hiding underneath the
desk! Any more cute stories you wanna sell me?!

Perhaps Mr. Brass
would
want to take things
that far, but it was certainly outside of the scenarios they had
discussed.

“Thank you, ma’am. I will be consulting
with my business partner and may be so bold as to check in later
today or tomorrow to see if any unexpected updates concerning Mr.
Hoffmeyer have been received. The benefits of having a single
inventory supplier may be so great that we will have to postpone
the opening day if necessary. Good day to you.”

Tats exited the warehouse and would
have felt immense relief if not for the fact the job was undone,
perhaps similar to a laborer who feels momentary joy upon seeing
the heavy drops of rain that spell a day off from work until he
realizes they also spell a day without pay and will leave him with
a muddy, slippery environment to work in tomorrow.

He walked several blocks to where Mr.
Brass was waiting for him.

Mr. Brass’s eyes seemed to go first to
Tats’ hands, and a glint of dissatisfaction suggested the absence
of even a speck of blood was displeasing.

“Well?” Mr. Brass said,
frowning.

Chapter 40

When Mr. Hoffmeyer heard the police
station had been burned to the ground in broad daylight, it was
somewhere around fifty-six times the hint he needed that the time
had come to get the hell out of Sivingdel.

He didn’t like to think of himself as a
career criminal. Sure, he had since long ago fudged the books from
time to time for himself and even helped a few clients with that,
but he had never wanted to get into the business of drug
peddling.

But some mysterious men who claimed to
be from Sogolia had other plans. They had been his supplier when
Smokeless Green was as legal as a box of cigars, and when they
showed up after SISA was passed and told him that he had been
chosen as the supplier—i.e., kingpin—of Sivingdel, he had politely
declined the perilous offer.

He still wasn’t sure exactly how, but
mere seconds later his arm was behind his back, a forearm was
crushing his throat, and a polite but firm voice had told him, “I’m
sorry. But you have been chosen . . . do you
understand?”

The voice’s tone suggested the man was
willing to provide further pain if necessary to instill a full
level of comprehension in Mr. Hoffmeyer that he was being chosen,
not solicited.

Once Mr. Hoffmeyer, a lifelong
practical individual, acquiesced, the men explained that the
process was going to be very simple. They would find and pick the
person whom Mr. Hoffmeyer would deal with directly, and it would be
that person’s responsibility to distribute the Smokeless Green
throughout the city. Mr. Hoffmeyer was going to be assured full
protection, and the distributor in question would understand that
only he, and he alone, would know of Mr. Hoffmeyer’s identity and
that he would come to Mr. Hoffmeyer’s warehouse to pick up the
shipments in person, after which he would take them wherever he
wished.

The men would communicate quite clearly
to the distributor that, were he ever to cause any problems to Mr.
Hoffmeyer, ever communicate his name to anyone, or even to even
bring an associate along with him to Mr. Hoffmeyer’s office, the
consequences would indeed be severe. Mr. Hoffmeyer was to wait
until a man introduced himself verbatim with the greeting, “I’m
here to inquire about Sogolian tobacco.”

Lastly, Mr. Hoffmeyer was given a list
of prices corresponding to specified quantities and was told they
would be coming by as needed to replenish his supply.

After that, there was a stretch of
silence, but just when Mr. Hoffmeyer began to hope perhaps the men
had decided to pick someone else, he received a visit from a
grotesque, imposing man named Sam who introduced himself with the
specified greeting word for word.

Mr. Hoffmeyer took him to his
warehouse, and Sam had purchased ten pounds. The next week, he
purchased a hundred. The next month, he purchased a thousand. From
there, fluctuations had been minor.

The next thing Mr. Hoffmeyer knew he
was bringing a wagonload of cash home once a month. At first he
managed to bury it underneath the floorboards. Then, he filled a
room to the point he could have only added a needle with
difficulty. He then walled off the room, grateful he knew a thing
or two about swinging a hammer.

After that, he filled up and walled off
another room but decided that would be the last. He began digging
holes in his yard—glad he lived in a rural area and had a large
ranch—but it was backbreaking work, and although he put the cash
into large boxes, he worried about the money rotting before he ever
even touched it.

Nonetheless, as long as he kept making
money he really had little other choice. He was able to launder a
large quantity, due to the size of his business, but it was an
incredibly small percentage of the amount he was
earning.

It was beginning to become more of a
chore than a luxury, since he had never been accustomed to keeping
large quantities of cash on hand. He preferred investments, but he
knew the amount of money he was taking in was far too much for him
to put it into bank accounts or the stock market without attracting
the wrong kind of attention.

When he heard that Heavy Sam had been
beaten to a pulp and had his head cut off by a shadowy figure named
Mr. Brass, he had nearly tap-danced with joy. Perhaps, that would
be the end of it all—the gentlemen from Sogolia would maybe decide
to start dealing directly with Mr. Brass.

But that didn’t happen. Mr. Hoffmeyer
had found himself in his office with three brutes brandishing
daggers and telling him, “We know you was Sam’s source!” and
insisting that he begin working with them. The cat was already out
of the bag by the time the Sogolian gentlemen showed up.

They seemed far less confident than
before—almost as if they were in uncharted waters themselves—and
they told him he would need to deal with those three
suppliers.

It seemed the Sogolian gentlemen must
have paid them a visit and instilled some manners into their
beastly skulls because the next time they approached Mr. Hoffmeyer
he heard more “sir”s in five minutes than he could previously
recall hearing in a single hour.

But he soon realized Mr. Brass was
making things nasty for them. It seemed every week their purchases
got smaller. Mr. Hoffmeyer couldn’t have been happier. He was
hoping they would just go away. Maybe in about ten years he could
launder the drug money he had already stuffed his house and yard
with.

But with the ever-shrinking purchases,
he found himself starting to think quite a bit about Mr. Brass. Who
was this guy? The three distributors told him he was an enigma
because no one in the city’s underworld knew his real name and
“that just don’t happen,” they had explained.

Two of them had been there when Sam got
pulverized by Mr. Brass, and having done a little boxing themselves
and a lot of street fighting, they each swore there was “no way
someone could fight like that unless he was a real pro.”

That had titillated Mr. Hoffmeyer’s
interest considerably. He had never quite been able to shake the
memory of that clerk of Roger’s who had shown up claiming a dozen
barrels of Smokeless Green seed had been spoiled—right after SISA
was passed.

He knew that of course was a lie, so he
figured either the clerk stole or sold the seeds, or Roger did it.
While he wasn’t one to quickly dismiss possibilities—even remote
ones—he had known Roger for quite a while, and he seemed the last
person in the world to do something outside the rules.

As for this clerk, on the other hand,
he didn’t know anything about him. He looked up his old notes and
saw his name was Richard Simmers, and he had one of his employees
go down to Ringsetter to do a little snooping around. He had
casually asked about him in a bar after a few drinks, and one
fellow quickly told him, “Oh, Righty? He ain’t been around here
much lately, but he used to drink us all under the table. Why? Do
you know him?”

His employee had responded, “Oh, it’s
nothing too important. He was late paying for some inventory at his
new store is all. I went by the store and couldn’t find him. I’ll
guess I’ll have to go back to Sivingdel empty-handed.”

“Well, just tread real light when you
talk to him,” a gregarious fellow suddenly said, causing some
apparent irritation to the other man. “Righty was almost the
national boxing champ, and I seen him whip three men at the same
time!”

The other man had looked at his friend
with real disgust and said, “How’s about I whip you?!”

The employee had quickly apologized if
he had pried too much, paid for each man’s drink (which quickly
satiated their anger), and did the best disappearing act he
could.

When he brought the news back to Mr.
Hoffmeyer, he figured it was all bluster, but deciding it would not
cost him more than an hour or two of digging at the most, he went
to the Sivingdel Boxing Association and asked.

He was immediately asked, “Do you know
Righty Rick? He was set to be a legend. If he hadn’t been banned
from the sport, many think he would have gone down in history as
one of the best boxers who ever lived!”

Although Mr. Hoffmeyer knew now that
Righty and Mr. Brass were one and the same, he spent a couple hours
poking around the building’s archives asking a few questions about
others and claiming he was thinking about becoming an investor at a
boxing gym but wanted to first acquaint himself with the sport so
that he could make an educated decision.

Afterwards, he had
practically sprinted out, not knowing what the extent of Mr.
Brass’s network could be and, in a way, hating the fact he had
gotten the answer. Mr. Simmers had not shown his face around Mr.
Hoffmeyer’s warehouse for a long time, and Mr. Hoffmeyer began to
dread a nightmarish vision of him closing the office door behind
him, brass knuckles clinking together, and saying,
You know too damn much, Hoffie!

He had hired a couple beefy
security guards and installed them in the office next to his. They
did nothing but sit around and wait for the day they were to be
called in to action. Mr. Hoffmeyer’s secretary fortunately knew
what Mr. Simmers looked like, and she had been told that if he ever
visited she was to give a quick series of three knocks on the
office door before Mr. Hoffmeyer’s, after which she would say with
a blush,
Sorry—you’d think I’d know where
the owner’s office is located by now!

That would be the cue to the guards to
exit as soon as they heard Mr. Simmers enter Mr. Hoffmeyer’s
office, outside of which they would wait with their ears pressed
against the door, ready to barge in and stab him in the back if he
tried anything cute.

But when the police chief had showed up
at his office one day and told him, “I’m onto you, Mr. Hoffmeyer,”
and explained he was very disappointed with the dwindling bribe
money he was getting from triumvirate that had replaced Sam , Mr.
Hoffmeyer began to think about early retirement . . . preferably in
a foreign country.

This sentiment had amplified
considerably when he told him, “I’ll have Mr. Brass in my clutches
soon enough. Perhaps if he pays a fair monthly contribution, you’ll
be off the hook. If Brass doesn’t pay he’ll be put away real soon.
That will put you back on top, and I’ll expect to be paid
accordingly. I just wanted to drop in and say ‘hello.’”

He had barely slept a wink that
night.

When he heard the news two days later
that the police station had been burned to the ground and blown up
for good measure, he realized it was time for
retirement.

He had gone home, loaded as much money
as he could onto his largest wagon while still leaving room for a
few personal items, and hit the road.

Sodorf City sounded like a nice place.
The economy was apparently booming due to a gold mine discovery, so
it was likely new people were flooding into the city every day,
making it as good a place as he was ever going to find to go
unnoticed as a newcomer with plenty of cash.