Write me a Letter

the stock car races or even to some nothing demolition derby. Those guys don’t forget— I show my face anywhere I’m long gone. And this joint— you see me taking up Scottish square dancing or learning modern Greek or something? And they’re all straights out there, I wouldn’t know what to say to them even if I wanted to. You want a beer or something?”
    ”I’ll cake a glass of milk, if you’ve got one,” I said. He headed for the kitchen; I followed him just in case he was up to something like spiking my milk with instant oblivion capsules, although I didn’t really think he would.
    He opened the fridge; there was nothing in it but a couple of six-packs, olives, and a half carton of milk.
    ”Don’t you eat?”
    He opened the freezer compartment; it was jammed with TV dinners. ”Who can cook?” he said. ”My mom did the cooking, then my wife, all I can make is coffee and that’s shit the way I make it. You know how long it’s been since I saw a basketball game or a decent fight?” He opened a can of Bud for himself and poured me out a small glass of milk.
    ”If I get the picture,” I said, ”what you are suggesting to me is you began to crave a little action. Any action. And, finally, what is sneaking into someone else’s home in the middle of the night but action, and a lot of it, I would guess.”
    ”You guess rightly, friend,” he said. ”I’m here to tell you it is a charge and a half.”
    ”Well, friend,” I said, ”I’m here to tell you you better start getting your charges some other way, because you sure got yourself in the shits this time and I don’t know if I can get you out.”
    ”Why would you want to?” he said. ”C’mon, let’s go back inside.” We went back into the front room. ”What’s in it for you?”
    ”Maybe your sad story has gotten to me,” I said. ”Or maybe it’s the difference between you and another old fart I ran into recently. He was on the lam, too, but he came out shooting everyone in sight, including my best pal. Come to think about it, everyone I’ve met recently has been on the lam, there must be something going around. Let me think a minute.”
    ”Take two, they’re cheap.” He sat in the straight chair again and picked up a smaller piece of needlepoint he was working on. He expertly threaded a length of red wool into a huge needle and began pointing or needling or whatever.
    It was a good ten minutes later by the time I had thought it all through. ”Try this on for size,” I said to him. ”You still got all the money?” He nodded. ”Do you know how much of it came from where?”
    He nodded. ”Kept a list.”
    ”Hope you kept it somewhere safe,” I said. He grinned. ”The other stuff, the trinkets, likewise?” He nodded again.
    ”The money, the knickknacks, you give to me. I mail them back, registered mail, to their rightful owners, from L.A. I say I had an attack of conscience or my old lady got at me or I got religion. OK. Next—in the forthcoming edition of whatever it’s called—the Senate Estate Mobile Home News ?—after Katy the manager’s bit about how delighted she was that all the money and stolen goods were recovered, thanks to the tireless efforts of Yours Truly, she puts in a bit about you. What it says is, to try and avoid suchlike problems in the future, one of our distinguished residents, you, now retired but who at one time had extensive contacts with various law enforcement agencies, to put it mildly...”
    Here he grinned again.
    ”...has kindly volunteered to help. He will visit any resident who so desires on a one-to-one basis and advise them on home protection systems, completely free, of course, merely as a service to his neighbors. Meantime, to ensure you get a little something out of it above and beyond that warming glow that comes from being a good citizen, you go into town. You make a connection with a local locksmith or security outfit or a hardware, even, to work for them strictly on commission. They say yes, because what have they got to lose. Then every time you legitimately suggest someone replaces the lock on his front door, you stand a chance of getting a piece of the action. Capisce?”
    ”I capisce,” he said, biting off the end of the wool.
    ”’Course I have to sell all this to Katy,” I said, ”but I think I can, giving that everything’s been returned and that she’s a nice lady, also that the alternatives could be highly unpleasant as well as costly, the cops called