I told you this story starts in three places. Now, this part of the story I know the least about, but I will fill in the gaps as best I can.
Every good story needs a villain, and this one had three, or really, one and two halves, since the Flannigan brothers really don't count as whole people on their own. I think they may actually share a brain. Anyway, the villains in this story are in kind of an unusual business, as villains go.
Flannigan’s flowers is one of those small town businesses that Walmart hadn't managed to crush. It sits along the old route 66 in an old gas station from the 1950's. It's a small building, with a large, triangular shaped roof that points up in the front and sweeps down in the back, giving the whole thing the feeling that it's about to leave earth.
Its owner is Mickey Flannigan, who got into the flower business because it fit well with the funeral business his family had been in back in Chicago. Tommy and Shawn, his two halfwit sons, ran deliveries, and otherwise made trouble around the small town. To say the family was “mobbed up” might be a bit of an exaggeration, but more than once Mickey had threatened local businessmen with backup from Windy City, and no one had ever tested him to see if he meant it or not.
It wasn't like the Flannigans were afraid of doing their own dirty work, but Mickey always said even a dog is smart enough not to crap where he sleeps, so for the most part, the citizens of Rogers had little to fear from the Flannigans, other than the occasional gouging on the price of a funeral bouquet.
How these three got themselves wrapped up in our story is another story all on its own, but the important part is, they had gotten in debt with some tough guys from Tulsa with West Coast connections that I guess scared Mickey, because he was looking for a way out, which meant coming up with fifty thousand dollars within a few days of when we moved into town.
“Why don't we just call Uncle Vic and have him come down and settle with this clown, Dad?” Tommy was chewing his nails, leaned back on a stool, with his feet on the cash register.
“How many times I gotta tell youse? You don't call Uncle Vic, unless there is a war on. This ain't war. This is just a misunderstanding on the terms of a business deal.” Mickey slapped Tommy in the back of the head and swept his feet off the register.
“Yeah, well, how come we gotta give up all our delivery tips to pay for this misunderstanding?” Shawn whined. “I was thinkin...”
“You was what?” Mickey sneered at the younger son, “I told you, I do all the thinking around here. You two are the muscle. Which reminds me, you need to get over to the gym and collect, and while you're there, lift a couple weights or something. You two look about as scary as the Michelin man.” Mickey handed Tommy the keys to the Flannigan's delivery van, and dug a black gym bag out from under the counter. “Be sure you get it all, this time, you understand me?” Mickey said, tossing the bag on the counter with a thunk!
Shawn reached into the bag and picked out a nine millimeter handgun. He pulled back the slide and let it snap forward, holding the gun up, with his hands just above the shoulder, he gave his best Dinero, “You talking to me? Are you talking to me?”
Mickey reached across the counter, twisted the gun out of Shawn's hand, and pressed the boy's face down the counter, “Yes, nitwit, I am talking to you. If you ever pull that thing out here in the shop again, I will personally teach you why you don't play with guns!”
Tommy looked confused, “How you gonna do that, Pops?”
“I'm going to shoot your brother somewhere he won't forget. I don't need both of you to reproduce to have grandchildren! Now, get outa here before I start the lesson early!” He slid the gun back into the bag and slapped it against Shawn's chest.
The two Flannigan's were a common site around town. Their father had bought up much of the commercial real estate in the small town when he had first moved there, right after the oil boom had come to a crashing halt, leaving Oklahoma real estate prices, especially in small towns, at an all-time low. The boys collected rent from over half of the local businesses in town, and were almost never welcome.
While their collections tactics wouldn't be taught in any business school, they seemed to have a knack for stopping just short of breaking any laws, at least any the local law was interested in arresting the Flannigans for. The police chief seemed to think it would be more trouble than it was worth, and most of his officers agreed.
The boys made one stop at the Dunkin Donuts for a bag full of day old glazed and started their rounds. By the end of the day, they had collected over six thousand dollars. That coupled with the little money the flower shop made, was enough to pay off the family's bills for the month, but fell far short of the fifty thousand dollars they needed to pay off the thugs in Tulsa.
“We did good today, Pops.” Tommy said, thumbing a thick stack of twenties.
Mickey snorted, “Yeah, but what good will that do come the first? If we don't pay these guys, they are going to take these properties at face value, and then what?”
Shawn squinted, “How can they do that? This is our town? Who told them they could take our property?”
“I did, numbskull, when I laid it on the poker table, and lost. Now, listen, I need you boys to stay sharp. There's a deal brewing around this town somewhere. Something big coming up, I can smell it.” Mickey dumped the contents of the bag into a small safe behind the counter, “All we gotta do is find out what it is, and how we can cut ourselves in on it.”
So, now you're pretty much caught up on the who's who in this little adventure, from here on I'll tell it pretty much in the order it happened.
When James Casey started asking for a map at the first truck stop he saw, he wasn't prepared for the reaction he go from the bleached blonde, gum chewing cashier behind the counter, “Aint you got a phone? Nice dressed guy like you drives up in a new car, and he doesn't know how to use Google Maps, a girl's got to wonder why?”
“Oh, that, the uh, google map thing on the phone, uh, sure, but sometimes, I need to lay it out on a table and take a pen to it, you know? Just to really see where I'm going.”
She pointed him to the end cap of road atlases and turned to help the next customer, apparently satisfied with his explanation. The truth was, there were no cell phones inside the prison, and the last one James had had was little more than an upgrade from an old school beeper, with a flip screen the size of a large postage stamp.
He purchased the map, then returned to his car where he pulled out the phone to study it. It responded to his touch and he quickly found his way to the apps and navigation. He tossed the map into the seat beside him where it landed on top of the briefcase he had borrowed from his doppelganger, but still had not opened.
James looked around, to see if anyone was looking, and just as he was about to reach over and snap open the case, he caught a glimpse of the cashier, peering at him out of the window. She quickly moved behind an upright carousel rack of sunglasses when she saw him look up.
James hesitated, if she was watching him, what were the odds that she might be suspicious enough to call someone? He decided not to take a chance, besides, sitting with a stolen car, in plain sight, not 50 yards off the highway was probably not a good idea so close to the prison he had just escaped from.
Across the highway, James saw a small diner with a sign that said simply, “Eat”. He laid the phone aside, started the car and drove across and into the parking lot, angling into a space concealed behind the dumpster. He collected the phone, briefcase, and map and headed in, sitting at a booth by the front window, where he would spot trouble before it spotted him, hopefully.
He ordered coffee and stared out the window for what he thought was only a few minutes.
“Honey? You gonna drink that, or are you planning to pay rent on that booth?” James looked up into the blue eyes of a waitress, who's name tag read Tammy, “You have been sitting there with that cup halfway to your mouth for almost forty-five minutes, and I don't mean to be rude, but it's starting to creep me out.” she smiled.
James took a sip of the room temperature black liquid and immediately spit it back in the cup, “Oh, uh, sorry, just thinking.”
“Here, let me get you a fresh cup. While I'm at it, would you like anything to eat?” Tammy expertly shifted an upside down cup from the next table in front of James, and filled the cup almost instantly without spilling a drop. A small tendril of steam rose and crawled up James' nose.
“Um, not sure.” he searched his pants for a wallet, found a twenty inside, seemed satisfied and looked up at the waitress with a smile, “Sure, I'll have the special.”
Tammy took the cold cup, made exactly two marks on her order pad and turned back to the kitchen, “We'll have that right up.”
James took a sip of the fresh coffee, which kicked his brain into gear.
What he needed more than anything was a way to get as far from the Georgia State Department of Corrections as quickly as he could. He thumbed through messages on the phone with no luck. Counted the fifty dollars in the wallet again, and calculated that that, plus the half tank of gas in the rental car equaled a quick ticket right back to where he came from in less than a day.
He opened the briefcase to find a handful of bible study guides Todd had used at the prison, a worn Bible and a few misc papers, none of it seemed useful. He was closing the top of the case when the top edge of a plane ticket in one of the briefcase's file pockets caught his eye. It was for that evening, and the departure airport was less than two hours away. Feeling like a hypocrite, he wondered if it was bad form to thank God for the ticket, which would take him three states away to the middle of Oklahoma, as likely a place to get lost as any.
As he was tucking the ticked back into its envelope, a letter fell out, addressed to Todd Crawford, from River Oaks Community
Church.
The letter outlined an itinerary for Pastor Todd Crawford's arrival, to take his position as the Church's newly appointed associate pastor. James had no intention of darkening the door of the church, but this Todd Crawford guy had certainly done him a solid.
The special came, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans and enough white pepper gravy to float a battleship. James could not remember when anything tasted as good as it did. When he was finished, he stopped into the men's room, and took a long look in the mirror, comparing what he saw to the driver's license photo he found in Todd Crawford's wallet.
One thing for certain, he didn't want to get held up by an overzealous TSA agent, who might just get lucky and apprehend him as a fleeing felon. He rearranged his hair a little to more closely resemble the photo, then used the phone to capture a picture of himself in the mirror, which he compared to the license.
Satisfied that he would pass security, he checked the time, paid his check and got into the car for the drive to the airport, then he sat frozen behind the wheel, second guessing himself, freedom wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and he wondered if he were to turn himself back in, right now, what the consequences would be.
As if on cue, a highway patrol officer pulled his car into the space directly beside James, not six feet away, just on the other side of his passenger door, was his chance. It was now or never.
He started the car and pulled out onto the highway, setting the navigation system on the phone to take him to the airport.
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