FRANK REDUX

I pulled up to the car, looking it over. It was the black Altima, dirty and not driven for a while. “Not around, obviously.” I got out of my car, blocking the path from the parking space the car was in, and walked around to peer inside the car. Trash, used and discarded paper cups and meal sacks was all I could see. I wanted a notebook with addresses or something. I had to find that.

I got back in my car, ready to pull away. I had not looked around at all, so I never noticed the brown little car parked next to the Altima. When I moved a few feet, this car pulled forward and bumped into mine. Hard. I stopped to get out, barely having room to open my door. The sheet metal behind my left wheel was crumpled. The front end of the old brown Toyota was barely touched.

The driver got out. He was a small man, balding, with a paunch. Even his clothes seemed old. He had a friend, someone big, with a menacing aire about him. The little man spoke, “You know where Frank is?”

“I kind of thought you might be looking for him too.” I said, “Seeing you got my attention so quickly.” I decided not to let the bent sheet metal mean anything to me. This was not the guy to I wanted to talk to about it. “No, I don’t know where he is. I want to find him, though. He owes me big time.”

The little man smiled. “You too? How much?”

“Five big ones.”

“Same here. Ed here only is into him for a couple. Frank is not trustworthy, you know that, right?”

“So I figured.”

“You know what he looks like?”

“No. You?”

“No. I met him on the Internet. No one seems to know much about him or where he is.”

“I got a number. Want it?”

“No. I got it too. Just a cell phone in Nome, with a repeating message. My friend Joe went there. It was hooked up to a desk in a trailer. Nobody seen the man for months. Joe’s into it for ten.

“Ten thousand? How many people are in this thing?”

“Would you believe 4500 souls? I got a place right here. A rented trailer. Come on in. I will get us somsthing to eat and drink. Sorry ’bout your car. I’m Earl.”

“I’m Roger. Forget the car. I want Frank as much as you do. You are the first I’ve met in this farce.”

Earl winced. “Don’t call it a farce. I plan to get my money back, plus all the interest he promised.”

“Yeah, I know. Millions of bucks worth.”

We were on the outskirts of a small town in Nebraska. I didn’t even bother to remember the name once I got there.” I’ve been following this too long, and now it was a dead end.”

“Maybe we ought to check the Bahamas, You know?” I continued, “At least it would be a better place than this to spend looking. Frank has to have a couple of million of our dough. That’s where I would go if I were him.”

I followed Earl and Ed to their trailer. This was not even a park. Just a few rentals behind some construction firm. Next door to his place was a cement truck. The ground was mostly clay, white from cement dust everywhere. Depressing.

Inside was not much different. Old, sparce furnishings. No TV. Night was approaching. I would miss my shows. I had my iPhone, so I could watch them, but I was not about to reveal I had one to these guys. I quietly turned off the ringer in my coat pocket.

There was a girl there. Actually a woman, a bit past her prime. She had a pushed-in face that made sad what could have been beautiful. Her breasts were small. Nothing there, it seemed.

“This is Elaine. Say hello to Roger here, Elaine.” Her smile was sweet. I nodded and smiled in return, but not too long or too big. Whose girl was she?

Ed went back out, presumably for pizza or something. No one took any orders. I could have used some TexMex, but I was way too far North and East for such things here. Probably get dull hamburgers on too big buns, with cold fries and no ketchup. Elaine brought me coffee. Not too hot, black. I nodded thanks and sat down on the only chair left in the room.

The kitchen was a counter on one end of the room, with a side hallway to bedrooms and a bath, likely. We all sat on cheap dinning chairs on the other end of the room. There were dusky drapes on windows on three sides of the room. The wall was covered in dull maple panelling. There was a single bare bulb in the ceiling that lit the room.

Ed came back sooner than I thought he might, with a large black sachel. He laid it on the floor. In it were rifles, a shotgun, some machetes and a few pistols, with boxes of ammo. I considered that my chances of living just got shorter.

Earl said, “Don’t worry. This is not for you. It’s for Frank, if we find him. I didn’t want it to stay in the car, is all. Ed likes to take them out and clean them. He’s always doing that. Pay it no mind.”

I tried not to look relieved, but I let my breath out slowly, so they’d not notice. I hate when things take a left turn, over what I figure them to be.

Elaine took my cup and filled it again. We watched Ed clean a rifle. He was expert at it. I was wondering how I could extracate myself from all this, when Earl said he was hungry. He spoke to the air, but Elaine got her coat and went out. There was a space on the kitchen wall for a small stove and fridge, but the space was packed with stacks of boxes. Every meal here was take-out.

“How long you been looking? I asked Earl.

“Three years next month. I got fed up with all the emails explaining why our money was not getting to us yet. You know the drill.”

“Yeah, three times now we been promised anonymous credit cards in the mail. I paid for mine for the third time, from a bank in Australia. When it came there was no money in it, I took up the trail. He started in Alabama, I got good leads from his neighbors, all of which had heavily invested in his venture too. From there, Georgia, Texas, New Mexico, California, Washington, and here to Nebraska. I put an ad in the local paper to see if anyone had invested in him here. Nothing, though.”

“All the banks he talks about do exist. I been to one of them in Majorca. They say he has money there for the club, but I never got to verify any of it. I waited there a month for him to show, but he did only wire transfers. His money, our money, goes across the world in wire transfers, which take months to process. Frank said it was to protect us, so the Feds would not get it all. Half the time I believe in him, even now.” Earl shook his head.

“You mind if I got get some smokes or something?” I sood up, suddenly getting the idea that this might get me out of here.

Ed spoke up. “I’ll go with you. I need some lighter fluid.” So much for my escape. We went. The liquor store was close by. I had to buy a pack, since I had said that was what I was wanting. I hadn’t smoked in a while, so this was not a good thing. We came back.

There was pizza in a box on the kitchen counter. Paper napkins were our plates. It was plain, but good. Pepperoni, only the way it is never made in New York or Chicago. Elaine had a slice but stood by herself by the kitchen, rather than join us men.

I tried to keep my eyes to myself, since doing otherwise might get someone angry. After the meal, I went outside with Earl and Ed to smoke. I did good, not coughing at all. Those cancer sticks stank up my face, hands and clothes. Oh well.

“What are your plans?” I asked.

“We keep going. But I am not sure where. You?”

Keeping my composure, I decided to be truthful. “I just don’t know. Perhaps I’ll wait to hear from the man again, on email. Then I will know where to look.”

“Good idea. Elaine’s got a netbook somewhere in the trailer. You can use it if you want. She won’t mind. She uses it to watch her soaps and AGT. She gets me email to read whenever it comes in. I haven’t gotten any for a week now.”

“This is what I don’t get about Frank. Why string us along? He got our money years ago. Why didn’t he disappear? Is he really trying to get us our refunds and interest money?”

“That’s the whole thing about this I don’t understand. Apart from paying $70 for new cards, he never asks for more money. What is the point to keeping us in the loop otherwise?”

“Maybe he has a conscience. Maybe he wants to help us, but just can’t get it together. What are you going to do when you find Frank?”

“I just want my money back. The original amount. I don’t care if I ever get the rest. It probably doesn’t exist anyway.”

“You think you will get it?”

“Yeah. If I find him. I can be persuasive if I need to be.”

I supressed a shudder. “Good luck with it, Earl.”

Earl came over and shook my hand. “You can stay here tonight if you want. Me and Ed are going out to a bar. We’ll be back later. If you ain’t here, that is fine too. Good luck to you as well.”

“I’ll leave you my email address, so you can check on how I am doing as I look for Frank. I can send you any leads I find.” I said. I sincerely meant that, but I was suprised to feel that way. These guys were scary.

They drove off in their little brown car. I contemplated what was next. This was too easy. I went inside. Elaine was sitting on a chair with her netbook in her lap. She smiled at me. I could see that I could have her if I wanted. She was that kind of girl. But that would not be a kindness for either of us. I simply took another slice of pizza and took my leave. She handed me a note, which told of her desire to make it on AGT. I was supposed to watch for her there next month. I wished her well and left. (Evidently she had a TV in the back.)

On the road, I thought about it all. Did I just have a close call, and almost become roadkill? Were those guys really going to do that to Frank?

I had other thoughts too. Earl was rather young, but he looked a few weeks past his expiration date. You know, the ‘best used by’ date? You can tell people past their date. No matter what they do, they will never be what they could have been when they were young enough. They are already all they are going to be. I thought about it. The only people I knew were past their expiration date. Depressing. Probably because I felt years beyond my own date.

People past that date are easy. They all have a desperate dream. Give them a hook to hang that dream on, and they will give you anything you ask. But most of these kinds of people are lazy. They’d rather cast their hopes on someone else to bring them their dream. Working for it for themselves is just too hard. That’s where I come in. I have some great hooks to hang your dream on.

Which is why I was looking for my old car. I did want that notebook. Where was it? Boy, I am glad I didn’t have the keys to that car. There wasn’t that much in it I even wanted. I should not even be here in this sad place. I should take my own advice and move to the Bahamas. Be a lot safer there.

Paying those two off would have only cost me seven grand. It would barely make a dent in what I had. I thought about leaving it for them somehow, but no; it wouldn’t be fair to all the others, and I no longer had enough to repay them all, even with all the interest the money collected.

You know, even though I used a lot of it, I sincerely do want to give it all back. There is this guy I know online. His name is Yeoman. I’ve got to hook up with him. He has the neatest idea about how to make money you ever heard . . .

(Yeah, I’m Frank Hinton. I been here and now for a long time, but that is the only way to make any money. But Frank’s not my real name. My real name is – well, you know who I am. A lot of the money I gained in all this was sent to a bank for my other self, in another time, so I (he) could get the job done I (he) had to do. But that’s another story. . .)

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