The Bootlegger’s Legacy

Ted Clifton

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EPUB edition ISBN: 978-1-927967-54-6
Kindle edition ISBN: 978-1-927967-55-3

Copyright 2015 Ted Clifton, all rights reserved.

• Cover Page
  
• Title Page
  
• Prolog
  
• Part One: 1987
  
• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 5
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Part Two: 1952
  
• Introduction
  
• Chapter 8
  
• Chapter 9
  
• Chapter 10
  
• Chapter 11
  
• Chapter 12
  
• Chapter 13
  
• Chapter 14
  
• Chapter 15
  
• Chapter 16
  
• Chapter 17
  
• Chapter 18
  
• Chapter 19
  
• Chapter 20
  
• Part Three: 1987
  
• Chapter 21
  
• Chapter 22
  
• Chapter 23
  
• Chapter 24
  
• Chapter 25
  
• Chapter 26
  
• Chapter 27
  
• Chapter 28
  
• Chapter 29
  
• Part Four: 2004
  
• Chapter 30
  
• Chapter 31
  
• Chapter 32
  
• Epilog
  
• About The Author
  
• Colophon
  

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1952

Deep Deuce was swinging tonight. The Billy Parker Band was hitting every note. The sound was magnetic, attracting dancers young and old. Blacks and whites alike were enjoying great rhythms from one of the best big bands of the time.

John Giovanni didn’t come for the music, though—he’d never been accused of being cultured. He was in town to meet one of his customers. He hated all of his goddamn customers, but what the hell—if he killed them all he wouldn’t have any business. Giovanni was originally from Brooklyn, but he’d moved to Dallas at the urging of his uncle. Uncle Tony had made it clear that Giovanni should move or Tony would cut his throat. The threat was accompanied by an easy-to-understand gesture. Giovanni had slept with Uncle Tony’s ugly daughter, and Uncle Tony was pissed. She was only fourteen.

Giovanni realized his options were limited, so he moved. He started selling illegal liquor to the shitkickers who lived in the backward world of Texas. God did he ever hate Texas.

Tonight Giovanni was in Oklahoma City, another useless shithole. The only people who could tell the difference between Texas and Oklahoma were the assholes who lived there, and to them the distinctions were enormous. To Giovanni the only good thing about this ugly part of the country was they still had prohibition—at least Oklahoma did, and parts of Texas. That’s why Giovanni was here: to feed the beast all the illegal hooch it wanted.

Giovanni had dreamed about being alive in the twenties and thirties, raising hell like Capone. Man, what a wonderful time to have been alive. So when Uncle Tony said to get lost fast before he sliced Giovanni up real bad, Giovanni did a little research and discovered gangster nirvana in the southwest.

Using all of his well-honed skills, which mostly had to do with killing anyone who got in his way, he became the major wholesaler of liquor in the region in just a few years. If Uncle Tony hadn’t hated his guts, he would have been proud.

Why he was meeting this creep in the black section of town, he had no idea. Giovanni wasn’t particularly prejudiced—he just mostly hated everybody who wasn’t Italian, so color didn’t really matter. As a matter of fact, being up to 1950 standards of racial harmony, his favorite whore was black. Her name was Lacy, and Giovanni liked screwing her almost as much as he liked killing fuckin’ Texans. She was with him tonight, along with three bodyguards and his dumber-than-dirt cousin, Marco.

“Marco what the hell kinda music are they playing?”

“That’s jazz Johnny. Really cool jazz.”

“What the fuck do you know about jazz? What the fuck do you know about anything?”

“Hey, why do you talk to me like that? I’m your goddamned cousin—you shouldn’t talk to me like that.”

“How about I just blow your fucking brains out, right here in this stupid jazz hip-hop joint, how would that be, shithead?”

Marco was never sure how far Johnny might go. He had seen him do some pretty horrible things.

“Okay, okay, sorry Johnny. It’s just sometimes you make me feel like I’m stupid or something.”

“Well, yeah. Maybe I’ll be nicer. How’s that? Maybe you should take Lacy out to the car and get a little—how would that be Marco?”

This caused Lacy to give Johnny a
never-turn-your-back-on-me-asshole
look. One way or another Johnny wasn’t likely to make old age.

“Why are we here Johnny?”

“I’m expanding. Dumb shitkicker who runs the largest Oklahoma bootleg operation is going to retire. We’ve been selling him some of his booze for a while, but now he’s decided to buy from those Mexican fuckheads out of Juarez. Can’t have that, so he’s going bye-bye.”

“You going to kill him?” Marco seemed nervous. You never knew with Johnny. He might do it right here, right now.

“Don’t worry baby Marco, it won’t be tonight. But once everything gets transferred over to me, he’ll be dead. I’ll be the booze king of fuckin’ Oklahoma.”

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma—February 1987

Depression seemed like an old friend. There was comfort in being able to describe, with medical precision, the reason you weren’t successful, weren’t particularly happy, were overweight—you get the picture.

Joe Meadows was a CPA who’d experienced only minor success as an accountant and hated every aspect of his tedious life. His wife Liz was mostly pleasant, although she was preoccupied with her own activities. These centered around their two teen children, who seemed totally absorbed in their own realities, and her church, The Church of Christ. Joe often thought that it was possible that his family wasn’t fully aware of his existence in the sense that he wasn’t a distinct individual to them. He was the family provider, but there was little doubt that they didn’t give a shit about Joe the person.

Joe’s appearance was mostly unremarkable. Some people said he was handsome, with his longish, dark hair. He was just under six foot—never said five eleven. He used to have sparkling eyes that seemed full of mischief, but the years of tedium and boredom—and a little too much drinking—had toned the gleam down some. His best quality still remained: an engaging smile.

It was February, 1987. Joe lived in Oklahoma City with a bunch of cowboy rednecks who enjoyed beer, big-breasted women, guns, and pickups—not necessarily in that order. Everything about Joe’s life felt foreign to him, like he was visiting from another planet. Where he was supposed to be in this world, he didn’t know, but it sure wasn’t where he was right now.

By the standards of the American dream, Joe was doing just fine. He had a nice looking wife and two beautiful kids, he was a professional with his own business, and he had a house, two cars, and probably a dog somewhere—what the hell was the matter with him? He wasn’t sure. It just seemed like there should be something more to life. What that something was, he didn’t know. Nor was he making any effort to find out. He showed up for his life each day and clocked in, and he anticipated that nothing would change.

Monday morning, and Joe was headed to a client’s office to discuss the company’s financial condition. The client was Mike Allen, owner of Allen’s Hardware. Mike’s business had lost a bundle the previous year and he wanted Joe to tell him why. Joe knew why: Mike was an idiot—or at least acted like an idiot.

Mike was either drunk, or getting ready to get drunk, and almost certainly chasing a woman who wasn’t his wife, leaving very little time to focus on the hardware business. And he’d been Joe’s best friend since grade school.

They’d become best friends in Mrs. Smith’s second grade class at East Side Elementary. They had formed a bond on the playground to improve their defenses against the girls—especially one girl. A second grade boy’s worst nightmare is the inevitable bully girl on the playground. It’s one thing to be beat up by some boy—but by a girl? That’s just terrible. Jane Waters was their nemesis. She was meaner and tougher than most of the boys in the school. Rumor had it that she’d been held back in second grade—twice.