The Lovely Chocolate Mob (23 page)

I entered the little stall, got situated, and while getting comfortable, wondered if I had done the right thing. I had just tattled on a high-level society girl who owned most of the stock of the company, who was a billionaire-in-the-making, and who would one day soon be able to buy and sell people like me. Was it the right thing to do, to tattle? If she ever heard that I had sullied her name, and found out who I was, she would be able to hire an army of lawyers to have me tied up in court for years. Was it the proper thing to do, to ask the Lovely board of directors for help?

As I sat there pondering the fate of Dr. Burke’s children, I heard the restroom door open. It opened again; perhaps the fellow who just entered turned around to leave. Then I heard it open a third, and fourth, and a fifth time. There must have been a shift change; the fellows were probably getting to their lockers.

Then something strange began to happen. Feet appeared at the bottom of my stall, the stall that I was in. I heard someone jiggle the lock on the stall door, and thought, “What the heck?” There were empty stalls on either side of me with no one in them; why doesn’t he use one of them? Can’t he see the door is shut? I said, “It’s occupied,” but heard no reply. Then I heard the doors swing open to the other stalls around me, and then saw even more feet appearing as people walked into these stalls. That wouldn’t be unusual, but weren’t stalls meant for one person at a time? It got even weirder when I began seeing feet appear all around the bottom of my stall, and when I say all around, I mean all around! There were people lining my stall! There must have been four people to my right and five people to my left and three people in front of me, and all the feet were situated so that the faces that belonged to the feet were against the outside walls of my stall! All the feet were there, with toes inside my stall, with even more feet behind them. I was surrounded!

One of them knocked on the door.

I thought I’d try to use humor. I said, “I’ll be through in a minute!” hoping they weren’t the security police. I began to wonder if I had wandered into the wrong restroom, one on the workroom floor? Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be in there; maybe there were some strict regulations about non-workers in workfloor restrooms. Perhaps someone noticed that I hadn’t been wearing a hairnet?

A voice with a slight accent said, “Take your time, Mr. Smith. We haff all day.” I felt instant panic; who would know I’m in here? Who would follow me? Who would watch me enter a restroom, and further, who would want to speak to me here?

I said, “What’s going on? Who are you people?” I looked at the shoes lining the stall and noticed that they were all different styles of footwear. Some were black, shiny and expensive, some were rough, dirty, workroom boots, and some of the shoes were covered with white coverings, the kind that painters put on before entering a house, so they don’t dirty up any carpets or floors. Above the different footwear were blue jeans, white work pants, and pinstriped dress pants.

One pair of shoes especially stood out, furthest to my left, as though they didn’t wish to be viewed but had to be in on the scene, were a pair of purple lady’s shoes, with older, wide ankles, since there were no hose, socks, or pantsuit. There was probably a purple dress in that ensemble, however.

I heard a voice say, “We’re all here; hit the lights.” The lights went out, and it was pitch dark.

“Hey!” was all I could say. I was getting a little more nervous at this point.

“Don’t worry, Mr. ‘Smith’,” the first voice said. “We’re not here to accost you. We just need a little information.”

“Information?” I said. “You need some information? Why don’t you turn the lights back on and ask me then?”

“This is to protect you, Senior Smith,” a South American voice said. “We know who you are, but obviously we don’t want you knowing who we are. We have lives to protect.”

“Well, I have a life to protect, my own! Who are you?” I tried not to sound nervous.

“Very well, Herr Schmidt. We will trade information, if that is acceptable to all?” The American accent was beginning to slip a bit more, being replaced with a German one, probably east German; I heard the murmuring of approval among the out of sight group.

The east German cleared his throat and said, “We represent others who are very interested in the condition and profitability of the Lovely Chocolate Company, those who would to go great lengths to protect its good name to the public.”

I sat, still stunned. Someone heard me in the boardroom, after all! “Go on,” I said. “You have my attention.”

“You possess knowledge of the company heiress, Miss Susan Lovely, as being involved in some--- how would you put it, an illicit love affair?”

“Yes, I’ve said that. I said that just a few minutes ago--“ I clammed up. I didn’t want these people guessing that I knew some of them might be on the board.

“We wish to know the name of the man with whom Frauline, er, Miss Susan Lovely, is involved.”

These people were serious.

“Why? Why don’t you ask her?”

An Italian voice spoke up, saying, “It is not our practice to embarrass the one most important person in our company. If she didn’t like our probing, at this point she might possibly go to the airwaves saying that the chocolate company was interfering with her private business. That might ‘tilt the apple-cart,’ as you Americans like to put it.”

Americans? These guys were foreigners!

“Why don’t you have the board of directors deal with her?”

“The fools!” a woman’s voice said, trying to speak in a deeper tone like a man. “They don’t listen to anyone but themselves! They are fat, lazy, complacent, and cannot see into the future. Also, they are unaware of our existence, which works in our favor.” She sounded British, but that could be from a number of countries.

“Besides,” a Spanish-accented man’s voice said, “they don’t run the company---
we
do.”

“We?” I questioned.

“Herr ‘Schmidt’,” the east German said. “It is time for a trade. We have given you information, and now we require information in return. It is time for you to answer our question. What is the name of the man with whom Miss Lovely is having an affair?”

“Wait a minute! You don’t exactly sound like an above-the-board type of operation here!” I said. Guess I sounded a little braver than I felt, because it got quiet again.

“Mr. Owen,” said the east German, probably trying to be patient. “We are not an above-the-board type of operation here.” I remained respectfully quiet, until he said in addition, “We are the cartel.”

I had to think for a moment. “The cartel? You mean, as in drugs?”

“No, Mr. Owen, you have assumed the worst of us. Where are we located?”

“In the men’s room.” I said.

“Think bigger, Mr. Owen.”

I thought bigger, and said, “Lovely Chocolates?”

“Precisely, Mr. Owen. Chocolates. And more.

“You run illegal chocolates?”

“That is such a distasteful way of putting it, Mr. Owen. We simply run chocolates. It’s a business, like any other.”

“You run illegal chocolates,” I said, stalling for time. “Why?”

“We run a business, and chocolate is the one thing people won’t give up! Try as they may, Lovely Chocolate is, to some people, addicting.”

“Won’t give up? Illegal chocolates?”

“Correct, Mr. Owen,” said the voice, still remaining calm and polite, but getting a little impatient. “This has been a one-way flow of information. The name, please.”

“Why should I tell you? What are your intentions?”

“Mr. Owen, do you wish to sit here all night?”

“No.”

“Do you wish to ever see your home again?”

“Yes.”

“The name.”

“What are you going to do to him?”

“The name, please, Mr. Owen.”

I sighed. My legs were starting to tingle, as though there were ants biting them. This could get worse. Then I heard the sound of a weapon being cocked, which startled me.

“Franklin Burke!” I blurted. “His name is Dr. Franklin Burke! He was Cornelius Lovely’s personal family physician!”

I heard a gasp. “That nice doctor!” said a voice, with possibly a Greek accent.

“Are you sure, Mr. ‘Smith’? Can you verify this?”

“Yes, I’m sure, and no, I don’t think I can verify it.” I sat there for a moment before offering, “However, if you are capable, I’m sure you can obtain telephone records of Dr. Burke and Miss Lovely if you wanted.”

There were more murmuring among the group in the darkness, and then a Greek voice said, “We are capable; you have told us what we needed to hear. Thank you for the information, Mr. Owen.”

I heard feet beginning to move away from the stall. I blurted out, “Hey wait a minute! What are you planning to do?”

The Greek voice said, “We plan on taking care of the problem!”

The answer sank in quickly, and I said, “You’re not going to kill him, are you? No killing!”

All the feet stopped shuffling. I must have got their attention.

A voice with a Russian sound to it said, “Vy? Vy not?”

“Hush, you’re saying too much!” said a new voice with a Caribbean accent.

A British voice said, “What’s the harm of his knowing? He doesn’t know who we are!”

The Caribbean voice replied, “He knows what we do, and that’s all he needs.”

I repeated myself, loud enough for all to hear. “No killing! No killing!”

The German voice said, “Now I am curious. Why not, Mr. ‘Smith’? Wouldn’t that solve your problems as well? Wouldn’t this be of benefit to both our parties, Mr. ‘Smith’?”

I answered, “Because killing is wrong! It’s against the laws of man and God! It’s … murder.”

One or two voices laughed, but there were others who hushed the laughter.

The lady’s deep voice said, “What would you suggest, then?”

“I don’t know. Be creative. You’re smart; put your heads together; come up with something better. I’m sure you’re bright people… but don’t kill. Nobody likes that! Think of who you’ll hurt!”

“We’re thinking of the business we’ll save, along with the jobs we’ll preserve,” said a French-accented voice.

“Find another way! Do what’s right. Please,” I pleaded.

It got quiet. Then the German voice said, “No promises, Mr. ‘Schmidt.’” The feet started shuffling again, and I could see light from the workroom floor as the door opened and shut, until nobody was left in the room but me, sitting alone in the darkness.

As I wondered about the scene that had just happened, the door popped open again, letting in a little light. An Italian-accented voice said,
“Mr.
Owen,
no police. Capiche? Sh-h-h-h-h!” I could imagine him standing there with a finger in front of his lips. Then the door shut, leaving me in total darkness, again.

He knew my name! That means they all knew; my cover was blown!

What kind of can of worms had I opened? If they kill Franklin Burke, not only will his murder be on my hands, but his wife and children would have no visible means of support, and all the children would have lost their father!

I’ve gotten Dr. Burke killed! It’s all my fault, and it was going to be hard getting out of there, both my legs having fallen asleep.

I was a bit unnerved, to say the least, and sure felt as though I needed someone to shine the light on what I had just experienced. I drove slowly back to downtown Lovely, weaving in and out of traffic, wandering aimlessly through the streets until I parked in the lot of the medical center. “How did that mob at Lovely Chocolates know who I was?” I thought. The only possible answer was they knew because I had driven my own car to their parking lot. It would be nothing for a giant company to determine the owner of a car by the license plate; if they had connections in this computer age, they could run the license plate through the police station downtown and get my name from the computers in the state capital. “I’ll have to remember that,” I said to myself, as I peeled off the wig, beard, and glasses.

Coming to the medical center was almost an automatic reflex, in slow motion, because I really didn’t plan on returning. However, seeing Miss Planter again for the second time in a day might prove to be beneficial. She’d know what to think about this. My mind felt as though it had run away; my heart was still pounding, and I was breathing in an almost irregular manner when thinking about the consequences of my actions. I hated to admit this to myself, but there were times I could be a wimp. Now I had stepped into a world I would rather not know anything about, the world of high dollars, business, and of murder, incorporated.

I entered the building and got on the elevator to the third floor. It was getting late in the afternoon, but Miss Planter should still be there. I entered the reception area, and there was Phyllis, the little receptionist at the desk, talking on the phone, which is where most young people seem to spend their time, but when she saw me, she said, “I’ve got to go. Talk to you later.” Then turning to me, she said, “Hello, Mr. Owen! I wasn’t aware you had an appointment…” while scrambling through her calendar book.

“I don’t have one,” I replied. “I just needed to see Miss Planter for a moment.”

“I’ll let her know that you’re here; she’s with her last appointment now. Can you wait? She shouldn’t be long.” She looked up from her schedule book, changed expressions and said, “My goodness, Mr. Owen! You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

“Yes, that would be good,” I said in return, ignoring her observation. “I can wait.”

“I’ll be right back,” she said and headed towards the office door, then went inside to let Miss Planter know I had arrived. Apparently the last appointee had already left through the back door because Miss Planter came immediately to the waiting room.

“Randall! What happened?”

“Do you have a minute?” I asked.

“Yes! Come on in; come inside!”

I was so shaken up, I didn’t even realize she had called me by my first name; I think the receptionist did, though. She looked a little stunned by this.

“Miss Rozzell, you can go home early. The other doctors have gone, and I won’t need you anymore today.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”