BEWARW THE ABANDONED
CHAPTER 10
PHILADELPHIA
As Hank’s truck left the prairies, the trees got taller; the countryside got greener. The Peterbuilt 368 climbed easily over the Appalachian Mountains and started its descent to the coast. Traffic got heavier and heavier as they approached the densely populated east coast corridor.
The South West’s big skies, wide open spaces, endless horizons, and desert scenery were now just a distant memory. For John Cross, the four-day trip was a rebirth. He had slammed one door behind him and a new door stood waiting for him to open it. Having escaped death as a child, every day since then had been an unexpected gift. He had proven he knew how to survive.
Despite, how well-appointed Hank’s Peterbuilt was, John was tired of being confined. He had two cravings. One was to leap from the confines of this truck and run for miles. The other was a long, hot shower. It had been four days since he had shaved. His beard was showing great potential. Once he got settled, he would shave off all the hair on his head and continue to let his beard grow thick and bushy. He hoped these two cosmetic changes, and the wearing of glasses, would change his appearance. He wanted to minimize the chances for someone from his past recognizing him. His life would be over if the FBI or Michael Asino’s mob friends found him.
At home, in his own little world, Hank was as happy now as when he had started the road trip. Thanks to John Cross, his captive audience, he had managed to relive every great golf course he had ever played. John had been both amazed and appalled at Hank’s fixation on golf. John asked Hank, “How far are we from Philadelphia.”
“About two hours but I’m not actually going right into Philadelphia. I’m delivering this load to a factory in Trenton, New Jersey. It’s a suburb of Philadelphia. What I figured I will do, is drop you off at the Trenton Transit Center. It’s a train station. You’ll be able to catch the North-East Line right into downtown Philadelphia.”
“That sounds great. You got any suggestions on where I should stay in Philadelphia?”
“What kind of neighborhood are you looking for?”
“I’m not sure but it seems to me that being close to downtown would make the most sense.”
“You know, the closer you are to the downtown area, the more it’ll cost you.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“You should be able to find something in Washington Square. A lot of people your age live there. Washington Square is not that far from the main station. The Trenton train will take you right into it. Why don’t you swing my computer around and see what kind of accommodation you can find there?”
After an hour of searching, as the truck rolled along, John found several suitable furnished apartments for rent. Some were too small, less than 500 square feet. He felt that an apartment would give him the privacy that he needed to remain as invisible as possible.
The leases being offered ranged from a few months to several years. Until he could figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life, the shorter the lease, the better. Hank passed John his cellphone. John made an appointment for later that day with the rental agent of what seemed to be the most suitable apartment building.
Hank turned south onto highway US 1. This would take him past the Trenton Transit Center. When he got there, he brought the Peterbuilt to a stop. The truck was blocking traffic. John quickly thanked Hank, lied when he promised to keep in touch, and quickly descended with his large duffle bag slung over his shoulder. Although this took only seconds, the cars stuck behind the truck were already impatiently sounding their horns. John stood on the sidewalk and watched the truck leave with a mighty roar. Hank tapped his air horn once as a final goodbye. As the truck moved out of sight, John turned, and passed a large multi colored abstract statue on his way into the station.
Inside, he purchased a one-way ticket to Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station. A schedule showed the next SEPTA train would be leaving in half an hour. This gave him enough time to get a Big Mac at the station’s McDonald’s restaurant. He wolfed it down and made his way to the platform.
In less than an hour, the train had traveled thirty-two-miles into downtown Philadelphia. It deposited John at the 30th Street Station. With his duffle bag’s strap slung over his shoulder, he crossed through the station’s soaring, cavernous concourse and followed the signs to the 29th Street exit; Taxis were waiting there for fares. It was just a short cab ride to the apartment building on South 9th street.
Built in the nineteen-twenties, the ten-story apartment building had been recently updated. The modern glass entrance contrasted with the building’s ornate, old fashioned, window frames. It was the least expensive furnished apartment he could find in the area. From their advertisement, he gathered they rented to medical students at the nearby Pennsylvania Hospital.
The rental agent was an older woman. She kept an eye on the tenants and visitors, coming and going from a small lobby office. She introduced herself as Mrs. Clark and took him, in a slow elevator, to the fifth floor. John was not impressed by the strange groaning noises the elevator made as it climbed between floors.
As he had expected, the apartment was small, but it was big enough for his purposes. The furnishings were better than expected. Everything smelled a bit musty as if the apartment had not been occupied in months. The glass in the living room’s big bay window needed cleaning, but the window did make the room feel bigger and brighter.
Mrs. Clark told him that the $1,475 a month rent covered all the utilities, including an internet connection. John liked that. It would lessen his contact with curious, outside parties. The only negative he saw was that he had to sign a twelve-month lease, but he could afford it. He had been carrying a wad of fifty, one-hundred-dollar bills, in his pant pockets, ever since he had closed his personal bank account in Las Vegas. When he told her that he was prepared to pay her the first and last month’s rent in cash, if she would allow him to move in immediately, Mrs. Clark had no problem agreeing to this condition.
She returned to her little office and began to prepare his lease. It required that he provide her with photo ID. John had anticipated that this would be required, he handed her Raymond Powell’s passport. Anxious to get her hands on the cash, she only glanced at it long enough to record his passport number. She carefully counted the bills he passed to her before she handed him the keys to both the apartment and the lobby door. In a final effort to separate more money from him and make an additional commission, she asked, “Mr. Powell would you be interested in having a cleaning lady come in every week?”
To keep, as low a profile as possible, a cleaning lady was the last thing Raymond wanted. He quickly replied, “No thank you.”
“Are you working in the area?” she pleasantly enquired.
“Not too far away. Within walking distance.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a risk consultant. For the next year, I’ll be predicting problems with a client’s ongoing asset acquisitions.”
With no idea, as to what this meant, she pleasantly replied, “Oh, that sounds interesting.”
“It can be. I need to pick up some things. Is there a hardware store close by?
“Yes, about a five-minute walk away. Turn left. Go down to the next corner. Keep left and you will find it about four doors down.”
With the duffle bag over his shoulder, John trudged down to the hardware store. As expected, he found a display of duct tape in a wide selection of colors. He chose a black tape, paid for it and deposited it in the duffle bag.
Back at the apartment building, he waved to Mrs. Clark and bid her a good evening, as he quickly strode to the elevator. His duffle bag had never left his grasp. Earlier, Mrs. Clark had suggested that he leave it in her office, while they looked at the apartment. John had ignored her, for several million reasons.
Finally, he had privacy. He locked the apartment door and put the duffle bag down. He could finally relax. He hooked the door’s security chain to further secure the door and then walked over to the bay windows to close the blinds so no one could see into the apartment.
The duffle bag was carried over to the kitchen table where he shook out its contents. Bricks of one-hundred-dollar bills, wrapped in plastic, fell quietly onto the table. Each brick was four and a half inches high and was made up of one thousand bills. He piled the bricks in stacks of five. There were 35 bricks, worth a total of $3,500,000. He took $525,000 from the pile and shoved it back into the duffel bag. He placed another brick of $100,000 on the table.
He now took the remaining blocks of money and the black duct tape he had just bought and went into the kitchen and opened the cupboard doors beneath the big, deep kitchen sink. John lay on his back and proceeded to wedge twenty-nine money bricks into the cavity between the sink and the walls of the cabinet that surrounded the sink. He ripped off strips of black duct tape and fastened the bricks into the cavity.
Although it was not a perfect hideaway, it would do until he could slowly deposit all the money with an investment dealer. It was unlikely that anyone would ever chose to lie on their back and look at the gloomy dark bottom of his kitchen sink. If they did all they would see would be black plastic which, he hoped, they would interpret to be sealant or insulation.
From the $100,000 he had set aside, he extracted $5,000 and put it in his wallet. The remainder, he placed in the night table drawer. This money would be used to open a bank account, buy some food and new clothes,
The stress of knowing he was being hunted and the long trip across the country had exhausted him. He slowly made his way to the bedroom, carrying the almost empty duffel bag of money. He tossed it onto the double bed, took off his clothes and crawled under the sheets. He was in a deep sleep, almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, one limp hand rested on the $525,000 in the duffle bag.
CHAPTER 11
PURGATORY
Hunger woke John up at nine o’clock in the morning. The first order of business was that long, hot shower he had been dreaming about. While his hair was still wet, he took scissors and hacked off as much of his hair, as close to the scalp as he could. Next, he put shaving cream on his head and shaved it clean. He looked in the mirror and checked it out. He hardly recognized himself. In another few weeks, his beard would be much thicker and further alter his appearance.
Before he could eat breakfast, he had to take care of the money in the duffel bag. With the duffel bag slung over his shoulder, he again returned to the hardware store. Here, he bought a sturdy, red plastic toolbox, big enough to hold the $525,000 in cash. He also bought brown wrapping paper, clear sealing tape and a marking pen. As he was paying for his purchase, he asked the cashier where the he could mail a package. He thanked her when she told him it was just a few doors away.
Back at the apartment, he took the $525,000 from the duffel bag and put it into the toolbox. He sealed it shut with the clear tape and wrapped it in brown paper; he addressed the finished package to Winston Hawkins in Taos, New Mexico. For a return address, he put FICA, 41 Boulevard Rochechouart, Paris, France. Winston Hawkins would know who had sent it. In large print, he wrote “PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL” on it. He was now ready to make the trip to the post office and then go across the street to the diner for his breakfast.
After his breakfast of bacon and eggs, he went to the nearest bank, the Shully Bank of Philadelphia. Raymond Powell’s passport provided sufficient identity for opening an account. He had gambled that the French authorities had still not identified Raymond’s body. Until he was declared dead, Raymond public records would only show that Raymond was still alive.
John deposited only three thousand dollars in cash in the bank account. Each day thereafter he deposited a few thousand dollars until the $95,000, in hundred dollar bills, that he had set aside for his living expenses, was in the bank. As he had expected, the bank tellers after the first few deposits did not notice their frequency.
A high-end men’s wear store was only a few doors away from the bank. There he bought two good quality suits, three white shirts, ties, dress shoes, underwear and casual clothes. The alterations took a day. The next day, dressed in a suit, he looked like all the other young professionals that inhabited the Washington Square neighborhood.
He was ready to open a stock trading account with a storefront investment shop. The nearest one was a ten-minute walk away. Within a few minutes of entering their offices an investment advisor was completing the paperwork. When asked how much he intended to invest, John said $500,000. The advisor rubbed his hands with glee as he calculated his potential commissions.
For his employment and work history, John told the salesman that he was a self-employed artist who had been out of the country for many years. He added that he had only returned upon the death of his aged parents. As their sole heir, he was now liquidating the estate. The investment advisor smiled when he realized there could be many more large deposits.
As planned, to further alter his appearance, John visited a neighborhood optometrist. He told the optometrist he needed glasses because things were no longer as sharp and clear as they used to be. He had noticed no change in his vision but the optometrist found enough wrong with his eyesight to justify selling him 2 pair of glasses, one with clear lenses and a pair of sunglasses. John thought his bald head, trimmed beard and glasses made him look older and very much like many of the university professors who lived in the neighborhood. The world would now see a self-confident image of middle class respectability.
Over the next month, John increased the deposits into the investment account. Soon all the millions, he had hidden under the sink, were deposited. Since he had had no problem in depositing the $100,000 in expense money into the Shully Bank, John now opened an on-line, self-trading account with the bank’s large investment division. He then instructed the Shully Bank to arrange for the transfer of all the money he had deposited with the storefront investment shop to his new Shully Bank trading account. Since it was an electronic transfer and not cash, no one at the Shully Bank questioned his receiving such a large amount. For greater flexibility, John wanted all his assets in an established financial institution.
John was ready to start investing. The Sanctuary’s instructors had ground into him the principles of careful, value investing. The professors had viewed, with disdain, speculators who saw the stock market as a casino or slot machine.
John’s aim was to find profitable, well-established companies, with low price-to-earnings ratios, that paid better-than-average dividends. He would invest only five percent of his total funds in the shares of any one company. Out of the thousands of stocks being traded on the major exchanges, he found the best twenty stocks meeting his criteria. He expected to lose a small amount on three or four stocks out of the twenty he had purchased but to have an annual gain of at least ten percent on his total portfolio.
With a substantial monthly income being derived from his investments, he now had time to ponder what he wanted do with the rest of his life. There was no going back. Those searching for him would not rest until he was dead or in jail. His future was indefinite.
H considered opening another collection agency but rejected that option. It is what the police and the mob would expect him to do. He concluded that whatever he did it would have to be something that would give him as much pleasure as possible, in the short time, he might have to enjoy it.
His stock portfolio required little effort. He now had time to enjoy his art. He bought paints, canvases and an easel and painted for hours every day. When he needed a break and to get out of the apartment, he explored Philadelphia. He visited The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Barnes Foundation, The Pennsylvania Academy of Arts and all the private galleries on Second Street.
One day, a gallery owner, who was also an avid golfer, told him of a great golf course that had waived its initiation fees to attract new members. It was only twenty minutes away from John's apartment.
John took a taxi to the club. It was an elegant one-hundred-year-old private golf course. After a tour of the club, he joined. In the pro-shop, he bought clubs, a bag, shoes, and golf clothes. These were all stored in his locker at the club.
It was on his third round of golf at the club that he realized what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He wanted to own a golf course. It was the original dream he and Raymond Powell had shared. His days now became filled, with not only investing, painting, and golfing but searching the internet and golf magazines for a golf club he could afford to purchase.
He also researched everything he could find on acquiring and running a successful golf club. One expert recommended that buyers concentrate their search in states where golfing was possible year-round. Another recommended buying a course that could draw on a market with a population of at least twenty million. He also read that while it costs about six million dollars to buy a profitable golf course, for three million dollars, if you were careful, you could buy an unprofitable one with profit potential.
Even when he learned that more than half of America’s seventeen thousand golf course were not making money, he was not discouraged. The younger generation were more interested in video games than golf. The older golfers were dying off. He arrogantly believed that having built a successful collection agency he could make any business profitable.
He also continued to do Google searches to see if there was any recent news about the Laughlin Casino robbery. He felt guilty and depressed when he read that the armored truck guard had died. It had been an unfortunate accident.
The subsequent posting of the FBI’s $100,000 reward for information leading to his capture and conviction gave him a few restless nights. It served to increase his caution. He now restricted his public exposure to the golf course and the small diner across the street from his apartment building.
He golfed alone, not wanting to answer questions about his background from the club members. The waitresses, in the diner where he ate every day, knew what his tastes were. The result was a minimum of communication, beyond the usual greetings, at both the golf club and the diner. When he ate, he always made sure he had a newspaper to read. It discouraged interaction with the diner’s other customers. The members at the golf club thought that he was shy or anti-social. They left him alone. This did not mean they were unaware of how far and straight he could drive a ball.
John soon realized that he was now in a prison of his own making. He thought moving to a smaller, more isolated community could lessen his anxiety. The large city was making him paranoid. Every stranger he saw now made him nervous. He thought in a small town there would be fewer strangers.
John was not the only one doing searches. Each day Winston Hawkins checked their security company’s national monitoring system for John’s presence. He was relieved when the monitoring system began registering John’s frequent visits to the Shully Bank in Philadelphia.
Winston showed no surprise, a few days later, when he received a mysterious package, with a Philadelphia postmark and Paris return address. It contained an untraceable $525,000. It gave Winston that warm glow a father feels, when a son does the right thing. He expected a great return from their investment in John Cross.