Family Secrets-Chapter Ten

As soon as he left Carl, Bill drove straight to Joseph’s house to see Bo.

“I did it,” Bill said with a wide smile.  “I got a one-on-one interview with Carl Hellman.  Man, I can’t wait to go back to Indiana and tell my editor I talked face to face with John Dillinger.”

Bo put his hands on his hips and clenched his jaw. “And of course, noting brings you greater joy than letting me know you have beaten me.  Now does it, Bill?”

“Beaten you?  What do you mean beaten you?”

“I have offered, on multiple occasions, to share the information I have gathered and let you join me in my story.  However, while I am stuck here hiding from Mr. Hellman, you are interviewing him.  All to make your story better than mine.”

“No, Bo…You got it all wrong.  That’s not it at all. I just…”

“You just what?” You were just in the neighborhood so you decided to come in and gloat?”

 “No, of course not.”

“Well, if you didn’t come here to gloat, then why exactly brings you here?”

“I don’t know…I just thought you would be happy for me.”

Bo painted on a fake smile. “Well then… congratulations, Bill.  I’m so glad you got the interview, and I didn’t.”

 Bill slowly walked back to his car and let out a long sigh.  He didn’t mean to upset Bo.  He just had some good news and wanted to share it with someone.  And right now, Bo was the only friend he had.  But he may have just ruined that.

 

The next day Bill returned to Carl’s mansion.   For over an hour, he practiced shooting at paper targets Carl had set up in his enormous backyard.  When he ran out of ammunition, Bill went inside the spacious house and roamed from room to room looking for Carl.  When Bill heard the muffled voices of two men having a conversation, he followed them until he came to the living room.  The moment Bill walked into the room; both men suddenly stopped talking and glared at Bill.

“Oh, sorry…I um…I ran out of ammo,” Bill said after a moment of awkward silence.

“I’ll get you more bullets here in a minute, kid,” Carl replied.

 Carl turned his attention back to the other man.  “Thanks for stopping by…and keep me informed.”

The man shook Carl’s hand and gave Bill a dirty look as he left the room.

Carl stood for a moment deep in thought as he brushed his mustache with his thumb and index finger.   “Listen, kid, I have to make a phone call.  You just stay right here, and I’ll be right back.”

 

After Carl left the room, Bill sat down in a plush oversized chair.  He spent a moment admiring his surroundings when he noticed a telephone on the table next to him.  Bill reached over, and as slowly as he could, lifted the receiver of the phone.  He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and put the phone to his ear.  Right away, Bill recognized the voice on the other end of the line.

“What did he tell you?” he heard his Uncle Harry ask.

“He said that Governor Goodwin Knight and Senator William Knowland have made a backroom deal to trade places,” Carl replied.  “In the next few days, Knight will announce he is running for the Senate and Knowland will be running for Governor.  Apparently, Knowland figures if he has both a term as Senator and a term as Governor on his record, he has a better shot at the White House next election year.”

“So, what does that have to do with us?”

“Knowland wants Knight to start making raids on our operation to soften us up.  Then when he takes over as Governor, Knowland thinks he can finish us off.  That way, he can brag about how he took down the biggest racket in California.”

“So, what’s the plan now?”

“I want you to put the word out to everyone.  I’ll give a thousand bucks to anyone who kills Governor Goodwin Knight or Senator Knowland.  If they want to go to war with me…they’ve got it.”

 

                  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

To Bill, the next week felt like an eternity.  With each day that passed, he became more and more nervous about unloading the drugs for Carl. 

When Saturday night finally arrived, Bill used the key his Uncle Harry had given him to unlock the door to the factory. Once inside, he made his way to the loading dock.  With his stomach in knots, Bill walked toward the fork truck while Harry and Carl casually stood at the open overhead dock door smoking cigarettes and laughing.  In the corner, other men stood around small scales and a stack of plastic bags.  The moment he saw Bill, Harry flipped his cigarette out the dock door and walked toward him. He put his hand on Bill’s shoulder and looked him in the eye.

“Are you ready?” Harry asked.

Bill nodded his head. “I think so.”

Harry gave Bill a smile. “I still remember my first job I did with Carl.  I was a nervous wreck.  But I made it through just fine.  And so will you.  You just focus on your job and trust that we’ll do ours.”

“Yes, sir,” Bill said before he heard the sound of a truck backing into the dock. 

“It’s showtime,” Carl yelled.

Bill jumped onto the fork truck and started it up.  To stop his hands from shaking, he gripped the steering wheel as tight as he could.  When the truck came to a stop in the loading dock, Harry opened the door.  Bill drove onto the truck and took off one large wooden crate.  The moment Bill set the crate onto the floor, Harry and Carl grabbed crowbars and removed the lid. Carl reached inside the crate and pulled out a handful of marijuana.

“In this crate has four, 100-pound bales of marijuana.  I want five pounds of this stuff in each of those plastic bags.  Then put eight bags in those furniture boxes over there.  After that, my distributors will take it from there.  So, come on…let’s move.”

Bill jumped and ducked his head when he heard the sound of rapid gunfire echo outside.  Everyone but Bill reached for a gun.  His heart raced when a swarm of men rushed onto the dock with their guns drawn.

“FBI put your hands in the air,” the men shouted.

As Bill watched Carl and his uncle being arrested, a man ran up to Bill and pointed a gun at his head.

“Put your hands where I can see them,” the man said sternly.

 Bill could feel his heart pounding as raised his hands.  The man reached over, shut off the fork truck and removed the key.

“Now, get off of the truck…nice and slow.”

With his hands still raised, Bill slid off the fork truck.  The moment his feet hit the floor; two men grabbed him and spun him around, so he faced the fork truck.

“Put your hands on the truck,” they shouted as one man kicked the inside of his feet forcing him to spread his legs.  The man patting Bill down.

“What have we here?” the man said as he removed the gun from Bill’s shoulder holster.  “Take him away.”

A man quickly grabbed Bill’s right hand and twisted it behind his back.  Bill felt the cold metal of the handcuff clamp tightly onto his wrist.  After his left hand was also cuffed behind him, Bill was led outside and forced into the back seat of a black sedan.

 

As the car drove through the darkness, Bill hung his head and stared at the floor.  When the car came to a stop, Bill looked out the window and saw the neon light of the Sky View Motel.  The driver got out of the car, opened the back door and pulled Bill out.

As the man was unlocking the handcuffs, Bo Swanson and Ken Bishop approached him.

“On behalf of the FBI I would like to thank you,” Ken said with a huge smile.  “Because of your help, Carl Hellman will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars.  And the best part is, you won’t have to testify against him.  Now that we’ve started arresting other people in his organization, they will be more than willing to do that for you.”

“And Carl and Uncle Harry will never know I’m the one that ratted him out…right?”

“Trust me, because you’re the one that unloaded the shipment tonight, they don’t suspect you at all…just like we planned it.”

Bill relaxed his shoulders and let out a long sigh. “That’s good to hear.”

  “I’ll tell them both you convinced the judge you didn’t know what was in that crate.  And, because of your squeaky-clean record, he let you off with a warning.  Now all you have to do is keep your trap shut and lay low for a while.” Ken pointed his finger into Bill’s face.  “And don’t even think about putting this in the papers.”

Bill hung his head.  “Don’t worry…I won’t.”

“You did the right thing,” Bo said as Ken walked away.  “You had to tell Mr. Bishop about Carl’s plot to kill Governor Knight.”

Bill shook his head and rubbed his wrists. “Yeah, I know…But I still think he could have stopped it without contacting Hoover and killing our story.”

“We both know that wasn’t possible.  In order to keep Mr. Knight alive, we had to stop Carl from funding the hit.  The only way to do that was to arrest him immediately.  Bo put his hand on Bill’s shoulder.  “You saved a man’s life today, Bill.”

“If I only had more time…I would have found something on him.”

“Well…I guess we will never know.”  After a long pause, Bo stretched out his hand with a grin.  “Goodbye, Bill.  You have been a worthy adversary.”  Bo’s face grew serious.  ”But I truly believe if the circumstances were different, we could have been friends.”

Bill gave Bo a firm handshake. “Goodbye, Bo, I couldn’t agree with you more.  But there’s something I have to know.  Why did you want us to work together on this story?  Why didn’t you want to keep it all for yourself?”

“I have always been a bit of a perfectionist.  So, I am always more interested in acquiring the truth rather than receiving glory.  I knew with my family’s contacts in law enforcement and your family’s contacts with Mr. Dillinger, we could work this story from both angles.”

 Bill let out a long sigh.  “Well…I guess it doesn’t matter.  Our story will never be told now.”

“No…I guess it never will.  But I have to admit, now that I have had a taste of true investigative reporting, it will be difficult returning to writing for the social page.”

A sly grin slowly came across Bill’s face.  “Hey, Bo…you said your uncle had more unsolved cases.  How many cases are we talking about here?”

Bo looked at Bill with a raised eyebrow. “I would say well over a dozen…why do you ask?

“Just because we couldn’t print this story doesn’t mean we can’t work on other stories together.  Just think about it…me and you, going undercover, working on all of your uncle’s unsolved cases.  And I’m not talking about our little local newspapers here.  I mean we submit our stories to national syndicates.  So, what do you say, Bo?”

“Mr. Reeves…I believe you have found yourself a new writing partner.”

 

Reviews

[SweetNutmeg]

Oh my goodness! I checked how many chapters were left and was surprised this was the last one. And what a surprise ending!!! I did not see that coming! At all! This story was quite a ride. I started out not liking Bo very much, but by this last chapter, I like him very well. I'm glad Bo and Bill ended up friends and (maybe) partners. I would read another book featuring these two. I'd definitely be interested in how they would interact and how their characters would develop with this new friendship. You always leave me wanting more. Very well done!

[Gary]

Thank you so very much for sticking with my story to the end. Just knowing someone read the whole thing means the world to me. I also want to thank you for your kind words and encouragement, I appreciate them as well.
When i started writing this, my goal was to make it as historically accurate as possible, so I knew Bill would never get the story. I'm glad you were surprised by the ending.
It was always my intention to make this a standalone story, so I have no sequels in mind. Thanks again. Gary

[Michelle Saldana]

Wow, what an incredible journey this story has been! It felt like I was watching a movie unfold before my eyes. The suspense, twists, and complex characters brought this world to life in such a vivid way.

I really couldn't help myself – I binge-read the entire story! Bill's evolution, his internal struggles, and his determination to uncover the truth made him a character I truly connected with. And then Bo, although unlikeable at first, turned out to be a pretty likable character in the end for me.

That ending – what a fantastic way to wrap things up! The idea of Bill and Bo teaming up to work on unsolved cases is great!

Overall, what an incredibly well-executed story you delivered!

[Gary]

You are the only person, that I know of, to read the entire piece. You have no idea how much that means to me. Plus your kind words and encouragement have truly humbled me. Thank you so much!

[Michelle Saldana]

Aww, reading your work was an absolute pleasure! So, thank YOU for sharing your awesome work with us.