The 'Cousins'

Part Sixty-One Bravo :: Greg at The Bank

Timeline: 10:38, Friday 20th April :: Outside Hapsburg Hotel, Bamptonville.

Sheriff Flik Donovan stood in deep thought on the sidewalk outside the Hapsburg Hotel. The morning sun warmed his cheeks, his mind, revolving like a concrete mixer, making sense and giving priority to the points raised during his meeting with the judge. He took a deep breath of the still air, hardly noticing the lingering taint of manure. He had his wire-tap organised to help him expose Tod Mecklen as an informer for Gleitner, but had yet to devise a suitable plan to accomplish the man’s exposure. He looked at his wristwatch, noting he had just over an hour before the tap came into effect. 

‘Gleitner,’ he thought. ‘You’re up to your hair roots in this business with the boy and why do you need to know what comes through my office?’  With purposeful intent, he set off to find Gleitner and have a word with him.

Flik often walked through the central part of town greeting people and chatting briefly to them. His was a political office and he needed their votes at election time to keep his job, and walking among them is what had to be done to keep citizens’ trust and win their votes.

He performed that function with less attention than usual today, answering greetings mechanically and not stopping for any chat with the townspeople and storekeepers he passed as he walked on by, his eyes searching everywhere for an old blue Buick or a little man with a pointed head wearing a rumpled brown suit.

Flik was confident he had held off Armstrong from any precipitous action against the White boy. He did not want Greg Mitchell upset since he figured strongly in the plans of the town’s inner circle to thwart Fawley’s ambition to build that chicken plant. Greg was the best solution, but only if he could be persuaded to buy that condo when the Bank seized it on Monday. He checked his watch again, thinking, ‘Bill Courtley should be talking to Mitchell on that very subject about now.’  

They did not want Mitchell to move on from Bamptonville before he had bought that condo; even if he was doing those things Wes Chandler claimed with Jess White. Flik dry-spat into the air, as if ridding himself of the distaste the thought of their philandering brought. ‘That boy, he figures bigger in all o’ this, more’n his boyish charms would have us believe.’

That thought introduced other concerns. ‘Is Gleitner running a vice ring using school kids? If so, is this boy a part of it? Has Mitchell got himself in the way of it by succouring the boy and caused Gleitner to warn him off by wrecking his tire and when that didn’t work, putting out that rumour about him and the boy?’

It had all too much of the ring of truth about it and Flik strode grimly through the town peering into every doorway, shop window, side street or bar for signs of Felix Gleitner or his old blue Buick. 

                                                                    *  *   *

Timeline: 10:47, Friday 20th April:: Commercial and Farmers Bank, Bamptonville

“Well now, I heard you are a determined trader Greg, but potatoes never entered my mind as something you might be dealing in?’” He held his head to one side to listen carefully to what Greg said next.

“Potatoes are a commodity just like any other, they have their own characteristics, market, values and prices. I don’t know what they are yet, but I can soon find out.”

Courtley laughed politely holding his hand over his mouth before asking with equal politeness.

“What can I tell you?"