Image by Susan Clark from Pixabay
“How is that man even still alive – he has come to work every day and is still alive after doing this to me – I don't know how Lee did it but I know he is – I'm paying people to kill folks and he is still coming to work – all of you have failed me – all of you deserve to be killed – I'm going to pay you to kill each other!”
This is the last thing a criminal kingpin who thought he was running things in Lofton County, VA said before he was taken to the criminal psych ward, his chief mistress watching in tears, knowing that she would never see him again.
She got out of there before anyone knew those were tears of joy.
She and her fellow mistresses had sat down and decided what they were going to do, since the men had gotten snatched up – kingpin was not going down without his boys for that many years of hard time. No honor among thieves. No provision for their women – not enough time to put that together and not enough inclination to do it even if there were.
So they went to the man Mr. Lucas wanted killed: Capt. H.F. Lee. They told him where all the bodies were buried, and where almost all the money was.
“He is a gentleman of great understanding,” the chief mistress said. “He questioned everything very closely, but I watched him think about asking about the money … and he didn't go as deep as he could have.”
“He looked out for us when our so-called men didn't,” another of the mistresses said, “so we're going to protect him.”
There were accounts that Capt. Lee knew might exist, but he had decided not to ask … he knew his kindness to these women would ease their minds and cause them to open up and let him get the evidence he needed to get. Out of those accounts, the mistresses paid off the hitmen not to bother Capt. Lee and his family. The hitmen were relieved, since they knew that Capt. Lee, himself a professional, probably already had a counter plan because their counterparts around the world had tried and failed and died. They took their money and happily went out of the picture.
As for Mr. Lucas, the chief mistress knew him well … she came in every day with a story about how his orders had been followed but something had gone wrong … a couple of hitmen had given her stories to tell about how things do go wrong with a target like Capt. Lee … she told the stories in the kind of way that ostensibly would show support, with changed names and situations so she would not incriminate herself, but that would drive him mad in the end, confirming him in his powerlessness.
It finally happened on Saturday afternoon – he snapped.
The mistresses – now lifelong friends -- drained the remaining monies from the accounts only they knew about, and left the country for warmer climes to get on with their lives. Before going, though, they rolled by the Blue Ridge Precinct and dropped $1,000 in gift cards to local delis and bakeries for Capt. Lee and his men to enjoy.
As for Capt. Lee, when he found out about the gift cards and checked the trackers he had on the vehicles of the men who were supposed to be coming after him, he saw the cars were all at different Virginian airports in long-term parking … and the envelope addressed to him inside the bigger envelope of the $1,000 worth of gift cards had additional gift cards to fine spas and chocolatiers … and the scent of the chief mistress, who had heard that the captain had a new bride. Capt. Lee did not keep those things, instead dividing them between his men as well. All Mrs. Lee wanted was for him to come safely home to their new home at the Veteran's Lodge, and now, he could.
Out of the abundance of caution with which he had stayed alive to age 46, Capt. Lee still drove to the parking garage to where people still thought he lived in Big Loft, walked into the Rosewood Apartments where he and Mrs. Lee had decided to keep his apartment for when they wanted to do things in the city, walked out through the back door, and down the street and around the corner to the used car he had bought off a cousin that seemed so far beneath his reputation and dignity … but then again, Mrs. Lee had the Lexus with her. Meanwhile, the people tracking Capt. Lee thought he was at home for the weekend …
“Amateurs,” he had described them to Mrs. Lee while sitting up in one of the homes in the Blue Ridge his family owned that nobody on the grid knew anything about.
But on this day, he drove over the ridge to the Blue Ridge Parkway and then northward to the exit from which he could see the Veteran's Lodge from above … a wonderful drive down in a beautiful sunset to the entrance where he was saluted – “Col. H.F. Lee, welcome to your new home.”
15 minutes later, up into the cul-de-sac where there were now three houses, with Mrs. Lee waiting on the porch, their child in her womb now ten days old, and her glowing with health and love.
And then, he was spotted.
“Hey!” five-year-old Lil' Robert Ludlow announced with his huge alto-treble voice presaging the immense basso profondo voice he would inherit from his grandfather, “Cousin Harry is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!”
The little boy was running across the cul-de-sac, leading a bigger charge than any Lee had faced since 1865... his six siblings and their four Trent and Stepforth friends next door all adored him, and all eleven came running.
“This is home,” he said when at last he and Mrs. Lee were alone to embrace each other on their porch. “This is home ... this is the active, loving, full peace I grew up in. This is home ... to be with you and have our family here ... yes, oh yes!"