Chapter 9

Lois’s visit stayed in my mind during the rest of that winter. I got even more paranoid. The need for proper planning played an even bigger part in my life. To be honest Lois’s visit hadn’t caused an earlier than planned retirement from the liquor business. It had in fact delayed my retirement, because of Lois the business stayed challenging for another six months.

By the time I got really bored I had been retired from the Sheriff’s department for thirteen months. In all honesty I wasn’t bored to tears, but I knew I was headed for that. With that in mind I began to plan for a soft landing.

The first thing I did was to give Mike the stove man notice that at the end of ninety days I would be out of the business altogether. If he wished to go his own way sooner, I would be happy to see him go and wish him well. After ninety days I would be finished, period.

“This has been a good year for us both. Why do you want to give it up,” he asked.

“To be honest Mike, I’m getting bored. When I get bored, I get sloppy. Then it’s just a matter of time until I overlook something important. That will get me either a jail sentence or a bullet. We had a good run and made a few bucks. Since I made it a policy to never find your still site, you will still have your winter operation. You just need find someone to distribute your product. Be careful and you will be fine.

I made very, very careful movements until the end. I have no idea who made the decision to put me under surveillance, but I got a heads up from an old partner. He called to ask me what I was up to.

“Jeremy, I’m not up to anything. What do you suspect me of doing?” I asked.

“Me, nothing at all. When I was in the intelligence office I got wind of a bug being requested for your phone. I was surprised to see your name on the request. I was afraid they were looking for a leak. Then I figured you were smart enough not to get caught with a phone bug,” Jeremy said.

“Honest to god Jeremy I have no idea what they think I have done,” I replied. “Was it a Sheriff’s department bug?”

“It was an ATF request,” he said.

“I have no idea what that’s about,” I said. “I quit smoking twenty five years ago and drinking twenty. They seem to be wasting resources.”

I ran liquor right up till the last date I had given Mike. I imagine I was still a person of interest when I stopped any contact with Mike or anyone else in the trade.

My next venture was another way to breed confusion in anyone looking at me. I started that worm farm. It was just a matter of purchasing some plastic storage boxes and then filling them with soil, ground up newspaper and coffee grounds. It took about three months for them to begin to reproduce and fill the three very large plastic storage boxes which occupied the clean room area.

I thought that it was fitting that last year’s clean room was this year worm farm. I had been on vacation for the entire three months it took to raise my own worms from the breeders. During that time I did nothing but eat and sleep. Oh I also laid out my marketing plan.