Chapter 8

November, 1949

Time to beat 'Bama! Dad bet $250 at 11 to 1 odds that Auburn would beat The University of Alabama in Birmingham. The bookie, out of the goodness of his heart, actually tried to talk dad out of the bet. The bookie maintained that there was no way Auburn could win and Dad was throwing good money after bad. Auburn had done so poorly that season, that the bookie was embarrassed to take Dad's money. Nevertheless, Dad stuck to his guns and made the bet. Needless to say, we won! We cleared over $2500 that football season, but we decided that the bookie was really a nice guy and we wouldn't steal any more money from him.

January, 1950

The day after the New Year holiday, Mother got an excited phone call from her broker, Janice Watson. Janice wanted to know if Mother wanted to sell one of her stocks; it had more than tripled in value since Mother bought it. Mother looked at me and I said, "Go ahead." Janice said that we should make a profit of over $1200 with this one stock. The others looked good, but she thought we ought to hold on to them for a while. Janice also recommended a couple of other stocks and Mother said that she would call Janice back.

I looked up the two stocks in the Wall Street Journal and on the computer. We decided to buy both. Mother called Janice and that's what we did.

I had started transferring the stock data into a spread sheet. I was a long way from getting it all entered. In fact, I was sure that I would never complete the job, even with Mother helping. The two of us had worked on it diligently since October and we weren't half through. Either there was some simplification that we were overlooking or the job was impossible. We figured that we would keep after it for a while longer. Today's profit was enough to inspire us to stick with it for now.

Sammy the Shoe's trial finally came up and Dad and I attended. I had to get off from school, but my grades were good enough, along with a written request from Dad, to get me out of school for the duration of the trial. As it turned out, there wasn't much to the trial. The evidence was so solid against him that Sammy the Shoe's lawyer advised him to try for a plea-bargain. Sammy the Shoe agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a relatively light sentence. This was the deal and we went home.

On the way out of the courtroom, I had a brainstorm. I placed a compulsion on Sammy the Shoe to tell the authorities everything he knew about organized crime in our area. It turned out not to be much information usable in court, but the authorities, particularly the IRS, were directed to look at some people they had previously ignored, including some politicians.

That evening, at supper, I said to Dad, "I have a serious philosophical question. If I go back in time and make a change, say killing Hitler or Stalin, or both, what will happen to our time? I have read of parallel universes; is this how one gets started? Would our time stay the same, with another, parallel universe being created which would coexist with ours but show the effects of not having Hitler or Stalin around?"

"I don't know, son, but it sure sounds like a reasonable argument. But it seems to me that there is an ethical question raised at the same time. It can be assumed, for the sake of discussion, that no Hitler would have meant that all those people who died as a result of Nazi actions would then be alive. In that case, what is the justification for not killing Hitler?

"There is also the lessor question of when is the best time to kill Hitler? Should he be killed as a child, as a young adult, later on, or should he never have been allowed to be born?

"You see that there is no easy answer to your question or to the questions raised by your question. It would take a lot of thought and research by a number of very intelligent people to answer the question of whether or not Hitler, or any other person, should be eliminated from history.

"On the other hand, some good things came out of WWII which happened because Hitler was around. Take penicillin, for example. It probably would not be around without WWII, and nobody can find fault with penicillin being available. There are other things like DDT, synthetic rubber, and plastics which probably wouldn't be around without WWII. So, maybe Hitler did a good thing by being there.

"So you see, Bruce, there is no easy answer to your question and no easy test which would not be very dangerous to perform."

Wow! Dad gave me so much to think about that I didn't say any more that evening.

February, 1950

Finally, a serious crime that The Vigilante could look at! The newspaper had a report of a murder which had taken place yesterday, but there was not much else written. Either the police were withholding information or they didn't know much to begin with.

The basic story was that a prominent lawyer and real estate owner had been murdered by a burglar some time during the night of February 9th. The house was in a mess and they didn't know what, if anything, had been taken. There were obvious signs of a breakin: the back door had been jimmied open. There was a small wall safe which had been opened by someone knowing the combination, but there was no way at this time to know what might have been taken. Mr. Alexander Williams, the murdered man, had been shot in the face with a shotgun, but the body was positively identified by fingerprints.

Mrs. Williams had been away from home for that week, visiting her mother in Sarasota, Florida. There were no children living at home; the youngest, a son, was in the Army, stationed in Sicily, and both daughters were married and living with their husbands in New York City and Chicago.

The best guess by the police was that Mr. Williams had been forced to open the safe and was then shot by the burglar. No one could say why Mr. Williams had been shot; there was no sign of a struggle. As yet, there were no suspects, and the police were asking for any tips the public might have.

I figured that I could gain nothing be visiting the crime scene now; I could learn everything by using my POV to view the crime actually being committed. It was after supper, so I told my parents what I would be doing and went to my room.

I lay down on my bed, after taking off my shoes (I didn't want my mother to be mad at me), and got comfortable. I sent my POV back to the murder scene and looked around. I was surprised to see three men, all dressed in business suits, sitting in Mr. Williams' home office. There was a heated discussion going on. I was getting in too late to hear the whole thing, but I figured that I could come back to an earlier time if that turned out to be significant. At the point I entered, one of the visitors was complaining that Mr. Williams was holding back on his payments to the "Family." I gathered that this was some sort of organization, since I could hear the capital "F" in "Family."

Mr. Williams vehemently denied this, and the yelling went back and forth for some time. Mr. Williams finally said that he could prove his statement by reference to some "books" he kept in his safe. He got up and opened a wall safe hidden behind a large painting. He removed three large ledger-sized books and handed them to the loudest visitor.

At this point, Mr. Williams chuckled to himself and thought that they would never find anything amiss in the books he had given them, because the real ledgers were hidden under the floor of his office in a specially constructed safe only he could open.

The visitor holding the books carefully checked the entries on a few items against some numbers on a sheet of paper he had taken from a pocket. After handing the books to the other visitor, the first visitor said, "These are not the right books. I checked a couple of entries you made against the numbers supplied by our 'clients, ' and they don't jibe. We know that the 'clients' didn't lie, so you are holding out over 75 Grand! Cough it up, now."

"I don't have that kind of money in the house! Besides, I don't owe you anything!"

"Benny, come in here. Mr. Williams needs a little persuasion."

A heavy-set, grim-faced man walked in and closed the door. He was carrying a sawed-off shotgun. As Benny pushed the door closed, Mr. Williams reached into his desk drawer for a pistol. Benny saw this and shot Mr. Williams before he could get the gun out.

The two visitors jumped back to escape the flying blood. They took the ledgers and motioned Benny to follow them into the living room. One of the visitors said, "Benny, call for some backup and make this look like a routine robbery and shooting. Don't let anything point to the Family. I'll see you tomorrow in my office." Benny nodded and the two visitors left.

I decided that I had seen everything useful, so I jumped my POV back to my body. Obviously, this was an organized crime killing disguised to look like a robbery/murder. I thought to take advantage of the opportunity and investigate the wider ramifications of this case. I told Dad what I had learned and he agreed that I should get more information before we went to the police.

I had two contacts with the Family, three, if you count Benny. I believed that these two "visitors," John (Candy) Saragossa and Anthony (Big Tony) Gucci, would lead me to higher levels within the crime syndicate; all I had to do was look.

After supper the next day, I told my parents what I would be doing and went to my room. After taking my shoes off and lying on the bed, I used my POV to jump back to the morning of February 10th in Candy Saragossa's office. Benny showed up at 9:00 AM and was ushered in. Benny reported that he and two other men had followed orders, and he thought the police would jump to the desired conclusion. Benny was thanked and dismissed, and Saragossa proceeded on to handling other routine Family business.

A check of Big Tony Gucci's office was more productive. He had a meeting going on about expanding their numbers racket to fill the void left by his deceased competitor, James Hilton. Gucci regretted waiting so long before moving in, but other matters had distracted him. I decided that this was an excellent opportunity to learn a great deal about how a numbers operation was run, so I paid close attention.