The One Dollar Rip-Off Read online

  THE ONE DOLLAR

  RIP-OFF

  Ralph Dennis

  Copyright © 2019 Adventures in Television, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

  Afterword Copyright © 2019 by. All Rights Reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 1941298842

  ISBN-13: 978-1-941298-84-8

  Published by

  Brash Books, LLC

  12120 State Line #253,

  Leawood, Kansas 66209

  www.brash-books.com

  Also by Ralph Dennis

  The War Heist

  The Hardman Series

  Atlanta Deathwatch

  The Charleston Knife is Back in Town

  The Golden Girl And All

  Pimp For The Dead

  Down Among The Jocks

  Murder Is Not An Odd Job

  Working For The Man

  The Deadly Cotton Heart

  The One Dollar Rip-Off

  Hump’s First Case

  The Last Of The Armageddon Wars

  The Buy Back Blues

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This book was originally published in 1976 and reflects the cultural and sexual attitudes, language, and politics of the period.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  WIND SPIRIT A SHORT STORY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Hump Evans and I were in George’s Deli on North Highland. The front door and the back one were propped open. A cool pleasant breeze, the kind you expected in the spring, blew the length of the place. From our seats at the rear of the bar, I could look past Hump and see, out the back door, the gold and old leather colors of fall leaves.

  It was Indian summer in Atlanta. Mid-October and the weather seemed stuck in deep tire ruts. The mornings were cool and the afternoons warm. The rapid changes had coughs and colds built in and I could hear the hack-hacks muffled by cupped hands here and there at the bar or in the booths.

  It was a Monday. The day before, Marcy and I had done the Atlanta fall thing, the slow drive up to the mountains and back to see the leaves. I think I saw about half the people in Atlanta up there. It’s an odd ritual anyway. You can see just as many leaves by driving around any Atlanta neighborhood.

  Monday’s a slow time in Atlanta. It’s especially that way if you live the kind of life Hump and I do. We do just enough to get along and the shadow world business pays better and that’s the kind of work we do. When there’s work. A lot of afternoons we count the time in beer bottles and empty glasses. And once or twice a week we drop by George’s for the corned beef. It’s either a late lunch or an early supper. When you’re not doing the nine to five, the regular hours, it doesn’t much matter.

  After a time the bartender, Sam Najjar, grows on you. He’s a retired army warrant officer and there’s a sneaky humor floating around just behind his eyeballs. You have to know him for a time before he’ll throw a verbal curve at you. He’s a fact man too and one whole shelf behind the bar is stacked with sports record and fact books. He’ll talk football and basketball and hockey but his real sport is baseball. I don’t think he’s missed a Braves opening day or a Sunday game since he retired and moved back to town.

  When Sam’s not busy, he leans on the bar and sucks on a chunk of rank cigar and talks sports. He knows that Hump, black and six-seven and two-seventy or so, used to play defensive end at Cleveland and he respects Hump’s opinion. This particular afternoon we were talking about the Monday night game. It matched the Bills and the Jets. O.J. was probably going to have another hell of a year and even if Joe Willie’s knees squeaked his arm was still good.

  We’d about worn out what we knew about both teams when the blond-haired bartender from Moe’s and Joe’s, the bar a few doors down from George’s, leaned in at our end of the bar and handed Sam a sheet of paper.

  Sam looked down at it. “What’s this?”

  “Hundred-dollar pool on tonight’s game. Two spaces left.”

  Sam nodded and unclipped a pen from the half dozen or so he wore in his shirt pocket. He wrote SAM in one space and pushed the sheet away. I was reaching for my pocket when Hump slid the paper toward him. He used Sam’s pen to write HUMP in the last space.

  I mumbled at him and turned the pool sheet toward me.

  Hump said, “Sorry, Jim. Maybe next time.”

  The pool sheet had ten lines down and ten lines across. That divided it into a hundred spaces and all of them were filled, usually by only a first name and a last initial.

  Hump gave the bartender his dollar. “When’ll you have the numbers?”

  “We’ll draw them now.” The bartender from Moe’s and Joe’s folded Hump’s dollar across a thick wad. “I’ll bring the sheet back in a few minutes.”

  He left. Hump grinned at me. “Don’t get your mad up. The odds are hell on a pool like this.”

  “And you’re all kindness, saving me from losing my dollar?”

  “That’s it,” Hump said. “Better me than you.”

  We had a couple of beers before the Moe’s and Joe’s guy returned with the pool sheet. He walked it down the bar. When he reached Hump, I leaned over Hump’s shoulder and read the news with him. The down column was the Jets and Hump’s number was a 3. The across column was the Bills and Hump’s number there was a 3 also. That meant that the last number on each team’s final score had to be a 3 for Hump to win: 33 to 13, 13 to 3, 23 to 13 … anything like that. From the look Hump gave me, I knew that it was damned unlikely. For the 3’s to show up, there’d have to be some missed extra points or some combinations of touchdowns and field goals.

  After the bartender took the pool sheet away and Sam moved down the bar to open a couple of beers, Hump winked at me. “I’ll sell you a half interest in my winner for a dollar.”

  I laughed at him.

  “You’re not going to believe this.”

  Hump stood in the doorway. It was late the next morning and I’d slept in. The coffee water had just started its boil when he rang the doorbell.

  “You always say that.” I waved him inside.

  “This time …”

  “What won’t I believe?”

  He followed me into the kitchen and hooked a toe behind a chair leg and pulled it out. “You watch the game last night?”

  I shook my head. I’d watched the first half. Play had been listless and disinterested. Cosell gave me heartburn anyway, his pompous misuse of language, and neither Joe Willie nor O.J. had done much for my attention span. I’d given up and gone to bed.

  “Want to guess the final score?”

  “Nothing to nothing on the basis of what I saw.” I cut the burner and reached for another cup for Hump. He shook his head and got a glass from the cabinet. He sniffed the milk and poured himself a glass.

  “Twenty-three to three,” Hump said. “I hit the pool.”

  “Show me the money.”

  Hump poured back about half the glass of milk. “That’s the part you’re
not going to believe.”

  He’d watched the game at his apartment. At first, he’d felt about the game the way I did. But the fact there wasn’t any scoring in the first half didn’t bother him. His chances for the hundred were still good. He wasn’t out of it yet.

  The Bills scored twice near the beginning of the third quarter. The second extra point blew wide to the right. 13. Hump thought that was a good stopping point for the Bills. He began to pull for the New York defense. Near the end of the third quarter the Jets got on the board with a field goal. 13 to 3. That was enough. That was the winner. Hump pulled for both defenses and against both offenses. No more points. Stop.

  A Bills drive a couple of minutes into the final quarter bogged down at the thirty. The Bills kicker aimed it straight between the posts. 16 to 3. Hump mixed himself another drink and wrote the hundred off. Somebody else was going to spend it.

  They played the next ten minutes or so of the game around the midfield mark. No score. No drives by either team. It was that way until about the three-minute mark. The Jets reached midfield. It was third down and six to go. Joe Willie dropped back to pass. His arm was back, not moving, when the Bills tackle hit him. The ball flipped end over end. A surprised linebacker scooped it up and ran almost forty yards for the touchdown. The score was 22 to 3. Hump leaned forward and watched the extra point try. The kick went through straight and good.

  That made it 23 to 3 and it remained that way until the end of the game. At the final gun Hump switched off the TV set and stood up. Of course, he could wait until the next day. The hundred would be waiting. Still, he was wide awake. Not about to sleep for a few hours yet. Why not pick up the hundred and spend a bit of it bar-hopping? It was found money anyway.

  Hump parked next to the fire station and walked the block to Moe’s and Joe’s. He passed George’s Deli. Usually they closed early. Moe’s and Joe’s was packed from wall to wall. It was like that most nights. It was a hangout for Emory students, going back to the days when De Kalb County was dry. De Kalb was wet now but the tradition kept the students driving those extra miles into Fulton County.

  Humped leaned on the front end of the bar until a bartender found him. “What’ll you have?”

  “I’m checking on the pool,” Hump said. “I won it”

  The bartender looked at Hump for a long moment. He shook his head and said, “Just a minute.” He put his back to Hump and opened a file cabinet. He dug around in there until he found the pool sheet. He unfolded it and placed it on the bar. “Show me.”

  The light wasn’t good. It took Hump a few seconds to find the 3’s and pinpoint the space where they crossed. But he didn’t find his name. He found where it had been written. Now it was blacked out by a pencil smear and another name had been written above it. JOHNNY B.

  “I’m right under that smear,” Hump said.

  “Must have sold your space,” the bartender said.

  “No way,” Hump said. “I’d like my hundred.”

  “He’s already picked it up.”

  “Who?”

  “That guy.” The bartender turned the pool sheet toward him. “Johnny B.”

  Hump straightened up. He looked toward the back of the bar. It was dark and crowded and he couldn’t see much. “Where’s the blond guy put the pool together?”

  “He’s in the kitchen.”

  “I want to see him,” Hump said.

  “He’s busy right now.”

  Hump leaned forward and placed his hands palm down on the bar. “Now you may not think a hundred is much money.” He kept his voice level and easy, the threat out of it. “But when that hundred is mine by all rights I’ll kick ass and knock heads. You get him from the kitchen.”

  The bartender started away. Hump dropped a dollar on the bar. “Give me a Bud first.”

  He was sipping the beer and staring out at the street when the blond bartender he’d seen at George’s stopped at his elbow. He was wearing an apron now and there was the smell of hamburgers and grease and chili powder about him.

  “You want to see me?”

  “You remember me from this afternoon?”

  They moved from the bar and stood next to the cigarette machine. The blond bartender nodded. “You took the last space.”

  “That’s right. Get the pool sheet.”

  They held the sheet in the light from the front of the cigarette machine. “I had three and three,” Hump said. He touched the space with a fingertip. “Somebody marked me out. That’s my name under there.”

  The bartender turned the sheet. They could read HUMP in the deep impression on the back side of the paper. “You didn’t sell it?”

  “No.”

  The bartender read him and believed him. “That guy, Johnny, was drinking at George’s. Let’s see if he’s still there.”

  It was a step away from closing time at George’s. At one back table four or five student types labored over a final large pitcher. A couple of old-timers hunched at the bar. George and Sam looked bored and sleepy.

  The Moe’s and Joe’s bartender stopped in front of Sam. “The man that won the pool …”

  “The one in the raincoat?”

  “Him.”

  “He didn’t stay long,” Sam said. “He bought a round for the people he was drinking with and left.”

  “That was my winning number,” Hump said.

  Sam lifted an eyebrow. “Three and three?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s funny,” Sam said. “I heard Joe Bottoms sell that guy his spot for a dollar. That guy said he wished he was in the pool and Joe offered him his numbers.”

  “Joe Bottoms wasn’t in the pool,” the blond bartender said. “I asked if he wanted in and he said he didn’t.”

  “He sold a spot he didn’t have?” Sam shook his head slowly.

  “That’s brass,” Hump said.

  “If you were going to sell somebody a spot you didn’t have you’d pick unlikely numbers. A three and a three, for example. That’s almost impossible. And if the numbers don’t hit who’s going to know that two people were waiting out that space? Who checks on a losing spot?”

  “Why?” Hump asked.

  The blond bartender shook his head.

  “Why’d he do it?” Sam dipped a shoulder. “Joe’s something of a wiseass. Even if he’s got cash, he’d like to con a dollar off somebody. It’s enough for two drafts and a phone call.”

  On the street outside George’s, the bartender said he’d get in touch with Joe Bottoms and make him good for the hundred.

  “I’ll give you a day,” Hump said.

  “Look, we’ll straighten it out. It’s not worth …”

  “You got a hundred on you?”

  “No.” The bartender did a quick step toward Moe’s and Joe’s.

  “If you had a hundred and I took it off you, would it bother you?”

  “I guess so.”

  “That’s my hundred,” Hump said. “Don’t talk reasonable shit to me.”

  The bartender waited. He didn’t know what would happen next.

  “And you run a fucked-up pool,” Hump said.

  “If we don’t get the money off Joe Bottoms, we’ll make the hundred good.”

  “You bet your ass you will.” Hump turned and walked down Highland toward the fire station. At the corner, he looked back. The blond bartender stood there, staring down at the pool sheet in his hands.

  “How did this guy, Bottoms, do it?” I asked.

  Hump rinsed his glass and placed it in the sink. “He walks over to Moe’s and Joe’s. He asks for the sheet so he can get his numbers. It’s probably one of the other bartenders. He’s busy and he gives Bottoms the pool sheet and walks away. The rest is easy. He takes an unlikely combination of numbers and he marks out my name and writes in Johnny B. Then he goes back over and tells the guy his numbers are three and three.”

  “Heavy balls,” I said.

  “Or stupidity,” Hump said.

  “The odds were with him.”
/>   “For a dollar? All that crap for a dollar?”

  “You put it like that,” I said, “and I’d have to agree with you.” I looked at him. In the years I’d known Hump, he came across as one of the more generous men I’d ever known. You needed a hundred and he had it and it was yours. Even if it left him short. Money didn’t mean that much to him. This was, I saw, a whole different game. He’d been ripped off by a smartass and it burned him. It burned him right to the gut. But it wasn’t the hundred. He’d have been as mad if it was a five-dollar bill.

  “You got plans for the day, Hump?”

  “Thought I’d wander about town a bit. Might get to Moe’s and Joe’s at six o’clock.”

  “And then?”

  “They don’t have my hundred and I might see if I can find Joe Bottoms.”

  I grinned at him. “Need company?”

  He grinned back. “Not help,” he said. “Just company.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Aimless afternoon in downtown Atlanta. A drink here and a drink there. A light buzz warming us, we sat in the outdoor courtyard of Peachtree Center and watched the lunchtime girls stride by. From the way they dressed, you’d think it was spring.dressed

  At four-thirty, we got Hump’s Buick from the Davison’s parking deck and pointed it toward North Highland. It was bad timing. We bogged down in the late-afternoon, after-work traffic.

  It was a bit after five when Hump parked the Buick across the street from Moe’s and Joe’s. A few doors back from that bar I could see the open door at George’s Deli.

  “It’s too early,” Hump said.

  “A couple at George’s?”

  “Why not?” Hump stepped out and stood in the street, staring at the front of Moe’s and Joe’s. Nothing came of it. Nobody ran out with a fistful of bills and offered them to him.

  Sam had the two Buds open and on the bar by the time we cleared the deli and Middle Eastern grocery part of the place. Hump dropped a five on the counter. Sam picked it up and gave it a mock-serious stare. “This part of the hundred, Hump?”

  Hump laughed with him. “Not yet.”

  Sam laughed all the way to the cash register and back. “Those boys will have a hard time putting together another pool.”