Popatop - A tale of disorganized crime

Chapter One - Joe Gets Whacked

On the outskirts of Chicago in a field made unusable by glacial rock deposits from the last ice age and dotted with old scrub brush not fit to even burn sat a rusty old fifth-wheel camper. It was well off the beaten path and looked completely out of place sitting in a field where nobody in their right mind would ever want to camp.

It was very quiet except for the din of the city in the distance; even the birds seemed to avoid this God forsaken place. Near the camper sat a meticulously maintained Cadillac Coupe de Ville with leather seats, power windows and power seats. In fact, it had power everything. The camper and the car looked like they shouldn't be in the same time zone, let alone the same field. The door to the camper was open and outside on either side of the door stood two rather large stocky men wearing long dark coats and black leather gloves.

Running from the Cadillac to the camper was a set of planks like you would expect to see in an old western movie laid out on the ground to prevent people from having to walk in the mud. It was cold and crisp and there was a low lying fog blanketing the surrounding brush which made the scene appear like something out of a vampire movie.

Inside the camper on a bench near the door sat a neatly groomed man wearing a pair of highly polished Florsheim shoes, freshly pressed silk suit, and a lamb's wool overcoat. His appearance was nicely capped off with a pair of 24 carat gold cuff links and matching tie clip.

Across from him sat a man in an old 1950s style kitchen chair with chrome legs and vinyl cushion and seat back. His legs were taped to the legs of the chair and his arms were tied behind his back; duct tape covered his mouth and his eyes bulged with fear.

The man in the silk suit leaned forward with his arms resting on his legs and his hands clasped together and said "I guess you must be wondering why I called you here today, huh Joe?"

The nattily dressed man continued, "Fact is Joe; you let me down. I was counting on you to be a stand-up guy, but you screwed up. We caught you skimming Joe!"

The man in the kitchen chair shook his head frantically back and forth.

The well-dressed man continued, "The first time it happened, we bought your story. But when we found money missing the second time, the conclusion was inescapable."

"Do you have anything to say, Joe?"

The man in the chair nodded frantically and so the well-dressed man reached over and peeled back the tape from Joe's mouth.

Joe started to babble, "I can explain boss, I was going to pay it back! It's just that my ex-wife Ramona has been putting the squeeze on me and ..."

The well-dressed man put the tape back over the man's mouth so he wouldn't have to listen to the rest, and sat back in his seat.

He continued to address the captive man. "Here's the thing Joe."

He reached down and picked some lint off his coat.

"When running a family business like mine, I don't have the luxury of running to the cops when someone steals my money. No Joe, I have to have my own system of enforcement and justice. You can just imagine what would happen if we didn't have systems of enforcement and justice; society would collapse. You wouldn't be able to go to the grocery store without some asshole shoving a knife in your face and taking all your money and stealing your car. It would be chaos Joe, absolute chaos. And it's the same in my business. If people don't follow the rules and if I can't trust my team, everything collapses into a cluster of shit."

The sharply dressed man leaned forward again and asked, "You get what I'm saying, Joe?"

"Oh, and one other thing, I very specifically told you to run a quiet low-key operation and not to do anything to bring attention to me or my business. I told you to stay off the god-damned cell phones when you were talking about company business, but you didn't listen."