1000 WORD EXCERPT

Clutch had one such troublesome case in his district late that summer. A customer who had been bounced one night for drunkenness was tormenting a big pool hall in the Mississippi River city of Prairie Du Chein, Wisconsin that had a locked door lounge in the back of the building. He was literally thrown out the back door, without being offered a ride home. His behavior had also been undesirable previously. He was a low-grade politician of sorts with a reputation for causing trouble. He tried to gain entrance to the lounge again about a week hence. He was refused. The proprietor had permanently black listed him. Being a blowhard, he was offended, and visited a shyster lawyer in the nearby city of Boscobel, 25 miles northeast of Prairie due Chain. The lawyer wrote the proprietor of the pool hall threatening to sue the pool hall if his client was not paid a huge reward. The pool hall proprietor told his Bellagio deliveryman about the threat, which in turn told Clutch. A few inquires disclosed the lawyer visited his favorite speakeasy in Boscobel every evening before driving home. This time of the year it would be dark by the time he would be expected to drive up his driveway. He was not in the habit of driving his car into his garage. The next Thursday afternoon Clutch, and two of the Dons henchmen, drove to Boscobel, arriving some before sunset, cased the area around the lawyers home, parked their car on a side street around the corner from the lawyers home, covered the license plates on their car and secluded themselves behind a row of bushes along the lawyers driveway. All was quiet in the neighborhood, only an occasional auto driving down the street, no loose dogs, only one tied up critter offering an infrequent yelp. Clutch and his men did not have to wait long. The car stopped in the driveway as predicted. The lawyer stepped out. The one henchman was behind him in a flash, thong around the lawyers neck, preventing an uttering a sound, then falling to the ground unconscious. Clutch and his men, all three, had on black hoods. In the meantime Clutch ran to his car, drove it up on the lawn where the two henchmen threw the body of the lawyer on the back floor and climbed on top of him. Clutch sped off, not stopping until they reached a dark wooded lane, Clutch had earlier in the evening identified as a good spot to work over the lawyer. There they stopped and allowed the lawyer to come to his senses. Clutch mixed no words about the missions intentions. Leave the pool hall operator in Prairie du Chein alone. Do you understand? The lawyer answered, with a hoarse tremble in his voice, Yes, I do. With that response, Clutch ordered his two henchmen to throw the man out. Clutch sped off, leaving the lawyer in the woods, 10 miles from his home, in the dark of night. He was disoriented, not knowing where he was, or what the directions were. It was cloudy, beginning to rain, no moon or stars. He walked down the little used woodland trail in the direction Clutchs car had driven, coming to a dirt country road. He again turned left. A car passed. He hailed it. The lawyer offered the driver a buck to take him to his home in Boscobel. As he busted in the front door, his wife hollered, Where have you been? She had not even noticed his car in the driveway. Then she saw, he was all roughed up, his clothes torn, wet and muddy, so his story was believable. Then the lawyer telephoned the sheriff of Grant County in Lancaster. He denied jurisdiction, asking the lawyer if his home wasnt north of the Wisconsin River on the edge of Boscobel, telling him that it was in Crawford County. The lawyer accused the sheriff of giving him the run around. He telephoned the sheriff of Crawford County in Prairie du Chein. He acted disinterested but offered to send his deputy to Boscobel to investigate. The deputy arrived at the lawyers home near midnight, asked a few questions, looked for car tracks on the lawn, and said he could see nothing, promised to visit the woodland spot where the lawyer was thrown out of the car, saying he knew where it was. The site was never visited. The case was closed. The sheriff and his deputy had previously had a meeting with Clutch in the parking lot of the Prairie du Chien pool hall parking lot. Their palms, at that time, were well greased by a substantial amount of cold, hard cash.

The lawyer was not an easy learner. He wrote another letter to the pool hall operator making worse threats than in the first letter. He also starts carrying a 45-caliber revolver in a shoulder holster. He had fired it several times along the river, that being the limit of his practice with it. One week later, the lawyer was again late for supper. In the dark of the night, his wife opened the front door, saw his auto in the driveway, went outside, and walked around the car where she saw her husband laying on the ground, a pool of blood beside his head. His revolver was on the ground beside him. She ran back inside the house, screaming, They have killed him. She then fainted onto the living room couch. Her oldest son took a look at what his mother had seen then telephoned the city cop. He was without an automobile, had to walk from downtown Boscobel. It was a while before he arrived at the lawyers house. In the meantime word spread around the neighborhood. When the cop arrived, the yard was full of people, some very concerned about violent crime in their neighborhood. The street was full of cars. Someone had picked up the revolver and thrown a blanket over the body. The cop asked for the revolver. On examining it he noticed the cylinder was full. He turned the body over, finding a bullet hole in the back of the skull and several more in the chest. Murder! He telephoned the sheriffs office in Prairie du Chien. The same deputy that had been to the lawyers house previously answered the phone. He said he would be there promptly. He arrived several hours later. After looking over the body and the murder site he called the undertaker. Case closed!