A Small Matter of Consumer Protection

"Ah, Brother Shoate," Dennis Carnes said in the crowded concourse outside the district courtrooms, "and what brings you out at this ungodly hour to this din of inequity? Dressed up like a regular bandleader--as usual, I might add." Teenagers in jeans and tank tops jostled one another in the line outside the probation office while they waited to state their names and addresses for the later purpose of the judge's setting bail. Aloof from them and sneering stood five men in their middle 20s, their hair long and greasy, their leather vests studded and carrying insignia consisting of a grinning red Devil carrying a naked blonde woman and the legend Satan's Apostles. As far away as possible from both groups, and self-consciously apart from each other, were two teenaged girls and four men in their late 30s wearing suits, shirts and ties.

"The matter of making a living, Dinnis," Robert Shoate said, "and a tedious business it is."

Carnes arched his bushy eyebrows. "'A living,' is it?" he said. "And you, as I get it, representing a number of prominent members, (continued on page 157)Consumer Production(continued from page 112) the community, engaged in a variety of enterprises making fortunes, except when they get shut down by the authorities? 'United States of America vs. Gelato Marinara--interstate racketeering': That's your bailiwick. No living for you to be made in these poor surroundings, Robbo, not by your lofty standards. Disturbing the peace? Drunks and disorderlies? Drivin' unders and guys who whack their wives? Public urinators? You spend two hours in these shabby precincts, you'll lose what'd be a week's pay for guys like me, compared with what you're makin' on your fat arse in your office. Get out of here and leave the garbage to poor scavengers like me--we're used to going through the barrels--come here from the farce of habit, and we don't mind the stink. But you, you'll ruin that fine suit. Have to go home and take a hot bath before you can go back to work."

Shoate sighed. "Put your mind at ease, Dinnis," he said. He jerked his head to the left. "My client's down by the door."

Carnes peered over Shoate's shoulder. He saw a man about 70 in a silvery-gray suit that matched his wavy hair. "Don't recognize him," he said. "Don't belong in here, though--that I recognize. What's the charge?"

"A small matter of consumer protection," Shoate said.

"That's a civil thing," Carnes said. "Civil don't start till eleven. This's the criminal session. See what happens, you guys in the swell suits start working our side of the street? Right off the bat, you make mistakes, show your ignorance."

"My client's particular consumer-protection matter," Shoate said, "happens to be criminal. My consumer protected himself. A and B, D.W.'s the charge. Five adults and their wee small children claim he fired a shotgun at them."

"My goodness," Carnes said. "What's the fuckin' world coming to, gentleman like that starts firing on other civilians?"

"That's almost what he says," Shoate said. "His version is: 'Fuck's going on, man has to keep a shotgun handy just to live in his own house?'"

"Did he do it?" Carnes said.

"Yup," Shoate said. "Just between you and me, of course. And not just once, either. He's got one of those Remington Bushmaster twelves, with the just-legal barrel, and he loaded her up and emptied the magazine--five full ounces of shot."

"So it wasn't a mistake, then," Carnes said. "He didn't think they were pheasants or something."

"Nope," Shoate said. "He thought they were gypsies."

"Jesus," Carnes said, "what is it, legal shoot gypsies now? Who is this fellow? Adolf goddamned Hitler or something?"

"Well, now," Shoate said, "let's be careful here. He didn't actually shoot them. But he came near enough so they thought he had that in mind. Little do they know. When this guy misses, it's because he wants to miss."

"Then why'd he shoot at them, he wanted to miss?" Carnes said.

"To get them off of his land," Shoate said. "And also out of his pool."

"They doing on his land? Bangin' their tambourines at him?"

Shoate laughed. "Look," he said, "he's retired. He's mostly retired. He's got a nice big house at the foot of a lane, out at the end of the point. Got the ocean from his windows, and the lighthouse--all of that. You know how it is with these older guys: Likes to get up early, take a swim in his pool, get his robe on and go out, get the papers from the yard. And you know how the paperboys are--papers're always way the hell down the driveway.

"So he does that, Saturday morning. Finishes the swim, gets the terry robe on, opens the garage door and goes out and gets the papers. Coffee's making, he's got the little glass of anisette on the diningroom table--hey, why the hell not, all right? Enjoy his life? What's wrong with that? He's retired."

"Especially since most your clients, his old pals, get retired, they're down in Atlanta," Carnes said. "He's a lucky man."

Shoate chuckled. "Well," he said, "he's got a good lawyer, and he usually does what his lawyer tells him. Which the guys that went South didn't always do. But that's another matter.

"The door opens and he goes out in the driveway and picks up the papers. Got to keep track, his investments, stocks and bonds and all that stuff. And he's going back into the garage, and up come these two cars. White Dodge wagons with the wood on the sides? And down around the corner, he sees this red pickup truck pull up.

"'Jesus, Bobby,' he says, 'it's like the clown cars in the circus. I'm standing there in my robe and slippers, and these two cars pull in my driveway, and all these people start getting out. Big people, little people--it's like a fuckin' rally, something. And the daddies start rubbing their hands on my driveway, you know? Their knuckles. And the mummies--I assume they're the mummies--start unloading the trikes from the cars, and it's like a fuckin' magic act. All of a sudden, I got about eleven people swarming all over my driveway. And I think, What the fuck? And then I know: gypsies.'"

"Gypsies," Carnes said. "How's he know they're gypsies?"

"Because they come back, like locusts," Shoate said. "Every four, five years, they come around again, and they cheat people. They especially like old people. They don't tell them they're gypsies. They tell them their roof's coming off and they'll fix it for twelve hundred bucks. 'Gonna have a lotta bad leaks here, lady, don't get them shingles nailed down.' They tell them their trees're all dying. 'Get a good windstorm here, mister, gonna knock all your power lines down.' And they come in for one day, whole army of people, and they climb all over your roof, hammering like hell. Or they get a whole buncha people and cut off a whole buncha limbs. And that night they leave, with half of your money--they wanted it all, but you're not that dumb: 'The rest when you finish the job.' And that's the last you see of them. If it was the roof scam, your yard's full of nails, half the shingles're off your roof. If it was the tree scam, your yard's full of branches and your trees look like they're half dressed. And you never see them again. And nobody else finds them, either.

"Well," Shoate said, "this year it's asphalt driveways. 'You better seal that driveway, mister. Gonna lose the whole thing, the next rain. Four hundred, good as new. Finish in a day. We'll be here tomorrow. Gotta be cash--we're nonunion help.' Meaning: 'We don't pay no taxes.' Wink, wink. 'Twice as much if we were.' So the addled old bastard goes to the bank, gets the money in hundreds, and the next day, the gypsies show up with a buncha highway cones they stole, and they block off the driveway and get out their brooms and spread the whole thing with crankcase drippings."

"Used motor oil?" Carnes said. "I never heard of that sealing driveways."

"It doesn't," Shoate said. "But because you do what they tell you and stay off it forty-eight hours, you don't find that out for two days. Then you find out what the oil does is get on your shoes, and you track it in the house, the wall-to-wall, and the carpets, your car, and it takes about three hundred pounds of phosphates, wash the damned stuff off, and that costs you another nine hundred bucks, and the meantime, the gypsies're off to another town, playing their sad violins, dancing around in the firelight.

"The whole theory is: They intimidate you. They arrive like an army and they get these old people, well off, naturally, but still old. And all of a sudden, these elderly people are surrounded by a bunch of jabbering bastards telling them their house is going down the hill if something isn't done real soon. The people that get cheated, about twenty minutes after they get taken, it dawns on them, what's gone on. But by then, it's too late--the gypsies're gone. Nothing a soul can do.

"This is a good theory--until the guy you pick to intimidate is my guy. He does not intimidate. He used to, so he knows how it's done, and he knows a scam when he sees one. Furthermore, he knows knowledge is power, and that's why he reads the newspapers. Especially the local police blotter reports.

"He retreats the garage and he hits the door button, and two their eight kids or so ride their trikes in. And he says to them, in his best kindly fashion--it happens to be Gospel truth: 'Inna house I got the biggest goddamned kid-eating dog you ever saw in your life. Either get out the garage, 'fore the door's alla way down, or stay the garage--wait for him. And he will fuckin' eat you.' Which he would. Dog's a fuckin' Rottweiler, 'bout the same size as Goliath. So the kids screw, and the door goes down, and he figures he's rid of the bastards.

"He's not. 'They're stupid,' he says me. 'No brains at all. The next thing I know, I look outa my window, the bastards're all in my pool. The kids, anyway, at least are. I got three strands of barbed wire, top of my fence, and those fuckers got in over it. Now I think to myself, Hey, what's going on? And then, What do I do about it?

"'Now,' he says, 'I know from the cops. I been through this routine before. You call up the cops: "There're kids in my pool." The cops say, "Serve'em a snack." They'll do nothing for you, guy like I am, do nothing for nobody else. Last thing they want's a good wrestling match, some kids climbed the fence to your pool. They're whooping and hollering, raising all hell, my wife's trying to sleep, and who invited these shits?

"'So I go inna closet and get out the gun and load up the son of a bitch. Then I open the back door, go out on the deck and start taking a few practice shots. Took a couple branches off the dogwood and I trimmed the willow some, but it's all in a good cause. About the third shot, I see people running, fast. So I cut back the spruce next the driveway and I hear the cars starting up. I went back in the house, and that's all I did. Honest to Christ, that is all.'"

"Has he got a permit?" Carnes said.

"Why's he need a permit?" Shoate said.

"He had the gun before the law changed. Doesn't carry it. Keep it in his own home, protection life and property? Doesn't need a license. He's all right on the gun law--the people law's his trouble."

"Well, he's gonna get bound over," Carnes said. "Cop gets onna stand, reads his report of that, Judge Feeley isn't gonna have no choice: 'Off to the grand jury, Guido--take your chances there.'"

"Ah," Shoate said, "but that's where I come in. The cop's not reading his report. Saturday afternoon I went down the station and I said, 'Now, look, all right? I just want to tell you, so you don't think I pulled a fast one when my guy gets arraigned. I'm gonna call for eyewitness testimony, which you guys don't happen to be. And I know you're gonna say you've got a sworn complaint, and hearsay's good enough P.C. to bind my client over. Good enough probable cause, far's that goes, to get a damned indictment. But then there's gonna be a trial, because my guy will not fold. And then the D.A.'s gonna have to crank up some real live witnesses. You think they're gonna show up for that? These bastards'll be in Oklahoma by then, swindling innocent cowboys.'

"And the lieutenant looks at me," Shoate said, "and he says, 'We can't dismiss the thing, you know. That gets in the papers, everyone in town'll say we're in the bag, your guy. Selectmen'll be bullshit, looks like we took a walk.'

"'It won't,' I say. 'All I want you to do between now and Monday's try to find the victims. That's all--just try to locate them. And if you can't, and I ask you, just tell the truth--that's all.'"

"You figured they'd be gone?" Carnes said.

"Oh, I knew they'd be gone," Shoate said. "'Bobby,' my guy says, yesterday lunchtime, calls me up out at the pool, 'I had some people find out these bastards're staying. Hot-pillow joint, over Quincy. About eight of them to a room. And you know what? The strangest thing happened. They get up this morning, go out inna lot, their cars and their truck disappeared. So they're raisin' a big stink and head for the office--they're gonna call the police. They get in the office, the manager hands them a note. They can't even read it. Here're these bastards, out cheating people, they can't even read a fuckin' note. Desk guy reads it to them. And they look at each other, and I guess the first thing crosses their mind is find out whether it's true.

"'So they all go tearin' out the door again,' he says, and he's laughing like hell, of course, now, 'and they go down the river like the note says and, sure enough, there's truck, under about five feet salt water. And on the other side the river, over in the marsh, there're the white cars. Up to their bumpers in mud. And I guess then they believe what the note says: "Noon today, the tide comes in. You don't get them cars out by then, you never get them out. And when you get those cars out, you get in them and get out. You better not come back."'

"So," Shoate said, "they got a wrecker on the double, winched the cars back on the road, took them down the car wash--my guy's guy watching this--hose them down and screw. 'The last he seen of them, Bobby, they're headed west, real fast.'"

Carnes frowned. "I can't maybe put my finger right on it," he said, "but there's just the slightest smell here, maybe justice got obstructed."

"By who?" Shoate said. "My guy wasn't there. I wasn't there. Just happened to be a guy, knows my guy, and all he did was look on. Nothing wrong with that. Perfectly legal thing. Some tourists come in, their plans suddenly change--some young punks think it's funny, sink their truck in a river. So they decide we're a lawless community. They leave town sooner 'n planned. You've seen those American Express ads--happens all the time. Besides, you know those happy gypsies--foot-loose bastards--always on the move, looking for a peaceful town."

Carnes stared at him. He nodded. "And all these years," he said, "I think the reason you're getting all the heavies is because you're so goddamned good. And it isn't. The reason you get all the heavies is because you let the heavies do all the lifting, and you're just the guy out in front, takin' all the bows."

Shoate laughed. He clapped Carnes on the shoulder. "Hey, Dinnis," he said, "long's the music comes out sounding good, I'll be willing to lead the damned band."

"'Well, now, let's be careful here. He didn't actually shoot them. But he came near enough.'"