The Steel Cold Wager

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                      The Steel Cold Wager






Every cop has that one case that haunts him. The one that changes a part of him, for good or ill, forever. I was a rookie detective thirty-five years ago, one of the first in the county with a college education. I had made a reputation while a patrolman as a "people person". One who could penetrate the mental fog of "disturbed" people to elicit useful information. The truth was that my life with my father had taught me that some people simply had to be allowed to tell a story their own way, in their own time, to get to the point. I was just a good listener.

Ira Phillips had been under interrogation for two hours when the senior detectives had come out shaking their heads, one of them circling his ear with a finger. They came over to me and said it should be "slam-dunk" case with a confession, but Phillips kept running them around in circles on the lesser charge. I was told to see what I could do.

The interrogation room was cold and stark. The twelve-foot ceilings and fifty-year-old boiler system made it impractical to heat comfortably. The walls were scarred with cracked plaster and peeling, institutional gray, paint. The warped wooden floor was half-darkened by grime and age, the rest faded by the sun's assault through the uncovered oversized windows. These windows offered an unappealing view of the trash-filled ally and chemically choked industrial access canal.

Two portraits, one of the President, the other of the Mayor, faced each other across the room in a perpetual battle to out-charisma the other. A long oak conference table surrounded by straight-backed oak chairs dominated the room. The table displayed the customary graffiti. Scratched in at different depths were phone numbers [some with stars], illegible scrawls, and derogatory statements asserting the oral habits of certain civil servants and ethnic groups. Love and hope were not mentioned.

I sat down at the table across from Ira Phillips.

"I'm Detective Lucas, Mr. Phillips," I said. "May I call you Ira?"

"What's your first name?"

"Wayne."

"You can if I can."

"Okay, Ira."

"Wayne, can I smoke now?"

"Sure."

Ira produced a pack of Camel regulars and lit up with an ancient Zippo. I took out my father's old, black, battered, briar.

I used the diversion of filling and lighting my pipe to study the suspect. Everyone I questioned was a suspect. I didn't concern myself with convictions, only proper evidence, arrests and interrogations. I believed if I did my job well, justice would take care of itself.

My observation of Ira revealed a man about sixty, short, paunchy, but with powerful neck, shoulder and arm muscles. He wore the uniform of the long-time mill rat. Faded baseball cap, blue and yellow athletic jacket, gray work shirt with matching pants, and a pair of steel-toed, ankle high, lace up boots. The mostly gray brush cut completed the image. In short, the quintessential steel worker. Loyal husband, doting father, a fixture at the Lakeside bowling league, the VFW, and at the DewDrop Inn Bar & Grill. I had known many men just like him. Ira was actually the very of image of my father. My father had had that same slightly bewildered, lost look in his eye.

I had first seen that look three months after my father had retired from the mill. Instead of enjoying his retirement he seemed to suffer through it. Hanging out with his old friends, going to his lodge, nothing seemed to ignite the spark he used to have. I was his only family. Mom had died birthing me. If my father had ever had any hard feelings toward me for it, I was never aware of it. He never burdened me with any guilt over it. I spent what time I could with him and tried to encourage him to find new interests. All of it to no avail. There wasn't the casual attitude toward therapy that exists now. He quite literally would rather die than submit to a "headshrinking". That look had become more predominant as his once proud, vital personality had faded in to apathy, which deepened into illness, and finally death. Yes, Ira seemed quite like my father. Well, maybe not quite like him.

I broke the silence.

"Ira. There seems to be a lack of communication between you and my colleagues."

"I'm only trying to explain that I'm not a thief. They don't understand. I hope I can settle this with you."

I opened the table drawer, withdrew a cassette tape recorder and placed it on the table.

"I know you must be tired of this questioning, so let's get it on tape for the record?"

Ira nodded.

I turned on the recorder, got Ira's confirmation that this statement was being made without counsel of his own free will, that he was aware of and waiving his Miranda rights. I stated the date, time, and charges.

"Now." I said. "Let's review the events of this morning that led to the victim, Fredrick D. Harman's...Ira?"

Ira, who had been looking out the window, turned back to me with sadness on his face.
"You know," Ira said. "When I was a kid you could swim in that canal. Fish too. Now..." Ira slowly shook his head. "Things change. My kids have moved away. Have kids of their own. My darling Ellen has been gone these last five years. But some things should never change. Respect, pride in your work, and honor. Freddy didn't understand that. I tried to show him, but he didn't care."

I broke in. "Ira. You don't seem to appreciate the seriousness of these charges."

"Oh. I know it's serious all right. A thief. God, my parents are rolling in their graves. I don't know...maybe I should have a lawyer."

I reached to the recorder and carefully depressed the PAUSE button.

"Ira. If you want a lawyer, we'll stop right now and get you one. But I'll say this; a lawyer will never let you tell your side, here or in court. I feel you want to tell me about it, but it's hard for you. I understand and I want to hear your side of it, as long as we address all the charges."

"Yes, it is hard being here. But I think you'll understand. You're not like that hairy bunch that was in here"

I was one of the few detectives who had passed on the, then, current fashion of long locks and facial hair. I was accustomed and quite comfortable with the buzz cut my father had insisted on throughout his parenting of me.

I pressed the PAUSE button again hoping the legal abyss had been hurdled.

"Ira, do you want to continue with your statement, or do you want a lawyer?"

"No. No lawyer."

"Okay Ira," I said. "Tell me what happened at your job this morning."

"You know," Ira began, looking out the window again, "I've been an overhead crane operator for thirty-five years there at Lakeside Steel. Five years as a laborer before that. You know what an overhead crane is?"

"Yes."

I had seen the cranes while working a job in the mill between semesters to pay for college. They looked like thick, flat bridges spanning the one hundred-foot width of the work bay, both ends resting on rails mounted twenty-five feet above the floor. The rails ran the two hundred-yard length of the bay. The hoist engine was mounted above the bridge portion on rails running the length of the crane. Two sets of three-inch thick cables dropped through open center space to the hoist from the engine. The hoist could be lowered to the floor or run back and forth along the length of the crane. The operator's booth was attached on one end underneath.

"I started in the foundry," Ira said. "Those cranes were already twenty years old. They only had two control levers and a brake pedal. Moving twenty tons of material around speedily, with cables and hooks, wasn't just skill, it was an art form. Not many were good at it and I was the best.

"Six months ago they closed the old foundry and transferred me to the new cold-rolled steel plant. That was okay. I was ready, couldn't take the heat and dust like I used to.

"The new cranes had everything I had ever thought of, or hoped for. Five control levers, three floor pedals, transparent acrylic walls and floor to eliminate blind spots, heater, air-conditioning, you name it. And quiet. The old ones sounded like freight trains, these whispered. These new cranes used foot-and-a-half thick eight-foot high tongs to grab the coils from the center hole. You could open, close and even rotate them."

"This is where you met Mr. Harman?"

"Yeah. In the lunchroom I would tell the young guys how it used to be. Freddy would make a joke of it. Ask if I also walked two miles to school, barefoot, in four foot of snow. Said it was no big deal, he could do anything I could with a crane. He was good with these new cranes, but almost anyone could be. That's why I started the game during our dead time between shipments.

"The idea was to start at one end of the bay, with the tong hoist all the way up, tongs open. A three-foot-square cardboard box was placed in the middle of the floor. Then you would move the crane down the, coordinating the lowering and closing of the tong hoist so you could grab and lift the box without stopping the crane. At first I could do it and Freddy couldn't. I would have been willing to let it go at that"
"Why didn't you let it go?" I said evenly, even though I found myself becoming uncomfortable with his presence.

"Do you have pride in your job!? Your Badge!? Do you like being called pig!?" Softer now. "Do you always ignore it?"

Ira turned to the window again.

Easy now. I thought. Remember. He wants to tell you. He's almost there. Maintain control.

"Ira. Would you like to take a break now? Or continue your statement?" I said, now tightlipped.

"No, that's alright. I'm sorry. Talking about Freddie always makes me feel defensive. Well, in a few days he mastered the box pickup. He laughed at me and said he was as good as me, and being young would easily be better than I ever was.

"After that, when I went down for lunch or breaks the others would be laughing, but stop when I got there, except for Freddie. He never stopped laughing.

"We started doing the box pick-up faster and faster, up to full speed. I could always do it first, but it never took him more than a few days to catch up. I started using a metal water-bucket, that took me a few days to master, but after a couple of weeks he could do it too. He kept laughing."

"So all of this came about because of some competition?" I asked.

"No. No. Not the game. The wager. That's why everyone's confused
that I'm a thief."

"The wager? What wager?" I said, scanning the report.

"See, a month ago, I had him. I picked up a hardhat with the tongs at full speed. You see?"

I looked at him blankly. I was beginning to understand the senior detectives' frustration. I was still determined to stand by my conviction that he would eventually get to the point if I waited him out. I had had many conversations with my father that had darted here and there, finally tying everything together at the end. Though I was now fighting not to show my growing annoyance with Ira.

"Look." Ira said, holding up his hardhat. "You see, don't you? With the sides rounded up into a dome, you have to grab it within a two-inch space. Too high, it falls out. Too low, you crush it. Oh, I had him. He couldn't come close to doing it. The others had the good grace to admire it. Not Freddie. But, that was okay. He wasn't laughing. That's all I wanted. This last month was fine. I didn't see much of Freddie, until this morning."
"Ira." I said. "I just want to ask you again if you want to take a break...or anything." Give him every chance, I was thinking. Don't leave any loopholes for the lawyers.

"No. It's okay. I can tell you'll understand. When I got to work this morning, Freddie was in the crane. The others were standing around, watching him and me, and the hardhat on the floor. Freddie's crane came down the bay at full speed and picked it up. He came back, dropped it, and picked it up again and then again. The others went to him when he came down. They began laughing with him. When I came over, they stopped. Not Freddie. 'Well, old man,' he said. 'Your skill took forty years, and mine only took thirty days. What does that tell you.'

"You understand, don't you Wayne? I couldn't leave it at that. I'll be forced to retire in three months. What to? What for? This work is all I have. It's what I am. I had to show him, so I made the wager. 'What it shows me', I said to Freddie, '...is that there is only one way to settle this. I'll bet you five hundred dollars that if you walk at a normal pace down the center of this bay, I can pick your hardhat off your head without mussing up your hair.' Now he looks at me all funny. He knew I had him. Oh, he tried to get out of it.

"Old man," Freddy says. "I'm not as out there as you are, so I didn't even hear you say that.

"Okay', I said, 'Then I'll bet you that you can't do that to me." "Now I had him. He still tried, though. 'Look 'he says,' You don't even have five hundred dollars.' But I was ready. I showed him the money I had been carrying, just in case. Again, he looks at me funny. Ah...look, Ira, you couldn't do that without crushing my skull, no one could. It's been fun, but it's just a game and I'm not talking to you anymore.'

"Then he turns to the others. 'Listen fellas, I gotta go talk to the
foreman about an old crow loose in the rafters. See you later.' he says, pointing upward.' I started climbing up to my crane. He was still laughing as he began to walk down the bay. I heard him laughing all the way up."

Ira paused, looking out the window again. I waited.

"So," I said, beginning to feel a dread I would not fully appreciate for years. "When the security guards found you with Mr. Harman's wallet in one hand, and the money in the other, standing over his..."

"See!" Ira said, turning back to me. "You do understand! I wasn't stealing his money; I was putting the money in. Freddie was right. He won the wager."

I figured this was as close to a confession as I was going to get. Let the lawyers and judges fight over his state of mind. Now I can wrap it up and get away from him.

I don't understand my reaction to this man. I thought. I have seen and heard the worst, haven't I? Victims of stupid murders, stupid alibis, stupid lies, crash victims...hell, train crash victims, child abuse...that was it.

The same queasy, numb feeling I had felt when I had seen my first abused child. But why? Why did this guy bother me? Suddenly I knew why.

"Ira," I began. "Would you again affirm……."covering the legal bases, saying the words by rote. Afraid Ira would ask the question. The same question my father asked with his failing breath on that last day in the hospital. Afraid, because I would have to give the same answer.
Ira asked.

"Wayne, I'm done here right? Can I go home now?"

                            * * *

Over the intervening years I maintained my dedication to law-enforcement, becoming a Chief of Police and twice elected County Sheriff, but I never let it become the whole of my life. When I married and had kids I always made time for what was important to my family. I developed two intricate, satisfying hobbies, and I'm still attempting to master the art of bass fishing. Now retired, I feel no loss or regret for the career I left behind. I fill my days with my wife and children, indulging my grandchildren, my diversions, or just relax and enjoy being still alive.

Once a month I take an arrangement of flowers to my father's grave and thank him for all he did for me and taught me. Then I walk the extra hundred yards to Ira's grave with another bouquet to thank him also.


                                  End