The Continuing Tale of Pearl Street
									 
                        Copyright 2001 by Dave Laird

There is a Pearl Street in every city, town and borough in the United
States. Like most of its peers, Pearl Street has neither fashionable
shops, trendy restaurants nor even after-hours bars that glow warmth
into the night. Rather it is a drab gray color and cold, even on the
sunniest days. It is a place where pitiful transients wander down rutted
back alleys filled with big mud puddles, babbling to themselves, and
those few store fronts and businesses that have survived the test of time
leave claw marks in the cracked concrete from struggling to survive
another day. I've watched Pearl Street on good days and bad, hard times
and good times. I'm Jake, a retired janitor and friendly to most of the
people who pass by this way each day. I mind my business and I don't
create trouble where there isn't any.

It has been about a year since I last worked at the soap factory, which
closed its doors forever after a bit of strange business involving its
owner, Jack Hersig, and a mysterious glowing green ball which appeared
to have cast a spell of some kind over both he and the enigmatic
Detective Ritzville.

My former boss, Jack Hersig, left me quite comfortably set for life when
he closed down the soap factory and moved several states away, although
for the life of me, I hardly know why. After all, to him, I was always
just Jake the Janitor, or so it seemed for most of the years I spent
working for him. How many times have you heard of a boss giving the
janitor a separation pay that ran into six figures?

Periodically, Detective Paul Ritzville still comes by my old house that
overlooks Pearl Street, usually without much notice, and from time to
time I have performed what some might term "odd jobs" for the tall,
garrulous detective. These mostly consisted of relieving him a time or
two on long stake-outs, or in another case, simply sitting on a park
bench in Bonaventure Park waiting for someone who never showed up. Of
course, I got paid anyway, which is how I learned his first name, signed
on Florentine script at the bottom of the check that arrived the next
day by courier.

For the last few days, however, I have been treating myself like
royalty, rising as late in the morning as I wish, then retiring to my
shady front porch that overlooks Pearl Street, watching the urchins,
goblins, and even occasionally ladies of leisure that insolently gaze
back at me with carefully calculating eyes of steel as they stroll down
the narrow cracked sidewalks looking for chance enterprise. I read the
paper, or perhaps an enticing book, all the while tending my pipe and
sipping on tea. In the afternoon, when the heat of the day begins
beating back off the macadam, I either stroll down next to the river,
where it remains cool all day long, or simply take a nap in my rocker
overlooking Pearl Street.

Last evening, just as the anorexic lady from next door went clumping
down her half-rotted front porch steps on a mission of some kind, there
was Paul Ritzville looming up out of the pale gray shadows of the
gathering twilight as if he were part of the shadows himself.

"I have another task which might perhaps pique your interest," he stated
in his typical soft-spoken way. "Perhaps if you read yesterday's paper..."

"I did," I responded quietly. 

One of the many things I have learned from my dealings with Detective
Paul Ritzville is the wisdom of never telling him everything I know or
have heard until I hear him out, which often can run into several hours
of fruitful hours of explanation. Many of his more interesting cases
have started out with a fact or facts which, at first sight, were
innocuous enough, but under his close scrutiny, and using his
considerable powers of analysis, proved to be as fascinating and
intriguing as those of the fictional Sherlock Holmes.

"It seems there is a family of African-American descent, the Gerald
Caisson family, living off Burney Road in the River District of town who
have been frequently visited by strangers, perhaps visitors who do not,
at the onset of things, appear to have their best interests at heart."

I lit my pipe, once more, and settled back to listen, as Ritzville sat
down in the porch swing opposite me, and also began fixing and lighting
his pipe, pausing occasionally to peer speculatively at me from beneath
his extraordinarily bushy eyebrows.

"Several weeks ago, while they were sitting down to their evening meal,
two white men entered the dining area and first verbally, then
physically assaulted both the father and his oldest son where they sat.
One of their daughters, named Calico, ran next door to the neighbors and
summoned the police, but by the time she had returned, both white men
had vanished without a trace." 

"None of the neighbors, living on either side of them, saw any vehicles
leaving the area, although at the time, both families were sitting on
their front porches, where they would have immediately noticed such an
occurrence."

"Are the families of the victims well-liked in the neighborhood?" I
asked quietly. 

"I have spoken to nearly everyone who lives on that block, and it is
interesting that not one of the families have a bad word to say for the
Caisson family. The father of the family is a journeyman diesel mechanic
who has worked at the same job for over 20 years, and although the
mother works part-time for the school district tending a school
cross-walk, she also takes in stitchery odd jobs. They appear, at least
on the surface of things, to be a tightly-knit, well-loved family of
hardy individuals with the proverbial strong ties in their community."

"What makes this case different than all the other assault cases that
take place in town?"

"I have a close friend, Detective Bill Morley of the city police. After
two such assaults in as many weeks, last week he sent one of his men in
an unmarked police car down to keep an eye on things, perhaps to catch a
glimpse of any furtive activity taking place in the neighborhood. While
his man was sitting scarcely three doors down from the Caisson's front
door in the car, another assault, this time more violent than either of
the others, took place inside the house. Bill's man swears he was awake,
and alertly watching the neighborhood, but saw no one. The members of
the family, after talking with Bill, have asked me to look into it, and
see if perhaps there isn't something the police are overlooking."

"When do we start?" I asked, quietly knocking the dottle from the bottom
of my pipe, in anticipation. 

"Tonight. Unfortunately, due to a prior commitment, I will not be able
to spend much of the evening with you. The arrangements I've made are
that you or I, or perhaps both of us if circumstances dictate, will be
spending a few nights as guests of the Caisson family on their enclosed
front porch. If anything should happen inside the house, we will be
within a few seconds of rendering aid."

Within the hour, I had showered and shaved, and with my trusty thermos
filled with fresh coffee, I reported, as requested to the Caisson
family's front door.

Gerald Caisson, was as Detective Ritzville had described him, a
veritable giant of a man, nearly seven feet tall, with huge powerful
heavily-calloused hands that were no strangers to hard
physically-demanding work. He greeted me with an effortless smile, his
front teeth striking the the shadows of his front porch with glints of
gold. As he reached out to shake my hand, I saw that one side of his
face had vicious bruises and many cuts, as if someone had been working
him over regularly with a set of steel-toed boots.

"You see what they did to me?" he asked, his face darkening momentarily,
as he turned to better show off his injuries. "It wouldn't bother me so
much, because I'm a big man. I can take it. However, the last time
around they beat the crap outta my son and daughter while I was working
overtime at the shop."

I momentarily paused, trying inwardly to imagine how even two
individuals of normal stature could get the better of this man. 

I suppose it must have shown in my face, when I asked, "Were these
men... ah, were they *bigger* than you in size?"

"Oh, no sir. These guys were about your height and weight, but they was
armed with baseball bats and some kind of saps. I'll tell you, one of
'em caught me on the side of my head with one of those saps, and I was
seeing stars for awhile. I'm still pretty dizzy from it, but maybe with
your help, we'll catch them if they come around again."

Shortly after 9:30, as the street lights began humming and buzzing into
life, I settled myself down on in a comfortable chair on their front
porch. By 10:30 or so, all the lights, save what I believe was the
bathroom light, were extinguished, as the family settled in for the
night. 

Shortly after midnight, as I was making my third trip around the
exterior of the house, I briefly heard a rustle coming from one of the
forsythia bushes at the left of the porch, but before I could
investigate further, Detective Ritzville materialized out of the
shadows.

"I see you're keeping a good eye on things," he whispered, as he walked
up the sidewalk at the side of the porch. "Everything quiet inside?"

"Not a whisper. The family retired by about 10:30, and there hasn't been
a whisper from anyone since."

"Well, keep a sharp watch as you're doing," he whispered. "The second
assault took place about three in the morning, when everyone was in bed
asleep. Call me on the cell phone if you see anything even the slightest
out of order."

The hours passed slowly. Other than an occasional alley cat advertising
his availability and a far-off dog that barked incessantly between two
and three in the morning, it was soothingly peaceful. As I began my trip
around the exterior of the house at 4:00 AM, in the silver and pink
light of half-morning, as I passed the living room window at the very
back of the house, suddenly from within the house I heard what I first
thought was a cough, then a piercing scream.

I leaped to the porch, fumbling in the darkness for the cell phone, and
as I lept inside the front door, I heard the muffled voice of Detective
Ritzville answer his end. 

"Screams, inside the house!" I stated, trying to orient myself in the
near-total darkness. "I'm inside the front door."

Ahead of me in the passage, suddenly lights came on, and I ran down the
narrow corridor with the cell phone still affixed to my ear. It was Ben,
their oldest son. He was laying half in and out of the dining room in a
growing pool of blood, his mother standing over him, hysterically crying
out his name, over and over, like a broken record.

Ben Caisson came into the room from the back of the house, his face a
barely controlled mask of repressed anger and violence. 

"I think the bastards went out the back of the house," he said, his
fists clenching and unclenching in frustration.

Scarcely five minutes passed before Detective Ritzville arrived, his
tires squalling in the street outside. I quickly described what I had
seen, adding several times that no one went out the back of the house,
because that was where I had just been. His eyes cooly looked at me,
unmoving, as I described what little I had seen of the assault. By the
time the ambulance crew arrived to take the Caisson boy to the hospital
for a checkup, perhaps just a split upper lip and a black eye seemed to
be the worst of his injuries, I had exhaustively gone over and over the
back yard with Ritzville.

We both agreed that no one could have fled out the back door. The heavy
dew that lay over every bit of the grass in the back yard, as well as
the grassy paths along the house, was undisturbed.

By ten o'clock that morning, after Ben Caisson left for work and the
police came and took their reports, both Paul Ritzville and I had gone
over the incident that night until we could recite it by rote, had there
been anyone left who hadn't heard my report. 

It was then, as we were standing in the front room of the giant rumbling
house, when Ritzville suddenly snapped his fingers in mid-air, and
stated emphatically, "We're looking in the wrong places!"

However, he would say nothing more of his conclusions to me, although as
he was returning me to my home on Pearl Street, he did make a series of
rather enigmatic phone calls on the cell phone to a building inspector,
whom he agreed to meet later that day.

The next night was unremarkable. No one was beaten at the Caisson
residence. I didn't see Paul until the next evening, once again, just as
the sun was beginning to retire in the west. 

"I believe trouble will be afoot tonight at the Caisson house," he
stated an excited, wicked gleam in his eye. "I have some information
that they will strike again tonight, but perhaps we will prevail this
time. Do bring along a strong light and a truncheon or club of some
kind, will you?"

Without another word, as before, we both reported to the Caisson family
home shortly before 9:15 that evening. However, instead of sitting on
the front porch and wandering around the outside perimeter of the house,
this time Detective Ritzville and I went inside, and down a narrow,
dingy set of steps into the basement. 

"Now we wait," he stated with emminent satisfaction, dusting off an old
narrow-backed chair sitting in one dusty corner of the basement adjacent
to the furnace, and gesturing for me to take the other. "As soon as you
have cleaned off a place to sit quietly, perhaps for several hours,
please extinguish that wretched overhead bulb for me, please. It is
imperative that we sit in the dark for awhile, but do keep track of your
light. I have a feeling we will have need of it shortly."

Have you ever sat in the dark with absolutely nothing to do? According
to my watch, we sat there for nearly two hours and forty-five minutes
without making a sound, nor showing even the slightest glimmer of light. 

It must have been shortly after midnight, although the actual time
eludes me. We heard a rustle, as if someone were stirring up a box of
breakfast cereal, followed abruptly by a squeak of rusty hinges, just
like in the movies. About the time I heard a distinct sound of several
people walking in the dust and debris on the basement floor, I felt Paul
Ritzville's hand settle quietly on my arm, as if to tell me to remain
silent.

About the time the footsteps began scuffing their way up the stairs,
toward the main floor of the house, Ritzville lit a blazing light, and
yelled at the top of his lungs, "Turn on your light, Jake, and stop
anyone who attempts to come back this way. Look sharp about it!"

As I lit my flashlight, I was surprised to notice that part of the
basement wall had folded back on itself, revealing some sort of tunnel
leading back toward the street outside. Flexing my club, a sawed-off
baseball bat actually, I stood in the open doorway ready to repel anyone
who came my way.  

In the distance, I heard sounds of scuffling, a muffled oath or two and
what sounded like someone falling down the stairs. Still, as much as I
shone my light around the dusty basement, I could see nothing other than
the ever-present cobwebs and dusty old furniture sitting next to the
furnace. 

Less than five minutes later, Detective Ritzville reappeared, thus
putting me much more at ease. There was a minor scratch extending down
one side of his face, and his hat was missing, but otherwise he seemed
in extremely good spirits. 

"We caught the buggers red-handed!" he chortled with some sense of glee.
"Come on upstairs and I'll explain."

As I once more entered the living room, there were two men, handcuffed
and sitting in the middle of the living room floor glaring with all the
balefulness of a cornered pair of cats with their fur standing on end
and their backs arched, with four rather beefy city policemen standing
careful watch.

"It was all about the drug store and the bank on the corner, you see,"
he began, gesturing at the two criminals at our feet. Early this
afternoon, I discovered the presence of an old pre-World War II tunnel
beneath this house, which once led to the Japanese apothacary that
preceded the corner drug store.

Apparently these gentlemen have been setting up to liberate the safe in
the drugstore, and while they were at it, pick up the week's proceeds
from the bank next door. Since it would take some time for them to
complete a tunnel beneath the bank, they were somehow hoping that by
beating up various family members in this household, they might scare
them into moving, thus leaving them undisturbed in their little
enterprise."

Later that evening, a rough-appearing courier appeared on my front porch
bearing a rather substantial check made out to me. While I said nothing,
quietly folding the check and putting it in my shirt pocket, I signed
for the courier, with my gracious thanks, and went back to sipping some
excellent coffee and lighting my pipe. 

For the first time, I *knew* Detective Ritzville would come, and I, for
one, was positively anxiously awaiting our next task together.