on keeping a very low profile.
All of a sudden things changed drastically and completely unexpectedly. A young man of about 25 showed up one afternoon just as the Reitmeyrs were sitting down to a simple supper at 5 o’clock. Alfred answered the door and admitted the man to the living room. The man wanted to borrow $5000.
Alfred shrieked, “Five thousand dollars! Are you crazy? I don’t make loans of that size. I am not a rich man, just a little guy trying to make an honest living by lending small amounts to needy people. I have had to work very hard for the little that we have.”
“Wait a minute, please, and hear me out,” said the young fellow. “You see, I have a wife and sick child and recently lost my job. We have a lot of bills to pay . . . .” He was practically begging now.
Alfred hesitated for fully a minute.
“I could let you have, say, $500, or a little more if you can show me some collateral. I told you we are not wealthy people ourselves.” Alfred was now motioning to his wife to stay where she was, that this guy was no likely customer. He even closed the door to block them off from the kitchen.
“How about $1000?” continued the young man.
Alfred hesitated again and said, “Well, maybe $1000, but it’ll take almost all I have.”
“How much interest would you charge?” intoned the guest.
“I get 40%,” answered Alfred.
“Forty percent!” exploded the young man. “That is dreadful; I can’t possibly handle that!”
“That is the best I can do. It’s an annual rate. Of course, if you want the money for only half a year, then the interest would be only $200.”
“That is still way too much interest—and for such a short time. I’ll have to think about it.” With that the young man walked to the front door and Alfred let him out.
Alfred thought to himself, and later said to Elsa: “My God, what a cheapskate that kid was!”
The very next night—it was dark this time—the young man shows up again. Alfred answers the ring and sees who it is but doesn’t let him in. Instead, he steps out onto the porch and asks, “Do you want to borrow the money?”
The young man stares straight at Alfred and says simply, “Yes, but I can pay only 5% interest. That’s a fair amount.”
Alfred turns on his heel, opens the screen door, and is about to push open the heavy front door with his foot when the young man grabs him by the arm and, speaking very firmly, proclaims: “You are my father, and I want you to do me this favor. You owe it to me! . . . If you don’t, I’ll . . . .”
Startled, Alfred was sure he was about to hear a threat of blackmail, or worse, wheeled about and, with a look of puzzlement on his face, confronted the petitioner with the harsh command: “Get the hell out of here!”
The response from the young man was unexpected; he began to cry and sobbed out, “My mother’s name was Lorraine, Lorraine Sabbatini, don’t you remember her?”
Alfred’s head is hurting, spinning . . . . Lorraine, he thought, oh my Lord, Lorraine, but he answers, “No, I don’t remember anybody by that name. Now beat it; I mean it. And don’t come back!” He is inside the house now and slams the door shut. Anybody within ten feet could hear the deadbolt ram home.
“Who was that?” asked Elsa as Alfred took a seat in the living room.
“Oh, nobody, just some peddler selling something we don’t need.”
But Alfred was worried because his past had caught up with him. During those two years he was away—now 25 years ago—he had briefly taken up with a woman—from Maine, he believed—whose name was indeed Lorraine Sabbatini. He rationalized his unfaithfulness at the time as necessary considering how long he had been without a woman and promised himself it wouldn’t happen again. Besides, he would be bringing home a large sum of money that would enable them to start a business or be solvent for a very long time. No, he did not feel guilty at all.
Three days went by, maybe a week, when there appeared a story in the paper, like so many others, of a young man’s body discovered in a patch of woods just off Northern Boulevard. It seems that the man, as yet unidentified, had shot himself in the head, although the police were tentatively treating the death as a homicide pending notification of next of kin and a thoroughgoing investigation. A full description of the victim was provided, and readers were requested to call the police with any information they might have as to the identity and activities of anyone of that description. When Alfred read the story, he must have turned ashen, for Elsa asked him if he felt all right. After a moment he assured her he was okay, got up out of his chair, with the paper in his hands, walked into the kitchen, wrapped up some food scraps in the newspaper, and deposited the wad in the garbage pail for tomorrow’s pickup. The year was 1968, and nothing more was ever heard about the young visitor. Whenever he thought about that evening—and that was very, very seldom—Alfred would mutter to himself: “Good riddance.”
Life went on for the Reitmeyrs with scarcely a bump for the next 23 years. One evening, as they were sitting around the table with the day’s receipts in front of them, Alfred began: “You know, Elsa, we have had a pretty good life together—hardly any sickness, no accidents—but we are both 71 and probably won’t live all that much longer. Since we are about to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary, I suggest we do it in style.”
Thereupon he laid out his plan to his wife, who, as always, agreed to everything. They would sell the house and its furnishings and take the proceeds in cash or certified check and put that money together with all they had accumulated over the years in one pile and count it and sort it and play with it for one week before bagging it all. He estimated the total might run to a little over $300,000. They would then either bury the money in some forsaken spot or burn it up. A case could be made for either action, so they would discuss the pros and cons and decide after the last evening’s display. Once the money question was settled and the money disposed of, they would come home, close all the doors and windows, draw the curtains, turn on the gas stove, and go to bed.
And so it came to pass that they gathered together all their assets from various bank lockboxes and nooks and crannies in their house and drooled over them, caressed them, passed them back and forth, told each other tales about how their parents had lost everything because of the Nazis and how the two families had barely had money for food for years on end, and how they—Alfred and Elsa—didn’t feel guilty about anything.
They then turned to the matter of the disposal of the money. Elsa argued for burying it in some obscure place, Alfred recommended burning because nothing would be left behind. In the end they chose Elsa’s way because they feared the smoke from so much paper burning would be seen and bring the fire department, and the jig would be up. Alfred insisted they burn at least the cashier’s check received for the sale of their property. That way no record of whose money was buried there would exist.
Just two doors away was a large, treed vacant lot that had been unsold for years on end and had grown up with weeds while waiting for a buyer. “Let’s put it there,” Elsa suggested, “because we can dig the hole at night, bury the money, cover it up well, and get back here in mere minutes. It’s spring, and the ground is soft.” Still uncertain about any disposition except total destruction, Alfred nevertheless relented, and they agreed to do the whole job the next night.
It was actually close to 2 o’clock in the morning when the two old people took the fruits of a lifetime of extortion and moneymongering to the vacant lot and planted it in a slotlike hole a good three or four feet down square in the middle of the lot. Alfred had brought along a posthole digger for the job. Later, back in their house, they put on their nightclothes, turned on the gas stove after extinguishing the pilot light, smiled faintly at each other, and climbed into bed. Their bodies were not discovered until two weeks later when neighbors reported to the police as not having seen the Reitmeyrs lately but having noticed an offensive smell wafting out of their house.
But