The Set Up

By Zander Buckingham

Synopsis for The Set-Up
The Set-Up is the first story in a series that introduces Jeremiah Funk, a new breed of detective with whom readers will identify while they are being amused. He doesn't fight, doesn't even own a gun and is both bumbling and gullible in his dealings with women. He lives on a medical pension — and two million dollars that he doesn't dare to talk about — deep in the Rocky Mountains where he hunts with a bow and arrows, drinks, plays with his computer, fixes up his cabin and occasionally takes on assignments. Funk is a humorous uncultured nice guy — who usually just happens to win in the end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zander Buckingham
• Release date: Sep 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301273843

Zander Buckingham

Zander Buckingham is 87 years old; lives in the mountains of Colorado; and has been happily married to the same woman for 63 years. When he graduated from college in 1951 he wanted to write books. But he didn't want to starve in some attic while he was trying to become an author. So he started as an advertising salesman with a newspaper -- then went with increasingly larger companies and ad agencies doing successful advertising and public relations work. (One gets a great deal of experience in fiction writing in those situations.) As a hobby he wrote a couple short stories. He never tried to get any published. They just sat around by his typewriter until he heard about Smashwords. Zander is retired and writes as a hobby.

Book preview

The Set Up

Gordon Swartzfager

Copyright 2012 by Gordon Swartzfager

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Synopsis for The Set-Up

The Set-Up is the first story in a series that introduces Jeremiah Funk, a new breed of detective with whom readers will identify while they are being amused. He doesn't fight, doesn't even own a gun and is both bumbling and gullible in his dealings with women. He lives on a medical pension — and two million dollars that he doesn't dare to talk about — deep in the Rocky Mountains where he hunts with a bow and arrows, drinks, plays with his computer, fixes up his cabin and occasionally takes on assignments. Funk is a humorous uncultured nice guy — who usually just happens to win in the end.

Chapter 1

Fall is the best time of the year up here in these Rocky Mountains. The sky is so clear you can count the tail feathers on the larks that swoop overhead. And the aspen leaves and pine needles that cover the ground are crackly and still warm from the sun. The air smells good. It has a bite to it that makes your sap run — that is, if you're lucky enough to have some sap left to run.

During the day, if you keep moving, you can get by with just a heavy shirt. Then at night the brisk cold sets in. Not too bad, just down to about thirty-five or forty on the old-time thermometer. That's when a nice tight cabin with a roaring fire in the fireplace feels great. If you're lucky enough to have a tender semi-raw steak and a six-pack of Coors, you'll swear you're in heaven.

Some guys, I suppose, might want to share that fire, steak and beer with some luscious blond. Not me. I haven't had much of a hankering along that line for the past three years. Not since I got shot. The doctors tell me it's emotional, not physical. But I tell them a hankering is a hankering, whether it begins in my head or in what's left of my family jewels.

Now, before you get to feeling sorry for me, I guess I should tell you that — aside from that damage and my permanently stiff back — I probably have it a lot better than most guys. I'm thirty-seven years old, single — I guess Ann has divorced me by now — am retired on a disability pension, live in a cabin in the Rockies and drive a mongrel car that looks a little like a vintage Rolls Royce, but runs like a souped-up dragster. I also have two million dollars that nobody knows about.

Four years ago, I was a cop — Narcotics Squad, Detroit Police Department. Then, for almost a year, I was a basket case. That's when I became a crook. Also when I got to be single and retired. And it didn't take any effort at all on my part. Now, I dabble. I play with my computer; I chop wood and fix up my cabin; I hunt with a bow and arrows; I play at being a private investigator and sometimes I even take on a job. But with the two million hidden away, I don't have to. Only when it interests me.

Some folks in Pine Needle, the little town up the road, envy me. They think I've got it made. But let me tell you, I worked for it. Did you ever bang your finger really hard with a hammer? Hurt, didn't it? Well, multiply that by ten and you know what getting shot feels like. Only the hurtin' doesn't go away nearly as fast. Then multiply that by eight again — 'cause that's how many times I got shot all at once — and you can see why I say I earned it. Like my partner, Sammy Vaga, used to say, I'm entitled. Sammy got shot the same time I did, and he only got hit three times. However since two of them were right in the middle of his head, he didn't holler and scream like I did.

* * *

I guess I better tell you about it. It all happened in just a few hours, but it sure changed my life. You could even say it made a different man outa me.

You see, I always wanted to be a cop. My daddy was a cop. But about the most exciting thing he ever did was direct traffic on Saturday nights. Still, I liked that uniform, those brass buttons and, later on, the hash marks and chevrons on his sleeve. So when I got out of college, I turned down a chance to play pro football and applied.

Well, maybe I'm exaggerating just a little bit — but that sure used to be a great line to try on lonely ladies in a bar. The truth is, the Packers told me I could come up and try out if I wanted to, and they'd give me bus fare both ways. None of this draft numbers, agents and complicated stuff like that. Just, Show up ... if you're any good, we'll find a place for you.

You know, on those TV shows the old football pro takes the new guy under his wing and says, Here, sonny, let me show you how we do this. Even takes him out for a beer afterward. Well, that too is exaggeration. The truth is, I was cannon fodder. Something for those real players to practice on to get back in shape. Problem was, they were getting better. I wasn't. And, after two weeks, I hurt in places I still can't describe.

That's when I decided to be a cop. But, if one of these days I get my hankerings back, and you see me in a bar laying it on some cutie about how I was with the Green Bay Packers and quit 'cause I didn't like that kind of life — well, you just smile and let it go. 'Cause after all, I did quit.

So I got to be a cop. Only trouble was they already had plenty of guys to direct traffic. The big action when I signed up was drugs. And it just kept on getting bigger — drugs have become big business for cops too. Weed, coke, snort, sniff, horse, angel dust, and then, a new thing called 'crack'. And, since I was a new face, young and a bit tough looking — right away I qualified for undercover narcotics. Now, being a drug cop is the hind end of law enforcement. You get to see all the pretty stuff — like twelve and thirteen year old prostitutes, bawling moms trying to understand their kid's OD, and turf fights. That's how I got shot.

But, you know, if I do say so myself, I was a pretty good cop. That's 'cause I have this special talent; I can tell when people are lying. I don't know why. I never studied anything like that. It's just something I have. The eyes, the breathing, the way they put words together, the way they stand or move — if they're lying, or even just bull-shiting me a little — somehow I know it.

That's how I came to meet my wife, Ann, who probably isn't my wife anymore. I was waiting around the hospital while a guy was getting stitched up, 'cause I knew he was holding back on me. Ann was a nurse, and we got to jawing while I waited. About six months later we got hitched. It was a pretty good marriage too — that is until I got shot.

* * *

I probably should begin with the night before I got shot, except I didn't know it was the night before at the time. I wasn't even there. Some buddies on the crash and entry squad had raided a big-time crack operation. Then somebody pulled a gun and the crack guys got all shot up. At least, that was what my buddies wrote in their reports — and there wasn't anybody alive to contradict them. I stopped by the bust scene to see if there was anything that might help me with a couple cases I was working.

But I got there late — I was on my way home when I heard about it — and they were getting ready to lock up, so I almost didn't go in. Then the Lieutenant told me to look around anyway and then lock up afterward. So I did.

I didn't find anything and was about to leave when I spotted this big old personal computer. Must have been at least 25 years old and ten times bigger than they are today. And, since I've always been a bit of a computer nut, I walked over and turned the thing on. Nothing happened. So I looked around to see if it was plugged in, but there wasn't any cord. Then I snapped the back off that computer and there weren't any works either. Just eight-inch stacks of hundred dollar bills. Eight hundred bills per stack, twenty-five stacks — twenty thousand bills. Two million dollars.

Now, at that time, larceny didn't even enter my mind. I went out to my beat-up eight-year-old Ford, got a big plastic bag and put that two million right in the trunk of my car. You know, I really thought for a minute about taking that money down to the station right then. But I was tired, it was late and, since I'm trying to be honest here, I could just picture myself walking into the next morning's briefing with that bag of bills. That would show 'em.

Well, the next morning, my partner, Sammy, met me for coffee and I told him about my find. We both had a big laugh about our wiseass buddies missing all that cash. We were really going to rub their noses in it when we got to the station. Only first, Sammy had an appointment for a buy that he had set up. It was right on our way to the station. So we put my car in a parking lot about two blocks away and used Sammy's, which the sellers knew, 'cause he'd been there before. Well they sure knew Sammy's car all right. We no more than got there when somebody opened up with an Uzi. Sammy got dead real fast and I assembled my slug collection.

* * *

I woke up three days later in the hospital, with this little intern telling me how lucky I was that all the bullets had missed my vital organs. And I told him I hurt like hell, and since I was well perforated, I didn't feel lucky at all. I was in that hospital for two months while they put things back together.

You know, in the Western movies, the hero gets shot twenty times and, in the next scene, crawls to his feet, makes mad love to some beautiful gal and then gallops off into the sunset. Well, I didn't do that. First of all, one of the bullets hit me in the groin and kind of tore my nut sack all-apart. When they sewed it back up, they only thought one of them was good enough to put back in.

Then they had to freeze the six central vertebrae in my back, 'cause they'd been chipped up a bit. So, I came out of there with a posture that looks like I'm a new freshman at a military school. There was a ninth bullet that had taken the tip off my right ear. They were all set to do some kind of surgery on that too, when I told them to stuff it. Hell, they operate on my balls and lose one; they operate on my back and now I can't bend it; I figured if I let them near my ear, I'd wind up deaf.

Two other things happened while I was in the hospital: Ann came in and told me she was leaving and the captain came in and told me that, after eleven years on the force, I wasn't fit to be a cop anymore and was being pensioned off. I will give Ann credit for being up front about it. She said she wanted to have some babies and didn't think I could do my part. She was even thoughtful enough to shed a few tears. Said she would take the furniture, which was paid for, and I could have the house, which wasn't. And she only wanted half of our bank account.

So, when I got out of the hospital, I was unemployed, single, with an empty house and half a bank account, had eight funny-looking pucker marks, a stiff back, one ball and one and three-quarters ears. It wasn't a joyous homecoming. For about a week, I just laid around on a mattress my friends had found somewhere and drank beer. Then it dawned on me — I still had a car somewhere. Lucky I thought of it when I did, 'cause they were getting ready to sell it to pay the storage bill. That bag of hundred dollar bills was still in the trunk. That would have been the car buy of the century.

Now, I won't give you a lot of crap about how I wrestled with my conscience. It wasn't really all that tough. After all, it's not any more than the average White House advisor pilfers — and he doesn't get all shot up doing it. Sammy was dead. So were the guys the money belonged to. If I turned it in, they'd just say thanks and then spend it on some fool training program, run by some politician's brother-in-law. So I kept it.

But you can't just take two million into a bank and say, I want to open up a savings account. It makes them raise their eyebrows. And you can't hide it in your house, 'cause then some other crook is going to find it. So I rented two safe deposit boxes. I feel a little bad about losing all that interest, but really, I don't spend much and two million is going to last me for as long as I'm around. But I do take it easy. It would also raise eyebrows if a cop on a disability pension all of a sudden starts living like a king — or at least a prince in good standing.

* * *

So, I sold my house just outside of Detroit and moved to the Rockies. I'd been there once before, when my college tried to play football with the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. I say, tried 'cause they trounced us, mostly with their second team. The only part of that trip worth remembering was a bus ride up to the Continental Divide. We all got out and took a leak, figuring that half of it would wind up in the Atlantic and the rest in the Pacific. Made us feel real powerful.

That's how I came to buy this log cabin about ninety miles northwest of Denver. It wasn't much then, but then I didn't have that much money I could spend — legally. Besides, it has a nice location right up on top of a mountain.

That first winter I found that wood is damn poor insulation and logs are even worse. It was cold as a witch's teat. I froze. Come spring, I hiked all over that mountain and lugged moss rock back to my cabin. Then, I got enough cement and built a rock shell around the whole thing. 'Course I had to extend the roof and window and door frames a bit to make them fit. Then, I filled the whole six inch space in between with insulation. It looks real pretty — at least I think so — and it stays as warm and comfy as a bride on her wedding night.

Then, I fixed up the inside just the way I like it. Running water from my own well, lots of shelves and bookcases, a real fancy bar, stereo and TV in both the living room and bedroom and a shower that's big enough for a basketball team. Some people might not go for it, but that doesn't make any difference — I never get any visitors anyway.

Only problem I had was getting electricity and a telephone line. The service stops about a half-mile down the slope, where the highway is. And my cell phone just didn’t want to work this far from civilization and the public service and phone companies weren't about to run it up the slope just for me. We had some long discussions about that, and finally reached an agreement. I paid. But I had seen the way they work, it takes them all day to go ten feet. So I rented a backhoe and dug a ditch from the highway all the way up to my cabin. That took a month. Then I called them and told them to come out and lay their fancy lines.

Now, the road up here is pretty steep. Even my old Ford couldn't make it. That's why, about a year ago I was down in a junkyard looking for an old Jeep that I could put back together. Figured I could build a garage down by the highway and then Jeep it back and forth up the mountain. Well, I found my Jeep and in that same junk-yard, I also found Half Breed — that's what