Benny Salamanca, or Benny the snake to those who knew him well, was the owner of the Woodborough Hotel in the small town of Woodborough, Ontario. Benny ran into trouble years ago with the government because he didn’t want to pay taxes. He’d rather use the money for something important: like beer, fishing poles, actually for anything other than giving the money to the government for services he didn’t see or use. In his greed, he conveniently forgot about the free healthcare he used and the upkeep of the roads he drove on, the kind of stuff people paid taxes for. One evening he received a notice from the government asking for more money. Sitting behind the desk in the back office of his hotel, a cigar smouldering in the ashtray at his elbow and a glass of Wild Turkey with melting ice in his one hand, he read the letter that began with “Dear Mr. Salamanca,” like they were friends or something and hadn’t talked in a while. He had submitted his taxes a couple of months ago and according to his calculations, he finally broke even and didn’t have to pay them more. Using the tax software on a clunky laptop, he smiled thinking finally something worked out for him for once. For a brief moment, he had been happy. He should have known better. If you’re never happy, if you always expect the worst, you can never be truly disappointed. According to the government, his calculations were way off. When they ran the numbers, he owed $1348.14. What pissed him off was the fourteen cents added on at the end. Did they really need that fourteen cents? They couldn’t round it down? Would they financially collapse if they didn’t get their fourteen cents? He crumpled up the notice and not satisfied with that, he used his lighter and set fire to it in the washroom while holding it over the toilet. When he couldn’t hold it any longer, he dropped it into the water and flushed it. The tax notice was another turd on the crap show his year had been. His dog dying had been the first bad thing to happen. And when his dog died it surprised him how much it hurt. The damn beast followed him around with his tongue lolling out of its mouth half the time. It left slobber stains on his pants, on the couches, on damn near everything and when the old beast didn’t get up one morning, he thought, no more dog crap to pick up. Except when Benny knelt down to pick him up intending to unceremoniously leave him at the dump, his knees buckled and tears spilled from his eyes as though he had turned on a faucet. Chest heaving wails echoed in the small hallway. He picked up the dog, Chimo, and put him on his lap and petted him until the sun climbed in through the window to sting his sore eyes. Sitting there in his own misery, knowing he loved the dog and the dog, had loved him, he wouldn’t be taking the dog to the dump.
In the end, he had had him cremated, put in an urn with a placard on the front and didn’t even blink at the exorbitant cost. Next thing, his truck crapped out on him. He blinked at that bill. Goddamn mechanics had him over a barrel with his pants down getting ready to fist him. He needed his truck. He used it to haul away trash from the hotel, carry new furniture and a whole myriad of things to help make his crap life a little easier. When you need something though, it ends up owning you doesn’t it? You’re working for it instead of the other way around. With Chimo dying and the truck on its deathbed, he was out of money and he remembered thinking, after finishing his taxes and breaking even, finally I’m catching a break. He should have known better. He wasn’t rich. If you’re not rich, you don’t get those secret tax breaks that people say is good for the economy because of some trickle-down economic theory no one but the rich understand. What? So the rich get to keep more of their money on the belief they’ll invest it in more jobs or more spending? Pfft. No one clutches their money tighter than the rich. It is their insulation against being a nobody. Instead of trickling down, their stacks of money grew. If they saved enough, maybe they could purchase that private jet and go on more vacations while slugs like Benny paid and paid and paid. Benny didn’t want to pay. He was goddamned tired of it. Researching online on how to somehow get out of it, he read up on a group of people called the Freeman of the Land. To Benny, it seemed like a clever loophole to either get out of paying taxes or at least forestalling it.
The Freeman believe that statute laws were contracts. Since they never agreed to the contract, didn’t sign them, then they were not subject to them. Tax laws, traffic laws, and even criminal laws have no authority over them because they were born into them and did not agree to them. They believe in doing no harm to others, no harm to other people’s property and not to use fraud or mischief in their own contracts. They used maritime law and common law language and did not recognize the authority of the courts because, in common law, equality is paramount and since that is true, no government official or court personnel is above the law and so they must obtain the consent of the governed. Benny read up on it, researched it and sent a letter to the Canadian Revenue Agency telling them they had no authority over him and as such, could demand no more money from him. He declared his sovereignty from Canada and said he would be paying no more taxes.
Benny was not the smartest guy or the bravest. He should have foreseen the shit-storm his declaration would cause. No government would ever allow anyone to not pay taxes. And since the Freeman was becoming a popular group, the government was getting more and more of these notices. It needed to stop. So the Canadian Revenue Agency sent another letter telling Benny what would happen if he didn’t pay his taxes. Clearly it had been a scare tactic, but it was one based on fact and it did scare him. It scared him a lot. Benny reviewed the chart of growing penalties for non-compliance and considered how far did he want to go with this? Don’t pay and eventually, they will take everything from him. His hotel, his truck and if his dog was still alive, they would have taken him too. If he stalled for too long, the interest would climb and climb and he wouldn’t be able to pay even if he wanted to. The government was holding his balls in their hand and if he resisted, they would squeeze and twist them. Benny paid and forgot all about being a Freeman of the Land. Except, because of all the noise he had made about being a Freeman, people still thought of him as one.
Benny thought of himself as a businessman. But not one who kept meticulous records. If someone wanted to remain anonymous, pay cash for a room, he wouldn’t even note it on his ledger. He’d pocket the cash and keep his mouth shut. And if the customer happened to be a young female, he would sometimes receive sex as payment. A lot of young prostitutes came to his hotel usually with a pimp waiting for them in the car while they checked in and if they wanted a room for the weekend, well, depending on how attractive they were, they could pay with their flesh. He made enough to stay afloat and keep a little extra and yes, continue to pay his taxes. The regular sex was a bonus too. Relationships were hard. He didn’t like the idea of reporting to someone every day and having them ask you why you left your shoes outside of the closet instead of putting them inside. They ask the rhetorical question in a passive-aggressive way and how are you supposed to respond to that? If you get mad, you’re wrong, if you reply in a passive-aggressive manner, you’re accused of being sarcastic. The only real answer was to put the shoes in the closet and wait for the next complaint of what it was that you were doing wrong. Who needed all that? And all he wanted was the sex anyway so this worked out best for everyone. In order to have the criminal type of customers return, Benny learned discretion was his best tool. When the cops showed up, he didn’t see anything, hear anything and he didn’t know anything. And it helped that he wasn’t the curious sort. For almost twenty summers, he had rented three rooms to three men who never showed up. Benny didn’t know why and he didn’t care. They paid. End of story. And he could rent the empty room and get paid double for that one booking. All they asked him to do was to tell whoever called looking for them that yes, they were there but out of the room at the time. Then Benny would phone one of them and tell them who the person was that called for them. Pretty simple. And not once in twenty years did anyone call to ask.
Benny was in the manager’s room smoking a cigar when his phone rang. He squinted at the screen and it read: unknown number. Not unusual. Anyone who ever called him did so from an unknown number. He didn’t know why he bothered looking anymore.
“Hello?”
“Benny?”
“Yeah.”
“Ray here.”
“Who?”
“Ray.”
Silence.
Ray said, “The guy who rents the three rooms every year? For going on twenty years now?”
“Oh, yeah. How you doing Rick?”
“It’s Ray. Look, someone is going to call and ask if we stayed up there the past week. I need you to tell them yes, but you saw us leave on Monday morning. Got that?”
“Monday morning. Got it.”
Benny didn’t ask why or who. He didn’t care. This guy paid every year and he got to pocket the cash. That is what he cared about.
Ray said, “We left in a pickup truck and a dark van.”
“Okay,” said Benny. He blew a smoke ring and watched it float to the ceiling. He wasn’t listening to Ray about the vehicles. He was thinking about what to get for lunch. Poutine, which was bad for his waistline but good for his mental health or a chicken salad from Wendy’s which was more expensive than the poutine, far less satisfying and generally a huge disappointment but in the end, better for his waistline. He heard Ray or Rick say something else and he said, “What was that?”
Ray said, “I said, can you give me a call after the person calls? To let me know how it went?”
“Uh, sure. What’s the number I can reach you at?”
Ray told him and Benny hung up.
He put out his cigar, stood, winced when his right knee cracked and limped out of the office to talk to the front desk clerk. He opened the door and saw the clerk speaking on the phone, feet up on the desk and one finger knuckle deep in his nostril.
The desk clerk, Darryl, hated being a mechanic, was tired of all the grease under his nails, on his skin and the smell of the garage sickened him. It got to the point where walking into the shop made him nauseous. A cold line of sweat would headband his skull and his breath would be short little hiccoughs of sound. He knew Benny from fixing his truck up and how pissed Benny had been at the price. After the truck was fixed, Darryl quit the garage, walked straight over to Benny and said he’d clerk for him for a couple of bucks above minimum wage and act as a general handyman. What sealed the deal was Darryl offering to be his personal mechanic and promising to keep the truck running at no extra cost. Except for parts of course. Still stinging from the giant bill, Benny hired Darryl and almost immediately regretted it. And he would have more cause to regret it today.
Darryl said, “No, no it shows they were here. The room is paid for and those are the names the rooms are under but they were never here.”
Benny stumbled to the front of the desk, waved his hands in front of Darryl, put a hand over his own mouth and shook his head, miming, adequately enough for Darryl to understand, that he needed to shut up.
Darryl furrowed his brow at Benny and turned from him to better concentrate on the phone. He said into the phone, “How do I know they weren’t here? Well, not only were they not in those rooms, someone else has been staying in them. I thought it was weird, but the short dark haired girl staying in one of the rooms certainly isn’t named Neil.”
Benny rolled his eyes and reached for the phone. Darryl leaned away, covered the mouthpiece and whispered, “I got it, boss.”
“Darryl, give me the damn-“
Darryl spoke into the phone, “Yeah. I’m positive those dudes never checked in. The records show they paid, but they were never here.” He listened and then said, “Sure, I’ll give a statement. Send someone over and I’ll talk to them.” Pause. “No problem. Glad to help. You have yourself a great day.”
He hung up the phone, spun back to Benny to find Benny’s hands reaching for him with a very red face and unhappy expression.
“What the fuck Darryl? Don’t you understand basic sign language man? I told you to shut up and give me the damn phone!”
“Hell boss, what’s the big deal?”
“Who was that?”
“The cops.”
“The cops! Holy hell! Are you a complete moron? Stupid question, of course, you are.”
“What are you all upset about?”
“Listen man, you just told the cops that I double book rooms. You just told them I collect money from one group and then rent the rooms to other people. Can you see how there might be a problem with that?”
Darryl returned a blank stare and then he blinked and turned red.
Benny said, “So you do get it? Finally.”
“Sorry boss. I didn’t know.”
“I know that! That’s why I was trying to tell you!”
Benny exhaled and closed his eyes. His heart fluttered a bit in his chest. A painful pinch and he knew he would have to calm down or else risk collapsing on the rug. He didn’t want his face touching that nasty rug and he didn’t want Darryl to be responsible for getting him help. The moron. When his heart stopped jigging, he opened his eyes and he said, “What did they want?”
Darryl said, “They asked about rooms 203, 204 and 205 and the dudes who rented it.”
“And you told them they never showed up and we rent the rooms to other people in their place?”
“Yes.”
Benny pinched the bridge of his nose and said, “Anything else?”
“Well, they asked how far our computer records go back on these guys and I said six years. And I told them the same dudes rented the same rooms around the same time every year. Then they asked if they always never showed up but I was like I don’t know because I’ve only worked here for a few months. Then they said they would send a cop over here to get a statement from me, to tell them what I just said.”
“Alright. I gotta think.”
“The cop on the phone was really interested in those guys. Like, real interested.”
“Yeah?”
Nodding his head and squinting his eyes, Darryl said, “Oh yeah. Like they were up to something.”
Benny reached behind the desk and pulled out a box of receipts. He rifled through them and found what he was looking for. The charging address for those three rooms on the credit card showed that they were from Kauffmann’s Vale. Benny pulled his cell phone from his front pocket and Google searched “news Kauffmann’s Vale” and waited. Benny had wifi installed in the hotel. It wasn’t fast but it worked and he waited some more.
The first headline to pop up made his jaw hang open. He clicked on it and read it and when he was done he decided he wanted nothing to do with those men. Not anymore. A double murder and a missing girl? One thing Benny learned from his experience with the government was when they turned their eye on you, there was no escape. They were like that goodamn eye in that movie, what was it again? The Lord of the Rings. That big red eye. He imagined the pressure the government applied would be one thousand times worse when it came to murder. He didn’t want Ray or any of those men calling him ever again. Were the cops listening in on Ray’s phone right now? Tracing it or whatever it is that they do? Did they know Ray called him?
Benny wiped a hand across his mouth, stuffed his cell phone back in his pocket and said to Darryl, “I’m going out. I’ll be back soon.”
“Where you going?”
Benny didn’t answer. He got into his truck and drove a few short blocks to the pharmacy. Outside the pharmacy, they had an honest-to-God phone booth. The last one left in town. Benny parked a few spaces away from the phone and turned off the truck. He checked his mirrors, spun his head around, not knowing what he was looking for, spies in the bushes or something and when he didn’t see anything of interest, he stepped out of the truck. He stretched, lit a cigar and did his best to appear casual as he approached the phone.
Ray answered the phone, “Hello?”
“Hey, it’s the proprietor of a northern establishment.”
“What?”
“People called, really interested in you and your friends. My associate answered the phone. He let them know that although you guys paid for the rooms, you didn’t show up.”
“Shit.”
“Yes. It couldn’t be helped. Don’t ever call me again. And you guys are no longer welcome at my hotel.”
“Well…yeah.”
Benny hung up the phone and walked back to his truck. Once inside he saw a patrol car driving towards his hotel. The cops wanted the statement from Darryl pretty bad. Benny knew they would want to talk to him too, but he wasn’t ready for that. He decided to go out of town, catch a matinee and think over what he was going to say to the police. He couldn’t avoid them. They weren’t investigating a theft from Wal-Mart here. This was a double murder and a missing girl. He’d have to talk to them soon. He just needed some breathing room first.