Michael Ludden's Blog, page 3

Ringside with Ali’s sparring partner

I think this whole mixed martial arts thing came out of the old Tough Guy Fights. That’s when promoters figured out guys would show up in droves to see amateurs try to destroy each other.

I showed up for one of the early ones. Staggered fights, based on weight. The lightweights first. The heavies at the end.

I get there early. They’re just putting up the ring. Out comes Solomon McTier. Guy’s in his 50’s, owns a bar a few miles down the road. What you need to know is Solomon was a Golden Gloves champ… here and abroad. And the fact that he was the sparring partner for many years for Muhammad Ali.

I‘m hanging out ringside when Solomon walks in, asks one of the guys: “Is this so and so’s old ring?”

It is.

“I remember it had a soft spot,” he says.

And he spends the next 10 minutes tiptoeing around, lightly bouncing on the mat, moving his feet a few inches at a time. Until he finds it.

The fights begin. Some drunk from the audience stands up, says he can fight. They put him in the ring. Somebody else gets in with him. Kicks his ass.

It goes like that.

Then the main event. Solomon walks out in a silk robe. And out steps a grinning tyrannosaurus who looks like he could pick up your car with one hand. His arms are bigger than my thighs. 24 fights. 24 victories. 22 by KO. All those fights, by the way, took place behind the walls at Florida State Prison, his home for the last 10 years after the misunderstanding that ended up with a guy getting killed.

He’s about 25. When they meet center-ring, Prison boy is real tempted to laugh at Solomon, who now sports a good-sized gut and gray hair.

Prison’s gonna make quick work of grandpa.

They begin to circle each other, throwing jabs, sizing each other. Solomon can toss a fist out and have it back in front of his chin in about the time it takes for you to blink.

But prison boy can dance. And he can throw a punch that is so scary you think it would turn anything it hits into kindling. A few clinches. Mostly Solomon’s keeping his distance. He looks a little worried. Prison’s got a big smile.

I’m sitting right outside the ropes. And I’ve memorized the spot, still wondering what it means.

A couple of rounds in. All of a sudden, Prison lands a huge shot on top of Solomon’s chest, right at the shoulder. Solomon’s arm falls. It’s hanging, dragging down by his ribs. He’s trying to hold it up and retreating across the ring.

Prison thinks it’s a ruse and waves at Solomon to get back on the horse. But Solomon’s hunched over and Prison is not the most patient guy. He closes in and starts knocking the crap out of him. Solomon’s bobbing, weaving, taking most of the hits on his arms, leaning back into the ropes. He’s dodging the worst of it, but you know it’s just a matter of time until one of those haymakers sends him into next week.

Solomon’s shuffling across the ring. And guess what? He’s getting real close to that spot.

Now he musters one last charge. He goes after Prison. But then he takes another shot. Seems like a glancing blow, but it rocks him back. Prison closes in. Solomon’s leaning heavily into the ropes.

He’s timing it.

As Prison lunges, Solomon throws himself backward, bouncing off the rope just as Prison sinks into that soft spot. Solomon is moving, hard, fast, the right arcing over Prison’s head.

Cocky don’t live here no more.

Prison is airborne. He floats back, suspended, a look on his face that says he has just lost any recollection of life on this planet.

Lands with a thud. Big thud. After several minutes, they give up trying to get the boy to make any sense. They cart him off like a fat child still learning to walk.

Folks want Solomon to hang out, take some bows.

Nah. Gotta go. Nice seeing ya.

Chasing a crooked lawyer…

We were collecting string on a big-shot lawyer in town, thought he might be working way outside the lines. And making some serious coin under the table.

Incredibly powerful, uber-connected. He sometimes got defendants off, it seemed, with nothing more than a phone call.

Everybody thought the guy had something going on.

Proving it would be another story.

A mountain of paperwork, boxes full of notes. Checking records at the courthouse, comparing nuggets from cases that had no obvious connection.

But it was beginning to look like there was something there. We’d found a pattern… devious, brilliant, sinister, hugely profitable.

Our work had already taken months.

Then one day an old man showed up at the office. Slouchy hat, trench coat, stuffed briefcase. He was a retired fed. He’d seen something in town that caught his eye, looked shady. He had some time on his hands, so he’ done some checking. He was a pro. He knew where to look.

He’d seen us looking in the same places.

Here’s a guy who didn’t like what he knew. He’d spent a lifetime putting guys behind bars. But he was older now, past wanting to do it all himself.

He was going to tell me the story, piece by piece.

And that’s where it got bad.

It happened as soon as he got close.

It would be an incredible understatement to say the man had a smell. He had something horrible eating away at his insides. I assumed he was dying. With every breath, he exhaled perhaps the most powerful and abhorrent odor I had ever encountered. It was like an invisible poisonous cloud. He seemed oblivious. But I was leaning to one side, trying not to breathe, backing away as far as I could.

It quickly became more than I could stand.

The man was a gold mine. But I was choking, close to throwing up. Suddenly, my head was splitting. I had started to wonder if he might be infecting me with something. I interrupted, excused myself.

I went to see my boss. Told him very quickly there was a guy outside who knew things we wanted badly. But here was the thing. I was getting as far away from the guy as I could.

My boss could deal with the guy himself, or hand him off to someone else. But I was done. I would not go back. He could accept that, or my immediate resignation.

I walked out the door.

An hour later, I came back. Went to his office. Before I could say a word, he held up a hand.

I thought you were crazy, he said. But that was horrible. I couldn’t stand it either.

So?

I told the old fed we’d have to pass.

The story? Never happened. We had a lot, but not all of it. Not enough to prove. Sometimes you have to move on.

Here’s an easy way to get a gun…

We got into a real bad patch with folks in Puerto Rico. We’d done some stories about how tons of drugs were getting into Florida. Guess where they were coming from.

Stories about how people had a hard time trying to buy a gun in San Juan. But in Florida, just slightly more difficult than, say, putting on your socks sitting down.

So guys would come to Florida with suitcases of dope, heroin, stashes of cocaine in the soles of their shoes, and trade it for guns. Thriving black market.

When you traced the guns used in crimes on the island, it always led back to Florida.

What was Puerto Rico to do? Well, for one thing, they started offering a whole lot of really rough people immunity from prosecution if they’d snitch on some rougher people. To sweeten the pot, they gave em fake identities, sanitized documents, money.

The bonus? A plane ticket to Orlando. Bottom line was, a bunch of nasties were living in the Sunshine State incognito.

And – oh yeah – nobody in Florida knew anything about it. The whole cop brotherhood thing, kind of a one-way street on this one.

That was the story that really got people in Puerto Rico upset. Bunch of cops, bunch of prosecutors, the governor. All those people denied it. Long and loud.

Consider the fact that, in those days, some of your San Juan neighborhoods were patrolled, not by police, but by the army. Guys with heavy armor… firepower. Two or three folks a day getting whacked in San Juan at the time.

The reporters with their arms around all this… Henry Curtis, Jim Leusner, a few others. Coulda found the Lindbergh baby on their lunch hour.

But now there were guys in fancy suits standing in front of microphones calling them liars. And those newspaper stories attracted a lot of attention. So the whole “those reporters are liars” thing got repeated in Tallahassee, at the state capitol, and on the floors of Congress.

That kinda hurt our feelings.

Solution…

Go find the bad guys, the ones who supposedly didn’t exist. Those mud-slinging reporters dug in. They started tracking people down.

Who’d they find? Well, there was the woman who ran a drug ring in a little town called Caguas. She was notching maybe 50-grand a week. Minor stuff.

Also very minor… the fact that she happened to be standing by in a parking lot one day when a couple of guys made four people drink gasoline. And then lit a match.

Probably some kind of misunderstanding.

She was comfortably situated in an Orlando suburb. New name, etc.

Also happily relocated:

— a dope-dealing hitman, paid by the wife to whack her tv-star husband;

— a corrupt cop;

— a teenager involved in a mass killing;

— a guy who stood by and watched as a woman got raped and murdered.

Just to name a few.

You calling us liars? Well, explain this…

Now there were more meetings in Tallahassee and in Washington. This time, though, it was Puerto Rico’s governor who made the trip.

Called on the carpet. Called north to explain, to apologize.

Yeah.. uh… that stuff in the newspaper. That was true.

Sorry. Won’t happen again.

For those slimy, lying reporters… Miller Time.

That might be the dead boy’s mom, out there on the dance floor….

A major high school athlete is killed in a hit and run. Kid was walking across an unlit street. Killed instantly.

I drive out to the house. His uncle is there. He can’t talk right now, he’s got to get ready.

People are coming over. Bunch of people. I ask if it’s all right if I stick around and talk to some family and friends.

Help yourself. Budweisers in the cooler.

This kid was going to be highly recruited. A class kid, good grades, good citizen, great work ethic, bushel of talent. A kid worth writing about.

Within 30 minutes, the house is full. I take some notes. Talk to a few people. But it’s not easy. They’re getting pretty loud. And it’s hard to catch people.

They’re jumping up to get another drink. They’re jumping up to dance. They’ve got the furniture all moved out of the way now.

Motown on the boombox. It’s cranking.

Fried chicken. But mostly it’s Crown Royal with beer chasers. Some of these family and friends are getting pretty toasted.

It’s almost noon.

That might be the mom out on the floor, grinding it with a guy. I tried to talk with her when she came in. But she was kissing this guy. He had his hands on her butt, pulling her tight. Snug.

I collar a few people, not many.

Yup, one says. Died last night. Run down.

Another one tells me the kid was in high school. Played football. Or mebbe basketball.

They’re starting a line dance now. I think a couple of these folks are gonna get a room.

I climb back in my car, head down the road. Call my boss.

Tell him I’m gonna skip this one.

They find that body yet… ?

Old woman disappears. Very strange case.

People saw her buy groceries. They saw her heading out, on foot. Everybody knew her. She was there at the store every week. Most of the time, somebody gave her a ride.

This day, she never made it home. The local constables do not wanna talk about this. At all.

Something weird going on here.

Time passes. I write about how there is still no explanation for the disappearance and still no information forthcoming from the people who get paid to solve this stuff. This does not endear me to the guys in uniform.

One morning, phone rings and it’s a woman who lives near the highway. She wants to know: Where are all the cops going? Tons of em and they are screaming up the road.

The only thing out past her house is a state park. Nobody out there, except a ranger who lives in a cabin.

I wish this next thing was my idea. But it belongs to a guy who was my editor for awhile. Long-timer who quit newspapers to become a private detective. Had a suspicious mind.

I call the park ranger. I have just one question. My tone of voice says I’m in on the thing. I know all about it. I am casual.

“They find the body yet?”

He proceeds to lay it all out for me. How they’ve been searching all night with every dog in the county. How they seemed to know what they were looking for, where to look. Which is right where they found her, tossed in some bushes not far from the side of the road.

Very nasty. Whoever did this committed five or six acts of violence on this poor woman, any of which would have been more than enough.

My story hits the streets before the officers get back to town.

Chief of detectives calls me up. Loud. Livid.

Where’d you get all that stuff?

Is it wrong? I ask.

“No, you dirty frickin S.O.B.”

I have just, he says, burned my last bridge. I will never get one ounce of cooperation on anything for the rest of my life.

How, I ask, is that different from, say, yesterday?

He slams down the phone. I drive into town, so he can spot me walking down the hallway past his office.

First there’s love… then an explosion…

Driving out to the Cape for a launch in a big RV. Maybe five of us. The launch has been delayed several times, tech glitches. We may be here awhile.

So it’s evening, we’re inside the trailer. Couple of pizzas, case of beer. There’s a pull-down bunk that hangs over the front windshield. Bob, the guy in it, used to be a political front-man, the guy who arrives a few days before the candidate to set up appearances, logistics.

His real creds: He used to drive a taxicab.

Now he’s a writer. Gonna see his first launch.

The thing we do not know right now is that the bunk is not locked into its supports. It’s just resting against the front windshield visors, which are almost the size of the front windshield and which are sticking out, when they’re supposed to be tucked outa the way before – you get the picture.

Sitting in the passenger side chair is a young lady who thinks Taxi is pretty hot stuff. Evening goes on, she has more beer than is good for her, she begins to think Taxi is Real Hot Stuff.  She’s working herself up to the big moment.

It arrives. She climbs up on the arms of the chair, launches skyward and, for the briefest moment, she’s suspended there, in bed, alongside the man of her dreams.

WHHOOSH.

Windshield explodes.

Screaming.

The launch goes as scheduled. Bit of luck.

Next day, I’m driving this thing down the interstate, no windshield, just bits of glass occasionally flying back into the vehicle. I get back to the office. I’m telling my boss about the 18-wheeler that careened passed us on the highway, about the big old chunk of gravel that flew up into the windshield as we drove down the road.

Good guy. Sense of humor. Let’s me wax. Tragic event, I say. Insurance will have to cover it.

He pats me on the arm.

She’s already been in, he says. She confessed.

But that was a good story you told.

Glenn Miller chases the chill from the air…

It was freezing outside and they couldn’t have cared less.

The auditorium, as big as an airplane hangar. Inside, the legendary Glenn Miller Orchestra was chasing the chill from the air with a pulsating blast of swing that took hold, wouldn’t let go.

New faces carrying on the name, some of ‘em kinda baby-faced. Everybody in the place had heard those tunes when they were brand new. But as soon as the music started the crowd knew. The big band was back.

In an instant, the dance floor bulged with couples shedding the years as they’d shed their overcoats coming in the door. White-headed ladies with their hair just so, sporting bracelets and beads and crinkly smiles they’d been saving up. Dapper gents carefully spinning, cooing into their ears. “We’re going to Michigan to see the sweetest gal, from Kalamazoo – zoo – zoo – zoo – zoo.”

Dressed to the nines. Elegant.

Slapping time on the tables, shuffling their feet back and forth in front of their chairs. Infection sweeping the room.

A woman scarcely taller than a doorknob came up to me, grinning.

“You can dance to that Glenn miller, I tell you.”

Sporting a new print dress. She and a girlfriend had come by themselves.

“We knew we’d find some partners.”

Fond memories, full of life. Old picnic tables and paper tablecloths. They didn’t care.

Loud. Slick. Biting chromatic harmonies in the brass, punching countermelodies, snapping crescendos. The trombones shunting from side to side. Trumpets soaring, saxes tearing into their solos.

Singers cupping tiny megaphones to imitate the tinny radio sound of bygone years got a roomful of applause every time they strode toward the microphones.

Blue hairs strutting, slapping their hands.

And then their favorite… “In the mood…”

The horns building it, layer after layer. People leaping up to dance in the aisles and in the back of the room.

One old guy stood next to me, looking like he’d burst if he stopped moving. And looking slightly terrified.

“Man, there are some good dancers out there.”

“Little Brown Jug,” “Stardust,” Tuxedo Junction,” The St. Louis Blues March,” “Mack the Knife.”

It went on for four hours. In between songs, they’d stay on the dance floor, waiting.

And then it was time. They bent over to fetch their furs and hats and, clinging to each other’s arms, they made their way back into the cold night air, leaving behind clouds of perfume, echoes of better days.

A woman heading for the door saw me smiling and pranced over, collared me with a hug, bursting with it.

“We senior citizens do a lot of wild things.”

Singing as she left.

“Don’t sit under the apple tree, with anyone else but me…”

He’d sent more men to the electric chair….

The old solicitor was a guy named Buster Murdaugh. Buster was a white-headed, seersuckered, aw-shucks country lawyer who’d sent more men to the electric chair than anyone in South Carolina history. There were some who said he’d sent more men to the chair than anybody, anywhere.

But this time was different. Buster was so outraged by the savagery of the murder two Yankee hitchhikers had committed he told the jury he’d quit the business if they didn’t give them the juice. He wasn’t going to work in the criminal justice system any longer if people like that could walk free.

The jury wasted little time giving them both a death sentence. Then the lawyers for the killers mounted an appeal.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

That day in the street, Buster was still mulling his speech to the jury. And those two men hadn’t yet made it to the courthouse.

They would come in the back way, through the lane. That way no one would see them. They wouldn’t even come in a car. They’d walk, sneak in through the back door.

I knew where to wait. I was there with a photographer, Fred Rollison, and we saw them coming. Fred had a telephoto, started shooting as soon as they got around the corner, out from behind the trees.

The detective in front, tough guy, despised the press. We’d had run-ins before.

“Put that camera down,” he shouted. “Put that camera down or go to jail.’’ Fred dropped his hands.

“Public street,” I said. “Keep shooting.”

And he did. The deputies sprinted for us, shouting threats. The first two grabbed Fred, tore the camera from around his neck, lifted him nearly off his feet, yanking him in a headlock toward the building. He backhanded me the other camera, the smaller one he kept over his shoulder. I started shooting.

And then they had both of us inside. More shouts, cursing. They’d taken the cameras. One of the deputies started to open the back, ruin the film.

“Stop right there,” I said. “Before this gets any worse. Stop. Call your boss. Tell him you’re arresting us. Tell him we’re in the street.”

“I’m not calling anybody. You’re going to jail.”

“This is about to be a real problem for you,” I said.

He made the call. A moment later, handed me the cameras. Apologized, the words forced from the back of his throat, past a mouthful of hate.

That day, his picture ran in every paper in the state. The picture I took of him dragging Fred up the stairs.

Inside, Buster stormed across the courtroom, raised his hands in the air and roared at the jury. Around his neck, he had draped the garden hose they had used to strangle the victim. Wore it for hours.

It was reminiscent of the trial where he’d spent days parading about the courtroom holding the murder weapon, taunting the defendant, sneering, and then, finally getting him on the stand and pushing him to brink, thrusting the gun toward him, shouting: “Show us how you killed him!”

The poor man lunged for the weapon with a snarl. “This thing better not be loaded.”

But on this day, Buster summed up with this: Give these killers the chair, or I won’t ever again practice law.

And that was why he lost. The defense lawyers said it was too much pressure to put on a jury. Nobody wanted to be responsible for the premature retirement of the legend that was Buster Murdaugh.

New trial was ordered. Same result. Bad guys got the chair.

Should savage killers get the chair…?

The old solicitor was a guy named Buster Murdaugh. Buster was a white-headed, seersuckered, aw-shucks country lawyer who’d sent more men to the electric chair than anyone in South Carolina history. There were some who said he’d sent more men to the chair than anybody, anywhere.

But this time was different. Buster was so outraged by the savagery of the murder two Yankee hitchhikers had committed he told the jury he’d quit the business if they didn’t give them the juice. He wasn’t going to work in the criminal justice system any longer if people like that could walk free.

The jury wasted little time giving them both a death sentence. Then the lawyers for the killers mounted an appeal.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

That day in the street, Buster was still mulling his speech to the jury. And those two men hadn’t yet made it to the courthouse.

They would come in the back way, through the lane. That way no one would see them. They wouldn’t even come in a car. They’d walk, sneak in through the back door.

I knew where to wait. I was there with a photographer, Fred Rollison, and we saw them coming. Fred had a telephoto, started shooting as soon as they got around the corner, out from behind the trees.

The detective in front, tough guy, despised the press. We’d had run-ins before.

“Put that camera down,” he shouted. “Put that camera down or go to jail.’’ Fred dropped his hands.

“Public street,” I said. “Keep shooting.”

And he did. The deputies sprinted for us, shouting threats. The first two grabbed Fred, tore the camera from around his neck, lifted him nearly off his feet, yanking him in a headlock toward the building. He backhanded me the other camera, the smaller one he kept over his shoulder. I started shooting.

And then they had both of us inside. More shouts, cursing. They’d taken the cameras. One of the deputies started to open the back, ruin the film.

“Stop right there,” I said. “Before this gets any worse. Stop. Call your boss. Tell him you’re arresting us. Tell him we’re in the street.”

“I’m not calling anybody. You’re going to jail.”

“This is about to be a real problem for you,” I said.

He made the call. A moment later, handed me the cameras. Apologized, the words forced from the back of his throat, past a mouthful of hate.

That day, his picture ran in every paper in the state. The picture I took of him dragging Fred up the stairs.

Inside, Buster stormed across the courtroom, raised his hands in the air and roared at the jury. Around his neck, he had draped the garden hose they had used to strangle the victim. Wore it for hours.

It was reminiscent of the trial where he’d spent days parading about the courtroom holding the murder weapon, taunting the defendant, sneering, and then, finally getting him on the stand and pushing him to brink, thrusting the gun toward him, shouting: “Show us how you killed him!”

The poor man lunged for the weapon with a snarl. “This thing better not be loaded.”

But on this day, Buster summed up with this: Give these killers the chair, or I won’t ever again practice law.

And that was why he lost. The defense lawyers said it was too much pressure to put on a jury. Nobody wanted to be responsible for the premature retirement of the legend that was Buster Murdaugh.

New trial was ordered. Same result. Bad guys got the chair.

And then the boom brushed against the power line…

It was windy and I was about to be two and half hours late for dinner.

It started in the late afternoon. Construction site, guys putting girders together for an office building. There was a guy working the big crane. The steel was long, heavy. Two guys on the ground would attach the choker cables, then back off while he lifted it free.

He’d pluck that girder off the stack, swing it around. When he had it stabilized, they’d step back in, grab hold of the ends . A bit of do-si-do… swinging the I-beam around. Then a slow lift to the riveters.

Somebody should have seen this coming.

The wind came up. You wouldn’t think it would affect something that big, that heavy.

Side pull, they call it. The guy working the crane was looking down, not up. The boom brushed against the power line. Too close for that kind of work.

Now the girder was hot. And when the first guy came in to steady it, he died the instant he put his hand on the beam. I heard what happened, made some calls, talked to people who’d been there, the police, the ambulance driver. Then I sent in the story.

And now it was late. A typical Florida night. Breezy, but warm. We were sitting on the deck of my friend’s place, one of those duplexes standing on stilts, with the parking slab underneath. I was telling the story.

We saw the car coming, weaving all over the road. It was the guy who rented the other half of the duplex. He got the car most of the way into the driveway. The door opened and he fell out onto the ground.

We went down to help. He could barely stand. He saw us, started to babble. He was sobbing and yelling and nothing made sense.

We started carrying him up the stairs. And finally we could understand him.

I just killed a guy, he said. Shouting now.

You know anybody who needs a crane operator who kills people?

Then he stood tall and pushed us away. He couldn’t get the key in the door, so he smashed the glass and reached in to open it.

We heard dishes breaking and stuff smashing against a wall. And then it was quiet.