Redford Lewis

Have to be really quiet

2007-04-26T23:34:00.001-07:00

I'm sneaking. Mariana doesn't want me giving away anything. She's very controlling, but beautiful. Wow, is she beautiful. She's a Rita Hayworth look alike, and she makes me drool. But enough about that.

She and I went out into the burbs and I saw the kids for a few minutes today. Had to check on them just in case I can't for a while. I don't want anything to happen to them. These people are crazy, including Mariana. Funny how she probably wasn't, but after hiding out for six months from the goons that are after her, it isn't so surprising I guess.

Anyway, the story as I know it goes like this. She was investigating the Pinelli's, she got too close to something, even she doesn't know what it is, and they sent Smith after her. He was deep cover, but she thinks if they wouldn't have been hot for each other he might have actually offed her anyway. Who knows about these deep cover guys, what they have to sacrifice for our country. So instead of taking her out, he hid her, CIA style. Whatever that means, she won't tell me. The Pinelli's gave him one more chance to kill her, the day he threw the briefcase at me, and when they discovered that he didn't kill her they shot him instead. Mariana is pretty sure they know about me as well, so the two of us are basically living on borrowed time.

Viv didn't understand why I have to go. She was crying when she saw me, I guess my hair is longer and I smell or something. First she gave me crap about scaring the kids, then she told me that she was worried about me. It looked like she was going to hug me...and who knows how I would have felt at that point, when the loser showed up and glared at me with his fat belly and paisley tie. Strange moment.

The kids are good. I think they miss me, but I'm not sure. Who knows with kids.

Mariana hid out at the library, trying to figure out the so called encryption on a CD she has. She thinks if she can get into it, it might have enough evidence to get the Pinelli's off our backs, by taking to the the authorities. I'm not so sure, but maybe. I probably will end up in jail if we get out of this because I have missed my last few anger therapy sessions. Too dangerous to go anywhere normal.

Ok, gotta go. Thanks again to all of you.

One thirty

redfordlewis

A Woman in Red, how cliche'

2007-03-31T09:54:00.000-07:00

Or is she trying to get into my head.

From her email:
Your little friends should be able to help you with this. They think they are very clever.
Then this garbage:

F N V T E
J Q H E S
Z G M S D
C V X U L
D J I U M
D G T H L
P S W D R
R V H S Y
N M G F A
D Q L Z J
H W B U Z
U I I Q I
X Z C W W
N W S C N
M L Q L S
Y T V L B
S F X J J
W E W R Q
T Z C Z B
M W T I H
B C W U C
C N D N R
I I X I X
J S Z Z H
C A Q Z A
L F P T S
G O W I U
L U R C W
C K W J E
P M Y O A
X Z Q A W
B O G P C
X V M M P
P W I F L
G X W J U
O A G E W
E N U B B
X H E S H
U B N T Q
T X Q Z Z
L M I P W
T H R H V
G H Y S J
S N M J W
N J C Z C

With just this afterwords: Remember Smith, he loved Jimmy Durante.
I don't know what any of it means. I would post it elsewhere, but I am only going to have an hour on the library computer, and I look suspicious enough right now...beard unkempt, crazy eyes. Yeah, I look homeless...well, I AM homeless right now. Too afraid to go back home, don't want Randy and Todd to get hurt because of me. I don't know if they know who I am yet, but I am pretty sure I am being followed. Could be this WIR, or it could be the bad guys.

I've been to all the websites, I don't know what it all means.
WIR thinks I'm cute, I guess that's a plus.

Called Viv from a pay phone. The kids are good, going to their new school. She says Gabe really misses me, but Dill is pretty quiet right now. I told her to be careful with that money. I just don't trust it....if the Pinellis found Smith, it could have been through the money...I guess. I'm not cut out for spy stories.

Things are getting even more weird.

2007-03-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

I saw the kids yesterday, yeah...SAW them, didn't hug them, or say hello. Just watched from across the street, in a darkened alley just like all the other darkened alleys I have been inhabiting lately. I didn't want to risk it.

Viv and Ted have everything packed up, ready to move to the great, uncultured atomic pit called Livermore. What can I do about it, things are so strange right now. You know, sort of like a bad Bruce Willis movie, divorced Dad gets into trouble he doesn't think he can handle, and then takes on the bad guys...the odds are 8 million to 1 but Brucie takes them all on and wins. Yeah, well, where's Bruce when you really need him? Off with thin models on Tahiti drinking Mai Tai's or whatever overpaid, aging actors drink with women half their age.

So, here's the thing. I was going to bail on this here blog...but the court appointed therapist...HAD to go...if I ever get out of this alive, I need to see my kids....anyway, she thinks I'm getting better, because I didn't glare at her with hatred as a substitution for my unfaithful wife. I didn't dare tell her that I saw a guy shot and he threw me the magical mystery briefcase at me. So, just in case she checks that I am here...God help me, I'll end up in Highland if she does...I am blogging away.

Speaking of the MMB, there's a few things that worry me. The most obvious, is who do I trust???? I know that there are people out there helping, but WHO are they, and HOW did they find me. Paranoia was never part of Bruce's script...but it should be.

The other...this Smith guy...he was deadly. How did HE get killed? And why? And what was he doing in SF?

There's things missing. I need to find out more about Smith and his movements. I need to find out WHAT he was doing here, and how Mario and Tonio found him. I need a drink.

Just call me Bruce.

Gotta get outta Dodge

2007-03-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

So, basically I gotta find a more secure place to dwell, public blogging about sinister plots is not the wisest thing to do. Also have to lay low, like I been talking about. My first priority is taking care of my kids.

I gave Viv 3,000 of the Euro in advance of a couple of years of my child support...well, bicycle messengers really don't make much money you know. Told her I was into some bad stuff and didn't know when I'd be around. Of course, she and Ted shook their heads, and Viv gave me an I told you so look...remember how I said I hate my ex-wife? Well, there you go. It's not as if this is my fault, I mean I didn't look for a guy to die in front of me and thrust his sordid life at me in the form of a briefcase, now did I? I begged her to hide the money, not to cash it until she heard from me, and she didn't understand...didn't TRY to understand, but she promised.

So, here' s what I am going to do. First, I don't have the skills to figure this out on my own. I need help, and I have some, which is good. Second, I have to find a better option for a secure spot on the web. Not that there is any...especially with the Patriot Act and all that...but I am not going to be able to be in physical contact with any of the people that are helping me. Other than New, gotta find him. I have his last address, but that's about it. I think he can help me with some other stuff, like running down the numbers on the passports. I think if I can find out if they were really issued by the countries or not that'd help. Third, only going to access the internet from public places, like SF library, although I won't be able to do that all the time either, so I'm planning on doing this only about once a week. That way I hope I can avoid some of the pressure.

Jumping at shadows all the time. Yesterday, there was a black car parked out in front of Viv and Ted's all day, but when I checked it out, it was a little old guy who fell asleep in his warm car. Do sinister murderers still hang out in black Buicks or is that too cliche'?

Gabe and Dill aren't happy. Gave them big hugs, and told them I'd see them as soon as I could. I'm not even quitting my job, just going to fade away.

A day that is important to me will lead you to the next step. And don't let the groups of Yahoos get you down.

Redford

Briefcase OPENED...THANKS! Scanned what I could

2007-03-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

Coded paper

Letter, Text says:

Smith,

The time is now. They don't know what's going on. Make it look like an accident. The terms are OK, 10,000 E now, 50k when the job is finished.

Whoda thunk it. The mob and the government goon.

BTW, don't even try to stab us in the back we know everything about you.

Mario

Crumpled up letter, I don't know if you guys can see it or not. Looks like Arabic of some sort.

Hans Christian Anderson Book...edited by a guy named Jack Zipes

10,525 Euros

Rectangular plastic thing. Might be a Key card?

Also found two guns, but I'm not scanning those. Also several passports with a picture of the same guy. Tried to scan the picture but it just looks too bad to upload. Passports are from Spain, Britain, US, France, and Italy.

Ok, that's it. I'm going to go see the kids tomorrow, and I'll check back then. Then I should probably lay low if I can. I really do have a bad feeling about this.

Gabe called tonight. Couldn't tell him that I might have to pull a disappearing act...might prove Viv right, might have to be a deadbeat dad for a while. I'm afraid to change over the Euros...they might be marked or something...guys named Tonio and Mario, Arabic stuff. Doesn't smell good. Gotta get ahold of New also. He knows stuff about codes, not sure what to do about the coded letter, and my head is spinning too fast to figure it out. If I drank, I'd be finding Jose right about now, but that stuff won't help.

Thanks to all of you that are trying to help. I appreciate it.

More on the briefcase

2007-03-23T15:11:00.000-07:00

In the briefcase, I found this typed on a plain piece of paper.

What answer shall be given to the envoys of that nation? "The LORD has established Zion, and in her his afflicted people will find refuge."

Otherwise it is a normal briefcase with a combination lock. I don't know what to do. I could take it to Leroy, the locksmith next to my work, but something tells me to keep this a secret...for now.

.

Somebody please help me!

2007-03-23T02:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the sun shone through wispy clouds as it always does on those days you want to forget. A cold day, yet the sun pretends to warm you as your breath clouds your senses. I was out and about minding my own business when I saw the man get shot. Hit first in the arm, he spun around in front of me like a merry go round, his eyes staring into mine. I wanted to ignore him, Hell I didn't need this, an ex-wife and two kids to support are enough for one man to deal with. After he finished with his puppet motion, he looked straight at me, and mouthed something. I knew this was my cue to be the brave good Samaritan and reach out to him, but I was barely holding onto my bladder. When the first shot echoed through the alleyway I cut through every day to go to my job, I dove behind the nearest dumpster. Of course, in San Francisco, the nearest dumpster is never far away. And I wasn't about to leave it to go help a bleeding man, not in the era of AIDs, thank you very much.

As I quivered...yes, I said it, I freaking quivered, no other word for it, even though that seems less than masculine, I don't care. I shook and shimmied and almost wet myself...the man crawled toward my dumpster.... No, I yelled in my mind, don't crawl toward me, go somewhere else. I thought about shouting to him to get up, it's only your arm that was shot, but again, I was quivering, and knew my voice would crack, further emasculating me.

He looked over at me again, and then he threw his briefcase at me, and whispered for me to hide it. So I did.

Don't tell anyone were his last words before he pulled out a gun and shot across the way, at what I didn't know. He was shot in his right arm, so he was shooting left handed, and it looked awkward. Another man approached him, dressed all in black. I couldn't see his face, and the man who was shot actually laughed at him. Go ahead and shoot me, Tonio, he said. It won't change a thing.

Then the second guy shot the first guy. I had to hold down the vomit.

I hid there for at least an hour. God help me, I didn't know what else to do.

Now I'm home, and I have this briefcase. I can't get into it. I don't know if I want to get into it. But its sitting here. I think I should throw it off the Golden Gate, but what if there's money inside? I need that money to see my kids.

What should I do?

Gabe's B-day

2007-03-17T17:55:00.000-07:00

Today was the last big event in my old house, the one I shared with Viv. Gabe's B-day, my little dude turned 9. He got most of what he wanted, the baseball bat I was tipped with in January, the one with Barry Bond's signature. Don't have a clue if it's real, but Gabe seemed to like it. Of course, Ted decided to be all parenty, and told me that it wasn't such a great idea to use BB as an example of all that is good and decent in the world. As if he even gets the idea of good and decent, sleeping with another man's wife for six months before asking her to leave. But, yeah, whatever THEODORE, you're a stand up guy.

When Mom died she left me some cash, enough to buy a rundown shack in the city by the bay. Viv and I spent all of our extra money on fixing it up, and some of my tips came in handy, like the abstract painting that settled over our fireplace, and the leopard skin rug that really was leopard for our bedroom. We painted our house in vivid colors, reds and blues, greens, yellows. It looked happy. It WAS happy, until Ted came along. Ted and his steady income, Ted and his white colored shirts and red power ties. When Viv told me she wanted a divorce she couldn't even look me in the eye. And she wanted the house.

Yeah, I gave her everything. Full custody of the kids with liberal visitations for me...any time I wanted. What could I do. I'm a bicycle messenger. At least with Ted they will always get fed.

My life sucks.

Just Peachy

2007-03-04T10:43:00.000-08:00

Well, I found out why Ted was home that day a couple of weeks ago. He and Viv are moving to the burbs. Great, like how am I supposed to see my kids out in Livermore? I don't have a car, and I looked up Bart and they don't even go to where they are going to live. Who wants to live out there anyway? All there is is a bunch of grapes and a couple of research laboratories. Now my kids are going to suffer through Viv's bad cooking and nuclear radiation.

Guess I am going to have to save up for a car. Never thought I'd own one. Good thing I got my license way back in 98, huh?

Crap. Have I mentioned that I hate my ex-wife?

So, who names their kid Redford?

2007-02-20T13:19:00.000-08:00

The same people who name their other kid Newman...yeah, my parents loved Butch Cassiday and The Sundance Kid. Just thought naming us after Bob and Paul would make us lone gunmen, heroes, and best of all cowboys. Mom just had this idea that our names would move us forward, make us special. It did, in a way. My name never bothered me much, but Newman? It was ok, til Seinfeld got popular and the biggest jerk on a show full of jerks was named Newman. Didn't matter if it was his last name or his first name. He was a jerk because the Newman on the hit show was a jerk.

My mother was a great TV watcher. When we had to put her in a home two years ago she would sit in that bed and watch TV from 9 in the morning til 9 at night. She could walk, in fact she wasn't at all impaired, until the cancer eating away at her attacked her brain, but she didn't eat much of anything, and told the nurses that for the money she was paying to the home, she should be able to do whatever she wanted. Nothing like a PO'd Irish lady to get her way.

Dad still rambles around in the house they lived in for 50 years before mom's cancer got the better of her. He visited her all the time, more than me or New did. I went more than him, but he was always angry. Anyway, I don't even know where he is right now, haven't heard from him in ages. Last time I heard he was studying some math formula like that guy on TV with the other guy from Northern Exposure.

Viv finally let me take Dill and Gabe to see Dad. They had a great time messing around with bugs and worms while he told them all the things that bugs eat. Things like dung. Nothing like dung to excite boys under the age of 8.

Happy Freaking Valentines Day

2007-02-14T10:12:00.000-08:00

yeah, I hate V-day, it stinks. Went to go see my kids and Dill was too sick to even come out from all the crap they ate at his school party. Keep telling Vivian that she needs to give them more vegetables and less processed junk, but she doesn't listen. Today, Ted was home too, for whatever reason, and basically played the alpha male with me. Don't care what he does with Viv, but those boys are MINE, and he can just jump off the Golden Gate if he thinks I am going to just leave them alone. He's stuck with me. Guess that's really what made him so mad. I mean c'mon, the guy goes like 140, has glasses...you know the kind, the only reason he doesn't wear a pocket protector is because even he knows it's way too geeky. Viv gave up 6 feet of masculine prowess for 5 feet 7 inches of wimp. Of course, accounting in SF is far more lucrative than my job, but whatever. When we got married Viv told me money never mattered. Oh, how things change.

Work sucks

2007-02-06T08:09:00.000-08:00

My boss has been acting hinky lately. He keep talking about how he wants to tax our tips. Guess he's afraid of an audit, but you know what, the tips are the only thing that keeps most of us here. I do ok, get enough to get Gabe the mitt he wants or Dill the art supplies. Not much else, living with roommates sucks...worse than a wife, but the only way I can get to eat.

Alrighty then, not much else to say today. The rain sucks, tired of it. One of these days, when the boys are grown, I am going to go someplace warm.

The joys of Industry

2007-01-30T18:28:00.000-08:00

So, today I took a delivery to a woman in the Haight, what fun. Left-over hippies and such, but for the most part they are pretty cool. Anyway, she didn't have any money for the tip, so she gave me a blunt, which is useless to me, because number one I don't smoke and number 2 I wouldn't if I did because of seeing my kids.

So I took the joint to Sanjay, who knows how to get rid of stuff, and he uses his big ol nose to check it out. Then he turns red he's laughing so hard, because it turns out that the woman tipped me parsley rolled up in zig zag paper. Never been tipped parsley before, let alone parsley that disguised itself as marijajauna....

Anyway, that isn't the weirdest thing I have ever gotten. People feel really guilty if they don't have tip money, even people who are desperately poor. And when we deliver letters most of the time they are supeaonas, which sucks, because I've been on the bad end of that deal. The wierdest thing I ever got was a sculpture, at least the guy said it was a sculpture, basically it looked like a bunch of cigarette butts wrapped in chicken wire...in fact that's what it WAS. Try getting 2 foot chicken wire home on your bicycle. I was still married at the time, and the wife was NOT impressed. Of course, when the artist made a name for himself my weird tip turned into a 500.00 tip, and then the wife wasn't so mad....I got like 40 bucks out of it, and she got a new purse. Don't seem fair does it?

But, that's the way the marriage crumbles now isn't it.
I saw the boys yesterday. Dillon looks good, his two front teeth fell out and his telling me about the toof fairy made me laugh. Gabe doesn't look so good, says he doesn't like Ted, the guy his mom is shacking up with, but he says there isn't anything funky going on. I'm watching, though. Can never be too careful with your kids.

I hate my exWife

2007-01-26T21:47:00.000-08:00

God, you'd think I was the one who had the affair. She keeps wanting more and more of my money, and I just can't take it anymore. I am a bicycle messenger, not Donald Trump! She won't even let me see the kids unless I bring money, which is stupid because she is living with a guy that makes far more money than I do. And of course, SHE doesn't work. And she calls me lazy.

Anyway, just not into the blog thing, but my court appointed therapist says I should journal, and that a blog might be a good place for me to do it because somebody might actually agree with me, or at least give me support. Not that she believes a word I say anyway. In fact, she seems to think I could use my degree for something other than bicycle messengering, but she doesn't understand, like my wife never understood, the freedom, the adrenaline rush...you know, hanging onto the back of a car and getting towed through nasty San Francisco traffic...or some of the things you find out on your route...who's having affairs, who's on drugs. Yeah, we know a lot about things. Of course, my wife...when she still pretended to love me...always said I would get myself into trouble for being so nosy. Ain't happened yet. Like anybody cares about a simple bicycle messenger anyway.

Anyway, this cool pic is not mine. I kind of suck at digital things, barely have a cell phone. But, it comes from a guy named Thomas Hawk, check out his blog.

Later,

Redford