Voices of the dead

As part of our review of tax compliance, the Internal Revenue Service has determined records maintained by S amp;H Recycling Metals may be insufficient to verify the accuracy of purchases of recyclable materials. It is the responsibility of taxpayers to maintain adequate records to substantiate items on their tax returns, including purchases of recyclable materials. Failure to maintain such records could result in the assessment of additional tax due to the disallowance of deductions. We appreciate your cooperation and willingness to work with us on this matter. If you have any questions, please contact the examiner named at the heading of this letter.

Sincerely,

Chief Examination Division

Harry was thinking, come on. What is this? Now they were preparing to audit his company. Harry had asked his secretary, Phyllis, to pull all the records‚ back up that supported his tax returns, everything from 1969 and ’70. He had no clue why they were coming after him. He’d maintained accurate, up-to-date records. The examiner named at the top of the letter was William Decker.

He was in the waiting room when Harry arrived, stood up and introduced himself as Bill. Looked like a former athlete, six three, a couple inches taller than Harry, but about his age, early forties, hair going gray, cut to the top of his ears, big hands, firm handshake.

Decker told him the audit was random, not personal, but Harry had trouble believing it. He paid cash for scrap, and a business like his was an easy target. Harry and his scale operator‚ Jerry Dubuque‚ loaded a dozen banker boxes in the back of Decker’s Fairlane station wagon, three years’ worth of shippers, cash slips, weight tickets, metal settlement reports, bids and contracts. The IRS would match it all up with what Harry said on his returns or Decker would give him a call.

Harry owned twelve acres on Mt. Elliot near Luce just east of Hamtramck. He’d bought the business from his uncle, in ’62. Worked there since he was seventeen. Harry had six million pounds of scrap, a mountain of auto parts, refrigerators, bed frames, steel beams, railroad tracks and farm equipment that rose up five stories and extended five hundred feet from end to end. To move the mountain he had two hydraulic crawler cranes, one outfitted with a magnet, the other a grapple. He also had three scales, a baling press, alligator shears, guillotine shears and four loaders to haul scrap to the mills.

When Decker left, Harry took the black guys’ wallets out and looked at them. Afro was Ray Jones, eyes closed in the license photo, six one, 180, six dollars and a piece of paper with a name on it: Yolanda, and a phone number in the scuffed-up brown wallet with a ninja in black illustration on it. Guy in the backseat was Darnell Terry, five eleven, 170. He was the high roller, had twenty-seven dollars and two credit cards, a Visa and a MasterCard with different names on them.

Harry owned a three-bedroom Tudor on Hendrie, a tree-lined street in Huntington Woods. He’d lived alone since his daughter had gone away to college in Washington DC a year earlier. She’d decided to stay there for the summer after her freshman year, work part-time and take a couple classes. Harry couldn’t blame her, living in DC sounded exciting, and beat the hell out of Detroit.

Harry had a thing going with a neighbor named Galina, a big-breasted thirty-seven-year-old Latvian Jew whose breath smelled like sauerkraut, and privates like wild geese. She lived on the street behind him and over a couple houses. Her husband worked for Ford and had taken a job in London. She didn’t want to go to a place where it rained all the time, so they were in the process of divorce-although there had to be more to it than that. She’d call once a week, usually in the evening, say she was horny and available, drive around the block, and park in his garage so the neighbors wouldn’t see what was going on. They’d go up to his bedroom, take off their clothes and spend a couple hours in bed. She’d run down to the kitchen, naked, bring up snacks and drinks to satisfy some appetites and replenish others. This had been going on for several months until one day she told Harry she’d met someone and thought it was serious. Harry liked her but it didn’t go much deeper than that. He wished her luck.

He’d also had a recent fling with a girl he’d met at an Allman Brothers concert at Pine Knob. He noticed this petite good-looking girl, long hair parted down the middle, skinny arms and big jugs hanging free in an Allman Brothers tee-shirt, sitting next to him, smoking pot. He looked at her, she handed him the joint. He had never smoked marijuana, but thought, what the hell. Took a hit and started coughing and she looked at him and grinned.

“First time?”

Harry nodded.