Stanley

By Robert Balcomb ©2005

Stanley lived a short walk from the Big Apple Diner across the road from Kitsap Lake, in Bremerton, WA. He rented a one-room, bath down the hall, 80 a month, somewhat view of the lake if you stood on the roof—low rent. He was an artist, multi-media, but preferred charcoal on Strathmore paper, his one extravagance. With money from a small inheritance, he had taken art classes at the local community Olympic College, earning an Associate of Arts degree, and sold enough drawings through art shows around the peninsula to pay for rent, meals, and art supplies, none left for entertainment—drawing was his entertainment.

A loner, he was not bothered by the lack of running-around money and had few thoughts of anything beyond his art. He would arise in the morning, sponge-bathe, dress, walk to the Diner, and return to his easel. In evenings he would draw until his eyes drooped, then go to bed—his daily pattern, along with weekly bath and launderette visits. At his easel he copied pictures from magazines checked out from the library to practice and develop his own style, just as he had learned most great artists did, spending hours in museums copying from known artists and the Old Masters. On Sundays, he walked to parks or wherever he could find good subjects to draw, especially people.

With charcoal portraits his strong point, he began to build a name for himself as a portrait artist. He learned to price his work according to the merit of the art, along with time, expense, and the effort put into developing it. His favorites with charcoal were artists such as Nicolai Fechin, Max Turner, William Reese, and a few others, imitating each of them, finally melding them and adding his own techniques, until he gained a talent and style based on success, with his own touch in the mix. Gradually his portrait business grew, earning enough to invest in a bank account.

In time he could afford to move to the more affluent town of Winslow on Bainbridge Island, rent studio space, which he lived in, and share in the monthly Art Walks that drew hundreds of people from all of Kitsap Peninsula, even from Seattle eastward across Puget Sound. The studio was on the town’s main street, Winslow Way, with galleries such as Roby-King nearby and Bainbridge Arts and Crafts across the street. The space was not legally live-in, but Stanley somehow got away with it, living in the back, no windows to show light. It had a sink, along with Stanley’s hotplate and small refrigerator. The studio area was in front with large heavily draped windows looking out to the sidewalk. Along with his studio displays, the Galleries frequently showed his work, furthering his reputation as a portrait artist. He ate occasionally up the street at the Pleasant Beach Bistro but mostly at the less expensive Streamliner Diner, buying his few groceries at the Town and Country Market—ever close with the dollar. All was well and daily getting better.

One Friday evening, as the town celebrated its Art Walk during which studios and galleries stayed open until 9:00, a man entered the studio just at closing time and introduced himself as John Whitlow, a Seattle attorney. He wanted a portrait of himself, but was not able to come until 11:30. Something about the man, along with the strange appointment hour, raised hairs on the back of Stanley’s neck. Whitlow was big, but not paunchy. Although he appeared well educated, he seemed to Stanley as a defense lawyer specializing in clients from the darker big-city streets, a feeling picked up from TV’s “Matlock” and “Law and Order” (the one form of entertainment Stanley still allowed himself). He was unaware that he was correct.

Through the next two hours, Stanley began to think that something was not quite right. Still, with no way to contact the man, he felt obliged to keep the strange appointment. Precisely at 11:30 he heard a light knock at the studio back door. There are parking spaces behind the stores in that block, reached from a side alley. As the door of the studio had no peephole, he could only say, “Is that you, Mr. Whitlow?” A muffled voice sounded like “Yes.” He turned off the dim light and opened the door to see Whitlow and a woman in the gloom of the night. They entered the room; Stanley closed and locked the door. When he turned on the light, he looked at the woman and thought he had seen her before somewhere. “Do I know you?” he asked. She glanced nervously at Whitlow before answering, “ I don’t think so.” Whitlow hung his raincoat on a wall hook and said a bit forcefully, “Can we just get on with the sitting? I have very little time—must be in Seattle by nine in the morning.” He then smiled and added quietly, “I’m sure you can finish in that time.”

Out front in the studio, heavy draperies drawn to prevent light to be seen from outside, Stanley proceeded with the portrait. Suddenly he remembered seeing the woman—a waitress at the Big Apple Diner. He remembered her name: Janet. He had been on friendly terms with the others, even the cooks, but not with this one. During the sitting an obviously nervous Janet said nothing and mostly stood aside in as much shadow as she could. Whitlow sat grandly, seeming to enjoy himself, but to Stanley he was not totally at ease—something seemed to weigh on his mind.

The sitting took a little over an hour. Satisfied with the results, Whitlow stood up, looking at his watch. “Time’s up, gotta catch the last ferry. I’ll pick it up in the morning.” Paying in cash, he pushed them into the back room. Suddenly a knock at the door. Nobody moved. Another knock, followed by a loud banging. Janet started to scream, but Whitlow cut her off with a whispered “Quiet!” and ran to where his coat was hanging. As he struggled to pull something from his coat pocket, the door was smashed open. Two large, dark figures entered and jammed the splintered door shut. Shocked, Stanley could not help thinking, “These guys might as well be carrying violin cases!” The man who seemed to be in charge looked at Whitlow for a few seconds, then around the room, stopping at the raincoat. Seeing by its size that it was Whitlow’s, he went to it and removed a pistol. “This yours, Whit?” Whitlow said, “Yeah, Mike,” showing no hint of emotion. Mike barked, “Jimmy, go to the car, call in and tell ‘em what we’ve found.” Jimmy tried the door, but it was jammed shut. As it took both men to wrench it open, Whitlow jumped up and made a flying tackle at the two men, catapulting all three in a tangled pile outside.

In that second, Stanley ran to the now empty doorway and slammed the door shut. He grabbed the petrified Janet and half dragged her out the front door, across the street, and down between two buildings to the street below. He told her the BI Police Department was only a block away, but halfway there, a frightened Janet stopped and refused to go any farther. So Stanley headed them to the nearby State Ferry waiting room, where he felt they would be safe, at least for a while.

By now the two men had smashed the door open again, Mike running through the studio and out into the street. Jimmy stayed, holding a gun on Whitlow. Out in the dark street, Mike decided that too much noise had been made and that time was more important than finding the two and returned through the studio. The men hustled Whitlow into their car and sped away into the night.

Alone in the Ferry waiting room, panting, Stanley and Janet sat quietly. Bit by bit the frightened Janet began to talk, at first simply rambling nothings, until Stanley asked her about her job at the Diner. She finally began to open up—about coming from a small mountain town near the Canadian border. “My family constantly squabbled. None of us got along with each other. I grew to hate the fights and the emptiness of my life there. Halfway through high school I ran away to Bremerton and got a job as a waitress for a while and then ran farther to a truck stop café south of Tacoma. ”

Janet said that one day a trucker came in and struck up a conversation. There were just the two of them. To her the man seemed to be one she could talk with, not just to, and told him of her family and hometown problems. The man was a good listener and admitted his own similar kind of life. The two gradually gained a trust of each other. “Bradley was his name,” she said. “He came from eastern Washington and had the job only to earn enough to buy a small farm of his own. He asked me if I might possibly join him. I liked him and said I liked the idea, but had to think about it, it being so sudden and all. He said he was on his way to deliver a load to the Bremerton Shipyard and would come back as soon as he could. I told him I’d be right here waiting. He went to his truck, waved, and drove off.” She sighed deeply—“Somehow I could see a happy future with him. I’m sure he did come back, but by then I wasn’t there.”

She went on. “A week maybe later a large man came in and ordered breakfast. He kept looking down, as if trying to hide his face. I served him and went back to the kitchen. He was the only customer there. Suddenly two men entered, came over to him and began to speak real harsh. From the kitchen I could hear them say, ‘We finally caught up with you, Whit. Thought you could lose us forever?’ Believe it or not, the customer was the same Whitlow, and those two were the same guys who broke into the studio here tonight. Anyway, Whitlow didn’t say anything, but grabbed at the men. They threw him on the floor. Just then I came out of the kitchen. I saw what was happening and started for the phone on a far wall. But one of them grabbed me. The other pulled a gun from his coat. He told both of us to go outside. They shoved us out to their car and pushed us in, real rough like!” Janet was by now talking so fast that Stanley had to quiet her down and told her to take a deep breath and go a little slower.

They still had the waiting room to themselves. Slowly becoming more relaxed, Janet resumed. “Whitlow told me later that he had a case involving these two men in something that was tied up with some kind of mob situation in south Seattle. About halfway through the case, he began to realize he had better get out of it somehow—it was becoming dangerous for him, even if he won.” She said that Whitlow had come up with a plan to get rid of the mob without implicating himself. He anonymously sent to the authorities his collection of solid evidence that would implicate the whole mob in enough racketeering, prostitution, robbery, and even murder to send them all up forever. He then closed up his office, cashed out his substantial savings, and left Seattle. He spent the night in a hotel in Tacoma and the next morning was on his way southward. He decided to have a last Washington breakfast and pulled into that truck stop.

She said that the men put her in the front seat of their car, with the second man with Whitlow in the back seat and headed for the Seattle ferry in Winslow. Whitlow managed to overpower the man with him and grab the driver around the neck. In the struggle, the car ran off the road and slammed into an embankment. Shaken but unhurt, Whitlow threw the dazed men out and checked that Janet was shaken but OK. He got the sputtering car back on the road, and they went back to the café and retrieved his car. The petrified Janet did not know who or what Whitlow was. She assumed he was just as bad as the other men and feared for her life. At long last he told Janet his story. He began to relax and think that the two men would simply disappear to Mexico, afraid that the mob would get rid of them for bungling the attempt to bring Whitlow to them.

Heading southward, he remembered hearing of the portrait artist on Bainbridge Island, and for a long time had wanted a portrait of himself but did not have time for it—and he couldn’t get the thought of having it out of his mind. He even felt secure enough to risk having that portrait made. He knew he must leave the area for good because of the danger of the mob’s vengeance and knew he must find a safe place. But he wanted the portrait anyhow. Whitlow turned the car around and headed back for Bainbridge Island.

Janet went on, “When we arrived in Winslow we holed up in a B&B. I was still a little too frightened to try escaping, but since he had not harmed me, did not tie me up, even was polite to me, I grew less and less afraid. I wondered what my chances with Whitlow really were. I remembered Bradley, but didn’t know if he was that serious to return. I was so confused, I couldn’t make any sense of anything. Oh yeah, it was then that we went to your studio and he set up the appointment.”

As Stanley and Janet were still in the ferry waiting room and just as Mike was running back through the studio, Police Chief John Sullivan was leaving the police station after a night of meetings with his new recruits. Passing the row of storefronts along Winslow Way, he noticed a glow of light just as the studio door was shutting—just a quick flash of light, but enough for Sullivan to notice. He sped to the next cross street, Madison, turned right, turned off his lights, and stopped. A few seconds later the get-away car shot out of the alley and up Madison headed for the one way off the Island, the Agate Pass bridge about five miles away. He radioed his officer patrolling that area to stop the car at the bridge, then radioed the station for immediate back-up. Within twenty minutes all three men were in police custody and taken to the station in Winslow. Whitlow identified himself and told his complete story and was released. Mike and Jimmy were sent to Seattle for questioning by the District Attorney.

Through all this time, Stanley and Janet sat talking in the waiting room, totally unaware of what was happening around them. At daybreak he gave Janet some money and saw her off on the Seattle ferry. He returned to his studio hopefully for a good, long sleep.

Whitlow left his practice of defending shady characters and in a complete turnaround joined the District Attorney’s office. As Assistant DA, with all his evidence against them, he was successful in convicting the mob and seeing them sent to long terms in prisons across the country. He settled into a long and successful career, finally as the District Attorney himself. The portrait hung proudly in his office.

Janet returned to her job at the café in Tacoma, where she waited for Bradley maybe someday to return.

Stanley continued at his studio in Winslow, eventually teaching drawing classes part-time at the Seattle Art Institute.

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