The Wrong Jacket

A great error

It was a clear beautiful fall day with leaves shades of brown yellow and orange layering the street.

I had taken my jacket to the cleaners on the corner of Jackson street. There was a dry cleaner near my work. I took my jacket there because they claimed to be the best same-day dry cleaners in the city. After a hard day's work, I went to pick up my jacket. The man gave me the jacket with the same ticket number. I thought everything was fine when I arrived home. I discovered the man had given me the wrong jacket. I checked the pockets of the jacket and found a piece of paper and a small key. The key is small and could fit a mailbox or deposit box. I place the key on my bedroom end table along with the slip of paper. I don’t think about it anymore. I place the jacket over a chair in the living room determined to take it back in the morning.

I cook my dinner and make my favorite, rice and beans. Afterward, I watch some television and begin to nod off. I realize that it's getting late and I need to go to bed.

It's 11 pm when I go to bed and around 2 am I hear a noise in the living room. I am so frightened and paralyzed with fear thinking someone is in the apartment. I get out of bed and lock my bedroom door then I grab an old long umbrella. The umbrella is one of those old-fashioned long ones with the hook. I grab my cell phone and go into the closet. I called 911 to report an intruder in the apartment. The burglar tries to enter the bedroom by turning the knob then he tries to break down the door.

I pray that the burglar doesn’t get in, my heart rate races as I feel their desperation to enter the room. The burglar is trying to break down the door but can’t. I can hear the police sirens in the distance and I don’t hear the burglars anymore. The police arrive shouting at anyone in here. I come out from the closet still feeling anxious and afraid. The policeman asks if I am okay or if I need medical. I reply that I am fine. The police ask if I notice anything missing from the apartment. I didn't notice anything at first. But as I walked around the room I noticed the jacket that I had draped over the chair was missing. In fact, it was the only thing missing from the room. It is strange because the jacket wasn’t even mine, I was going to return it the next day. The police officer filled out a report and took my statement. The officers leave and I contact my landlord to tell him to fix the front door since the lock was broken. My landlord appeared at 11 am to fix the lock so I went to work late. I went to work at 12:30 pm walking on the corner of 6th Avenue and 28th St. waiting for the traffic light to change.

I was waiting on the street corner with a crowd of people all waiting for the traffic light to change. I felt something heavy on my back pushing me into oncoming traffic. I hear a lady scream and I look up as I hit the ground. I see a taxi grill only inches away from my face. I had fallen on my hands and knees. I sit down on the floor for a minute because I felt pain in my knees and when I look I see them bleeding. I scraped my knees. The taxi driver comes out of his cab and asks if I am okay. I get up and reply that I am fine. A lady in the crowd approaches me and tells me that she saw a man in a white hoodie shove me into the street. She screamed but the man got away. I was lucky that the taxi had stopped in time or he would have hit me.

I arrived at the bank at 1:30. I only had three and a half hours to catch up on paperwork. I begin to think about the events that have happened to me these past two days. I realize that it all started when I brought the wrong jacket home. Could these events be related? I need answers and I decide to go to the dry cleaners, after work. I told the owner what happened about the switched jackets, and he proceeded to ask for them back. I told him it had been stolen and I could bring in a police report. The owner looks scared when I tell him the news. The owner says when he is notified about my jacket he will contact me.

I realize that I still have the piece of paper and the key from the jacket on my end table. I anxiously arrive home to find the items on the end table. I read the paper and picked up the key. The piece of paper has the letters boa 676 written on it. I decided to call the police officer who took my statement last night. I told the police officer that I found a small key and a piece of paper in the jacket pocket. Since I brought home that jacket, bad things have happened to me. I told him about the attempt on my life earlier today. I told him it’s all related. The officer agrees to meet with me and I give him the key and piece of paper. It is a bank deposit key, says the policeman. I can get a warrant on probable cause on this key, I believe BOA is Bank of America 676. You should stay with a friend or relative, says the policeman.

I agree and call my sister, Frances. I tell her what has happened to me and that I need a place to stay. She agrees to let me stay with her and awaits my arrival. I am packing up some clothing and placing them in a bag when I hear the door knock. “Who is it? I ask. “Pizza delivery,” the man says. “You must be mistaken, I didn’t order pizza” I reply. I look out the peephole and it's a young guy with a pizza uniform looking nervously around. “Is this 345 E 28th ST apt 4B”. The pizza guy says and I reply “yes, but I didn’t order that pizza”. I open the door and there is another older guy pointing a gun at the pizza man’s head. He strikes the pizza guy on the head and he falls to the ground hard. I see the blood gushing out the young guy’s head and try to help. The man with the gun grabs my arm and threatens me. “Don’t try anything funny,'' he says in a thick Russian accent. I walk down four flights of stairs which seem to last forever. We reach the lobby and the man sticks the gun in my back and says “continue”. He walks me out to a car with two other guys inside.

The men don’t bother to blindfold me; they take me to the dry cleaners through the back entrance. The men sit me down on a hardwood chair and tie my hands behind my back. The three men begin to interrogate me one short guy in the corner has a scar on the side of his face. He is punching his hand into this other hand a while staring at me. The second man is tall and handsome but his starry gaze was frightening. He had cold dead blue eyes. The third man with the thick Russian accent was overweight and had only four fingers on his hand. The men ask “‘where is the key ?” I pretend to not know what they are talking about. Half an hour goes by which seems like an eternity but I manage to stall as much as I can.

The short guy with the scar approaches me and slaps me across the face. “Stop playing games and tell us where the key is?” I am afraid that I realize if I tell them I gave it to the cops, I’m dead. I tell them I don’t know what they are talking about. The short guy slaps me across the face again harder. The force of the slap was so hard that he loosened a tooth in my mouth. He grabs me by the neck and says I will kill you if you don’t give us the key. The guy with the cold dead eyes says kill her so we can search her apartment afterward. The guy with the four fingers approaches me with a gun and points it to my head. “I want the key now”.

I can’t hold out any longer because they are getting ready to kill me. I have to make up something if not I’m toast. I tell them crying and sobbing that I have the key at the bank I work at. I have it at my desk. Only I can get it. “How do we know she’s telling the truth?” She could be stalling. The guy with the gun points it at her head and says” you better be telling the truth”. We are going to your bank now, if you make any moves I will kill everyone in the bank. As I am getting up from the chair and they are untying me. I hear police sirens in the distance the sirens get closer and closer. Finally, we hear policemen entering the dry cleaners yelling “drop your weapons”. The guy with the deadly cold eyes begins to shoot and he gets shot in the leg. The short guy with the scar gets shot in the arm. The man with the four fingers is holding a gun to my head but he is surrounded. They call in swat and they take out the Russian man with the four fingers. A shot to the head. As soon as they shot the man the policemen pulled me out of the cleaners.

I was told by the authorities that the dry cleaners were a money-laundering front for the Russian mob. The police raided the dry cleaners after I gave them the key to the safe deposit box. It had their books, lots of money. Books on their illicit crimes which involved human trafficking and drugs. “ The FBI has been after these guys for years and you brought them down with a simple key and paper. “ says the police officer.

I can’t help to think it was over the wrong jacket.