| |
My phone starts ringing about noon on Friday. First two calls are possible drug customers looking for Ronnie. The third is some chick asking for Mike. They all get the same response: “He’s not available at the moment. Leave your name and number and I’ll have him get back to you.”
All three hang up on me.
With the fourth call I hit pay dirt. The voice is deep and older sounding, with a leaden impatience that cuts through the airwaves.
“This here is a party interested in contacting Mike Waverly or his friend Ronnie Macintyre.”
“And who should I say is calling, sir?”
“Who the hell are you?”
“My name is John Flint, Mr. Waverly’s personal assistant. And you are?”
“I’m someone looking for something that belongs to my boss. Something Waverly and his pals took without permission.”
“And your boss’s name is?”
“Listen, asshole—ya think I’m stupid? Is Waverly there or not? I ain’t got the time to fuck around. Let’s cut to the chase and save us all some suffering.”
“I’m sure we’re all interested in preventing pain and suffering, sir. Towards that goal, Mr. Waverly has put me in charge, and has left with me a tidy sum to be used in payment for the missing goods. Mr. Waverly deeply regrets the current situation and freely offers this compensation, with the only restriction being that he is excluded from any further dealings concerning these matters. In other words, asshole, I give you the money, you leave him the fuck alone.”
“Who you calling asshole, faggot?”
“The guy who’s going to be a hero with his boss when he recovers enough cash to pay for the losses and the trouble. Maybe, if you’re lucky, Big Boss Man might take you out for pizza. Maybe Chuck E. Cheese, if you ask real nice.”
“Exactly whattaya offering, wise ass?”
“My client has entrusted me with a full briefcase he wants me to give to you at 12:30 this very afternoon, in the parking lot of the McDonald’s on Tower Avenue and Twenty-first Street in Bay City.”
“How do I know you ain’t a cop?”
“Let’s think here... Would a cop be offering money for nothing? Think hard now. And have either of us, in the course of our stimulating conversation, said anything incriminating? I think not.”
“What the fuck you talking about?”
“You think about it, Bruno, and eventually you’ll figure it out. I’m confident of your abilities. But if you really want the cash, just be there in Mac and Don’s parking lot at 12:30. Super-size it while you still can, dude. If you want to be a hero, clap your hands.”
“Listen joker, this better be fuckin’ real.”
“Or you’ll do what, sir?”
“You’ll fuckin’ find out.”
And then he clicks off without telling me what kind of car he’ll be in.
Three minutes later the phone rings. Or chirps. Whatever the hell phones do these days.
“Ah, yeah, it’s me again. Thought I’d tell ya that we’ll be in a green Cadillac Fleetwood. Illinois plates.”
“A new one?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“You said ‘we’ll be in a green Cadillac.’ Am I to assume there will be someone accompanying you?”
“Assume anything you want, asshole.”
He terminates the connection.
Now it’s eleven-thirty and the sun is streaming in the windows of the farmhouse like I’m in a Campbell’s Soup commercial. Except that I’m cleaning a pistol and stuffing $220,000 cash into a shoeshine box, getting ready to meet some thugs. I say thugs, in the plural, because I assume there are two. At least two. I hope there are only two. These guys always travel in twos, don’t they?
I’m sure they are scary dudes. Maybe guys that will chew me up and spit out the pieces to the seagulls. If there are three of them, my plan is in jeopardy. I’m betting on two. Betting my life.
I leave the farm at noon.
At twelve twenty-three I turn left off Twenty-first Street onto John Avenue in Bay City, and park in front of the Roosevelt Terrace Apartments, a 1920’s era grouping of red brick former luxury apartments now gone to seed, supposedly frequented by Teddy Roosevelt back in the day. Or Franklin. Probably Teddy. One of them anyway.
I grab the shoeshine box, adjust my horn-rim glasses and pull the watch cap over my head. I compulsively touch the grip of the pistol in the small of my back and then get out of the car.
It’s hot and humid and I’m sweating hard inside the old Brooks Brothers suit coat as I make my unsteady way across Twenty-first Street toward the golden arches. The watch cap makes my scalp itch something awful and the glasses keep slipping down my nose.
I can see the Green Caddy parked at the back of the lot, facing the street. The lunch crowd has filled the restaurant. Cars move slowly in the drive-through lane as seagulls circle overhead. I walk around to the front of the restaurant and enter. Workingmen in T-shirts and white-collar workers in short-sleeved shirts and ties sit around with cheeseburgers and fries and Big Macs. I approach the counter and stand in line. People turn away and whisper. The clock on the wall says 12:27.
I order a large fry and a glass of water with ice. After it comes, I sit down at an empty table and eat the fries slowly, savoring every bite. At twelve thirty-eight I get up and go into the men’s room, where I enter a stall and take the pistol out of my belt and put it inside the McDonald’s bag.
It’s twelve-forty when I limp out the side door with the shoeshine box full of cash in my left hand and the McDonald’s bag in my right hand. Swinging the white paper bag alongside my leg, I stroll across the asphalt toward the Caddy. In the middle of the parking lot, I stop and look around in a seemingly confused state. I can feel the cold eyes of the two thugs locking onto me.
Doing my best impression of a geeked-out bum, something that ain’t that hard for me, I nod to myself and laugh at something unseen and unheard. Then, spotting a trash receptacle near the Caddy, I wrinkle up my face and move in that direction.
I keep the two large men in the corner of my eye as I limp toward the trashcan. Moving by the driver’s window, the scent of industrial strength cologne hits me on a wave of hot air. The Caddy’s window is down and a large, hairy arm rests on the doorframe.
He turns his swarthy, pockmarked face at me, shows a brief sneer and then turns angrily back toward the parking lot. I shuffle to the trashcan. With my back to the thugs, I slide the bag off the pistol and turn quickly, then reach for the handle on the back door of the Caddy, praying it’s not locked.
I pull on the handle and the door swings open. I jump into the backseat, slide the shoeshine box onto my lap and level the Sig at the guy in the passenger seat, thinking he’s got the best chance of the two at turning and shooting me, should it come down to that.
“What the fuck?”
I glance over at the driver and the mook in the passenger seat makes a quick move like he’s bringing up a gun. I squeeze the trigger three times in rapid succession. Thut, thut, thut, goes the suppressed pistol, and the goon’s torso jerks until his head slumps forward. Now there are holes in the Cadillac’s black leather.
“Motherfucker,” grunts the driver.
“Put both hands on the steering wheel, asshole, and we’ll both leave here breathing.” I point the gun at him and his hand slips back out of his brown sport coat and wraps around the steering wheel. “I’ve just come to make a payment on those missing goods we talked about, man, so chill out and make your day a special one.”
“Who the fuck, are you?”
“Like I said before, you can call me Mr. Flint. I think we spoke on the telephone, earlier. Although your voice does sound a tad higher now.”
“You don’t know who your fucking with here, wise ass.”
“Does that really matter to us here?” I shove the gun into the guy’s thick neck and press hard. “Does that somehow preclude me from squeezing this trigger? I think not. But what will keep you alive is you taking out your cell phone with your left hand and calling your boss for me. Tell him there’s a man here wants to give him two hundred and twenty grand just for the pleasure of a few minutes conversation.”
“I ain’t got a cell phone.”
“Come on, Bruno, everybody’s teenage daughter’s got a cell phone these days.”
“Ain’t got a teenage daughter, either,” he growls. I jam the pistol harder into his neck. “But George has a phone,” he says, looking over at the dead guy.
“I don’t think George will mind if we borrow it. Where is it?”
“On the seat.”
“I’ll tell you what, I’m gonna stand up now and make George a little more comfortable. First thing you need to do is reach under your arm with your left hand and take out your piece with only two fingers and then drop it at your feet. Then you can reach over and pick up the phone, keeping both hands where I can see them, and everything will be just fantastic.”
I rise up until I can see over the seat back. I reach down and take a pistol out of George’s gnarled hand and put it in my jacket pocket. Things go smoothly from there and pretty soon we’re settled back down in our seats and Bruno is punching out the numbers on George’s phone. I’m proud of him. Proud that he’s able to use a cell phone.
The skin around Bruno’s eyes gets tight as sweat slides down from his oily hairline. “Hello, boss,” he says. “This is Jimmy up in Wisconsin.”
He pauses, his face twisted in a grimace, and I hear the murmur of another voice.
“Well, it’s sorta good news, boss. I gotta guy here who wants to put down two hundred twenty K on that delinquent account I’ve been pursuing.” He pauses, another grimace. “I know that’s good, boss. But he won’t give it to me unless he talks to you.” (Pause) “How do I know he means it? He took out George.”
Jimmy (not Bruno, after all) stammers a little then slowly hands me the phone. I keep the gun pointed at a spot between his shoulder blades.
“Good afternoon, sir,” I say. “And how are you on this fine summer afternoon?”
“Cut the fuckin’ crap, you cocksucker. What the hell do you want?”
“Well, sir, as your loyal servant Jimmy here has already informed you, I am in the possession of two hundred and twenty thousand dollars that I would like to give to you as a down payment on what is owed by my clients.”
“There’s a lot more to this thing than just the money, mister. People don’t just get away with stealing from me.”
“I can appreciate your sentiments, sir. But if you think about it, a good lesson has already been learned, by all parties. And I don’t think any of us want the authorities to get any closer to this thing than they already are. This is not exactly Chicago up here, if you know what I mean. And the truth of the matter is that the whole incident was a terrible accident in the first place, brought about merely by a simple twist of fate.”
“What the fuck are you proposing?”
“I’m proposing that in one week’s time I will pay you another hundred grand. That, coupled with what I’m going to give to Jimmy here will, I think, more than cover the cost of the missing goods, as well as any expenses you may have incurred in your attempts to reconcile the account. In return I want your word as a man of honor that there will be no further attempts made to contact any of the concerned parties or their families. After you get paid, the whole thing is over. Finis.”
There is a long silence, and then: “I don’t know who you are, mister, but those punks are sure fuckin’ lucky you came along. This is the modern world and we have to live in it, so I suppose I can adapt to this situation. For the sake of good business. You said you’d have it in a week, I’ll wait a week.”
“It’s a rare pleasure to talk to a progressive thinker, sir. Call me at 387-1419 in five days, exactly at noon, and I’ll tell you where we’ll make the exchange. The spot will be remote and in the open, that much I guarantee. If everybody behaves, we can avoid repeating what happened to George.”
I click off, pick up the shoeshine box and dump it over the front seat. Legal tender scatters and flutters onto George’s lifeless torso. As I slip sideways out of the Caddy, Jimmy is frantically gathering up bills, his eyes wide as he nervously scans the parking lot.