I got through security carrying two handguns in my pockets with no problem at all. The security guard simply checked my name off a list. Once inside the greenroom, I met my volunteer assistant for the day. She was a mousey-looking girl named Karen Murray. She led me to the main exhibit hall, and we sat down at the table where I’d be signing autographs.
Carlo and Paulie got through the security checkpoint with their two toy machine guns, too. But when they arrived at my table, I forgot which one was which. I looked up at them and said, “Hello, Paulie. Hello, Carlo.”
“I’m Paulie. He’s Carlo.”
“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,” I said. “Or is it Guildenstern and Rosencrantz?”
“Neither one,” said Paulie. “It’s Bazzoni and Bussetti. We ain’t no Jews, for chrissakes.”
“Karen,” I said. “May I introduce my two … er, associates for the day. This is Paulie. And this is Carlo. My agent thought it would be fun if I had a couple of bodyguards in gangster outfits to stand behind me with machine guns.”
“Cool idea,” said Karen.
“You got something you want to give us?” said Carlo.
“Take it easy, Carlo,” I whispered. “Not now. We’ve got ninety minutes to get that done. Just stand behind me and act like my bodyguards.”
Karen paid no attention to us. She was dealing with the first few autograph-seekers that had lined up.
Carlo and Paulie took their places behind me while I started signing autographs. But Carlo and Paulie were not patient actors. They wouldn’t have done well on a movie set where 90 percent of the game is learning how to wait for hours on end without going crazy. After a few minutes, Paulie leaned down and whispered in my ear, “What about the guns, Joey?”
“Don’t worry about them. Not yet. Just play your part for a while.”
“Did you get them through security?”
“Yes, I’ve got them. No problem. They’re in my pants pockets.”
“Your pockets? Rosetti told you to put them in your underwear. You were supposed to excuse yourself and go to the bathroom to get them out.”
“It wasn’t necessary. They waved me right in. Just be patient, Paulie. That’s what being an actor is all about.”
“I ain’t no actor,” he said and resumed his position standing behind me.
His patience lasted another five minutes. He leaned down and whispered into my ear again. I kept shooting furtive glances at Karen to see if she was hearing any of this, but she was busy dealing with the fans.
“Give us the guns now, Joey,” said Paulie. “Let’s get that part over with. I feel naked here without a gun on me while I’m waiting to do a job.”
“All right, for heaven’s sake. There’s one in my left pocket and one in my right. Reach in and pull them out.”
Part of me wanted to get caught at this point. No real crime had taken place yet. I could always tell Rosetti that Paulie insisted on taking the guns from me in the exhibit hall. I could tell the cops they weren’t my guns anyway. Why would an actor bring guns to an autograph session, after all? I could say the guns belonged to Paulie and Carlo, two known members of the Mafia. If everything went well, I’d get off scot-free from both Rosetti and the police.
Karen turned to me and saw Paulie pull the second gun out of my pocket, and a bolt of adrenaline shot through my veins. But I’m an actor, after all. I improvised a line before I had a chance to give it a second thought:
“The more toy guns we have around the better,” I said.
“You’re right,” she said. “If you have any more guns on you, maybe we could put some on the table here. That would look cool.”
“No, I’m all out of ’em, I’m afraid. Just two handguns and two machine guns.”
“Too bad,” she said, and she turned back to selling photos and handling cash.
“All four of them are just harmless plastic toys,” I said.
Methinks the actor didst protest too much. But she was no longer listening.
With their guns in hand, Paulie and Carlo calmed down for a while—until the blare of an air horn scared the shit out of all three of us.
Carlo and Paulie raised their machine guns and waved them back and forth until they both remembered they were toys. So they dropped them and drew their pistols instead.
“What the hell was that?” I said to Karen.
“Five-minute warning until the lunch break.”
“What do we do now?”
“We sign as many autographs as we can for another five minutes. If there are still people in line, I’ll give them a pass for the afternoon session. They can come back after lunch without losing their place.”
When the air horn sounded again, announcing the lunch break, Karen said, “Okay, that’s it for this morning. Let’s go back to the greenroom and get some lunch. We’re due back here in ninety minutes.”
“Can my bodyguards come to the greenroom with us?” I said, hoping she would say no and this whole nightmare would be over.
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” said Karen. “Check in with the security guard and tell him they’re with you.”
So we did that, and the security guard put up little resistance.
“Who are these guys?” he asked me as we came to the door of the greenroom. “They don’t have special guest credentials, just regular fan credentials.”
“They’re with me,” I said. “They’re part of my act.”
“What are their names?”
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, I thought. I had forgotten their last names again.
“I’m Carl O’Hara and this is Mr. Paul McPherson,” said Carlo, with remarkable poise.
“You’re not on the list, fellas,” said the security guard, checking his clipboard. “I’m only supposed to let in people who are on the list.”
“C’mon,” I said. “They’re with me. I played a gangster on The Sopranos. These are friends of mine pretending to be my bodyguards. It’s part of our act. See the toy machine guns?”
“Who did you play on The Sopranos?” said the security guard. “I loved that show.”
This time I didn’t mess around with the guessing game. I flat-out lied. “I was the guy who died of a heart attack on the toilet. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah, I remember. That was funny.”
“Nowadays I carry an aspirin and an Ex-Lax wherever I go.”
He laughed.
“Let us in, my friend,” I said. “We’re hungry and there isn’t enough time for us to get lunch anywhere else.”
“Well, I don’t know …” he said.
Then I got some help from an unexpected source.
“They’re cool,” said Karen, my little volunteer. “I’ve been working with them all morning. They’re very professional gangsters.”
Out of the mouths of babes, I thought.
Karen had so many badges, ribbons, buttons, lanyards, epaulets, stripes, and medals on her body. It was like getting a direct order from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“Okay, I guess it’s no big deal,” said the guard. “Come on in.”
All four of us, including Karen, walked into the greenroom without any more questions.
I turned to Paulie and Carlo and said, “Help yourself to some lunch at the buffet, guys.”
Paulie whispered into my ear, “Fuck that. It’s time to do the job. Don’t chicken out on us now.”
“No, it’s better if you chill out for a while,” I said. “Give it ten or fifteen minutes. Wait until all the celebrities and their assistants are in the room. Otherwise you’ll be leaving money on the table. Then make your move.” I was trying to put off the inevitable as long as I could. Besides, I was hungry.
After getting some food at the buffet we sat down at a table near the door watching the parade of celebrities come in. And what a parade it was! Sort of like the bar scene from Star Wars. Literally.
Among the first in the door were Steven Dubois, of course, with his husband Mitch. Mitch was his full-time assistant, money-handler, and enforcer at these Fan-Cons. Just like in Atlantic City, Dubois walked in the room smiling and glad-handing like he was running for office. I’ve got to give him credit. He recognized me and remembered my name after meeting me once before.
“Hey, Joey, good to see you again. Say hello to that scoundrel Jerry Pennington for me.”
I’ve never been a big TV watcher, so I didn’t recognize a lot of the so-called stars. I kept asking Karen to identify them. Eventually she started announcing them as they walked in. She sounded like the emcee at the Westminster dog show.
“That’s Ann Marie Davis from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Jeff Witherspoon from Flesh Gordon.”
“Flesh or Flash?”
“Flesh.” She looked at me like I was an idiot.
“Mary Ellen McEnroe from Star Trek: The Motion Picture.”
“Which one?”
“When you say ‘The Motion Picture,’ you always mean the first one.”
“Who’s the older woman over there?” I asked.
“Gillian Baker. She was a child actress of some kind.”
“Gillian Baker? Are you kidding? She’s the most famous person in the room. She played the little girl in that big horror movie from the seventies … you know the one I mean. I can’t remember the title.”
I looked at Gillian Baker. She must’ve been closing in on sixty. That movie came out before I was born. She was holding up pretty well. She had a nice rack on her for someone her age. Maybe she’d made a deal with the devil.
“That’s Kathleen Chase from Back to the Future,” said Karen.
Back to the Future? Hell, that movie is so old that even the future they were traveling to is now in the past. Michael J. Fox has Parkinson’s disease, for heaven’s sake.
Karen kept up her running commentary. I kept trying to remember which roles these actors had played in these films and television shows. But it was futile.
“Oh my God!” said Karen.
“What? What?”
“That’s Peter Stone from The Hunger Games. I forgot he was here. I’ve got to get his autograph.”
“Are you allowed to do that in the greenroom?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t. It’s now or never. Carpe Diem.”
Karen got up and left.
“Did she say something in Italian?” said Paulie.
“Latin. Carpe Diem.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means seize the day. Take action now or forever regret it.”
“She’s right. Time to make our move.”
“Shouldn’t we give it a few more minutes?” said Carlo.
They both looked at me like I was the leader of this mob. I had a strong feeling that it was now or never.
“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly,” I said. Macbeth, Act I, Scene Seven.
“What the fuck do you mean by that, asshole?” said Paulie.
“I mean I still don’t want any part of this. But if you’re going to do it you might as well do it now.”
It looked like Carlo and Paulie had rehearsed their next few moves. They drew their pistols and walked over to the security guard who was standing at the door a few feet away from us. Carlo hit the guard on the back of the head with the butt of his gun and he toppled like a tree in the forest. Paulie closed the door and locked it with the dead bolt. He rejoined Carlo who was relieving the security guard of his gun, nightstick, and handcuffs. Paulie put one handcuff on the guard’s left wrist and attached the other to a nearby radiator. The security guard was now neutralized—even if he managed to regain consciousness, which looked unlikely. The locked door would hold off our rescuers for a while. Carlo held his gun in the air and fired two shots into the ceiling.
“This is a stickup. Do exactly what we say and nobody will get hurt.”
At that point, the assembled group of has-been actors in the room did something strange:
They did nothing at all.
Most of the actors didn’t even look up from their meals. Many of them kept talking. (Presumably about themselves.)
Some of them glanced at Paulie and his smoking gun with a bemused expression on their faces, still chewing their food. They were curious about what was happening but not in the least concerned about it.
I realized these actors had spent so much time on movie sets, so much time rehearsing lines and going to auditions, so many hours practicing stage fighting and shooting guns with blank cartridges that they had a hard time distinguishing fantasy from reality. The fact that some guy stood up and fired a pistol twice into the ceiling struck them as no more unusual than someone clinking their wineglass at a wedding to announce a toast.
So Paulie fired two more shots into the ceiling.
Still no reaction.
He fired one into the window, which shattered into a million pieces. Now—finally!—someone screamed. But it wasn’t one of the actors. They were still blasé about the whole thing. It was one of the assistants. It might have been Karen. The gunshots interrupting her in the middle of asking Peter Stone for an autograph may have pissed her off.
“I’m not fucking kidding,” Paulie yelled. “This ain’t no act. This ain’t no show. This is a real stickup.”
Paulie had picked up on the same aura of disbelief that I had. He realized his first task would be to convince this group of fantasy addicts this was a bona fide robbery. “I want everyone to get up from your table and line up against that wall over there.”
Now a different mood began to prevail in the room. Most actors were accustomed to being herded around like cattle. They were used to being told, “Move over there. No, there. Stand there for seven hours. Now move over here. Okay, you’re done for the day. We’ve decided we don’t need you for this shot after all.”
They did it, and they did it well. But they always did it with a certain attitude, as if they were mumbling to themselves, “Can you believe I once played Hamlet off-Broadway and now I’m reduced to getting moved around like a sheep in a pen?”
For all their resistance, reluctance, and disbelief, the group of seventy-five actors and their assistants lined up against the back wall in less than a minute.
I was still sitting at my table watching them.
“You, too, asshole,” said Carlo. “What makes you think you’re special? Don’t think you can get out of this just because you played a gangster on TV.”
I realized Carlo was doing me a favor. By lumping me in with everyone else, he was giving me an alibi. Afterward, I could say I had no idea Carlo and Paulie had planned this. I could tell the police I thought they were actors. I might get out of this thing scot-free after all.
I smiled. Then I realized the smile might give me away. So I turned the smile around into a frown. Acting! I joined the other actors against the wall and waited for Paulie and Carlo to give their next command. Meanwhile, I tried to act scared.
“I want each of you to put your cash in front of you,” said Carlo. “Put your wallet or purse down in front of you. Empty all the cash out of your pockets. Your pants pockets. Your shirt pockets. If you’re carrying a cigar box or a pouch for cash, put that down in front of you, too. If I catch any of you trying to hold on to a penny, I’ll shoot you in the fucking face. Don’t think I won’t.”
We did what he said.
Paulie took a large plastic trash bag out of his pocket, shook it open, and began to pick up the haul. He turned back to Carlo. “Don’t you remember what the boss said?”
“What?”
“He said sometimes they stuff the cash in their underpants and bras. He said we should make ’em strip naked.”
I couldn’t tell if Paulie’s motivation was economic or prurient, but Carlo seemed to like the idea.
“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” said Carlo. “You heard what my partner said, ladies and gentlemen. Take off your clothes.”
There was great reluctance and grumbling. Carlo fired two more shots into the ceiling. Everyone started ripping off their clothes like a bunch of teenagers about to go skinny-dipping at the rock quarry. Me too.
Oh, my dear Lord, what a sorry sight we were. If there’s anything more pathetic than an aging actor, it’s an aging actor with no clothing. Although Gillian Baker’s breasts were nice, and she was—what?—fifty-five years old if she was a day. Some of the younger actors and actresses looked pretty good. Steven Dubois looked like he was seventeen instead of seventy!
I heard someone pounding on the door. The shots had attracted the attention of security. It wouldn’t be long before they broke the door down. But Paulie and Carlo remained calm and continued their work methodically.
Once again Paulie started to gather up the booty into his trash bag. Sure enough, Rosetti was right, there was a lot of extra cash stuck in underpants, panties, and bras. A few of the actors had old-fashioned money belts, like American tourists used to carry to Europe. They were jam-packed with bills. Before long Paulie’s trash bag was bulging with cash, plus some jewelry and watches, too. I guessed it was about a hundred-thousand-dollars worth altogether. I wondered if it would disappoint Rosetti. He expected more than this. I remembered the figure of a million dollars bandied about at our dinner in Atlantic City. We had been talking about one of the big Fan-Cons with stars like William Shatner and Patrick Stewart signing autographs. This was a little bush-league convention in the Midwest. I hoped Rosetti wouldn’t blame me for the shortfall.
“Throw their clothes out the window,” said Carlo. “That’ll slow them down a bit.”
Paulie gathered up all the clothing and tossed it out the shattered window.
“How do we get out?” said Paulie.
“We’ll use the window, too,” said Carlo. “We’re on the ground floor.”
“Pete is waiting for us in the driveway of the hotel.”
“So we’ll walk around to the front. Would it kill you to walk a little?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Okay, listen up, everybody,” said Carlo. “Stand there and be quiet. Sit down if you want. Don’t try to follow us or we’ll shoot you. I’m not kidding. If you try to crawl through that broken window naked, some of you are going to get your balls sliced off.”
I winced.
“Before long, they’ll break the door down and save you. You’ve got nothing to worry about. Stay calm, and everything will turn out fine. Thanks for your cooperation.”
“Thanks for your money, too,” said Paulie with a laugh.
They both chuckled and started to walk toward the broken window.