CHAPTER 19

TOUGH SONOFABITCH

I DRESSED AND MADE my way to Prospect Park—peddling around and around, attempting my best Buddha consciousness, at work emptying my mind to be at one with the park remains, with little success.

The revelation of Shlomo Menkies’s book disquieted me. I hadn’t done much more than remove the shrink-wrap, scan it, and catalogue it. But I supposed I would have to read it and soon. At least, I’d ask Maggie for a summary and some salient passages. Ezekiel was correct. I would have to pay a visit to the Schmeltzerites, and to Menkies himself. This visit would be later in the day.

No surprise I couldn’t clear my head out there amidst the crumbling pavement and bare trees. I was laboring to organize all the noises in my head into one sensible unified theory while tooling around a circular road.

A dull-green, battered Volkswagen Beetle entered from Parkside Avenue in front of me, an old edition of that fabled automobile, circa 1975. The park had been shut off to vehicular traffic except for the occasional police patrol since the GD. Still, I paid scant attention as the driver and passengers sped up and went about their business as I went peddling about mine.

After a minute or so, the characteristic chug-chug-chug of a VW engine drew close behind me, horn blaring, demanding room to pass, I thought. I was already far enough to the right of the road to accommodate a moving van. The car sped up, honking as if I were a major intrusion. I maneuvered quickly off the road. It passed me. I stopped to ponder what had just happened, but it, too, stopped. Like a VW Beetle at an old circus, four exceedingly husky gentlemen exited the car.

They could have been quadruplets, all approximately the same height and weight, perhaps five foot eight; also five foot eight inches wide. They looked like animated squares that had sprouted human appendages, dressed in grey overcoats, grey pants, and black shoes. On their heads rested fedoras too small for them. All four hunkered down as they approached me.

I had enough lead time to get up a good head of steam—these hulks were not built for running. My plan had merit until the one on the left pulled a pistol from his overcoat that swam in his mitt. A man I might outrun. A bullet was another thing. I froze.

Waving toward the Volkswagen with the hand holding the pistol, he said, “Get inna car.”

“You want me to enter into that vehicle sitting over there?” I asked, trying to imagine how I’d fit in the same small space as these gentlemen.

“Get inna car,” he repeated, now aiming the gun toward my head. Reluctantly, I headed in that direction. Meanwhile, one or the other of these clones picked up my $2,500 bicycle like it was a Tinker Toy and tossed it into a ditch like trash at a picnic.

I wondered dimly if my renter’s insurance would cover the damage to the bike, should I ever find my way back to my rental unit to make a claim. For a nanosecond I reflected on my rational life, a thing growing more and more remote. I experienced a great longing for it. Less than an eon ago, I was an aging college professor of religions living the most normal life possible in an abnormal world, underpaid but employed. Now I feared I had become an aging former professor about to meet his Maker.

Another one of these fellows opened the passenger door, flipped up the front seat and gestured toward the back. I debated for a moment whether a bullet here and now might not be preferable to the suffering I seemed destined for later. Awkwardly, I squeezed myself in.

When one of those fellows sat to my left and the one with the gun sat to my right, a powerful claustrophobic panic seized hold of me. I began screaming. “Let me out of here! Let me the fuck out of here!” The man to my right struck me on the head with the gun, only to realize that bike helmets afford sufficient protection against such efforts. The thwarted blow only exacerbated my anxieties.

He leaned into me. Jamming the pistol into my lower ribs, he said, “Shut da fuck up or you get da bullet now.”

The car exited the park at Ocean Avenue. I closed my eyes and focused on my breath, inhaling and exhaling slowly, reviewing the words to “Desolation Row.”

All these people that you mention

Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame

I had to rearrange their faces

And give them all another name

Right now I can’t read too good

Don’t send me no more letters no

Not unless you mail them

From Desolation Row

My heartbeat slowed. The enigmatic lyrics acted like a mantra, like worry beads; the chanting calmed me. I feared we were headed toward a moving body of water to be fitted for cement overshoes or whatever gangsters did these days before sending their enemies to swim with the trash and the fishes. Yet my panic decreased. Why was this happening? Whom did these guys work for? At the moment, I saw it didn’t matter. We’re all doomed to death, but I now knew the date and approximate time of mine. Would Maggie miss me? Or would she find another human to harangue? Could I escape this situation? A plan. I need a plan.

***

After a few minutes on the road, the car stopped. Too short a ride to get to water.

“Out of da car,” my armed traveling companion said as the man up front opened the passenger side door and gave me space to get out. I exited after the gunman, who stood by the car, pistol in hand. He reached into a pocket and withdrew a suppressor, which he proceeded to attach to the pistol.

There was little dignity to be had being murdered midday on an empty Brooklyn street. I decided to execute my plan, such as it was. I removed my helmet.

“What do you want?” I said, taking a step toward him.

“I got a job to do,” he said.

Hard times, I thought.

“Who sent you?” I asked, coming closer.

“None a your fucking business,” he said.

Silencer now attached, he unhurriedly raised his gun toward me. I had nothing to lose, I figured. I bent down slightly and screamed so loud they heard it in Staten Island. I hoped this would distract him. He paused for a moment. I pulled the arm holding the helmet back and swung forward with all the force I could muster. The helmet smashed into the guy’s face. Blood poured from his nose. He groaned, shook his head like a dog, and looked uncertain what to do. I smacked him again with the helmet, amazed at my good luck. He stepped back and dropped the gun as he reached for his head with both arms. I bent and grabbed the gun and aimed it toward him and the guy standing behind him.

He’d brought a gun to a helmet fight.

“Get in the car,” I said.

It looked to me like the other box boy was going for a gun in his pocket. Without thinking very much, I fired the pistol in the general direction of the car. It made a hissing sound as the bullet flew out. The bullet struck the front of the car with a crunch.

“Hands where I can see them,” I said, in a reasonable imitation of most every Western and cop film ever made. To my surprise, both men raised their hands, and neither of the other men attempted to come out of the car.

“I don’t know who sent you,” I said. “But surely it’s not worth your life trying to get me now. I can shoot at least one of you before you get me.” To show I meant business, I fired again. This time the bullet hit the passenger door.

Both pursuers cautiously returned to the car, eyes glued on me the entire time. I steadily kept the pistol aimed their way, uncertain I could hit a moving human target. But they didn’t know that.

I waited until they’d driven out of sight, and then I looked at the gun. A .38 as far as I could tell. I unscrewed the silencer and tossed it into the recycle side of a nearby trashcan. The gun I put in a pocket.

In a short time in an otherwise excessively peaceful life, I’d employed the services of a Zap Lazar pistol and a .38 and had staved off two attacks while killing a man.

One tough sonofabitch.

“Nobody, but nobody fucks with Nick Bones,” I said aloud, to the sky.