“Then I’m comin’ along for the ride.” I smiled. He didn’t.
“No.”
“Listen, MacClough. I could waste some more time reasoning with you, but I’m tired and my brain’s tired of being twisted in knots,” I walked right up in his face. A very red flag thing to do to someone from Brooklyn. “The bottom line here is if I don’t get in, you don’t get in.”
“Back off,” he warned.
“I’m gonna march up to the goombah’s front gate and announce very loudly your intentions. I figure someone might be interested. So you got an easy choice. Take me or shoot me.”
The ex-detective rubbed a pensive hand along his chin and screwed his face up with thought. “Okay, ya crazy fuckin’ Jew,” he said reaching one hand behind his back and reintroduced his.38,” have it your way.” Johnny held the gun’s stub nose so close to my eyes, I could practically see its rifling. He smiled. I didn’t.
“You’re not gonna shoot me,” I scoffed with all the self-assurance of blind tightrope walker wearing spiked heels. “One shot and those boys on the hill will be down here like Italian lightening.”
He put the gun down, laughing: “I surrender. I surrender. You wanna get killed, fine. Better they do it than me.
“My, what a comforting thought.”
“Here’s the deal,” MacClough instructed. “They got good security up there, but even the best security gets lazy. No one’s tried to whack a Gandolfo in years. The biggest threat those greaseballs usually face is from some smart-ass fed dressed up like a caterer tryin’ to plant a bug in the don’s kitchen. Laziness breeds predictability.”
“Shift changes.”
“For a second-rate writer and a third-rate insurance man, you surprise me,” was his backhanded compliment. “These guys must eat prune and oat bran pasta they’re so fuckin’ regular.” He looked at his watch. “Do you still carry that extra gas can in your bug?”
“Yeah,” I was having a wave of second thoughts.
“Good. This is what I want you to do. In fifteen minutes. .”
The plan made sense if you liked stunt work and exploding Volkswagens. I’d never done any stunt work and since it was my Volkswagen scheduled to go up in flames, you could understand my trepidation. I was supposed to pull my old bug up to the front gate during the changing of the guard, come staggering away from the car, count to five and run like hell back down the hill. It was MacClough’s responsibility to hit the extra gas can shoved into the VW’s engine compartment. After I’d set the world’s record for the downhill run and my car went boom, Johnny and I would rendezvous at the soft spot in the perimeter security. From there, I was just supposed to shut up and follow.
“How’d you find out about the hole in their defense?” I asked, regressing to football terminology.
“I got a friend on the job that had the Gandolfo surveillance detail for five years. He knows the grounds better than the fuckin’ landscapers.”
“Do we have to blow up my car?”
“If ya wanna play, ya gotta pay,” Johnny offered up like a bad Lotto commercial. He checked his watch again. “Okay, let’s get goin’. It’ll take a minute to get that gas can wedged in there.”
“See ya.”
We shook hands and I turned for the hole in the hedges. I’d put about two yards between us when snow at my back crunched beneath someone else’s feet. There was a silent eternity in the instant between those footsteps and the slamming collapse of my skull. After the long journey to earth in that shadow moment between unconsciousness and light, the snow felt strangely warm against my cheek. Johnny knelt down next to me, checked my eyes and the sore spot where his gun butt landed. I could see his lips were moving, but the snapping of flames searing my brain drowned out MacClough’s words. I’d like to think he was telling me I’d live and that a concussion was worth it if it meant I could keep my Volkswagen. He was more likely calling me a guillible prick. And if he wasn’t, he should have. I didn’t try to speak and when I saw johnny disappear behind some trees, I closed my eyes and wandered into the moonless night of dreams.
Dead Sea Scrolls
I opened my stubborn eyes. The calico cat had returned and was sniffing at my chin. When she noticed my eyes flicker, she skittered back a bit and decided to watch the show from a safe distance. I knew there would be pain, but when I lifted off the snow an inch or two, I convulsed slightly. That scared me and like an overmatched pug I tried convincing myself to stay down for the count. I didn’t listen.
I sat back on my knees without retching or convulsing, but I did have the shakes real bad. It was still nighttime and, by the look of the moon, not too much time had elapsed since MacClough had given me the pill. I had neglected to wear a watch. Writers don’t need watches. I could make out the shape of my VW thru the bushes. It wasn’t the chariot of fire envisioned in Johnny’s diversionary plan. The only thing diverted had been me.
I pushed to stand and went cogwheel stiff with pain. I crashed, my face landing bull’s-eye in the snow. God, wasn’t this fun? I got back on my knees and washed my head with snow. I rinsed my mouth out with some and swallowed a bit. It tasted like the wind smelled; laced with sulphur and hydrocarbons and refinery fumes. But it was cold and wet and its flavor helped clear the cobwebs.
The cat moved closer. I put a mildly shaky hand down to pet her. She sniffed at my finger, rubbed her cheek against it and purred. I stood up and waited for the earthquake to subside before taking a step. And when the ground beneath my feet slowed from a rolling boil to a light simmer, I went on.
MacClough deceived me about turning my car into a Roman candle and had sapped me down. I was hoping that’s where the lies would end, because I was headed for that weak link in the security chain. I looked for my feline amigo, but she had split. Her delicate paws leaving a trail of flowers in the snow. I guess she had no stomach for my stupidity.
I picked up MacClough’s footprints almost immediately. The moonlight helped. There was no attempt on his part to cover the tracks-no branch brushing or doubling back-and they seemed to be headed in the direction the ex-detective had described. With each step I gained confidence that Johnny hadn’t lied about the soft spot in Fort Gandolfo, but with my rising confidence came rising doubts. I still had no plan, no idea of what to do when I arrived at the hole in the net. And the closer I got, the more I liked the plan with which I’d been deceived. There was something to be said for shutting up and following the leader.
The soft spot was no lie. About ten paces to my left stood the double-trunk tree which would be my bridge across the high stone wall topped in wrought iron fleurs-de-lis. Vlad the Impaler came immediately to mind. On the Gandolfo side of the wall, I could also see the kids’ treehouse John had mentioned as a landing zone. In Oregon, kids climb trees. In Brooklyn, we climbed wire fences and fire escapes. And I was no whiz with those. Now I was supposed to climb up the double-trunk tree, slither out onto an overhanging limb and jump onto the roof of the playhouse. Added to the fact that I would never be a threat to Tarzan or Sir Edmund Hillary, were the elements of snow, darkness, metal spears and my concussion. Somehow, it’d all seemed easier when MacClough had laid it out.
For what it’s worth, I actually whispered: “Geronimo!” It wasn’t worth much. I missed, skidding off the treehouse roof, tumbling through branches and landing on my left shoulder. I suppose the cushion of snow prevented me from breaking it. Shit, maybe it was broken, but I was too busy rolling around from the pain in my skull to give it much serious consideration.
After doing my second snow bath in the last fifteen minutes, my shoulder started to hurt badly. When I wind-milled my left arm a bit to try and relieve the distress, the shoulder down to my fingertips went numb. I wouldn’t be doing much tree climbing for awhile. I didn’t need a plan now, since I couldn’t get out the way I’d come in. I looked for the lights of the main house and headed in that direction. I was hoping to get there before being shot. And short of actually being killed, I prayed that no one would ask me to put my hands up.