I walked up behind the car and acted very interested in my clipboard while I took a basic inventory of what was known.
The back window of the Volvo SUV was covered in stickers. OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT.MY SON IS AN HONOR STUDENT AT CASTLE ROCK
ELEMENTARY.
MIAMI DOLPHINS. WE LOVE OUR COCKER! All innocuous enough, except that the window was caked with dirt and the stickers were pulled away from the window.
Inside the Volvo?
Nothing.
Not a scrap of paper.
Not a bottle of water.
Not a toy or a patch of fabric pulled up by the beloved Cocker.
I knelt down to tie my shoe and to see the underside of the carriage.
The SUV had a lattice of thin metal cable running in between all of the tires, in effect locking the car in place. If you tried to tow the car, you’d need a flatbed truck and special equipment-in short, you’d need to make a production of the event, which would provide the homeowner plenty of time to take note of the activity.
If you want to keep law enforcement from sending a battering ram into your garage, park an immobile 4,500-pound block of metal directly in front of the garage door.
Better yet, rig it with explosives. The Banshees did that, too. There was a bundle of C-4 between the two back tires. There was a bundle between the two front tires. There was also a bundle under both passenger doors.
The gases in C-4, when they explode, expand at over 26,000 feet per second. One pound of C-4 would be enough to blow up just the SUV and kill anyone within fifty feet.
There were at least twenty-five pounds of C-4 rigged to the SUV, or enough to take out the house, the truck and the rest of the cul-de-sac, leaving just a steaming crater behind.
The Banshees clearly understood the value of their property. If they’d put that much C-4 on the SUV, what was the inside of the house like?
I walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. I listened for an echo, but instead the bell was muted inside the house. Even from just outside the door, I could feel the electric energy from inside. There was a discernible hum coming from just beyond the portico where I stood. I waited, and when nothing happened after a few minutes I rang the bell again.
This time I heard the sound of someone walking. The shutters beside the door opened and I made out a man’s face. I waved at him and smiled. Just a guy on your porch to tell you that fungus is going to explode under your house. The shutters closed and a moment later that door cracked open.
“I don’t want whatever you’re selling,” the man behind the door said.
“Not selling. Just telling. We got a situation involving noxious-” Before I could finish, the door slammed shut.
I rang the bell again. It opened just a crack again. “You know how to take a hint?” the man said.
I couldn’t make out the man’s face, but his voice made him sound like maybe he was missing something crucial, like, say, initiative.
Drive.
Will.
It’s the sort of lazy drawl that creeps into common intonation when you tend to get high from your own supply.
I wedged my foot between the door and the frame and then pushed the door open a few feet. The man didn’t even say anything. He just looked at my foot as if it were an interesting bug or a colorful leaf. Surprisingly, the man didn’t look anything like a biker. He was maybe twenty-five, wore a plain white T-shirt and tan cargo shorts, and had on a pair of Crocs. He looked like he could be sitting in a lecture hall at UC Santa Cruz learning about the fascinating sex life of the tsetse fly.
“You gotta get out of here,” he said. “This is private property.”
“Sir,” I said, “look around. We’ve evacuated all of your neighbors. There’s a noxious fungus growing beneath your house. You don’t get outta here, you could die. We need you out of this house in ten minutes.”
The man cocked his head slightly, like he was figuring out an equation. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
I checked my clipboard, flipped over a couple of pages, and then took a pencil from behind my ear and started scratching out some notes.
If you want someone to fear you, take notes in their presence. If you want someone to fear you who might be naturally paranoid due to an overconsumption of marijuana, take notes and ignore the person completely.
“What are you writing there?” he said. I didn’t reply. “You can’t take notes about me. That’s against the law. You can’t just start falsely recording my words, man. You hear me?”
Nothing.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t even live here. I’m just watching the place for some friends. I can’t just leave the house. I promised them I’d stay until they got back. They got, uh, valuable stuff and things and stuff here. You know?”
I looked up from my clipboard. “I’m just noting your refusal to leave here on the form. When the fungus catches fire-did I mention the fungus is flammable? — the state isn’t responsible for any loss of life. So if you’re gonna stay, maybe let any pets out before they get cooked.”
The man stared at me, his mouth slightly agape. It was more than he could take in at one time, apparently.
“Nine minutes,” I said. “That’s how long you’ve got now.”
“Man, you don’t understand,” he said. “The people I work for will be pissed if I leave. Pissed like they will beat me to death pissed. These aren’t nice people.”
“Then why do you work for them?”
“Man, I ask myself that all the time. What I think? My dad was not a big part in my life. All I can figure.”
I looked over my shoulder. Sam stood behind the Volvo with his arms crossed. He was smiling, which told me he appreciated the fine workmanship that went into rigging that SUV up to take out most of the block.
“What’s your name, son?” I said.
He shifted from foot to foot, like maybe he had to pee but didn’t want to tell his dad. “Max Yennie,” he said. “Are you going to write that down?”
“No, Max,” I said.
“Good, I mean, because this shit here, man, it’s not permanent. It’s, like, my passion, but not my permanent passion. Does that make sense?”
“Eight minutes,” I said.
Max Yennie looked into the house and then back at me. “This fungus, it won’t blow up the house if I get out in eight minutes?”
“It won’t blow up if we are able to get underground and stop it, in seven and a half minutes now.”
“See, the thing is-” He started rambling on about the government and about legalization of drugs and about his dad, so I did the only thing I could to close this situation out in a timely fashion: I hit Max Yennie in the face. I grabbed him on the way down and brought him to the floor lightly so he wouldn’t blow out his knee. I punched Max in the chin, not hard enough to do any permanent damage but just enough to keep him out for long enough to get him away from the house.
I waved Sam up to the door.
“You perceive a clear and present danger here with Spicoli?” Sam asked.
“He wouldn’t stop talking long enough for me to convince him to get out,” I said. “Evasive action needed to be taken.”
“What are we gonna do with him? Your mom’s house is getting a little crowded.”
“Let’s drag him inside and tie him up. We’ll figure it out from there. Where’s Bruce?”
“They’re parked about two miles away,” Sam said. “I gotta tell you, Mikey, Fiona is slightly agitated.”
“How can you tell?”
“She texted me. She said she was slightly agitated. Apparently Bruce keeps asking her out for dinner. She’s thinking she might drive him off of a pier if things turn out adversely.”
“I thought she wanted to pick his brain,” I said. “She should be enjoying this quiet time with him.”
We gathered up Max Yennie and tied his hands behind his back with his own belt. It was made from hemp, so it had nice strength. We needed to get him out of the way so that when Bruce and Fiona “broke into” the house, he wouldn’t pose a problem. It would have been easier for me to run in and do the job myself, but in order for us to get Bruce aboard-really, to save him from himself-I needed to have him feel like he was the mastermind of a great crime. Having Fiona help him was just a bit of sugar; something he could hold on to in the future when he was working with suits on issues related to bank security.