I crept to the limo, slipped inside and pulled the door closed behind me, intentionally leaving a narrow gap between it and the frame. I ran my fingers along the seat’s edge, eventually finding the raised corner Gino had described. I was able to pull it back with some difficulty, exposing the springs underneath. The seat’s foam stuffing was partially dry rotted, but I removed a rectangular hunk from the cavity, and inch by inch inserted the bomb in its place. I was being a lot rougher with it than I should’ve been. One red and one black wire were taped to its side with electrician's tape, and twice they got hung up on the spring's coils. As I stuffed the remaining foam back into place I pondered whether a torn wire caused deactivation or instant detonation. Then a loud clanging cut through the silence sending a hot wave of shock through my body. It sounded like a siren or a security alarm, but I realized it was one of those auxiliary phone speakers used in loud factories and workshops. When I looked up Gino was still on the stairs, but his expression wasn't comforting. A grinning face turned the corner behind him, and another followed.
I hastily pulled the cover back over the seat, and though the garage was cold I was sweating ferociously. One clumsy move and they'd see me. Gino temporarily blocked their descent, but the party was over sooner than expected, and they were coming down. I crouched as low as I could and watched Gino descend the stairs with the mechanics right him. I'd done what I came to do, but if they came my way it was all over.
While Gino was distracting them with small talk at the bottom of the stairs I crawled out and lay on the floor behind the Cadillac. From my vantage point I could see all six feet, and now they were moving toward me. With the last fraction of a second I could spare I put on the thick reading glasses, then pressed myself up.
“Candy! Get the fuck down here, now!” I yelled.
Three heads appeared from behind the Cadillac's stretched trunk.
“Who the fuck are you?” asked Charlie. His name was embroidered on the breast of his blue shop shirt. Greasy finger swipes framed his sagging stomach.
“Who the fuck am I? Who the fuck are you?” I asked. “Where’s Candy?”
“What the hell are you talking about? Who the hell’s Candy? How'd you get in here?”
“Candy’s my fiancé. I saw her come in so cut the shit.”
“Your fiancé?” Gino asked.
“Did I stutter?”
“Is she the redhead?” he asked.
“There’s no fucking redhead up there,” I said. “Candy’s the brunette.”
During the commotion the dispatcher had appeared at the top of the stairs without me noticing. “What the hell's going on?” he asked.
“I must have left the door unlocked when I let the girls in,” Gino said. “This lunatic snuck in. He says one of the girls is his fiancé.”
“The brunette’s is my fiancé. Her name is Candy. Bring her out here and she'll tell you.”
He walked back inside, and when he returned the brunette was with him. “You know this guy?” he asked. “He says your name is Candy and that you’re his fiancé.”
“My name isn't Candy, and does he look like someone I'd marry?” she said. “I've never seen him before. Look at those glasses. He's fucking retarded.”
“Oh Jesus,” I said. “If that’s the way you want to play it baby, then I'll be back with my lawyer in an hour. If I were you clowns I’d go home and pack a bag, because it’s going to be a long trial.” I figured the more incoherent ramblings I could throw at them the better off I'd be. It could only strengthen the act. I inched toward the door as nonchalantly as possible. Their flustered minds lagged, and nobody made a move to block my path, but when I tugged on the steel door but it was stuck tight.
“Let me out pretty boy,” I said waving a crazy finger at Gino. “I'm late for my meeting with the district attorney.”
He shrugged and looked at the dispatcher for guidance.
“Let him out,” he said.
I kept up the act until I was well away from the door and it slammed home behind me. I rummaged for a cigarette, regaining my composure just long enough to light it, then walked to the corner, took off the hat, blazer and glasses and dropped them into an old trash can. Then I keeled over and dry-heaved. Bitter bile stung my throat, and I noticed it was nearly dark.
The garage was in an industrial wasteland, and when I turned the corner a vacant lot filled with dead washing machines and cars was spread out to my left. The chain-link fence was strewn with ugly debris that the wind had blown in, and a huge pile of ancient rebar lay stacked on a heap of dirt. I walked by, my eyes dead ahead, thinking about how I needed to get home and call La Lena. As I passed the rebar I sensed something behind me, like a squirrel scurrying over dead leaves. My mind flashed to the last time someone had gotten the drop on me. Instinctively my torso twisted like a stressed coil, sending a looping right hook through the cool air. It caught something hard and course, but it was a glancing blow. My knuckles stung.
The blow that I never saw coming caught me at the base of my skull where my head and neck met. My throat jolted forward sucking the air from my lungs, and I collapsed onto the frigid concrete.
53
WHEN GINO REMEMBERED he'd be riding in the limo between the shop and the mayor’s office his face turned the color of ash. He eased himself into the passenger seat and tried to close the door behind him, but he did it so timidly that it didn't latch. It took him three more tries to get it right. He tensed as the driver slid the key into the ignition, fearing the spark would trigger the bomb just a few feet behind him. It reminded him of a story he’d read in high school about a dead man's heart beating under floor boards in a dilapidated house, driving an already unhinged man totally bat-shit insane. The Tell-Tale Heart. Edgar Allan Poe. A deranged fuck. He felt the bomb beating just like that heart. His hands gripped his thighs like talons.
On the short drive Gino’s mind drifted to the near miss they'd just had. He had to give it to Dutch. The guy could think on his feet. That had been the hard part. Now all he had to do was get the night off. He wasn't looking forward to it.
His plan was extreme because security personnel were forbidden to call in sick on the day of a big event. The first thing he needed was a full stomach. He'd already taken care of that. The night before he'd worked out to the point of collapse and eaten an intentionally light dinner. That morning he'd awakened with a lion-size hunger. For breakfast he devoured two 7-Eleven chili dogs with onions, mustard and sauerkraut, a bag of Andy Capp fries, a Dr. Pepper, and a Cadbury egg. Lunch was an Italian sausage sub dripping with marinara and piled high with fried onions and peppers, and an oily, garlic-laden Caesar salad.
At quarter to five the security supervisor held a pre-event meeting in the third floor conference room. The job wasn't a big deal. They'd done dozens like it. What made it different was that Stein's popularity had plummeted, and it wasn't just that people had lost interest or found a candidate more to their liking, they were downright pissed off at the man. Angry people were unpredictable. All it took was one lone nut to turn an ordinary event into a disaster. That was the bad news. The good news was that the event scheduled for that evening couldn't possibly have been more different than the one at the union hall.
When the meeting was over Gino took the stairs to the parking garage and checked his watch. It was 5:12, and the mayor would be down any minute. He went into the bathroom by the guard shack, entered the stall and latched the door. Before reaching into his pocket for the warm sandwich baggie that’d been there all morning he took a cleansing breath. When he pulled it open and stuck his middle and index fingers into the soft, chunky mass of dog shit inside he gagged, but nothing solid came up. Outside he heard voices and idling cars. Show time.
He flushed the baggie and wiped his fingers lightly with a few squares of toilet paper before exiting the bathroom and making his way toward the waiting motorcade. When he was 20 yards away he lifted the soiled fingers to his nose. An eruption of partially digested food bits launche
d from his gaping mouth and splashed onto the concrete. Just to be sure he fell onto his hands and knees dramatically and repeated the process with identical results.
“Go see a fucking doctor,” someone with an authoritative voice said.
The smell was overwhelming and a glob of vomit dangled from his nose like a Christmas tree ornament in a low-budget horror flick, but he stayed on the ground until everyone was gone. Then things got eerily quiet. He realized how ridiculous he must look. He laughed hysterically.
54
GINO PULLED TO THE exit side of the parking garage guard shack and came to a complete stop before the withdrawal-stricken attendant poked his sweaty head out the tight window and asked to bum a smoke. His cadaverous black eyes and sunken cheeks pegged him for the stone-cold junkie he was. Taking mercy, Gino handed him the ten cigarettes left in the pack, figuring the guy deserved kudos just for showing up to work in his condition. He beamed like he'd just scored a baggie of Golden Triangle black tar, saluted feebly, and waved him through.
At the stop sign at the end of the ramp Gino unwrapped a stick of chewing gum. He placed it in his mouth, intentionally using the same fingers he'd stuck in dog shit not 20 minutes before. He held them motionless, just out from his lips so his sensitive nose would have no choice but to ingest the distinctly unpleasant odor that had bonded to his skin.
The only two women he’d ever loved were dead and buried, and both had taken his unborn child with them. He’d mourned Hoa Dep’s death for 20 years. After Veronica’s death he'd grieved hard and come dangerously close to going off the edge into the abyss. Then one morning he'd undergone a metamorphosis he couldn't explain. The emptiness and crushing sorrow that had characterized his existence had vanished. His whole being had changed down at the molecular level. He was more deliberate and confident than he’d ever been. It was the kind of confidence that can only come from having nothing left to lose. No sacrifice left to make. It was a sick and mysterious twist of fate, but it felt great.
BEFORE HE LEFT HOME that evening he double-checked that he had everything he needed. At the curb he kneeled and rubbed his license plate with a thin coat of Vaseline, then flung a few handfuls of dusty sand against it. The result was a natural looking obfuscation that would make it difficult for anyone to use the numbers and letters to identify him later.
After the 20 minute drive he parked in a shadowy void under an inoperable light on the far side of the K-Mart's massive lot. He killed the engine and sat, waiting for a delivery truck to pass as it headed to the loading dock behind the building. A few yards away a thin strip of grass and weeds led to the thick forest that bordered the property to the north and east. Tickling beads of perspiration ran down his torso. He slipped on his stocking cap, grabbed the duffle bag from the passenger seat and gave the lot a thorough 360 before opening the door and making his way into the woods. His eyes adjusted slowly to the near absolute darkness under the thick canopy. Unidentifiable chirps, hums and snaps zipped around him as he walked. Periodically he stopped and stood motionless, listening and watching, but when he did the sounds ceased too. He wondered if they were just echoes of his own clumsy footsteps.
He’d nearly finished his trek when his foot caught an elevated root, sending him over onto the ground hard and fast. His right wrist and shoulder broke the fall, but they were both hurt badly. He righted himself, stumbled the last few yards and took his position behind a fallen tree that ran parallel to the club's drive. The lights on the building a little more than 100 yards away penetrated the foliage, but when he checked his watch he realized he’d have to wait for at least another hour. When he lay on the cool, muddy ground moisture seeped through his clothes making his chest and legs itchy and numb.
He took out the old pair of binoculars his father had taken from a dead Nazi in Italy and surveyed the area. A local news van was parked at the opposite corner of the horseshoe drive. Retractable floodlights on telescoping booms sprouted from its roof.
The City Club was an exclusive enclave where the city's privileged and connected escaped the grime and chaos of everyday life. The club's entrance and exit were at either end of a long, one-way horseshoe drive. Gino was positioned near the end, between the clubhouse and exit gate. He'd worked the same event the year before, so he knew exactly how the evening would play out. First schmoozing, next dinner, then a few canned words by the mayor, followed by an exit so full of pomp it'd make the royal family uncomfortable. Dutch had been worried about the mayor's wife or daughter being in the limo and thwarting their plans. That's why the event at The City Club was so perfect. It was men only, and had been since the beginning of time.
THE MAYOR OF BALTIMORE Stanley Steinman was in the homestretch. The crowd loved his speech, especially the part about the sanctity of tradition. He knew they would. After all, the more things stayed the same the richer they all got. What he hadn't been so sure about was their reaction to what came next. The bits about breaking barriers and embracing change. They were admirable pursuits too, he said, and after a tense moment he'd gotten the response he'd hoped for. Then, with a dramatic wave of his hand he introduced his wife and daughter. They entered from left of the podium, the only two females in the packed house. Hand in hand they strolled to him. Stanley Steinman. The mayor. The husband. The daddy. It'd been a huge risk, but with things going the way they were he had nothing to lose. As far as he knew, he'd been the first mayor in history to break tradition the way he had.
Gino knew the bluebloods would head for the exits a little after nine. His was making lazy sweeps with the binoculars when the double doors opened and two beefeaters emerged. They propped each door open and stationed themselves protectively at each side. The club members were lined up on both sides of the hall between the entrance and dining room. They'd send the mayor off with counterfeit smiles and dainty claps as he made his way toward the entrance shaking hands with the elite of the elite.
Even with the binoculars Gino was only able to see well enough to make out blurry forms of the men lined up in their tuxes like ridiculous overgrown penguins. He knew it wouldn't have mattered to them if Augusto Pinochet was the mayor. City Club men didn't throw fruit or ask public officials what they’d done with their pensions like the union rabble had. City Club men had financial advisors with offices in Zurich and San Francisco.
Gino continued to scan, eventually settling on the right half of Stein's body, the other half of which was obscured behind the opposite door-jam. He was on the far side of the hall pumping hands with a stiff clubman, but as he moved to the last man in line he became fully visible. As the mayor finally turned toward the exit Gino was rocked by a Charlie-horse of epic proportions. His copious vomits that afternoon had depleted his body of essential liquids, and now his starved muscles were rebelling. He whipped his left hand around to massage it, dropping the binoculars in the process. He reached down and retrieved them, but they'd landed in a mud puddle in front of the log. He feverishly rubbed the lenses with his sleeve, but each wipe left an impossibly opaque smear. He squinted and willed his eyes to adjust, to rise to the occasion, but they flatly refused. He was flying blind.
Gino couldn’t see that Lois and little Megan were with the mayor, and that they were all being escorted to the idling limo. When he reached for the detonator in the bag next to him his vision faded, and he saw two elegant forms floating toward him hand in hand. Hoa Dep and Veronica. The two most beautiful women in the world. He remembered the first time he’d made love to each of them. It was surreal and he hoped it would never end, but as the limo departed its headlights moved toward him.
He grasped the detonator with a death-grip and ducked down to avoid being flashed.
55
WHEN I CAME TO I WAS in an unfamiliar place. Average Joe's living room, Anywhere, USA. It was a habit I needed to break. This one was nicer than the last though. I was laid out on a coarse, olive sofa, and to my right threadbare peach curtains admitted a dim trickle of light. The television was on in the corner and Bob Barker w
atched as a plump, overly-giddy housewife from Podunk, Kansas spun a big wheel with lots of flashy numbers.
“Come on big money!” she said.
“You're Dutch, ain't ya?” the black man sitting on the coffee table asked.
“Ya. I'm Dutch.”
“Thank God I didn't kill ya,” he said. There was genuine relief in his voice.
Everything above my shoulders throbbed. I wondered how many people were knocked unconscious and abducted more than once in their lives. It couldn't have been very many. That made me a new member of an exclusive club.
“Sit up man,” he said. “I'll get you some Aspirin and a cold beer.”
He was gone before I had the chance to tell him I wasn't in the mood for a beer, cold or otherwise. When back, he placed his hand behind my neck and lifted roughly. I opened wide like a baby barn owl awaiting its regurgitated mouse bits, and he dropped the Aspirin straight down my throat. I choked, but instead of giving me a moment to recover he poured half the can of beer into my mouth. The beer pushed the pills down but I coughed, blowing a plume of foam up and over my face. He wiped it off with his shirt sleeve.
“You Florence Nightingale?” I asked.
“I'm Curtis man. I'm real sorry. Time to get up. I'll drive you home.”
Other than me telling him where and when to turn we didn't speak. When we pulled up in front of my place he got out and walked around to the passenger door. He opened it, put his hands in my armpits and jerked me out.
“Here man, this is for you.” He thrust a brown paper bag my way. Inside were two big-ass cans of Colt 45 malt-liquor. Made me think fondly of Billy Dee Williams. Mr. Slick.
“Man, you gonna be alright on your own from here?” he asked.
Shakedown on Hate St Page 18
