Plan B: A Novel

by Jonathan Tropper

  Alison wiped her eyes and lifted her glass. “Plan B,” she said. We downed our drinks.

  “I’m reminded of a joke,” Chuck said. “What’s the difference between friends and good friends?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “A friend will help you move. A good friend will help you move bodies.”

  I once kissed Alison. Or she kissed me, I’m not sure. Some kissing took place though, in the Village East Cinema in our junior year. We’d gone together to see the director’s cut of Blade Runner, which always seemed to be showing somewhere in the Village. It was something of an annual tradition for us since we had a longstanding argument over whether Harrison Ford’s character was actually a Replicant or not. Alison said yes, I said no. We sat shoulder to shoulder, leaning on each other in a friendly manner as we watched Rutger Hauer beat the crap out of Harrison Ford in the not too distant future, and all of a sudden we were kissing, not long deep kisses but short, gentle, experimental ones. Upper lip, lower lip, open mouth, closed mouth, chin, nose. It felt good, but a little too unreal to get me going. It was like kissing through plastic. After a while the kisses tapered off and we were left forehead to forehead, looking at each other sheepishly. Alison finally whispered, “It was worth a try.”

  I smiled and kissed her cheekbone. “It would have been a nice way out, huh?”

  She closed her eyes. “Yes.” It was the first time either of us had expressed any frustration about our respective situations with Lindsey and Jack. Jack was dating some model/graphic artist from FIT and Lindsey was dating Boris, the Magician, and Alison and I were trading worthless kisses in an empty movie theater.

  We turned back to the screen. Rutger Hauer was now breaking Harrison Ford’s fingers. “Why do you think we take it?” she asked without looking away.

  “You can’t pick who you fall for,” I said.

  “That’s lame,” she said. “We’re intelligent people. We should be able to see that something’s not happening and move on. Why can’t we do that?”

  “Because we’re artless romantics.”

  “Or blind optimists.”

  I thought about that for a few seconds and didn’t come to any new conclusions.

  “If I could just believe that he really didn’t love me,” Alison said haltingly. “If I could just make myself believe that, I think I could move on.”

  “But he does,” I said.

  “I know,” she said. “And there’s the rub. It’s funny really. The great tragedy isn’t that Jack doesn’t love me. It’s that he does.” She was quiet for a moment. “What about you and Lindsey?”

  “What about us?”

  “I don’t know. It’s kind of the same thing, isn’t it?”

  “Not really,” I lied. “I like the way we are.”

  “Oh,” she said with attitude. “You do.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Oh please! You just kissed me more than you’ve ever kissed her. You’re going to tell me that doesn’t bother you?”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re not a bad kisser.”

  “Stop being evasive,” Alison said, giving my wrist a squeeze.

  “What do you mean? You brought up the kissing.”

  She looked at me for a minute and then smiled. “You’re even evasive about being evasive,” she said. “You’ve got it bad.”

  “I don’t know,” I relented. “I guess we’re just being penalized for being such invaluable friends. There are worse things.”

  “If you really believe that, you’re a better person than me.” She sighed and leaned her head on my shoulder. I patted her leg and we watched the movie. A battered Harrison Ford was running and limping through a dim alley in the rain. I said, “It’s always raining in the future.”

  MESSAGE

  For: Mr. George Bernard.

  From: Dr. Samuel Richter, Mt. Sinai Hospital

  Date: October 4, 1998

  Please call at once regarding instructions for emergency care of Alison Scholling.

  Jack always used one of three aliases when he checked into hotels. We got it right on the second try and left the message. It was a jerky thing to do, but Alison insisted. He returned the call one hour later, to a number that actually rang at the desk of a receptionist at Mt. Sinai with whom Chuck was friendly despite his having dated her briefly. The call was routed to Dr. Samuel Richter, actually a candy striper who read from a script Chuck had meticulously prepared. Dr. Richter informed Jack that Ms. Scholling had been in a major car accident, sustaining head trauma as well as various internal injuries that he listed in jargon calculated to simultaneously confuse the layman and scare the shit out of him. Jack’s name, he was told, was listed in her wallet along with her family, who had yet to be reached, since they were vacationing overseas. We were gambling that Jack would be too worried to wonder how the hospital knew to reach him at the Plaza.

  As Alison had predicted, Chuck’s beeper went off less than a minute later. It was sitting on a desk between the two of us when it began vibrating in an electronic jitterbug across the desk’s scratched surface. Chuck caught it as it went over the edge, looked at the readout and said, “It’s him.” He put it back on the desk and we waited sixty seconds until the beeper went off again. We were sitting in an unused office that Chuck said the interns used as a smoking room.

  “Sounds like an emergency,” I said, as Chuck pressed a button to stop the vibrating. We weren’t going to answer the page right away. We wanted Jack to be as agitated as possible, and Chuck knew from experience that ignoring the beeper would do the trick. A minute later the beeper went off again. This time Chuck picked up the phone and dialed the number. When he got the Plaza’s front desk he read off the room number on his beeper and Jack picked up on the first ring. I leaned in to better hear Jack’s end of the conversation.

  “Hello,” Chuck said lazily. “Did somebody there page me?”

  “It’s Jack, Chuck,” Jack screamed into the phone, prompting Chuck to jerk the receiver away from his ear. “Did you hear about Alison?”

  “What about her?” Chuck asked.

  “She’s been in an accident,” Jack said. “Shit, Chuck, she’s in your hospital.”

  “What happened?” Chuck asked, finally putting a trace of concern in his voice.

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “A car crash or something. I’m coming over there now.”

  “Hold on a second, Jack,” Chuck said. “Just calm down and tell me everything. How do you know she was admitted?”

  “I got a call,” Jack said impatiently. “Some Dr. Richter guy left me a message.”

  “Sam Richter?” Chuck asked. “From emergency?”

  “Yes!” Jack said. “Samuel Richter.”

  “Shit. The guy’s practically retired already. I’d better get down there.”

  “I’m coming now,” Jack said.

  “Hold on, Jack,” Chuck said. “You can’t just run into an emergency room here. They won’t let you in. And besides, you’re too easily recognized. You’ll cause a commotion. Just stay there and let me check it out. I’ll call you.”

  “No way,” Jack said. “I’m coming over there now.”

  “Okay, okay,” Chuck said, pretending to think about it. “But let’s do it this way. Come in at the Ninety-eighth Street entrance, and take the elevator up to the eighth floor. My office is 812. Meet me there, and I’ll take you to see her. By the time you get here, I should have more information.”

  “Okay,” Jack said. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Fine. Two other things, Jack.”

  “Yes,” Jack said impatiently.

  “First, wear some sort of disguise, okay? We don’t want to cause a scene down there.”

  “Got it. What else?”

  Chuck took a deep breath. This was the part on which everything else depended. “Come alone. I don’t think I have enough clout to get your entourage past the triage nurse.”

  “I’m on my way,” Jack said, and h
ung up.

  “He’s on his way,” Chuck said, flashing me a nervous grin. We were like two kids making a prank phone call.

  “Terrific,” I said without much enthusiasm.

  Chuck reached into his desk and pulled out a small leather case that looked like a shaving kit. He pulled out a nasty looking syringe and a pear-shaped vial. Yanking the red plastic shield off the needle with his teeth, he jabbed it into the top of the vial and pulled back on the plunger, carefully watching as the liquid filled the syringe. When the syringe was three quarters of the way full, he pulled the needle out of the vial, pressed lightly on the plunger to squirt out a little liquid, and then replaced the red needle shield with his teeth in one smooth motion. Then, holding the syringe up in front of him, he flicked it twice with his finger, peering intently into the liquid.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Checking for air bubbles,” he said, replacing the syringe in the leather bag.

  “What is that?”

  “Thorazine. Should take about five minutes.”

  “Couldn’t you use anything faster?”

  “Nothing except a blunt object to the head.”

  “What are we going to do with him for five minutes?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. You have any good jokes?” He reached into another drawer and pulled out a blue and green cloth bundle and threw it to me. “Scrubs,” he said. “For our daring escape. You may as well change now.”

  As I climbed out of my clothing and put on the flimsy scrubs, I was overwhelmed by the surrealism of the whole situation. Here we were, two grown men, about to abduct another man and remove him from circulation. A major movie star was going to disappear without a trace, and we were going to be the ones behind it. This was big. I even had to wear a disguise. I looked over at Chuck, who was wiping his hands on his white jacket. “All we need is the soundtrack to Mission: Impossible,” I said.

  A few minutes later Chuck’s beeper began jumping across the desk again. I grabbed it and looked at the readout. All ones. That was the signal from Lindsey, who was parked across the street in Alison’s hunter green Beamer.

  “Elvis is in the building,” I said.

  “Places everyone, places,” Chuck said much too loudly, stepping behind the door.

  My stomach felt like I’d swallowed a litter of rabbits as I took my position in the chair behind the desk. I was terrified of facing Jack, of seeing the look of betrayal in his eyes, when he realized what we were doing. My mouth was suddenly a desert, and my lips began to stick to my gums. I couldn’t stop my right leg from shaking. I looked at Chuck and he stared grimly back. We were trapped in the moment, which seemed to last an eternity, but still it seemed as if the door was flung open way too soon.

  Jack flew into the room with such force that I was scared the door would smash Chuck’s face in, à la the Three Stooges. I had a momentary vision of Chuck slipping to the floor unconscious, the incriminating syringe still clutched in his fist, and Jack turning to me with the tough glare and half-smile he used in his action films and saying, “What’s going on, Ben?”

  But Jack just stepped up to the desk, gasping for air, and said “Ben, what’s the story?” If he was surprised to see me there, he didn’t show it, and he didn’t seem to notice that I was wearing the scrubs. He was wearing Ray Bans and a purple Lakers hat to keep his face hidden. He looked flushed and was sweating heavily, as if he’d run the entire way, or at least up the eight flights of stairs. I felt a pang of guilt over making him worry like that, but I reminded myself that it had been Alison’s idea. Desperate times and all that.

  “Alison’s okay, Jack,” I said. “Why don’t you sit down for a second.”

  “She’s okay?” he asked, peeling off the shades and his hat, still laboring to bring his breathing under control. “You saw her?”

  “I saw her, Jack,” I said, standing up behind the desk. “Just sit down and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”

  Jack pulled the plastic, molded chair out and dropped down into it. The instant his butt hit the chair, Chuck stepped out silently from behind the door and, with no hesitation, jabbed the needle into the back of Jack’s shoulder. Jack let out a yelp that was one part pain and two parts surprise and jumped to his feet, flinging an elbow back reflexively at his unseen attacker. The elbow connected squarely with the center of Chuck’s face, and there was an audible crack as Chuck’s nose erupted into a geyser of blood.

  “Motherfucker!” Chuck yelled, falling on his knees, cupping his face as the blood flowed over his hands and onto the floor. Jack kicked the chair away and spun around, his hands up and his body squared in a very convincing martial arts posture. Jack had trained with various martial arts experts in preparation for a number of his films, and some of it had clearly taken.

  “What the fuck’s going on?” Jack asked, staring down Chuck. “What’d you just stick me with?”

  Chuck stumbled to his feet, grabbed some paper towels from a shelf on the back wall and pressed them to his nose. “Jesus Christ, Jack!” he blubbered. “You broke my goddamn nose!”

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Jack yelled again. “Ben!” He turned to look at me, his eyes seething. I noticed that the needle had broken off of the syringe and was sticking out of his shoulder. I made an instant decision. I decided this was a stupid fucking plan.

  “Relax Jack,” I said. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  Keeping one hand on his wounded nose, Chuck reached out to Jack with the other. “It’s okay, Jack,” he said, grabbing him by the arm, which turned out to be a grievous error in judgment. Jack, interpreting the grab as a continued attack, grabbed Chuck’s wrist in an arm lock and spun him into the desk, which his thighs hit with a resounding thud. Chuck gave out a low moan and doubled over the desk.

  “Jack, cool it!” I yelled helplessly. We were one minute into our plan, and it had already gone horribly wrong. I saw Jack glance at the door and realized he was going to make a break for it. “Don’t move, Jack!” I screamed. “Don’t fucking move!”

  It worked. For about three seconds—and then he broke for the door, but before he could get there, it swung open and Alison walked in, closing it calmly behind her. When Jack saw her, his jaw dropped. “Alison!” he whispered, shock etched into his face.

  “I’m sorry, Jack,” she said, walking slowly towards him and opening her arms.

  “You’re not hurt,” he said in a toneless, subdued voice, absently pulling the needle out of his shoulder.

  “No,” she said, putting her arms around his neck and holding him to her. “I’m sorry we had to do it this way, honey, I really am.” He tried to move her back a little, so that he could see her face, but she held on tightly, whispering into his ear, while I looked on dumbly. Chuck was less concerned with Jack now and more concerned with stanching the flow of blood from his broken nose, so it was I who had to leap over the desk, scraping my left shin in the process, to help Alison catch Jack when he dropped into unconsciousness a minute later. He dropped into my arms so suddenly that I fell on my ass, with Jack sprawled all over my lap like a little kid who’d fallen asleep.

  We all stayed like that for a moment. Chuck, leaning against the desk with the blood-soaked paper towels pressed to his face. Alison standing by the door, her eyes opened so wide that her eyeballs appeared to be in danger of rolling out of her head, and me, sitting Indian style on the floor with Jack drooling onto my thigh.

  “Phase one,” I said. “Completed.”

  “Like clockwork,” Alison said, her voice shaking slightly.

  Chuck just let out a gurgling groan and leaned back on the desk. “My nose is broken. I can’t believe it. He broke my fucking nose.”

  The next part was easier than we anticipated. Chuck produced a gurney and we put Jack under a blanket and wheeled him down the white hospital corridor and into the elevator. When we reached the ground floor, Chuck went into a closet and came out with a wheelchair and the three of us moved Jack from the gu
rney to the chair. We got a few strange looks from passing nurses and orderlies, but as Chuck had predicted, everyone was too busy to give us more than a passing glance.

  We wheeled Jack down the outside ramp and across Fifth Avenue, where Lindsey was double-parked, the rush-hour traffic providing some welcome cover for us. Chuck and I hoisted Jack’s unconscious bulk out of the wheelchair and into the back seat, while Alison ran across the street to return the wheelchair. The exertion caused Chuck’s nose, which I noticed had swelled considerably in the last five minutes, to start bleeding again.

  “Chuck, your nose,” I said.

  “Shit.” He pulled off his white medical jacket and bunched it up to press against his face.

  “What happened to him?” Lindsey asked, looking over her shoulder from the front seat.

  “Minor glitch,” I said. “Chuck, do you want to go back inside and get that fixed?”

  “That depends,” Chuck said nasally. “Do you want be double-parked on Fifth Avenue when Jack wakes up?”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “Get in.”

  “Just stop at a bodega and get me some ice.”

  We all got into the car, Chuck and I sitting like bookends on either side of Jack in the back seat while Alison took the driver’s seat and Lindsey rode shotgun. Alison steered us down Ninety-sixth Street, stopping briefly at a deli for the ice, and then onto Harlem River Drive. As the adrenaline seeped out of me, I realized that I was soaked with sweat, so I opened the window and let the brisk fall air batter me dry. Every time a car passed us, I was sure that someone would look in and notice something irregular, but no one gave us a second glance. By the time the George Washington Bridge was looming in front of us, I’d accepted that we were going to get away with it.

  “Well,” Lindsey said merrily as we drove across the bridge into Jersey. “We just crossed a state line. I guess that makes it a federal offense now.”

  “You don’t think Jack would really press charges against us, do you?” I asked.