“Thank you, Mr. Speaker,” Amy jumped in. “We need all the threat details. I understand there is a large volume?”
“Only if you think fifty thousand death threats is a large volume.” Chesterfield smirked. “Let ’em try.”
He called for and introduced us to his chief of staff, Tiffany Mauser, who looked like a Bond girl. In a soft southern lilt, she promised to email us details and follow up by phone. His head of security, a bald man called Karl Bundt, who was wearing yellow Oakley shooting glasses, joined the party. He also exchanged emails and numbers with us, so he could pass on his information.
“I have some stuff from the Secret Service, FBI, and ahh… other agencies you might find interesting. You both have security clearances, right?”
“Yes, of course,” Amy said.
Now I was beginning to see why Amy hired me on short notice. I had a security clearance. Or, I did. Why did she have one? She claimed she did no government work. We would have to talk. We all shook hands and set a face-to-face situation report within twenty-four hours, once Amy and I had gone over the material. Chesterfield pulled me aside, arm around my shoulder, his grating yet pleasing voice in my ear, the scent of fresh bourbon in my nose.
“Tell me, buddy, you’ve seen this sex video?” he drawled.
“No, sir. I saw a feed of it as it happened. I haven’t seen the video since.”
“So, how did old Dickie do with those two ladies?” he asked.
“He was doing great right up until the part where he dropped dead.”
“A shame. But he really fucked himself. He couldn’t stop screwin’ around—even after he got his dick caught in a newspaper press.”
“That’s true, sir.”
“Why did he do it?” Chesterfield asked.
“I don’t know. Compulsion, maybe? You’d have a better idea than I would, Mr. Speaker.”
“Why would I know?” he asked, with a nervous glance at Tiffany.
“You knew the man, sir. For years.”
“Oh, of course. Right. Compulsion, I’m sure you’re right.”
Again, he lit up and we lit out. I threw my backpack back on. I never got a chance to take out my laptop or my recorder. A member of the “Chesterfield for America” team gave Amy and me official all-access convention IDs on red, white and blue lanyards. On the way down the escalator, descending into the Jurassic Parking lobby, Amy sighed with relief.
“I thought we were dead there for a second, but we’re in. He loves you.”
“I think he’s peachy, too. I thought you said you don’t do government work?”
“I don’t.”
“I know why I had a security clearance. So I could be sent to jail if I ever revealed any military fuck-ups. Why do you have one?”
“I don’t. I meant since you have a security clearance, we have a security clearance—the firm. Officially, you are the only one reading this stuff.”
“That’s sneaky and probably illegal,” I told her. “If there is anything you shouldn’t see, I won’t let you see it.”
“For cripes’ sake, what a boy scout,” she grinned.
“I wish people would stop calling me that. It’s not just orders or ethics or morality or whatever.”
“What, then?”
“Thirty years in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. When do we start?”
“We’re on the clock already. We’re going back to my townhouse to start going through all this stuff.”
“Now?”
“Of course now. All night, if we have to. Your lazy life as a reporter is over. I have a spare room you can crash in.”
I told her I needed to pack a few things and tell Jane I was diving into the new case and would be working full bore. Amy gave me two hours to prepare and the address of her Greenwich Village townhouse. It seemed like everybody in New York had a townhouse except me. I walked quickly, looking for a cab, but everybody wanted cabs at lunchtime. You could only get a cab in Manhattan when no one else wanted one—including you. I jogged into the park and ran faster, my backpack bouncing rhythmically. By the time I neared Jane’s block, I was sweaty but feeling good from the run.
I stopped in my tracks when I looked toward Jane’s townhouse and spotted a dipshit black leather hat— wearing shades.
17
This was annoying. The mafia junior varsity squad was back. Blocking my path. I ducked into the Smart Bean Espresso House and watched the four of them for a few minutes. They had split up into two pairs to cover both ends of the street. It was very suspicious. Maybe I should just wait until one of the rich old ladies on the street called the cops? No. Following me around badly was one thing, staking out Jane’s place was another. The good news was the opposition had divided their forces without knowing the disposition of their enemy. Overconfidence was an edge.
Siri, should I run or should I fight?”
“I can’t answer that for you,” she replied.
I removed my black Kevlar gun gloves from my backpack, the ones I had used for years, and slipped them on. They protected the hands from sharp knives, hot weapons, cold winters and, of course, the heartbreak of psoriasis. I said hi to Amber, one of the baristas behind the counter, and asked her if she would mind watching my bag for a few minutes. As I walked out the door, I noticed the music playing was the Rolling Stones, “Street Fighting Man.”
I started breaking the problem down in my head into small, doable tasks. I had no real plan, just a series of goals. I kept my head low, humming the song softly. I walked up right behind the hat guy, Jay-Jay, and one of his troops.
“Yo! Jay-Jay!” I shouted. “Wait up! How’s it hanging, bro?”
To say they were very surprised by my appearance and first-name greeting doesn’t really capture the beauty of the moment.
“Fuck is this?” Jay-Jay demanded, as if it was his underling’s fault.
“Hey! Jay-Jay! It’s him!” the guy said, unnecessarily.
“Fuck you think you doin’?” Jay-Jay demanded, puffing his chest, clenching his fists.
“Playing hide and seek. I won. Your turn. Go hide.”
He was genuinely confused but I needed him to move on. I had an appointment.
“So, Jay-Jay, buddy, who asked you to follow me?”
“We ain’t following nobody. Fuck you talkin’ ’bout?”
“You were following me in the park. Now you’re waiting for me. I don’t want any problems. Please go away, guys. I have a job. I’m busy.”
“You don’t give orders, fuckhead!” Jay-Jay warned.
“I just did. I asked nicely. Please fuck off.”
“This place is as good as any, Jay-Jay,” said his underling. “Let’s tune him up now and be done with it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You aren’t just following me? You have orders to kick my ass?”
“That’s right, asshole,” Vinnie, Tony or Bobby said.
Okay. Time to move. I could sense the other two mutts jogging in our direction. They looked like boxing assholes who thought you threw one punch at a time, backed up and waited to see what happened, instead of hitting hard and fast as many times as humanly possible.
“The message is you were warned, asshole,” Jay-Jay said in a tough voice. “You’re catching a beating, ’cause you—”
I flew at Jay-Jay and punched him hard in the throat with my left hand, pulling the punch halfway, so it didn’t crush his windpipe, just popped it. At the same time, I hooked five or six fast shots with both fists to his solar plexus, leaning my weight into them. He went down on his knees, gagging and gasping, and twisted onto the pavement in a fetal position and vomited. His fancy hat rolled into the gutter, his hip shades spinning away.
I kept his body between me and the approaching pair, who were close. I spun toward the nearest clown. He had focused his attention on his fallen boss, as I hoped he would. But he saw me, turned, and cocked one of his huge biceps, his left, which was lucky. I pivoted and kicked through hard—into his exposed armpit, a solid hit wi
th the flat of my boot. He staggered back, off balance, his big punch un-thrown, his face showing pain, a hurt look in his eyes that said he felt my armpit kick was unfair.
I didn’t wait to see if Number Two was still up. I instantly hopped up and around, one hundred eighty degrees, toward the other two. They advanced side by side, their fists up. I only had one more piece of intelligence to try to rattle them.
“Heeeeey! Tony, Vinnie, Bobby! What’s the problem?” I asked.
It broke their rhythm, slightly.
“Fuck you know our names?” one asked.
I reversed, then forward fast, skipping to my right. I jumped into the air and landed with a straight leg onto Number Three’s outside knee. It snapped away like a dry log and he went down. I only got one hard shot at his head before staggering away to stay on my feet, keeping the downed guy between me and Number Four, not knowing where Number Two was.
“MOTHERFUCKER!” Number Four roared, charging, his porky paws reaching for my throat.
I put my chin down and my hands up in a hold-it gesture, but quickly slapped my flat palms together as hard as I could—his head in between. They made a sound like bubblewrap popping. His hands, almost on my throat, reflexively jerked back to his ears. He began to scream, his eyes wide. Before he could take another breath to scream some more, I elbowed him at the base of his nose, knocking his head back. Then I clubbed him with fists to either side of his head until he went down.
An arm went around my throat in a chokehold. Number Two, grunting at my back. I stomped on his right instep to give him something to think about, and reached around with both of my hands to grab his fist atop my left shoulder. With my left hand I uncurled his fingers and, with my right, grabbed his thumb. He fought back, making a nice lock for me but did not let go of my neck. I couldn’t breathe. I yanked as hard as I could on his thumb, feeling it snap. He yelped and let me go. I turned to face him, doing a quick survey. No one else up but Number Two. He put up his fists, pretending his left still worked. I stepped to my right, away from the good arm. He made a grab for me with his left arm but it was slow and looked very painful after the armpit smash. I raised my arms, waving my hands above my head. His eyes followed them up, like I was going to magically produce a weapon. Presto! I hooked his left ankle with my left ankle and slid it out from under him, giving him a helpful shove on the way down. He landed loudly on the other knee and rolled over onto his right side. I drop-kicked him in the left, bouncing off him like a grunting inner tube, breaking a few ribs. He stayed down. I spun around, ready.
All four down. I caught a few good breaths. Flexed my gloved fists.
Jay-Jay was still in fetal pose on the concrete; coughing, winded.
Number Two was on his right side on the sidewalk, moaning.
Number Three was sprawled on the pavement, hissing and cursing, holding his broken left knee with both hands.
Number Four, broken nose, punctured eardrums, was flat on his back, out cold.
My knees and elbows were scraped. I had blood on my body and face—some of it may be mine. I was wired, pumped high. I still loved it. I looked around. We had gathered a crowd. Half of them had their cellphones up. Sirens were getting closer.
Shit.
I couldn’t split and deny I was in this mess, if it was already on YouTube. Now that the thugs were down, the audience inched closer. I peeled off my tight Kevlar gloves and stuck them into my pocket. My hands were a bit sweaty but unmarked. No cuts, no broken knuckles. Not even a bruise.
“Man, you trashed four big lunks—how’d you do that?” a black guy in a suit, still filming on his phone, asked me from a safe distance.
“Special effects,” I explained.
18
I tried something new. I told the cops the truth.
It didn’t work.
I knew it wasn’t going well when the female cop kept calling me “the alleged victim,” while watching paramedics load my new acquaintances into ambulances. Jay-Jay was vowing to kill me in a raspy whisper, which is all you can manage for a while after someone has compressed your airway.
I explained to the cop several times that I didn’t have any accomplices and that the four guys had been following me, the innocent victim. I asked them nicely to leave me alone but they wouldn’t.
“They announced their intention to beat me up,” I explained to the NYPD officer. “It was self-defense.”
“Okay, so they attacked you first?” she asked. “All four of them?”
This was the tricky part.
“Well, they told me they were going to ‘tune me up,’ and I was going to get a beating,” I said.
“And then they assaulted you first?” the cop asked.
“More or less,” I shrugged. “They all engaged.”
“Yes or no?” the cop said.
I knew if I said I threw the first punch, I might have a problem—so I didn’t want to say it. That was when the helpful black guy in the suit came over and told the cop he had the whole thing on video.
“You witnessed this?” the officer asked him. “What’s your name?”
“George Casey,” he told her, holding his phone up. George congratulated me like I had won a cage match and shook my hand. My new fan showed the cop the whole video, doing a Bob Costas play-by-play—in case the officer had failed her eye exam. I also watched.
“See, here is the guy with the hat, threatening him, yelling at him, with the other guy getting ready and then, before they can crush him—boom!—he goes at the hat guy.” I became aware of others crowding around us, also looking at the screen action. “Look at this—he does a karate kick to the second guy—in the friggin’ armpit! It stopped him dead in his tracks. Really cool!”
It was always nice to get good reviews.
“Holy shit!” the cop said.
“Look, here he breaks the guy’s thumb and puts him down hard. Watch this part! He fuckin’ does a knee-drop on him! This guy is, like, a pro, man.”
“Looks like it. I’ll need a copy of that, sir,” the cop said. “So… Mr.…”
“Shepherd.”
“Yes, Mr. Shepherd. You attacked these men first?”
“Technically, maybe. Just before they attacked me.”
“That is not self-defense,” she said. “And… I see you’re wearing some kind of gloves in the video. Where are they? Did you put them on before the fight?”
“Look, if I’d waited until they made their move, I’d be the one in an ambulance right now. I have… experience with this kind of thing.”
“Where?” she asked.
“In the service,” Detective Lieutenant Izzy Negron answered her in his usual sarcastic tone. “He’s a super soldier and a star reporter. He was a commando. Also thinks he’s Mad Max.”
I was about to correct Izzy and tell him we didn’t call ourselves commandos. COs. Combat Operators. Operators. Mark Ones. I let it go.
Izzy and I did say we would see each other soon. Izzy, about five foot ten, fifty years old, wiry, his jet-black hair combed straight back, was his usual suave self. He looked like a corporate lawyer in a dark navy Brooks Brothers suit, teal dress shirt and mauve silk tie.
Behind him was Detective Sergeant Phil D’Amico, younger, taller, sandy hair, about six foot four, pumped. Phil’s fashion sense was strictly off-the-rack Macy’s Men’s Store, with charcoal-gray slacks, navy blazer with gold buttons, blue shirt, and blue rep tie, looking like a high-school football coach forced to dress up for a sports dinner.
“Lieutenant, he can’t go around beating people up,” the cop told Izzy.
“If Shepherd says he acted in self-defense, I believe it,” Izzy told her. “We’ll take it from here, officer.”
“The alleged victims are, so far, refusing to file charges,” she said. “Why would Major Case Squad care about a possible assault, or maybe a possible nothing?”
“Because the moron with the hat is Jay-Jay Potsoli.”
“Oh,” the cop replied.
“Who’s th
at?” I asked.
“The grandson of dead mafia don Paulie Potsoli and the son of Faith Potsoli, a best-selling author who also writes a column for the New York Mail.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Shepherd, why is a halfwit hoodlum prince from Brooklyn trying to put the hurt on you?” Izzy asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “He was about to tell me but I didn’t let him finish.”
“That was rude,” said Phil.
“I had to move fast. He did say I was warned.”
“Warned by whom? About what?”
“Didn’t get that to that part. I only know of two people who have threatened me recently.”
“Only two?” Izzy asked.
“Other than us?” Phil interjected.
“You know them both,” I told them.
They both knew that my former editor at the New York Mail, Tal “Lucky” Edgar, had threatened to have me killed— but he was helpfully dead. Of course, his billionaire boss, who also probably wanted me killed, was alive and kicking.
“Who else?” Izzy asked.
“Ginny Mac. She told me not to beat her on the Hardstein story but I just did.”
“So you suspect a billionaire or your former girlfriend of hiring these junior wiseguy ginzoes to stomp you?” Phil asked.
“I have no idea,” I told them. “Both people are connected to the New York Mail but maybe it’s somebody else. Can I go, guys? I have some work to do.”
“What’s with the gloves?” Phil asked.
“My old gun gloves. Kevlar.”
“Like in our vests?” Izzy asked.
“Yeah but the gloves aren’t really bulletproof.”
“We call them tactical gloves,” said Phil.
“I’m going to charge these thugs with attempted assault,” said Izzy.
“That won’t stick,” Phil pointed out. “Shepherd kicked the shit out of them. And there’s video to prove it. Any jury would laugh and set them free.”
“I know,” Izzy said, “But it also shows them trying to kick his ass. This way the charges will be dropped if they agree not to sue.”
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