by Iain Levison
“Let’s go down there and punch him,” Mitch had said and for a moment it had seemed like a good idea. Then they had remembered their mission, which was to sit in a tree and wait for a Ferrari. A wait that in a few hours would be over, Doug remembered, and then he could go back home and look for a real job, working a grill at another corporate restaurant, one that he could get to without a car.
Mitch’s cell phone rang, a loud, high-pitched sound that must have been audible to the diners in the restaurant and certainly, Mitch thought, to the two shivering parking attendants standing out front. He distinctly saw the Italian-looking dude look back into the forest to see why a tinny version of a Grateful Dead tune was coming from the trees and bushes. He fished it out and saw Kevin’s number.
“Shit dude, don’t call me. I’m on stakeout, remember?”
“Dude, why don’t you just put it on vibrate?”
“Because I’m wearing gloves. I can’t push the little buttons,” he whispered angrily. “What do you want?”
“We might have to go home soon. Linda just called. I think she knows I’m not out walking dogs.”
“Shit, man. I’m not going home without a Ferrari,” Mitch whispered. “We’ve invested too much time in this already.” Doug looked up from his branch, droopy-eyed. Damn, he looks stoned, Mitch thought. He looked happy too, and Mitch figured it was because Doug didn’t really want to steal a Ferrari. Damn them both. Mitch would steal the thing by himself.
Then Mitch heard angels singing. A Ferrari had pulled into the parking lot.
What a beautiful sight. For a full five seconds Mitch admired the car, its smooth lines, its stunning bright red color, beautiful even under the faded yellow lights of the Eden Inn parking lot. Mitch felt his heart pounding, felt his senses awaken and sharpen as his inner commando was unleashed. He put the cell phone in his mouth as if it were a combat knife and slid noiselessly out of the tree.
He heard Doug mumble “fuck” under his breath.
He took the cell phone and wiped his saliva off it and put it to his ear. Kevin was talking about something.
“Dude, the fox is in the henhouse,” Mitch whispered.
“What?”
“This is it. Go time. The fox is in the henhouse.” He hung up and put the cell phone back in his pocket. Behind him, Doug fell out of the tree like a dead elephant.
“Dude,” Mitch whispered. “Keep it down.” On an adrenaline high, Mitch turned around to look at Doug, whose body language was screaming reluctance. It was too late for him to back out now. It was a five-minute walk back to Kevin’s truck, through brush and thickets and there was no way Mitch was going to wait. “We’re going in.”
The gawky valet was talking to the Ferrari’s owner, who was probably telling him to take special care of it or some such crap. The kid was going to drive it eighty feet. Mitch didn’t think there was much to fear. Well, except for the Ferrari thieves lurking in the trees. The Italian-looking dude had gone around to the other side to open the door for a stunning blonde and Mitch watched intently as the couple went inside. The gawky kid started to get in the car, but the Italian-looking dude stopped him, almost pushed him away. What was that about? While he was trying to figure it out, Mitch’s cell phone rang.
It was Kevin.
“Dammit, what? I told you they can hear the ringing.”
“Dude, put it on vibrate.”
“Whaddya want?” Mitch whispered forcefully.
“What the hell are you talking about, a fox or something?”
Mitch sighed heavily, the sigh of a man surrounded by idiots. “I said, ‘The fox is in the henhouse.’ OK? There’s a goddamned Ferrari in the parking lot.”
“Really?” Kevin was now showing the interest that Doug clearly lacked. “Why did you say something about a fox?”
“Dude, it was a code. OK? I thought you might have figured that out.”
“How would I have known that? If you’re gonna use a code, maybe we could agree on it first. Didja ever think of that?”
“Do you want me to steal this goddamned car or don’t you?”
“Steal it,” Kevin said and hung up. Mitch put the cell phone back in his pocket and turned to Doug, who was looking through the bushes out into the parking lot. “What’s going on over here?”
“Dude, I think they’re fighting over who gets to drive the Ferrari.”
And they were. The Ferrari was idling in the parking lot with the driver’s side door open while the Italian-looking dude and the gawky kid were yelling at each other over who got to drive it eighty feet. Finally the Italian dude, who was shorter but stockier and more muscular, pushed the gawky kid away from the car and got in.
“That guy’s a jerk,” Doug said.
“Let’s spring out of the bushes and beat the shit out of him,” Mitch said.
“Let’s just steal the car,” said Doug, with a touch of resignation. Mitch realized he was right. They hadn’t waited in the snow for five nights to punch a valet, no matter how much of a dick he was.
The valet drove the Ferrari very slowly at first and Mitch figured the kid was going to park it right next to the last car in line. But just as he pulled up to the space, he hit the gas and took it around the lot, as if looking for a better space. Clearly, the kid wanted to take the car for a joyride and was trying to spend as much time in it as possible without doing anything that would cost him his job. He circled the parking lot twice as Mitch trembled with annoyance.
“I’m just gonna jump him and smash his face in,” Mitch said. “This is bullshit.”
“Easy, man,” said Doug. “Here he comes.”
The valet pulled the car into a space not more than twenty feet from them, all the way at the edge of the parking lot, and parked it diagonally. That must have been the instruction the owner had given the valets, to park the car well away from every other car. What a tool, Mitch thought. Then he noticed that the Italian-looking dude was not getting out of the car, nor even turning the lights off. Instead, he had cranked the radio, enjoying the sound system at full blast. Mitch could hear the lively beat of rap music and saw the kid bouncing around in the driver’s seat.
“I hate this guy,” whispered Mitch. Doug said nothing. The kid continued bopping around in the seat. When the song finally ended, Mitch heaved a sigh of relief. Then another song began and the kid started bopping again, this time singing along, turning the radio up so loud that the Ferrari began to vibrate.
Mitch’s cell phone rang. Hiding behind a bush in a commando crouch, he fumbled it out of his pocket, cursing. It was Kevin. “What now?” Mitch demanded.
“What’s taking you guys so long?”
“The damned valet won’t get out of the car. He’s listening to music.”
“Well, I’m sitting here idling in the road. I can’t sit here much longer.”
Mitch had an idea. From watching the valets, he had learned that they always took cars in rotation. Another car was pulling into the lot right then, a BMW, and the gawky kid was opening the door for the driver. That meant the Italian dude was up next. The only way to get him out of the Ferrari was to have another car pull into the parking lot, and who knew how much longer it would be before that happened?
“Listen, Kevin, I need you to drive into the parking lot and act like you’re going into the restaurant. Pull up out front. That’ll get the kid out of the car.”
“I’m not coming in there. What if they get my license plate?”
“Otherwise you’re gonna have to idle in the street all night,” Mitch said, and hung up.
The gawky kid parked the BMW and went back to his station. The Italian kid stayed in the Ferrari.
Mitch could see headlights through the trees, coming down the restaurant’s long driveway, and then Kevin’s truck pulled into the parking lot. Immediately, the Ferrari’s engine and radio shut off and the door opened. The Italian kid, who had been watching the restaurant in the rearview mirror, tossed the keys onto the floormat, slammed the door, and ran bac
k to greet Kevin.
“Finally,” said Mitch.
Kevin had stopped to ask the gawky kid a question. It made a great distraction. Mitch and Doug wriggled out of the bushes and low-crawled over to the Ferrari. Mitch was on the ground by the driver’s side door, and he still had a clear view of the valets and of Kevin’s truck, idling at the restaurant’s front door. He was sure Kevin could see him as he got into the Ferrari. Doug quickly hopped in the other side, and Mitch found the keys and fired it up.
“Keep your head down,” he told Doug, as he put it in reverse. No clutch pressure at all, the gears just seemed to slide into each other, and the steering wheel was equally smooth. I guess there’s a reason why you pay all this money, Mitch thought as he shifted into first and hit the gas. The car pushed forward, and he felt the power, increased the acceleration, and burst out of the parking lot. A puff of flying snow and smoke followed them.
“Yee-haw!” Mitch screamed. As he’d roared past Kevin, who was making conversation with the two valets, he had seen them notice the flying Ferrari screaming off into the night. He had caught a glimpse of the Italian kid spinning his head back to where the car had been just moments before. Then the scene had disappeared behind the trees and the driveway had opened up before them.
“Shit,” Doug said. “We gotta wait for Kevin. He knows where we’re going.” Kevin had arranged for them to take the Ferrari to a garage that was less than two miles away, but Mitch and Doug had never thought to ask for directions. The plan had always been to follow Kevin, who was supposed to be waiting in the street.
Mitch pulled over in the darkened, tree-lined driveway, waiting to see Kevin’s lights behind him. Nothing. Apparently, when Kevin had seen them steal the car, he had just sat there, idling, and continued talking to the valet. Mitch rolled the window down, stuck his head out, and peered back down the driveway, as if that would somehow hurry Kevin up.
“Shit, the cops are going to be here in two or three minutes. What the hell is he doing?”
Doug sat in the passenger seat, petrified. They could hear the idling of the Ferrari’s powerful motor and felt the fresh, cold air of the woods in winter. Silence. No Kevin.
“He does know we just stole a car, right?” Mitch spat. “I mean, does he realize this is against the law?” Mitch was aware of sweat breaking out on his forehead despite the cold.
Doug said nothing. He was staring straight ahead.
Finally, Mitch saw headlights as Kevin’s truck came out of the parking lot, speeding toward them. He felt pressure lifting from his chest and was aware of being able to breathe again. The truck went flying past and Mitch gunned the Ferrari and fell in behind it.
Kevin didn’t even stop when he reached the road, just spun right, throwing up a cloud of dirt and sticks, which bounced off the front end of the Ferrari. Bet the dude who wanted his car parked away from all the others wouldn’t have been too happy about that, Mitch thought with an evil laugh. Kevin had his gas pedal to the floor; they were climbing up to ninety miles an hour. The Ferrari was in fourth gear and barely feeling it. Mitch started screaming.
“Whooooooohah!” he yelled, and looked over at Doug, whose face was contorted in worry, or misery. “This baby can fly!”
“Just . . . just watch the road,” Doug said, his voice shaky. “Ice.” He was trying to fasten his seat belt, but couldn’t find the end of it, and he was wriggling around in his seat. It was annoying Mitch.
“Dude, just sit still!”
Doug said nothing but, mercifully, did sit still. Up ahead, Kevin put on his turn signal, and a few seconds later, they turned onto a small road, then took another turn, and then Kevin pulled up another tree-lined driveway deep in the woods. This was a nice long one too, and at the end was a large shack big enough to be a two-car garage. There was a light on inside.
They had come up the dirt-and-gravel driveway so fast that smoke and snow and debris filled the air as Kevin jumped out of the truck and ran up to the door of the garage. He rang the bell, and as he waited, Mitch could see his breath puffing up into the air. He was panting.
“Dude,” said Doug. “I wanna get out of this car.”
“Go ahead,” said Mitch. “Ask Kevin where he wants me to park it.”
Before Doug could move, a burly man in coveralls with a handlebar mustache answered the door. He was holding a welding torch in one hand and looking around the parking lot as he greeted Kevin. He saw the Ferrari and put the torch down, and came over to greet Mitch.
“Wow,” he said, his feet crunching across the snow. “This one’s a beaut. A 599.” He turned to Kevin. “You took the LoJack out, right?”
Kevin froze. Mitch froze. Doug got out the car and said, “Hey.”
LoJack. Mitch and Kevin both knew what it was. Until that second, it had never occurred to either of them that the Ferrari might have an antitheft device that might need to be disabled, a device that at that moment was probably madly signaling to anyone who cared to know where it was.
LoJack, Mitch thought. Well, I’ll be damned. He could see by Kevin’s expression that he was thinking much the same thing.
“No,” Mitch said finally when it became obvious that Kevin was too thunderstruck to answer.
The burly guy jumped back from the Ferrari as if it had tried to bite him. “You gotta get this thing outta here,” he said.
Kevin nodded.
“NOW!” the guy screamed. “Go!” He began waving his arms frantically, backing away from them. “There’ll be cops crawling all over me in ten minutes! Get the fuck outta here!” He ran back inside his garage and slammed the door.
Mitch was still sitting in the idling Ferrari and he looked up at a downcast, deflated Kevin standing over him. “Where do you want to take this thing?” he asked.
Kevin stared at his shoes for a second before snapping out of it. “We gotta dump it somewhere,” he said.
They stared at each other, the forest quiet except for the sound of the idling Ferrari. A feeling of calm control came over Mitch as his inner commando took over once more.
“I got an idea,” he said, aware there was no time for debate. “We passed a steep hill on the way here. Those hills have truck ramps that lead off into the woods. You know, for when trucks lose their brakes? We park the Ferrari on one of those escape ramps and get the hell out of here.”
Kevin nodded. “Let’s go.”
“Doug, you ride with Kevin,” Mitch said. “No use in both of us getting caught in this thing.”
Doug, who had no problem with that, was in Kevin’s truck before Mitch had finished his sentence. Mitch peeled out down the long driveway, slamming into potholes and flying over ruts. Screw it, the Ferrari was doomed now. If he couldn’t sell it, what difference did it make if it got beaten up? He pulled out onto the road, which was still dark and lifeless. No other traffic, the only good thing about this night so far. Less than half a mile down the road, Mitch saw the first escape ramp, a patch of sand that ran off behind some trees. He stopped, turned around, and drove as fast as he could into the sand, grounding the Ferrari. He had gotten at least a hundred feet into the trees, concealing the Ferrari from the road.
Mitch shut the car off, leaped out, and slammed the door, then ran over to Kevin’s truck, which was idling at the end of the truck ramp. He jumped in and Kevin peeled off in the same second. Mitch pulled the wildly swinging passenger door shut.
There was total silence in the truck. After a few minutes, Kevin eased off the gas and drove normally. A few seconds after that, two police cars, with their lights flashing, sped past them in the other direction.
“Shit,” Kevin said. “LoJack. Who woulda thought?” No one spoke, so he added, “I told you guys I wasn’t a car thief. Dude, I told anyone who would listen that I wasn’t a car thief.”
“They’ll sure believe you now,” said Mitch.
After a few more minutes, Mitch put his head in his hands and said, “Shit, what a disaster.”
“Coulda been worse,” said Kevi
n.
“A whole lot worse,” said Doug.
“That’s the spirit,” said Kevin. “Coulda been worse.
Coulda been worse.” He began repeating it like a mantra.
As they neared Wilton, the pumping adrenaline had ebbed and their lives began to seem normal again. None of them wanted to talk about the botched Ferrari job and Kevin, determined to talk about something positive, said to Doug, “Dude, I might have a job for you.”
“Walking dogs?”
“No. I don’t have enough dogs for three people. Dealing pills. Interested?”
Ordinarily, the answer would have been no. But business opportunities were scarce and clearly car-thieving wasn’t going to be as lucrative as promised, so Doug said, “Awright.”
“Do you know a lot of people who like pills? Because I can keep you busy. This guy I know, he’s got tons of ’em.”
“Awright,” said Doug, who just a few weeks ago had been thinking of becoming a chopper pilot and just a few hours ago had been imagining himself a famous children’s book author, and who was now realizing that the most realistic career choice at this point was felony trafficking. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
Kevin pulled up to Mitch and Doug’s apartment. He and Mitch briefly reviewed the dog-walking schedule for the next day.
“Wanna come in and smoke a bowl?” Mitch offered.
“Nah, I can’t. Linda thinks something’s up already. I gotta get home.”
They said their goodbyes and Mitch and Doug went in and sat on the couch. No Ferrari, no money. Doug was partly relieved, Mitch knew, but he himself felt nothing but failure and rage. LoJack. He should have known better.
He folded himself into the couch, turned the TV on, and stared at it blankly.
8
CHAPTER
“WHERE DOES KEVIN keep going? I figured I’d ask you,” Linda said cheerfully. She had picked him up that morning to take him to meet a restaurant manager who was looking for a sous-chef trainee, a contact she had made at the dress shop. Doug sensed she had made solving his unemployment problem a personal project, which was good, because his work search so far had involved daydreaming over the classifieds and listening to Kevin pitch a job selling pills. Which, to be honest, sounded better than working as a sous-chef, whatever that was. Despite having worked for four years as a corporate restaurant grill cook, Doug couldn’t really cook and didn’t have much interest in learning how. But Linda had obviously put some thought into his situation and he was touched by her concern. Too touched to mention that opening prepackaged bags of sauce and throwing meat on a grill and then removing it when it was done were the only culinary skills he had ever wanted to develop.
