by Al Lamanda
“Hand,” Muffie-Jo said.
Leo and Muffie-Jo came apart.
“How do you steal from a forest?” Ian said to Jack-Jack.
“You charge fees, don’t you, Leo?” Gavin said. “Hell, I went to prison and you still charged me for that little dance.”
Leo and Muffie-Jo linked back together.
“And all you want to do is post his bail?” Leo said.
“No, we want you to post his bail on the condition he talks to us and gives back the egg,” Gavin said.
The conference room door opened and Agnes walked in with her notepad. She took the chair to Leo’s right. “Bail is set at fifty thousand. His arraignment is tomorrow at nine thirty in superior court. He had PD lawyer.”
“Fifty thousand is kind of high for a first offense, isn’t it?” Ian said.
“The man tried to burn down his club with two hundred occupants living above it,” Leo said. “I’d say it’s kind of low.”
“So, you’ll do it?” Gavin said.
“No bondsman will write paper with you as the poster,” Leo said to Gavin.
“Cash,” Gavin said.
“You have fifty k to post?” Leo said.
“Plus your court fees,” Gavin said. “And maybe a little bonus.”
“I suppose I do owe you a favor,” Leo said. “Meet me at superior court at nine fifteen tomorrow morning. Do you know where it is?”
“Oh, I think I can find it,” Gavin said.
“Hand,” Muffie-Jo said.
TWENTY-NINE
“This place makes me nervous, Lee,” Ian said.
“Why? You’ve never even beer arrested,” Gavin said.
Ian looked at his watch. “No, but I’ve seen what happened to you.”
“You mean, what you caused to happen to me,” Gavin said.
“I’m never going to hear the end of that, am I?” Ian said and looked at his watch again.
“Hear the end of it?” Gavin said. “By all rights I should have thrown you off the observation deck of the Empire State Building the day I got out.”
“Here we go,” Ian said and looked at his watch a third time. “What’s taking so long?”
Gavin looked at his own watch. “It’s nine thirty one.”
“This place makes me nervous,” Ian said.
“This could take a while,” Gavin said. “There’s a coffee shop down the hallway to the right. Why don’t you get a couple of containers seeing as how we skipped breakfast to get here on time.”
“Well, maybe a little nosh would help my nerves,” Ian said and stood up.
Gavin had fourteen minutes of calm and quiet before Ian returned to the courthouse waiting room with a large paper sack. He sat beside Gavin, reached into the sack, and handed Gavin a coffee container.
“Thanks,” Gavin said.
“You’re welcome,” Ian said and produced a second coffee container, a fried egg sandwich, a cheese Danish, a BLT, a lemon Danish and a buttered bagel. “This is taking too long,” he said as he bit into the fried egg sandwich.
Gavin watched Ian eat.
“Say, this isn’t too bad,” Ian said.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Boy, this is nerve wracking.”
“Try it from the inside sometime.”
Forty-five minutes later, Leo wandered into the waiting room. “Downstairs for release,” he said.
Gavin and Ian stood up. “We need to talk to him,” Gavin said.
“He offered me two locations for discussion,” Leo said. “The conference room for lawyers/clients or the coffee shop around the corner. Have you had breakfast yet?”
“Well, breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” Ian said, happily.
Dressed as he was when the police dragged him kicking and screaming from his home in Queens, in slacks, wrinkled shirt and slippers, Mike the Magnificent sliced into his omelet and looked across the table at Gavin and Ian.
“Three ex-wives bleeding me dry with alimony because they refuse to marry the men they live with to keep their payments coming,” Mike the Magnificent said. “I ask you, is that any way to live?”
Ian shoved blueberry pancakes into his mouth and nodded no.
“Three children in college, two of which I adopted from the second and third marriage,” Mike the Magnificent said. “I ask you, is that fair?”
Shoveling sausage into his mouth, Ian nodded no.
“My only source of revenue is the club and in order to increase the business, I need to expand, but the zoning laws in this city could choke a hippo and they won’t allow it,” Mike the Magnificent said. “I ask you, is that right?”
Piling pancakes, toast, bacon and sausage into his mouth, Ian nodded no.
“So you took advantage of the fire to burn the club down and collect the insurance money?” Gavin said.
“Yes, but I wanted to use it to open a bigger club, not for greed,” Mike the Magnificent said.
“Hey, we don’t care one way or the other,” Ian said. “All we want is our egg.”
Mike the Magnificent turned and looked at Leo, then turned back to Gavin. “Egg?”
“When the fire broke out, you were entertaining the crowd with magic tricks,” Gavin said. “The blond? You took her egg and replaced it with a dove. Remember?”
“The stunning creature with the vacant eyes?” Mike the Magnificent said.
“That’s her,” Ian said. “Vacant eyes.”
“You put up fifty thousand dollars bail money for a complete stranger because of an egg?” Mike the Magnificent said.
“It’s her good luck piece,” Ian said.
“That’s all we want, the egg,” Gavin said.
“Is it an original Russian Faberge?” Mike the Magnificent said.
“We can’t say,” Ian said. “Seeing as how we don’t know what that is.”
“I know what it is,” Gavin said.
“You do,” Ian said.
“And it isn’t one of them. What it is, is ours and that’s the price for your bail,” Gavin said.
“You’re a hard man,” Mike the Magnificent said.
“Like nails,” Ian said.
“But, everything is negotiable,” Mike the Magnificent said.
“Not this,” Gavin said.
“Carved in stone,” Ian said.
“Then I won’t tell you,” Mike the Magnificent said. “I’m already out and I won’t jump bail, so your money will be returned, so there is nothing you can do to force me to tell you a thing.”
“I can have a very large man dangle you from a roof by your ankles,” Gavin said.
“It’s kind of his hobby,” Ian said.
“Nonetheless, I have the egg and you want it,” Mike the Magnificent said.
Gavin nodded his head. “You want something, what?”
“Some people are never satisfied,” Ian said.
“What I want,” Mike the Magnificent said and pointed at Leo. “Is for him to be my lawyer.”
“Impossible,” Leo said.
“Not likely,” Gavin said.
“Out of the question,” Ian added.
“Then I guess the secret to the egg will be lost to you for say the next seven to ten years,” Mike the Magnificent said.
“How much?” Gavin said.
“I just told you, the egg,” Mike the Magnificent said.
“Not you, Leo.”
“What, to defend this putz?” Leo said.
“From now to trial.”
“You’re joking, Gavin.”
“I never joke.”
“That’s true,” Ian said. “Man has no sense of humor whatsoever. The stories I could tell you.”
“How much?” Gavin glared at Leo.
Leo sighed, removed a Mont Blanc pen from his jacket, and scribbled on a napkin. “Roughly seventy thousand dollars to do it right.”
“Deal,” Gavin said.
“Really?” Ian said.
“Now, where’s the egg?” Gavin said.
&
nbsp; “Only place it can be is my warehouse,” Mike the Magnificent said. “I go there after every show to store my props and get ready for the next night. It’s probably still in the jacket I wore that night.”
“Probably?” Gavin said.
“You’ll have to go and check the jacket yourself,” Mike the Magnificent said. “They locked me out of my own warehouse until the end of the trial, whenever that is.”
“And if we go to your warehouse?” Gavin said.
“I have one of those dry cleaning spin racks for my wardrobe,” Mike the Magnificent said. “Just check my jackets until you find the egg.”
“When you say locked out, you mean a court order, not actually locked out?” Gavin said.
“They might want to shift through the warehouse for evidence of the crime or additional crimes,” Leo said. “I’ll make a few calls and get a stay on that for at least twelve hours. Call me at my office around five.”
Gavin nodded. “Alarm codes, passwords, what?”
“The keypad on the wall inside the office door,” Mike the Magnificent said. “After you enter the vestibule, punch in 1,2,3,4,5,6 and that disarms it. If the alarm company should call, the password is Mike the Magnificent.”
“Boy, that’s a tough one,” Ian said.
“Keys,” Gavin said.
Mike the Magnificent dug out a set of keys and laid them on the table.
“Leo,” Gavin said, picking up the keys. “I’ll call you before five.”
“Don’t forget my fee,” Leo said. “Plus expenses.”
Gavin stood up and looked at Ian. “You done?”
“Cash, no checks,” Leo said.
“I got it, Leo,” Gavin said. “Come on, Ian, let’s go.”
“And breakfast,” Leo said.
Gavin dug out two fifty dollar bills and tossed them on the table. “Mr. Mike the Magnificent, if the egg isn’t there, our deal is off.”
“Not to worry,” Mike the Magnificent said. “There is no other place it can be.”
“Call me,” Leo said as he picked up the two fifties.
THIRTY
“It’s snowing,” Ian said.
“It does that this time of year,” Gavin said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worried about it,” Ian said. “I like driving in it is all.”
“You do?”
“Sure,” Ian said. “When it’s dark like this, I like to turn on the hi beams and watch the snow patterns in the windshield.”
Ian clicked on the hi beams. The snow, blown by the wind, came down at such an angle that it had a pulsating, test pattern effect on the windshield. Gavin looked at the snow as it pulsated on the windshield. It appeared to be beating him in the face, the same pattern over and over again.
“See how if you stare at it long enough, you start to see things?” Ian said.
“I see it, now turn it off,” Gavin said.
“Things that aren’t there,” Ian said. “Like that wino in the middle of the street there, he’s just in my mind.”
“No, he’s in the street,” Gavin said.
“If I concentrate real hard, I know I can drive right through him without batting an eye,” Ian said.
“Maybe you won’t bat an eye, but that wino will,” Gavin said.
“You’re just seeing things, Lee. The wino isn’t there.”
“What I’m seeing is a wino and where he’s gonna be in about ten seconds is on your lap,” Gavin said.
“If I switch off the hi beams, you’ll see that…” Ian said.
“Turn! Turn! Turn!” Gavin yelled.
Ian yanked the wheel hard right to skirt around the wino, who raised his fist and yelled obscenities at the red Mustang and the idiot driving it.
“Here’s 33rd,” Ian said without missing a beat. “Look for the address.”
Glaring at Ian, Gavin said, “Right there in the middle of the block.”
Ian slowed and parked in front of a vestibule in between two large, squat warehouse buildings. “Rather nice of Leo to go to all this trouble for us,” Ian said as he opened his door.
“What trouble and we paid him seventy grand to be nice,” Gavin said as he opened his door.
Gavin and Ian walked to the vestibule where Gavin dug out the set of keys. He unlocked the door and they quickly stepped inside where an alarm keypad was located on the left and right wall.
Gavin punched in the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6, followed by the ENTER key and the word ARMED was replaced by the word DISARMED on the keypad board.
Gavin looked up the flight of stairs where a door on each side was located. “Mike’s warehouse is on our right, it stands to reason it’s the door on our right.”
They went up, Gavin used the keys to unlock the door, they went in. There was an illuminated wall switch. Gavin flicked it. The entire warehouse lit up like a runway after dark.
“Wow, it’s bright,” Ian remarked.
“There’s at least a hundred bulbs in the ceiling,” Gavin said. “Let’s go.”
They walked down the flight of stairs to the warehouse floor. “Doesn’t he know about the new green bulbs?” Ian said. “All this electricity.”
“I’ll mention it to him at his trial,” Gavin said. “Maybe when he gets out in seven to ten, he can replace them.”
At the bottom of the stairs, Ian said, “Look at this place, will you. It’s like an amusement park graveyard or something.”
Stacked against the left wall were dozens of old storage trunks like the kind you see in old movies, covered in stickers telling you where the trunk has been. Hanging from wires suspended from wall to wall were ventriloquist dummies of all sizes, types and genders. Against the right wall were a half dozen wardrobe closets with mirrored doors. Under the suspended dummies were several long work tables littered with tools and every conceivable trick device in the magician’s profession.
Behind the work tables, against the back wall, mounted from ceiling brackets stood the dry cleaning rack. A hundred or more suits hung from the guiderail of the rack.
Gavin and Ian went to the rack where a stop/start button hung off the guiderail. “Well, let’s get to searching,” Gavin said.
Ian held a suit, opened a pocket and a full bouquet of flowers popped out. He reached into the other pocket and pulled out a red silk handkerchief that was stitched to a yellow handkerchief that was stitched to a blue and a green and a black and a brown and a teal and a…
“For the love of,” Ian said and moved onto another pocket.
Gavin fared no better than Ian did. Out of the first pocket he checked, he removed a tiny box no bigger than a book of matches. Out of curiosity, he opened the box and full bouquet of flowers popped out and hit him in the face.
“Yeah, I got one, too,” Ian said.
By the tenth suit, the floor was littered with magic boxes, coins, handcuffs, rope tricks, decks of cards, bouquets of flowers, dozens of hundred foot long silk scarves, juggling balls and pins, throwing knives and dozens of other mainstay magicians hardware.
Everything but the egg.
Gavin hit the start button to move the rack along, then hit stop. The motorized noise of gears meshing continued. Gavin hit STOP a second time and still, the noise continued.
Gavin and Ian turned around.
The massive roll down door was slowly rolling up.
“What the hell?” Gavin said.
“Did you do that?” Ian said.
“Did you see me do that?” Gavin said.
“Because if you didn’t do that, it could be the cops?”
“Did you see me do that?” Gavin repeated.
Ian and Gavin looked at each other.
The roll down door slowly continued to ascend.
“We’re trapped,” Ian said.
“Get behind the…”
“Like rats.”
“Get behind the…”
“I’m too cute to go to prison.”
“Get behind that workbench,” Gavin said and shoved Ian.
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Gavin turned and spotted a second light switch on the wall, raced to it to flick off the lights, then joined Ian behind the bench.
“Are you in the fetal position?” Gavin whispered.
“My cuteness will make me a target for every deranged psycho in prison,” Ian whispered.
“Shut up about your cuteness and get up,” Gavin said.
The roll down door continued ascending, reaching the halfway point now.
On his stomach, Ian started to crawl under the workbench.
“Ian?” Gavin whispered. “Oh, for,” he said, grabbed Ian by the ankles and yanked him back out.
“Stop,” Ian whispered. “Let me go. I’m too cute to…”
Gavin wrapped his hand around Ian’s mouth. “Shut up and get up.”
Ian got to his knees beside Gavin. Together, they peered over the workbench. The roll down door was three quarters up now and a massive black shadow filled the doorframe.
“You’ll have to beat me up, Lee,” Ian whispered.
“My pleasure,” Gavin whispered.
“Work me over good so I’m not so cute.”
“No problem.”
“I mean really ugly me up.”
“How about you just shut up.”
The massive black shadow slowly rolled into the warehouse. It was large cargo truck, the kind used at airports. Two men wearing ski masks walked beside the truck.
“What the hell is this?” Ian whispered. “Those aren’t cops.”
“They’re burglars,” Gavin whispered.
“We were here first,” Ian whispered.
The truck stopped, the cab door opened and a third, smaller person in a ski mask got out.
“Gotta be a light switch around here somewhere,” one of them said.
“Let’s close the door first,” another of them said.
The roll down door started to close.
“You take the little one,” Gavin whispered.
“And do what with him?” Ian whispered.
“I’ll take the two big guys,” Gavin whispered.
“The last fight I won was in the third grade and she was smaller than me,” Ian whispered.
“Wait for the lights to come on,” Gavin whispered.
“What if they have guns?”
“No self respecting B&E man would be caught dead with a gun.”
