Book of Nathan

by Curt Weeden

  The junior cop stuck his head out the driver’s-side window of the squad car. “What’s pull it up more supposed to mean?”

  “More. You know, more.”

  “Idiot.” The senior cop pointed a finger at the hot-tempered kielbasa driver. “You, steer the thing over there!” He waved at the sixteen-floor tower that housed Johnson & Johnson’s executive brain trust.

  The guard glanced at the gleaming white building. “Oh, good God, not—” Nothing was more sacred on the corporate grounds than the white spear that was the cerebral cortex for the world’s largest diversified healthcare business. The security officer turned to the senior cop and used his wide eyes to beg for mercy.

  But it was too late. The junior cop bumped the mobile and it moved forward along a ribbon of asphalt that wound its way through twenty acres of perfect landscape. The kielbasa might have ended up in front of the corporation’s main entrance had it not been for the now totally panicked guard who sprinted alongside the Kielbasavan screaming at the driver doing the steering. When the guard realized it was going to take more than words to keep a disaster from turning into a catastrophe, he ran a few yards in front of the Kielbasavan. Then he made an abrupt about-face, planted his feet, stretched out his arms, and turned himself into a human barricade.

  “Ah, shit,” the driver with an attitude yelled, and yanked the steering wheel hard to the left. The Kielbasavan missed hitting the guard but the maneuver sent the vehicle down a steep curved drive that led to an underground garage. The kielbasa plummeted toward the entrance to the subsurface executive parking lot.

  “What the hell?” the junior cop cried out.

  “Mother of God,” the guard croaked.

  The driver with an attitude pounded the kielbasa’s brake pedal, but the van kept skidding down the drive. He yanked the emergency brake lever and jammed the transmission into reverse. The metal-mashing sounds that followed were ear piercing. But the noise was mellow compared to the resonance of steel and fiberglass being mashed against the driveway’s stone wall.

  “Sonofabitch.” roared the driver. The Kielbasavan had traveled halfway down the drive that was the only way in or out of the garage. The back tip of the sausage was flattened against one side of the driveway and the vehicle cab was flush against the opposite wall.

  “What the hell have you done?” the security guard wailed.

  The senior police officer quickly grasped the extent of the tie-up and assaulted the junior cop with a minute’s worth of profanity. Junior cop didn’t seem at all upended by the incident and, in fact, looked as amused as Maurice Tyson.

  “Back that thing out of there!” yelled the guard.

  The sausage driver retracted the mobile’s sunroof. “Hey, jerkhead. The freakin’ transmission’s shot, man. So’re the damn brakes.”

  The sweaty guard swallowed and made the sign of the cross.

  The driver with an attitude added more bad news. “The only thing that’s keepin’ this thing from rollin’ the rest of the way down and takin’ out the garage door is a piss pot of brake fluid that’s leakin’ out fast!”

  “But you have to back it out!” the guard implored. He was near tears.

  “Mr. Guard,” Frank called out through the opening in the kielbasa’s roof. “The Kielbasavan can only go one way and that’s down! We need something to stick under the front wheels before the brakes let go altogether.”

  “What?”

  The senior cop grabbed the guard by his shoulder and told him to radio for help. “Somebody needs to open the garage doors and throw a chuck under them wheels!”

  The guard was more comfortable taking orders than solving problems—particularly a problem that was blockading the transportation artery used by the corporation’s most powerful men and women. He turned to me once he finished talking to a J&J garage attendant. “Seventy cars down there and now not one of ’em can get out. See what you done?”

  Before I could complain I was being falsely accused, the executive garage door rolled up and a husky man with a crew cut walked out carrying a ten-foot piece of lumber.

  “That’s a six-by-six,” the senior cop said knowingly. “Should do the trick.”

  The garage attendant kicked the beam under the Kielbasavan’s front tires and the angry driver lifted his foot from the brake pedal. Then he and Frank made an emergency exit through the small opening in the kielbasa’s roof.

  “I’m puttin’ a call in for a wrecker,” the senior cop said to the guard.

  “You know who owns those cars parked down there?” the guard asked anyone who’d listen. “I’ll tell you who owns ’em. The people who can fire my ass, that’s who. That garage is filled with Beamers, Lexuses, and Jags, for chrissakes. And not one of ’em can get out because—” The guard turned to the two young men hauling themselves off the Kielbasavan’s roof and onto the ledge of the driveway wall. “Because of this—this bratwurst.”

  “It’s actually a kielbasa, sir,” Frank said and got back such a vicious stare that he and his colleague loped away from the driveway and headed toward Johnson & Johnson’s prized piece of outdoor artwork, Henry Moore’s Mother and Child.

  “All of yous—clear out,” the security guard shouted at the small crowd that by now had lined the sidewall of the executive garage driveway to get an interior view of the Kielbasavan through its open roof.

  I told Maurice the show was over. He agreed to leave the premises but only after hustling two kielbasa whistles from Frank.

  The New York metro TV outlets had a field day with footage of Dubensko’s Kielbasavan stuck in one of Johnson & Johnson’s most guarded orifices. According to news reports, things got worse shortly after Maurice and I left the scene to continue searching for Yigal and Twyla . About the time we found the happy couple downing café lattes at a nearby Starbucks, the Kielbasavan’s gas tank ruptured. A hazmat team was called in to handle the fuel spill and all attempts to dislodge the kielbasa from the executive garage driveway were put on hold. When a pair of heavy-duty wreckers were given the go-ahead to extract the sausage, workers discovered that any yanking and pulling would cause serious damage to the stone walls bordering each side of the driveway. It was at that point a J&J heavyweight made an executive decision to bring in a crane to hoist the Kielbasavan up and away from the garage entrance. That meant waiting until morning before the luxury cars trapped in the garage could be given their freedom. Finding a crane, it seemed, was not that simple—even for a corporation with seventy billion dollars in assets.

  “The trials and tribulations of the captains of capitalism,” Doc chuckled as he and a dozen other Gateway residents watched NBC’s eleven o’clock news broadcast on our only TV. Seeing some of the city’s royalty—and in New Brunswick that definitely included J&J’s brass—get royally screwed proved to be top-notch evening entertainment.

  Then the anchorman reported Johnson & Johnson was arranging a limousine pickup for every executive whose car was stuck in the underground garage. The mood went sour. Doc said, “Still, an embarrassment to the company.”

  “You think?” I asked. It seemed to me the corporation had turned a serious transportation problem into a minor inconvenience.

  “Letterman’s going to be working this for the next month and a half,” the professor prophesized. “Somebody sticks a sausage where it doesn’t belong and it’s a manna from heaven for every comedian in America.”

  Doc’s humor didn’t register with Yigal, who was spending his last night in New Brunswick before returning to Florida. The lawyer was preoccupied with Twyla—one of the few women ever to get past the Gateway’s front door. A half hour earlier, I had spotted Manny’s niece taking an evening walk and hauled her into the shelter before she found a way to violate her parole. In a few minutes, I’d be taking her back to the Hyatt. For the moment, Twyla was tantalizing Yigal and every other Gateway resident.

  “Know what I love, Bullet?” Twyla asked.

  “What?”

  “Sausages. I love them thick,
long sausages.”

  Why wasn’t I surprised?

  I shifted gears. “It’s getting late. We need to get back to the hotel.” Sequestering Twyla with a bunch of sex-starved men had its risks—but an even bigger peril would have been to let her loose on her own. I didn’t want her wandering into any compromising situations with Yigal, Doc, or anyone else who might raise Maglio’s ire. Plus, there was the matter of the two Hispanic thugs still wandering the streets. Thanks to Twyla’s stripper pole, one was down for what could be a long count. The second, however, was still in good health and probably a bad mood. I wasn’t sure what his next step might be, but hurting, harassing, or even kidnapping Twyla as a way of getting to me could be an option. Until I could deposit Manny’s niece in a safe place, I would do what I could to keep her protected.

  “That sausage truck got stuck right across from the hotel, didn’t it, Bullet?” Twyla asked. Only Albany Street separated the Hyatt from Johnson & Johnson’s executive garage. “I really would love to see the sausage. Just a quick look. Can we, please Bullet?”

  Yigal jumped on the idea. “Yes, we should. Good idea.”

  I checked my watch. Eleven thirty. I didn’t have the fortitude to beat off another crazy proposal. The prospect of wandering through downtown New Brunswick at this time of night put me on edge. But since Central Jersey’s newest attraction was luring a horde of curiosity seekers, I figured there had to be a few midnight spectators who would give us cover. Besides, I wasn’t about to let a couple of would-be assassins dictate every move I wanted to make. I piled Twyla, Yigal, and Doc into my car and drove to the Hyatt.

  After parking the Buick only a few spaces from where Four Putt Gonzales had been shot in the leg, we headed toward Albany Street. We were on the sidewalk bordering Johnson & Johnson’s campus when Doc grabbed my arm. “That truck—I’ve seen it before,” he said, pointing to a nondescript pickup that made a right turn on a street that ran behind the Hyatt.

  “Looks like eight million other trucks,” I said.

  “It had an out-of-state plate,” Doc noted. “I can’t place where I saw it, but—”

  An impatient Twyla pulled on the professor’s arm. “It’s just a truck, Doc. Come on. Let’s go.” She dragged Doc ahead, Yigal and I trailing.

  Johnson & Johnson’s property was designed by I. M. Pei to be a seamless part of New Brunswick. The corporate headquarters’ grassy perimeter rolls up to city sidewalks without any kind of barrier. Except for bums and inebriated college students, pedestrians are rarely discouraged from wandering around the property. On this particular evening, there was a group of spectators lined up along one side of the garage driveway to get a late-night look at the disabled Kielbasavan.

  “No security,” Professor Waters observed. I caught a quiver of uncertainty in his voice.

  As usual, Doc was right. We showed up midway through a shift change of Johnson & Johnson’s security guard. Five minutes earlier or later and we probably wouldn’t have gotten within fifty yards of the garage entrance. Now there was no one to stop us or about two dozen other Dubensko Kielbasavan fans from pressing ourselves against the driveway wall and gawking at the immovable sausage and bun. Twyla began stroking the meat product replica in a way that made Yigal’s knees go weak. At the same time, Doc noticed a man standing behind the large Mother & Child sculpture that stood between us and J&J’s front entrance.

  “The thing in his hand,” Doc whispered to me. “It’s either a video camera or a weapon.”

  The distant, dark form shifted to the right. The man was too tall and heavyset to be either of the Hispanics who had been chasing me since my visit to Orlando. The pale light filtering out from J&J’s headquarters lobby caught the object in the man’s hand.

  “It’s a camera,” I said. “No big deal. He’s taking pictures of the kielbasa.”

  Doc shook his head. “It’s not the kielbasa he’s videoing. It’s us.”

  “Well, then maybe he wants a few candids of Twyla—”

  “He’s been pointing that camera at you, me, and Yigal since we got here.”

  I doubted there was anything sinister about the mysterious figure. Still, a logical plan would be to blend in with the small crowd, wait for the next security team to arrive, and then get escorted across the street to the Hyatt. But aggravation overrode logic. I was tired of being followed, intimidated, photographed, bombed, and shot at. I was through boxing with shadows. It was time to go on the offensive, so I called Doc and Yigal into a huddle. “Let’s go talk to Mr. Candid Camera.”

  The professor glanced over his shoulder at the heavyset man dressed in a lightweight jacket and baseball cap. “That isn’t a good idea, Bullet.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s what I’m going to do. I could use a little backup just in case.”

  “You know, you’re right—he’s probably here to take a little footage he can send as a video clip to his friends,” said Doc, looking for a way out.

  “If he’s a regular Joe, he won’t mind my striking up a conversation. But if he isn’t—”

  “He could make a run for it,” Yigal predicted.

  “Good point. If he does, here’s what we’ll do. Yigal, you and Doc approach him from either side and I’ll come at him straight on.”

  Doc pulled at his hair. “This could turn out bad, you know.”

  “Couldn’t be much worse than a few pounds of C-4 blowing up in your face or fifteen rounds of ammo coming your way,” I said. “Look, you’re probably right, Doc. Chances are he’s nothing more than some slob fooling around with his camcorder. Let’s go find out.”

  “I’m telling you, I have a bad feeling.”

  No more discussion. I ordered Yigal to take the right flank and Doc the left.

  “What if he does run?” Yigal wanted to know.

  “I don’t know. Chase him.”

  Yigal bounced off on a path wide right of the large Henry Moore sculpture. I nudged Doc on a course heading to the left of the mystery man and I strode directly toward the target.

  As we approached, the man backpedaled toward Johnson & Johnson’s front door. When we moved closer, he turned and ran full tilt into Yigal’s zone. His mistake. Panicked, the lawyer exploded into a super storm of out-of-control energy. Yigal’s arms flapped, his legs pumped, and his head wagged so ferociously that his yarmulke took off like a Frisbee.

  “Yigal!” It occurred to me the man in our crosshairs might actually be a nobody who thought he was a whisker away from being mugged. Being responsible for someone else’s heart attack was something I didn’t need.

  “Yigal!” I screamed again.

  Yigal was in a frenzy, whirling his body around like a mini-tornado. Camera Man cut his sprint to a crawl.

  “Yigal! Get out of his way!”

  My screaming had no impact on the lawyer, but it flustered Camera Man. He lowered his head and launched a full-speed assault on the lawyer, catching Yigal with his shoulder and driving him into J&J’s manicured turf. Zeusenoerdorf’s attorney was pudgy and out of shape so he was easy to put down. But he had a Weebles-like quality that had him back on his feet in a second. Whether it was deliberate or another impulsive act of lunacy, Yigal took off after Camera Man.

  With the lawyer flailing away only a few feet behind him, Camera Man had little choice but to head toward the driveway that led to J&J’s underground executive parking lot.

  Yigal kept charging, arms flapping and head gyrating. He was nearly on top of the man when the two reached the yellow tape that cordoned off the entrance to the garage.

  From the distance, it was impossible to tell if Camera Man was pushed by Yigal or whether he slipped on the layer of absorbent material that had been shoveled onto the pavement by the hazmat team. Whatever, the man tumbled through the tape and slid face-first down the driveway. Yigal also fell hard but managed to keep himself from plummeting toward the Kielbasavan.

  I was too far away to get a close-up view of what happened next. According to Twyla, the man with the video camera
rolled under the Kielbasavan’s chassis. Still skidding, he slammed into the six-by-six beam wedged beneath the mobile’s front wheels. The force of the impact dislodged the wood and the Dubensko motorized sausage broke loose.

  Unfortunately for Camera Man, his descent was slightly faster than the kielbasa’s start-up speed. He banged into the closed door of the garage an instant before the Kielbasavan hit the entryway, catching Camera Man with the tip of its twenty-five-foot bun.

  Twyla and the other Kielbasavan admirers erupted with a chorus of gasps and screams. Doc and I raced to the edge of the driveway, hopping over Yigal who was seated on the ground brushing debris from a gash on his right arm. We half ran, half slid to what was left of the J&J garage entrance, ending up on either side of Camera Man. The lower half of his body had been pulverized by the Kielbasavan—his mangled legs stuck under the front wheels. Blood gushed from a jagged tear in his neck.

  “Damn,” I shouted at Doc. “His artery’s been cut.”

  “Got to stop the bleeding,” the professor said, and like magic, a cotton blouse fell from the sky. Doc quickly turned the woman’s shirt into a compress and jammed it against the man’s neck. I looked up and spotted Twyla hovering over the wall wearing nothing but a skimpy bra.

  A half dozen men joined Doc and me at the lower end of the garage driveway. They tried pushing the Kielbasavan uphill a foot or two, but the vehicle didn’t move.

  “Not good,” Doc muttered. “He’s trapped.”

  “Check his skull,” I ordered. The injured man’s baseball cap had slipped forward and the visor covered his forehead and eyes. Trickles of blood leaked from under the sweatband.

  Doc gently removed the man’s hat and then pulled back with a start.

  “My God,” the professor whispered.

  “What?”

  “It’s . . . It’s Conway Kyzwoski!”

  Chapter 16

  “Conway.” I shouted.

  Kyzwoski was bleeding out fast and his voice was feeble. Doc and I had our ears to his face doing our best to decipher what he was saying.