Headcount: v5
Page 10
The rear parking lot was almost empty, just as Mo had predicted. It hadn’t been a problem getting Takahashi and gang to follow us and park in the farthest corner of the lot. They didn’t question Mo’s spot selection, but just in case, she made it a point to mention that she liked to park as far away as possible so she could walk a bit after a heavy meal. Takahashi seemed to love the idea, and praised her sharp consultant’s mind. I realized that this is what we would tell the police if we were asked about parking in the rear overflow lot instead of up front like every other chunky diner.
Mo, being a partner at a consulting firm, got phone calls at every hour of every day, and when one came in just before the swordfish arrived, she took the opportunity to step outside and move the car. She winked at me when she came back inside. I smiled, and marveled at how smoothly things were going. Then I felt my stomach seize as I realized that I was up next.
I excused myself and stepped into the main bar area, ostensibly looking for the restrooms. The crowd had thinned out a bit as the diners had all been seated, and the bar area now only contained the serious drinkers. I scanned the room, trying to scope out a group of tough guys who wouldn’t take kindly to a New York Jew talking a bit of smack on their home turf. I paused when I noticed a table in the back with five big guys who looked a bit like those Hells Angels dudes who killed that fan at the Altamont Rock Festival in 1969, but I wasn’t sure if I could get them riled up without having it erupt into violence. I walked past them and entered the restroom.
As I stared at the urinal, I started to go over what we were about to do, and I began to question everything yet again. How could we justify taking three lives today? How could I justify it? After all, I hadn’t seen any proof of these insane plans to build tanks in secret basements hidden beneath motorcycle manufacturing plants that didn’t exist yet. And whatever evidence Mo could produce to convince me would also convince Homeland Security, right? After all, those agencies were paid to be paranoid and suspicious about this stuff, no matter how far-fetched and insane. Besides, these guys hadn’t really done anything yet, had they? So we were going to bash their heads in for something they may or not have said or been serious about?
A crazy idea popped into my head as I zipped up. I nodded to myself, and felt a wave of relief, as if a fever had just broken. I felt elated as the plan unfolded in my mind. I knew there would be no time to get into another philosophical debate with Mo—not that I’d win it. I’d have to voice my opinion in action. I’d go along with her plan, but once we got out into the lot and Mo started the attack, I’d make sure that no one got hurt, and hopefully one of the Japanese men would get a chance to dial 911. Then, once we got arrested, my story about being blackmailed might actually hold up if Yoshi and gang testified that Mo tried to kill them and I stopped the attack.
Sure, I had come to like Mo a bit. Hell, I even understood what she was doing. To some degree I bought into it myself. But I knew I still had a chance to stop before I crossed that last line. I’d probably do some time for being involved in Miroslav’s death, but I deserved that. I mopped my forehead with a towel and stared at myself in the mirror. I was ready.
As if on cue, the door swung open and one of the big biker dudes walked in. He wore a red bandana, a Harley racing jacket, and had one of those chains that linked his wallet and keys to his heavy leather belt. He looked like a mean redneck, and though I loathed homophobes, I knew it was a good guess that this sucker would not react well to being thought of as a homosexual. At first I considered just calling him a faggot or something, but that just didn’t sit right with me. So I tried an alternative method of implying he was gay.
“How’re you?” I smiled at him.
“Good,” he said, and stood at the urinal.
“Nice jacket.”
“Thank you.”
“You ride?”
“Yup.”
I gulped. “Um. You looking for a ride later?” I had no idea if gay men actually spoke like that, but I was betting this guy didn’t either. As long as he got the message, and as long as it pissed him off.
The biker looked at me. I’m not sure which one of us was more surprised—he at being propositioned by a skinny Jewish guy in the men’s room, or I at seeing his smile and the matching look in his eye.
“You’re cute,” he said, almost embarrassed, “but I’m seeing someone. And he’s here with me tonight.”
I raced out of the restroom, red as a beet. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, and headed straight out the front door to suck on a cigarette. I shook as the nervous tension left me, and I had finished half my smoke before realizing that I was rocking back and forth on my heels and shaking my head and smiling with embarrassment. I looked around self-consciously, but no one seemed to be taking any notice. I relaxed and lit another cigarette just as two younger guys and a woman stepped outside to smoke. They nodded at me and stopped a few feet away to light up.
When I noticed they were talking about baseball, my ears pricked up. Sports is always a good reason to fight, and I knew that Mo had stowed a couple of baseball bats as well as a tire iron or two in the trunk along with the knives. But I was a football fan, and I didn’t really follow baseball. I knew the Milwaukee team was called the Brewers and that they weren’t very good, but I couldn’t see these guys getting too worked up about me poking fun at a losing team.
As I listened closer, it turned out they were talking about softball. Apparently the woman played in a local league and they had all just come from a game. Now this sounded more promising—nothing riles up a bunch of guys like some asshole disrespecting the woman they’re with. Call me old fashioned, but I knew it would rile me up if some stranger said something rude to a woman in my presence. So I took one last deep drag on my smoke and then walked up to the group.
“You play softball?” I asked the woman.
She nodded. “Yeah, just for fun.”
I swallowed hard. “You a dyke then?”
“Excuse me?” The woman stared at me. The two guys froze.
I wanted to sink into the ground, but I went on. “Those bats must get used quite a bit after practice, if you know what I mean.”
“You fuckin’ serious, man?” said one of the two guys.
All three of them stayed calm. Maybe they were still in shock, or perhaps they were just used to homophobes and misogynists talking shit at the bars. Still, now I had started it, and I had to go on.
“Stay out of this, buddy,” I said. “I’m talking to your pussy-munching friend.” I turned to the woman. “What’s the matter, these guys don’t have enough cock to suit you? Or do they just get each other off?”
Now the second guy, a well built, clean cut twenty-something moved close to me. “Look man, I don’t know what your deal is, but you need to shut the fuck up.”
“Come on, Mark,” said the woman. “We’re done here. Let’s go back inside. The dessert must have arrived.” She grabbed the guy’s arm and pulled him towards the door. He reluctantly turned, and the three of them put out their cigarettes and walked back into the restaurant.
I followed them in, and gave it one last shot. “Yeah Mark, go finish up your fruit tart with your dyke sister.” I sneered loudly. “Faggot.”
And then Mark turned and hit me in the face. It was a perfect shot, got me just beneath the eye, and it happened right in front of the cash register in plain sight of the wait staff and a bunch of customers. I went down with a yell, so the folks who hadn’t noticed would turn around. Several waiters dropped their trays and jumped into action, some of them holding Mark back while others helped me to my feet. Within a few minutes I had an ice pack pressed against my face and could hear the worried manager’s voice in my ear.
“Just relax. We’ve evicted the other party from the restaurant. My bouncers are holding them outside. Should we call an ambulance? Should I have the police meet you directly at the hospital?”
I waved him away. “No, don’t worry about it. It was my fault.” For a second I
was worried I had taken it too far. I didn’t want the authorities on the scene just yet. If the police got here now, my plan wouldn’t work. “And don’t worry about those guys. I’m drunk and I’ve had a bad day. I was talking shit.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m going to have to call the police,” said the manager.
“No, please don’t.” I pushed away the ice pack and turned to the manager. “Look, I’m with my boss and some clients, and we’re in the middle of a very important meeting.” I pointed towards the opening to the back room, and made sure the manager got a look at the Japanese guys with Mo. “I need to get back to my table. I could lose my job if I mess up this meeting. They’re already probably wondering what the hell I’m doing.” The manager looked hesitant, but he was close to giving in, so I pushed. “Come on, man. I just got hit in the face. Now you want me to lose my job as well? Please understand. If you need me to sign a waiver saying I won’t sue your place, then I’ll do it. Here, hold on to my business card.”
The manager sighed and nodded. “Okay, sir. Go ahead.” He smiled. “Dessert will be on the house.”
TWENTY-THREE
We skipped dessert and went straight from entrée to coffee. Needless to say, the rest of our meal went quickly and quietly. I explained my rapidly-blackening eye and swollen face with a shrug and a simple, “Friday night in Milwaukee.”
That drew a nervous laugh from Yoshi, but Takahashi and Aki just exchanged serious glances. When the coffee arrived, Mo picked up her cup and excused herself, saying she wanted to have a cigarette. She tapped me on the knee, and I followed her.
Mo didn’t speak until we were outside the restaurant and far enough away from the handful of other smokers.
“Nice work,” she finally said. “I don’t even want to know how you did it.”
I tried to smile. “I am never doing something like this again.”
“I know. It’s messy with so many people around. But I couldn’t think of another way to get to these guys. According to my sources in the Network, these men are paranoid to the extreme, and would be very suspicious of anything unusual. Believe me, I would have liked to have suggested a trip to the Northern Wisconsin woods or something, but that would have spooked them for sure.”
“Wait, so you think they’re onto us?”
“No, of course not.” She smiled. “We’re too damn good as consultants for anyone to believe that we do anything else.”
I almost laughed. “So what now?”
“Follow me,” she said. Mo walked around the back to where our car was parked. She popped the trunk. “Well?”
I looked inside and shrugged. “I guess we go with the bats. The folks that punched me out had just gone to a softball game.”
Mo shook her head. “Well, then we go with the tire irons.”
I looked at her.
Mo sighed. “If we use bats, then the police will wonder why they weren’t the bats that belonged to that group.” She reached into a cardboard box and pulled out two sets of disposable surgical gloves. “Here. Put these on discreetly when we walk out of the restaurant. They’re sheer, and in the dark you can’t really see them.” She put on her gloves and reached into the trunk and pulled out two tire irons. After hesitating, she also grabbed a long sharp kitchen knife, the kind you’d use to slice a watermelon. Then she placed all three objects under the car, just near the left rear tire.
We went back into the restaurant. The wait staff looked at me and whispered, but I barely noticed. My attention had narrowed down to a single point in space and time. I couldn’t see, hear, or think of anything but what was about to go down. I was too wound up to even try and systematically rehearse the plan in my mind, and I prayed that I would know what to do when the time came.
Takahashi was on his feet when we got back into the dining room. He looked impatient, almost annoyed. I wasn’t sure if it was the food, or if he was shaken by the oddness of me getting punched out for no apparent reason. Aki was quiet and stoic, and he sat and stared at the table like he was meditating. Yoshi was the only one who seemed to be in a mood fitting for someone who had just eaten a nice dinner.
I smiled at them as Mo signed the credit card receipt. We allowed our three clients to walk out first, and then Mo and I followed. I was so tense that I had to clench my fists and whisper and remind myself to breathe. As I felt my fingernails cut into my palms, I remembered the gloves. We were just leaving the restaurant as I pulled them out of my trouser pocket. I looked around to see if anyone was watching—some people were, but I could tell they were focused on my colorful facial bruise, not the colorless rubber gloves in my hands.
Mo was ahead of me when we got to the lot. She put out her hand to indicate that I should wait and let the Japanese group move a few more steps ahead of us. They were walking slowly, talking in Japanese. Takahashi and Aki were in an intense discussion, but Yoshi was lagging behind and strolling with his hands in his pockets. Aki said something to Yoshi, and Yoshi jogged up to him.
I felt a tap on my arm and looked. Mo had raced to our car and grabbed the tire irons. She handed one to me, and in my panic I dropped it. As Mo saw me fumble the club, she ran full tilt ahead to the group, and just as my iron clanged on the black asphalt, Mo’s struck the back of Aki’s head with a sickening dull sound. He went down immediately, and Yoshi and Takahashi turned and cried out.
“Stop!” I shouted, not sure whom I was addressing.
Mo didn’t even flinch. It was like she was expecting me to betray her. She swung at Takahashi, but he dropped himself backwards in a surprisingly agile move for a short fat man, and Mo’s tire iron swung harmlessly through the air above his massive raised gut.
As Takahashi fell, he raised his right foot and kicked at Mo, getting her just around the armpit. She shouted in pain, and yelled for me.
“Okay, everyone just stop this,” I said.
Mo turned to me for an instant. “You piece of shit.” Then she swung once more, this time getting Takahashi on the leg but missing the knee. Takahashi yelped, but was on his feet again, and he tackled Mo, pushing her against the car. Now Yoshi pulled out something from his pocket, and I saw a whipping flash of silver as he drove a blade deep into Mo’s side. I was close enough now to see her eyes widen in surprise and then glaze over as her blood poured out and rapidly began to gather in a shiny black pool on the parking lot.
I screamed and rushed forward with my iron rod held high above my head. I must have moved fast, because Yoshi didn’t get out of the way in time and I swear I heard his skull crack right down the middle. He didn’t go down, but just stood there, held in place against his rental car, eyes open and unblinking, fluids oozing down his forehead and dripping off his nose. He would be dead soon, and I didn’t give a shit.
And then everything slowed down for me. It was one of those periods when you understand that time as we think of it is meaningless. What happened next couldn’t have lasted more than five or ten seconds, but if you had told me it took thirty minutes to kill Takahashi, I would have believed you.
I calmly and deliberately took the knife from Yoshi’s limp hand and wiped it on my trousers to get rid of Mo’s blood. Then I remember actually squinting to read the fine print on the side of the blade. Stainless – Japan, is all it said. I remember smiling and nodding as if in acknowledgement to the gods of war, as if I was thanking them that my first kill would be done with Japanese steel, thereby linking me with one of the greatest traditions in the art of death-dealing. I remember looking up at the half-moon and feeling a cosmic connection to every other man or woman that has ever taken a life for a reason that in the moment seemed justifiable.
But most of all I remember looking into Mo’s eyes as I plunged the knife into Takahashi’s back. As I felt the clean metal slide between his ribs and into his soft, unsuspecting lung, Mo’s eyes gently closed and then opened again. I knew she was thanking me. I also knew she was sorry for what she had done, for what she had made me do, for what she had made me become.
“Antifreeze. There’s some in the trunk.”
“What?” I looked back at Mo.
“Antifreeze,” she whispered. “My blood.”
I stared at her, and then I understood. I popped the trunk and grabbed the bottle of antifreeze and ran over to where Mo’s blood had pooled on the ground. As I unscrewed the cap and prepared to dump the green toxin all over Mo’s blood, I surveyed the scene and promptly replaced the top on the bottle.
The scene was perfect. Yoshi’s knife had been a blessing. With three messy dead bodies, two tire irons with no identifiable prints, and a knife with Yoshi’s prints, it would look like these guys had simply had it out with each other. It wouldn’t be too hard to come up with a scenario that sequenced their wounds and didn’t require anyone else to be present. And there was so much intermingled blood, there’d be no way forensics would test it all. No, pouring antifreeze would make Mo’s blood untestable, but it would also signal that others were involved. Either way was a gamble, and I had to make the call. I didn’t hesitate, but just ran back to the car. I took another look at Mo before driving. She was on the phone, of all things. I assumed she was delirious.
“Stay awake,” I said. “I’ll have you at the hospital soon.”
“No. This address.” She handed me her phone.
A text message window was open, showing an address in Port Washington, a somewhat distant suburb of Milwaukee. I punched the address into the GPS and drove. I didn’t question Mo. I was done questioning her. I was done betraying her.