The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up
Page 18
He quickly secured a cloth rag around Arnold’s eyes.
“Ready to roll?” asked the Bandit.
“I guess,” answered Arnold. “But Ira Taylor lives all the way down in the West Village. Aren’t we going to look pretty damn conspicuous dressed like this.”
“Don’t worry,” responded his companion. “There’s a police station very close by here.
“That’s supposed to reassure me?”
“We’ll go by squad car, man. I do it all the time,” explained the Bandit. “You know how cops are. They leave their cars in front of the stationhouse day and night—with the engines running. They figure: Who the hell is going to be stupid enough to steal a police cruiser from in front of a stationhouse? Arrogant bastards. Besides, if you turn on the sirens, you can make damn good time….”
“You’re totally nuts.”
“Maybe. But it works.”
It sounded too easy to Arnold. “Don’t they have tracking devices in police cars these days?”
“You must think I’m a total moron, man. Of course they do. But the tech is newer than the cars themselves are, so it’s not built in. There are special boxes attached under the hoods,” explained the Bandit. “That makes it real simple. Before you borrow a car, you exchange the tracking box with the tracker on another cruiser. That confuses the hell out of them. By the time they figure out what you’ve done, you could have driven cross country.”
“You really have thought of everything,” said Arnold.
“More or less,” said the Bandit. “The best part is listening to the police on the radio in the cruiser. There’s nothing more fun than a bunch of confused cops searching for their own vehicle.”
They turned on the sirens and arrived downtown in record time. While they darted their way through late-night traffic, the police radio did broadcast a heated argument between two cops over whether their car had been stolen or merely misplaced. When the Bandit tired of this debate, he flipped off the radio and quizzed Arnold about the botanist’s animosity toward the bond trader. “I try to custom design my projects,” explained the Bandit. “In the army they called this a God-complex. But I don’t have the foggiest idea why. Does it seem to you like God custom designs his projects?”
“I guess not,” said Arnold.
He was struck by the ease with which the Bandit relied on a personal vocabulary of euphemisms: not just ‘acquire’ and ‘projects’ and ‘calling,’ but also ‘beneficiary’ for victim and ‘comfortable’ for naked. If he were ever to give another media interview, Arnold decided, he intended to refer to the baseball game incident as his ‘project’ and the Yankees fans as ‘beneficiaries.’
“I’m the opposite of God,” said the Bandit. “God is careless.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“Most people don’t. They assume that God has some sort of grand design. But He doesn’t, as far as I can tell,” said the lunatic. “That’s why I have to help Him out sometimes in the meting-out-justice department.”
The Bandit cruised down Ninth Avenue and then cut west on Seventh Street. As they approached Arnold’s own home, the familiar sites of the neighbourhood—the leafy branches of the linden trees, the brickwork advertising Goldstein’s Packaged Meats—sent a shiver down his back. “We’ll sneak up on him from behind,” explained the lunatic. “That way we’ll avoid the chaos outside your place.” But when they reached the block behind Arnold’s townhouse, that street was also lined with police and a handful of determined demonstrators. The protesters had brought along aluminium lawn chairs and pup tents. The authorities must have discovered Arnold’s ladder trick—maybe Cassandra had given him away—and they were taking precautions to prevent him from sneaking back inside.
“What now?” demanded Arnold.
“Easy,” answered the Bandit. “We’ll have to go in through the opposite building.”
“Dressed like this?” asked the botanist.
“Just watch.”
The Bandit parked the car and opened the wrought-iron gate of the renaissance brownstone immediately behind Taylor’s. An unambitious row of pansies lined the short slate path leading up to the house. Garbage cans and recycling bins stood beside the bright-yellow Dutch doors; the brass knocker was shaped like an elephant. Arnold’s companion rang the bell and waited patiently.
They heard footsteps approaching. A studious-looking, sallow-skinned man in a cashmere pullover opened the door and examined the two of them suspiciously. “Yes?” he demanded. Arnold noticed that he wore a flesh-coloured hearing aide.
The Bandit reached into his jacket and produced a badge. “NYPD,” he barked. “We need access to your back yard.”
“Well, all right…” stammered the sallow-skinned man.
“We’re undercover,” explained the Bandit. “Backup is on its way.”
“Is there a problem….?”
“You’re fine,” said the Bandit. “It’s your neighbour we’re after.”
“Oh, the tongue fellow—”
“No, not Brinkman. We’re after a man named Ira Taylor. You know him…?”
“Taylor….Taylor….I know the one. His son used to throw rubbish on my lawn. Until a couple of years ago. Then I paid the kid $100 and he stopped. Carrot always works better than the stick, as they say.”
The Bandit stepped past the home owner, and they crossed through a study into a kitchen. The air smelled of mildew and the appliances might easily have come from the set of a 1950s sitcom. Arnold followed the lunatic down the back stairs, through a garden of Bell peppers and patty-pan squash, and over a low retaining wall into the bond trader’s yard. It was immaculately tended and without so much as a gum-wrapper or cigarette butt. All grass, no clover. A large variety of tea roses blossomed beside the stockade fence. Arnold was still admiring the greenery, which included a series of topiary hedges cut to resemble human breasts, when the Bandit pounded on the back door of Taylor’s townhouse.
Taylor came to the door in his weekend casuals: a cambric shirt, beige khakis, penny loafers. “What the hell—?” He hadn’t unhooked the latch, but the Bandit barrelled into the door and snapped the chair off the moulding. That sent the bond trader stumbling backwards, where he landed on his behind. The lunatic kept him pinned to the ground by levelling the saber at the man’s abdomen. Arnold followed the Bandit through the shattered door.
“You!” shouted Taylor when he spotted Arnold. “Mother-fucker!”
“Watch your language,” ordered the Bandit. “Is there anybody else home?”
“No….” spluttered Taylor. “They’re out on the Island already. I’ll be joining them in the morning.”
“I highly doubt that,” observed the Bandit. “But first things first. My friend Arnold here will need your clothing.”
“It’s in the bedroom. First door on the—”
The Bandit jabbed Taylor lightly. “What you’re wearing,” he clarified. “Stand up slowly and remove your clothes.”
“You have to be out of your mind if you think—”
Arnold’s companion jabbed him harder with the sword. He drew blood.
“Okay, okay,” said the bond trader. “Just let me up.”
He stripped out of the shirt and slacks. The Bandit slammed his sword against a seascape in the foyer, slashing the canvas in two, and Taylor quickly handed over his boxer shorts as well. “That’s an original Winslow Homer,” he said in alarm.
“Was an original Winslow Homer,” countered the lunatic. “Now it’s confetti.” He slashed the canvas several more times. “What do you say, Arnold? Shall we tar and feather him?”
“You’re the boss.”
“That’s right, I am,” agreed the Bandit. “Why don’t you put those clothes on, man, and then we’ll get the hell out of here.”
Arnold tossed the bond trader’s shirt over his shoulders. He was disappointed that the Bandit didn’t intend more damage. Taylor must have had the same thought, because he appeared somewhat relieved.
&nb
sp; “You got a car?” asked the Bandit.
The naked bond trader stood with his arms folded across his muscular chest. His limbs were blanketed in curly auburn hair.
“I asked you a question,” shouted the Bandit. He held his saber above his right shoulder with both hands as though wielding a sledge hammer.
“In the garage. The Mercedes….Amelia took the Hummer to the Island.”
“Then let’s go for a drive,” said the Bandit.
“You want me to come with you?” Taylor asked incredulously. “Like this?”
“It’s an invitation I wouldn’t turn down if I were you.” The lunatic then walked around the ground floor of the apartment overturning furniture and slashing paintings. A cabinet of figurines toppled onto the piano with a cacophonous reverberation. “Just so you don’t forget us, Ira,” the Bandit explained.
The victim—the beneficiary—endured the destruction stoically. He was either searching for an escape route or calculating his insurance payouts. Arnold continued changing into Taylor’s outfit. The clothes fit loosely.
“You ready?” the lunatic asked Arnold.
“Lead the way.”
“Let’s have our special guest lead the way,” countered the Bandit. He prodded the naked bond trader with his sword and they followed him down the basement steps into the two-car garage. Arnold’s companion ordered Taylor into the driver’s seat of the Mercedes and instructed Arnold to sit up front as well. “If he makes any sudden moves,” urged the lunatic. “Pop him one.” The Bandit settled in behind Taylor with his saber resting on the driver’s scalp. He instructed his victim to pull onto the street.
“Drive north up Broadway,” ordered the Bandit. “Keep driving until I tell you to stop.”
“Where are we going?” asked Arnold.
“Staten Island,” said the Bandit.
“Staten Island?”
“You said our friend here has a thing for garbage. Well I figured he wouldn’t mind a trip out to see the municipal landfill.”
Ira Taylor didn’t dare turn his head, but his eyes darted nervously from the gun to the rear-view mirror. “You won’t get away with this,” he warned. “I’ll sue the pants off you, Brinkman. I’ll take you for every last dime.”
“What was that about pants?” asked the Bandit.
The bond trader’s cheeks and ears turned a fiery pink.
“I wouldn’t say you’re in a great position to be levelling threats, Ira,” observed the Bandit. “Besides, aren’t you the one who’s always telling people to lump it? What happened to all that community spirit? Taking one for the team? You’re not the sort of stickler who’d sue over a minor kidnapping, are you?”
“Fuck you,” snapped Taylor.
The Bandit tapped the man’s skull with the saber blade. Taylor winced.
“I think it’s time for a silent contest,” said the Bandit. “Just like when we were kids. Let’s see how long our friend Ira can stay quiet for. Do you know what the winning prize is, Arnold?”
“What’s the winning prize?”
“If he stays quiet long enough, I won’t scalp him.”
The Bandit’s threat betrayed absolutely no emotion—he could as easily have been speaking of filleting a fish. They continued driving up Broadway. It was already late in the evening, so traffic was light.
“Isn’t Staten Island south of here?” asked Arnold.
“It was last time I checked,” said the Bandit. “But we can’t risk crossing the Hudson in the city. Too many cops guarding the bridges and tunnels. What we’ll do is drive up to the Catskills on local roads and cross there, then we’ll come back down on the New Jersey side.”
“The Catskills!” shouted Taylor. “That could take hours.”
“You just earned yourself a scalping,” said the Bandit. “I’m afraid that will have to wait until we get there. But one more word and I’ll cut your testicles off on the spot.”
That silenced the naked man for the remainder of the four hour drive.
They crossed into the countryside, cutting through secondary growth forests of hickory and basswood. Orion’s bow grew visible in the night sky. Deer grazed on the grassy mounds at the roadside. While they drove, the Bandit spoke at great length on the potential benefits of castration and the historical contributions of castrati. He told of Cai Lun, the Chinese eunuch who’d invented writing paper, and the Byzantine general, Narses, who’d reconquered Italy for the Emperor Justinian. He also shared with them his expansive knowledge of the self-castrating skoptzy of nineteenth century Russia. Listening to the lunatic’s eloquent soliloquy was almost enough to convince his audience that only a true fool would want to hold onto his testicles. But just when the Bandit’s words were actually starting to make sense—far too much sense—the lunatic broke off his lesson and started singing Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” at the top of his voice. Then he stopped as suddenly as he’d begun and gave Ira Taylor orders to turn down a narrow gravel road. By now they were already on Staten Island, near the municipal landfill, and a series of increasingly hostile signs warned them against trespassing.
The Mercedes pulled up in front of a gatehouse. It was a small, wooden structure with a mansard roof; moss covered one of the exterior walls. A bright orange control bar blocked their farther advance. Beyond the access point rose mounds of household garbage, some five stories high, surrounded by a high chain-link fence. Coils of barbed wire rimmed the upper edge of the gates. A pair bulldozers and a backhoe stood lifeless on the opposite side. At the window of the gatehouse, a pot-bellied, grey-haired guard sat listening to a transistor radio. When they stopped, the guard looked up indifferently.
“You guys are lost, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Do you mean that in a physical sense or a moral sense?” retorted the Bandit.
That’s when the guard must have noticed that Taylor wasn’t wearing any clothing, because he reached for his phone, but by then it was too late. The Bandit was already outside the vehicle with his saber point resting against the guard’s flabby throat. Arnold kept his revolver trained on the bond trader.
“I’ll have to ask you to step outside and remove your clothes,” said the Bandit.
The guard looked as though he might weep. “Please, please don’t do anything to me,” he begged. “I have money. In my wallet….”
“We don’t need your money,” answered the Bandit. “We need your clothes.”
“Oh my God,” blubbered the guard. “Perverts. Like… Deliverance.”
The Bandit opened the gatehouse door and pushed the guard out onto the pavement. “We’re not perverts,” he said. “But the man driving that car is a very dangerous sexual predator. Aren’t you, Ira?”
The bond trader said nothing.
“Okay, pop him one, Arnold,” order the Bandit.
“—No!” cried Taylor. “I mean yes! I’m a famous sexual predator. A dangerous one too.”
The bond trader bared his teeth in an effort to look threatening.
“That’s the spirit, Ira,” said the Bandit. “Now if you don’t start removing your clothing by the time I count to three,” he warned the guard, “I’m going to hand you over to our naked friend. He prefers to work with children, you understand, particularly little boys, but he’ll take what he can get.”
“One,” counted the Bandit.
The guard’s entire body was shaking.
“Two.”
Now the guard reached for his shirt buttons and began undressing. He fumbled with them one at a time.
“Good job,” said the Bandit. “I thought you’d see it our way.”
The man continued blubbering while he undressed, but the Bandit ignored him. He took off his own trench coat and put on the guard’s overshirt.
“Wait a second,” said the guard. “That guy in the car. He’s the asshole from the baseball game.”
“That is Mr. Brinkman,” said the Bandit.
“You never think it will happen to you…” muttered the guard.
“Underwear too,” the Bandit demanded. “And socks.”
“Please,” pleaded the guard—but he didn’t stop undressing. “Okay, I’m naked,” he finally said. “Now will you let me go?”
“You don’t look naked to me,” observed the Bandit. “Say, Arnold, does he look naked to you?”
The guard did appear decidedly naked to Arnold. His hairy barrel of a belly hung forward over his flaccid, uncircumcised penis; a blotchy rash covered much of his chest. Even a lunatic should have been able to tell that the man had run out of clothing. “I can’t see from here,” said Arnold.
“Well, I can see from here,” answered the Bandit. “What’s that?”
He poked at the guard’s throat with his saber.
“That’s my Saint Christopher’s medal. It brings me good luck.”
“Obviously, man,” answered the Bandit. “You’re clearly a very lucky guy.”
The guard gulped. Arnold watched his Adam’s apple moving.
“Next time, you’re better off with Saint Jude. He’s for desperate causes, right?”
The guard’s face had gone white; he looked as though he might vomit.
“I asked you a question,” barked the Bandit.
“St. Jude,” stammered the guard. “Desperate causes, yes. I think so.”
“You think? Or you know?”
“I know. Yes, I know. I know.”
“Aha!” declared the lunatic, lowering his sword. “You’re a religious man. Why didn’t you say so?”
“Oh, please,” begged the guard. “I’m very religious.”
“That changes everything. I’d never decapitate a religious Christian.”
The guard exhaled audibly. “You wouldn’t?”
“It’s much more fitting to crucify one,” said the Bandit.
Arnold hadn’t been prepared for this. But he’d exposed himself to the mercies of a lunatic, so now he had to follow through. He waved the gun as a reminder to Taylor.
“Hand over the medal,” commanded the Bandit.
The guard unclasped the chain and gave it to him.
The Bandit handed the medal to Arnold. “Here’s a souvenir for you. St. Christopher’s the patron saint of gardeners.”