“Are you Davidovich? Katrina’s friend? Come here, Davidovich!”
He scrounged a chair from another table and put it in place for me as I ambled over. I was about to say that I couldn’t place the guy’s accent, but he didn’t really have an accent. Maybe a little hint of a deep-south drawl in there, without any western twang to it like Thompson had. But only a hint. No northeast stuff at all, no melodic Spanish or Italian lilt to the syllables.
“I am Stan Chaladian.” He held out his hand, I took it, and he pumped mine vigorously. “Katrina and Luci of course you know. That is Marcus Plankinton.”
I shook hands with the black guy and started to murmur my name.
“Jay Davidovich, I know,” he said. “Katrina here has been telling us about how you walk on water.”
Katrina talks too much. I sat down. So did Chaladian. Plankinton had never gotten up. Chaladian nudged Thompson with his elbow.
“Tell him.”
“Well it’s just the most incredible piece of luck.” She gave me a Crest-commercial smile. “Stan has a reality TV show in development about the Simi Valley scene. Now Stan and myself go way back, you understand. Way back. And when he happened to see me in the background of one of the stories about the tour, he actually remembered me. Doesn’t that just beat anything you ever heard? He thinks I’d be perfect. Because of Luci and everything.”
“That’s fantastic, Hurricane. I’m thrilled for you.” The next Snooki.
“You can’t believe what a shot this is for Katrina.” Stan sounded like he was trying to sell me stock in the thing. “TruTV. Okay, it’s not HBO. I know this. But you have to walk before you can run.”
“I feel bad about running out on Trow like this.” Thompson was trying out a don’t-be-mad-at-me look, which wasn’t working. “But you know, I think he’s gotten about everything I could give him along the lines of what you were worried about. It’s mostly just common sense and attitude, you know?”
It seemed to me that Trowbridge was still about six bricks shy of a hod in both areas, but why say so? I wasn’t buying a word of this. Thompson couldn’t act. Or at least if she could, she wasn’t doing much of a job of it right now. Chaladian had spotted her and Luci leaving the hotel and intercepted them. That much was crystal clear. Chaladian was studying me like the Torah the day before his bar mitzvah. I figured he wanted to know how much of this bullshit I was swallowing. Naturally, I tried to look like he had me hook, line, and sinker. And you know what? With just a little more luck, I might have brought it off.
Chaladian’s eyes had shot warily toward Luci while Thompson was dancing nimbly around the Trowbirdge situation. Now they lit up as he reached into his pocket. He peeled a five from the bottom of a wad and reached behind Thompson and Luci to hand it to Plankinton.
“Marco, do me a favor. Huge favor. Take the little one here over to the games and let her play whatever she wants to for awhile.”
“You got it, Mr. Ten.” Plankinton apparently noticed my blank look. “Folks call him that sometimes. Mr. Ten Percent. Come on, darlin’. Let’s go chew some dots or whatever.”
Luci looked questioningly at Thompson, who gave her a nod and an indulgent smile. Clutching the doll under her right arm, Luci took one more sip of Dr. Pepper, then slipped to the floor and took Plankinton’s hand so that he could lead her to the arcade. As soon as they were out of earshot, Chaladian locked eyeballs with me.
“This Trowbridge deal. Katrina hasn’t told me a thing, you understand. Not one word. But I know what the Trowbridge deal is. Everyone knows.”
“Arrests are public record.”
“In some countries.” Chaladian grinned at himself. “But let’s talk business.”
“Okay.” I shrugged. Mr. Cool, that’s me.
“What if the whole problem goes away?”
“Depends on how it goes away.”
“It just goes away. You don’t know how. Who cares how?”
“Well.” This sounded a lot like what Proxy and I had heard Korvette pitch to the lawyers. “I have a limited imagination. But you seem to be enjoying yourself, and I don’t want to spoil the party. So just to be a good sport, I’m supposing.”
“I like this Davidovich!” Chaladian thumped the table and shared a megawatt beam with Thompson before turning back to me. “You heard what Marcus called me. ‘Mr. Ten Percent.’”
“I picked that up.”
“So. Ten percent of thirty-six-million is three million six hundred thousand.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
“So. What do you think?”
I think I’m right on the edge of being in very deep shit, that’s what I think. If Chaladian’s idea was to run off with Thompson and Luci, why was he still tamely sitting here with them when I finally got to the bus station? Don’t tell me Chaladian and Marcus planned on hopping any damn Greyhound Bus to Phoenix. Therefore, he’d been waiting for me. Why? To try to sell me this lame pay-me-ten-percent-and-I’ll-put-in-the-fix scam? In other words, Thompson was just bait for yours truly? Really? Seriously? Well, I sure hoped so, because I could only come up with one alternative and I didn’t like it.
So Job One was to make Chaladian believe he was about to reel me in. And I was bringing it off. I had Chaladian thinking that I might actually try to line him up for a big time payday. Problem was, I also had Thompson fooled. She decided that I was the dumbest Jew in Ukrainian history and I needed a hint.
“Stan, darlin’? Do you have a cigarette?”
“You got it.” His right hand disappeared beneath the table top and came back up with a gold cigarette case. “But you’ll have to wait until we’re outside. If you light it in here some busybody will send you to bed without dinner.”
He’d tried to hide his reaction when Thompson asked for the smoke, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. I could tell that he knew it was her way of telling me he was bad news. Which meant that I was now officially up to my ears in fertilizer.
“Tell you what,” I said, as I scooted my chair back and stood up. “Talking high finance is thirsty work for a ninety-nine percenter like me. Excuse me a sec.”
I made my way over to the counter. The matronly black woman behind it—let’s just say she was ample. She looked at me with world-weary wariness. I read her name on the tag cheerfully riding her left breast.
“Hi, Rayette.” I took some of Trans/Oxana’s money out my trouser pocket and put a twenty and a ten on the counter. “How are things goin’?”
“Gotta job, gotta husband, and the rent’s paid. So things goin’ just peachy. Whachoo want, darlin’?”
“A chocolate malt. And a roll of quarters. Keep the change.”
“This place look like a soda shop to you?”
“I was kidding about the malt. Coke is fine. Or Sprite or whatever. But I meant it about the quarters. And about keeping the change.”
She gave me a long, long look as she turned toward the cash register. Bottom line, though, “keep the change” meant seven bucks-plus to her and seven bucks is seven bucks. I stuffed the tightly-rolled sleeve of quarters she gave me inside the front of my shirt, grabbed the can of Coke Classic that she slapped on the counter, and headed back for the table. As I sat down I gave Chaladian a tight little smile that was supposed to combine crafty with credulous, like a rube being offered a gold watch for ten bucks and getting set to bargain.
“Okay.” I licked my lips, took a good, long slug of Coke, and wished it was Vodka. “Two things. One. No one gets killed, no one gets threatened, no violence, and no blackmail. Those are off the table.”
“Understood.”
“Two.” More Coke. “Anything close to seven figures is above my paygrade. I need to take this up the ladder. How do I reach you?”
“You don’t. I reach you. How long will you need.”
“Say a we
ek.” I started to reach for one of the business cards in my pocket.
“Skip it. Trust me—I will reach you.”
I tried some more Coke. I glanced at Thompson. She looked a little like the Chevy had just parked by the river bank and she’d forgotten to take her pill that morning.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked her instead. “Back to Simi Valley while the development deal shapes up?”
“Oh, we have tons of work to do. All I have to do is look pretty and be myself, but Stan will be workin’ like a PFC on KP.”
“Katrina got that right.” Chaladian switched from smiling to earnest. “People think everyone in the entertainment business gets super overpaid, but in development we earn every penny.”
“Well, Hurricane, unless Stan buys a policy from Trans/Oxana, I guess this is goodbye, huh?” I drained the Coke.
“I hope not. You’ve just been wonderful.”
“Well, maybe I’ll see you on down the road. Tell you what, though. I don’t want you to leave before I have a chance to tell Luci adios, so don’t run off. I’ll hit the head and blow by you one more time before I go back to Trowbridge country.”
“You got it.”
I got up, stretched across the table to give her a hug, then hustled toward the men’s room. And I mean hustled. I figured I had about sixty seconds.
On the wall just inside the men’s room door, I found exactly what I expected: a vending machine stocked with one-packs of condoms. They were cheap suckers, so I bought two, just for luck. Opened the first one. Unfolded it. Cracked the roll of quarters out on the edge of the sink counter. Fit the condom’s mouth over the break and pushed quarters into the thing as fast as I could.
I heard the men’s room door squeaking as it opened. No time to double-bag the two-bit pieces, no time to tie a knot in the condom I’d filled. I just pulled the open end back as far as the elastic would go and wrapped my right paw around the empty part as tightly as I could. Soft-soled shoes made the tiniest little pop as they shuffled on the tile floor. I dropped my right hand down beside my thigh. Marcus Plankinton came the rest of the way into the men’s room.
“Everything come out all right?”
“No complaints.”
“That’s good. That’s real good.”
So much for foreplay. He pivoted cat like on the ball of his left foot. Next thing I knew his right foot was spinning toward my head in a bent-knee windmill kick that started somewhere behind his rear end and arced upward at blistering speed. If I were six-two instead of six-four he would have nailed me. Ditto if he’d gone for my ribs instead of trying to knock my block off. As it was, he had to come all the way off his left foot reaching for elevation. The extra couple of inches took just enough time to save my life.
I choked off an almost irresistible urge to flinch backward. Instead I lunged forward, snapping my left forearm up to catch his ankle. I barely got it, and I thought I’d broken my damn arm for my trouble. I didn’t block it so much as slow it down and push it up and out just a smidge. The heel of his shoe smashed my left shoulder on the down-stroke and sent searing pain lancing diagonally through my torso until it reached my right hip. But pain I can handle. It’s death that’s a bitch.
For a fraction of a second Plankinton was off balance and in mid-air. Swinging my right arm back I sidearmed forward with the loaded funbag. I caught him on the inside of the right knee, exactly where I wanted to.
He landed on his left foot, then almost fell when his right foot hit the floor and his right leg nearly collapsed under him. I snaked a left jab at his face. He crossed his arms to parry my punch, slamming the underside of my wrist. Hurt like a bastard, but it gave me the opening I needed. My right arm had the condom right about six o’clock at that point. I swung it clockwise back behind me, up, over, and down until it hit the top of Plankinton’s head at exactly two o’clock.
I heard quarters clanging all over tiles. The condom burst like it had been designed by an abortionist. Blood oozing from his head, Plankinton dropped to the floor. He didn’t scream, but that was because he was taking a nap.
Naturally, one of the winos would pick that moment to come in. He was a gray-skinned Caucasian, with the ancient, vacant look that ex-prize fighters sometimes have, his face littered by silver whiskers that were a little more than stubble but not quite a beard. His mouth gaped. His eyes opened wide.
“Sweet Jesus!” he whispered.
He dropped to the floor and began scooping up quarters. I stepped around him to reach the door. I told Rayette she’d better call an ambulance because a guy had fallen in the men’s room and hurt himself pretty bad. That wasn’t mitzvah. That was tactics.
Chapter Sixteen
When you’ve just cold-cocked a guy and cops might be there soon, you don’t want people telling them that someone who looked like you was in a hurry. So I wasn’t exactly running when I left the depot. But I wasn’t wasting any time, either. If Chaladian drove off with Thompson and Luci before I could at least get a license number, I figured to be short one jail coach in Tucson Monday morning.
Thank God for Luci. She had apparently gotten drowsy enough for Thompson to pick her up and carry her, slowing things down just enough. When I got outside I could just see the tops of their heads on the far side of a wedding gown white Lincoln Navigator across the street. Chaladian had the rear passenger door open. Thompso’s and Luci’s heads disappeared as I imagined Thompson laying Luci on the back seat.
“Stan!” It was almost dark now, but I could see unpleasant surprise in Chaladian’s face as his head jerked toward my voice. “It’s Marcus! He’s hurt!”
Chaladian hesitated for barely a second. I was busy snaking across the street without getting run over, so I didn’t make out what he barked at Thompson. The tone, though, sounded like the one Sergeant Rutledge used with me. Then he sprinted toward the depot. I heard his yell as he was about to pass me.
“Where?”
“Men’s room!”
I panted up onto the sidewalk. Might as well start with the obvious.
“We can’t count on cops showing up any time soon. If you want out, we’re in your basic now or never situation.”
“Tall Dude, you don’t know what you’re gettin’ into.” I’d never seen Thompson scared before, but the look in her eyes right now was can’t-make-my-legs-move terrified.
“I just dealt with the B-team at close quarters, so I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
She suddenly brought her hands up as her mouth opened and her face looked like she was about to scream—but no sound came out.
An instant later I felt pain like I’ve never felt before in my life. Something hard and sharp—turned out to be Chaladian’s elbow—smashed the middle of my back. Every atom of breath exploded from my lungs. Needles of agony radiated toward my shoulders and my gut. I felt bile rising in my throat. I started to turn around, but before I’d made much progress I’d gotten a left-right combination in the kidneys. Chaladian’s fists felt like concrete.
I’d taken his fake. Totally taken it. Actually thought he was racing back to the depot to see about good old “Marco.” Hadn’t dreamed that he’d double back as soon as I was on the sidewalk side of the Navigator and ambush me. What a schmuck.
I danced away a couple of steps and completed my turn. I figured he’d go for my ribs and he did, so I got my forearms down there and he hit them instead. Which wasn’t any picnic, but beat having my lungs fill up with blood.
Then came the one and only punch I contributed to this little fracas. I’d call it a first-rate effort. A jab, but a good one. My right fist moved about six inches and got the bastard right in the teeth. I’ve put guys to sleep with that punch.
Chaladian barely blinked. His head snapped back, but he didn’t retreat. No fear in his eyes. While he contemptuously spat blood from his mouth, he waded right into me.
He shot a left at my throat. I moved to block the punch and that left me wide open for his right fist. He caught me right below the heart with it.
I stumbled backwards two steps. He put his left into my gut and when I bent over he planted a worldclass uppercut on my jaw. I catapaulted backward and smacked the pavement with my head, shoulders, and hips in that order.
It was pretty much luck that Chaladian’s ankle caught my knee as he sprang forward to pounce on me. That sent him sprawling and cussing to the sidewalk a few feet away from me. The five seconds or so that that bought me struck me as pretty academic. The few muscles that I managed to move during the respite did nothing to keep Chaladian from scrambling up, planting his left knee in my diaphragm, and cocking his right fist for the kill shot. I knew he’d be going for my throat, and right offhand I couldn’t think of anything to do about it.
The gunshot took me even more by surprise than the dull explosion that followed it. They seemed to have the same effect on Chaladian, who put the kill shot on hold while he jerked his head around to look at Thompson—or, more likely, at the muscular automatic she was holding. Her voice had that oddly calm, slightly distracted quality you sometimes hear from people who are in clinical shock.
“Now, Stan, you know I can shoot this cheap-ass Russian gun you keep in your glove compartment, ’cause I just put a nine-millimeter hole in your tire. You need to stay down there on the sidewalk, but get off the big guy so he can stand up. Just do it, now.”
It took him about three seconds to decide which way to go, but he ended up playing it safe. The pressure came off my diaphragm, and Chaladian slid very carefully on his knees to a point about three feet away from me. About then I heard a siren wailing. I figured that if Omaha sirens sounded like sirens back east, it was an ambulance rather than a police car. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“Now, Tall Dude, can you get up?”
“Gimme a minute and we’ll both know.”
The upper half of my body screamed in protest as I dragged myself to my feet. I made it, though. Not by any large majority, but I made it. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted an ambulance screeching to a stop in front of the bus depot.
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