The stranger liked the menu. He liked all diner menus. They were invariably plastic and shiny, and covered in colorful photos of edible delights. He thought of photos as the hieroglyphics of the modern world, which made him think of each menu as a kind of greasy spoon Egyptian Book of the Dead. The menus were a truly perfect system. You didn’t need to be able to read or even speak English. Just point to the jalapeño and salsa omelet with ham and two kinds of potatoes or the bacon and avocado triple-decker burger with wedge or curly fries and you were instantly transported to a sublime, artery-shattering wonderland.
The stranger liked to see how long he could go without talking to anyone on the road. It was a kind of game, like Burn the Church or Sack the City. Not talking wasn’t as exciting a game, but it was one where he could vary the rules any time he liked. Take today. Today, he might just speak to someone. The thought of it was exciting. He looked around wondering who it would be.
A waitress in a red-and-white-checked uniform and blond wig that matched the hair on the life-size statue of Larry’s Large Lad outside the restaurant walked over. The diner was an obvious rip-off of Bob’s Big Boy, a more famous burger restaurant in Burbank, but that’s what had attracted the stranger to it. The diner wasn’t trying to hide its petty depravity. The theft was pure hubris, and the stranger loved hubris.
The waitress’s name tag said CAROLINE. She set down a glass of water on the table and said, “Welcome to Larry’s Large Lad. What can I get you today?”
The stranger smiled and held up the menu. He pointed to a chocolate shake and a steak sandwich that came with garlic fries. The waitress spoke each item out loud as he pointed to it and he gave her a thumbs-up each time to let her know she’d gotten it just right.
“The food’ll only take a few minutes. Can I get you anything else while you wait?” He shook his head, so Caroline moved off with his order.
He took out a map of California that had been folded and refolded so many times that some of the creases had torn or worn white. Spreading the map on the table, he ran his finger down I-5 until he came to Red Bluff. He was on foot now. He liked going on foot. It made everything feel like it wasn’t just a walk, but an Exodus. Luckily, it looked like he’d still be able to keep to his schedule. Even though the stranger didn’t know how to drive, he sometimes wished he had a car. Driving seemed like fun, and stealing one seemed like even more fun. He was good with all kinds of tools, so he could probably hotwire one, but stealing was against the rules. Plus, he was still stuck with the driving problem. Even if he could drive, he couldn’t take a chance on being pulled over and arrested in a hot vehicle, since his main goal was to keep a low profile all the way south.
One thing the stranger hadn’t quite grasped yet was that strolling down the side of a major California freeway without, say, holding a gas can was as inconspicuous as riding a white elephant pulling a cart with LOW PROFILE spelled out in road flares. Still, he’d been lucky so far. The stranger was almost always lucky that way.
Sometimes on the road, people would stop for him and he’d accept a ride. Mostly it was from truckers or lonely long-distance travelers alone in cars. In general, though, he tried to avoid rides. Many people found his silence unnerving and insisted that he talk. Some even became aggressive. Those drives always ended the same way. Upside down in a ditch. Fire. People screaming. Then he’d be back on foot again, with dirty pants and bits of windshield in his hair. That’s why he always carried a comb and a clothes brush.
The stranger sighed, folded the map, and put it back in his coat pocket. Timewise, he was doing fine. He just had to keep moving. There wouldn’t be any need to check the map again for days. He could just enjoy the scenery. The river, however, was beginning to bother him more each time he looked.
Caroline soon came back with his food. When he looked up, she flinched, but composed herself in a second. He knew it was his eyes. It was always the eyes with these people. The waitress set down his sandwich and shake and went back to take an order at the counter.
The stranger hadn’t eaten in a couple of days, so he dug in greedily. The shake was better than the steak sandwich, so he sipped it slowly, trying to make it last. When he finished, he wiped his mouth and hands on the napkins the waitress had left by his plate. He looked out the window and watched the cars on the road and the river beyond. Really, someone needed to do something about it. A few minutes later the waitress returned.
“You must have been a hungry boy. You put that away in record time,” she said.
“Indeed I was,” said the stranger, deciding to break his silence. He pointed over his head. “That photo of Leo Gorcey. Did he eat here sometimes?”
Caroline looked up at the ceiling and shook her head. “No. He never ate here. But he retired in the area. A real live movie star from Hollywood.”
“Hollywood,” he said. “Thank you.”
As she gathered up his cutlery and plate the waitress said, “Are you staying in Red Bluff or just passing through?”
The stranger took a moment before answering. Eventually he said, “Just passing through. It’s a pretty town.”
“‘The Victorian city by the river.’ That’s what folks call it.”
“Then the river doesn’t bother you?”
“Why would it?” she said.
“It’s so . . . crinkly.”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure I quite understand.”
“Never mind. Just a personal quirk,” he said, smiling.
“Are you ready for your check?”
“Yes, thank you.”
She put it on the table and took his dishes back to the kitchen. He took the check to the counter and put some money down by the cash register. The bills were old and creased like the map, but still good. He’d made sure of that. The waitress came out from the kitchen, rang him up, and handed him his change. “Thanks. Come again,” she said.
“Thank you,” the stranger said. He started outside, but stopped and turned around. “Have you ever heard of a restaurant called Bob’s Big Boy?”
“Oh my, yes. That’s what gave Bob, the owner—isn’t it funny that his name is Bob, too?—the idea for this place.”
“Yes. Hysterical,” he said.
“Are you going to go there on your trip?” said Caroline.
“What makes you think I’m going to Los Angeles?”
She shrugged. “Just a guess. You asked about Bob’s Big Boy.”
“Of course,” said the stranger. “Of course.” He looked around the restaurant one more time. He wanted to remember it all, every molecule of it. Then he nodded to Caroline and left.
Outside, he put on his sunglasses. As he walked back to the freeway he thought, Two waitresses. One cook. Ten customers scattered between the counter and tables. Thirteen. Always an interesting number. One can take it so many ways. It would be something to think about on his long walk.
At the edge of the parking lot, he stopped and breathed in the fresh morning air. Then the ground began to shake beneath his feet as the several hundred yards of the Sacramento River visible from the restaurant window straightened itself. He waited a few seconds so that everyone inside the restaurant could get a good look at his work. When he was certain they had, Larry’s Large Lad exploded. An orange fireball spiraled into the sky and with it dining booths, a milk shake machine, burning money, Leo Gorcey, and sundry body parts. The stranger didn’t turn around. He didn’t have to. He’d seen it all before and knew there wouldn’t be any survivors. It wasn’t until something thunked into the ground behind him that he turned around.
A few feet off to his left was the charred and battered statue of Larry’s Large Lad. Its blond head was scorched, but it was still grinning. The statue had come so close to beaning him that he wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t a coincidence. The stranger looked around but didn’t see a soul in sight, just cars passing on the freeway. Many were slowing to enjoy the unobstructed view of the burning restaurant and newly renovated river.
As
he started up again, he thought about Caroline. If only she hadn’t wanted to know where he was going. Who was she really? She could have been working for anyone. Plus, his fries had been soggy. They’d obviously been microwaved, not properly cooked. The stranger loved hubris, but he couldn’t stand bad fries.
He walked across the freeway overpass and down again so he was back on the road headed south. In the distance, he heard sirens.
TEN
COOP HAD SPENT THE NIGHT ON AN INFLATABLE MATTRESS in Morty’s spare room. He didn’t like the idea of sleeping on a balloon, but after he lay down he found it was kind of comfortable. It was certainly better than the prison beds, which always seemed to be designed by aliens shaped like pretzels for other aliens that liked waking up with pudding for a backbone.
Morty had gone out earlier and Coop was in the living room flipping through TV channels. Nothing held his interest. There was something about an earthquake up north that destroyed a restaurant and straightened part of a river. Typical disaster porn stuff, he thought.
Everything normal people thought was funny, dramatic, poignant, or important seemed so . . . pointless? Stupid? Insane? He couldn’t find the right word for it. He wondered if the last stretch inside had wrecked him for regular life. He felt twitchy and restless. He took a sip of his ninth cup of coffee and thought about it. One of his eyelids twitched. His right foot, against his wishes, was beating out the drum solo from “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.” He set the coffee down. Maybe it was time to take a break. He got up to have a smoke outside when the front door opened and Morty came in with bags. They smelled good.
“I was in Burbank checking out some stuff, so I got us lunch,” he said, setting down two bags from Bob’s Big Boy on the kitchen table. Coop went over to where he was laying out the food. Morty held up a paper cup. “Coffee?” he said.
“I’ll pass, thanks,” said Coop, trying to keep from vibrating.
“More for me,” said Morty. He laid out burgers, fries, and fistfuls of ketchup packs. “What have you been up to while I was gone?”
Coop glanced at the TV. He’d left it on a game show. A guy spun a wheel, shouting and shaking like if he lost the host was going to take away his heart medicine, and for a brief moment he was interested until he remembered that wasn’t how the games worked. “Nothing,” he said. “Attempting to reintegrate into society and finding myself somewhat unmotivated to do so.”
“That sounds like something a warden would say.”
“That’s who said it to me. Something like that, anyway.”
Morty peeled the paper off his burger and took a bite, talking out the side of his mouth while he chewed. “Prison is all about routine. You don’t have a routine anymore. That’s why you need to get back to work.”
“I need something,” Coop said. “Work. Or a lobotomy.”
“Don’t talk like that. Did you look over those plans and things Babylon gave us?”
Coop went to the coffee table and brought over a pile of blueprints and computer printouts. Some were simple spreadsheets with names and office assignments. Other sheets looked like complex astrological charts by way of NASA eggheads. Coop dropped them on the table.
“I was going over these last night.”
“And what do you think? Can we do the job?”
“No.”
“What?” said Morty. He choked on a mouthful of burger and grabbed a cup of coffee to keep from passing out, only to end up burning his tongue. “Whuh doo ya min we cand doo id?”
Coop smacked him on the back.
“What do you mean we can’t do it? We told Mr. Babylon we would. I don’t want to go back there with bad news and have him shoot me with one of those heat ray guns.”
“Don’t worry. It was a liquefaction curse. There wasn’t any heat involved.”
“Oh. That makes me feel better. You can remind me of that when housekeeping is sponging me off the floor.”
“Relax,” said Coop. “I said we couldn’t do it. I didn’t say it couldn’t be done. It’s just that I was hoping to keep the job between us. Split the money two ways. With the bonus, we’d have made a hundred and fifty K each.”
“But we need more people.”
Coop nodded. He tore open a burger and took a bite. It was good. The best thing he’d eaten in eighteen months.
“How many more people?” said Morty.
“That’s what I’ve been thinking about. If these blueprints are accurate, there’s serious corporate security all through the building. Curses. Labyrinths. That kind of thing. Then there’s pass codes on all the locks, plus video surveillance and armed guards.”
“Sound like we’re going to need a small army.”
“That would be helpful.”
Morty set down his burger. “I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Don’t be like that,” said Coop. “I’ve been going over this all night. I think maybe we can pull this off with four people. The right four people.”
Morty sat back up in his chair. “Four’s not so bad. How much is three hundred thousand divided by four?”
“Seventy-five thousand dollars each.”
Morty picked up his burger and took a bite. “As far as bad news goes, that ain’t bad.”
“You’re right. It could be a lot worse.” Coop worked on his burger and fries, pushing the pages around on the table for something like the fiftieth time that day.
“So, who are the other two people we need?”
Coop finished his burger, wadded up the paper and tossed it overhand at the kitchen trash. It bounced off the rim, skittered across a counter, bounced off a sugar bowl back toward the trash. And missed it by an inch. Story of my life, he thought as he walked into the kitchen to throw the paper away.
He said, “We’re off to an okay start. You can flash and I can crack, so we have the locks and the safe taken care of. What we need is a good eyeball person to look out for traps and a getaway person to get us out of there.”
“Just a Handyman and a Marilyn? That’s all?”
“No. We can get the box with us and those other two, but there’s the small matter of getting away at the end,” said Coop.
“Yeah. I vote we get away. Any dissents? No? The motion is carried.”
Coop opened one of the ketchup containers, dipped some of his fries, and ate them. He chewed slowly and thoroughly.
“You still chewing your cud over there?” said Morty. “I’m not going to have to milk you later, am I?”
Coop shook his head. “Sorry. Tell me something. Who’s the biggest rat bastard you know?”
“Like someone I don’t particularly like or someone who should get run down by a bus?”
“A bus.”
Morty’s face went blank. Coop was starting to think that maybe he’d given the poor guy a stroke when Morty smiled. “Fast Eddie Lansdale,” he said.
“Fast Eddie. The Flasher from Detroit? He’s the guy who stole a couple of your jobs out from under you, isn’t he?”
“And left me holding the bag when one of his people ran off with the goods.”
“How much did that cost you?” said Coop.
“A lot,” said Morty. “Among other things, my Mercedes. It wasn’t even hot. I bought that thing with real money like a regular person.”
“And he took that from you.”
“Yeah. He did.”
“Good. I want you to picture your missing Mercedes when I tell you the next part,” said Coop.
“I’m listening.”
“See, the only way I can figure this working out is if we can get Babylon to pull two jobs at the same time.”
Morty squinted at Coop. “You lost me around that last curve. Two jobs?”
Coop held up two fingers. “It doesn’t have to be a real job. But the other team has to think it’s a real job. They’d have to go in looking for one thing and then a little while later we go looking for the real thing.”
“Why?”
“Cause there’s a slight, and I mean really min
uscule, chance they’re going to get caught.”
“What?” said Morty, his eyes opening wider.
Coop held out his hands hoping to calm Morty down. “Not caught caught. Not if they’re any good, but they have to screw up enough to set off a lot of alarms and get the guards’ attention.”
“We can’t throw someone to the wolves like that,” said Morty.
“Sure we can,” said Coop. “We get Babylon to hire Fast Eddie.”
Morty rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know.”
“Do you know anyone who deserves it more? Who would everybody in town like to see sweat?”
“I get it,” said Morty. “But it’s unethical, setting up another crew like that.”
“It’s not like we’re talking about people. We’re talking about Fast Eddie and his crew of creeps,” said Coop. “And we’re not doing it so they get caught. Just noticed. Then, while the guards are dealing with Eddie, we slip in the back and do the Babylon job.”
Morty drank his coffee. “Still,” he said.
Coop leaned on the table. “Do you think Eddie would hesitate for one second setting you up if it would help him out?”
Morty considered it and said, “Eddie is a dark person.”
“The worst,” said Coop. “While I was inside I heard he dropped a dime on Lazlo the Mole.”
“The old guy with the droopy eye?”
“That’s him.”
“He was a sweet old cuss,” said Morty.
“He’s a sweet old cuss doing ten to twenty out at Surf City.”
Morty set down his cup. “Droopy Lazlo? Fuck Eddie. Let’s set him up. But how do we know he’ll get the guards’ attention?”
“’Cause Babylon is going to give him the wrong plans,” said Coop. “The way in and the way out will be real. But in the middle, he’s going to be as subtle as a rhinoceros at a bris.”
Morty gave Coop a funny look. Sort of a frown and a smile at the same time. “You’re a diabolical person,” he said.
“Only to those who deserve it.”
“And we’re going to set it up so there’s a way for Fast Eddie to escape.”
“As long as he has a brain and two feet.”
The Everything Box Page 6