* * * * *
Mother nature occasionally bestows on some humans a special gift at birth. You have your Mozarts, Einsteins and Michael Jordans in this world, and then you might have the guy who can fart the National Anthem. Talents vary and most of us didn’t get squat or stumbled into a life where that special gift is never given any opportunity to be fully realized.
I was lucky. I had chosen a career that not only allowed me to exercise and develop my talent, but when coupled with my natural duplicity—also a gift?—allowed me to rise to the peak of my profession. It wasn’t until I started working with Ernie that I fully began to understand and appreciate this special skill I possessed. If I’d become an engineer, lawyer or businessman, I’d have never had many opportunities to exploit my talent, but fate had led me to Ernie Twillfigger and with it came the full realization that I had something special in me. It is this: when in a damn tight jam, I can think quickly on my feet. That’s all, but it has served me successfully in life, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world—well, maybe, but you get my drift.
The strange thing about this gift is that it only kicks in when the adrenaline is flowing. In non-pressure situations, I’m as prone to errors in judgment, or more so, as the next man, which may explain some of the tight spots I've gotten in over the years. But always—well, almost always—when the shit was hitting the fan, I was your go-to man. This impromptu ability to size up a situation and plot a course of action to save my or a client’s ass in less than a few seconds has always been my ace in the hole.
What can I say—it’s a gift.
So when I was standing there in the middle of the night at that motel parking lot, surrounded by a dazed physician with a gun in his hand and his fat suburban housewife moaning in panic over a blow-dried parson lying on the ground with a bullet in his ass, a light switch went off in my head. I knew exactly what to do, and more importantly, how I was going to make money doing it.
I looked around the parking lot and quickly saw no one else was there. No lights had come on from any of the rooms. I grabbed the Doc, spun him around and shook him, trying to snap him alert.
“If you don’t want to throw away your life, your wife, your medical practice, and you don’t want to go to jail, do as I say,” I hissed.
He just looked at me in a state of bewilderment. He must have realized as soon as he saw Leo lying wounded on the ground that he’d committed a royal screw-up. He’d literally thrown away everything he had ever worked for. The money, the big house, the community respect and all those other benefits and rewards that come with being a doctor had just gone down the drain faster than Mrs. Randall going down on Leo and there was nothing he could do about it.
Luckily, for him, I was there, ready to offer him a lifeline. Hopefully, he would grab it. If he did, I was going to make damn sure he paid for it!
By this time Gloria was looking at me in a mixture of wonder and fright. I quickly told her, “I was hired by your husband to find out who you were screwing. He must have followed me as I was following you.”
“Oh Elmo—I’m sorry,” she began to wail.
I quickly shut her up.
“Quiet, damn it, we've got to get everyone back in your room real quick before someone calls the cops. Both of you, go back to your motel room, and I’ll carry the preacher in.”
Gloria, to give her credit, quickly caught on to this and immediately went to her husband’s side and led him to the motel room, used the key to open it and went inside. I ran over to Leo, who was listening to all this between moans. I started to help him up. He began to protest that he needed an ambulance and couldn’t move. I had to get him into the motel room, fast, before anyone in the motel noticed and reported this mess. Thank God it was a Wednesday night—the place was almost empty, but I still didn’t have time to argue.
I pulled my .38, stuck it in his nose and said, in my deepest growl, “Get in the fucking room, now.”
He did.
As soon as I was in the room, I shut and locked the door. The first part of my little plan was complete; I’d gotten them all back in the motel room before alerting the rest of the motel. I had a little breathing room to settle things down and to plot out the rest of my moves. The Doc and Gloria were standing in front of the TV, looking at me. Leo had fallen face down on the bed, groaning and shaking. I took a deep breath and began to get things organized.
I pointed at Gloria.
“You. Get all the towels from the bathroom. I don’t care if they’re dirty or not—bring them to the bed. Doc, come here and help me get the pants off the parson.”
Dr. Randall just stared at me. Of the three of them, he was in the most shock it seemed. Even the preacher was handling this better, and he was bleeding.
I grabbed Randall and shook him.
“Look at me,” I snarled. “I want you to look at his ass and tell me if you can fix him without having to check him in overnight in a hospital. Can you do it at home? Do you need to go to the ER? I need answers to these questions. Now. You’re a doctor—well act like it!”
This woke him up. We went over to Leo and after a few feeble protests from him, managed to get his pants down. Gloria had returned with towels, and I told her to keep them around Leo’s ass. I wanted to minimize the amount of blood on the bed and keep it all on the towels if we could. Doc tenderly began to examine Leo, wiping the blood away. After a minute, he stood up.
“He got hit with only one bullet, in the left buttock. It entered from the side and appears to be buried in the muscle, not too deep, however.”
“Can you stitch him up?”
“Of course, but I’ll need to take him to an emergency room, or at least get some supplies from there.”
“Who is covering for you tonight at your emergency room?”
“My partner, Pete Sloan, is covering for me. I told him Gloria was sick and needed me.”
“Can you trust him, can you take Leo there, patch him up with no questions asked? There’s a law that you have to report gunshot wounds to the authorities, you know.”
He nodded, “Yes. I can trust Pete. We've been friends since medical school.”
Things were clicking; the gift was working.
“Alright people, listen to me!” I barked. “We’re going to get, Leo, here, to the ER, get him patched up and then home. No cops, no questions, no hassle. Right now all three of you are looking at personal and professional disgrace if this gets to the cops and the papers. Doc, you’re looking at losing your medical license and practice, to say nothing of your freedom. Mrs. Randall, if your husband is ruined, so are you. Golf lessons, ladies teas and shopping at the mall will be things of the past. You’ll be on your ass as quick as your husband. I don’t think you want to start over again at thirty-five, am I right?”
She looked at me with an injured air about her, but nodded her head in agreement.
“Goddamn it, I'm the one shot in the ass,” cried Leo. “Don’t I have a say in this?”
Well, well, well, thought I, taking the Lords name in vain. There goes another commandment. We’ll just see about that.
I walk over to where Leo was lying on the pillow, leaned over him with my coat open. He got another glimpse of my shiny .38 in its holster. I grabbed his hair and jerked his head up.
“No, you don’t, you cheating son-of-a-bitch. You’re going to do exactly as I say. If I had it my way, I’d leave you lying in a ditch somewhere and let you bleed to death. But, since the good Doctor is my client and there’s a way out of this without having to resort to murder, we’re going to take it, at least for now. You see, the second I got your asses in this motel room and laid out this plan, I, the bastard who put a gun up your nose, became an accessory. That means if the cops get in on this, I’m in big trouble. I’ll lose my license and might even go to jail. Let me tell you, asshole, you ain’t worth going to jail for, so you do as I say, or we'll take a more direct route to solving our problem.”
I let the not-so-subtle threat hang in the air. I
wasn’t really serious about offing the reverend—murder takes cojones, and I don’t have enough—but I knew he’d cave in. The guy was shot in the ass, unarmed and supposedly a man of the cloth, so I knew I could act the hard-ass with him and force him to do as I said. He was a slimy bastard like me, and we slimy bastards always know when it is useless to resist.
He looked at me with a mixture of fear and hate, and nodded his head.
“Alright, let’s get organized here. We got four cars at this motel, but only three of us can drive. The good reverend is in no condition right now to get behind the wheel. He can ride in my car.”
I leaned over and poked McLardy in the ass.
“Give me your car keys, preacher.”
With a groan, he reached into his coat pocket and dug out his car keys, and I snatched them from him.
I tossed the keys to Mrs. Randall, “We’re going to leave your car here for now, since you’re the one registered at the motel. If everything goes according to plan, we can pick it up later. Right now, you’re going to drive his car to the emergency room. Doc, you’ll drive your car there too. I’ll follow. Now, let’s get this asshole’s rear end wrapped up with towels and get his pants on. I don’t want to get his blood on my car seat.”
We managed to get Leo’s pants on without much trouble and stood him up. By now, the good reverend had lapsed into prayer and was begging for the Lord’s forgiveness for his illicit fornication and his earlier cursing.
I slapped his face, hard, and told him to shut up. The last thing I needed was for him to start speaking in tongues and waking everyone in the motel up.
“Okay, we’re going to help him into the backseat in my car. Once he’s in, both of you get in the cars and head for the emergency room.”
I grabbed the doc by the shoulder to get his attention.
“Mrs. Randall, you take the lead. Doc, you’ll follow. I’ll bring up the rear. Once we get to the hospital, go inside Doc and square things with your partner. When you’ve made the arrangements, come outside and signal me. I’ll bring him in,” pointing to the Leo.
“Mrs. Randall, you just stay in the car in the parking lot until I say otherwise. Does everyone understand the setup?”
Dr. and Mrs. Randall nodded their head. McLardy just stood there and stared at the floor.
“Let’s do it,” I growled and opened the room door.
I half carried Leo to my car, opened the door and tossed him in the back seat and slammed the door shut. He fell down with a groan and sort of curled up on the seat. He began mumbling to himself. The other two headed to their respective cars and got in. I hopped in my Buick, started the engine and pulled out of the parking space. The Doc and his wife did the same, and we all exited the parking lot. From the time we left the room until we got out of the parking lot, less than two minutes had expired.
Damn, I love it when a plan comes together.
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