I think fighting’s stupid, anyway.
It was just that this Muller jerk was so damn arrogant. You know, first he breaks in, then he pushes Hope around, and I’ve just seen enough of that trashy behavior to last a lifetime.
And I gave him a chance. I explicitly told him what would happen if he didn’t leave and he said he’d like to see me try it, and I was happy to oblige him in that particular request.
He was one big, strong, hulking side of beef, too. But every man has his Achilles’ heel, you know, and generally it isn’t anywhere near his foot. I mean if you’ve ever seen a cowboy chasing a little calf, and that calf kicks a hoof back around crotch-high, and you’ve seen that cowboy kneeling in the dirt sucking for air, you have a pretty good idea of what Heinz-baby looked like at that particular moment.
So, anyway, there he was on his knees with his big baby-blues bulging out his stupid face, and that’s where I ought to have finished him off, according to famed pugilist Neal Carey. But I didn’t and the son of a bitch had a gun.
A big pistol. A magnum.
I have a theory about men who own magnums. My theory is that they have to buy one because they don’t have one, you know? And the way this Muller galumph held that handpiece, you just got the feeling that however large he was elsewhere … well, the big pistol was by way of compensation.
And they talk about us and hormones.
So this Muller turd pulls this gun and says, “This is a .57 magnum and could blow your head off. So do what I say.”
So I said, “Okay, Heinz-57. You got the gun, big boy, what do you want us to do?”
“What do you know?”
I felt like I was Dustin Hoffman in that movie with Laurence Olivier-you know the one where old Larry’s the Nazi dentist-because I don’t know anything except that maybe Heinz-57 burned his own house down and maybe Silverstein saw him do it, but I didn’t think that was exactly the brightest thing in the world to say at that particular moment.
“I know that you burned your house down and that Natty saw you,” Hope piped up.
She really is a lovely person, but you don’t want her holding your money in a poker game, if you know what I mean .
Heinz-57’s eyes lit up like a pinball machine, as if this news actually made him happy. There are some jamokes, you know, who are just looking for a rationale to hurt people, and I think that old Heinz-57 was one of these characters.
So he herded us outside where he had his Land Rover parked.
A brand-new Land Rover. I guess arson pays.
He starts to put me in the driver’s seat, then asks, “Do you know how to operate a standard shift?”
“Heinz-57,1 could build a standard shift.”
I didn’t bother to tell him that I grew up on a ranch that had a lot more tumbleweed than money on it, so I’d helped my father reconstruct an old flipped-over H tractor about three hundred and thirty times and did more than just hold the wrench, too.
Could I operate a standard shift. About the only person I knew in central Nevada who couldn’t operate a standard shift was Neal, and God knows I tried to teach him.
The man is just hell on cars.
So I got behind the wheel and Hope sat in the passenger seat. Heinz-57 sat behind me with his magnum (the pistol, that is) poked behind Hope’s ear.
“No monkey business,” he said. “Do not even consider blinking the lights, or speeding, or driving to a police station. I will blow her head off.”
This was a pretty smart threat. He knew he couldn’t blow my brains out or the car would crash. . “Where are we going?” I asked.
“I will give you directions,” he said. Then added, because he just couldn’t help being an asshole, “We are going to meet some Jews in the desert.”
Jews in the desert. There’s a fresh concept.
But I figured that one of those Jews was probably Nathan. And I was praying that the other one was Neal.
Chapter 20
Ah, night in the desert.
The open sky, the sparkling stars, a fire crackling in the brisk air.
Add to these simple pleasures the joys of no food, no water, no blankets, the inimitable camaraderie of an old man soliloquizing about the good old days, and a moronic Lebanese kidnapper pointing a gun at you, and the heightened sensibilities produced by the awareness of one’s imminent execution, and you have yourself one of life’s peak experiences.
It’s Miller time!
Nathan seemed to occupy a mental space all his own. I could hardly blame him. A man his age must have been exhausted after a carjacking, a kidnapping, a car accident, an explosion and a hike up a dirt road to an abandoned mine where he would be starved, dehydrated and frozen. I didn’t feel so zippy myself.
So it was little wonder that he had gone into the drone zone, a stream of consciousness that had innumerable pools and eddies.
We all leaned against our logs and stared into the fire. Sami held the gun in his lap pointed directly at yours truly while he used his free hand to alternately massage his sore crotch and rub his inflamed eye.
Nathan had been at it for a good two hours and had just worked his discursive way back to the DeLillo Sisters.
I was barely listening as Nathan droned. “… and the DeLillo Sisters were twins. You could not tell them apart except that Dorothy DeLillo had a mole on her tukus, but of course only Donahue knew this because the DeLillo Sisters were in vaudeville, not burlesque. Nobody saw Dorothy DeLillo’s tukus except for Donahue because Dorothy DeLillo was very proper except for one time, and that was when she shared a bill with the Great Rulenska. Hypnotists always have Russian names, don’t ask me why. But you never see a hypnotist with an Italian name. Rulenska wasn’t Russian, he was Polish, from New Britain, Connecticut. Why they call this town New Britain I’ll never know because it’s all Polacks there. I stayed one night in New Britain on my way from New Haven to the Catskills.…”
There go the DeLillo Sisters, I thought. And I still didn’t know what had happened to Hannigan’s glass eye, either. Not to mention how Nathan had come to teach “Who’s on First” to Lou Costello.
I looked over at Sami, who had a dazed look in the one eye that wasn’t all red and swollen and rapidly closing.
“… because there was a snowstorm. You cannot get a lightbulb changed in New Britain, Connecticut, because there are so many Polacks living there. No Jews either, so just try to get decent deli. A Polish sausage maybe. Sauerkraut, drech.
“In the Catskills they have Jews. More Jews in the Catskills than in Israel. I played the Catskills many times. The delicatessen? Magnificent. Not Wolff’s perhaps, but very good. The one time I played the Catskills after spending an endless night in New Britain, Connecticut, I do my schtick to an empty room. There are maybe twelve Jews plus the waiters in the room. Try making twelve Jews and three waiters who are making no money laugh. They laugh at nothing. A fire maybe they laugh at, because the hotel is losing so much money.
“I told them the joke about the priest and the rabbi. Father Murphy goes up to Rabbi Solomon and says, ‘Sorry about the fire in your synagogue.’ Solomon says, ‘Shhh. It’s tomorrow.’
“Nobody laughed. To them this is not funny. That night, what do you think? I can’t get to sleep, I look out the window of my room, what do I see?”
Nathan had my attention. It finally occurred to me (duh) that what I was hearing was what we graduate- school types recognize as an allegory. Sami, on the other hand, was not really listening, but I don’t think he ever had the advantage of attending graduate school. So he was just staring into the fire. But trained as I am to find symbolism in everything, whether it’s there or not, I was listening, as they say, intently.
“I see Sammy Stein, the hotel owner, sneaking out the back of the restaurant with the gasoline cans. Sammy looks up and sees me. Then he gets into his car and a few minutes later, guess what? The restaurant burns down. I don’t say anything, I mind my own business. What am I going to do, testify?
“A few
days later Sammy, that schmuck, calls me, tells me to keep my mouth shut if I know what’s good for me. I decide to go work Vegas for a while. In Vegas, I have friends.”
“What happened with the DeLillo Sisters?” I asked softly.
“Ah,” Nathan said. “Dorothy DeLillo’s mole remained just a rumor until there is a party at Donovan’s after-hours. Everybody wants to see the mole! In a nice way, I mean. Very friendly. Dorothy refuses. Finally Rulenska says, I can make you show the mole.’ Dorothy says, ‘Bullfeathers. I have seen your crummy act a hundred times, it’s a phony.’ Rulenska just laughs, gets out his big pocketwatch and starts to chant, ‘Watch the watch, watch the watch,’ over and over again.’”
Nathan was moving his index finger back and forth across his face.
“ ‘Watch the watch, watch the watch. You’re getting sleepy, sleeeepy, sleeeeepy, sleeeeeeeeepy…’”
Sami’s good eye was just about closed. His chin touched his chest.
“Sleeeeeeeeepy … sleeeeeeeeeeepy … sleeeeeeeeeeeeeepy…”
I went for him.
Sami opened his eyes and raised the gun.
I punched him in the face.
A knockout.
Chapter 21
Yeah, okay, he was five-three, already prone, and had previous wounds, but it was still a knockout.
I grabbed the gun from his limp hand.
“A regular Benny Leonard you are,” Nathan said.
I got into the spirit of camaraderie and said, “A regular Rulenska you are.”
After all, Nathan and I had teamed up to the get the . gun. Me with my lightning moves, he with his hypnotist memories.
“There was no Rulenska, you stupid,” Nathan said. “I made it up.”
“Bullfeathers.”
“The emmis.”
I looked down at Sami’s unconscious body.
“What are we going to do with him?” I asked.
“Shoot him.”
“We can’t just shoot him, Nathan.”
“Why not?” Nathan asked. “ He was going to shoot us.”
This was true. It was also true that Heinz was probably still planning on it. But that was another discussion.
“We don’t have anything to tie him up with,” I said. I didn’t want to take a chance on getting that close to Sami anyway. I wasn’t all that confident about my chances for another stunning knockout. “Let’s just leave him where he is and keep the gun on him.”
“Simpler to shoot him,” Nathan said. “You want I should do it?”
“No.”
“I could poke his other eye,” Nathan offered.
“You’re a vicious old man.”
“After what he’s put me through?”
Then he told me about seeing Sami come out of the house with gasoline cans and drive off. How he thought that Sami saw him. How Sami had called him and threatened to kill him and how he had run off to Vegas.
“Is that why you kept stalling?” I asked. “Why you took the car?”
“An Einstein, this boy is.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I thought you were with the insurance company,” Nathan said. “That you were going to make me testify.”
“But why get in Sami’s car?”
“What was I going to do? Run?” Nathan asked. “I had almost escaped at the men’s room when you stopped me. Schlemiel. You are dumber maybe than Lou Costello, who did not know salami from pastrami.”
“True,” I said, “but I have a wicked punch.”
“What wicked punch?” he asked. “You knocked a sleeping man unconscious. My grandmother could have made that punch and she’s been dead forty years!”
“Yeah, but he had a gun,” I pointed out.
“He was asleep!” Nathan yelled. “I put him to sleep! What more did you want, I should maybe put a gas mask on his nose, then you could punch him? I should tie up the sleeping man first, maybe? Then you could be a hero and punch the sleeping man?!”
I said, “He was clearly awake before I—It was Lou Costello who brought the salami sandwich to Arthur Minsky?”
Nathan raised his arms, “What do you think I’ve been trying to tell you?!”
Sami woke up. He lifted his head and moaned, “Don’t hit me anymore, okay?”
“Don’t hypnotize you, you mean,” Nathan said.
Sami rubbed his head and looked around. He saw the gun in my hand.
“Heinz isn’t going to like this,” he said.
“Who is Heinz, anyway?” I asked.
“A Nazi,” Nathan said.
“A Nazi?” I asked. “Do you know this guy?
“Who needs to know him?” Nathan asked. “With a name like Heinz? Nazi!”
“That doesn’t necessarily—”
“He is,” Sami said.
“Is what?” I asked.
“A Nazi,” Sami said.
“Aha!” said Nathan.
“And he sent you to kill Nathan?” I asked.
“It’s true,” Sami admitted.
“A Nazi and an Arab want to kill a Jew,” Nathan said. “So what’s new?”
“And he’s coming here to pick you up?”
Sami said, “After I dump your bodies.”
“And you were willing to do all of this for an insurance claim?!” And I thought I was cynical.
Sami shook his head. “Not for the insurance money, okay? For the lawsuit.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Heinz figured it out,” Sami said. “What he planned, okay, was to burn down the condo and leave enough clues so that the insurance company would deny the claim because of arson, but not enough evidence that a jury would decide arson. So you sue the insurance company and the jury gives you millions in puny damages.”
“Punitive damages,” I said.
“Okay,” Sami said.
“And that works?!”
“Oh, yes,” Sami said solemnly. “Heinz has done it many times, okay?”
“I love this country,” I said.
“Me too,” said Sami. “Of course, witnesses are not good, okay?”
“I wasn’t going to be a witness!” Nathan yelled.
Sami asked, “Who knew?”
“Ask,” Nathan snapped. “I would have told you.”
Sami shrugged.
“I assume Heinz owns a gun,” I said.
“A big one.”
“Will he come alone?”
“Heinz has no friends,” said Sami. “Except me, okay?”
“Sami,” I said. “You’re not Heinz’s friend anymore, okay? You’re our friend, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Do you know why this is?” I asked.
It was a rhetorical question, but Sami answered, “Because you have the gun, okay?”
I guess if you grow up in Beirut you have a firm grasp of the dynamics of friendship.
“Because I will shoot you,” I said, “if you try to double-cross us.”
I can’t believe I said that. And yes, I am embarrassed about it. I’m embarrassed for two reasons: One; it’s a tired old line from about thirty-seven bad movies. Two; of course he was going to try to double-cross us.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Sami said. “We’re the friends now, okay?”
As an expression of unabashed duplicity, Henry Kissinger couldn’t have it said it better.
“So you’re going to do exactly what I tell you to do, right?” I said to Sami.
“You bet,” Sami said. “What do you want me to do?”
I tried to maintain some vestige of authority as I said, “I don’t know yet. But when I do know, I want you to do whatever it is.”
With that ringing declaration we settled in to wait for Heinz. Not that it was necessarily a given that Heinz would get there first. I hadn’t checked in with Graham, and knowing him like I do, he’d have already started to track me down.
Chapter 22
I figured out that we were in a sort of race in reverse. That is, the longer it took me
to chauffeur Heinz-57 to wherever it was we were going, the more time I’d give Joe Graham to get someone there first.
Did you get that?
The point is that I lightened up considerably on my normal lead foot.
See, where I live, Austin, Nevada, is in the middle of your wide-open spaces. In fact they call Route 50, which stretches across Nevada into Utah, “The Loneliest Highway in America,” and we tend to look at the speed limit more as a suggestion than a command. I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket. In fact I don’t even know anyone who’s ever gotten a speeding ticket.
So I normally drive pretty fast but now I slowed down, thinking that “55 Saves Lives” might be pretty literal in this case.
Heinz-57 caught right on.
“You are driving slow,” he said.
“I’m doing the limit.”
“Faster.”
“You told me not to speed.”
He thought about this for a second, then said, “Speed cleverly.”
“It ain’t the autobahn, you know.”
“Step on it.”
I don’t know where he got the “Step on it” bit, but I took him at his word and put that pedal to the floor.
It had nice pickup for a four-wheeler.
“What are you trying to do?!” he yelled.
“Follow instructions!”
“You wish for the police to stop us?!”
Well, yes, bonehead. That’s what I had in mind as long as you gave me permission. I didn’t say that, of course.
Anyway, he yelled, “Slow down!”
“Make up your mind.”
Then Heinz-57 got on the phone and started punching numbers.
“Don’t listen,” he ordered.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“He said not to listen,” Hope answered helpfully.
“I didn’t hear him,” I said. “I wasn’t listening.”
There was something in me that loved jerking Heinz-57’s chain. Maybe it was the hormones.