Chapter 41 – The Pickup
For the next three days Tommy played with himself, I played with myself, Jinny and Gale played with themselves, the dog did whatever it is dogs do, and Gwendy ranted and raved, mostly to herself, in the living room. The only person who was behaving constructively was the pest writer, who was implementing his scheme to create a gambling competition that focused on his new book. It only took him a day to write the last chapter, in which all facets of the heisting pinching of the famous painting were resolved. When he had that in the can he set to figuring out the public competition, which was something he never had done before. He never had been a gambler, but he decided it might be interesting and he could use the extra money, though he had no idea how much that might be. Maybe he’d make a coupla hundred bucks, keep himself and the dog in meatloaf for a few months.
One the morning of the fourth day of separation from my temp beloved, temporary until my true beloved returned from the vineyards of Burgundy, presumably unsullied by French women, I couldn’t stand it any longer, hopped into the Mustang, drove it up Meeting Street to the museum, hopped the curb, and parked in the plaza between the entryway and the flower beds. I looked at my watch, which said eleven am, hoped Tommy was at work, even knowing that work consisted of trying to catch me and send me up the river, and proceeded to hammer the accelerator pedal, again and again revving the 390’s engine up to and past the tachometer red line, sending shock waves of thundering exhaust out the tailpipes, which I deliberately had pointed towards the museum offices. BAROOMM, POUUNDD, GROWWWLKABOOMM !
In three minutes the security guard was outside watching me, in five minutes the Curator was here, and in six minutes the Director was here, ordering the security guard to draw his service revolver and shoot me through the windshield. The rentacop ignored him, but did cautiously approach the driver’s side door. He leaned in and said, “What’s up lady?”
I rocked the car with another massive engine rev, threw out a Deneuvian stab of command that penetrated the cop’s mind, and said, “If Tommy Crown’s inside, tell him I want to see him.”
Given cop mentality and training, normally the guy would have come back at me, hard, maybe grabbing the keys, turning off the engine, opening the door and dragging me out, if he happened to be the aggressive type of cop. But he didn’t, and instead turned around and headed into the museum to find this Crown guy. The Director yelled at him, and again got ignored, thought of approaching the car and doing something himself, short of shooting me, but chickened out and shouted at the Curator, “Do something, for god’s sake.”
The Curator recognized me and the Mustang and thought, ‘I hope this turns into something good,’ and sat down on the low wall of a planter to watch. The security guy found Tommy in his office, I won’t mention what he was doing there, bored though, thinking alternately of the Jag, the dog, the painting, Gale in her underwear, the fucking writer pest, and, of course, mostly about me. The guard said, “You know anyone drives a ’68 Mustang GT 390, yellow, hot inside and out?”
Tommy stopped what he was doing, looked to heaven even though he’s an atheist, and said aloud, “Thank God.” To the guard he said, “Where?”
“Outside. Parked on the plaza. Redlining it.”
“What’s she wearing?”
“Didn’t notice. When I looked in the window, she did something. Next thing I know, here I am, looking for you.”
Tommy nodded and said, “Don’t worry, it’ll wear off. Not many guys get to experience that.”
“What is it?”
“It’s....it’s....it’s.... just something.”
“Felt like I was hit by a Taser, but in a good way.”
Tommy said, “Thanks,” ran down the hallway past the Gershwin piano, down the stairs, and out the doors through which he saw the yellow bomb. He stopped dead, but glanced over to the flower planter on which the Curator was standing, jumping up and down, watching me. I had the transmission in forward, the brakes locked up with my left foot, my right foot planted hard on the accelerator, and the steering wheel turned all the way to the left. The result was the Mustang doing donuts on the bluestone plaza, the tires emitting clouds of smoke and leaving swatches of black rubber on the paving. Around and around I spun, right hand on the wheel, left arm dangling casually out the window. On the third pass I saw Tommy through the smoke and stopped the antics, smiled at him, saying, “Wanna go for a spin?”