The Plan

Chapter 23.

JOHNNY FURZE WAS HIS GIVEN NAME, BUT ON THE PIER IN Atlantic City, they called him Thirteen Weeks. He worked as a collector for Charlie "Six Fingers" Romano. If you failed to pay the greedy little Sicilian loan shark the vig, or worse still, if you tried to take off, then Johnny Furie was called into action. His specialty was nonfatal injuries which would leave you hospitalized for specific amounts of time-thirteen weeks in County Hospital being the sentence Charlie Six Fingers deemed right for a seriously delinquent account.

Thirteen Weeks prided himself on his ability to dole out the exact number of hospital days he was aiming for. He worked with a cut-down, wood Louisville Slugger and had actually audited some medical courses at City College to help him refine his skills. He had learned, for example, to stay away from the kidneys, because they could cause complications that would leave a delinquent account in a wheelchair. He avoided the head and focused on appendages because they were hospital-time reliable. Knees were almost always good for two weeks; feet were favored targets if the sentence was longer. Foot injuries could leave a "no pay" on his back with his leg in a pulley sling fo r m onths. Johnny Furie rarely missed by much.

His boss, Charlie Romano, operated a loan shark business on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, funding bars and restaurants as well as casino losers. His operation was on Alo turf, so he gave the Alo "buttons" a taste of his action in exchange for protection from range wars with freelance operators.

Mickey Alo called Charlie. He explained the situation and Charlie picked Thirteen Weeks for the job. The sixfoot-two, two-hundred-sixty-pound collection consultant boarded a plane to Cedar Rapids, rented a car there, and drove over to Des Moines. He stopped at a sporting goods store in a small town on the way and picked up an eighteen-ounce Louisville Slugger. Then he stopped at a hardware store and bought a drill, a hacksaw, and two feet of nylon rope. He shortened the bat in the front seat of his car while eating a McDonald's Double-Double burger, drilling a hole through the handle and tying a loop in the cord so he could hang the bat under his armpit beneath his overcoat.

Thirteen Weeks got to the Savoy Hotel in Des Moines at seven-thirty P. M. and called Ryan Bolt on the house phone.

"Mr. Bolt? This is the concierge desk. We're holding a package for you. We'd send it up but it's very large and I think, perhaps, you're going:to want to store it."

"Who's it from?"

"Uh. It doesn't say." Thinking, Come on, shithead, just come down, will ya?

"Be right down."

Johnny Furie moved over to a lounge chair and waited for Ryan to show up. After a few minutes, a handsome, blond man, about six-two, approached the desk and had an animated conversation with the concierge. Johnny sized up the target. He looked athletic, with quick movements. Take him from behind, he thought… An Achilles tendon shot to slow him, then work the lower extremities. He watched as Ryan looked around the lobby with a puzzled stare, then Ryan moved back to the elevator. Johnny Furie moved with him and got in the same elevator. Tanya Tucker harmonized with the hydraulic lift as they zoomed up.

"Evening," Johnny said, feeling the Louisville Slugger under his coat.

"Hi," Ryan said.

The door opened on seven.

"My floor, too," Johnny said, walking behind Ryan who headed for his room and took out his key. Johnny Furie slowed down, unbuttoning his coat. Just as Ryan started to enter his room, Thirteen Weeks brought the Louisville Slugger out, pivoted, and swung. The bat whistled, aimed low. Johnny Furie couldn't believe it! Even as he swung, he knew he was gcing to miss. Ryan still had his back to Johnny, but he moved so quickly that the blow glanced off the side of his left leg, doing almost no damage. Ryan dove into his room and rolled on the blue plush pile carpet.

Ryan Bolt had managed to stay healthy through four Division A-1 college seasons as a wide receiver. He ran his share of blind short-outs, during which linebackers got to unload free shots while his back was to them. Ryan had always been able to feel them behind him. He learned from the conditioning coach that he had exceptional peripheral vision. His focal vision was 90 degrees, his gray vision was 75, but he could sense motion for 10 degrees on either side of that.

He'd sensed the man in the gray tweed overcoat moving fast behind him, and he'd lunged forward, getting partially out of the way before the blow hit. He rolled up in time to see his assailant moving into the room after him, swinging the bat again. He dove to his right and the second swing missed him completely.

"Shit, stay still," the frustrated accounts receivable specialist mu::zed.

Ryan got a foot under himself and charged low. He dug a shoulder into the huge man, driving him back against the wall. The wind went out of both of them.

Johnny Furie pushed Ryan back and swung his meaty right hand, hitting Ryan in the temple. Ryan saw stars, felt consciousness slipping away so he dropped into a partial crouch, his hands up by his head to block two of Johnny Furie's best lefts. Ryan tried to circle, but he was dizzy from the first blow and went down to one knee. The big man was on him, raining blows on his face. The bat was no longer in Johnny's hand; it was swinging wildly under his arm from the rope, banging him helplessly in the side. Johnny turned his attention momentarily from Ryan to the bat, trying to find it and grab it with his left hand. Suddenly, from behind him, a heavy glass ashtray hit Johnny Furie on the back of the head. He turned around and saw a beautiful girl with black hair standing there, the ashtray still in her hand, a terrified look on her face.

Lucinda had just arrived from New Jersey. She'd seen the big man in the gray tweed coat swinging the bat at Ryan just as she'd gotten off the elevator and watched in terror, not knowing what to do. Then, she'd grabbed the heavy glass ashtray and hit the man in the gray coat on the head as hard as she could.

Johnny Furie grabbed Lucinda by the right wrist and hurled her across the room, but when he turned, Ryan was back on his feet. His head had cleared and he hit Thirteen Weeks with a straight right hand.

Johnny felt bone and cartilage exploding, spreading his nose over his face. He reeled back and Ryan hit Johnny again. This time, Johnny's lip split.

"Shit," he said, blood flowing down on his collar. He grabbed the bat and swung it again at Ryan, missing. Ryan scrambled right and grabbed a heavy pole lamp with a metal base, ripped the plug out of the wall, and faced the huge man. People in the corridor were screaming.

A fat man in a T-shirt and suspendered pants stuck his head in the room and looked at Ryan and Johnny, faced off with blunt instruments. Johnny Furie's face was covered with blood. "My God," the man cried and ran up the hall. "Call the cops," he yelled as he went.

Thirteen Weeks knew the mission was blown. He cursed himself for trying to do it in the hotel. He figured the tapes were probably in the room and that by doing the job here, it would eliminate the need to come back to get them. Now that decision was working against him. He could hear people running in the hall, calling to each other. He reached up and tried to wipe the blood off his face. When his hand came down, it was completely red. Ryan started moving toward him, the metal lamp ready to swing.

"Fuck it," Johnny said, then he spun and ran out of the room.

He used the stairs, got out into the parking lot and into the car. His mind was reeling. What would he tell Charlie Romano? Worse yet, what would he tell Mickey Alo?

Ryan was sitting on the corner of the bed in his room at the Savoy, looking at Lucinda, trying to decide what to think. She was bruised and shaken but collected. He stood up and began to pace around the room.

"Was he trying to rob you?"

"I don't think so," Ryan said, reluctant to tell her what he really thought.

"Ryan, what's going on?"

"I didn't give A. J. the tape I made. I refused to let him have it."

"Why?"

"I didn't want to be a part of what they're doing, so I said no. I think that guy was sent to take it from me." He was still not looking at her. He didn't want to tell her about his suspicions concerning her brother-that Mickey was trying to buy the presidency.

Ryan had called Alex Tingredies just that morning. Alex was a friend in the FBI who had been a technical adviser on one of Ryan's TV projects. Ryan had asked Alex abou t t he Alos and gotten a distressing report. He hated to tell Lucinda what he'd learned, but knew if they were goin g t o continue to see each other, he had to take that chance.

"I called a friend in the FBI. He told me that they were getting set to file an indictment against your father for criminal conspiracy."

"So then why didn't they?" she asked angrily. "My father has never had any charges against him."

"They know he's dying and don't want to indict him and never be able to bring him into court. They're switching the indictment over to your brother. It's going to be filed in two months."

She'd always been taught that her family was more important than anything. All her life, she'd fought against believing ugly rumors, but ultimately she suspected they were true. To protect herself, she had looked away, avoiding that reality just as surely as Ryan had buried the drowning of his childhood friend. But it had all crashed in on her one afternoon when she was coming home from college her sophomore year. A taxicab had dropped her off at home.

"You know who lives in there?" the driver asked. "Huh?" she said dumbfounded.

"Joseph Alo," He said in a reverential whisper. "He's head of the Jersey mob." It had been said with such awe and trepidation that somehow she instantly knew it was true. Her brother had followed in her father's footsteps.

The conversation with Mickey was still resonating in her head -I keep Ryan around to watch him fail. The Alo name is like a prison number.*

"Lucinda, we've got to, somehow, deal with this," Ryan said, bringing her back. "I think your brother is trying to hurt me, maybe kill me."

Her mind went back to a time years before when she was just eight. Her mother had left her in a park while she ran an errand. Mickey was sixteen and was there to watch her. Lucinda had been over by the swings playing when a boy about eleven had pushed her off. Mickey had seen it and he'd come over. Lucinda stood in terror as Mickey grabbed the younger boy and hit him in the face. The little boy went down, but Mickey hadn't stopped. He'd kicked him and then rolled him over on his back and sat on th e y oung boy's chest. Mickey was still hitting him when a park policeman ran over and pulled him off. While the policeman attended to the boy, Mickey grabbed Lucinda's hand and led her out of the park. She'd remembered the look in Mickey's eyes, an evil, glowing look of excitement. She knew, even then, he had loved hitting the boy. It was a corrupt memory, half-buried by time. She looked at Ryan and wondered if he could be right… wondered if her big brother had sent the man in the gray coat.

"Mickey's at our beach house on Cape May. I think you need to go and talk to him," she finally said. "You need to find out. We both do."

"Yeah." He nodded. "It's time."

He packed and then retrieved the tapes from the concierge, putting them in his ostrich briefcase. On the way out, he saw A. J. in the bar. He was tempted to leave without saying anything, but some sense of propriety seized him. He moved into the Buckeye Bar and tapped A. J. on the shoulder.

"Well, how ya doin', buddy?" A. J. slurred. He was slightly drunk. He led Ryan over to a booth where a curvaceous blonde was sitting. A. J. made an elaborate introduction. "Miss Veronica Dennis, may I present Benedict fucking Arnold."

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Arnold," the girl said, displaying a staggering lack of knowledge in American history. "Do you work for A. J.?" She was smiling, showing her small, perfect teeth.

"Yes. Mr. Arnold is our campaign turncoat."

"Knock it off, A. J."

"Whatever you want." A. J. slumped down into the booth, put an arm around Veronica Dennis. "Veronica likes Haze, but she says he seems cold. That's what our fine data tells us, too. Old Vonnie, here, is better than a tracking poll," the work said drunkenly.

`That's right." Veronica was smiling at Ryan, whom she found attractive. She was working her dimples, arching her back, giving him her D-cup profile. "I thought he was very impressive on TV, but he was sorta Y'know, like he's not very warm or something."

"Ryan, here, he used t' write and produce TV. Didn't ya, Ryan…? So he knows the medium. Is old Haze coming off like a block of ice, like Vonnie says?"

"A. J., I'm gonna be gone for a couple of days." "Hey, what the fuck good are you anyway? You ain't helping me."

"I'll leave a number where I can be reached."

"See, here's the problem…" A. J. went on, looking at Veronica. "Ryan, here, he takes our money and he shoots our film and then he won't give it to us when we nee d i t,."

"I'll see ya, A. J." He started to leave and A. J. grabbed his arm.

"Let's say you have this problem in a TV script… You got a character who's hard to like 'cause people think he's cold. How do you warm him up?"

Ryan wanted to get out of the bar, but A. J. was holding his arm.

"Create a tragedy for him," he finally said. "Something that makes people feel sorry for him. I gotta go." He pulled his arm free.

"S' long, Hemingway," A. J. sneered.

"Hemingway? Are you related-to Martel Hemingway?" Veronica said, desperately fighting for field position. "Nice to meet you, Miss Dennis."

"Listen, I'm in the book," she said quickly, wishing he wouldn't leave.

A. J. watched Ryan go. "Create a tragedy," he said to himself. "Pretty fucking smart."