The Plan

Chapter 24.

"REMEMBER THAT GIRL… WHAT WAS HER NAME? FROM Coos Bay…" Mickey was grinning at Ryan over a plate of pasta. They were in a booth in the back of the original Mr. A's steak house on Cape May. Large windows over -looked the black Atlantic swelling with winter cold on th e s outh Jersey shore.

"Susan? Sharon? Yeah, it was Sharon something." Mickey was happy! Funny! Having a ball! His fat, round cheeks pulled up in cherubic delight. All around them, people were drinking beer and eating dinner, as the sound of silverware on crockery mixed with conversation and laughter.

The old-time waiters stopped to say "Hi" to Mickey on their way into the kitchen. Mickey had bussed tables in the restaurant every summer when he and Ryan were in prep school.

"Sharon," Mickey continued the reverie. "The bitch had bugs in her rug. Gave me crabs. No shit, Ryan. I had to shave my pubes and soak my Johnson in vinegar."

"Lucky I never got around to her."

Mickey waved at the bartender who sent two more frosted mugs of beer over with the waitress.

Ryan had been dreading the meeting all the way from Des Moines, but the minute he saw Mickey at the beach house and Mickey threw an arm around him and suggested they have dinner together, he'd felt more relaxed. Ryan had asked Lucinda not to join them. He still wasn't sure how this meeting would end. They'd driven to the restaurant in a black Jeep Mickey kept for the beach and on the way they'd never once mentioned the campaign or the documentary. They had been shown to a table like visiting royalty, and then Mickey had gestured at the restaurant at large.

"First Mr. A's, right on the tip of Cape May. My dad picked this location after he bought the beach house. Pop pointed to this spot and said we're gonna build a steak house right here, overlooking the bay."

"Really?" Ryan said, thinking, How could they afford a beach house before the restaurant had become a success? But that had been hours ago, and that sober thought had now been replaced by memories of dick jousting tournaments. Mickey's demeanor and friendliness made Ryan's earlier concerns seem foolish.

Two hours later, they had moved into the bar and were wrecking the atmosphere with bone-shattering harmony.

"From the tables down at Morrie's to the place where Louis dwells…" The "Whiffenpoof Song" rang off the rafters, with Mickey roaring out the words off-key. The bartender kept the shooters coming.

At two A. M., they stumbled out into the cold January night and pissed in the snowbank, leaving yellow craters in the fresh drift. Laughing, they piled into the Jeep. Mickey was all over the road. "Wh00000," he yelled as the right front tire hit the curb in front of the Cape May Inn, where Ryan had elected to stay.

Mickey pulled up to unit 6 and set the brake. The engine purred. Exhaust made rich noxious steam.

"Man, we had some times, didn't we?" Mickey said, looking at his friend of more than twenty years. " 'Member that first day at Choate when we were roommates and we fought over the window bed? You were the first guy I couldn't pin. You counted with me, Ryan." Mickey shook his head in wonder. Then abruptly the smile was gone. "So, how come you're fuckin' me now?"

"What're you talking about?" Ryan was trying to get his head to stop spinning.

"I got a call from those guys in Iowa. They tell me you ain't cooperating with them. They say you're calling me a hood. I can't believe it. I recommended you." Mickey was looking at the dash.

"I was gonna talk to you about it tomorrow. I'm drunk, man. I can't do this with my brain steeped in shooters." "These people, they're real upset."

"I thought you hardly knew them," Ryan said, struggling to focus his vision, cursing himself for getting drunk, letting his guard down.

"I do you a favor, I don't expect to get butt-fucked." "I can't do this drunk. Okay?" Ryan struggled out of the car. "We'll talk about it in the morning."

Mickey leaned forward and swung his head toward Ryan. Ryan was staring into the eyes of the devil. It was hard to even explain what he saw there. He'd never seen such hatred. He felt searing heat as Mickey's glare shot through him.

"I was helping you and you fucked me. Now I gotta fuck you back."

Then Mickey put the car in reverse, yanking Ryan's arm off the door as he went, leaving him awash with fear and liquor.

Ryan opened unit 6 and went inside. He stripped off his clothes, cranked the shower up to cold, and stood shivering as icy needles of water raked his skin. He got out and, still naked and wet, dropped to the threadbare carpet and started doing push-ups.

It took him two hours to get sober.

When he dialed the Alo beach house, it was almost four A. M.

"Yeah." Mickey's voice was heavy with sleep. "It's Ryan. I need to talk to you."

"I'm through talking to you."

"I have something I need to show you. I'm coming over. Tell the turret gunners not to shoot me." Ryan hung up and called a cab.

He arrived at the beach house just as the sun was coming up. He got out of the cab and paid the driver to wait.

New York Tony was sitting in the Jeep out front in the driveway. He said nothing but watched with feigned disinterest as Ryan rang the bell. Mickey opened the door almost immediately. He was in a maroon bathrobe and slippers and his wet hair was slicked back.

"Out here," he said and led Ryan through the house, to a boathouse on the ocean side of a rolling grass lawn that fronted the shore. Ryan followed Mickey across the brown winter-burned landscape. Mickey unlocked the door and they entered.

The boathouse was painted glossy white and smelled of fresh paint and mildew. Inside, a blue Hobie Cat and two red Sabots were on trailers.

"Whatta you want?"

"What did you mean when you said you were gonna fuck me back?"

"It's in English, you figure. it out."

"I'm not supposed to have any thoughts? I'm just supposed to do what I'm told, regardless of what I feel?" Ryan said, searching Mickey's eyes for that deadly glare.

"No, Ryan, you do exactly what you want."

"Mickey, I have a friend in the Organized Crime Bureau of the FBI. He says the Alo family is engaged in criminal activities."

"Fuck him," Mickey said, his hands in his bathrobe pockets.

"Haze Richards is a sham, Mickey. We hit some rough air flying into Des Moines and he turned to Jell-O. He was screaming and begging them to turn the plane around. He doesn't have a thought that A. J. Teagarden doesn't have first. Look at this."

He'd made an extra copy of the tape before he'd left the journalism school. He flipped it to Mickey, who jerked a hand out of his robe and caught it. Mickey had heard from A. J. about the incident on the airliner… He didn't know Ryan had it on tape.

"What do I care?" Mickey said softly.

"You're running him for President. Why?"

"Maybe you need a few more facts." The evil look was back, searing heat mixed with emptiness. "Fact…" Mickey continued, "When I want something, I get it. I never fail. Anybody gets in the way, I bury them. Fact, the only reason you're still standing here breathing my air is I've known you for twenty years. If you hadn't been my roommate, if we hadn't screwed a few of the same girls, if you hadn't given me a few laughs, I would a' floated you already."

Ryan had miscalculated. Because he'd known Mickey half his life, he'd thought he could bargain with him. The mask was off. He now saw Mickey for what he really was.

"Now, get the fuck outta my house and my life before I decide to do the job right now. I'll tell you one more thing… You mess with me on this, you try and make trouble for this campaign, and you're not gonna be prepared for the shit I'm gonna dump on you. This is your only warning, Ryan. Nobody else would even get one. Chalk it up to old times, but don't ignore it or you're dead."

Ryan knew he had to repair the moment. He had tipped his hand carelessly. "There's no reason it has to be like this," he said. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I'm sorry, Mickey. I'll just go home and forget everything."

Mickey looked in Ryan's eyes and knew he was lying. To Mickey, the lie was more dangerous than anything else Ryan had done.

Lucinda had been awakened by the phone and saw Ryan arrive from her upstairs window. She threw on an overcoat and followed them to the boathouse and listened through the thin wood walls while her brother uttered words she could not comprehend.

Chalk it up to old times, he'd said to Ryan. Don't ignore it or you're dead.

He had threatened to kill Ryan. There was very little doubt in her mind that he would go through with it.

She knew she had no choice. She had to stop her brother.