Tongue tied

Chapter 24

I drove the old red Trans Am, Thad sat beside me in the passenger seat, and Plankton navigated from the backseat. He held the gun between and just behind our heads.

Thad said, "Do you know how to handle one of those shooters, J-Bird?"

"I do. You pull back on the trigger and the thing goes blam, blam!"

"Yep, I've heard that's how it works."

We wended our way out of the Oyster Bay commercial district and into a more residential area along Long Island Sound. Plankton was uncertain about where Steve Glodt's house was located. He had been there just once, he said, and he knew it was on something called Center Island, and you had to cross a small bridge to get there. We were unable to ask directions from anyone, what with the J-Bird constantly waving a gun around, so we took several wrong turns and had to backtrack to what Plankton believed was a correct route.

The roads were slick from the drizzle and patchy fog and I drove with the Pontiac's headlights on. Traffic was building up now, with drivers heading out to church or to pick up bagels and the Sunday papers. Leaving Oyster Bay, we passed a donut shop with a line of cars stretching around the building to the drive-up window.

Thad said, "J-Bird, couldn't you go for some donut holes? You must be famished."

"That can wait," was all Plankton said, and soon there were no more donut stores to tempt any of us.

I had my cellphone on my belt and said at one point, "Mind if I make a call, Jay?

There are people who are going to wonder what's become of Thad and me."

"Let them wonder."

Minutes later we found Center Island. There was indeed a narrow bridge leading onto what even from the entrance to the enclave looked like a place where the shah of Iran might have kept a twenty-room hideaway and a helipad. The roofs of Georgian and Italianate palaces were visible through the trees in the distance.

A small guard outpost was at the end of the bridge we passed over, but there was no barrier, just a sign that said Turn Around Here.

"It's just local cops," Plankton said, lowering his gun for the moment. "Keep going.

Don't even look at the cop house."

"So Center Island is not a gated community?" Thad said.

"These people don't need gates," Plankton said. "They're protected by the very fact of their money."

"It's not working in your case, J-Bird."

"No, it isn't."

We wound along a tree-lined road, where driveways, some with wrought-iron gates, led off toward mansions whose rear terraces must have had glorious views of the water. I wondered if Annette Koontz had ever been out this way for a breezy afternoon sail followed by cocktails, but I supposed not.

I was hoping that Annette and Damien the tattooist had managed to free themselves and had gotten on the horn fast to warn Glodt what he might be in for. Not that 1 knew what Plankton had in mind or exactly what he was capable of, beyond the fetid gas-baggery so beloved by his radio fans. I did know that he had become enraged by what I had told him about Steve Glodt, and that he was carrying an automatic weapon I was afraid might be loaded.

"Slow down," Plankton said. "I think it's over there."

"That driveway?"

"Yeah, go left, in there."

It was probably the ugliest house on the island, a grotesque, recently built McMansion done in a hodgepodge of styles exemplifying the culture of waste, and no doubt on the site of some turn-of-the-century graceful marvel that hadn't been grandiose enough for Glodt. I almost wanted to ask Plankton for the gun so I could go in and shoot the media tycoon myself.

I parked at the top of the driveway in front of the three-car garage next to a forest-green Beemer convertible whose top was up against the drizzle.

"That's Steve's car," Plankton said. "The rabid weasel is in there."

I said, "Jay, we can't really be sure…"

"Get out," he said, pointing the gun, and Thad and I exited the Trans Am at the same time Plankton did.

"We'll go in through the garage," Plankton said, indicating a single closed door to the right of the three garage doors, which were shut tight, too.

"Go ahead," Plankton said, but when Thad tried to turn the doorknob, it wouldn't budge.

"It's locked," Thad said.

"Then I'll shoot it the fuck open."

"You don't have to," Thad said, getting out Dave Welch's Swiss Army knife.

"What's that?"

"I can probably do this lock with a corkscrew. But it might be alarmed. I'll bet every door and window on this island is alarmed."

"That doesn't matter. Go ahead. Open it."

Thad fooled around for half a minute, and then the door swung inward. I though I heard the beep-beep-beep of an alarm go off deep inside the hideous house.

"Go on in," Plankton said, and we entered the darkened garage, Thad, then me, then the J-Bird.

Plankton located a light switch to his right, flicked it on, and said, "Well, would you look at that fucker! That's the van they threw me into outside my apartment yesterday!"

The bay we were standing in was empty, as was the one on the far side of the garage.

But in the middle bay, six feet away, was a light blue Dodge Ram.

A door leading into the house was suddenly flung open violently.

"Shit, it's him!" yelled a large young man in jeans and a tank top. He was followed by an even bigger, more muscular bruiser in an Oyster Bay Fitness Center T-shirt. As they lunged at the J-Bird, he fired a burst from his automatic, hitting one of the goons in the leg and then the other. They fell writhing and screaming onto the concrete floor.

I said, "Jay, unless you want to conduct your radio show from a cell at Attica from now on, we really need to call the police."

"Shut up." He motioned toward the door to the house. I went in, then Thad, and we found ourselves in a pantry anteroom off what looked like a large kitchen just ahead of us.

A lithe little man in designer jeans, a white silk shirt, and sockless loafers appeared in the kitchen door, and when he saw Thad and me and Plankton just behind us, the man went white and turned to run.

Blam! Blam! Blam! went the J-Bird's automatic. I le had fired into the ceiling this time, but he yelled out, "Steve, you barf bag of blue puke! Get back here, or I ' l l blast your prostate right through your shriveled liver and out the other side!"

Though anatomically unlikely, this threat stopped Glodt in his tracks, and he turned back toward us, hi s hands jabbing at the air above him. "Jay, don't shoot me!

Jay, really, it was all in your own best interests. It was all for your career, Jay. For the show. Let's talk. Let me explain. Now you've fucked it up, of course, to a certain extent. But let's salvage what we can. Come on in, let me fix some Bloody Marys…"

Blam! BHam! The gun went off again, this time blasting a gaping hole in a cupboard door. In addition to the cordite, the smells I could make out were vacuum-packed Alaskan smoked salmon and dill sauce.

"Pick up that phone!" Plankton ordered Glodt.

His arms still in the air, Glodt pointed daintily with one finger at a wall phone and said, "That phone? Who do you want me to call, Jay?"

"Call the Center Island cops and tell them not to respond to the alarm. They're probably on their way out here now, so apologize, give them the code, and tell them how embarrassed you are that your Salvadoran maid's stupid six-year-old brat set off the alarm."

"Can I remember all that? You've got me so fucking nervous."

"Do it! Now!"

Glodt did as he was instructed, while Plankton held the big gun three feet from Glodt's face.

When Glodt hung up the phone and reached for the sky again, Plankton said, "Who else is in the house? Is your wife here?"

"No, nobody's here, Jay, so let's talk. Sheila's in the city and it's the maid's day off. Jay, what'd you do to Ken and Wally? Do they need medical attention? I can understand why you're pissed, but… well, hey, that's the point! Get it? You're pissed, and you're gonna stay pissed, I'm sure, and…"

"Get inside!" Plankton barked, waving the gun again. "Go on!"

Glodt edged his way into the kitchen, and we followed. The rear of the large room had a wide window, and misty Long Island Sound spread away grayly in the distance.

"Is Annette okay?" Glodt said. "You didn't shoot Annette, did you, Jay? Please tell me you didn't whack Annette."

Plankton did not answer Glodt's question. Instead, he said to Thad, "Go out to the car and get the case. Come right back in, 'cause if you don't I'm gonna blow Strachey's nuts off. And check on those two bozos on the garage floor. See if I need to come back out there and plug 'em in the gut."

Thad shot me a quick glance, then went out. Plankton peered around the kitchen, a culinary Taj Mahal of polished granite and gleaming brass with a sink-and-counter island in the center. "We'll set up over there," the J-Bird said, indicating a marble-top aluminum-frame breakfast table with four aluminum chairs next to the big window.

"Sit down," Plankton told Glodt, who promptly complied.

Thad was back within seconds with the aluminum case we had carried out of Annette Koontz's apartment. Thad said, "The two men you shot in the leg, J-Bird, are alive, but they need an ambulance, in my opinion. One's semiconscious and they're both bleeding."

"If they need to go to the hospital, they can walk," Plankton said. "Tell me, Steve, are those two on the garage floor a couple of the goons who snatched me from in front of my apartment yesterday?"

Screwing up his face, Glodt affected a look of concerned contrition. "They didn't hurt you, did they, Jay? They're just a couple of zit-heads who work for a guy in Garden City I borrowed money from one time when I had a personal-debt type of situation, and I was well aware when I took these dorks on that it would not have been to your advantage or mine if you had been injured in any way. I made myself one thousand percent clear on that particular score. I just want to be sure you understand that. Anyway, it was just like if those FFF assholes had been the ones who did it. Except those cocksuckers might really have roughed you up, and we were nice to you, and in fact we were actually going to let you go this afternoon.

"Jesus, if you'd just been a little more patient, Jay, you'd have been back in Babette's pussy by tonight, and the whole deal would have paid off big time for me and you and Leo and Jerry and all of us. Except, no, you had to go all macho on me and grab Annette's gun I gave her to protect her against the beaners moving into Oyster Bay, and then you come charging over here like some Jersey wise guy, kapowee, kapowee, kapowee. But it's not too late, you know, Jay? Knowing what you know, perhaps it would be appropriate, like, if you got a bigger slice of the GSN deal. Would that smooth things over between us? I'll bet my left devil dog it'd go a long way toward making things right, am I right?"

Plankton stood staring at Glodt, his red eyes full of fury. Somewhere along the way he had lost his shades, and his wrecked mug was not a pretty sight without them.

"Explain this to me, Steve," Plankton said, ignoring Glodt's entreaties. "On WINS they were saying my tongue was ripped out and sent to the Post. Fortunately, that was a fat, stupid lie. Whose tongue was it you sent over there, anyway?"

Glodt tried to chuckle, but the sound he made contained more desperation than amusement. He said, " I t was a sheep's tongue. Ken found it in a Middle Eastern butcher shop in Jersey City. The cops would have figured it out, but by then you'd've been freed and back on the air, anyway. Your loyal fan base would've known you still had a tongue to flap-and of course Babette would have known it, too, heh heh heh."

Plankton was pondering something. "Jerry wasn't in on this, was he?"

"What do you think?"

"Just answer my question before I shoot your black heart across your backyard and across the sound to Norwalk!"

"No, no, Jerry didn't know! He was sick about the whole thing. He even got me to raise the reward money to six-five. I just used Jerry, picking up information on the police investigation, and on some PI from Albany that was involved, and some Amish queen from the FFF that we tried to make it look like he was involved in the snatch.

I'm sure Jerry would've gone along with it if he knew, but the way I did it was even better. Don't you get it, J-Bird? It would only really work perfectly if you all were sincerely distraught and ripshit."

Plankton considered carefully what he had heard. Then he said to Thad and me,

"Tie him down. I want him stretched over the table, butt end up, and tied tight.

Find some rope, or some neckties in his bedroom."

"Hey, wait a minute…!"

Blam! Blam! Blam! The gun went off again, smashing a shelf full of what looked like Venetian fruit bowls. The far side of the kitchen was a rainbow of flying Murano.

I said, "I'll go look in the garage for something to tie him up with."

"No, you won't," Plankton said. "I don't trust you for shit, Strachey. I didn't trust you from the second I laid eyes on you, you being some limp-wristed Albany fairy. Use those electrical cords," Plankton said, waving his gun at some extension cords, one leading to a lamp on a phone table, another to a television set mounted on a metal wall shelf. "Those'll work. Tie him down with those cords."

Glodt, on whom the automatic was trained, looked frantic. "Jay, what are you going to do?"

"You'll see."

"You're not going to rape me, are you, Jay?"

"Not exactly."

"Jay, I think you're losing it. You're not the J-Bird I thought I knew."

"Do it!" Plankton snapped at Thad and me.

It took four extension cords, including two Thad retrieved from the pantry, for us to tightly secure Glodt's feet to the legs of one side of the table and his wrists to the other. Glodt had begun to whimper. He had no idea what he was in for, though by now I was beginning to think I did.

"Get the case," Plankton said calmly.

I picked up the aluminum case Thad had brought in from the car and placed it on a nearby chair.

"Open it," Plankton said.

I unsnapped the latches and lifted the lid.

"Pull his pants down," Plankton said, and Glodt let out a scream.

Thad said, "What is that thing, an electric nose-hair trimmer, or what? Are you going to shave his butt-hole or something, J-Bird? Look, I have to tell you, this is getting to be a bit more than I can stomach. Honestly."

"What you're looking at," Plankton said, motioning toward the contents of the case,

"is a tattoo gun along with its inks and accessories. I was blindfolded at the time, so I can't say for sure. But my guess is, this is the tattoo gun that that fruitcake in Oyster Bay used to desecrate the holy temple of my crumbling, pathetic, middle-aged body.

And now, Steve, your holy temple is about to be desecrated, too."

Glodt screamed again and began to struggle violently. Plankton stepped closer to Glodt and shoved the barrel of the automatic against Glodt's right temple. Glodt froze in place but almost immediately began to shake all over.

"Strachey, you can do the honors. If you refuse, I'll blow Steve's brains out. If you think I'm bluffing, go ahead and test me."

"I've never used one of these things," I said.

"You can experiment. On Steve."

"I took your basic Introduction to Art History in college, but I have no artistic talent myself."

"You won't need any. This doesn't have to be perfect. Anyway, it's pretty much all text."

"I thought it might be."

"Plug it in."

"I might need another extension cord."

"Thad, find another cord." Thad glanced at me again, and I nodded. I was beginning to understand that everyone in the room would almost certainly survive the day unin-jured and largely intact.

Plankton confirmed this by saying, "Tattoo what I tell you to write on Steve's butt.

Then I'll put the gun down and you can call the cops. But if you don't do it, I'll kill Steve.

Deal?"

"Deal," I said.

Glodt mewed softly as I loosened his belt and tugged his jeans and undershorts down in the back.

Thad returned with another extension cord and plugged one end into a wall socket near the coffeemaker. The other end I attached to the tattoo gun. The device resembled a large hypodermic syringe with a needle in the end. When I flicked a switch, the needle vibrated.

I said, "These little jars appear to contain ink. What color would you like, J-Bird?

Or should I ask Steve?"

"Blue would be good," Plankton said. "It was good enough for me, and it will be good enough for Steve."

I removed the lid from a jar of dark blue ink. With the tattoo gun poised above Glodt's buttocks-which were remarkably firm and well-preserved for a man who was probably in his early fifties-I said to Plankton, "What is it, J-Bird, that you would like me to write?"

He told me, and Glodt began to sob.

Thad said, "That's cruel, J-Bird. That's sick."

"Do it, or I'll kill him. It's not as cruel and sick as murder."

I thought he was probably bluffing, but he spoke with such cold rage that I wasn't sure. In any case, I figured Glodt could have the tattoos removed-slowly, painfully- before they could bring him any greater harm.

"I should sketch this out first," I said, "so that I do the job as neatly as possible. Is there a marker or something?"

Thad brought a felt-tipped pen from the telephone table. He wasn't trembling, nor did he have goose bumps. But his face was taut and pale, and I could see in his eyes that he was suffering. Thad's early days as a daring FFF rescuer must have seemed so innocent and larky next to this, and I didn't doubt that he would soon head back to his eggplants and moody lover and orderly extended gay-and-lesbian family and never again head off on some midlife adventure that the likes of people like me had lured him into.

I took the pen and carefully wrote on Glodt's perspiring left buttock: "Queen of the New York State Correctional System." Then on his left cheek I drew an arrow pointing to Glodt's anus, and the words "Enter Here."

It took me a few minutes to develop a feel for using the gun and when and how to dip the needle in the ink jars. So I made a few blotchy mistakes. But when I finished the job an hour or so later, it wasn't bad overall, and the J-Bird complimented me on my work.

Then I made some phone calls, and soon after that two ambulances arrived, along with a Center Island police cruiser. At almost the same moment, Lyle Barner and Dave Welch glided up the Glodt driveway.

Glodt was still draped over the kitchen table when Lyle and Welch came in, Lyle's police special drawn. The J-Bird had laid down his automatic by then, and Lyle soon lowered his.

Welch said, "Hey, nice butt."

Taking note of the J-Bird, Lyle said to Welch, "What are you, queer or something?

Now, what the hell is going on here, Strachey? It looks to me as if you have a lot of explaining to do."

Welch shook his head, Thad raised an eyebrow, the J-Bird snorted, and Steve Glodt said, "Are you police officers? Thank God you're here! I've been attacked and held prisoner by these radical homosexual activists! Apparently they are the same deranged perverts who kidnapped my friend and full business partner, Jay Plankton here, who luckily was able to escape from his sadistic captors!"

There was a pause while we all looked over at the J-Bird, who suddenly let loose with a ferocious cackle.