Mickey Slips (Tyler Cunningham Shorts) Read online

  Being a student of the writings of Lawrence Block, and especially (in this instance) Bernie Rhodenbarr, I believed my ears, but wanted to verify that I was alone in the Starlight Club. I made my way slowly through the whole place, from basement to an attic crawlspace, making certain that nobody else was in the building. Going at a reasonable pace, it took me 17 minutes to check every last human-sized space. I could feel the seconds weighing heavily on me, but had to make sure; the time spent also served to find the best places to leave my surprises.

  With C-clamps and hanging wires, I rigged a number of the shotguns that I’d picked up at a few of the entrances to look like booby-traps; I did the same with some of the basement windows and an attic hatch that lead to the roof. Last night, in Mike’s warehouse, I had sawn all of the shotguns off to below legal length (“sauce for the goose, Mr. Saavik” my inner trekkie reflected as I rigged up one after the other), and now rigged them with C-clamps and hanging wire to doors and windows at critical access points around the club. I rigged all of them to miss their supposed target-spaces, but not by much … I wanted to scare (and possibly piss off) but certainly not injure anyone who got in the way of one of my traps. When I had rigged the most likely places with poorly executed booby-traps, I salted the rest of the club with the leftover sawed-off shotguns … behind the bar, in the kitchen, in the offices, at the top of the stairs where it appeared that there was a ‘reception desk’ presumably manned by a guard or pimp or some such. When my duffel bags were empty of guns, I took a final look around, and left the same way that I had come in, plugging the holes in the emergency door with matching disks of some dull metal that I crazy-glued in place over the holes I had punched to gain entrance to the club … not a perfect match, but if you didn’t know, they would look a part of the door.

  Nobody screamed and pointed as I walked out of the alley and away towards my Element; the street and neighborhood seemed as dead as it had when I’d entered the club some 68 minutes ago. I drove slowly back towards the club and parked for a minute from a few blocks away. I watched for any signs of life and/or alarm, but saw none.

  I dialed 911 and described for the operator who answered two men that I had just seen drag a screaming young girl down an alley and into a building at the address that Phil had written down for me for the Starlight Club. Two squad cars rolled up from opposite directions, with flashers, but no sirens, 193 seconds after I ended my call (despite the ongoing questions from the 911 operator). I heard a shotgun blast, and shortly thereafter, sirens from multiple sources as I rolled away from the scene, programming my GPS to find the nearest Dunkin Donuts for me.

  Dunkin Donuts, 1/22/2013, 7:19 a.m.

  As usually happens, my request for a dozen donuts (in what I consider the perfect grouping: four each of regular glazed, sugared jellies, and chocolate glazed) without coffee resulted in their checking (twice) to make sure that I didn’t want coffee (as if I might have forgotten). I took the box back out to the Element, and enjoyed one of each type with a pair of frosty cokes from my cooler as I dialed home. Dorothy answered on the third ring, which was quick for the Tri-Lakes Animal Shelter (TLAS), where she works.

  “Hey Dot, how’s Hope behaving?”

  “Tyler … are you OK?” She asked because on my last adventure I called to ask her for a rescue when my brilliant plan didn’t work brilliantly (because people seldom act in the ways that I expect them to); it hadn’t occurred to me that she would be worried about me.

  “Dorothy, I’m fine … just calling to check on my dog, and because I miss home.” I was surprised to find that this comfortable lie (as I don’t generally miss things or people or places) was to a surprising degree true. I would have liked to share some donuts with Hope, my rescue beagle, this morning. I also found that the cityscape of Syracuse was wearing on me … I wanted the woods and waters of the Adirondacks to fill my field of vision instead of strip malls and tall buildings and crowds of people. I needed to be here for Mickey, but I found that I wanted to get home, which gave me a pleasant feeling (a glow?) of humanity that I was unaccustomed to; Dorothy shook me out of my reverie in her usual straightforward way.

  “Tyler, are you sure that you’re OK? You sound as though you’ve got an extra tongue in your mouth.”

  “Nope, really fine.” I took a swig of coke to clear my mouth a bit. “I was administering a bit of donut therapy, and it made me think of you.” Nothing makes Dorothy happier than being surprised with a box of America’s favorite source of carbs and fat (although she prefers those carnival ride donuts labeled ‘manager’s special’, or the holiday-themed ones).

  “Nice … anyway, Hope’s fine, although I think that she misses you. She refused to come into work with me, so I had to drive her back home … pain in the ass dog! I think that Frank must have some kind of radar that tells him when you’re up to something. He was in yesterday to ask if I’d seen you. On general principle, since I knew you were heading South and West, I told him that you were heading to the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont for some camping with friends.” Frank Gibson is a cop that I know, who is somewhat aware of what I do, and how I get things done (“sideways and seldom legal” is how he describes it). I helped him with a delicate problem not long ago, and ever since he’s been grateful and a bit nervous about my living and working in his town (not to mention being ‘friends’ with his wife, Meg, which makes him queasy).

  “Thanks, but unless I’ve seriously miscalculated, Frank will never hear about anything I’m involved with … here in Vermont.” I tried for a joke, but it must not have worked, because Dorothy didn’t even slow down to snort or snigger.

  “How’s your shoulder?” This was a cheap shot, referring to my last major miscalculation, which resulted in my getting shot.

  “The shoulder’s fine Dot, there’s no heavy lifting involved in this job.” I answered, double-entendre-ing like the warden at a pun-itentiary.

  “I hope you get back soon … this year’s Ice Castle is looking fantastic, and you promised to take me winter camping in February.” I’d called to get a piece of home, and it had worked … I was missing the Adirondacks, which helped prepare me for the last part of my plan.

  “I’ll be back before the fireworks, and we’ll go camping after the parade.” I would be helping her, and TLAS, transport and walk dogs in the parade at the end of Saranac Lake’s Winter Carnival., An event that Dorothy both loved and hated, looked forward to and feared.

  “OK, take care, and hurry home … you’re dumb dog growled at me in my own bed last night.” She said, but ruined the effect with a tiny giggle at the end. I said my goodbye, hung up, and reached for a sixth donut.

  After the eighth donut, I called Mickey’s burner-phone, and he answered on the first ring, as though he’d been waiting … which he probably had been.

  “Tyler … What?!?” It made sense … I was the only one who had this number, so he knew it would be me calling.

  “Hi Mickey. I’m just calling to check in, and make sure that you’re OK. Things are going well up here, and if the creek don’t rise, I should be tying things up in the next six hours or so.”

  “I’m glad to hear from you. What sort of text did you send Anne, she’s been email bombing me since last night. I replied that my phone’s not holding a charge, and that I’ve been in executive committee meetings and incommunicado to try and deal with some potentially embarrassing issues.” (That seemed a little close to the bone I thought, but gave Mickey props for trying).

  “Sorry about that Mickey … I sent a generic text, based on others you had saved in your phone, but it must have sounded off to her. I’ve never been able to fool Anne into believing that I was human.” It was a joke, but only just … Anne had always thought that I was damaged goods, and might hurt her husband or kids, despite Mickey’s instant and ongoing interest (and eventually love) for me.

  “Never mind … so can I go home now Tyler, or do I have to go on pretending? Every second is a lie, and a burden that I have to carry.” I do
n’t understand Mickey, but I certainly do enjoy studying him. I was tempted to push him, see how he would react to a proposal of even greater deceit, but I had no wish to be more cruel to him than was necessary.

  “I’d feel better if you would wait until later in the day before I answer that question if you don’t mind, but you should do what you think is best. How’s the hotel? How are you feeling and healing? Do you have enough to read?” Mickey, like me, was a reader … he could likely survive the end of the world, so long as he had adequate reading material.

  “I moved to a Radisson near the first place … this one has a pool, which feels good on all my sore joints. I’m almost past the need for the pain meds and my swelling is all coming down, although the bruising is spectacular. I’ll have to explain it to the girls for certain … it’ll be weeks before I’m back to anything like normal. I have a couple of hundred books on my iPad, so I’m fine for reading material unless I end up having to flee the country … which I won’t have to do, right Tyler? You’re not doing anything illegal are you?”

  (Now he asks!)

  “Mickey, if you want, when this is all over, I’ll answer any questions that you care to ask, but for now, I have to go, and you’ll have to be satisfied with my promise that things are going well, and nobody is going to get hurt.”

  “I guess that’ll have to do then. I’ll expect your call this afternoon or evening. Love you, boy!” It made me feel good (as though things could/would return to normal) that he ended the call with his traditional closing.

  “Love you too, Mickey.” I always said this, although we both knew that it wasn’t exactly true.

  I finished the box of donuts, and instead of the expected sugar rush, I was overcome by a nap attack, and decided that I could afford to close my eyes for a few hours.

  Mykonos Coffee Shop, Syracuse, 1/22/2013, 12:03 p.m.

  It was, as it always seems to be doing in Syracuse, snowing when I arrived at the intersection of North Salina and Kirkpatrick Streets at sixteen minutes after eleven. I saw nothing that made me want to keep driving, so I pulled into the big parking lot that the cafe shared with a Kinney drugstore, and parked in such a way that pointed my rear window at the front door and window of the Mykonos Coffee Shop (not, I noticed, a coffee shoppee, which spelling drives me to distraction every time I see it … and apparently sometimes even when I don’t see it). The geography of my parking also avoided the external video cameras placed to record drive-up pharmacy traffic. I went into Kinney’s, and saw a manager-type a few isles over stocking shelves with drugstore things.

  “Excuse me,” I spoke loud enough to get his attention, but I didn’t want to distract him too much from his task. “My car battery died, can I plug my charger into the outlet I saw on the side of your building by the parking lot to run the battery up a bit?” I asked, using a slightly modified #3 smile (friendly/sincere/helpful, with a touch of honest added for effect). Lacking the usual range of human expression, I’ve always been surprised at how much of human communication is non-verbal; and as such, have had to learn how to fake smiles and frowns and shrugs and such … I have twenty-four smiles in my repertoire, not counting slight variations, like the one I was using now.

  “Sure, no problem,” looking up briefly but barely noticing my effort at personality. “But could you throw something over the cord, so nobody trips over it?”

  “Great! I’ve got to pick up some stuff anyway, and I’ll just add a towel to my basket.” I said jiggling my partly full hand basket … I have a towel in the element (I’ve read ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ seven times after all), but I decided to use the one from Kinney’s for a couple of reasons: it makes me a customer, it shows him that I’m interested in complying with his wishes, and I don’t get my own towel all covered with Syracuse.

  With my new towel (and some other assorted stuff that I didn’t really need, but could always use) in hand, I headed back out to my car, popped the hood for verisimilitude (thinking of Dan for a second, and wondering what he’d think of the role his shotguns were playing in today’s fun). I ran a heavy duty extension cord from the back of the Element out to the all-weather wall socket, plugged it in (cringing slightly when I did so, hoping that it wouldn’t short circuit the plug/building/neighborhood, or cause the gizmo in the back of my car to explode … it didn’t), and laid my new towel down on the cable and snow and dirt of the narrow walkway. I added a traffic cone that I’d picked up off the side of the road on my way down here (people respect a traffic cone and always assume that it must be there for some important reason). I’m sure that I only imagined that I could hear a hum from the back of the Element as the massive capacitors built up their charges. I opened the backdoors and pulled some lumber partway out to explain the open backdoor to the casual (yet curious) passerby, chucked my watch up to the front seat (so I wouldn’t lose it if everything worked as it should), grabbed the red backpack that Lily would be looking for, and went over to grab a coke and a snack before she arrived.

  She arrived a few minutes late by the clock on my burner-phone (which placed her well within the acceptable range of ‘promptness’ for the majority of humanity), alone (I assumed that Shane was busy and/or arrested this morning) and looked past me twice before her eyes came back to the red backpack that ‘Tony’ had mentioned yesterday in their/our phone call. I needed things to happen in a specific order in a pretty short timespan, so I waved her over and initiated the conversation to try and insure that things went in the correct manner. While she was walking my way, I turned on the walkie I had in my lap, and made certain that it was on the correct channel to initiate a link with the device in the back of my Element.

  “Lily, you’re late. Show me the camera and video and tell me that you haven’t been dumb enough to make a copy for ‘insurance’, please.” She recognized my voice and manner, and stopped just short of sitting to pull a coffee-brick-sized camera from a shoulder bag and put it down on the table.

  She pushed a button on the top of the camera, and a noise preceded a small door on the side opening and partly ejecting a little videocassette. “I didn’t make a copy … this thing’s not as easy as the new digital ones, but …” I didn’t care much about where she was headed with that sentence … I pushed the ‘SEND’ button on the walkie, imagined that I could feel a surge of something racing through the air at the speed of light to damage my central nervous system, and the lights and radio and TV in the coffee shop went out with a couple of expensive sounding pops and puffs.

  I stood up, probably before anyone else had really noticed, grabbed the backpack, and turned to head back out into the snow; only pausing to check the coffee shop to make sure that I hadn’t killed anyone with a pacemaker (I had failed to think of that until after I pushed the button ... oops). I hadn’t.

  “Wait, what, wait … what the fuck is going on? Where the fuck are you going?” Lily asked, scooping up the camera as she followed me outside.

  “We’re done here ‘Lily’, take a look and think about it for a second.” I said as I held up my burner phone for her to see … not that there was much to see. I had bricked it with what amounted to an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) using the high energy radio frequency energy from the modified microwaves in the back of my Element. I had made use of the stuff I’d picked up at Home Depot to aim the wave generally into the coffee shop, where it fried everything with circuitry (especially stuff with magnetic data storage like Lily’s video).

  “But I’ve still got the camera… the tape … I can …” she seemed to run down as she looked at her watch, which had stopped at a few minutes after noon.

  “Can what?” I dug into my pocket for a folded packet of hundred dollar bills (ten of them). “Here’s the new deal, I give you $1000 for the time you spent in bed with Mickey, so it wasn’t a total loss, and you walk away from me, from here, from Mickey.”

  “But Shane ...” she started, but I had neither the time nor the desire to hear idle threats or more whining.

 
; “If Shane was going to do anything about today, he would have had to be here, which he isn’t. I’m betting that his life got more complicated this morning ... the good news is that yours just got much, much, more simple. If you want my advice, which you probably don’t, you should also walk away from Shane ... go pack a bag, get on a bus, and pick a new home with this and any other money that you might have.”

  She spent four seconds with her mouth open and gaping, seven seconds getting angry, and eleven seconds thinking her way out of anger … I appreciated both her silent thoughtfulness and the Fibonacci-ness of the timing of her thought progression. She started to say something, thought better of it, plucked the hundreds out of my hand, turned her back on me and walked away, pausing at the corner only to peel off her watch and throw it, along with the camera, into the garbage can.

  I will gladly admit that a small part of me had wanted to explain my actions, and was disappointed when Lily walked away from me in the parking lot. Mostly however, I was enormously relieved that this thing was over for Mickey.

  I like to think that she will leave well enough alone, that my tricks and treats at the Starlight should serve to hobble whatever backup or muscle or help she might hope to access. She may even take this opportunity to change her life, although I doubt it.

  I checked afterwards, and found that one of the responding officers had been treated for minor injuries from a ricocheting shotgun pellet or fragment. The owners and various staff at the Starlight face multiple weapons charges, assault/battery/attempted murder of peace officers, and a hearty stew of drug and prostitution charges … all of which added up to significant and multitudinous felonies for Morty and company (presumably including Shane).