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Authors: Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel

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BOOK: Lunatics
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CHAPTER 13

Philip

Did the cardiac patient
whose television I was watching have that fatal heart attack because he saw my picture on the news and then looked over to see the same man being identified as an armed terrorist standing next to his bed sipping a Diet Fresca? Hard to say. But the moment I saw him grab his chest, followed by those gurgling sounds, followed by that flatlined beep from the monitor on his night table, followed by a veritable stampede of doctors and nurses shouting “Code Blue!” I thought it wise to slip out of the room and give those dedicated professionals all the space they needed to revive that now very dead man.

Now in the hallway, my phone rang. But it drew no attention to me as it was, thank God, still on vibrate from when I set it just before the dance recital (hard to believe this was still the same night) started. The caller ID displayed my home number and I wanted to answer it. It had been several hours since I'd bolted from that auditorium in pursuit of Denise Rodecker and the lemur, and my guess was that Daisy, in the very least, was worried. And, at the very most, homicidal. Turns out she was neither.

“I'll call you right back from a landline,” I whispered into the phone.

“Why?”

“Because the cops and probably the FBI are looking for me, and they can trace my whereabouts from my cell phone.”

“Okie dokie.”

I hung up and walked a few steps down the hall, where I tried the knob on a door labeled “Doctors
'
Lounge.” It was unlocked. I entered and was relieved to see it was devoid of lounging doctors. So I picked up the wall phone, dialed “9” for an outside line and called home.

“Too bad you missed the finale,” she answered the phone saying. “All the kids got onstage, in costume, and danced to the Scott Joplin music from
The
Sting
.”

“Daisy . . .”

“Sort of a ragtime number. It was wonderful.”

“Daisy, I'm in big trouble.”

“What's wrong?” she asked, with only a slight hint of concern.

“Haven't you heard? Everyone thinks I tried to blow up the George Washington Bridge.”

“No, I hadn't heard,” she responded, that slight hint of concern now nowhere to be found.

That she didn't know what was going on was not totally surprising. Daisy is not what you'd call a news junkie. Don't get me wrong, she's not uninformed. She knows what's going on in the world and can hold her own in any conversation. But she's prone to seeking out current events on her own terms. As an option. When she's in the mood to be updated about what's happening in the world, as opposed to an addiction to the “all the news all the time” credo of certain media sources.

So it was very possible that after the recital, she drove home listening to a CD instead of the radio, then put the kids to bed, and then drifted off while watching an old movie on cable or a TiVoed episode of
Oprah
instead of CNN, MSNBC or any other commercial station that featured me and that moron Peckerman in bulletins that were now interrupting regular programming.

What
was
surprising, though, was how casually she was taking this whole thing as I was explaining it to her. As if she was merely humoring me when I told her about these absurd charges being levied against me.

“Okay, so the bullet hit him in the scrotum, and then what? Was it a particularly large scrotum or is your aim really that good?”

“Daisy . . . ?”

“You've been drinking again, haven't you?”

“Drinking? Again?” I don't drink.

“Don't pretend you don't remember,” she snapped.

“Remember what, Daisy?”

“Then again, if you
really
don't remember, that proves you have been drinking, because that was an episode a sober person would never forget.”

I racked my brain.

“Oh my God, Daisy. You've got to be kidding.”

“Do I sound like I'm kidding?”

Okay, here goes. Many years before, I was the best man at my brother's wedding. Outdoors. An incredibly hot August night. To cool off, I had four gin and tonics during the cocktail hour that preceded the ceremony. Funny how I didn't feel its effects walking down the aisle. Or when I took my place of honor under the canopy. Or even during the rabbi's sermon about the sanctity of matrimony when I peered outward and noticed a gorgeous teenage cousin from the bride's family sitting in the audience with her legs spread a little too far apart. Wearing mesh underwear. So my best guess is that this was about the time the alcohol kicked in because never, under sober circumstances, when I was supposed to hand the groom the wedding ring, would I have shouted at the top of my lungs, “Beaver! Third row! First seat!” My brother hasn't spoken to me since. That was also the last time I had a drink.

“Daisy, that was nineteen years ago!”

“And you sound just as idiotic right now as you did that night. So my suggestion to you, Philip, is to have a few cups of coffee and don't get back into the car until you're in control of yourself, because the last thing you need is for a cop to pull you over and have a DUI on your driving record. It will send our auto insurance rates soaring.”

And then she hung up. And then I heard voices in the hallway on the other side of the door. And though I couldn't tell if they came from doctors or nurses or even the police at this point, one thing was now certain. Thanks to the media, I was now recognizable and needed to become incognito.

So I opened one of the lockers in the Doctors' Lounge and found a lab coat. It was full-length and covered the clothes I was wearing when I put it on. It also had an ID badge pinned to its breast pocket that could possibly help me pass for a physician as long as I was in this hospital. That was the good news. The not-so-good news was that the badge had the name Jahangir Shahrestaani, M.D. printed on it, with the picture of a man who looked a lot more like a Jahangir Shahrestaani than I do. So I scanned the lounge and saw a scalpel lying on a counter next to an apple that a surgeon apparently cored it with. I picked it up and carefully cut Jahangir Shahrestaani's headshot out of his ID and then replaced it with the picture of me that I removed from my New Jersey driver's license, making it adhere with cellophane tape I found on an unattended reception desk outside the lounge.

I picked up a clipboard, pretending they were my patients' charts, and started smiling and nodding to my “colleagues” as I passed them in the halls, and worked my way to the nearest exit door.

CHAPTER 14

Jeffrey

The swarthy dudes
had my arms and were pulling me toward the door.

“Where are we going?” I said.

“To see Fook,” said the bartender.

At least it sounded like he said Fook.

“Fook?” I said.

“No, Fook.”

“That's what I said, Fook.”

“No, is
Fook
.”

“Okay, whatever,” I said. “Is Fook in charge? Because I need to talk to somebody who . . .”

“You will not talk to Fook. You will
listen
to Fook, and then you will tell him answers about this.” He waved toward the TV set, which was showing pictures of me and Horkman over a headline that said
BRIDGE TO TERROR
. There was also a logo, like a silhouette of the GW Bridge with a bomb in front of it. Say what you want about TV news, they move fast. A gas explosion wipes out a preschool, five minutes later they have a logo for it.

“Listen,” I said, “I don't know anything about that. That's what I'm trying to tell you. This is a big misunderstanding.”

“Do not be misunderstanding this.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun. “If you try to run away, I will shoot you in balls, like you did to police,” he said.

“I didn't shoot the police in the balls!”

“Well, somebody shooted police in balls, and this is how I am shooting you if you run away.”

If you think about it, there's no way he could hit me in the balls if I was running away, but I didn't point this out. I was getting the feeling these guys were not criminal geniuses. Another clue was, before they took me outside, they put a bag over my head. I guess the idea was to keep me from seeing where we were going, but they used a cheapo plastic bag from a Duane Reade drugstore, and I could pretty much see through it. Plus, even in Manhattan you're going to attract more attention with a guy who has a bag over his head than a guy who
doesn't
have a bag over his head, right?

Morons.

They took me outside and put me in the back of a van. The bartender told me to lie on the floor.

“If you try to get up,” he said, “I shoot your balls.”

He must have heard that in a movie.

The van started moving. I could hear the bartender talking to somebody in some weird language on his cell phone. I admit I was worried. I was thinking, whoever the fuck Fook is, I hope he has more brains than these cretins.

We drove for maybe fifteen minutes, then parked. They pulled me out of the van, and right away the Duane Reade bag blew off. So much for
that
. We were on a busy street, next to some kind of restaurant, but I didn't get a good look, because they hustled me into an alley, where they opened a door and pushed me inside. We were in a back office—computer, phone, crappy little TV in the corner showing the Bridge to Terror logo, Dilbert cartoon on the wall next to a sign showing how to give the Heimlich maneuver. The bartender pushed me into a chair and told me to stay there and don't move. He said something to the other two dudes, handed one of them his gun, then left. When he opened the door, I heard beeping sounds, like from video games, coming from down the hall.

He was gone awhile. On the TV they showed my picture again, and Horkman's; underneath it said
TERROR SUSPECTS
.

Finally the door opened. The bartender walked in first. He turned and looked back at the doorway. We were all looking at the doorway, waiting for Fook.

And then Fook walked in.

Fook was Chuck E. Cheese.

I swear to God. He was wearing a furry costume with a big plastic smiling rat head. Or mouse head. Whatever the fuck kind of rodent Chuck E. Cheese is. The bartender pointed to me and said something. Fook E. Cheese came over and stood in front of me, looking down.

“Mempheeoooroofuh,” he said. Or something like that. Between his accent and the rodent head, I couldn't make it out.

“What?” I said.

The bartender said, “He asks who are you working for.”

“I'm not working for anybody,” I said. “I'm self-employed. I'm a forensic plumber.”

Fook smacked me across the face. It didn't really hurt, because he had these big soft paws. But I wasn't expecting it.

“Hey!” I said.

“Buhuiniodod!” said Fook.

The bartender said, “He wants to know, do you think he is idiot.”

“No!”

“Henheemoinooinfh,” said Fook.

“Then why do you telling him lies?” said the bartender.

“I'm not lying!”

“Gighihnggmghfiioongh? Mhhoongnhhon?”

“If you are plumber, why are you blowing up bridge? Do you think bridge is broken toilet that you are fixing?”

“Okay, first, I don't fix toilets. I'm a
forensic
plumber. I know a lot
about
toilets, from an engineering standpoint, but my work is . . .”

“Giinoommaagh!” said Fook, raising his paw again. I admit I flinched.

“He says you are wasting time,” said the bartender.

Fook said something to one of the lieutenant swarthies, who left the room. I was getting a bad feeling about this.

“Listen,” I said. “If you give me a minute here, I can explain this whole thing.”

“This explanation,” the bartender said. “Is it the one you tell me before, about the monkey?”

“It's a lemur.”

A snorting sound came from inside the Chuck E. Cheese head.

“I would not tell this explanation to Fook,” said the bartender.

“But I swear, the . . .”

I was interrupted by the door opening. The lieutenant came in holding two things. One was a foot-long stick of pepperoni.

The other was a pizza slicer. It was one of those wheel things, with a wood handle. The blade looked sharp.

The lieutenant handed the pepperoni and the slicer to Fook. He took them in his paws and set the pepperoni on the desk next to me. He held the slicer in front of my face.

“Magnnhhnnn,” he said.

“He says look,” said the bartender.

Fook put the edge of the slicer blade on the desk and ran it across the middle of the pepperoni. It sliced it clean in two.

I thought, Oh shit, he's going to cut off my dick.

“Fghnnnghghgm,” said Fook.

“Tell him who you are working for,” said the bartender.

“I don't work for anybody!” I said. “I had nothing to do with any of this! I swear to God!”

Fook said something, and the two lieutenant swarthies grabbed me, pinned my right arm on the desktop and pressed my hand flat, fingers out. So the good news was, he wasn't going to cut off my dick.

Fook put the blade on the desk, right next to my hand. He rolled it right up to my pinkie, so I could feel the edge. That's when I pissed my pants. If you think you wouldn't, you're a fucking liar.

“Please,” I said.

“Ghmminnggh,” said Fook.

“Tell him who you are working for,” said the bartender.

Before you judge me for what I did next, put yourself in my shoes, which at the moment were filling up with urine.

I pointed to the TV screen. It was showing a close-up of Horkman, the prick who got me into all of this in the first place.

“Him,” I said. “I work for him.”

Fook pointed his rodent snout at the screen for a few seconds, then turned back to me.

“Ghammeagghnr,” he said.

I looked at the bartender.

“Fook says you will take us to this man,” he said. “Now.”

BOOK: Lunatics
6.13Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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