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
