troops, probably the last. Perhaps the offer of pill retail work would ease the pain of staking out the parking lot in the cold.
They shook hands and said their goodbyes. Kevin still could not remember the doctor’s name. “By the way, doc, what’s your name?”
“Doctor Billings,” he said. “Jeffrey Billings.”
Kevin nodded, and they shook hands, meaninglessly, again.
Sometimes, you only needed to know one fact about a person. The freak had named his dog after himself.
DOUG WAS SITTING in a tree, thinking about whether or not his thing with Linda was really Kevin’s fault. He was deciding it was. He knew that Kevin was still not 100 percent sure that Doug had not turned him in to the police, and perhaps the constant distrust Doug felt from him was what caused him to act dishonestly. Had Kevin trusted him more, he wouldn’t have slept with his wife. There, that made perfect sense.
“Dude,” Mitch said. He was a branch higher up in the tree. They were looking out over the wintry parking lot, waiting for the Ferrari that would never come. Mitch was handing down the joint and Doug took it. They had been smoking pot in the tree for over half an hour and Doug was so high he no longer really felt up to the task of stealing a Ferrari, should one actually show up. In fact, every night they had been out there since the first one, that had been the situation after half an hour, and Doug was secretly relieved when each mission ended in futility. And he had been doubly glad when Kevin had suggested on the way out there that this plan might not work after all, which meant he had performed his karmic duty, by trying to help Kevin steal a car, without the personal disaster of being arrested for it. He was, as they said, off the hook
As time had gone by on their stakeouts, they had learned things. They had watched the valets so closely for so long they felt like they knew them. There was the Italian-looking dude, the fat dude, the gawky kid, and the girl, who worked Fridays and was kind of cute. They had watched her through binoculars and her appearance and attitude as she waited around with the other parking attendants had filled half an hour of conversation time. The Italian-looking dude was not nice, and Doug and Mitch had gathered from random words drifting across the windswept parking lot that the others thought he was not sharing tips. From their tree, they had spent an evening watching him very closely and had actually seen him putting money straight into his pocket when the others weren’t around.
“Let’s go down there and punch him,” Mitch had said and for a moment it had seemed like a good idea. Then they had remembered their mission, which was to sit in a tree and wait for a Ferrari. A wait that in a few hours would be over, Doug remembered, and then he could go back home and look for a real job, working a grill at another corporate restaurant, one that he could get to without a car.
Mitch’s cell phone rang, a loud, high-pitched sound that must have been audible to the diners in the restaurant and certainly, Mitch thought, to the two shivering parking attendants standing out front. He distinctly saw the Italian-looking dude look back into the forest to see why a tinny version of a Grateful Dead tune was coming from the trees and bushes. He fished it out and saw Kevin’s number.
“Shit dude, don’t call me. I’m on stakeout, remember?”
“Dude, why don’t you just put it on vibrate?”
“Because I’m wearing gloves. I can’t push the little buttons,” he whispered angrily. “What do you want?”
“We might have to go home soon. Linda just called. I think she knows I’m not out walking dogs.”
“Shit, man. I’m not going home without a Ferrari,” Mitch whispered. “We’ve invested too much time in this already.” Doug looked up from his branch, droopy-eyed. Damn, he looks stoned, Mitch thought. He looked happy too, and Mitch figured it was because Doug didn’t really want to steal a Ferrari. Damn them both. Mitch would steal the thing by himself.
Then Mitch heard angels singing. A Ferrari had pulled into the parking lot.
What a beautiful sight. For a full five seconds Mitch admired the car, its smooth lines, its stunning bright red color, beautiful even under the faded yellow lights of the Eden Inn parking lot. Mitch felt his heart pounding, felt his senses awaken and sharpen as his inner commando was unleashed. He put the cell phone in his mouth as if it were a combat knife and slid noiselessly out of the tree.
He heard Doug mumble “fuck” under his breath.
He took the cell phone and wiped his saliva off it and put it to his ear. Kevin was talking about something.
“Dude, the fox is in the henhouse,” Mitch whispered.
“What?”
“This is it. Go time. The fox is in the henhouse.” He hung up and put the cell phone back in his pocket. Behind him, Doug fell out of the tree like a dead elephant.
“Dude,” Mitch whispered. “Keep it down.” On an adrenaline high, Mitch turned around to look at Doug, whose body language was screaming reluctance. It was too late for him to back out now. It was a five-minute walk back to Kevin’s truck, through brush and thickets and there was no way Mitch was going to wait. “We’re going in.”
The gawky valet was talking to the Ferrari’s owner, who was probably telling him to take special care of it or some such crap. The kid was going to drive it eighty feet. Mitch didn’t think there was much to fear. Well, except for the Ferrari thieves lurking in the trees. The Italian-looking dude had gone around to the other side to open the door for a stunning blonde and Mitch watched intently as the couple went inside. The gawky kid started to get in the car, but the Italian-looking dude stopped him, almost pushed him away. What was that about? While he was trying to figure it out, Mitch’s cell phone rang.
It was Kevin.
“Dammit, what? I told you they can hear the ringing.”
“Dude, put it on vibrate.”
“Whaddya want?” Mitch whispered forcefully.
“What the hell are you talking about, a fox or something?”
Mitch sighed heavily, the sigh of a man surrounded by idiots. “I said, ‘The fox is in the henhouse.’ OK? There’s a goddamned Ferrari in the parking lot.”
“Really?” Kevin was now showing the interest that Doug clearly lacked. “Why did you say something about a fox?”
“Dude, it was a code. OK? I thought you might have figured that out.”
“How would I have known that? If you’re gonna use a code, maybe we could agree on it first. Didja ever think of that?”
“Do you want me to steal this goddamned car or don’t you?”
“Steal it,” Kevin said and hung up. Mitch put the cell phone back in his pocket and turned to Doug, who was looking through the bushes out into the parking lot. “What’s going on over here?”
“Dude, I think they’re fighting over who gets to drive the Ferrari.”
And they were. The Ferrari was idling in the parking lot with the driver’s side door open while the Italian-looking dude and the gawky kid were yelling at each other over who got to drive it eighty feet. Finally the Italian dude, who was shorter but stockier and more muscular, pushed the gawky kid away from the car and got in.
“That guy’s a jerk,” Doug said.
“Let’s spring out of the bushes and beat the shit out of him,” Mitch said.
“Let’s just steal the car,” said Doug, with a touch of resignation. Mitch realized he was right. They hadn’t waited in the snow for five nights to punch a valet, no matter how much of a dick he was.
The valet drove the Ferrari very slowly at first and Mitch figured the kid was going to park it right next to the last car in line. But just as he pulled up to the space, he hit the gas and took it around the lot, as if looking for a better space. Clearly, the kid wanted to take the car for a joyride and was trying to spend as much time in it as possible without doing anything that would cost him his job. He circled the parking lot twice as Mitch trembled with annoyance.
“I’m just gonna jump him and smash his face in,” Mitch said. “This is bullshit.”
“Easy, man,” said Doug. “Here he comes.”
The valet pulled the car into a space not more than twenty feet from them, all the way at the edge of the parking lot, and parked it diagonally. That must have been the instruction the owner had given the valets, to park the car well away from every other car. What a tool, Mitch thought. Then he noticed that the Italian-looking dude was not getting out of the car, nor even turning the lights off. Instead, he had cranked the radio, enjoying the sound system at full blast. Mitch could hear the lively beat of rap music and saw the kid bouncing around in the driver’s seat.
“I hate this guy,” whispered Mitch. Doug said nothing. The kid continued bopping around in the seat. When the song finally ended, Mitch heaved a sigh of relief. Then another song began and the kid started bopping again, this time singing along, turning the radio up so loud that the Ferrari began to vibrate.
Mitch’s cell phone rang. Hiding behind a bush in a commando crouch, he fumbled it out of his pocket, cursing. It was Kevin. “What now?” Mitch demanded.
“What’s taking you guys so long?”
“The damned valet won’t get out of the car. He’s listening to music.”
“Well, I’m sitting here idling in the road. I can’t sit here much longer.”
Mitch had an idea. From watching the valets, he had learned that they always took cars in rotation. Another car was pulling into the lot right then, a BMW, and the gawky kid was opening the door for the driver. That meant the Italian dude was up next. The only way to get him out of the Ferrari was to have another car pull into the parking lot, and who knew how much longer it would be before that happened?
“Listen, Kevin, I need you to drive into the parking lot and act like you’re going into the restaurant. Pull up out front. That’ll get the kid out of the car.”
“I’m not coming in there. What if they get my license plate?”
“Otherwise you’re gonna have to idle in the street all night,” Mitch said, and hung up.
The gawky kid parked the BMW and went back to his station. The Italian kid stayed in the Ferrari.
Mitch could see headlights through the trees, coming down the restaurant’s long driveway, and then Kevin’s truck pulled into the parking lot. Immediately, the Ferrari’s engine and radio shut off and the door opened. The Italian kid, who had been watching the restaurant in the rearview mirror, tossed the keys onto the floormat, slammed the door, and ran back to greet Kevin.
“Finally,” said Mitch.
Kevin had stopped to ask the gawky kid a question. It made a great distraction. Mitch and Doug wriggled out of the bushes and low-crawled over to the Ferrari. Mitch was on the ground by the driver’s side door, and he still had a clear view of the valets and of Kevin’s truck, idling at the restaurant’s front door. He was sure Kevin
