Saving Rachel

The bad news is most of the younger guys are lean runner-types and there’s no way I’m going to outrun them in a normal footrace. The good news is I’m in great shape, I have the lead and the angle, and this isn’t a normal footrace; it’s life and death.

I press on.

Now the limo is less than a hundred yards away, and I’m closing fast. But my breath is coming quicker and my lungs start to ache. The faster runners close in on me like a pack of jackals. What made them so flippin’ brave all of a sudden? Sheer numbers? The fact that I’m unarmed?

Two runners appear out of nowhere, cutting me off. I spin around. There’s no place to go, nowhere to hide. The park people slow down and begin forming a circle around me. I put my hands up, ready to surrender.

What happens next seems to unfold in slow motion. Behind the runners, I see the limo door open. Mr. Clean emerges with an enormous gun. He slowly lifts it, takes aim, and seamlessly fires two shots that strike both of my would-be captors in the back of the head. My eyes are transfixed on his face as he watches them fall, and I can tell you there is no change in his expression. He could be watching two men die, watching traffic, or watching paint dry. Then Mr. Clean lowers his gun, turns, and climbs back into the limo.

The stunned mob veers away from me in a single motion, like a school of fish encountering a big-eyed predator. Somewhere behind me, a woman shrieks. The two runners between me and the car appear to be dead. I’m horrified, but not so horrified that I can’t hurdle their bodies and run to the open door of the waiting limo.

Inside, Mr. Clean is sitting, pointing his gun at my face. I start to enter the vehicle, but Mr. Clean cocks the hammer. I freeze where I am, which is halfway in and halfway out.

The crowd behind me is starting to reconsider their retreat, a decision that bodes poorly for me. Mr. Clean places his index finger on the trigger, and that bodes worse.

The gangster says, “You need a lift?”

“I do,” I say.

The gangster says nothing. Behind me, I feel the crowd moving toward the car, slowly at first, like Night of the Living Dead, but with a growing confidence that the shooting might be over. “May I please have a ride?” I say. No response. Then it hits me. “Thirty-two B,” I say. “Rachel’s bra size.” The gangster says, “Jump in.”

The driver guns the engine, and the big tires squeal as we roar out of Seneca Park. We hit the freeway doing ninety and head back downtown, toward the hotel where Karen Vogel and I had sex less than thirty minutes ago.

Chapter 4

I gag and retch, but manage not to throw up in the limo. When I’m able to speak, I shout everything that’s on my mind. “You killed Mary! Oh, my God! And the others! What the hell is going on? What do you want from me? And what the fuck does Rachel have to do with this?”

The mobster remains calm in the face of my outburst.

“You brought this on yourself,” he says. “Maybe you answered my question ten minutes ago …” He turns his palms up and shakes his head. “… none of this happens.”

My brain cells spin like slot-machine tumblers as I try to process his words. If I heard him correctly, this goomba wants me to believe that the closely guarded secret of my wife’s small titties has caused her sister’s death. If he’d said he played pinochle every Tuesday with an eggplant, that would make more sense.

“You’re insane!” I shout. “You’re freaking insane!” The tremor in my voice tells me I’m shaking.

He shrugs. “Don’t talk for a minute,” he says. “You been through a lot just now. Take a deep breath and think about some things, like how you’re not going to tell anyone about the time we spent together today.”

I look at him—and not for the first time—as though he’s lost his mind. Of course I’m going to tell! I’m going to tell anyone who will listen. I might put an ad in the paper about it, maybe post a billboard or set up a Web site.

“I see the wheels turning,” he says. “Maybe it’s best I kill you now.”

I stop in mid-thought and show a “no wheels are turning” look to the guy who just had my sister-in-law whacked, along with three other people, including a cop. Holy shit! It just hit me. These guys killed a cop!

“I’d rather keep my mouth shut than die,” I say, trying to calm down.

We ride in silence until I say, “What do you want from me?”

“Listen to yourself,” he says, “going on again with the questions. Look, we’ll talk again soon. You’ll call me when the time is right.”

“Call you? I don’t even know who you are. You’re going to give me your phone number?” “Sometime soon, you’ll pick up the phone. I’ll be on the line.” The one thing I know for certain is he doesn’t know how telephones work. To the driver, he says, “Hand me the bag.”

The driver picks up a pink Victoria’s Secret bag with his right hand and passes it back to Mr. Clean, who in turn hands it to the gangster.

“I’ll tell you one last time,” the gangster says. His voice is steady, his words firm and measured. “Don’t speak of this to anyone, not even Rachel. Say, ‘Yes, sir.’”

“Yes, sir.”

He hands me the Victoria’s Secret bag. “Speaking of Rachel,” he says, “I got her a little present. A … whatcha call … replacement.”

I open the bag and push the pink-and-white tissue paper aside. I remove the gift, wondering what he means by “replacement.” The tag says, “Perfect One, TM, Full-Coverage Bra.” It also says, “Padded, Level 1, Size 32 B.”

I look at the gangster.