Stuart Kaminsky - Midnight Pass

“Is this like the real way pizza’s supposed to be?” Susan asked me.

“Tastes fine to me,” I said.

“You’re Italian,” Susan said. “You should know. Didn’t your mother make pizza?”

“No.”

“Your grandmother?”

“No.”

“How can you be Italian? My mom makes matzo ball soup.”

“So did my mom,” I said.

“But you’re Italian, not Jewish.”

“We liked matzoball soup,” I said.

“You know,” Susan said. “I can never tell when you’re serious and when you’re trying to be funny.”

“It’s a curse,” I said. “I’m working with a doctor to find the charm that’ll free me.”

We finished the pizza and I paid the check. Sally left the tip. It was what we had agreed to do whenever I invited them out.

I walked them to their Honda, each carrying the gift I’d given them from Mickey’s Collectibles.

“Come over for dinner Sunday,” Sally said.

She looked tired but she was smiling. Her skin was clear, and in the red, white, and yellow lights of the stores in the mall she reminded me of Ava Gardner in The Barefoot Contessa.

“Adele invited us to come to Flo’s for a barbecue,” I said. “You, the kids, me, Ames.”

“What time?” she asked.

I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Michael and Susan waved to me as Sally drove off. I checked my watch. If I didn’t drive too fast, I’d be in front of Hoffmann’s at least fifteen minutes before nine.

I was across from Kevin Hoffmann’s impressive iron gate and high brick walls at ten minutes to nine. I didn’t stop. I drove around the neighborhood and came back. There were no other cars on the street of big houses, all with big driveways and big garages.

Then I heard Ames’s motor scooter coming. It was like a call to the curious. When he stopped behind me and turned the bike off, I was sure we had only minutes before we were surrounded by police.

A very thin, very small, very nervous black man wearing a pair of dark pants, a navy-colored T-shirt, a bulky-looking brown leather jacket, and a battered fedora that would have been the envy of Indiana Jones got off the back of Ames’s bike. I got out of the car.

“Snickers,” said Ames.

I shook Snickers’s hand and handed him a hundred-dollar bill, a twenty, and a ten. He kissed each one and said, “The trunk.”

We moved behind the car and I opened the trunk. Since it was a rental, it was empty.

Snickers pointed at Ames’s scooter.

“Inside,” he said, standing back and looking both ways down the street, constantly adjusting his battered fedora.

Ames and I managed to get the scooter in the trunk. Half of it hung out. Ames pulled a bungee cord from the little pouch on his scooter and expertly tied the scooter down.

“Back in the car,” Snickers whispered.

We all got back in. From the backseat, leaning over my shoulder, Snickers, who could have used a healthy dose of Scope, guided me slowly to a driveway two estates over from the Hoffmann place.

“They ain’t home,” said Snickers. “Go right over the lawn. Lights out. Park near the pool on the grass. Cops can’t see a car from the street and they don’t do a house-by-house until a little after midnight or one depending on which cop is working. Tonight’s Friday. It’ll be the fat old white guy, off-duty North Port cop. He came by about half an hour ago. He’ll hit this stretch at one, maybe a few minutes past, then again at three-thirty.”

I nodded and got out of the car, following Snickers, who disappeared through a clump of bushes.

“Wall’s not hard to get up,” Snickers said, stopping when we got to the barrier. “But up top it’s got a jolt that’ll send you flying and lucky to land on your ass and they’ll know inside something’s been climbing or landing.”

The moon was almost full but not bright enough to show us what Snickers’s flashlight, produced from the inside of his leather jacket, put into a white pool of light.

“Dead birds, gulls, raccoons on the ground all along here,” he said. “All zapped. Probably won’t kill a man though I don’t know, a skinny one like me or you even or an old one like old Ames here wouldn’t want to test it out.”

“So what do we do?” I asked.

“We wade in the water,” Snickers said, snapping off his flashlight. “Like the old song says. ‘I’m gonna wade in the water.’”

We followed him along the wall to the narrow beach where the wall ended, but a metal fence about twelve feet high extended into the water about ten yards.

Hoffmann’s house was clear from where we stood. It sat back, three stories, lights on in almost every window. I didn’t see anyone looking out of a window at the white-moon ripples on the waves.

“We’re gonna get wet to the ankles,” Snickers said, taking off his shoes and socks, rolling up his cuffs, and motioning for Ames and me to do the same. We did, tucking the socks into the shoes. “Tide’s low, real low. We get around the fence. You do just what I do, right behind me, know what I’m sayin’?”

I wasn’t sure that an answer was called for, but I said, “Yes.”

“And remember, don’t touch the fence,” Snickers said, shoes tucked under his arms. “I repeat, do not touch the fence.”

The water was cool but not cold, bare feet on finely ground shells and then firm sand as we followed Snickers.

The water was up to my calves when we moved around the fence. Something slithered against my foot. I tried not to think of what it might be.

The wooden dock I had seen from inside the house stood high out of the water, with a small cabin boat tied to it and bobbing.

Snickers motioned to us and, heads together, he whispered. “Dock is wired. Boat’s wired too. Likewise about ten feet of the beach from fence we came around to fence on the other side. Some scared people in there with something to hide. A challenge. Anthony Bussy likes a challenge.”

“Anthony Bussy?” I asked.

“Me,” he said with irritation. “You don’t think my momma named me Snickers do you? We ain’t no comedy team, Snickers, Cowboy, and the Wop. We’re Ocean’s Three and the head man is me.”

Anthony “Snickers” Bussy was high on something. I hoped it was sugar.

We waded single file to the dock but didn’t touch it. Snickers moved toward the beach and motioned underneath the boards of the boat dock where small waves were lapping. He bent over and duck-walked under the dock, still ankle-deep in the water. On the far side, he turned and held up his right hand. Then he reached up and took hold of a two-by-four that jutted out and with both hands swung himself up on the deck. Then he turned and held out his hands, motioning for me to reach up to him.

For a skinny little man on a sugar high, Snickers was strong. He pulled me up and balanced me with one hand to keep my feet next to his. Then the two of us helped Ames follow us. This was a little trickier, since Ames was taller and weighed down by whatever armor he carried under his slicker, but he made it.

“There’s a wood plank under the sand,” Snickers whispered. “About as wide as J. Lo’s behind. Walk behind me real tight-ass and you’ll feel it with your toes.”

Snickers led the way, with Ames behind me probably wondering who Jay Lowe was and how wide a behind he had. We must have looked like three Alzheimer patients playing Follow the Leader.

After about a dozen steps Snickers stopped.

“Safe here,” Snickers said. “No dogs. Let’s move.”

When we reached the shadow of the house, Snickers put his back to the wall, wiped the bottoms of his feet to get rid of the sand, and motioned for us to do the same. Ames and I brushed our feet and put on our socks and shoes.