Don Winslow - A Long Walk Up the Waterslide

Joey smiled and held up his hands as an “I told you so” gesture and boasted, “See? What did I tell you? Jack ain’t even cold and his old lady is scrambling to make a deal. I hope the bitch don’t think it’s going to be easy. This should be funny-put it on speaker.”

This was his legitimate business number, so it didn’t matter as long as he discussed legitimate business.

“Hello, Mrs. Landis,” Joey said. “Sorry to hear about Jack. So young, so vital.”

So stupid.

“Mr. Foglio?” Candy asked in a tone that gave credence to her nickname, Canned-Ice.

“The g is silent,” Joey corrected her.

“I see,” Candice said. “Well, however you pronounce your name, I’m just calling to let you know that you’re fired. I’m canceling all contracts as of today. Please be so kind as to have all your equipment off of Candyland within the next forty-eight hours. Thank you.”

That wiped the smile off Joey’s face. He had an audience to play for, so he replaced the smile with a smirk and said, “You can’t just cancel contracts, Mrs. Landis. I’d have to sue you.”

“While I can picture you in a courtroom, Mr. Foglio,” Candy answered, “it’s easier to imagine you in handcuffs.”

Say what?

“Are you threatening me?” Joey asked. He couldn’t believe it. This cracker twat was threatening to drop a dime on him!

“I’m giving you a break,” Candy answered. “I’m not going to press charges against you for fraud, theft, extortion, and blackmail, but I do want you out of my hair. It’s my final offer, Mr. Foglio. I suggest you accept it.”

“Oh, is that what you suggest, you-”

“Careful, Joey,” Harold warned. Joey’s face was the color of an overripe tomato and his own eye was quivering like crazy.

“Shut up,” Joey answered. “Hey, lady! You don’t know who you’re messing with!”

“Joey…” Harold moaned.

“I know precisely with whom I am messing,” Candy answered, “and I don’t care. Forty-eight hours, Mr. Beans.”

The loud hum of the dial tone filled the room as she hung up.

“You killed Jack, you know!” Joey screamed. “Murdered your own husband like you stuck a knife in his back, you witch! Forty-eight hours! I’ll give you forty-eight hours hanging upside down on a meat hook, you tight-ass Texas-”

“Joey, she hung up,” Harold said.

“Goddamn it!” Joey yelled. He slammed his fist on his desk.

“This is troublesome,” Peter Hathaway said.

He had come to San Antonio for Jack’s funeral and to make new arrangements with Joey Foglio. Now Candy’s unexpected fortitude seemed to threaten those arrangements. And without the rake-off money coming in from Foglio, he’d be nothing more than Marc Merolla’s beard for the rest of his pathetic life.

Something had to be done.

“Something has to be done,” Hathaway said.

Harold warned, “Joey, we can’t be involved in any-”. “You got any suggestions?” Joey asked Hathaway.

“Joey…” Harold moaned.

“Yes,” Hathaway answered. “Actually, I do.”

Joey smiled at Harold and said, “Actually, he does.”

“I have an old friend,” Hathaway said, “who handles just this sort of thing.”

Harold thought his eye might just rattle out of his head.

Joe Graham held the phone away from his ear as Carmine Bascaglia yelled dire threats about killing him, Neal Carey, Polly Paget, Candy Landis, all of their families, friends, and pets.

Then Graham said, “You’re not going to do shit, Mr. Bascaglia. Let me tell you why.”

After he told him, Carmine Bascaglia swept all the paper off his desk, smashed the window with his chair, and had his boys go fetch Overtime.

Overtime left Bascaglia’s office a happy man.

Work found for work lost, he thought. Fair enough. One last hit and a long retirement overseas.

There was a message for him when he got back to his room. He dialed the San Antonio number and was surprised to hear the voice from the past.

“It’s been a long time,” he said.

“Last time I saw you was in a boat under a bridge,” Hathaway said.

“That’s right.”

“Although you’ve heard from me from time to time,” Hathaway added.

It’s true, Overtime thought. His old roomie had been very clever about sneaking his money out of the States. He would never have been able to hide for so long if it hadn’t been for Hathaway’s ingenuity.

“Now I need a favor,” Hathaway said.

“I can give you a discount,” Overtime answered.

Hathaway agreed to his price and gave him the setup.

“Hello,” Candy crooned into the phone.

“Mrs. Landis, it’s Peter Hathaway. This has all gone on long enough, don’t you think?”

“Tomorrow afternoon, after the funeral,” Candy told the group in the room. “Hathaway, Polly, and I will meet at Candy land to inspect the property and discuss an arrangement.”

“It’s for you, Joey,” Harold said.

“Take a message.”

“Who is this?” Harold asked. “Holy shit.”

“What?”

Harold whispered, “It’s Stumpy.”

Joey grabbed the phone. “What do you want, you bastard?”

“Hey, Joey Beans!” Graham warbled. “We have some unfinished business.”

“We do?”

“Yeah,” Graham said. “Unfinished business named Walter Withers.”

“What about him?”

“I’m going to kill you, that’s what about him.”

“Anywhere, anyplace, anytime,” Foglio said.

“Somewhere we won’t be disturbed, clown,” answered Graham.

“Candyland, tomorrow afternoon,” Graham said to the group in the room. He dialed the phone again. “Ed? Let me ask you something about Marc Merolla.”

Marc Merolla listened to what Ed Levine had to tell him about Peter Hathaway.

“I’m shocked, Ed,” he said. “What can I say? What can I do?”

Ethan Kitteredge came to the door of his house and was surprised to see Marc Merolla standing there. “Won’t you come in?” Kitteredge asked.

“I won’t be a minute,” Marc said in the hallway. “I came for a favor.”

“Do you think this is going to work?” Karen asked Neal late that night.

“You know,” Neal said, “I really think it is.”

There are only thirty thousand things that can go wrong, Neal thought, but at some point you just have to have some faith.

Musashi Watanabe could see everything from the top of the water slide.

He could see the entirety of Candyland, from the vast parking lot to the condominiums. He could see the Circle of Life Ferris Wheel, The History of the American Family Tunnel of Love, The Richard Milhous Nixon Roller-Coaster Ride, the petting-zoo pens, the concession stands, and even the Journey Through the Holy Land Putt-Putt Golf Course, for which he had personally designed the Parting of the Red Sea Water Hazard.

If he looked past Candyland to the south, he could see the downtown San Antonio skyline with its distinctive Space Tower. Just to the east, in the rolling hills, he could see the long procession of cars snaking out to Jack Landis’s funeral.

None of these sights interested Musashi Watanabe. What interested him was his pride and joy, the work of his life, his masterpiece-the tallest, longest, fastest water slide in the world, which, thanks to that stupid contest, had yet to be named. Musashi didn’t care what they named it. To him, the designer, it would always have one name and one name only: Banzai!

Because this was a water slide for samurai. Starting one hundred feet in the air, it flumed at an eighty-degree angle straight down to build up speed, then wrapped into a double corkscrew turn before plunging down another steep straightaway, which curved into a high-banked right turn, then bent back to the left into an even higher bank to give the rider the illusion he was about to be launched over the top of the rim into space. But then the rider would plunge down to the right into another corkscrew and then into a fifty-foot shallow straightaway and then splash into a pool.