Stephen Cannell - The Plan

Mickey leaned forward and swung his head toward Ryan. Ryan was staring into the eyes of the devil. It was hard to even explain what he saw there. He'd never seen such hatred. He felt searing heat as Mickey's glare shot through him.

"I was helping you and you fucked me. Now I gotta fuck you back."

Then Mickey put the car in reverse, yanking Ryan's arm off the door as he went, leaving him awash with fear and liquor.

Ryan opened unit 6 and went inside. He stripped off his clothes, cranked the shower up to cold, and stood shivering as icy needles of water raked his skin. He got out and, still naked and wet, dropped to the threadbare carpet and started doing push-ups.

It took him two hours to get sober.

When he dialed the Alo beach house, it was almost four A. M.

"Yeah." Mickey's voice was heavy with sleep. "It's Ryan. I need to talk to you."

"I'm through talking to you."

"I have something I need to show you. I'm coming over. Tell the turret gunners not to shoot me." Ryan hung up and called a cab.

He arrived at the beach house just as the sun was coming up. He got out of the cab and paid the driver to wait.

New York Tony was sitting in the Jeep out front in the driveway. He said nothing but watched with feigned disinterest as Ryan rang the bell. Mickey opened the door almost immediately. He was in a maroon bathrobe and slippers and his wet hair was slicked back.

"Out here," he said and led Ryan through the house, to a boathouse on the ocean side of a rolling grass lawn that fronted the shore. Ryan followed Mickey across the brown winter-burned landscape. Mickey unlocked the door and they entered.

The boathouse was painted glossy white and smelled of fresh paint and mildew. Inside, a blue Hobie Cat and two red Sabots were on trailers.

"Whatta you want?"

"What did you mean when you said you were gonna fuck me back?"

"It's in English, you figure. it out."

"I'm not supposed to have any thoughts? I'm just supposed to do what I'm told, regardless of what I feel?" Ryan said, searching Mickey's eyes for that deadly glare.

"No, Ryan, you do exactly what you want."

"Mickey, I have a friend in the Organized Crime Bureau of the FBI. He says the Alo family is engaged in criminal activities."

"Fuck him," Mickey said, his hands in his bathrobe pockets.

"Haze Richards is a sham, Mickey. We hit some rough air flying into Des Moines and he turned to Jell-O. He was screaming and begging them to turn the plane around. He doesn't have a thought that A. J. Teagarden doesn't have first. Look at this."

He'd made an extra copy of the tape before he'd left the journalism school. He flipped it to Mickey, who jerked a hand out of his robe and caught it. Mickey had heard from A. J. about the incident on the airliner. . He didn't know Ryan had it on tape.

"What do I care?" Mickey said softly.

"You're running him for President. Why?"

"Maybe you need a few more facts." The evil look was back, searing heat mixed with emptiness. "Fact. ." Mickey continued, "When I want something, I get it. I never fail. Anybody gets in the way, I bury them. Fact, the only reason you're still standing here breathing my air is I've known you for twenty years. If you hadn't been my roommate, if we hadn't screwed a few of the same girls, if you hadn't given me a few laughs, I would a' floated you already."

Ryan had miscalculated. Because he'd known Mickey half his life, he'd thought he could bargain with him. The mask was off. He now saw Mickey for what he really was.

"Now, get the fuck outta my house and my life before I decide to do the job right now. I'll tell you one more thing. . You mess with me on this, you try and make trouble for this campaign, and you're not gonna be prepared for the shit I'm gonna dump on you. This is your only warning, Ryan. Nobody else would even get one. Chalk it up to old times, but don't ignore it or you're dead."

Ryan knew he had to repair the moment. He had tipped his hand carelessly. "There's no reason it has to be like this," he said. "I didn't mean for this to happen. I'm sorry, Mickey. I'll just go home and forget everything."

Mickey looked in Ryan's eyes and knew he was lying. To Mickey, the lie was more dangerous than anything else Ryan had done.

Lucinda had been awakened by the phone and saw Ryan arrive from her upstairs window. She threw on an overcoat and followed them to the boathouse and listened through the thin wood walls while her brother uttered words she could not comprehend.

Chalk it up to old times, he'd said to Ryan. Don't ignore it or you're dead.

He had threatened to kill Ryan. There was very little doubt in her mind that he would go through with it.

She knew she had no choice. She had to stop her brother.

Mickey watched the taxi leave through the window in the den. Then he put the tape Ryan had given him into the VCR.

It was devastating. Mickey watched as Haze Richards sobbed and cried from his seat in the Republic airliner, then ordering, begging to have the plane turned around. Mickey knew he had to get the original and all copies of the tape back. He also knew for certain that Ryan was his enemy. He called to New York Tony who was in the kitchen getting coffee.

"I gotta problem here," he said to the hatchet-faced trigger man. "You gotta do a rubout for me."

Rubouts were New York Tony's specialty. He had skagged almost twenty guys over the years. He followed quietly as Mickey led him out the front door to the Jeep.

"Don't do it around here, and I don't want pieces of him floating up, so make sure when he goes away he stays away. Also make sure he gives you all the copies of thi s v ideo he made. I don't want this thing to ever surface. Go t i t?"

"Done."

New York Tony drove the Jeep into Cape May and parked it on the street there. Two blocks over he found an unlocked, green '81 Country Squire station wagon. He got in, slipped on a pair of gloves, hot-wired the ignition, and drove the wagon away. He pulled up at the Cape May Inn just in time to see Ryan Bolt coming out, carrying his bag, and climbing into a waiting cab.

"Perfect timing," New York Tony muttered as he watched the cab pull out. But instead of going south toward the airport, as he'd expected, it headed back into town and stopped in front of the Hertz agency. New York Tony waited while Ryan paid the cab and went inside.

A few minutes later, Ryan got into a white Land Rover, pulled out of the parking lot onto the highway, and headed up the peninsula road toward Princeton. New York Tony was behind him in the wagon. Ryan Bolt was driving very slowly, almost as if he was afraid to be behind the wheel. New York Tony looked at his watch; it was only seven A. M. He figured he was fifteen minutes ahead of the morning traffic. . now was the time to make his move. He was on an open stretch of road where he could make a pass and crowd Ryan over. The shoulder slanted down into an empty snow ditch. He checked the highway for traffic, then edged up behind the Land Rover, waiting for just the right moment.

New York Tony had learned his trade as a teenager, working for his father in the kill shed of the West Jersey Cattle and Meat Packing Company. He stood four-hour shifts in the blood and dust with a.22-caliber pistol loaded with dumdums. He would calmly fire behind each Hereford's ear, obliterating the animal's thoughts in a spray of red. He perfected his technique with a few cool disco moves. Several of the plant workers had been horrified to see the stocky teenager execute spinning pirouettes, followed by loud bangs. Cows slumped heavily. Tony loved the job. Loved the copper taste of blood in his mouth.

When New York Tony killed men, he thought of them with the same lack of passion. They were just meat, two-legged Herefords. He still worked with a short-barrel.22.