Stephen Cannell - The Plan

"Z0000 nooth. Luvvvv wingggg," Ryan said.

"You're very welcome," Kaz responded and he went to the cooler and popped open a cold soda, sat down, and looked at Ryan, who had already drifted back to sleep.

The Alos had put Ryan Bolt up on waivers and Kaz had claimed him. He still didn't know why or how he fit the puzzle.

While Ryan was lying in the hooker hotel unconscious, Lucinda had dressed and waited for New York Tony to come back. At eleven o'clock, it was certain something was very wrong. Her brother had been stomping around downstairs and had started using the phone. She had tried to call Ryan at the Cape May Inn on her private line, but there was no answer. She had gone downstairs and move d q uietly into the living room so that she could overhear her brother in the kitchen.

"Where the fuck is he?" Mickey was saying into the phone. "Look, not on the phone, okay? I think we gotta figure it didn't happen. I'll talk to you in an hour." He hung up and spun around and caught his sister standing in the living room ten feet behind him, listening.

"Whatta you doing?" His eyes had that same shiny, glazed-over look she remembered from the park, twenty years ago.

"I just came down to get something to eat."

Mickey moved quickly, covering the short distance between them in less than a second. She tried to turn and run, but he grabbed her arm, spun her, and held her in a vise grip by both wrists.

"Where's Ryan? I tried to call him at the Cape May Inn," she said.

"Ryan doesn't exist anymore."

"Mickey, don't," she said weakly. "You're hurting me."

Finally, Mickey shoved her back. She stumbled and fell on the beach house carpet.

He moved to her and stood looking down. There was something absolutely soulless in the stare. "I told you not to see him. You chose to ignore me. . You went to Iowa anyway. If I can't trust you, Lucinda, I can't leave you in my life. Pack your stuff and get out." Then he turned and walked out of the room.

She packed and, half an hour later, left the beach house in the old Mercedes station wagon that was there for the servants.

She knew as long as Mickey was there, she would never return.

Bud Rennickissued the invitation on Brenton Spencer's six o'clock news. It was a TV remote from the union headquarters on East Fifty-seventh Street. Bud was standing on the steps of the Teamsters headquarters dressed in a black suit. "We welcome any help in this negotiation that we can get. If Governor Richards thinks he has a solution, we'd be more than happy to hear it."

Ryan had been asleep for hours and the newscast woke him up. He was now watching the TV propped up in bed, his leg on fire, while Kaz sat in a straight-backed chair, drinking Coke out of a long-necked bottle.

"This has A. L's fingerprints all over it," Ryan finally said under his breath.

"Who's A. J.?" Kaz asked nonchalantly, hoping he would open up.

"Better question is, who are you?"

"We'll get around to that. First I wanna know what you're doing with Mickey Alo."

"Why?" Ryan answered, feeling dizzy.

"If you keep answering questions with questions, we're not gonna get far."

"Why should we get anywhere?"

"Am I remembering this correctly? Weren'tyou about to get dumdummed off the fucking planet when I showed up?"

Ryan felt tooweak to answer. He wished somebody would get a chain saw and cut his leg off.

"So, who's A. J.?" Kaz asked again, as if no time had passed.

"Teagarden. He's Haze Richards's campaign chairman."

"You feel strong enough to answer my other questions?"

Ryan studied the man who had saved his life and decided he owed him something.

"You're Ryan Bolt, right?"

"Right."

"What's your connection to the Alos?"

"I was Mickey's roommate in prep school," Ryan said as Kaz's expression went flat.

"Don't shit me, Bolt. I'm looking for comedy, I'll go watch pigeons fuck."

"He and I went to Choate School in Connecticut twenty years ago. We were roommates. I didn't pick the room assignments." The two traded empty stares.

"So why are you hanging with him now?"

"When you get through with this interrogation, are you gonna let me know who you are?" Ryan's leg was getting worse. He looked down at the bandage, still seeping blood. "Depends on whether I like what I hear."

"When my son died a year ago, Mickey came out for the funeral. I hadn't seen much of him since college, but he helped me get through it. And then. . I hit a roug h p atch, careerwise, this year, and he said he'd help me out."

"What career? Whatta you do?" Kaz asked, but he already had a pretty good idea. He'd been shopping in Ryan's wallet and found his Writers Guild card and his T. V. and Motion Picture Academy memberships. Unfortunately, there were no picture IDs. "I'm a writer-producer in television."

"So, Mickey calls you up, asks you to come out here. Why?"

To make a documentary film on the candidate." "Must a' been a pretty shifty film."

Ryan looked at him blankly.

"Mob guys don't like a movie, they generally just walk out. They don't take the filmmaker into a field and try and blow his head off," Kaz explained.

"Yeah, it was a bad movie, especially if you want to put Haze Richards in the White House. It showed Haze to be a coward. Mickey wanted it back."

"It's a wonder you only got one hole in ya. You been stomping around in a mine field wearin' snowshoes." He set down the empty beer bottle. "My name is Solomon Kazorowski. I used to head the Vegas Organized Crime Unit of the FBI. I lost my job and my tin for trying too hard to put the Alos out of circulation. They got to my bosses, but Mrs. K. didn't raise no quitter, so I'm still in the hunt."

"FBI?" Ryan said, not really believing that this unkempt, sagging monster had ever been a member of the Bureau.

"Been off the job for ten years."

"You know Alex Tingredies?"

"The Tin Man? Yeah. Alex is good people. He's still wearing his asshole behind him. One of a dying breed down there."

"Mind if I call him and ask him about you?" Ryan asked, trying to forget the rising agony that was now consuming his whole left side.

"Don't trust me?"

"Just trying to get the snowshoes off."

"Last I heard, Tingredies was in Atlanta."

"He's back in D. C. I called him a couple a' days ago. I got his home number in my wallet."

Kaz found the number. He sat in the chair next to the bed and dialed. On the third ring, Alex Tingredies answered.

"Hello," the agent said.

"Is this Rin Tin Tingredies?" Kaz said, a smile forming on his face.

"Who's this?"

"It's fucking J. Edgar Hoover, calling collect from Dead Fed Heaven."

"Gotta be Kaz. Don't tell me you're still vertical. I figured somebody would a' put a 'nine' through you by now."

"Gonna take more than nine millimeters to put me outta service." They both laughed, then: "Listen, you know a guy named Ryan Bolt?"

"Why?"

"He says he knows ya. I'm trying to find out who he belongs to. New York Tony put a round through his leg." "Is he okay?"

"Yeah, but Tony's gotta bad headache. I sent him to harp class."

"Nobody's gonna miss that piece of shit."

"This guy Bolt. . can you describe him?" Kaz said, looking at Ryan, who was trying hard not to move his throbbing leg.

"If he's six-two, 'bout one-eighty, pretty-boy goodlookin', California blond, it's probably him. He used t' be an all-conference wide receiver at Stanford. He's got some edge."

Kaz looked down at Bolt and nodded. "I'm gonna put him on. Tell me if this is the guy." He handed the receiver to Ryan, who took it and looked at Kaz.

"I thought I was checking you out."

"Hey, we're checking each other out, we're not getting married, so relax."