William Lashner - Marked Man

The kid screamed like a siren, the popcorn spun out in a cloud.

An onslaught of seagulls descended upon the flying popcorn like a ravenous army, viciously pecking pedestrians and each other in their frantic quest for each loosed kernel. The two hoods from the beach, rushing up the stairs toward us, fell back when faced with the fluttering, vulturous cloud.

Charlie and I plunged into Gillian’s Wonderland Pier.

The sound of thecalliope puffing away, the smell of the popcorn popping, the crush of the crowd moving thick and slow in the narrow gap between two kiddie rides. We tried to force our way through but were swallowed whole and carried leisurely along by the viscous mass. Kids wiped their noses, grandfathers rubbed their backs. To our left was a balloon race. To our right a mini-NASCAR raceway.

“They’ll come after us in here,” said Charlie.

“It won’t be so easy to find us in the crowd.”

“Which way?” said Charlie.

“Down there,” I said, pointing to a ramp that led toward the rear of the park.

We made our way, bobbing and weaving through the family groups, grandparents and grandkids, teenagers looking flushed and bored at the same time. We didn’t even glance back until we reached a fence at the entrance to Canyon River log flume. We took a moment to survey the whole of the crowd.

“You see them?” said Charlie.

“Not yet.”

“Maybe they went the other way.”

“Sure,” I said, “and maybe cigarettes are good exercise for the lungs.” I stopped jabbering for a moment and thought. “How do you think they found us?”

“They didn’t follow me,” he said, and he was right about that. And being as this had been a two-man meeting, that left one dope to take the blame.

“I didn’t spot them,” I said.

“How long you think they been following you?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and then I thought about Ralph Ciulla and I felt a great gaping dread.

They had been following me from the start, the sons of bitches, waiting for me to lead them to their targets. And like the stupid pisspot I was, I did exactly that. When Ralph and Joey found me, they found them, and, putting it together, Fred probably took a picture and sent it to Allentown so that the killer would know exactly whom to ask his bloody questions and with whom to leave his bloody message. Son of a bitch. So first I had led them to Ralph, and now I had led them to Charlie.

“We have to get out of here,” I said.

“No kidding.”

For a second I looked at Charlie, short and heavy, sweating with effort and fear, still haunted by his mother, as threatening as a koala bear. Charlie was as unlikely a hood as ever I saw, and it got me to wondering.

“Joey Pride was telling me about that time in the bar that Teddy Pravitz first brought up the idea of hitting the Randolph Trust.”

“Yeah, I remember it. Teddy promised the whole thing would make men of us, change our lives forever.”

“Did it?”

“Sure,” he said. “Look at me now.”

“But here’s my question. Teddy obviously had the plan to do the Randolph heist before he ever walked into that bar. So why did he need you guys?”

“Manpower.”

“He could have latched onto professional hoods if he wanted.”

“He didn’t want hoods, he wanted guys he could trust. And besides, it wasn’t like the four of us, we didn’t have skills.”

“Skills, huh? Like what?”

“Well, Joey Pride was a genius with engines and electricity. Whatever alarm system the place had, he could disarm it, and take care of the lights and the phones, too. And Ralphie Meat, besides being huge and strong, was a metal guy. Could bend anything, solder anything, melt anything.”

“Like the golden chains and statues?”

“Sure.”

“And Hugo?”

“Hugo had his own little skill. He used to sit in the back of the room and imitate all the teachers to a tee, crack us all the hell up. He did my mother better than she did. ‘Charles, I need you now. You come here this instant.’ He could become anyone he wanted.”

“And what about you, Charlie?”

“Well, you know I worked with my dad at the time.”

“And what did he do?”

“Dad was a locksmith,” said Charlie. “Wasn’t a lock made that he couldn’t open in a heartbeat. And he taught me what he knew.”

“Locks, huh?”

“And safes. Later, with the Warricks, safes became my specialty.”

“Must have come in handy up in Newport. Let me show you the picture of that little girl again now that the light’s better.”

“I don’t want to see the picture.”

“Sure you do.” I took the photograph of Chantal Adair out of my pocket, showed it to him again. “You recognize her?”

He glanced at it and pulled back. It was a small movement, as quick as an inhale, but there it was.

“Never seen her before,” he said.

“You’re lying to me.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“I have to represent you, Charlie, but I don’t have to trust you. Oh, crap.”

“What?”

“They’re here, or at least one of them.”

Just at the edge of the arcade, with his white baseball cap and a retro Celtics jersey, chains glistening, stood Fred, the older, pear-shaped hood who had roughed me up outside my office. He had a phone to his ear. He stepped forward, peered into the crowd, scanned our direction without registering our presence.

“What do we do?”

“Let’s get to the rear exit,” I said. “But slowly. You see the little guy?”

“What little guy?”

“He’ll be in the same outfit, just a different jersey. He’s shorter than you, wider than a Buick. My guess is he’s on the phone, too.”

“You mean that guy?” said Charlie.

“Yikes.”

Louie was standing right at the exit. He was also on the phone, standing on tiptoe, trying to see over the shoulders of a pack of tweens. It didn’t look like he had spotted us yet.

“This way,” I said, pulling Charlie away from Louie toward a narrow ramp that led up and to the right. As we ascended, I glanced back at the entrance. Fred was staring right at us, talking into his phone.

There were younger kids now on the ramp, strollers, grandparents moving slowly, mothers shouting. We pushed our way past as many as we could until we reached the upper level, and then we made a beeline as far from the ramp as possible, past the tykes’ jungle gym and the Glass House, past the little roller coaster and the Safari Adventure. At the far end was a set of stairs that led right back to the lower level, where Louie waited.

I spun around in frustration. The rides on the deck were all for toddlers, there was no place for us to hide. I could see the head of Fred bobbing up the ramp. Louie was coming for us from the other direction. There was no place to go. Except maybe…

“We need three tickets,” I said.

“I don’t got no tickets,” said Charlie.

I ran up to a father with a big block of tickets. He was watching his kids on the spinning teacups. I grabbed my wallet, took out a ten. “Ten dollars for three tickets,” I said.

He looked up at me, down at the waving ten-dollar bill, back up at me. “They’re only seventy-five cents a ticket.”

“I don’t care.”

“There’s a booth right at the bottom of the ramp.”

“I don’t care. Ten bucks for three tickets. Now.”

“I could give you change.”

“No change, no nothing. Please.”

He looked at me strangely, took three tickets off his block. “Just take them,” he said.

I wasn’t going to argue. I grabbed the tickets, grabbed Charlie, headed back to the middle of the Fun Deck where stood the Glass House, a strange maze of smudged glass panels. I gave the tickets to the lady, pushed Charlie inside.