John Locke - Lethal Experiment

Victor’s speaker voice said, “Will you all please give a warm welcome to my manservant, Merlin.”

No one moved to make a sound. Once again, all eyes were on Sal. He looked around the room and shouted, “He means clap your hands. Show some class here!”

Sal began clapping his hands. Others, clearly befuddled, reluctantly joined in.

From behind the assembled guests a woman screamed. Everyone spun around. Then the scream circled the room through the speakers and the guests saw that Victor had created a diversion so the magician could appear.

Merlin began approaching Sal. Big Bad produced a .357 magnum and held it at Merlin’s face.

Merlin regarded the gun with more than a little trepidation. “I was told there’d be no guns?”

Sal said, “I’m gonna let the gun stay where it is. Just in case.”

Merlin assembled his courage and said, “Very well, but please be careful. Can you give me a dollar please?”

“The fuck?” Sal said.

Sal looked at Victor. “It’s my friggin’ party,” he said. “It don’t set well givin’ money to this guy here.”

“Just one dollar,” Merlin said. “I can assure you, you won’t be sorry.”

“I better not be.”

Sal dug into his pants pocket, produced a wad of cash big enough to choke a wide-mouth frog. He flipped through the bills until he found a dollar, which he peeled off and handed to Merlin. Merlin’s right hand was empty—I was watching it—then suddenly it held a felt-tip pen.

I’ve seen good before. Merlin was great.

“Please sign the dollar, so we’ll know it’s yours.”

“I already know it’s mine, shithead!” Sal said. But he signed it anyway.

Merlin took the bill and held it high over his head as he backed up a few steps. Sal told Big Bad, “Keep an eye on this friggin’ guy.”

Big Bad nodded and kept his gun sighted on the magician.

Merlin produced an envelope, again seemingly out of mid-air, placed the dollar in the envelope and tore it. When he did that, Big Bad cocked the trigger.

A very nervous Merlin probably never had to work under this type of pressure, but he managed to complete the trick. He folded the envelope several times while tearing sections of it. Then he unfolded the perfectly intact envelope and held it high above his head, waiting for applause.

There was none.

Sal said, “Where’s my money? These guys’ll tell you, you don’t want to owe me money.”

Sporadic nervous chuckles broke out from various areas of the room.

Merlin handed the envelope to Sal. In it was a certified check for one hundred thousand dollars.

The guests erupted in cheerful applause, hooting and whistling. To a man, they understood what a certified check meant.

Sal wasn’t grinning, but he was close. He looked like a kid who’d just inherited FAO Schwartz. He slapped Merlin on the back, shouted “Bravo!” at Victor.

Victor’s speaker voice said, “Read the signature on the check.”

Sal tried to read the signature, frowned, and took a pair of reading glasses from his jacket pocket. “Donovan Creed,” he said. I bowed and said, “I told you I’d amaze you.”

Sal gave me a body hug. “Now that’s appreciation,” he said, looking around the room. Then he stopped as if suddenly remembering something.

“Where’s my dollar?” he said.

From the other end of the room, Kathleen said, “I’ve got your money right here, Mr. Bonadello.”

She held two items high over her head while crossing through the crowd. She presented them to Sal. One was his signed dollar bill. The other was another cashier’s check for a hundred thousand dollars.

Sal was way ahead of her. He went straight for his glasses and got to the bottom line quickly. He announced to the crowd, “Victor just gave me another hundred grand!”

Once again the crowd erupted into thunderous applause. I gave Victor a thumbs-up, and he returned the gesture.

Sal’s eyes were on Kathleen. He kissed her cheek.

“You better reel this one in,” Sal said, “before she gets away. You ain’t getting’ any younger, you know.”

Sal hugged me again and left us to mingle.

I smiled at Kathleen. “You did a good job with the magic trick,” I said.

“It was fun.”

We gorged ourselves on the classic Neapolitan food, which consisted of hearty, straight-forward dishes, like ziti al forno, chicken cacciatore, panzerotti, steak pizzaiol, rigatoni with broccoli, lasagna, and several standing rib roasts.

We followed that with an hour of dancing, under the lights. As the night wore on, the gangsters and goons seemed more accepting of my presence at the party. The reason for that was simple. Sal had spread the lie that I was retired, and that my donation had been my buy-out from the life.

As Kathleen and I stood in the foyer, waiting for our car, I said, “Anybody hit on you tonight?”

She reached in her purse and pulled out a slip of paper and handed it to me.

“Whose number is this?”

“Some guy named Ice Pick,” she said, “though I doubt that’s his Christian name.”

She looked around the room filled with fierce wise guys, badlyhealed broken noses, missing fingers, and an endless assortment of scars.

“Then again,” she said.

Chapter 13

It took awhile to piece all this together, but between Ned’s confession, my and Teddy Boy’s observations, the video camera I’d installed in The Grantline, the wireless mike I’d hidden in Callie’s purse—and Callie’s first-hand experience—it went down this way, give or take:

Bickham Wright always came to the bar with high hopes, looking for gorgeous, but The Grantline was a redneck dump in West Podunk, a good 40 miles from the big city action. So Bickham always hoped for gorgeous, but he was willing to settle for cute. After a couple hours and several drinks, he and his friends would forget all about cute and start fighting over what’s available.

And for that, they didn’t need the date rape drug.

Lately, even “available” hadn’t been an option, and Bickham’s friends were beginning to grumble, especially Charlie, the goodlooking one. He didn’t need this shit, he could get chicks on his own. Had one, in fact, a cute little cheerleader named Kimberly Creed. But Kimberly was proving to be a difficult lay, thank God, and Charlie was getting tired of playing first base.

That is not to say that Charlie had lost his respect for “The Plan.” Even for Charlie there was probably something exciting and primal about doing it this way, something that linked his brain to that of his ancient forebears and satisfied the need to hunt, capture and conquer. And of course, “The Plan” provided instant gratification: he didn’t have to go through all the dating bullshit just to get laid.

Still, if there were no chicks, the best plan in the world was useless. Where were the little bitches? That was the real question. Maybe word was getting around. Hell, even the best fishing holes eventually got fished out.

Three weekends in a row had yielded squat, and Bickham was the last holdout of the group. He didn’t want to drive the extra forty miles across the county line to troll unfamiliar bars where he didn’t know the layout. There were too many variables. One mistake and they’d be in jail with no back up. “Yeah,” said Robbie, “but at least there’d be some action!”

Bickham got the boys together and sat them down. “Look,” he said. “Maybe we don’t always score, but you gotta admit, it’s a great plan. Bickham gave it all he had, told them to put their faith in the plan. In the end he persuaded them to meet at the local dive, and once again they showed up, hoping for gorgeous.