Paul Guyot's Posts - CrimeSpace2024-03-28T11:02:32ZPaul Guyothttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/PGuyothttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/60985235?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://crimespace.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=PGuyot&xn_auth=noTrue Storytag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-04-10:537324:BlogPost:173302007-04-10T14:57:05.000ZPaul Guyothttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/PGuyot
We never had a chance.<br></br>
<br></br>
The sun was just going down and it was fast becoming a clear, crisp April eve.<br></br>
<br></br>
“Well, what’ll it be tonight, boys?”<br></br>
<br></br>
The<br />
question was absurd. The Meg Chittenden-Robert Gregory Browne jello<br />
wrestling pay-per-view was still three hours away, so continuing to<br />
drink was, of course, the order of the evening.<br></br>
<br></br>
The “boys”<br />
consisted of five: Barry “The Hair” Eisler; a little too good looking,<br />
a little too talented, a little too…
We never had a chance.<br/>
<br/>
The sun was just going down and it was fast becoming a clear, crisp April eve.<br/>
<br/>
“Well, what’ll it be tonight, boys?”<br/>
<br/>
The <br />
question was absurd. The Meg Chittenden-Robert Gregory Browne jello <br />
wrestling pay-per-view was still three hours away, so continuing to <br />
drink was, of course, the order of the evening.<br/>
<br/>
The “boys” <br />
consisted of five: Barry “The Hair” Eisler; a little too good looking, <br />
a little too talented, a little too obsessed with sex to be taken <br />
seriously, but he could drop you with a Uchi Mata faster than it takes <br />
to write a James Patterson chapter, so we kept him around.<br/>
<br/>
Joe “Little Joe” Konrath. A former postal worker who now tried to fit writing in between signings.<br/>
<br/>
Laura <br />
“Double L” Lippman. Yeah, she was a girl, but she was a hot girl, and <br />
she could write like Pelecanos, drink like Fitzgerald, and fight like <br />
Parker. Posey, not Robert. But hey, I said she was hot.<br/>
<br/>
Rounding out the boys was Duane “Swizzle Stick” Swierczynski, who was a sick dog, and then there was me.<br/>
<br/>
The <br />
vehicles of the night were two. Little Joe’s “Scamp,” an oddball <br />
vehicle for what in reality was a 1996 Suzuki Sidekick, and Eisler’s <br />
“Incubus,” a ‘91 Ferrari F40⎯the fastest, most powerful, and most <br />
expensive machine Enzo ever produced⎯and the last real Ferrari ever <br />
built, according to The Hair.<br/>
<br/>
Little Joe, Double L and myself <br />
piled into Scamp, The Hair and Swizzle into Incubus. Scamp cruised idly <br />
for a while, Little Joe making half-hearted attempts to keep his Ball <br />
jar of Jack Daniels below window level. Incubus scared vehicles out of <br />
its way, as The Hair sipped thirty-year-old Macallan from an official <br />
CIA Athletic Club sports bottle.<br/>
<br/>
Inside Scamp, Double L <br />
scrunched down as low as she could get. “I don’t want anyone to see me <br />
and know I’m not home,” she said. “Burglars. Burglars will so rip you <br />
off if you’re not home.”<br/>
<br/>
“Look!” Little Joe yelled. “There’s a Walgreens. They might have some remainders I could sign.”<br/>
<br/>
Little Joe pulled into the Walgreens parking lot. The Hair followed, parking Incubus a ways away.<br/>
<br/>
“Be right back,” Little Joe said.<br/>
<br/>
“I <br />
better get some more beer,” Swizzle Stick said, barely feeling the <br />
effects of his nine Duvel lunch. He slid out of Incubus and beat a <br />
fairly straight path to the store.<br/>
<br/>
“See if they’ve got any Ardbeg,” The Hair said, then went back to writing a sex scene for an upcoming book.<br/>
<br/>
“Aardvarks?” Swizzle asked.<br/>
<br/>
I looked back at Double L and said, “I think you can sit up now. The parking lot’s empty.”<br/>
<br/>
Double <br />
L’s blonde mane started to rise, and she slowly peered out Scamp’s back <br />
window. "Someone's out there," she said. "Burglars." And she ducked <br />
back down.<br/>
<br/>
I glanced around, saw nothing but darkness. The Hair <br />
made his way over and sat inside Scamp, and we chatted about sex for a <br />
few minutes. Then Swizzle Stick exited Walgreen’s loaded with beer.<br/>
<br/>
He opened Incubus' passenger door, sat down, and the voice of God was upon us.<br/>
<br/>
Spotlights blinded us as the voice boomed out, “Police! Don’t Move!”<br/>
<br/>
God, <br />
in the form of James O. Born, Florida Department of Law Enforcement. I <br />
strained to see past the lights and counted at least a dozen cops.<br/>
<br/>
“Come out with your hands up!”<br/>
<br/>
“That doesn’t make sense,” noted The Hair. “Does he want us not to move, or to come out with our hands up?”<br/>
<br/>
“He's still a cop?” I asked, more to myself than anyone else.<br/>
<br/>
“I bet he’s here because someone burgled my house,” Double L said.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m not going to tell you guys again,” Born said.<br/>
<br/>
“What’d we do?” Swizzle Stick yelled from inside Incubus.<br/>
<br/>
“Let’s <br />
start with open containers and public lewdness, and as far as your <br />
Polish ass is concerned, I’ve got almost a dozen counts of home <br />
invasion.”<br/>
<br/>
“That was a book tour!”<br/>
<br/>
“Don’t talk back."<br/>
<br/>
“Yeah,” came another voice from behind the lights.<br/>
<br/>
“I’ll handle this, Montgomery,” Born said.<br/>
<br/>
“Oh, <br />
sure, and you’re doing a credible job, but I feel like there’s a lack <br />
of tension in the current scene. You need to ramp it up, really put <br />
everyone on edge, or else you run the risk of losing our interest.”<br/>
<br/>
What the hell was David J. Montgomery doing with Born and his men?<br/>
<br/>
“Fucking critics,” Swizzle said, and climbed out of Incubus.<br/>
<br/>
Swizzle <br />
Stick flashed a two-fisted Bird, and that was his last act on earth. A <br />
shotgun blast shattered the night air and Swizzle Stick’s upper body <br />
was separated from his lower body a nanosecond later.<br/>
<br/>
James O. <br />
Born stepped out from behind the lights. He wore jeans, an FDLE polo, <br />
and a belly bag flipped open⎯an FDLE logo covering his genitals like <br />
some official Apache loin cloth.<br/>
<br/>
“Why’s he wearing a fanny pack?” Double L asked.<br/>
<br/>
“I think it’s called a belly bag,” I said.<br/>
<br/>
“No,” she said. “That’s a fanny pack.”<br/>
<br/>
“I <br />
believe if it were reversed,” The Hair said, “thus the bag section <br />
hanging over his anus, it would be a fanny pack. But in this <br />
incarnation it can be accurately described as a belly bag. Would you <br />
like to read my latest sex scene, Laura?”<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t think now’s the time for sex, Barry.”<br/>
<br/>
“Now is always the best time for sex.”<br/>
<br/>
Born yelled something and we turned to see him holding a book over his <br />
head. “Just wanted to let you guys know that my new Duarte novel hits <br />
the stands on Tuesday.”<br/>
<br/>
“While <br />
I prefer the Tasker books,” Montgomery said, “I think this new series <br />
is exciting and filled with page-turning twists. Something this <br />
standoff severely lacks.”<br/>
<br/>
I thought I could just make out Born <br />
rolling his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
“Give it a rest, Montgomery,” Born said. “Now, <br />
Eisler, Lippman and Mister Showbiz. Are you coming out, or do I have to <br />
send my men in after you?”<br/>
<br/>
“Do you have any women you could send in?” The Hair asked.<br/>
<br/>
“You’re like David Duchovny or something, aren’t you?” Double L said. “A sex addict.”<br/>
<br/>
The Hair’s eyes went dark, and his voice came out in a guttural snarl. “Do not ever use the word like in that context again.”<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t think I used like the way you think I did," Double L said.<br/>
<br/>
“I cannot stand people using that word that way. <span style="font-style: italic;">Am</span> I sex addict, Lippman, or am I <span style="font-style: italic;">like</span> a sex addict? Which is it?”<br/>
<br/>
Double <br />
L had forgotten the first rule of traveling with The Hair: Never, in <br />
any context use a hedge word. Whether she had or hadn't, we know from <br />
history, never stand too close to the white tigers. And come to think <br />
of it, it was the third rule of traveling with The Hair, the first two <br />
having to do with sex and whiskey.<br/>
<br/>
“I asked if you were like David Duchovny, meaning are you similar to him in that⎯”<br/>
<br/>
“Excuse <br />
me,” Born said. “I’m the representative law enforcement here, and you <br />
should be listening to me right now, not squabbling over your little <br />
writerly semantic issues.”<br/>
<br/>
“I don’t think writerly is a word,” I said.<br/>
<br/>
“Uh, finish that novel yet, TV boy?” Born retorted.<br/>
<br/>
He had a point.<br/>
<br/>
“We better surrender or Born’s going to be really pissed,” Double L said.<br/>
<br/>
“That was not a good sentence,” The Hair said.<br/>
<br/>
“Okay, now you’re just being mean,” Double L said. "I'm leaving." She opened Scamp’s door, and stepped out into the night.<br/>
<br/>
A <br />
shot rang out, and Double L’s head exploded like a ripe eggplant. I <br />
looked beyond Born and could just make out Montgomery holding a smoking <br />
fifty caliber Desert Eagle.<br/>
<br/>
Fucking critics.<br/>
<br/>
A deafening silence fell over the parking lot. Nobody moved, nobody spoke.<br/>
<br/>
Then <br />
the Walgreens doors flew open and out tromped Little Joe, completely <br />
unaware of his surroundings⎯his left hand pouring Jack into his mouth, <br />
his right hand holding a remaindered copy of RUSTY NAIL.<br/>
<br/>
The <br />
first cop took off Little Joe’s left arm at the elbow, sending the Jack <br />
crashing to the pavement. The second cop hit him in the right knee.<br/>
<br/>
“My God,” I said. "They’re going to take their time.”<br/>
<br/>
Born’s cops had small caliber weapons and were shooting out Little Joe’s elbows, kneecaps, and ankles at a slow rate.<br/>
<br/>
“We should leave,” The Hair said.<br/>
<br/>
We <br />
broke for Incubus. I hit the ground and tuck-and-rolled my doughy <br />
whiteness toward the F40. The Hair danced and dove, spun and flipped, <br />
like a cross between Tony Jaa and Paula Abdul⎯early Paula, like in the <br />
Opposites Attract video, not drunken American Idol Paula⎯and we made it <br />
to Incubus without injury.<br/>
<br/>
“They’re getting away,” Montgomery screamed. “This is a very unsatisfying ending!”<br/>
<br/>
“It’s not over yet, you moron,” Born said. “Uh, I apologize, David. You’re not a moron, and my new book comes out on Tuesday.”<br/>
<br/>
The <br />
Hair fired the ignition, and I took one last look at Little Joe, who <br />
was now just a pitiful glob... of Little Joe. His left arm still clung <br />
to his remainder, though, and I thought I heard him say, “Tell the book <br />
sellers I loved them.”<br/>
<br/>
The Hair hit the gas and Incubus erupted, <br />
slamming our heads back against the seats. Two turns and twelve seconds <br />
later we were on the highway, with Jim Born and his critic long gone.<br/>
<br/>
One thing we had neglected: Guglielmo Marconi and the invention of the radio.<br/>
<br/>
There <br />
was a small army waiting for us at the state line. They had lined up <br />
several pieces of heavy equipment and set them ablaze. The Hair slammed <br />
on the brakes.<br/>
<br/>
We sat there in Incubus, contemplating, thinking. The Hair scribbled down a quick sex scene for an upcoming book.<br/>
<br/>
I <br />
heard sirens and looked in the side mirror. Here came Born and his <br />
crew. I popped out some Japanese jazz CD and inserted Dylan. If I was <br />
gonna die, it wasn’t going to be to the sounds of a flugelhorn.<br/>
<br/>
Incubus idled impatiently.<br/>
<br/>
The Hair stomped the accelerator and Incubus responded like a machine possessed.<br/>
<br/>
Behind us were a dozen cops, and one angry critic. In front of us, an inferno.<br/>
<br/>
I looked over at The Hair. His eyes riveted ahead.<br/>
<br/>
Some Barry Newman film flashed in my mind.<br/>
<br/>
And barely being heard above the tremendous din outside was the wailing voice of Bob Dylan:<br/>
<br/>
<span style="font-style: italic;">When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.<br/></span><br/>
I jumped.<br/>
<br/>
The Hair hit that firestorm at over 170.<br/>
<br/>
I promise to raise a toast to my fallen brothers and sister over their graves, and I will, as soon as I get back.<br/>
<br/>
But Vanuatu is just too nice this time of year.