The Book of Air and Shadows - Michael Gruber [220]
“Jake, that’s the oldest dodge in the book. Will there be redemption by violence after?”
“I certainly hope so. Are you worried?”
“Not in the least. The John Cusack character has to escape and get the girl. You, on the other hand, might not make it.” He yawned vastly and added, “Shit, man, I mean this is fascinating but I’m falling over. It’ll be daylight in a couple of hours and I have to get some sleep. You look pretty beat yourself as a matter of fact.”
“I’ll be fine,” said Mishkin. “There are bedrooms galore upstairs, beds all made, rafts of cozy quilts: make yourself at home.”
He picked a bedroom with a view over the water, kicked off his boots, slipped under the quilt, went out in an instant; and awakened to the coughing roar of a large powerboat engine. He rolled out, scrubbed at his eyes, and went to the window. On the lake someone was inexpertly trying to dock a twenty-eight-foot Bayliner cruiser. They had the canvas top on and the plastic windshields rigged, but Crosetti figured it must still be fairly cold in a trailerable boat like that, designed for summer cruises. The snow had stopped, the sky was pearly bright, and a wind from the east whipped up small whitecaps. The unskilled pilot was trying to bring the boat into the west side of the dock, so of course the wind was blowing him away from it, the craft’s high profile acting as a sail, and he wasn’t giving the boat time to answer the helm, was also gunning the throttle, banging the prow against the dock and bouncing away. He should have just pulled back and gone around to the other side, where the wind would have bedded him up against the rubber fenders with no trouble. So thought Crosetti, who had spent every summer of his boyhood out on Sheepshead Bay with his parents and sisters and assorted cousins, packed dangerously into a twenty-two-foot rental.
Now a man dressed in a leather car coat and city shoes came out of the cabin and went forward, slipping on the wet fiberglass, and he went down sprawling when the boat slammed the dock for the sixth time. Crosetti figured this clown show would take a while, so he used the bathroom, pulled on his boots, made a short cell phone call, and descended to the kitchen. Mishkin was there, drinking coffee.
“They’re here,” said Crosetti, pouring himself a cup. “Pop-Tarts?”
“Yes, my daughter corrupted me when she was small. Have a couple.”
“Thank you,” said Crosetti, putting a pair into the toaster. “Have they managed to dock yet?”
The kitchen window was on the wrong side of the house, but by moving close to it one could just make out the foot of the dock. Mishkin peered past the chintz café curtains and said, “Just about. They’ve secured the pointy end and now they’re trying to maneuver the stern into place.”
“I guess they’re probably better gangsters than they are pilots.”
“Oh, yes. There were some fairly mediocre gangsters sent for me in New York, although not by Shvanov. I bet he’s brought his first team on this venture. So…still think it’s a movie?”
“No, I’m starting to get scared, since you ask.”
“You could leave. No one expects you to be here.”
“There’s Rolly, though.”
“True. Any final advice from the movies?”
“Yeah,” said Crosetti, “whatever your plan is, it’ll have a flaw.”
“Because…?”
“You can’t think of everything, one; and two, you need a reversal in the last six minutes to keep the tension up.”
“Well, at least we won’t have a fistfight in the abandoned factory. Let me go greet our guests.”
Mishkin walked out of the kitchen and Crosetti went to the window. As he did so, he heard the engine of the boat cut off and observed that they now had it tied up and people were getting off: the tall man in the leather coat, who had gone out on the deck, then a medium-size man in a camel hair overcoat and a fur hat (the Boss), then a linebacker-size fellow, also coated in black leather, leading two children, a boy and a girl, then a woman in a white parka, with the hood up over her head, then a man wearing a Burberry and a tweed cap,