True Story 2: The Ride

(Be sure to check out the shockingly true first chapter in the aptly-titled True Story saga, available here.)

It wasn't even daylight yet and we had been on the road for more than an hour already. I didn't know quite where we were going, but given who was driving and how this little trip had started, it probably wasn't going to be anywhere I wanted to be.

Things had been quiet ever since I had been attacked on the train ride home from work. I still saw ninjas everywhere I went, always lurking in the shadows, watching, waiting for...something. For what I didn't know. There were plenty of times when they could have taken me out, plenty of times when I was alone, outnumbered, or outgunned. But they never made a move, never even really approached me. But I knew my luck wouldn't last forever.

As for this morning, when the phone rang shortly after 4am I knew my luck of another sort had just run out. Those first few days after the attack had been some of the longest of my life. You didn't kill a member of the Hand Clan without authorization and think headquarters wasn't going to be paying you a visit. Even still, as the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, I thought maybe, just maybe, I was going to slip the noose. After all, what had happened on that train had nothing at all to do with business. It was all about that woman, the one from Tangiers, and it was very, very personal.

The radio crackled and returned my focus to the inside of this jet-black Cadillac that was speeding westbound on the Mass Pike. Some blowhole from WEEI was cracking jokes about Alex Rodriguez and his now-infamous steroid test. The news that A-Rod had tested positive for the juice had been met with great pleasure in Boston. There was just something about the guy that rubbed us all the wrong way, and the fact that he wore pinstripes only made it worse. It made me uncomfortable to know that another hour or so in this direction would put us into a part of the country where the plight of a certain New York Yankee would not be met with such enjoyment.

There was a chuckle next to me and I glanced over in spite of myself. He didn't look back but did speak for the first time since we'd started driving.

“Don't worry, kid. We'll be there soon.”

That news did not reassure me, nor did the fact that he seemed able to read my mind. It could have been anybody on the other end of that phone when it rang. It could have been Hilldo. It could have been Reese. Hell, it could have even been Dave checking in from Colorado. But it wasn't any of them. No. It was him.

It was Kojak.

He was a legend. Some would argue he was a myth, but I knew every word you ever heard about the guy was probably true. Every crazy story about him was at least part of the truth—made all the crazier by the fact that they often didn't go far enough.

“I heard Kojak through a guy off the Mystic River Bridge for smacking his wife around.” Yep.

“I heard he shot a child rapist in the nuts out in Chicago and watched him bleed to death for three days.” Sure. Why not?

“Is it true he disappeared a casino owner down in Atlantic City because he thought the guy cheated him in a game of poker?” He disappeared him alright, but that wasn't the reason why. I'm not one to gossip, but it sounded to me like that guy got exactly what was coming to him.

We pulled off the Pike at exit 4 and were suddenly heading north up I-91. These were my old UMass stomping grounds, and for the first time I wondered if I had this entire episode all wrong. Was this about someone I had offended when I lived out here all those years ago? Was this about a score even older than the one the Hand wanted to settle with me? My mind raced through a list of possible suspects, a list I suddenly realized was shockingly long. But how many of them had any kind of pull with the company? Not many, and of those that did, not a one would have been able to send Kojak after me. He didn't take orders from very many people when he was young. Now that he was “semi-retired” there were even fewer people who could get him on the phone, let alone get him out on the job. And none of those characters would ever call Western Massachusetts home.

Soon enough we were pulling off the highway and racing down a farm road. The sun was finally up and it felt good to know that whatever happened next, it would be happening in the daylight. We passed a sign that read “Entering Whately, Incorporated 1771, Population 1573”. Now I knew where we were headed. There was only one destination for any traveler visiting the tiny town of Whately, Massachusetts.

The Fillin' Station Diner.

Open 24-hours in a part of the country where the sidewalks get rolled up at dusk, the Fillin' Station is a magnet for those who spend their waking hours plotting their next cheap score, scores that often involved shaking down the unsuspecting sophomores from Amherst or hippies from Hampshire whose only mistake had been heading to Whately after the bars closed for breakfast. It was one horror story after another, but the college kids kept on coming because the options were few and far between. (And, lets face it: Some of them just aren't that bright.)

But that was after dark, and this was the early morning. We pulled into a parking lot that was almost deserted. A few random tractor-trailers and scattered pickup trucks. Nothing as flashy as was the Cadillac, not for miles. Kojak parked us as far away from the door as he could, a good habit I had picked up myself somewhere along the way. The longer your walk to the door, the more time you had to take in the scene around you. Knowing what, and who, was around you would save your life more often than would easy-in, easy-out.

“OK,” said Kojak. “Let's do this thing.” He was out of the car in a flash. I took a deep breath and one last look around, and then I followed.

The morning air was brisk and refreshing. The car had been stuffy, closed up and with a faint odor of stale cigarette smoke. Kojak hadn't lit up at all while we drove but did so now.

“It'll be another minute or two, kid. Relax. Take a breather. You don't smoke anymore, right?”

I shook my head no.

“Good man,” he replied. “I've tried to quit a few times myself, even resorted to lollipops at one point. Nothing took. But, hey, we're all gonna go when we're gonna go, am I right?”

He chuckled and looked away, and I tried not to let on how petrified I actually was. Beating the ninja on the train had been all about adrenaline, but any adrenaline I had this morning had long left me. Not that it would have even mattered against Kojak.

It was then that I noticed the motorcycles. There were at least a dozen of them, mostly red Suzuki crotch-rockets, the vehicle of choice for a ninja on the move. I looked at Kojak and saw he was looking back at me with just the faintest trace of a smile. He'd known the bikes were there all along.

“Should we be here alone,” I asked?

“You know the life as well as I do, kid. We ain't never alone.”

To be continued...