True Story 3: The Meeting

Kojak through down his cigarette and started towards the door. “C'mon,” he said. “No time like the present.”

I was dumbstruck. A few short hours before I had been sound asleep in Boston. Now I was about to walk into an ambush on the other side of the state—and I still had no idea whether Kojak was on my side or somebody else's. You could say I'd had better mornings.

Suddenly I was aware of something else in the parking lot. A bright red 18-wheeler, one I was sure hadn't been there when we pulled in. Why did it look so familiar? Kojak caught my eye and again there was that faint trace of a smile.

“Move it. We've kept the little ball-breaker waiting long enough.”

We moved towards the door and I took one last look around. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day outside, but I knew that inside the Fillin' Station the atmosphere would be completely different. There were at least a dozen ninjas waiting for us somewhere close by and this diner was not the friendliest of confines to begin with. Have you ever seen Star Wars? Well, picture the Mos Eisley Cantina, just without all the aliens. (Well, maybe without half the aliens.) That was what waited for us inside.

Twenty steps, then ten, then five, and then Kojak was pulling open the door and ushering me inside. The air was smoke filled and the lighting was dark. It took my eyes a moment to adjust, and when they did I was greeted by the strangest of sights.

It wasn't the heavy-set trucker occupying the corner booth or the middle-aged lady dressed in a sleeveless flannel shirt to better show off her tattoo collection at the counter who caught my eye. It wasn't the kid reading the Valley Advocate, or the waitress whose best days were at least a decade gone by. No, it was the guy sitting alone at a table for four, with his back to the wall behind him and his eyes directly on me. It had been a while since I'd seen him, on TV or in person. He'd gone down with an injury moments into the first game of the season against Kansas City, and after that it was the paparazzi and not the sports writers who had been keeping us abreast of his movements.

Tom Brady, alive and well.

Kojak headed that way and I followed. We took up seats on either side, each of us wanting to keep an eye on the front door. Tom eyeballed the waitress for a moment before acknowledging us—his usual M.O. Here was a guy who could have (and often had) any woman he wanted, yet he couldn't take his eyes off the burnt-out shell who was pouring burnt coffee in this sorry excuse for a restaurant. She looked his way and he gave her the golden boy smile. I shook my head but stopped when I realized she had grabbed a fresh pot before coming our way. Being Tom Brady did have its privileges. She filled our mugs and moved away, and Kojak broke the silence.

“So, he's here. You called this meeting, must mean you have something to say.”

Brady stirred some sugar into his coffee before looking my way. “You really caused a headache with that business on the train.”

“I did what I had to do. That situation found me—not the other way around.” I didn't even bother trying to hide the contempt in my voice. It was funny. Now that we were inside and seated, now that I knew who it was who had set this all up, all the fear was gone. Now I was just annoyed. Who was Tom Brady to be calling me out? Yes, the business on the train was a mess but it had all been personal, not professional. Plus, the Patriots had gone 11-5 without him and there was a crutch on the floor behind his chair. His value had never been lower.

Tom noticed and didn't like it. “Hey, lower your voice when you talk to me. Don't play the victim. The report I saw said you had chances to get off that train before it all went south and didn't. And it seems to me it was the other guy who ended up dead, not you. You don't like getting woken up in the middle of the night? Too fucking bad. I don't like getting called away from Giselle and being sent to shitholes like this. It ruins my day. And I'm in rehab, fucker. I need my sleep.”

“Take it easy, ladies, take it easy. We're all on the same side here. I don't care which one of you has the bigger dick.” Kojak never had any patience for dominance displays. It came from always being the toughest guy in the room.

Brady was fired up. “Listen to the man. He may just save your life someday.”

I looked away and sipped at my coffee. There had been rumors about Brady taking over as Regional Director for New England after Paul Pierce had been stabbed in that nightclub, but I had always hoped they weren't true. Sure, there were the three Super Bowls and the 17 confirmed kills, but the guy was still such a cocky prick.

“So, why I am here? What have I done to deserve this audience with the great Tom Brady?”

Tom looked over at Kojak. “Jesus Christ, you had him the car for a fucking hour and didn't brief him?”

“Hey, Tommy, you got the one good knee still. Lets keep it that way, OK?”

“Don't threaten me, old man. You know who we work for, and you know who put me in charge and why. I specialize in making sure situations like this one do not get out of hand, and this situation is way fucking close to getting out of hand. Think of me as Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction and your boy here as John Travolta. I'm the Wolf, motherfucker.”

“With that one leg you might just be the gimp,” I said.

“Fuck you. I'm here to help you and make sure you don't end up like Zed, with your balls all shot to hell and some crazy sons of bitches going to work on you with two pieces of pipe and a blowtorch. Now I assume you saw those motorcycles outside, and that you know what we are up against here this morning.”

“I saw them.”

“Well, good. Those are friends of a certain one-time acquaintance of yours, and they have been making unpleasant inquiries about you all over town.”

“Inquiries?”

“Yes,” said Tom. “Questions about people and places and past events, none of which would be beneficial to us if it came to light. So it was decided there were two solutions. One, we could give you over to those savages and just be done with it.”

I shot Kojak a look, but Brady wasn't finished.

“Or two, we could make contact with them, convince them that was what we were doing, lure them to some out of the way spot where there would be few questions, and then wipe them off the face of this fucking planet.”

With that appeared two pearl-handled revolvers in Brady's hands, which he fired into the shadows behind us. Two dead ninjas slumped onto the floor at our feet.

“I voted for the first option,” said Brady. “Lucky for you I don't make every decision.”

And then all hell officially broke loose.

To be continued...