The Intern's Handbook: A Thriller (16 page)

I fire The Pig into his belly. He yelps and hits the ground like a sack of potatoes. After a few seconds of drunken staggering, he curls up and passes out like the family dog in front of the fireplace.

There will be more, so I sprint through the forest to the edge of the lawn that skirts the house, planting
black cats
—multistaged explosives loaded with 9-mm rounds—in the trees all around the house. When you set them off, it sounds like you’re being ambushed
by the entire Bolivian Army and guards start dropping like flies as they get hit with the random trajectory bullets. Black cats are the very definition of diversion, and I plant enough of them around the house to really light it up. I hear more dogs coming through the trees, so I sprint, fueled by a high-octane mix of speed and adrenaline. I don’t stop to breathe until I am over the wall and back to the Caddy. Then I collapse, my chest heaving and my heart about to explode out of my chest.

I finally catch my breath and look at my watch. Fifteen minutes late for my prearranged meeting with Bendini. He will be extremely annoyed by now and, by the time I get my shit together and make it to his front door, he may even refuse to see me. I head back to the car to quickly change my clothes, and drive through the front gate. Next thing I know, I’m knocking at Bendini’s door, briefcase in hand. Two corn-fed security monsters, sweating through their pinstripe suits, answer the door.

“Can I help you?” One of them half grunts.

“John Lago. I work for Mr. Bendini.”

“Look into the camera.”

He points to a security camera above the door. I look up at it.

The guard touches his ear, listening.

“Okay, you’re good.”

“What happened to your face?” The other guard is a fucking Boy Scout. I can tell he doesn’t like me but he doesn’t know why. He wrinkles his nose, waiting for me to answer.

“Paper cut.”

“Funny. Let me look in your briefcase, Dane Cook.”

Shit. I need to learn to keep my smart-ass mouth shut.

“John!”

Bendini comes down the stairs. He is genuinely happy to see me. This pisses off the Boy Scout.

“Hey, you goons, let him in. He works for me.”

He might as well have told them to sit, roll over, and play dead. Their faces tighten with anger and they let me pass. Bendini slaps an arm over my shoulders and walks me down the hall to his study. The security guys follow us. Bendini sees me looking at them and smiles and waves me on. When we get to the study, they lock the door from the inside.
Damn
. This guy
does not
fool around. I wonder if these cheese dicks sleep in the same bed with him too.

“You’re late. And you look like shit. Is that what the animal that hit your car did to you?”

“Yeah. He really creamed my car. Insurance guy says I’m lucky I didn’t get hurt worse than this.”

“Damn right. Cars are death traps. Just make sure you take that asshole to the cleaners.”

“Oh yeah. He’ll be lucky if he can finance a scooter after I’m through with him.”

“That’s the spirit. Well, let’s see what you have on the Foster estate.”

“May I use your restroom? Long drive.”

“Of course. Lars, show him the way.”

Lars the Jersey goon points a fat hand to the hallway and leads me to a door. Inside the cavernous, Louis Quatorze gold-plated restroom, I pull the detonator duct taped to my inner thigh and hit the sequence. My charges outside start popping like the hellfire brigade. It sounds like a hailstorm as the bullets strike the outside of the house. I hear voices pitch up into freak-out panic defense mode. Good, they aren’t as cold as their swagger suggests. I throw on some ultra-thin leather cop gloves—stylish and crime scene–friendly, and pull a short barrel .45 (mobster special) and a Glock (security geek special) from the false bottom in my briefcase.

Lars knocks heavily on the door. I peek out with an “I’m peeing my pants in fear” face.

“What’s going on? Are we in danger?”

Lars sees the Oscar-worthy panic in my face and goes into Boy Scout troop leader mode.

“Get into the tub and stay there.”

More charges go off and he flinches. I almost hit him in the arm and say “two for flinching,” but there’s no time for boyhood shenanigans. Instead I put a 9-mm pill from the Glock in his forehead and pull him into the bathroom with me. Now I’ll go whack Bendini and his pals with the .45 and come back here to put it in Lars’s dead hand. Lars goes down in the books as the killer—as long as I make Bendini dead within the next ten minutes (the medical examiner’s margin of error in determining time of death)—and I trip the fuck out of here and off to freedom.

Then I feel my pocket vibrating and I almost jump out of my skin. I know who it is immediately because when I’m on a job, I carry only my HR phone, and only one person has that number: Bob. My whole career I’ve never had to answer this phone . . . until now. I pull it out. I have twenty missed calls from Bob.
What the fuck?
Bendini must have a cell tower block on the grounds—countermeasure for FBI mobile phone recon software. By now Bob is fucking furious.

“Bob,” I whisper.

“John?”

“Yeah.”

“Abort.”

“Fuck.”

I would say “Why?” or “What the fuck?” but that would be stupid. If Bob’s aborting, it’s for a very good reason.

“I’ve been calling for the last hour. Where the fuck have you been?”

There’s a knock on the door again. I hang up, kill the lights, and grab Lars’s corpse, prying the Glock out of his meathook. Motherfucker’s heavy. The door slams open and I’m holding Lars up in a standing position. I heave him at whoever is there and he fires his gun. A bullet blows through Lars’s neck and slams into the tile wall.
I am now splattered with blood, viscera, and most likely some very exotic cooties. The shooter turns on the lights and sees me. Sees his buddy Lars.

“Friendly fire,” I say and shoot him with Lars’s Glock. He falls. I drop Lars in a reasonable landing position to sell the fact that his panicked coworker and he shot each other by accident, at least until the crime scene supernerds arrive. I know it’s getting confusing but now I have to make this shit up as I go along! Then I shove the .45 into my pants and run to get Bendini. His study is full of windows and he is a fucking fish in a barrel right now. He gets popped and Bob will never believe it wasn’t my fault.
I will get popped too
. I find him under his desk, a thin stream of blood trickling down his face.

“Mr. Bendini. Are you okay?”

“John! My God. What happened to you?!”

“Let’s get out of here. You’re a sitting duck with these windows!”

I drag him out of there, laughing on the inside as I, Pinocchio, heroically save Geppetto from
my bullets
as they whip through the windows and punch holes in several hideous English fox hunt paintings. Why do all bourgeois people think that the pinnacle of wealth is the crusty fucking English aristocracy?

Two thugs run up and grab us. They hustle us to a panic room like Secret Service agents on a bum rush to save the president. Once inside, all the noise goes away and we can see what’s up on the security cameras. The grounds are littered with dead guards.

“Holy shit!” the other guards proclaim.

I make myself puke in the trash can for good measure. I’m viewed with pity and disgust by the guards. A perfect reaction to what they believe is a pencil-neck intern paralyzed by fear.

A goon runs into the panic room.

“Lars and Victor shot each other. By accident.”

Thank you, Mr. Goon, for that stirring testimonial. You’re my top salesman this month. You win a trip to Maui.

“I was there,” I say with a vomit-smeared grimace. “It was horrible.”

Bendini shakes his head.

“Amateurs.”

I almost laugh out loud but pretend to cough instead.

After a few beats of incredulous silence, all of my charges are finally spent and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. A cavalry of police sirens are heard rapidly approaching the house. Bendini goes to put his arm around me but thinks better of it when he sees bits of Lars’s brain and skull on my shoulder. Instead, he awkwardly pats me on the back.

“Sorry about this, son. As you can see, I have some . . . enemies.”

“It’s okay, Mr. Bendini. I’m just glad you’re all right.”

“Thanks to you, John.”

He scowls at the security men.

“Which is more than I can say for the rest of you high-priced Neanderthals.”

They all mumble “Sorry sir” and take on the collective expression of a pack of whipped puppies.

“I owe you one, kid,” Bendini says to me in his grandpa voice. Maybe he’ll give me a pocketknife and some penny candy.

“Don’t mention it, sir.”

“Speaking of that, John. I would appreciate it if we could keep this all on the QT at the office. My colleagues tend to get nervous at the mention of all-out gun battles taking place at a partner’s home. Not good for business. You understand.”

“I understand completely, sir. This incident doesn’t leave this room.”

“You’re going to go far in this business, John. You need to understand that too.”

I’m beginning to think I’ll be working at Bendini, Lambert & Locke long enough to prove him right.

United States Department of Justice

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Washington, D.C. 20535

Location: AKA Bar, East Village, Manhattan

Subjects: John Lago and Alice (censored).