Guess who nathan was talking to.
Bingo.
Of course, I didn’t know about any of this when I rolled up and saw Nathan coming out of the men’s room. I stopped the car, jumped out, ran over and…
Okay, I hugged him. It wasn’t out of affection, mind you, it was from sheer relief.
After I finished hugging him, I held him at arm’s length and yelled, “Where have you been?! I’ve been worried sick about you! I called the police, the hospital, the mor-”
“Did I tell you…”
“No jokes now, Nathan,” I said. “Why did you take the car? Where have you been?”
Nathan started to answer when a voice behind me said, “He’s been with me, okay? He’s okay, okay?”
He was a little guy, late thirties, curly black hair and big brown eyes. I couldn’t quite place the accent, but it was Middle Eastern of some sort. He was wearing a ridiculous Hawaiian print shirt with a lot of flowers, white chinos and Gucci loafers with no socks.
“I picked him up,” the guy continued, “and I’m giving him a ride home.”
“I really appreciate that,” I answered. “But I can take him from here.”
The guy said, “I’m going his way, okay? No trouble. I live in Palm Desert.”
“I’m going his way, too.”
“Who are you?” the guy asked.
“Who am I?” I asked. “Who are you?”
You can take the boy out of New York… et cetera.
“Who are you?” the guy asked. “Mr. Silverstein, do you know this guy?”
“He knows me,” I said. “I sort of work for him. Come on, Nathan, let’s go.”
“Neal, you-”
“He doesn’t have to go with you, okay?” the guy said. “He’s going with me.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“I do,” he said.
Now this was a little guy. I figured even I could take him if I had to, and I’m no fighter. I have virtually none of the attributes of a good fighter: size, strength, speed, coordination, or courage. And even I could have handled this guy.
Except for the gun.
A sleek little automatic that suddenly poked out of the ridiculous Hawaiian shirt and pressed into my stomach.
Did I mention I’m not especially courageous?
Now if you’ve seen a lot of private-eye movies or television shows, you’ll know that this is the point where the hero gets a glinty cold look in his eye, then brings a lightning-quick karate chop down on the villain’s wrist, knocking the gun to the ground. Then they struggle until the hero aims a punch to the villain’s jaw and knocks him cold.
None of that happened. None of that happened because a) I am not especially courageous; and b) while it is true that there are no Nobel Prize committees waiting outside my door, neither am I a complete moron, popular opinion notwithstanding.
And while it is true that the hand is quicker than the eye, a bullet is quicker than either of them. So when someone shoves a gun into your tummy, you do several things: tremble, have an instant religious revelation, and sweat profusely. I guess that my whole life would also have passed before my eyes, but I was depressed enough already.
There’s something else you do when someone shoves a gun into your tummy: You do what he says, which in this case was, “Get into the car, okay?”
As we were walking back to the car Nathan whispered to me, “I was trying to tell you.”
“I know that now.”
“You are the dumbest Irishman I have ever met.”
“Shut up,” the little guy hissed.
He put Nathan in the passenger seat then climbed into the back while he held the gun on Nathan and told me to drive.
I slid behind the wheel.
“Okay, drive,” said the little guy.
“This is a standard shift,” I said.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know how to drive a standard shift.”
“I shoot you.”
“It’s true.”
“I shoot you,” he said. “Drive.”
“Believe him,” Nathan said. “He really is that stupid.”
“I really am.”
You could hear the little guy thinking about what to do. It seemed like he thought for a long time.
Then he said, “Drive or I shoot you.”
I turned the key in the ignition. There was a horrible, metallic screeching noise. It was either the engine or the little guy’s voice as he screamed, “This is a 1965 Mustang! It’s very valuable!”
“Not for long,” I said.
I cranked the engine again and stepped on a pedal or something.
“Nooooo!!!!” he screamed. “Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I drive.”
It took awhile for Nathan to climb into the backseat and me to slide into the passenger seat and Sami-as I later learned and you already know was his preferred alias-to climb into the driver’s seat. Especially as Sami was trying to hold the gun on both of us while we were all doing what I would later come to refer to as the Lebanese Fire Drill.
But I began to feel a little better as I realized that Sami was not exactly Clyde Barrow when it came to being a gunslinger.
When we were all settled in, Sami said, “No funny business, okay?”
I think career criminals should be banned from watching old movies, don’t you?
“No funny business,” I said. “No monkey business either.”
Then Sami seemed to be having difficulty figuring out how to shift, steer, and hold the gun in order to pull out of the rest stop. He simply didn’t have enough hands.
“I’ll hold the gun,” I offered. “And if I try any funny business I promise I’ll shoot myself.”
But Sami apparently decided that the better option would be to stick the gun between his legs and expose himself to both the chance of emasculation and comments of a Freudian nature. So this is what he did, and pretty soon we were roaring west on Interstate 15.
For about a minute. Then he turned south onto a two-lane blacktop. The sign read, Cima-East Mojave National Scenic Area.
And even I had figured out by that point that Nathan had a definite reason for running away from Palm Desert and not wanting to go back, and that this reason was connected to the small but well-armed man now driving us somewhere for some reason I did not know.
Nathan turned in his seat to face me and said, “So Arthur says to the Irish kid, ‘This isn’t pastrami and…’”
I leaned over to Sami and said, “Shoot me.”