The Autobiography of Benjamin Abbott - Chapter 18: The Bowling Alley
Now, you may notice as you read some of these next scenes I wasn’t exactly present for them. They are an approximation of what I can only assume happened. It’s possible they didn’t happen like this at all. It’s possible that I’m making them up. Of course, it’s possible I’m making up this entire story, so you’re just going to have to trust me.
Fingers’ direct supervisor was a man named Louie. He liked to bowl. He liked to bowl at Starlight Bowl in Venice. Louie was an excellent bowler. If we were to try to describe Louie’s best traits, we would have no choice but to start with his bowling ability, it was without a doubt his number one most positive attribute, maybe his only good one.
Playing to his strengths, Louie had made Starlight Bowl an office of a sort, using the poolroom in the back to conduct transactions and make contact with various individuals. This was the poolroom where he had hired Fingers. They had never worked together before, Louie had asked around and heard Fingers’ name mentioned a few times with close to glowing references, and most importantly every single reference mentioned how low maintenance and self-sufficient Fingers was, which reassured Louie he was the best option for the job. (One may be surprised to find out, or perhaps not, that some of the better hitmen can be quite diva-like in their behavior with constant need for reassurance and persistent demands for little perks and other favors.)
Fingers’ self-sufficiency, however, can cut more ways than one and Louie was about to find out about its downside as Fingers walked into the poolroom of Starlight Bowl at 7:00 at night surprising Louie right after Louie had put on his brown bowling shirt, with light brown trim, as his team, the Dragons, who were in 3rd place in the 10 team Pacific Super Ligue 1 Bowling League, were about to face the 4th place team, the Vipers (every team in the league had a name that would have fit a street gang from the 50s). This was a big match and Louie was in the process of getting his game face on (while downing a beer and watching 2 strangers shoot a game of 8 ball), so he didn’t notice Fingers until Fingers had rolled himself only a few feet away and was suddenly (in his quick without ever moving quickly way) standing in front of Louie ready to deliver some bad news.
Louie was sitting on one of the bar stools that ringed the dark blood red poolroom, drinking his beer when Fingers entered his line of vision. Louie set the glass of beer down on the slightly brighter blood red counter (with leather guardrail to make sure no drinks fell off) that ringed the poolroom, a little foam sticking to his lips. He smacked his lips and assumed what anyone in his position would assume upon seeing the hitman he had just hired a few days earlier return to the scene of the hiring; that the job was done.
“Oh, hi,” Louie looked around suspiciously in the way those who are trying to act innocent look around a room suspiciously before they are about to do something suspicious. Fingers was holding a brown paper bag he promptly threw down on the counter next to Louie’s beer.
“I quit.”
“What? You can’t quit.”
“In that paper bag is the advance you gave me, so now I don’t owe you anything, so I can quit. I quit.” Fingers’ logic was airtight.
Louie started stammering. “What? What? What are you talking about? Why would you quit?”
“I got a better offer.”
“No no no no no no no no no no no. No, you can’t quit.”
“I quit,” Fingers said one last time and turned to walk away.
“Shit. Humphrey’s gonna be pissed.”
The name stopped Fingers’ walk, he turned back, “who?”
“No one. The guy who hired me to hire you.”
Fingers, for perhaps the first time in his life, smiled. He realized I had told him the truth, whatever doubts he may have had about my plan vanished in that moment.
“Goodbye Louie,” he said through a smile, a novel experience of having to say words not through a grim stony face but through a wide-open mouth.
“You can’t do this to me,” Louie called out as Fingers walked away, “I have a reputation to uphold.”
To be honest, Louie did not have a reputation to uphold. At least not a good one. Most of the people who worked the streets in one way or another knew he was a little incompetent, which is why he had to work for wealthy dabblers in illegal activities like Humphrey. The Humphreys of the world didn’t know the difference between a real hoodlum and a fake one any more than I did, which made them easy marks. And most of Louie’s fixing up until this point had been simple intimidation or breaking and entering, he was moving up several levels with first degree murder and he was clearly out of his league.
*
Humphrey was playing tennis against a ball machine at his Malibu mansion (the one where he had wined and dine me) when Louie pulled up to the front gate in his ‘01 Nissan Sentra. Normally, one would say that Humphrey was hitting tennis balls fed to him by a ball machine, but he was keeping score, so in a sense he was playing tennis against a ball machine (and winning).
Wilson saw Louie’s car on the monitor and in that Jeevesian English butler way that knows all of his boss’ dark secrets quickly buzzed Louie in and directed him to park in a hidden side parking lot before any of the other servants noticed. Louie hadn’t been to Humphrey’s mansion before. In fact, Humphrey had only met him in person twice. The first time when he was introduced to Louie by one of his CEO friends who occasionally used Louie’s services. The other time was in the back alley behind Starlight Bowl next to the giant green dumpster when Humphrey hired Louie for the first time by lowering the back window of his limousine to hand Louie a manila folder with a set of instructions and a few bills.
After that, it was all cell phones and wire transfers. Humphrey didn’t even use intermediaries with Louie. He figured if the shit ever hit the fan it was better to have some two-bit gangster claiming he had ordered all of these illegal activities instead of a semi-respectable middle man. Louie wasn’t believable even when he was telling the truth, under any normal circumstances (or investigation) he wouldn’t stand a chance against Humphrey.
Despite their lack of previous interpersonal human contact, Louie felt it was okay to go see Humphrey at his house. He felt the emergency situation of the first hitman unexpectedly quitting demanded it. Using a star map he purchased on Hollywood Boulevard from someone in a Spiderman costume, Louie was able to locate Humphrey’s Malibu mansion, which he correctly surmised Humphrey would be using on the weekend and showed up at the front gate unannounced. And then was strolling around the grounds of Humphrey’s mansion, led by Wilson, still unannounced, passing through lush green gardens that were landscaped in the jardin a la francaise style and geometrically speckled with hydrangeas and oleanders and other types of flowering plants that are fun to pronounce (not to mention the fountains and gazebos and a kind of spooky hedge maze).
Louie wouldn’t have known the names of most of the plants or the style of gardening that was closely related to his namesake but he knew enough to be impressed as they approached the tennis court. “Is that Lilac?” Louie asked Wilson as they passed a very pretty lilac colored display of horticultural brilliance. (It wasn’t Lilac.) Wilson ignored Louie’s questions and kept walking, fast, this was no time to luxuriate in pleasant small talk. But Louie didn’t take the hint. “My ex-wife’s (first ex-wife) mother is a master gardener, she grows all of her own vegetables and would plant these really neat…”
Wilson’s hand shot up demanding silence. They had reached the tennis court just as Humphrey hit a particularly impressive 2 handed backhand passing shot down the line.
Humphrey had worked up a good sweat as he always did when he beat the ball machine at tennis. Multi-tasking with his ear piece in, he was also on a (rather boring) conference call with Hong Kong. In the corner of his eye, through the chain link fence that separated the light greens of the tennis court from the dark green of his massive garden, Humphrey saw the movement of a butler’s black coat, this meant his regularly scheduled hour-long match was over (Humphrey had won the first set 6-1 and was well on his way to winning the second set with a break of serve at 4-2, not bad for an afternoon’s work) and it was time for his bath.
Humphrey really really really hoped Wilson used the Rosemary and Thyme, his favorite bath salts, today, instead of the Lemon Zest he had used the day before. Humphrey didn’t like smelling the lemon on himself all night as he slept and even into the next morning, it reminded him of the Lemon Pledge his mother used to spray on every wooden and faux wooden object in his house growing up and Humphrey didn’t like being reminded of that time in his life. He had burned those memories, along with his childhood home, long ago, now only the sensation of smell was able to bring hints of those ghosts back to him. (He had used hypnosis to get rid of the other sense memories, maybe he should see that doctor again, he thought, what was his name: Edward, Edwards, Edwardson; Polly will remember the name, if only Landmark could come up with a product that would selectively erase memories he wouldn’t have to see any more quacks and charlatans that only mildly suppressed his amygdalian urges to remember instead of completely excising them. Such a product would be a killer in the market, a never-ending supply of customers (including those that have already had the procedure since the erasing of the memory of the visit, and the absurdly large fee for the visit, would of course be a routine part of the procedure), maybe there was some patented neurotechnology Landmark could purchase to start the commodification process towards this killer product.
Humphrey made a mental note to himself to tell the VP in charge of the BF Skinner Memorial Behavior Modeling and Modifying Division to get started researching this, however, unfortunately for Humphrey (but perhaps fortunately for the rest of us) he made many mental notes like this throughout his usual day, never bothering to write them down, usually ending up forgetting them, only about 1 in 10 survived the rigors of Humphrey’s daily regimen, and the irony of this particular mental note being lost to time was also lost on David Humphrey.)
Humphrey said goodbye to the other attendees on his conference call and touched his ear piece hanging up and then took a towel from the towel girl who had been standing courtside during Humphrey’s entire workout like one of the ballboys or ballgirls do at professional tennis tournaments. Humphrey thought it leant a sense of verisimilitude to his matches with the ball machine. He wiped the sweat from his face using the official Wimbledon towel (the exact same the players use (and in some cases have used) and can be purchased in bulk at a surprisingly reasonable price after the tournament each year) picturing himself as Roger Federer (despite his 2 handed backhand) after a lightly testing early round match.
“That was a quick hour,” he shouted to Wilson still toweling off, now getting the sweat from the back of his neck. Wilson didn’t give his usual affirmative response so Humphrey turned towards his beautifully manicured (although slightly less beautiful than his own manicure) gardens and saw a fidgeting man behind his butler dancing from side to side like a little child who needed to pee.
“Shit,” Humphrey muttered to himself. He looked at the ballgirl, I mean, towelgirl, and handed the used towel back to her. He wondered if she could see Louie from her position on the side of the court. Wilson and Louie were in a sloping depression and slightly hidden behind a couple of azalea bushes. He hoped she hadn’t seen Louie. If she had seen him he may have to have her killed and he didn’t want to kill the sweet 15 year old girl. Besides, she was the daughter of his VP of Behavior Modeling and Modifying and they had recently had a couple of mediocre quarters, so he needed Phil to focus all of his attention on improving the behavior modeling and modifying of customers (and researching that brilliant idea he had had a few minutes earlier but couldn’t remember now but would surely come back to him later) and not grieving over a lost daughter.
Humphrey sent the girl off the court in the opposite direction to save her life and then rushed off the court towards the garden and shooed Louie back further under the cover of the azalea bushes. Wilson took this as a sign to occupy himself with other butlering duties and left the 2 of them alone amidst the foliage to talk confidential business.
“I thought I told you to never come see me.” Humphrey’s eyes were bulging. His hair remained immaculate.
“I know, I’m sorry Mr. Humphrey, but I needed to speak with you right away and I couldn’t get ahold of you on your phone and I knew I shouldn’t call the office, so I thought I would come here. No one saw me. Honest.”
“Except Wilson.”
“Yeah, the butler, but no one else.”
“I’m going out of town tomorrow. I’m flying to Europe to take care of some business. We might buy a minor principality and I thought it would be best not to be around for the next week when certain things are going to happen. Are those things going to happen?” Humphrey could be intimidating when he wanted to be. And he definitely wanted to be at this moment.
“Actually, that’s why I’m here… I have some bad news.”
“Some bad news?”
“The guy I got…”
“You told me he was good.”
“He is. Very good. He is definitely good. But unfortunately he, ah, he…” Louie searched for the right word, the one that would soothe Humphrey, the one that would cool Humphrey’s flaming eyes and erupting breath before they reached Planck Temperature. “He, uh… he quit.”
“He quit!!!” The branches of the azalea bushes recoiled in fright.
It was a… it was a….” Louie needed a good excuse. “It was a family emergency.”
“A family emergency?!”
“His dad is real sick.”
“His dad is sick?”
“Dead. Actually, dead. He just died.” Louie gave the most pathetic smile in the history of humankind.
Humphrey turned away from Louie and the (scared) azalea bushes and posed, looking past the tennis court, out to the Pacific Ocean, to his private (rarely used) wooden dock that jutted out insignificantly into that Pacific Ocean, as it was splashed and sprinkled by sodium saturated water, dampening its brown edges into the color of dark molasses (or of Jack Daniels whiskey).
“You haven’t given him any money yet, have you?”
“No. No. I still got all of it.”
“Good. Is it enough?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s plenty. That wasn’t the problem. Like I said, it was a family emergency.”
Humphrey turned back and looked at Louie. “You haven’t gambled it all away, have you?”
“Mr. Humphrey, do I look like someone who would gamble all of your money away?” Louie looked exactly like someone who would gamble all of Humphrey’s money away.
Humphrey stepped to Louie and put his finger in his chest. “I want you to find me, not one, but two, of the meanest, dirtiest, slimiest, rottenest, most lethal s.o.b.s in the entire world. I don’t care what rocks you have to look under. I don’t care what deals you have to make, you find them. I’m not going to tolerate any more mistakes. I don’t want to hear any more excuses. No little pissant screenwriter is going to get the better of me. I want that fuck Benjamin Abbott dead.”