The Autobiography of Benjamin Abbott - Chapter 16: The Pancakes
When Fingers woke up I was making pancakes. Angel had his gun now and she was watching him while I was busy in the kitchen area. He was still in his chair. He blinked a couple of times and wiped the drool from his mouth as he came to. It was morning. He had been unconscious all night.
“Pancakes?” I offered him some breakfast.
“What the fuck happened,” he said while holding his head.
“Oh, you were drugged.” (The oldest trick in the book. Well, second oldest. We’ll use the oldest trick later.)
“But…”
I walked over with a plate of pancakes and set it down on the coffee table. “You had to drink an entire glass for it to take effect.”
“How did you know which bottle I was going to pick?”
“I didn’t. I drugged them all. Syrup?” I didn’t wait for his answer and poured maple syrup over the pancakes and pushed them closer towards Fingers. He took the plate and looked at the pancakes.
“Don’t worry. They’re not drugged.”
After a brief hesitation, he started to eat the pancakes. The drugging had given him quite the appetite.
“Who’s she?” He nodded to Angel who was sitting to his left, she had moved my chair from across the coffee table closer to Fingers because she wanted to ‘keep a close eye on him.’
“A friend.”
“She looks familiar.”
“I speak English, asshole. You can direct your questions at me.” Angel didn’t like being talked about as if she wasn’t in the room.
Fingers turned his entire body to her, still holding the plate of pancakes. “Alright, sweetie. Why do you look familiar?”
“I don’t know, honey.” She stomped on his foot with one of her stilettos.
“You could say she works in a complimentary industry to yours.”
“Yeah, that’s it. You work on the corner of Franklin and Whitney for that little shithead, whatisname.”
“Ronnie Toledo.”
“Yeah, Ronnie Toledo.”
I turned to Angel, confused. “What’s a runny Toledo?”
“Ronnie Toledo. He’s my pimp.”
“I didn’t know you had a pimp.”
Both Angel and Fingers looked at me like I was an idiot, which I guess I was.
“Of course, I have a pimp.”
“You never mentioned him before.”
“I just assumed you knew.”
“I guess I never thought about it.”
“Most hookers have pimps, Ben.”
“I thought you prefer the term sex worker?”
She just kept staring at me like I was an idiot.
“I’m pretty sure Julia Roberts didn’t have one in Pretty Woman.” I don’t think my argument was very persuasive. “Hey, wait, is that where that bruise on your left arm came from?”
Angel wasn’t happy with me for mentioning this in front of our guest. “It’s not your problem,” she said through gritted teeth.
“That fucker. When I become the most powerful man in the world, he’s going to fucking pay.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Still gritted teeth. “We’re kind of on something else here.” She nodded to Fingers.
“Guys who beat women should have their testicles ripped off with a pair of pliers.” Fingers apparently didn’t like pimps, at least violent ones.
Angel now turned completely to Fingers, “so now Mr. Killerman here disapproves of me, too?”
“I’m just saying…”
“We’re just worried about you, that’s all.”
“Jesus Christ!” Angel exploded, leaping up from her chair. “I can take care of myself!”
The three of us stood there. Well, two of us stood there, Fingers was still in his chair with his pancakes. The moment had gotten a little awkward. Angel was unhappy with me. I didn’t know what to do. I was about to apologize to her for not knowing she had a pimp when Fingers spoke.
“If you’re so sure you’re going to take over the world, why do you need me?”
“Good. You remember our little talk from last night. I was kinda worried about that, the instructions on the drug weren’t completely clear about that part.” I sat down in Angel’s vacated chair. “For starters, my plan would be a lot easier to accomplish if somebody wasn’t trying to kill me.”
“If I don’t they will send someone else.”
“We’ll worry about that when we get to it. Secondly, I think you’d be an invaluable asset to our little organization here.”
Fingers put his plate of nearly finished pancakes down on the coffee table and looked at me with a Richard Kay-type of look of disbelief. I stood up and walked over to the couch and laid down in my thinking position, head on the northern armrest. I let the moment breathe. Then I remembered. “Oh, you don’t even know who hired you to kill me.”
“I know who hired me.”
“No, I mean the man with the money, the guy who hired the guy to hire you to kill me. Do you know who wants me dead?”
“No.”
“David Humphrey.”
“The name sounds familiar.”
“He’s only the Chairman and CEO of Landmark Communications, you have heard of them, haven’t you?”
“Of course. They make movies and shit.”
I sat up. “They don’t just make movies and shit. They’re the number one entertainment company in the world. And not just entertainment, but mobile phones, computers, banks, software, insurance, grocery stores…” I was trying to remember all of the stuff Humphrey had told me, “they even own clothing stores and online retail, why I bet you bought the shoes you’re wearing right now from one of their subsidiaries.” Fingers looked down at his boots, not shoes, then back up to me. I leaned over to Fingers from my position on the couch, he was within touching distance, “do you know why he wants to kill me?”
“No.”
“Because I won’t sell him a screenplay.”
“I hate this fucking town.”
“Oh, you love it and you know it.” Angel shot me a look of perturbed incomprehension as she realized I was serious when I told her this the previous day.
“So what’s this plan of yours?” Fingers was getting interested.
“I could tell you but then I would have to kill you.” Fingers didn’t laugh.
Instead, he turned to Angel who was still standing up, still holding Fingers’ gun on him. “Do you know?”
I put my hand on Fingers’ shoulder and gently turned him back to me. “This is a one-time offer. I have to know if I can trust you. If you’re up to being my right-hand man.” I looked deeply into his eyes. He squinted back at me. Then he looked at Angel. Then back to me. My hand was still on his shoulder.
“What the fuck, why not? I don’t like the guy who gave me this job anyway.”
“Glad to have you aboard.” I got up taking the plate of pancakes to the kitchen counter. “Angel, will you please give Fingers his gun back.”
“You really think I should do that, Ben. How do you know he’s not just playing along?”
I stayed at the kitchen counter, my back to both Angel and Fingers. I stared at a full bottle of Jack Daniels that was on my shelf amidst the many other tampered with liquor bottles.
“Because I trust him. Because an offer like this doesn’t come along every day. Because hitmen don’t have a pension plan.”
Then I listened and waited, my eyes on the molasses brown liquid hidden beneath a large black label with its distinctive customized white font. Angel was waiting, too. She didn’t move as my eyes unfocused on the golden alcoholic sea in that bottle, the dark molasses turning translucently warm as rays of sunshine successfully fought through the back alley and the window blinds and the building on the other side of the alleyway, into my apartment, lighting up the wall of my kitchen area giving it the color of fresh cookie dough after its first few minutes in the oven.
Finally, I heard the matter-of-fact business of mechanical objects being passed. Fingers had his gun back. I listened and waited again, closing my eyes as Fingers moved the gun back and forth in his hands playing with it the way cowboys or little boys do. I kept my eyes closed and took a deep breath when the movement and the playing stopped. The gun had a silencer on it so I wouldn’t hear anything. I didn’t find this reassuring. I think I would rather hear the gunshot in the imperceptibly small amount of time before the bullet impacted my body. How fast does sound travel?
And then he shot me.
And I died.