"I think it makes it hard to do other things, like get into college or have a real job, unless your application essay is about embracing your native culture and having a c.l.i.toridectomy."
"A what?"
"Never mind."
Walter Penny calls. "What the h.e.l.l," he demands, unpleasantly.
"Who the what?" I ask.
"Penny," he says. "Walter Penny. Buddy, you have got yourself one big problem. I am about to crawl so far up your a.s.s, you"re going to feel like you had sinus surgery."
"I think you dialed the wrong number."
"Why the h.e.l.l would I dial the wrong number?" he shouts. "I"m G.o.dd.a.m.ned calling to scream at you-you academically impaired idiot."
"What seems to be the problem?"
"International arms dealing."
"I have no idea what you"re talking about."
"Of course you have no idea, I wouldn"t expect you to have an idea. Let me be blunt, did you or did you not send your brother an iPad?"
"I did, as a birthday gift. I thought it would be nice to send pictures of the kids, or so he could map his way if he got lost in the woods, or stream movies on a cold winter night. It"s hard to think of what to get for a guy like George."
"You provided the hardware for illegal commerce on an international scale. We could throw you in jail and lose the key."
"That certainly wasn"t my intention," I say.
"Open your e-mail-I sent you something."
I go to the desk and, as instructed, open the mail; it"s a series of infrared aerial photos of George with the iPad in hand. There"s another guy peering over George"s shoulder.
"Is that your brother?"
"Sure looks like him. Who"s the other guy?"
"The Israeli arms dealer," Walter Penny says.
"How did he get in the picture?"
"He"s one of our inmates from New Jersey."
"But you said this program was only for hard-core types, not your average white-collar-"
"Quit whining. This guy is a former used-car dealer, Jersey Jewish mafioso, left his family for the Israeli army. When he came back, his wife had taken up with another man; he killed the guy point-blank at the dinner table, in front of everyone. Funny enough, we didn"t want to put some Israeli commando in one of our standard facilities. What the f.u.c.k made you think you could send your brother "presents"?"
"I didn"t think it was a big deal to send a birthday gift."
"You opened a portal to the free world, a.s.shole. These guys are on Amazon Prime and have stuff coming every day-food, clothing, p.o.r.nography." He stops screaming and then takes a long, thin sucking breath. "Where to begin?" Walter says. "This is now a federal incident, the purview of the Secret Service, ATF, FBI, and the CIA-that"s how big it gets. Can you imagine the number of eyes on my little pilot program that I worked so hard on, the one with the wood-grain logo, the one with the yellow, green, red, black-four-color printing! Can you imagine how fast they"d like to close me down? I"m disappointed in you, Silver. When we met, I thought you had some good ideas, a sense of justice. You presented yourself as a thinker, and it turns out you are just another idiot."
"What can I do to fix it?" I ask.
"We"re gonna come up with a plan," Walter says.
"It"s set up on auto-pay; I can cut it off. I"d be happy to do it right now, while we"re on the phone."
"Don"t do anything-we don"t want to arouse suspicions. Let me liaise with the others and get back to you. But for now, one move without my approval and you will go to jail. Oh, and think of something George would like to have, something he can"t get on Amazon."
Walter calls me again a few days later. "I have been in conversation with the related agencies: ATF, FBI, Secret Service, National Guard. We are going to use you as bait and bring the Israeli in."
"I am at your disposal," I say.
"You bet you are. E-mail George as per the address you got from Jason."
"You know about Jason?"
"He"s a good boy," Walter says.
"Is he in on this?"
"We"re using a range of a.s.sets."
"Have you been in my e-mail?"
"First stop on the tour," Walter says. "Tell George you"re driving up Friday night to get his signature on some paperwork."
"But I"ve got company on Friday-Ricardo will be here for the weekend," I say.
Walter Penny doesn"t even acknowledge what I"m saying. "Tell George you"re able to meet anytime after six on Friday through six on Sat.u.r.day."
I do as I"m told; George replies he can do it anytime before sundown on Friday or after sundown on Sat.u.r.day. I call Walter.
"c.r.a.p," Walter says, "this confirms my suspicion. Your brother is practicing Judaism. He and Lenny are observing the Sabbath; that"s what we"ve been seeing them doing on Friday nights. The feds couldn"t figure it out-said they were lighting some kind of "flares" and then sitting dormant-as if waiting for something. The feds couldn"t crack it."
"A Jersey used-car dealer got George hooked on religion?"
"Strange things happen when men are left to themselves." In the background a phone rings. "That"s the big boys-do nothing further until you hear from me."
Meanwhile, another message from George appears in my inbox: "When you come, bring my silk boxers-upstairs dresser on the left. And some cookware-pots, pans, a spatula, and a ladle-and maybe Mom"s old candlesticks, not the silver ones-gla.s.s?"
A little while later, the phone rings. "So what"s your special gift, something you can bring that he can"t get from Amazon?"
"Aunt Lillian"s chocolate-chip cookies," I say, not telling him that (a) I"m not in possession of her actual cookies and (b) I don"t have the recipe to attempt re-creation.
"It"s like the frontier; your brother and this Lenny character are running a general store up there. The bad boys bring them a dead duck and get Hershey bars in return. They"ve used the Amazon boxes to build themselves some sort of fort in a fort, which at the moment our camera can"t penetrate-we"re thinking it"s made out of some kind of river mud."
"Dung," I say. "Gra.s.s and dung."
"s.h.i.t?" Penny asks.
"Yes."
Aunt Lillian"s cookies. I make it my secret mission to replicate the cookies and the tin. I go to CVS, buy a tin of Danish b.u.t.ter Cookies, come home, play kick-the-can with it while I walk Tessie, send it through the dishwasher, tumble it in the clothes dryer on hot with a bunch of towels, basically abuse the h.e.l.l out of it, in a program to rapidly achieve the patina that would otherwise come with age. I buy the semi-sweet morsels, walnut halves, brown sugar, white sugar, vanilla, b.u.t.ter, flour, salt, baking soda, and remember the all-important tablespoon of warm water that Ashley told me about. Soon I am turning out Toll House hockey pucks that are equal in size, color, and lumpitude to Lillian"s famous. I leave them out to air-dry. Each day, fewer cookies remain-I say nothing to the suspected culprits at home, except that I am counting and know exactly what I"ve got, and I offer them a two-for-one special on the "defective" batch, which is actually far better.
And then, when I"ve got all the details, I call Ricardo"s aunt and tell her that I"ve got to work late in the city and ask if she can come and keep an eye on the kids.
"Of course," she says.
And then-the real craziness starts. Later, I will wonder if this part really happened or if I dreamed it.
I am directed to a location several hours from home, and then, once I"m there, I"m led by an unmarked car to a deserted airstrip lit like a film set. Parked on the dirt runway are a small private plane and two military helicopters. By the time I arrive, the sky is sinking from twilight to the flat black of a starless night. On the gra.s.s nearby are several unmarked black cars, four guys in ATF nylon jackets, a dozen or more National Guard in full gear, Secret Service men trying to look low-key in polo shirts and khakis, a couple of unidentified men, a.s.sumedly FBI or CIA, and Walter Penny with a clipboard and a whistle on a lanyard around his neck, looking like a coach, preparing for the big game. The field is lit with giant floodlights-there"s even a quilted silver snack truck serving hot coffee and doughnuts.
I take out a nine-by-twelve envelope filled with papers for George to sign, permission slips from school, bank forms, health forms for summer camp for the kids, release of doc.u.ments re the mortgage, etc.
"Are these for real?" Walter asks.
"Mostly," I say. "So what"s the plan?" I ask.
"We need the iPad and the Israeli. Beyond that, the less you know the better."
I notice some guys are working on my car-the hood and trunk are open.
"I"m sending you in with two hundred pounds of halvah," Walter Penny says, with some difficulty p.r.o.nouncing "halvah." He says it as though he"s been practicing in a mirror.
It triggers an instant flashback-cultural insensitivity. "Here we go again. Don"t you people ever learn?"
"What are you talking about?" Penny demands.
"Iran Contra," I say, "Oliver North, Robert McFarlane, and arms-for-hostages. They sent a Bible signed by Ronald Reagan and a chocolate cake shaped like a key-baked by an Israeli, no less."
"I still don"t know what you are talking about," Penny says.
"You may not, but I do," I say. "What"s the point of the halvah?"
"I figure it might appeal to this character; also high in fat, so good for these guys, and it"s not something the government food bank can distribute easily, with all the rules about nuts and seeds. They can"t use it in school lunches, hospitals, the VA, or old-age homes. And I was thinking the indigenous birds also like it. And if the men like it, we can get them more: apparently we"ve got tons-literally."
"At what point during this "mission" am I supposed to say, "Oh, and I have two hundred pounds of Middle Eastern sweets, aka Jew food, in the trunk if you"re interested"?"
"Play it by ear," one of the unidentified men says.
"And why are so many agencies involved?"
"The transactions were international, with multiple money sources, and involved what would have been considered top-secret information that seemed too easily accessible to your brother and the Israeli," Walter says.
"Do you think he"s a spy? A double agent?"
"I think it"s time to shut up and do your job," the unidentified man says. "One pointer, when you"re with your brother and this other guy, make sure to leave a s.p.a.ce between you and any other man-you don"t want to be collateral damage. Our soldiers are armed, the bullets are experimental pellets. We"re testing a glycerin-based product, with kind of an entry dart, something that we"ll be able to add an additional agent to if desired."
"Agent?"
"Like a nerve agent, or a bio agent, or a little sleeping medication. Nothing for you to worry about..."
Walter Penny resumes the lead: "Earlier this week, we dropped a marker that"s sending a signal; that"s the point you need to drive to. We put a GPS in your car that will lead you there. And we"re using the same marker for the operational a.s.sistants."
I must have looked confused.
"The soldiers," he says. "Your car has now been wired, it"s now miked inside and out. Do not talk with us or engage in any way en route in or out. It"s two-point-five miles in, down a rutted old road, really less of a road than a path."
Suddenly things are moving quickly. I"m ushered back into my car-sent packing.
The road is beyond dark, it is like driving into a tunnel from which all hope has been removed. The car"s headlights seem to frame things only a half-second before I am upon them. I keep driving blind towards the blinking light; a few times I am thrown off track by fallen trees and have to navigate around.
As I pull up to the spot, the GPS goes dark without my even turning it off. I flash the brights on and off a couple of times before getting out of the car.
I hear rustling in the bushes. George steps out into the headlights, looking pretty good in a kind of rough-hewn, Sunday-morning way.
"Hi, George, how are you doing?"
He moves to hug me, which seems uncharacteristic. "Are you hugging me or patting me down?" George doesn"t answer. "Glad you got the birthday gift."
"Lousy reception," George says. "If there"s cloud cover, I get nothing."
"What about Netflix?"
"Slow, very slow."
"Can I see? I"ve never seen one in person before." He unzips his jacket and takes it out. The iPad glows. "It really is a beautiful object, isn"t it?" I tap around at the various applications.
"How do I get to the pictures?" I ask.
George taps something, and the photos of the kids open up, interspersed with images of guns and other military paraphernalia.
"What"s that?"
"Just stuff," he says. "Remember how we used to play army and Hogan"s Heroes and all that?"
"Yeah," I say.
"I got back into it-not much to do up here."
"Fun," I say. I tap on his mailbox-an e-mail in Hebrew pops up. "Hard to read without my gla.s.ses," I say, pretending not to realize it"s in another language. Until I saw the photos of the missile launchers with Arabic writing, and the e-mails from Israel, I didn"t really believe Walter Penny-I thought it was some crazy game. But now it makes sense. George always liked to be a big shot, to wheel and deal, and playing war was a childhood favorite.
"It"s so f.u.c.king slow," George says, grabbing the iPad from me and shaking it like an Etch A Sketch.
"I"m sure there"ll be a faster one soon," I say, taking out the envelope of papers I need him to sign. "Sorry to bother you with this stuff; I"ve not been able to get your lawyer on the line."
"Me either," George says. "He"s not answering my e-mails."