“Exactly,” Mo said.
“We took the wrong guy,” the driver said.
“No shit,” Eugene said.
“How was I to know? He’s the right height. He’s got brown hair. He’s sort of weasely.”
“Gregor is going to be pissed,” Eugene said. “We already called and told him we had Vinnie. He’s coming out to personally cut off his nuts.”
“Call him and tell him we made a mistake,” the driver said.
“What are you, crazy?” Eugene said. “Remember what happened to Ziggy when he brought
Gregor the wrong Dairy Queen Blizzard?”
“Yeah,” the driver said. “Gregor hit him in the head with a hammer, and now Ziggy falls over when he takes a leak.”
“I got an idea,” Eugene said. “Why don’t we douse the van with gasoline, set it on fire, and shove it off a cliff? Then we tell Gregor there was a faulty gas pedal, and the van went out of control and crashed, and we all got out just in time, except we couldn’t rescue Vincent.”
“That might work,” Mo said.
“Wait a minute,” the driver said. “We don’t have to get all that elaborate. Has Gregor ever seen Vincent Plum?”
“Not that I know,” Eugene said.
“Then what’s the problem?” the driver said. “We tell him this is Vincent Plum. That way, Gregor gets to cut someone’s nuts off, and he won’t be disappointed that he made the trip out here.”
“Yeah, but this guy will tell Gregor he’s not Plum,” Mo said.
The driver shrugged. “We’ll leave the tape on his mouth.”
“Gregor won’t like that,” Eugene said. “He likes when people scream and beg.”
“So we wait until Gregor starts working on him,” the driver said, “and then we take the tape off when this guy’s in the screaming stage.”
Everyone thought about that for a beat.
“It could work,” Mo said.
Eugene agreed.
“Okay, so we have a plan,” Eugene said. “Let’s haul these two into the house. We’ll put them in the tower room. When Gregor gets here, we’ll take this guy to the kitchen, because it has a tile floor for easy cleanup. And then we’ll save the girl for ourselves for later.”
“Mmmrmph,” Mooner said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Eugene said to Mooner. “It only hurts in the beginning, and then you faint.”
I was dragged out of the van, and Mo put me over his shoulder like a bag of sand. This was the first chance I had to see the house and its surroundings. There was a large lawn surrounding the house. Beyond the lawn, there were dense trees. Long, paved driveway leading to the house. The house itself could hardly be called a house. It was a fortress. It was ominous gray stone and huge. It defied description. It had a tower with turrets, like a medieval castle. If I had to imagine a house for a Bulgarian maniacal mobster, this would be it.
TWENTY-SEVEN
WE WERE CARRIED inside and up to the tower room. The bindings were cut away from our ankles but left on our wrists. The tape was ripped off our mouths.
“Gregor won’t be here for a while,” Eugene said, “so make yourself comfortable.” And he closed and locked the door.
“I like my nuts,” Mooner said. “I don’t want them cut off. I’d be, like, nutless then.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll get rescued.”