Paulie Five Fingers

I picked up the videotape and examined the label. “It’s in Japanese,” I complained.

Paulie Five Fingers smiled down at me. “It has been my observation that many films made in Japan are Japanese,” he noted.

“Does it have subtitles, at least?”

“Zepp, would it kill you to learn a little Japanese?”

I remembered my efforts to learn Spanish in high school. Yes, it probably would kill me. I remembered trying out some of my French on a blind date, having heard that no American girl could resist a well-turned French phrase. Turns out that Steven Leacock lied to me when he described “mon petit pacquet de lange sale” as an endearment.

Well, maybe Artie the Pearl would be willing to sit in on the film and translate for me. Artie had this preternatural thing going with languages. He once gutteraled something vaguely Germanic at me, and explained that what he said was in a Mayan dialect that no human tongue had uttered in over 1,500 years. When I noted that a human tongue had, in fact, done just that, he just smiled enigmatically at me. 

But Artie translating, even if perfectly, did present problems. Paulie had loaned me a movie called Utomlyonnye Solntsem and I had sat through about twenty minutes of it before realizing that the dialogue wasn’t just a particularly thick Welsh accent but was, in fact, Russian. So I rewound and called Artie in to translate. The movie was supposed to be about a colonel and his family and how they have happy and productive lives destroyed by the Stalinist purges of the thirties. Artie left after twenty minutes – just when I was really getting engrossed – shouting that he had no time for frivolities. I’m not sure what happened after that, except the wife and daughter vanished and the colonel looked pretty unhappy about that. I think I may have missed some of the nuances. 

I handed the movie back to Paulie. “I won’t understand what’s going on?”

He cocked an eyebrow at me. “This is Kiyohiko Ushihara's ‘Shingun.’ You will understand it.” 

“How?”

“It is a silent movie, Zepp. That shouldn’t tax you too grievously.”

“Oh. Well, in that case...” I took the videotape – Paulie didn’t like DVDs because he tended to lose them – and put it on a shelf next to my office set for viewing later. I was still getting used to my sixty inch plasma high definition set – it was distinctly better than the 13" black and white set I bought at a yard sale for $5 two years ago, and it suited the decor of my new office.

Speaking of which, this was Paulie’s first visit to my new digs. I noticed him trying not to notice the refined air of opulence that surrounded us. “Want to see my personal quarters? Upstairs. No more wading through three feet of snow to get to work.”

“It appears that fortune has smiled upon you. I recall last winter you explaining that you preferred to sit in the dark when, in fact, you had the electricity turned off due to non-payment of your bill.”

Nuts. I was hoping he hadn’t figured that out. 

“I would have loaned you money on that, Zepp.”

I shrugged. Paulie’s loans tended to have a monkey’s paw quality to them. When dealing with Paulie, it was much better to have him owe you a solid rather than the reverse. Besides, I function better in an office that’s dark and below freezing and doesn’t have a computer or a radio to distract me. Although I noticed I didn’t do that much any more. 

“So what brought about this sudden burst of upward mobility?”

“Have you heard of ‘In The Pure Light of Love’ by Sananda? 

“The New Age book that is the new bible here and in Sedona?”

“That’s the one. Still on the New York Times best seller list.”

“Zepp, you are not going to tell me you wrote that. I know your views on rationalism.”

“Of course I didn’t write it. But I did copy edit it, and the author promised me points if I did a good job.”

“This ‘Sananda” fellow? Who is he, actually?”

I smiled and shrugged. “The author feels that individual identity is a distracting irrelevancy to his important message to the world.”

Paulie eyed me. “What does that mean?”

“Paulie, would it kill you to learn New Age jargon? It means the author’s identity is secret, and he wants to keep it that way.” Paulie grumped and looked around my office, which was roughly the size of a cozy movie theatre. It had been six offices just a month earlier, of which one was mine. As I said, there had been some changes. 

Artie channeled the manuscript for “In the Pure Light of Love”, but Artie’s channeling style tended to be a little prolix, and he had sensed that perhaps I could untangle his sentences – elaborate constructions and the complexity and size of a Saturn V rocket – and make his message a bit more approachable to the mass market. I took on the task of copy editing with a firm rule that no sentence was to exceed 150 words in length and have no more than three subjunctive clauses, and the rest, as they say, is history. I get 75 cents a copy, which doesn’t sound like much until you realize that he’s sold over three million copies. So far. This gave me a little discretionary income, while making Artie richer than God, and catching up to Steven King. 

Artie wrote – excuse me, he channeled – ‘In the Pure Light’ while sojourning in Nepal. He came back with the manuscript – then 750 pages, now 350, and a decree from the King naming him third in line to the throne. He promised me to tell me the story behind that one day. I can’t wait. The last time I visited a foreign country, the cops ripped apart my car looking for drugs. Nepal must be more happy and stable than Canada, I guess.

Paulie continued to explore the office, a shark swimming in a tank. As he did so, I took the opportunity to reappraise the nature of my relationship with him. Before Artie’s book, I was cautious in my dealings with Paulie, since as noted, owning Paulie a favor could be hazardous. You might never know when he would call in a favor, or how, but it was pretty easy to guess that if you were not to return his favor with due alacrity, that would not be showing proper respect. And other clichés from every bad mobster movie ever made. That could be hazardous to one’s health. As a result, I was fastidious about trading off on who bought lunch at the fish and chip place, and always rejected any offers to do me a favor that Paulie might offer. I did speech writing for him, but it was straight quid pro quo; I put in X amount of work, he paid me the going rate. 

Having money improved my bargaining position somewhat. You don’t deal with Paulie when broke for the same reason you don’t sit down at a five-to-open poker game with just two bucks in your pocket.

But I was feeling a bit of paranoia. Money was Paulie’s fourth most favorite thing in the world behind only (in ascending order) food, movies, and power. Could Paulie be examining the evidence of my new wealth while contemplating ways in which he might avail himself of that wealth?

But I was feeling only a bit of paranoia, since I had a secret weapon. Actually, I always had this secret weapon, which is why I was willing to deal with Paulie in the first place. (Well, that, and the fact that I liked the guy–he really was an awesome movie buff, and politically we got along.)

Paulie was pretty sharp. He had to suspect I had something in reserve.

I glanced out the window, which gave me a view of both blocks of the main boulevard. A powder-blue limo was pulling up to the curb. “Paulie, your remora is here.” Oh, damn. Did I really say that out loud?

“My what?”

“Um, Creeping Jimmy. Your ride is here.”

“You called him a ... remora?”

“Yeah. Little fish that swims around with a sh...with a bigger fish and tends to his needs. Sort of a gentleman’s aide.”

Paulie smiled. Apparently that explanation appealed to him. 

“So will we do lunch at the usual hour?”

“Sure. Meet you there?”

“It’s on our way. We’ll pick you up.” Paulie spun on his heel and swept out of the office, with nothing to show he had been there but a few whiffs of garlic and Parmesan in the air behind him. 

I watched him climb into the limo, and slowly it moved off. “The usual hour” was only an hour off. As Paulie pulled out, a silver hybrid pulled into one of the two parking spots Jimmy had just vacated. 

I considered going down and pestering the driver for a closer look. With gas crowding five bucks a gallon and Congressmen howling that it was immoral for Canadians to hoard the Alberta Petroleum reserves for themselves, the idea of lower gas consumption had a considerable allure. 

Then the driver stepped out, and I decided to wait until he had come in my office. Artie the Pearl had a new set of wheels, it seemed. I smiled as I watched him climb out of the gleaming silver car. His last vehicle had been a leprous rust bucket shaped like a flying saucer that had a life expectancy of about 10 miles when he bought it, and it didn’t even make it that far. Given how much he paid for it, I might not have grinned so fondly, since I don’t like seeing my friends get cheated. But Artie found a bag of gold in the car – actually, I found it, now that you mention it – and it made Artie rich enough to go to Nepal, and me rich enough to pay my bills and get the electricity turned back on. The gold coins were worth several thousand times what Artie paid for that car, and I devoutly hoped that the guy who sold him Priscilla got around to hearing about it at some point.

Artie actually spent time trying to find the rightful owner of that gold. No luck finding the guy who held the pink on the Pacer; he was long gone. Going back to 1972, when the car was first made, there just weren’t any reports of 80 pounds of standing liberty double eagles having gone missing anywhere. So Artie got to keep it, and I was able to convince him not to put any of that money into trying to resuscitate Priscilla, the luckless automotive repository for the coins. 

I saw Artie peering at the door panel just below the drivers’ side window, and realized I had better introduce him to the concept of electronic locks before his new toy got stolen. When I came out the door, Artie was still swiveling his head between the remote in his hand and the flush door panel with some perplexity. I held out my hand, and said “Allow me.” Wordlessly, Artie handed me his key ring, and I aimed at the door and pushed the button. The car responded with a obliging beep, and a thunk as both doors locked. The car chirruped to let me know the alarm was set, and I handed the key back to Artie, who was staring at his new car with stunned amazement. Uneasily, I wondered how I was going to explain the workings of the talking GPS console to him. I didn’t want him driving down I-5 at 70 miles an hour only to have his car vouchsafe a divine revelation to him about how he was now passing out of Shasta County. Bad enough that he gets those at three in the morning. 

“Um, Artie, do you have a passcode set for that car?

“Passcode?”

Uh-oh. “You know. A number you type in on the back of the key dealie to open it back up.”

Artie brightened. “Oh, yes. Two Oh One Two.”

I would have guessed that quickly enough. The date was a significant one on Artie’s future earth calendar. Nor was he likely to forget it while out in the middle of Nevada or someplace like that. Still, I better advise him not to get personalized plates that say “Ascend2012" or something like that, or he would be going through a lot of missing cars. I tapped in the numbers, and the car beeped and opened the driver’s door. I nodded, impressed, and walked around the vehicle, inspecting. I definitely wanted to get one of those. 

The car, apparently deciding the door had been open for too long, said “Your door is ajar.”

Artie looked at the car, perplexed. “The door is a door,” he explained. “Only a jar can be a jar.” Damn, I thought, he’s going to get into a metaphysical debate with a 128K computer chip. Artie pointed his keypad at the car. The door closed almost noiselessly, followed by the reassuring chirp-thunk. Artie nodded, self-satisfied. He knew how to win a debate with a computer, it seemed.

OK, I thought. Maybe this will work out. It used to be you drove cars. In the computer age, you had relations with them. Artie didn’t seem adaptable in that way, but he’d surprised me before.

We went up to my office. Artie looked around, impressed. “Didn’t you have one small room in here, and nobody else would rent the others?”

“I bought the building and made a few improvements.”

“Humph.” Artie strode over and examined my screen. It was in computer mode, and I had a five-foot-wide high resolution game of Solitaire going. He eyed me. “Feel like doing a little work?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Sure. What you got?”

“An important announcement about the Mafia and the Bilderburgs.” 

“Hmmm.” I decided I would find out as I read it. “Let’s see.”

Artie handed me a sheaf of lined notepad paper with his characteristic blue ink penmanship. I flicked a finger at a chair, my version of an invitation to take a seat, and turned to my keyboard. 

I spent several minutes making tappity-tap noises on my keyboard when I came to a sudden halt. I looked over to Artie and tapped his paper with an index finger. “Artie, I know this guy. I’m pretty sure he isn’t an extraterrestrial lizard.”

Artie couldn’t quite see what I was pointing at. “Know which guy?”

I rattled off the name, tapped the sheet. “Him. He’s the guy I call Paulie Five Fingers.”

“THAT’S him?” Artie corkscrewed his head forward a quarter turn, mouth agape. “Zepp, he’s one of the very worst of the Darkworkers! He is evil incarnate!”

I might have said Paulie leaned more toward tacky rather than evil, but couldn’t think of any way of saying that which wouldn’t put me in deep trouble with somebody. “He’s not a lizard, Artie. I’ve shaken his hand. He’s endothermic.”

Artie wasn’t having any of it. He hugged his arms around his thin frame and rocked back and forth, considering. “Zepp, I need time to reflect on this,” he said stiffly. Would you mind if I go over to your couch to think?” 

I managed not to heave a sigh. “Sure, sure. You want me to go ahead and finish this?”

Artie nodded and trotted over to my new sofa. I kept typing, paying closer attention to the content than usual. Artie had channeled from some deity or another a revelation that the Illuminati and the Mafia were in cahoots, which in and of itself wasn’t particularly surprising. Both organizations believed strongly in the principles of applied libertarianism, after all. But Artie had gotten his hands on a list of various Dons from around the country, including a well-known eastern state that I’ll refer to here as NJ, and a well-known five-fingered candidate for Senate there whose last name had more than the usual percentage of vowels. Paulie was just one of about 25 names Artie had gotten from somewhere, and he would probably be amused to know he was being written of as one of the council of Satan’s imps. Just another thing to mention in the confessional. But I wasn’t sure what he would make of being called a lizard, or for that matter, an “international banker.” 

I glanced at the time on my screen. Paulie wasn’t due back for 50 minutes. Artie’s job shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes. This would work.

I had a feeling that this would not be a good time for Paulie and Artie to meet.

Thus it was that the universe conspired to have a knock come at my door. “C’mon in!” I shouted with absolutely no sense of looming catastrophe.

Paulie swept in. “Zepp, I would ask that you focus your attention on the parking spot directly in front of your office.”

“Paulie, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“And indeed I have a couple of items that require my attention. But you had indicated, had you not, that you were interested in acquiring one of those hybrid vehicles? I am happy to tell you that an excellent example of such is presently parked just three feet in front of your door.”

I glanced over. Artie was peering at Paulie with intense concentration. I could almost hear his brain making comparisons between what he was seeing and several fuzzy old newspaper pictures. 

Paulie babbled on happily. “It is the very model that I was going to recommend to you. Indeed, I have a nephew who can be persuaded to sell you one at cost, if you should so desire. Are you just going to sit there? Come, have a look!”

Artie spoke up. “You’re the one they call ‘Paulie Five Fingers’, aren’t you?”

Paulie jumped violently and emitted a noise that sounded suspiciously like a squeak. Paulie, who normally regards his surroundings with a level of scrutiny similar to that of a Siamese cat caught in a dog kennel, had failed to notice Artie sitting on my couch. Well, Artie does do unobtrusive quite well. 

Artie picked himself up off the sofa and strolled over. I would like to say that he stood face to face with Paulie, but at a foot and a half shorter and at about one third Paulie’s size, it was more like face-to-diaphragm. Artie put his hands on his hips and looked up at Paulie. “You’re not as big as I imagined.”

I doubt Paulie had heard that one before. Or maybe he was still getting over the surprise that he could miss seeing a third person in the room. In any case, he didn’t reply.

Artie looked pensive. “I would like to take an energy reading on you.”

Paulie found his voice. “An energy reading? Excuse me, but who are you?”

“I am Nephithimias ben Josef ben Yeshua, ascended master and potentate of the sixth dimension.” 

Paulie got a “that’s funny, you don’t LOOK Jewish” expression. “And what might this ‘energy reading’ be about?” Paulie flicked an eye at me. I patted the air in front of me. He’s harmless, Paulie, he’s harmless. Be cool.

By way of an answer, Artie went over, and grunting slightly with effort, pulled a chair over. He hopped up, bringing his nose level with Paulie’s forehead, and fished in his vest pocket. Paulie watched his motions carefully, but seemed disinclined to interfere with Artie. Unbidden, the mental image of a shark and his remora came back to mind. 

Artie pulled out a small quartz crystal that hung in a clasp at the end of a light silver chain. Reaching above Paulie’s head, he began moving the crystal like a tiny pendulum, watching it carefully. Paulie rolled his eyes up, and Artie leaned into his field of view. “The scan goes better if you relax and just let your vision unfocus.”

Well, Paulie already looked a little less focused than usual, but I didn’t think it would be helpful to volunteer that particular thought. Somewhat to my surprise, Paulie obliged, staring blankly at the script on my wall monitor/TV. Artie continued to sway his little pendulum when it suddenly stopped, hanging down motionless. No, I don’t know how he did that.

“Something is sucking all the positive energy right here...” Artie pointed to Paulie’s left shoulder. “Do you have something there? Something perhaps dark and metallic?”

Paulie actually grinned. “Realized I was packing, did you? ” Paulie reached under his coat and pulled out a 9mm. “I use it for pest control.”

“Those must be substantial pests.”

“Sometimes at first they are substantial, yes.”

“May I see the gun?”

To my utter amazement, Paulie handed his gun to Artie. I would never in a million years have expected to see that happen. 

Artie took it gingerly, and his eyes widened at the expected heft of the gun. I wondered if he had ever actually held a gun before. Artie, still standing on the chair, and with one arm holding the still motionless plumb line over Paulie’s head, twisted the gun so he could see along the barrel. This brought the muzzle directly in line with Paulie’s left nostril, and Paulie pulled his head back and looked apprehensive, perhaps realizing the folly of handing his weapon over to a total stranger.

To this day I don’t believe Paulie thought Artie meant him any harm. Paulie didn’t look frightened; he looked like a man who just noticed that the dog had the TV remote in its mouth. He started to raise a hand to push the barrel away from his face...

And of course, that’s when Creeping Jimmy, puzzled that his boss hadn’t reappeared with me in tow, came in. Of course. You saw that coming, didn’t you? I didn’t.

Creeping Jimmy also made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a squeak, and pulled his own weapon, a .357 magnum. He fired off six rounds in about half as many seconds, filling the office with light and sound. I had yelled “Jimmy! No!” and had just gotten to the “no” part when Jimmy stopped firing.

He stood peering into the clouds of smoke. Artie was still standing in the chair, holding the pendulum in one hand and Paulie’s gun in the other, and looking at Jimmy with an air of mild disapproval. “You know,” Artie said, “if I didn’t believe in unconditional acceptance, I would say that you suffer from second-dimension warrior consciousness.”

Jimmy never was much on conversation. He started tugging out a second gun to resume firing.

It was about then that I got around to wondering where the hell Paulie had gotten to. 

My sofa, which weighed about 300 pounds, was several feet out from the wall. I was pretty sure it hadn’t been there five seconds ago. I guessed I knew were Paulie was. I hoped he wasn’t hit. Having a made guy die in your office from gunfire probably might have repercussions.

And how come Artie was still standing? Paulie had once bragged to me that Jimmy could shoot the eyelashes off a lizard at 50 yards. Artie was a tough old bird, but somehow I doubted he could shake off six 9mm slugs at a range of less than twelve feet. He should have vanished in a red mist. Instead, he was standing there calmly and shaking his head dolefully at Jimmy.

Jimmy was pulling a bead. The first shots were to distract. This one was to kill.

I realized I was still shouting “Jimmy! No!” over and over, and it wasn’t having any effect. I started running toward him.

I heard Paulie shout from behind the sofa. “James! Stop! Sit!” Then, in a stentorian Von Stroman voice, “Jimmy! PLATZ!” 

Jimmy immediately sat down, head down, hands in lap. It was like he hadn’t been trying to murder someone just one second earlier.

I blinked. Clearly there were elements to the relationship between Paulie and Jimmy of which I was unaware.

Paulie, with some difficulty, grabbed the back of the couch and pulled himself erect. I had a hunch his 1.2 seconds of exercise when the shooting started was going to leave him with some sore muscles.

He glowered at Artie. “I see that you have not been perforated by my associate. You do realize that you are most fortunate, do you not?”

“Paulie, can’t you keep your goddam goon under control when you visit?” Maybe it was just adrenaline, but I was suddenly furious.

Startled, Paulie turned to me. “James was doing what he has been trained to do, and that is to protect me against threats.”

“You weren’t being threatened, you dumb asshole.”

Paulie inhaled deeply and stared at me. “I believe you are correct. However, James could not have known that.”

“Why the hell did you give him your gun? Were you trying to get Jimmy to shoot at him?”

Paulie startled, and I think we both realized at the exact same moment that Paulie really had no idea why he did that. 

Paulie doesn’t like being put in a position where he looks irrational or where his judgement might be questioned. In icy tones, he said, “Zepp, I trust you will reflect on improving your methods of accommodating guests in the future. James, you may get up now.”

As Jimmy scrambled to his feet, I shot back, “Most of my guests don’t panic and shoot up the place.”

“Send me a bill,” Paulie replied. And they swept out the door.

Artie strolled over to my desk, and, distaste evident on his face, carefully placed Paulie’s forgotten gun on my desk. He turned to me. “I don’t wish to hold you in judgement,” he said frostily, “but I would suggest that you put some personal consideration into the nature of the people you choose to associate with, if only for the safety of your real friends.” And with that, he too swept out, leaving me with the gun and six bullet holes in my wall.

Shit. How did I become the villain in all this?

I walked over and examined the bullet holes. It was a precise circle, six holes, each about 60 degrees from the next, with a diameter of about four inches. Never let it be said that Jimmy wasn’t a good shot. A good thing that Artie didn’t want to be hit. It might have been messy, otherwise.

I looked at the holes. Nothing a little spackling and paint couldn’t fix. But my TV, my beautiful brand new 60" plasma screen, the one which had covered that particular section of wall, was a shattered ruin.

For lack of anything better to do, I spoke to the bullet holes.

“My. That worked out well, didn’t it?” And then I started laughing.