It was an airtight case and the accountant, happily anticipating his revenge, could not be reached. Until that day when he forgot everything after his first college course in double ledger entries.
And then Diamond Bill Pollenberg went free. He went back to his vast rangelands to enjoy nature. And he enjoyed it right up until a thin man with thick wrists told him that if he didn't explain some things right now, he was going to embed a horse's hoof in Mr. Pollenberg's rectum, and he was going to leave the horse attached.
Bill Pollenberg knew the time to use reason when he saw it. What he saw this day was two of his toughest range hands with their wrinkles rearranged on their faces, and tears of pain in their eyes.
“Howdy, podner,” said Pollenberg, offering the stranger a pot of coffee off the campfire. Pollenberg wore a ten-gallon hat, Levi's, and boots, which offset his $200,000 diamond pinkie ring perfectly. It was the only real diamond he had ever owned.
“Where'd you pick up this 'podner' stuff? I got you down as having been born on Mosholu Parkway in the Bronx.”
“I am a reasonable man. Let us reason together.”
“How'd you turn the witness?”
“I didn't do anything, friend. Have some coffee. Get with the positive forces. Unleash yourself. Become your real self.”
“What did you do to the witness?”
“The forces of the universe did it for me,” said Bill Pollenberg with a smile. Shortly thereafter, smiling Bill was found minus his diamond ring and serving as a cushion for his favorite horse's right rear hoof. Every time the horse used his hoof, Bill Pollenberg's stomach met part of his vast rangeland. The diamond ring was recovered from a little girl in downtown Oklahoma City who said a nice man gave it to her because she had such a pretty smile.
* * *
On a yacht cruising the Pacific along the California coast, Angelo Muscamente met his underbosses, his oily courtesy coating the ever-present malevolence that made his organization one of the smoothest-running in the country. They all had survived what had been the greatest threat to their freedom in a decade and they had gotten their reprieve when a minor enforcer, a witness, suddenly forgot everything.
No one who knew Mr. Muscamente believed for one moment he had not stretched his long powerful arms out to reach Gennaro “Drums” Drumola. Everyone knew that crossing Mr. Muscamente meant pain at least, and death at most. Those offenses that brought the death penalty were those jobs that cost Mr. Muscamente anything over $5,000. Because the boss was unreasonable and unbendable about the arbitrary line, only petty thievery could flourish in his mob. As his lieutenants boarded his yacht, each kissed his offered hand.
“Mr. Muscamente, it is a pleasure to be here,” said one after another.
“Yeah. Okay,” said Mr. Muscamente, receiving the homage with boredom. There were fourteen, all told, who were finally assembled on the rear deck of his oceangoing yacht Mama. They sat on small chairs, each with a small table in front of him. Whatever they wanted to drink or eat was set before them so that they would not have to call for anything. When Mr. Muscamente spoke, he did not like interruptions. Several of the underbosses made sure they used the head before he began. The yacht's crewmen were told they were not appreciated at the stern, but should go forward.
But these were not exactly the words Mr. Muscamente's bodyguards used.
“Ey! Youse guys. Get outta here. Go to the front. I don't want to see none of youse here no more. You hear? Now beat it.”
When the decks were cleared of outsiders, Mr. Muscamente cleared his throat. He sat on a slightly higher chair near the rear railing. He wore his yachtsman's double-breasted blue blazer and white slacks with Top-Siders. Mr. Muscamente had seen others wear this uniform, and he had ordered it by having two of his men muscle a fellow yachtsman into a clothing store and find out what the clothes were called by saying:
“What's dis guy wearing?”
Then he ordered it for himself. And so from his high seat on his yacht Mama, perfectly attired in his seafaring regalia, Angelo Muscamente spoke now to his underbosses about a wonderful revelation.
“You see in me a new person,” said Mr. Muscamente.
Everyone agreed.
“But it is not new. Not new at all,” said Mr. Muscamente. He waited for everyone to agree with his contradiction.
“Now, how can this be, you may ask yourselves.”
“Good question, boss,” said Santino “Big Jelly” Jellino.
“There is within all of us a positive power we fight against.”
“We'll beat the shit out of it, boss,” said Big Jelly.
“Shut up,” said Mr. Muscamente kindly.
“Right, boss. Everyone shut up,” said Big Jelly.
“Mostly you, Big Jelly,” said Mr. Muscamente. “Now, how can there be another good person locked inside a struggling negative person?”
Only the sound of the engine purring belowdecks could be heard. No one was going to answer the question. Everyone avoided the eyes of everyone else. No one wanted it to be known that he didn't have the slightest idea what the boss was talking about.
Mr. Muscamente talked of the forces of the universe being good. He talked of astral power. He talked of a far distant planet that all mankind came from, which was what made them different from animals. They all waited for the pitch. When Joey “Fingers” Phalange heard the name Poweressence mentioned, he suddenly thought he understood what it was all about.
“Yeah. I could have bought one of those franchises from the Dolomos back in seventy-eight, real cheap. I know a guy that got stuck with one, though. What with all the bad publicity, alligators in swimming pools and everything, those franchises ain't gonna be worth salt in a year or two. I say we stay out of them.”
“That alligator was attracted to that columnist's pool because alligators are negative astral creatures that respond to negative astral forces. That columnist drew the alligator to himself. No one put it in his pool,” said Mr. Muscamente.
“No, boss. They got the guy that bought Exhibit A for the Dolomos. They got him in court. He nailed 'em. That appeal they got won't do business. The Dolomos are goin' to the slammer.”
“Not if we can help it.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We are going to do a hit on that turncoat traitor.”
“Because we're takin' over Poweressence. We buy in on the franchise low now, remove the witness, then we got somethin' that's worth somethin'. I see,” said Big Jelly. Everyone nodded. Mr. Muscamente ruled almost as much through his brains as he did through terror.
“We are not touching one positive center. We are protecting it,” said Mr. Muscamente.
“We sell the Dolomos protection,” said Fingers.
“We sell nothing. We buy. I am entering you all at Level One. I don't want no negative consciousness around me. You are going to release your blocks. You are going to function with the forces of good, namely us. Anyone against us is evil. Got it?”
There were many yesses. The only thing they didn't understand was why Mr. Muscamente needed Poweressence to think everyone against them was evil. They had thought like that since childhood.
On the bridge, the captain noticed something moving toward the Mama. He brought his binoculars to bear, focused, then refocused.
Finally he asked the first mate to verify what he saw.
“Are my eyes going?” he asked.
The first mate focused, then he too refocused.
“I don't know what it is either. It looks like a man in a dark T-shirt and gray pants, swimming toward us.”
“At twenty knots? Fourteen miles out in the Pacific?”