The old saw is that public schools never change except that they seem smaller. The old saw held serve in here—linoleum floor, metal lockers, wooden classroom doors with metal-mesh glass windows. He arrived at room 207. There was a sign on the window so you couldn’t see in. The sign read, RÉUNION EN COURS. NE PAS DÉRANGER. Myron didn’t speak much French, but he knew that the second part was asking him to please wait.
He looked for a schedule sheet, something listing times and parents and whatever. Nothing. He wondered what to do here. There were two laminated class chairs in front of most of the doors. The chairs looked sturdy and practical and about as comfortable as a tweed thong. Myron debated waiting in one of them, but suppose the parents for the next meeting showed up?
He chose instead to wander the corridor and keep a close eye on the door. It was 10:20 A.M. Myron assumed that most meetings ended on the half hour or maybe quarter hour. This was a guess, but probably a good one. Fifteen minutes per meeting, maybe thirty minutes. At a minimum, it would be every ten minutes. Either way, the next meeting would be at ten thirty. If no one showed by, say, 10:28, Myron would meander back to the door and try to get in at ten thirty A.M.
Myron Bolitar, Master Planner.
But parents did show up by 10:25 A.M. and pretty much in a steady stream until noon. So that no one would notice him hanging around, Myron wandered downstairs when meetings would start, hid in the bathrooms, stayed in the stairwell. Serious boredom set in. Myron noticed that most of the fathers wore blue blazers and jeans. He had to update his wardrobe.
Finally at noon, there appeared to be an opening. Myron waited by the door and smiled as the parents exited. So far, Joel Fishman had not made an appearance. He waited in the room while one set of parents replaced another. The parents would knock on the door, and Fishman would call out, “
Entrez.
”
Now Myron knocked, but this time there was no reply. He knocked again. Still nothing. Myron turned the knob and opened the door. Fishman sat at his desk, eating a sandwich. There was a can of Coke and package of Fritos on the desk. Ponytail looked so different without the, well, ponytail. His faded yellow dress shirt was short sleeved with material thin enough to see the wife-beater tee below. He wore one of those UNICEF kid ties that were all the rage in 1991. His hair was short, close-cropped, parted on the side. He looked exactly like a middle school French teacher and nothing like a nightclub drug dealer.
“May I help you?” Fishman said, clearly annoyed. “Parent meetings start up again at one.”
Another one fooled by the clever disguise. Myron pointed at the Fritos. “Got the munchies?”
“Excuse me?”
“Like when you’re high. You got the munchies?”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a clever reference to . . . never mind. My name is Myron Bolitar. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Who?”
“Myron Bolitar.”
Silence. Myron again almost added, “Ta-da,” but refrained. Maturity.
“Do I know you?” Fishman asked.
“You don’t.”
“I don’t have your child in any of my classes. Mrs. Parsons also teaches French. Perhaps you’re supposed to be there. Room two-eleven.”
Myron closed the door behind him. “I’m not looking for Mrs. Parsons. I’m looking for Crush.”
Fishman froze mid-chew. Myron moved across the room, grabbed the parent chair, twirled it around, straddled it macholike. Mr. Intimidation. “On most men, a ponytail reeks of midlife crisis. But I kind of liked it on you, Joel.”
Fishman swallowed whatever was in his mouth. Tuna fish from the smell. On whole wheat, Myron saw. Lettuce, tomato. Myron wondered who’d made it for him or whether he’d made it himself and then he wondered why he wondered stuff like that.
Fishman slowly reached for the Coke, looking to stall, and took a sip. Then he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Can you do me a favor?” Myron asked. “It’s a small one, really. Can we skip the silly denials? It will really save time and I don’t want to hold up the parents coming in at one.”
Myron tossed him one of the stills from the nightclub.
Fishman glanced at the photograph. “That’s not me.”
“Yes, Crush, it is.”
“That man has a ponytail.”
Myron sighed. “I just asked for one small favor.”
“Are you a police officer?”
“No.”
“When I ask like that, you have to tell the truth,” he said. Not true, but Myron didn’t bother to correct him. “And I’m sorry, but you have me mistaken for someone else.”
Myron wanted to reach across the desk and bop the guy on the forehead. “Last night at Three Downing, did you notice a large woman in a Batgirl costume?”
Fishman said nothing, but the guy would not have made a great poker player.
“She followed you home. We know all about your club visits, your drug dealings, your—”
That was when Fishman pulled a gun out of his desk drawer.
The suddenness caught Myron off guard. A cemetery goes with a school about as much as a teacher pulling a gun on you inside of his classroom. Myron had made a mistake, gotten overconfident in this setting, let down his guard. A big mistake.
Fishman quickly leaned across the desk, the gun inches from Myron’s face. “Don’t move or I’ll blow your goddamn head off.”
When someone points a gun at you, the whole world has a tendency to shrink down to the approximate size of the opening at the end of the barrel. For a moment, especially if it is your first time having a firearm thrust in your face at eye level, that opening is all you see. It is your world. It paralyzes you. Space, time, dimensions, senses are no longer factors in your life. Only that dark opening matters.
Still, Myron thought, slow time down.
The rest happened in less than a second.
First: The mental-state “would he pull the trigger” calculation. Myron looked past the gun and into Fishman’s eyes. They were wide and wet, his face shiny. Plus Fishman had pulled a gun on him in a classroom while people were still in the school. His hand shook. The finger was on the trigger. You put those pieces together and you realize a simple truth: The man was crazy and thus may indeed shoot you.
Second: Size up your opponent. Fishman was a married schoolteacher with two kids. Playing drug dealer at night in a tony nightclub did not really change that. The chances that he had real combat training seemed remote. He had also made a truly amateur move, putting the gun this close to Myron’s face, leaning over the desk like that, slightly off balance.
Third: Decide your move. Picture it. If your assailant is not at close range, if he is across the room or even more than a few feet away, well, there would be no choice. You can’t disarm him, no matter what kind of martial art kicks you’ve seen in the movies. You have to wait it out. That was still option A. Myron could indeed stay still. That would be expected. He could talk him down. They were in a school, after all, and you’d have to be not just “crazy” but “Crazy with a capital
C
” to fire a gun in here.
But if you were a man like Myron, a man who had the reflexes of a professional athlete along with years of training, you might take a serious look at option B: Disarming your opponent. If you choose B, you cannot hesitate. If you choose B, you’re best off getting him right away, before he realized that it was a possibility and backed away or grew more cautious. Right now, in the split second he had pulled the gun and shouted for Myron not to move, Joel Fishman was still high off that adrenaline, which leads to . . .
Fourth: Execute.
Surprisingly—or maybe not—it is easier to disarm a man with a gun than one with a knife. If you dart out your hand toward a blade, you could slice open your palm. Knives are hard to grab. You need to go for the wrist or forearm rather than the weapon itself. There is very little room for error.
For Myron, the best way to disarm a person with a firearm involved two steps. One, before Fishman could react in any way, Myron quickly jerked himself out of the discharge line. You don’t have to move far, which isn’t really an option anyway. It just involves a lightning-quick tilt to the right—the side of Myron’s dominant hand. There are many complicated techniques you could use here, depending upon what kind of handgun your assailant was carrying. Some say, for example, to grasp the hammer with your thumb so you can prevent certain weapons from firing. Myron never bought that. There was too little time and too much precision involved, not to mention in the rush to calculate your reaction, trying to figure out whether you’re dealing with a semiautomatic or revolver or whatever.
Myron went for something simpler and again, kiddies, if you’re not professionally trained and physically gifted, don’t try this at home. With his dominant hand, Myron snatched the gun away. Just like that. Like he was taking a toy from a bratty kid. Using his superior strength, athletic skill, knowledge, leverage, and element of surprise, he snapped out his hand and took away the weapon. As he pulled the weapon free, he lifted his elbow and struck Fishman flush on the face, sending him sprawling back in the chair.
Myron leapt across the desk, knocking the chair back. Fishman landed hard on his back. He tried to snake-crawl off the chair. Myron leapt on him, straddling his chest. He even pinned Fishman’s arms to the floor with his knees, like a big brother picking on a little one. Old-school.
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” Myron asked.
No reply. Myron boxed Fishman’s ears hard. Fishman squealed in terror and tried to cover up, cowering, helpless. Myron flashed to the video with Kitty, the satisfied smirk, and he punched Fishman hard in the face.
“The gun’s not loaded!” Fishman yelled. “Check! Please.”
Still pinning down the man’s wiggling arms, Myron checked. Fishman was telling the truth. There were no bullets. Myron tossed the gun across the room. Myron cocked his fist to deliver another blow. But Fishman was sobbing now. Not just crying or cringing or scared. He was sobbing in a way you rarely saw in an adult. Myron rolled off him, still at the ready—two could play at the sudden, surprise attack.
Fishman curled himself into a little ball. He made fists, jammed them into his eyes, and kept sobbing. Myron just waited.
“I’m so sorry, man,” Fishman managed between sobs. “I’m such a mess. I’m really, really sorry.”
“You pulled a gun on me.”
“I’m a mess,” he said again. “You don’t understand. I’m so screwed.”
“Joel?”
He kept sniffling.
“Joel?” Myron slid another photograph across the floor to him. “See the woman in that picture?”
He still had his eyes covered.
Myron made his voice firm. “Look, Joel.”
Fishman slowly put his hands down. His face was slick from tears and probably phlegm. Crush, the tough Manhattan drug dealer, wiped his face with his sleeve. Myron tried to wait him out, but he just stared.
“A few nights ago, you were at Three Downing with that woman,” Myron said. “If you start telling me you don’t know what I’m talking about, I will take off my shoe and beat you with it. Do you understand me?”
Fishman nodded.
“You remember her, right?”
He closed his eyes. “It’s not what you think.”
“I don’t care about any of that. Do you know her name?”
“I’m not sure I should tell you.”
“My shoe, Joel. I could just beat it out of you.”
Fishman wiped his face, shook his head. “That doesn’t seem your style.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing. I just don’t think you’ll hit me anymore.”
In the past, Myron thought, I would have in a Big Apple second. But right now, yeah, Fishman was right. He wouldn’t.
Seeing Myron hesitate, Fishman said, “Do you know anything about addiction?”
Oh boy. Where was this headed? “Yes, Joel, I do.”
“From personal experience?”
“No. Are you going to tell me you’re a drug addict, Joel?”
“No. I mean, well, sure, I use. But that’s not really what this is about.” He tilted his head, suddenly the inquisitive teacher. “Do you know when addicts finally go for help?”
“When they have to.”
He grinned as though pleased. Myron Bolitar, prize pupil. “Precisely. When they hit rock bottom. That’s what just happened here. I get it now. I get that I have a problem, and I’m going to get help.”
Myron was about to crack wise, but he stopped himself. When a guy you wanted info from was talking, it was best to keep him that way. “That sounds like a productive move,” Myron said, trying not to gag.
“I have two kids. I have a wonderful wife. Here, take a look.”
As Fishman started reaching into his pocket, Myron jumped closer. Fishman nodded, moved slower, took out a set of keys. He handed Myron one of those photo key chains. It was a family shot taken, according to the background, at Six Flags Great Adventure. A costumed Bugs Bunny and Tweety Bird stood left and right of the Fishman family. Mrs. Fishman was heartbreakingly lovely. Joel was kneeling. On his right was a girl, maybe five or six with blond hair and the kind of wide smile that’s so damn contagious Myron realized that the corner of his own lips were curling upward. On the other side of Joel was a boy, maybe two years younger than the girl. The boy was shy, half hiding his face in his father’s shoulder.
He handed the key chain back. “Beautiful kids.”
“Thank you.”
Myron remembered something his father once told him: People have an amazing capacity to mess up their own lives.
Out loud, Myron said, “You’re a dumb-ass, Joel.”
“I’m sick,” he corrected. “There’s a difference. I want to get better though.”
“Prove it.”
“How?”
“Start showing that you’re ready to change by telling me about the woman you were with three nights ago.”