“No, Officer,” Mr. Rossiter answered. “We got here first, fair and square.”
Mrs. Rossiter popped her head from the car and said, “They’re just a bunch of sore losers.” Mrs. Rossiter’s mother, a stubby woman wearing sandals and a Petey Possum T-shirt, said she’d never seen such rude people in all her life.
Pedro Luz didn’t know what to do next; for one pleasantly deranged moment, he considered throwing the Rossiters off the stage and claiming the 300-Z for himself. Daring anyone to try to take it away from him. Then Charles Chelsea materialized and Pedro Luz gratefully surrendered the microphone. His ears buzzed and his head clanged and all he really wanted to do was limp to the gymnasium and pump some iron.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Chelsea intoned, “please settle down.” He looked smooth and confident in a crisp blue oxford shirt and a wine-colored tie. He looked as if he could talk his way out of practically anything.
“I’ve reviewed the tapes from our security cameras,” Chelsea told the crowd, “and whether you like it or not, Mr. Rossiter and his family were clearly the first ones through the turnstiles this morning—”
“But he threatened me!” yelled a teenager in the crowd. “I was here first but he said he’d kill me!”
A middle-aged woman in a straw Orky hat hollered: “Me, too! And I was ahead of that kid—”
The crowd surged toward the stage until Pedro Luz drew his revolver and aimed it toward the sky. Seeing the gun, the tourists grew quiet and rippled back a few steps.
“Thank you,” Chelsea said to Pedro Luz.
“I got an emergency.”
“You can go now. I’ll be fine.”
“You need a gun?”
“No,” said Chelsea, “but thanks just the same.”
“You got something against fun.”
Francis Kingsbury made it an indictment. “What, you got something against little children? Little cutey pies having a good time?”
Joe Winder said: “You can keep the park, Frankie. The park is already built. It’s the golf resort that’s eighty-sixed, as of today.”
“Oh, ho,” said Kingsbury. “So you got something against golf?”
“That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
“You think you can scare me? Hell, I got gangsters shooting at me. Professionals.” Kingsbury cut loose an enormous sneeze, and promptly plugged his nostrils with the handkerchief.
Winder said, “I was hoping to appeal to the pragmatic side of your nature.”
“Listen, I know how to handle this situation from up North. The way to handle it is, I cut the wop bastards in. The Zubonis, I’m talking about. I cut ’em in on Falcon Trace, you’d be surprised how fast they let bygones be bygones. You watch what good friends we are once I start using Zuboni roofers, Zuboni drywall, Zuboni plumbing.” Kingsbury looked positively triumphant. “Blackmail, my ass. The fuck are you going to blackmail me with now?”
“I believe you misunderstood the offer,” Joe Winder said. “I’m not planning to go to the mob. I’m planning to go to the media.”
Defiantly Kingsbury snatched the hanky from his nose. “Jesus, you’re pissing me off.” He picked up the phone and commanded the operator to connect him with Security. Joe Winder took two steps toward the desk, raised his paw and shot the telephone console to pieces.
Impressed, Kingsbury probed at the tangle of wires and broken plastic. “Goddamn lunatic,” he said.
Winder sat down and tucked the gun into the furry folds of the costume. “Think in terms of headlines,” he said. “Imagine what’ll happen when the newspapers find out the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills is run by a Mafia snitch. You’ll be famous, Frankie. Wouldn’t you love to be interviewed by Connie Chung?”
“Let me just say, fuck you.”
Winder frowned. “Don’t make me shoot up more office equipment. Stop and consider the facts. You obtained the bank notes and financing for Falcon Trace under false pretenses; to wit, using a false name and phony credit references. Ditto on your construction permits. Ditto on your performance bond. Once the money boys find out who you really are, once they read about it on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, not only is Falcon Trace dead, you can look forward to spending the rest of your natural life at the courthouse, getting your fat ass sued off. Everybody’ll want a piece, Frankie. We’re talking cluster-fuck.”