“So, early in the morning, we pull into this abandoned farm. Another vehicle is waiting for us. The head guy is some silver-haired fox out of the Ricardo Montalbán school. He was all charm and smoothness, and he smelled like rich Corinthian leather. He welcomes us, he’s the boss, and as he leads us to his SUV—it was the size of a PT boat—he puts his arm around me like I’m his son or something, but he has a gun in it and shoots me in the head.”

“Why aren’t you dead?”

“Good question. Perhaps I am the chosen of Allah.”

“Perhaps you are a chronically immature delinquent from Grosse Pointe, high IQ, but still in so far over his head, he can’t see the surface,” said Chandler.

“Hmm, I wonder which one? Anyway, as they explain to me, it was dark, and maybe I lowered my head to see where I was stepping, and maybe he held the pistol slightly upward. It’s all about the angles. At ninety degrees, the bullet excavates the Lincoln Tunnel through my brain. At thirty degrees, it blows out a chunk of scalp and hair, bleeds like hell, and whacks me into total unconsciousness. I wake up—surprise, surprise—in a hospital guarded by the State Troopers who found me in the bushes. It’s three days later. They’ve got me on the Detroit thing. Since it’s drugs, another state, they turn me over to DEA. DEA interrogates me, and when we come to the silver-fox guy, their eyes turn to saucers. They don’t care about Ali La Pointe, he’s a low-level guy, and the system will eat him alive sooner or later. They want this Menendez, even if they can’t figure out what the hell he was doing riding shotgun in the pickup of a low-level dealer. But that’s not my department. A little of this, a little of that, my dad hires me a hotshot Kansas City lawyer, and a deal is struck. I ID Menendez and testify against him, they forget everything they have on me, and after he’s in, I go Witness Protection. I become Jerry Smith of Bone Fossil, Idaho, or something. But I’m alive, I’ve put the fox away, I’m a hero, I have a life, and I get to see my folks once in a while.”

“You’re a very lucky young man,” said the Jewish fellow.

“I owe it all to clean living and a fast outfield,” Jared said.

“If I may, one thing. This other man, Ali La Pointe. Interesting.”

“He’s out of the picture,” said Jared. “I mean officially, as per my agreement.”

“Yes. However, it is interesting that Ali La Pointe is the name of the charismatic and illiterate terrorist hero of Gillo Pontecorvo’s Battle of Algiers.”