The King of Central Park

THE KING OF

CENTRAL PARK

by

Hank Gross

Published by Hank Gross at Smashwords 2010

© 2002 Hank Gross All Rights Reserved

Registered with U.S. Copyright Office

http://www.hankgross.com

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

H. H. Gross (pen name)

The King of Central Park

H. H. Gross (-pen name)

p. cm.

ISBN 0-9754699-5-9

1. Central Park, Fiction 2. Crime Caper 3. Humorous fiction

2005904431

I. BIRTH

Chapter 1

Nestled like a great turquoise terrarium in the slot created by the buildings towering around it, Manhattan's Central Park lingered lazily in sleep as dawn swelled over the city. All about, the sounds of the awakening metropolis issued forth: spasming steam pipes, coughing newspaper trucks, the muffled rumbling of early morning subway trains. But the park itself was hushed and tranquil. Mist hovered aimlessly over its still bodies of water; dewy silence blanketed its empty woods and meadows, its deserted paths and plazas; a squirrel darted noiselessly down a tree, found a nut, and scampered back to the branches. From the gently rolling hills and dales of the park's southern section to the rugged patches of wilderness at the northern end, the park seemed to fulfill, without blemish, the visions of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the landscape maestros who designed it over a century ago, that it be, in Olmsted's words, a haven of abundant foliage . . . quiet roads and walks . . . extended landscapes to refresh and delight the eye. And all that it was, except, on this cool Saturday morning in June, for one ominous incongruity – the staccato thupping, some three hundred feet above the park's midsection, of a colossal brown helicopter, deceptively marked Dept. of Homeland Security, manned by seven heavily armed men, and treading the air dangerously like a buzzard estimating its prey.

With its forty-ton lift capacity, its cabinful of electronic gear, and its hold partially filled with dynamite, the custom-built chopper was one of the most sophisticated pieces of guerrilla machinery ever constructed. Fittingly, it was commanded by the most formidable warrior to walk the earth since Ghenghis Khan, a tall, spare man of fifty, dressed in boots, khaki field outfit and gunbelt, and known to a vast and admiring public simply as the General, a self-bestowed but supremely-warranted rank that had long since supplanted his given name in the popular mind.

Affiliated with no nation, creed, or cause, he was grudgingly esteemed by all, for though he operated entirely outside the law, he was no terrorist but rather an artist of the highest caliber, a maestro of criminal enterprise. Already a legend and underground hero to schoolchildren around the world, the General had thus far been the subject of twenty-three biographies and the inspiration for over 300 fan clubs, and, in the last year for which statistics are available, figurines of him outsold Ken dolls by a margin of six to one in spite of ongoing efforts by do-gooders to have them banned. The General, too, kept a sharp eye on these products. Only a year earlier, the manufacturer of one of these items had been discovered embedded in a vat of his own plastic. He'd got the mustache a little wrong.

In every way, the General was intimidating. From his bearing, which was supple as bamboo yet tempered as steel, to the chiseled Cubism of his features and the fearless timbre of his voice, he projected power. He had a small, gray-flecked mustache, a nose like the business end of a hatchet, a leathery wedge of chin, and deep-set gray eyes that radiated arrogance, almost supernatural intelligence, a cold and acid humor, and a samurai's supreme indifference to death – his own or anyone else's. It was this last, this spine to spill blood, as the General put it, which had been part of his natural makeup since his birth to well-to-do parents in Switzerland a half century earlier, and which innate military spirit had been honed to perfection as he strode through marital arts training in Japan, Korea, and Brazil, where he'd crippled each of his teachers; several decades as a freelance mercenary; and finally – so in demand were his tactical and strategic talents – a professorship at West Point, where, Academy legend has it, he once picked up fellow instructor Dwight D. Eisenhower, carried him over a mile to the Hudson River, and tossed him in, medals and all.

The General's claim on the public imagination really took hold when he began executing – perhaps one could more accurately say performing – on a freelance basis and with the help of his elite militia of forty-one personally-trained commandos, the dazzling criminal extravaganzas which were so aesthetically gorgeous they conferred upon their victims a prestige that often more than compensated for their losses. Termed situational supernovas because they involved the creation and manipulation of real-life situations on an enormously complex level, the General's spectacular crimes, performed on a cash-in-advance basis for various super-wealthy clients and on occasion governments, bore more resemblance to the masterful performances of El Cordobes or Bobby Fisher than to, say, the brute-force military routs of Napoleon or Attila – or, for that matter, General Eisenhower, who, it was rumored, had been so humiliated by his dunk in the river that even when he became President of the United States he frequently soiled himself at the mere mention the General's name.

Though, for all their complexity, the General's supernovas were based on a simple Biblical truth – Whatsoever a man soweth, so shall he reapeth – it was what the General did with this principle that made all the difference; and it was just his special finesse, the unique élan that surrounded each of his undertakings, that had elevated him to a figure of worldwide acclaim rather than one of global contempt, and which always left people anticipating rather than dreading each succeeding crime. The present operation, conducted on behalf of a South American oil and shipping billionaire, was to be, of course, a situational supernova.

As the vibrating helicopter drifted over the 843-acre rectangle of land below, the General rested his hand on its superstructure and peered at the terrain scrolling by beneath him, appreciating how bureaucratically invisible he was while in fact in plain sight. A few simple words on the side of his craft claiming he was on the side of the good guys was sufficient to cause the popcorn heads who passed for law enforcement to usher him past all security measures without question – at least for a while, and a while was all he needed. For at least several minutes the police in the gray stone buildings of the Twenty-second Precinct, situated in the park's geographical center, would assume the colossal whirlybird belonged there. And they didn't have several minutes; they had eight more seconds.

The General turned from the window as Major Davis, the General's top officer and a man as hearty and likable as the General was remote and implacable, touched him on the shoulder. There it is, General, he said with the controlled enthusiasm he exhibited before every job. Stowkowski's ready to go for it.

Captain Fox, the pilot, glanced up and grinned. Cute place to put a police station, eh?

Not that it's stopped the muggings any, remarked Wilson, the navigator, wryly.

The General waited a moment before responding. It's certainly not going to stop this one, he said. Swing 'er around, Fox.

Yes sir.

As the craft tilted and homed in on the gray buildings below, Major Davis peered intently at the park's increasingly visible topography, although the thick foliage prevented him from seeing either Captain Stowkowski or the crack ten-man assault team quietly surrounding the police station. Ruddy and warm-eyed, the Major had been associated with the General for years, having fought beside him in all parts of the world and having participated in the General's first situational supernova a decade earlier – the theft of an American nuclear submarine for a rich Chinese businessman who, having been denied a visa to visit Disneyland, wanted to take his granddaughter for a ride. As the Major had gradually risen to the second-in-command position in the General's militia, he had remained happily and faithfully married to an Australian woman, a superb cook and capable manager who ran the family cattle ranch while her husband was off doing supernovas with the General. Well-liked by the men, Major Davis had a ready smile and an earnest, easygoing manner that belied his potential ruthlessness – he'd once made his own mother stand in a corner for three days for putting too much cumin in a lamb stew. Of the crew, it was only the Major for whom the General felt anything approaching respect, and the little extra deference meant a lot, as the General was not a generous man with his approval. Davis, for his part, never forgot his place – second.

It's done, said Perez, the communications officer, from under his headphones. Police headquarters is taken.

The General nodded, pleased. One of his men would already be on the police radio maintaining a continuity of communication with central police headquarters in lower Manhattan so that nobody would be aware of the General's takeover until the General saw fit to make the announcement himself. Get the vans rolling, Major, he said to Davis.

Yes sir. Into a microphone the Major said, Vans one through five – proceed into the park. Repeat, move in, vans. Over.

The General rested a hand on the pilot's shoulder. To the Met, Captain.

Yes, General, said Fox.

The chopper rose and drifted eastward to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a complex of interconnected buildings sprawled in stately Arcadian silence over a twelve-and-a-half-acre chunk of the park bordering on Fifth Avenue. Aboard the craft, the occupants watched as five large open-topped vans, filled with equipment and supplies for the supernova about to take place, lumbered slowly into the park from points around its perimeter, heading for their common rendezvous site at the Great Lawn. Each of the vans, except for the ones carrying the five horses, were lined with long, heavy canvas bags whose grommet-studded sides hung over the lips of their vans. Among the supplies inside these bags were a disassembled crane, four powerful spotlights, bullhorns, dollies, printed brochures, a chain saw, fifty wooden folding chairs, four trumpets, four thousand bottles of champagne, and an even more enormous twelve-ply canvas bag, now folded, known as the Great Canvas, which when unfurled to its full dimensions would occupy an area as large as a city block. The rest of the supplies – guns, ammunition, maps, charts, floor plans, a chess set, a remote device for operating the helicopter from a distance, and a timer and detonator for the half ton of dynamite – were aboard the craft itself.

The General beheld with pleasure the territory he was about to claim as his own. From his lofty vantage point he could see, to the north, the reservoir and ballfields beyond, and to the south the great Sheep Meadow, where thousands of New Yorkers had tossed Frisbees of a Sunday afternoon and thousands more had laid down blankets for free nighttime rock concerts. Along all four sides of the park – Fifth Avenue to the east, Central Park West to the west, and 59th and 110th Streets to the south and north – were parked eight small Volkswagens, ready to go promptly into action when their services became needed in about three hours. Each was fitted with a spraying apparatus containing, under pressure, a chemical polymer which the General had dubbed Instant Thistle for the briar-like, and effectively barbed-wire-like, properties it rapidly acquired upon exposure to air. Once applied around the park's perimeter, like icing around a rectangular birthday cake, nobody would be able to get in or out of Central Park without shredding themselves like feta cheese. Of course, an armored vehicle could punch through, but only at the price of the lives of a thousand hostages, a deterrent no one in law enforcement would dare to challenge.

There's our treasure chest, sir, said Major Davis as the richest and grandest collection of art in the Western Hemisphere slid by below.

The General dipped his head to acknowledge the fact. Yes, he said, our client is soon going to be very happy. He touched the pilot on the shoulder. "To the