| MAKEUP
by Dante & Sally Dattoli
with Chuck Kelly
EXCERPT
* * *
“Look, Marc,” Victor said. “I have an idea
for our disguise on this first job.” They had driven
all the way from California to Newark, New Jersey without
stopping and had checked into a cheap motel called the Bluebird
Motel on the outskirts of Newark to rest. After sleeping for
sixteen straight hours, they were both alert and ready to
go take care of business.
“We don’t have to go through a big deal with
makeup,” Victor continued. “We’ll put on
fake beards and wigs in case somebody sees us. I just want
you to get used to wearing disguises. I doubt if we’ll
need any other makeup for this job. We’ll play it by
ear and see how things go.”
Marc had made a call to Roz’s home from the phone number
his father had given him on the list. Roz wasn’t there
and the answer machine said the he wasn’t home but could
be reached at a number in the Catskills.
“Bingo! That’s where he goes to fish,”
Marc said to Victor after he hung up the phone. “Let’s
check out of this flea trap and go get a motel near his cabin
on the lake. I’ve been there before and know just the
place to stay. It’s about twenty miles from the Catskills.”
“Okay. Let’s put on our disguises now,”
Victor said lifting a makeup case up onto the bed. “What
you wanna be?”
“I don’t know,” Marc said. “Just
give me anything and I’ll put it on. We don’t
have to really get into a character on this trip.”
“I know,” Victor said digging through the wigs.
“But we don’t want to be recognized is the whole
point. In short, we don’t want to look like ourselves…just
in case.”
“I know,” Marc agreed. “Give me a blond
wig and a blond moustache. That should do the trick.”
Victor handed him a blond wig and showed him how to put it
on. He took a moustache from the chest and asked, “This
do?”
Marc stuck the moustache on his upper lip and adjusted the
wig while he looked into the mirror. He smiled and wiggled
his upper lip. “Yeah, this should do it.”
Victor put on a black wig over his graying hair and stuck
a black close-cropped beard to his face. In seconds they were
transformed into two totally different people.
“We don’t need makeup with these disguises, do
we?” Marc asked getting used to his new look.
“No, we don’t,” Victor replied. “Tell
you why: The disguises are enough. If we put stage makeup
on underneath, just to have makeup on we’ll look phony.
People can spot makeup immediately and if you’re not
appearing on stage, or you’re a woman, you are either
strange or a little weird.”
“I prefer to be strange over weird,” Marc said,
smiling around his moustache.
“Hey, I have an idea,” Victor said after they
checked out of the Bluebird Motel and climbed back into the
Chrysler. “He goes fishing, right?”
“Yeah, that’s his thing. That’s how he
relaxes,” Marc said.
I’ve got an idea where we can scare the living poop
outa that guy!”
“Oh yeah?” Marc said looking at Victor with interest.
“Yeah. Help me look for a sporting goods store. I want
us to buy some scuba diving equipment.”
“I figured we would pop him from the shore. You know,
wait behind a tree and scope him out.”
“What I have in mind will be much better, trust me,”
Victor said with a grin.
Marc smiled as they drove out of the Newark city limits and
headed north toward the Catskill Mountains. The disguise felt
good on his face. He realized that this was the first in a
series of steps that he and Victor would take to retaliate
for his father’s death.
They stopped at a fishing and sporting goods store beside
the road to purchase skin diving equipment. They looked over
the equipment that was laid out on a large table with air
tanks stacked underneath on the floor. They picked out a used
wet suit and small air tank.
“You boys gonna do some scuba diving?” the store
clerk asked, making out a cash receipt. He was a thin man
with bushy hair. His dark eyebrows furrowed as he looked at
them.
Victor thought quickly and said in a foreign accent, “Not
here, sir. Ve are goink to Florida and do de diving dere.”
He stroked his fake beard while he waited for the cash receipt.
Should the man remember him he would surely make note of the
beard.
“Not from around here are you?” the clerk asked.
“No. Ve are from Chermany,” Victor answered,
purposely not making eye contact with the clerk.
“Well, good luck to you both,” the man said handing
them the receipt and the diving gear.
“Very goot,” Victor said and bowed his head to
the man.
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