Day 25: 50,270 words, and too much plot and too much problems

I passed the 50,000 word mark today! As I feared, I paced my novel so poorly that I am going to have to do extra credit work in order to wrap it up in a way that is in any way satisfying. 

After a day spent getting ready—acquiring supplies, running through the plan over and over again with each other, and practicing a choreographed dance routine to Li’l Jon music while wearing capes—the heroes began their final preparations. The sun was setting, and so were their opportunities to back out of what they had planned. 

They stood in a circle a couple of blocks from Jackie’s Place, going over the plan one last time. No one wanted to back out. They were all going to succeed or fail together, a terrifying prospect if there ever was one.

The first part of the plan involved filling Jackie’s Place up with people, or at least things that looked like people, but also keeping people out so that no one who didn’t need to be would be in danger. They accomplished this in a couple of ways. Jackie hung a hand-written sign made out of cardboard indicating that Jackie’s Place was closed for a private event. The writing on the sign was so foreboding that no one would have dared question why Jackie’s Place was suddenly hosting private events. Or, why anyone would choose to hold their private event there. Indeed, they even made some effort to look like an engagement party was going to be held at Jackie’s Place to really pull off the ruse. A cardboard sign with the same menacing writing was hung up above the bar reading “Congratulations Scottie and Jake!” A six pack of Tang, a package of Chiclets, and some bags of Cody Simpson’s Own Artisanal Cheese Puffs were put out on a table to serve as a buffet. A party atmosphere, indeed. 

Additionally, and inspired by Home Alone, they procured a number of cardboard cutouts of celebrities and attached them to toy train tracks that would move around the room. Gordon was in charge of this part of the set-up, and needless to say, he took to it with aplomb. There were cardboard cut-outs of Dean and Sam Winchester from the hit television series Supernatural, Emilio Estevez circa Stakeout, and, most importantly, a cardboard cutout that Cody Simpson had brought for his cheese store of, well, himself. He was wearing a Speedo and only a Speedo, and grating cheese on his abs. 

Scottie also messaged a bunch of her colleagues on the secure apps that journalists use to ask them to fast ship her their Fitbits. This would make it seem, at least to the Senior Leadership Group, like Jackie’s Place was full of Toronto Star employees when it actually wasn’t.

The second step was setting the trap. They didn’t want it widely known that a fake engagement party was happening at Jackie’s Place because people might have shown up who would have been in danger. So, they needed to get the word out to the people who would turn around and share it with the people who were in charge: Police Chief Parm Pettipiece, for one. They decided that the best way to do this would be to go through his cousin, Fire Chief Parlo Pettipiece. This was a terrifying gamble; they needed to be able to trust him enough to share information with him in a way that wouldn’t put them in immediate danger, but at the same time, they needed to not trust him enough to believe that he would nonetheless share the information with his cousin. In the end, they decided that Scottie would be the best person to get the information to him, as she had the post plausible reason for trying to speak with him. She went to look for him at the fire station, and sure enough, there he was. After he rebuffed her once again when she pressed him for an interview, she casually mentioned that he could find her at Jackie’s Place later having her engagement party if he changed his mind. His interest was clearly piqued with the information. 

They were counting on two things: first, that setting fire to Jackie’s Place had been the plan all along. Second, that they wouldn’t be able to resist changing their plans and setting the fire when several of their targets—Scottie, Jake, and Cody Simpson—were in the bar in addition to Jackie. It seemed pretty troubling that Jake was a target for the crime of being an attractive hockey player, but hey, none of this makes any sense anyway. 

Jackie suspected that it was Joe Murtaugh who was coordinating the entire string of fires. That didn’t mean that he had been setting the fires, though. In fact, it was probably the opposite. Someone who was under their control, but who was also expendable. This was what was most terrifying about the plan: they wouldn’t know for sure who was going to light the fire until they lit the match. 

The third part of the plan was to be ready to strike back once they were under attack. Jackie was responsible for this part, and kept them all in the dark. 

The eight of them—Cody Simpson, Jake Kneiss, Bam Bam, Scottie, Jackie, Brandon from IT, Chuck from HR, and Dr. Gordon Toodie— were going to take all of these fuckers down. They were going to rue the day that they messed with the wrong ragtag bunch of athletes, celebrities, and Foucauldian Discourse Analysts. 

Everything was to start at 7 p.m. Jackie stayed behind his own bar, looking surly. Cody, Brandon, Chuck, Bam Bam, and Gordon wandered off in different directions around 6:45 p.m. so that they could converge on Jackie’s Place at scattered intervals. Scottie and Jake went to her parents’ house to find her mom’s engagement ring that she often left behind because she didn’t typically wear it, then back to his house to change into engagement party clothing, and planned to walk, hand in hand, into Jackie’s Place at 7 on the dot. The fake relationship between Scottie and Jake had progressed very quickly from pretending to date a few days earlier at the police station, to today, when they were pretending to be engaged and celebrating at Jackie’s Place for whatever reason. None of it made any sense. Everyone else in the group had thought multiple times that there are other ways to get out of a jam than getting a fake boyfriend, but no one said anything. They all kind of assumed that Scottie and Jake were, at this point, pretending to be pretending. 

The plan would have gotten off to a great start if, when Scottie and Jake were finally ready to leave Jake’s house to get to their fake engagement party, they had not been greeted with Joe Murtaugh—the most competent of the Murtaugh children— and his pesky gun. 
...

Scottie was incredibly grateful that she was currently wearing her mom’s engagement ring. They didn’t know if Joe had figured out that the party was fake or not, but at least with the engagement ring on her finger it would allow them to keep up the ruse if there still was a ruse to keep up. 

“I wouldn’t have to keep threatening to shoot you if you would just stay out of things that don’t concern you,” he said angrily, gesturing at them to move forward. They stepped out into the evening sunlight, taking in all of the people who were around that depended on them to do what they were told in order to stay safe. 

Joe walked behind them, his gun tucked away in his pocket. Scottie and Jake weren’t faking anything when they grabbed each others’ hands and held on for dear life. 

“A little faster now, we don’t want to be late,” Joe said, urging them on like a total asshole. They walked on, past the burnt out buildings that had fallen victim to Joe Murtaugh and his international criminal conspiracy. The entire face of the neighbourhood had changed because Joe Murtaugh had decided that his family should be able to have what they want and take what they want, and that however that impacted anyone else wasn’t his business. The grieved for what had been lost, and what may still be lost if she couldn’t come up with a plan. 

“You might think that because I plan on killing you, I’ll tell you my entire plan now,” Joe said coolly, when they were out of earshot of everyone who was out on this Saturday night. “That’s probably the kind of thing my idiot brother Jeremy would do. Fortunately he’s too busy photoshopping photos of attractive athletes to make them look uglier in his office in downtown Toronto, so he isn’t here to spill the beans.”

“Spill the beans?” Scottie thought to herself. Jesus, this guy needed more people around him who would tell him the truth about how embarrassing he sounded. 

“I don’t need to tell you what my plans are. I’m going to tell you what your plans are,” Joe added.
“What are our plans?” Jake asked, squeezing Scottie’s hand even tighter. 

“You’re going to go into Jackie’s Place and you’re going to give him this message. He needs to get everyone out who should be spared. You two can stay with Jackie after he shuts the party down, and we can have our own little private party,” Joe said evilly. "If you two try to do anything heroic on the way, Jackie won't get the message about my arrival. Everyone you love who has come to celebrate you will die."

As horrific as Joe's plan was, Scottie and Jake both breathed a sigh of relief, which they both quickly tried to disguise as anguish. If Joe was telling the truth, it seemed like he didn’t realize that the party was fake. That was good news, at least.