Back to the Future Part II (14 page)

Biff grunted and went back to opening the third lock.

So he bought it. Good. Marty had almost blown it. It wouldn't do to let Biff in on all Marty knew.

‘Well,’ Biff continued, there I was, mindin' my own business, and this crazy old codger with a cane shows up. He says he's my distant relative. I don't know if he is - he doesn’t even look like me.’ The last tumbler clicked into place. Biff reached for the safe handle.

‘So, he says. "How would you like to be rich?” I says, sure," so he lays this book on me.‘

Biff opened the safe. He pulled a box off the centre shelf, then dug a key out of his pocket and unlocked the box. He grinned and pulled the Sports Almanac out for Marty to see.

Marty had to admit it; The book didn’t look like much, unless you knew what it was - especially now that it had seen thirty years of wear and tear. The dust jacket was gone, the pages were worn and turning yellow, there were even a couple of what looked like mustard stains on the spine.

Biff handed the book over to him so that Marty could get a closer look. Marty couldn't believe It. Biff was actually giving it to him!

‘He says this book will tell me the outcome of every sporting event ’til the end of the century.’ Biff continued. ‘All I have to do is bet on the winner, and I’ll never lose.’ He Chuckled. ‘Naturally. I think he’s full of it. So I say ” What's the catch?” And he says. "No catch, just keep it a secret.“ Then he says. "Biff Tannen. you’re one lucky guy.” After that, he disappeared and I never saw him again.'

Without warning. Biff plucked the Sports Almanac out of Marty’s hands. Marty realised he should have turned and run while he had the chance, but he had been in a bit of shock, to actually see the book.

It was too late now. Biff had already stuck the book back in its box, and put the box on its shelf in the safe, then closed and locked the door. Apparently, show-and-tell was over. He turned back to Marty.

‘Oh.' he added, almost as an afterthought. He casually opened his desk drawer. ‘The old man told me one more thing. He said, someday a crazy, wild-eyed scientist or a kid may show up asking about this book. And if that ever happens-’

Biff pulled a .38 out of the drawer and pointed it straight at Marty's head.

‘Funny.’ Biff confessed, I never thought it would be you.’

A gun? Marty hadn’t expected a gun.

‘Yeah.’ he said shakily, ‘well, you’re forgetting one -’ Marty’s jaw dropped open as he pointed to Biff’s left. ‘Hey, look!’

Biff jerked his head around, and Marty started to run. Thank goodness Biff still fell for that one.

Biff looked buck, and Marty threw a frisbee-shaped ashtray at him. Biff ducked as Marty ran for the door,

Biff pulled the trigger once, twice, three times.

Bottles and glasses smashed on the bar as Marty ducked the gunfire But Marty was out of there!

He heard Biff yell into the phone as he ran down the hall.

‘Marty Mcfly’s on his way down. Take care of him - permanently.’

So he didn’t have the Sports Almanac, Marty realised. He didn't really need it, at least not now. Instead, Marty had found out exactly what he needed to know. Now all he needed to do was live long enough to use it.

Tossing that ashtray at Biff had thrown the older man off-balance long enough for Marty to get out of his office. Now what?

He ran down the corridor beyond Biffs office. It was too risky to take one of the elevators. Marty decided to try the stairs.

He opened the door that led to the stairwell. There was a soft gong sound behind him, the kind of sound an elevator made when it had arrived at your floor!

Marty jumped behind the door. As the door slid slowly closed, he could peek through the crack between door and wall to see Biff s three thugs come out of the elevator. They saw the door closing, too, and walked straight toward him!

They opened the door, with Marty still behind it. He sucked in his stomach and held his breath. If only they didn't look back here!

Marty had an idea. He dug as quietly as he could into his pocket, and pulled out a quarter, then threw it into the stairwell. It clattered as it fell.

‘Hey!’ one of the thugs yelled. All three of them down the stairs.

Marty waited for them to get down a couple of floors before he stepped from behind the doors. Then he took the steps, going up.

Maybe the plan Doc and he had cooked up would work after all.

It was wild up on the roof, like another world.

There was plenty of light up here, but it was all pink and green, spill-off from the huge neon signs on the front of the Pleasure Palace. There was a lot of smoke up here, too - pollution. Marty imagined, from all those smoke stacks. It rolled across the roof, illuminated by the neon into a kind of pastel fog.

He walked to the edge of the roof.

Whoa!

It was twenty-eight storeys, straight down.

‘Go ahead, kid,' a gruff voice called behind him. ‘Jump. A suicide’ll be nice and neat.’

Marty spun around. Biff had found him. He must have heard Marty go up the stairs. And Biff still had his gun.

‘Yeah?’ Marty called back with "a defiance he really didn’t feel. ‘And what if I don’t?’

Biff waved his gun with a smile.

‘Lead poisoning.’

Marty glanced back over the edge of the roof, and twenty-eight storeys of air. There was no place to go. If Marty was going to survive this, he would have to bluff Biff, get him to hesitate, get him to make a mistake. But he’d already played that ‘Look out, behind you!’ trick. Even Biff wasn’t dumb enough to fall for that one twice. What else could he do?

Even though it was Biff, Marty decided he would try logic.

‘What happens to you when the police match the bullet up to that gun?’ he yelled.

That only made Biff laugh.

‘Kid, I own the police. Besides, they couldn’t match up the bullet that killed your old man.’

His old man? What was Biff saying? Biff had shot his father?

 ‘I suppose it’s poetic justice,’ Biff smirked. ‘Two McFlys with one gun.’

Biff raised his revolver, taking careful aim. 

Marty looked back off the edge again. There was only one thing he could do.

He jumped from the roof before Biff could shoot - the last thing he saw was Biff’s open mouth as he leapt into the air.

Biff laughed. Then he ran to the edge of the roof to see the splattered remains of Marty McFly twenty-eight storeys below.

Only Biff didn’t see Marty McFly splattered. He saw him alive, suddenly rising up in mid-air: Marty was standing on the hood of the DeLorean.

Biff stared in astonishment. He raised his gun ... but Doc whipped open his gull-wing door and whacked Biff in the jaw with it, giving him a mouthful of stainless steel! The impact sent Biff reeling backward; his skull slammed into the cement surf a op nf the hotel roof and knocked him senseless.

Marty sighed relief. Their plan had Worked - just barely, but it had worked! Doc manoeuvred the flying DeLorean around to the edge of the roof so that Marty could climb off the hood, open the passenger door, and get into the seat beside him.

With Marty safely inside' Doc flew them away from Biff’s hotel.

‘What’s our destination time?’ Doc asked.

‘You won’t believe it, Doc,’ Marty replied. ‘November 12 1955.’

Doc looked as if he had seen a ghost. ‘November 12 1955? Great Scott! The date of the storm!’ He shook his head. 'Unbelievable that Old Biff would have chosen that particular date. It could mean that that point in time inherently contains some sort of cosmic significance - almost as if it were a temporal junction point for the entire space-time continuum-’

He paused to shrug. ‘On the other hand,’ he added brightly, ‘it could be an amazing coincidence!’

‘So, Doc,’ Marty added, ‘I guess we have to bring Jennifer and Einstein back with us to 1955?’

‘No,’ Doc replied. ‘Assuming we succeed in our mission, we’ll return to the same 1985 which we left this morning. Jennifer and Einie will still be here, and they’ll be fine.’

Marty frowned. Doc’s theory sounded fine, but still -

‘And if we don’t succeed?’ Marty asked.

‘We must succeed,’ Doc answered simply.

It only took the scientist a minute to set the destination display. And then they were gone.

Back to November 12 1955.

There were the usual sonic booms, and they were cruising over the fancy billboard - with all the pennants flying around it - announcing the future home of ‘Lyon Estates - Live in the home of tomorrow ... today!’ This was close to where Marty had shown up the first time he’d gone into the past.

It was still night as Doc landed the DeLorean behind the billboard, but Marty thought he saw a faint pink glow in the eastern sky.

So here they were, back in 1955.

But how were they going to get the book?

‘All right, Marty,’ Doc explained, gently patting the -fender. ‘I’m going to stay here with the DeLorean. We can’t risk anyone else stealing it.’

‘Yeah,’ Marty replied, recalling his first trip here. ‘That farmer Peabody lives a mile down the road/ He chuckled softly. ‘I’d hate to think what would happen if he got his hands on it.’

Doc glanced at his watch with a frown. ‘Sunrise should be in about twenty-two minutes. You go into town, track down young Biff, and tail him. Sometime today, Old Biff will show up to give young Biff the Almanac. Above all, you must not interfere with that event. We must let Old Biff believe he’s succeeded so that he’ll leave 1955 and bring the DeLorean back to the future.’ He paused, to make sure Marty had gotten all that.

Marty nodded, and Doc continued:

‘Once Old Biff is gone, you can make your move. Grab the Almanac any way that you can, then come back here with it and we’ll go home.’

He gave Marty’s shoulder a pat of encouragement. ‘Remember, both our lives depend on this!’

‘You don’t have to remind me. Doc,’ Marty replied. That, whole business with Biff, and what had happened to Doc and Marty’s whole family in that other 1985, was still much too fresh in his mind. Marty would do just about anything to keep that future from happening!

Doc went back to rummaging around in the space behind the seats. He pulled out a couple of things and handed them to Marty.

‘Here’s some binoculars, and a walkie-talkie, so we can keep in contact.’

Both items were small enough for Marty to stick in his pockets. Doc looked about uncertainly. Was there something else?

Doc frowned to himself for an instant, then snapped his fingers and nodded.

‘And you’ll need money -’ He lifted his Hawaiian shirt to reveal a money belt with close to a dozen different pouches. And each pouch had a label: 1985; 1955; 2015; 1921; 1882; gold; silver; doubloons.

‘I have to be prepared for all monetary possibilities,’ Doc explained. He reached into the 1955 pouch and pulled out a wad of bills. He handed them to Marty.

‘Get yourself some fifties’ clothes,’ Doc instructed. ‘Something inconspicuous.’

Marty was ready. He’d found a second-hand store on the edge of the town that opened early, where he had picked up a cool Marlon-Brando-type black leather jacket, a real Frank Sinatra pork pie hat, and a pair of sunglasses. No one would know him now! Then he checked out the phonebook, and found Biff’s home address. Luckily there was only one Tannen in town. But the house didn’t look right, somehow.

He pressed the talk button on his walkie-talkie.

‘Yo, Doc! I’m at the address - it’s the only Tannen in the phone book. But this can’t be Biff’s house. It looks like some old lady lives here.’

At least, that’s all he heard coming from the house, some old lady yelling all sorts of things.

Marty pulled out his binoculars to get a closer look. He could see a lot more detail this way, like that fact that the house really needed painting, or all those signs all over the yard. Marty read them one by one:

KEEP OFF THE GRASS!

What grass? From the few scruffy yellow strands left in the dirt, it looked like the lawn had died years ago.

But there were other signs, forbidding just about everything else:

NO PARKING!

NO TRESPASSING! VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED! THIS MEANS YOU!

And finally, slightly smaller, and behind all the others:

TANNEN

Yep. on second thoughts, this was Just the sort of place Biff Tannen would come from.

The front door opened and Biff walked out.

'Biff!’ the elderly woman’s voice called from inside the Tannen house. ‘Where are you going, Biff?’

Biff started to walk quickly away from the house.

‘To get my car. Grandma!’ he called over his shoulder.

‘But when are you coming back, precious?' his grandma whined. ‘My feet hurt, and I want you to rub my toes some more. And put polish on them!'

Biff waved violently back at the house.

Marty called back to Doc on the walkie-talkie,‘Never mind, Doc. Biff lives here all right.'

Marty signed off.

Biff walked rapidly toward the street.

There was a bunch of kids playing catch in the yard next door; a yard that still had a lawn. One of the kids overthrew the ball they were tossing around. It bounced into Biff’s yard, rolling to his feet in the dirt and weeds.

Biff picked up the ball and kept on walking. All five kids ran over to teenager and looked up expectantly. 

‘This your ball?’ Biff asked with a grin.

The kids all nodded eagerly.

Biff looked from one kid to the next, all around the circle, then tossed the ball onto the roof of the house next door.

‘Well, go get it!’ Biff guffawed loudly as the kid’s faces fell, and walked out onto the street.

So Biff had gone for his car. This was it then. Marty decided he’d better call Doc and report.

He looked out over the wide open spaces. It was a simpler time, before cars and heavy industry. A time when you could breathe, and pit yourself against the elements. A time that was just right for Doc Brown, the fastest gun in the West!

He turned to look at the homestead behind him, then took a moment to pat his trusty horse.

‘Yo, Doc! ’ his horse said. ‘Come in, Doc!’