by Tod Goldberg
Hello, Eddie.
"I'll be there," I said. "Don't do anything stupid."
"Why would I start?" he said.
Shit.
In a situation where it seems like the best course of action is to call the police and let them protect and serve, you should call the police. Seems is a nebulous emotion one should ignore. You should deal with certainty. You should know that if there is a man who has swindled a woman out of millions of dollars, a man who has swindled many others out of much more, you should be certain that that person needs to go to prison.
Unless, of course, you need to use that person as a pawn.
The facts were simple: We had Cricket's money back, but if I wanted to get out of my situation with Natalya, I needed Eddie Champagne. And I needed him alive or at least in reasonably decent shape. I needed him to have a paper trail.
I should have mentioned the reasonably decent-shape aspect to Nate. Because, after an hour of driving across Miami, waiting for the ferry and then finally making the slow crawl across the island back to Cricket's home, all without any word from Nate, I began to have concerns.
So when we walked into Cricket's house and found Nate and Eddie sitting at the kitchen table having a drink of Old Grand Dad, I must admit I was surprised.
That Eddie was bleeding from his head and had a package of frozen peas ACE bandaged around his neck, not so much.
"This is the guy I was telling you about," Nate said to Eddie when I walked into the kitchen. "We've been getting to know each other. I gotta say, Eddie has lived the life. He wrestled a polar bear once. Right, Eddie?"
"God's witness," Eddie said. He tried to raise his hands to give the Boy Scout salute, but I saw that Nate was smart enough to plastic flex cuff Eddie to his chair. Which explained the straw Eddie was using to drink with.
"Nate," I said. "A word?" I dragged Nate into the backyard and let Fi and Sam watch the drunken and beaten Eddie.
It was the afternoon and by all accounts another beautiful day in Miami, high in the eighties, a light breeze, blue sky, and my brother holding a bloody and beaten Eddie Champagne hostage in the kitchen of, in a way, his own home.
"You care to explain?" I said.
"I did as you said," Nate said, "except I amended the plan."
"Yeah, I see that."
Nate said that when he got off the phone with me, he started thinking about how awful he felt for Cricket, and for all the other people he was sure Eddie had rooked, and just couldn't control his emotions any longer. So he walked downstairs, unlocked the front door and, when Eddie came though a few minutes later, hit him in the back of the head with his gun.
"But then he started gushing blood," Nate said, "just prodigious amounts, and it was all matted with hair, and I thought, Oh, no, I don't want a stiff on my hands. So I tried to dress his wound the best I could."
First perp. Now stiff. I didn't know if I'd be able to handle Nate in his new crime-fighting mode for much longer. "Frozen peas?" I said.
"The freezer was all out of ice," he said. "And then he came to and was really complaining about the pain, crying, moaning, the whole experience, so I figured, you know, a swab of old Old Grand Dad on the wound would dull the sensations and keep out infection, like in those Westerns Dad used to watch."
"That was TV," I said. "You ever hear of Bactine?"
"Yeah," Nate said, "that thought came to mind after the whiskey really got poor Eddie jumping, so I figured, give the guy a couple sips, see if that made a difference."
"Poor Eddie?"
"The guy has had some tough breaks," Nate said.
"I'm sure," I said.
"Anyway," Nate said, "we got to talking. Comparing notes. He's really done well for himself in this real estate game."
"He's a crook, Nate," I said.
"If you can look past that," he said.
"I can't," I said. "Neither should you. He tried to bleed Cricket dry. God knows how many people just like her didn't get out. The guy is a predator, Nate. Do you get that?"
"Okay," Nate said. "Okay. Breathe, man. You're all bunched up looking now. Your eyes are all buggy. Big mean spy guy going loco."
I unclenched my jaw. I loosened up my forehead. I took a moment to stare at the sea. I thought I caught a whiff of someone grilling chicken.
Nothing worked.
"Nate," I said, "did he tell you what he was doing here?"
"He said he was worried about his wife," Nate said.
"I'm sure," I said.
"Yeah, I didn't believe that, either," Nate said. "So I asked him again after we'd had a couple. But that's the story he's sticking to. Said he figured if some crazy psycho was willing to kill her in the name of someone he was just pretending to be, that he owed it to her to set the record straight."
"A real come-to-Jesus moment," I said. "You did good, Nate. I appreciate it." I meant it, even if Nate's methods were a wee bit on the unorthodox side.
"Yeah?" Nate said.
"Yeah."
"Just keeping my pimp hand strong," Nate said. I started to walk back inside, since I had an idea how I'd use this situation with Eddie to the fullest, but Nate stopped me. "Do you remember coming out here when we were kids?" I told him I did. "What was it, some kind of field trip or something?"
"Yeah," I said. "Something like that."
"I remember you and me just running around that big-ass resort," he said. "And then I sort of remember us hanging out with a security guard. Weird. I haven't thought about that in years."
"It was a good time," I said. I didn't have the heart to tell him what I remembered, the circumstances, the repercussions.
"Was it?" he asked. He turned his head, as if trying to get his memories to line up.
"Sure, Nate," I said. "Sure. Not like when we went to that potato chip factory and Justin Pluck stabbed you."
"You know I ran into Justin Pluck a few years ago," Nate said. "Married, a couple rug rats, working at Costco."
"Was he still missing most of his hair?"
Nate laughed. "I didn't get too close. I didn't want whatever he had rubbing off on me."
"What did he have?"
"Normalcy," Nate said.
That was something he-we-would never have.
After sending Nate home, I went inside, brewed a carafe of coffee, sat down with Fiona and Sam in front of Eddie Champagne and started pouring him cups of black coffee.
"Drink," I said to Eddie.
"That's a myth," he said. "Coffee doesn't sober you up. Best thing for me would be a nice, long nap. Clinically proven."
"I'm sure it is," I said. I nodded at Sam, who reached over and squeezed Eddie's nose closed for about ten seconds, until Eddie popped open his mouth to breathe and Fiona shoved a straw in. "Now be a good boy, Eddie. Drink."
Eddie did as he was told, downing two cups of coffee in record time. I made him a couple pieces of toast and made him eat those, too. When he started to show signs of actually being able to comprehend reality, I let Sam take a look at the gash on the back of his head, which was still leaking blood, but not quite the torrent Nate had mentioned.
"He'll need stitches," Sam said.
"How many?" Eddie said.
"I'd say about fifty," Sam said.
"That's about two hundred less than you would have required if it had been me here," I said. "About a thousand less than you'll need if you don't tell me what I want to know now."
"First thing you need to know," Eddie said, "I am not the guy you're mad at. Dixon Woods? That's just a name I picked at random. This is a big misunderstanding."
"I know who you are," I said. "And I know you just lied to me. I'm not the police, Eddie. You're not on tape. We're just two guys having a conversation. Granted, one of us is cuffed and one of us isn't, but I'd like you to feel like you can tell me the truth, Eddie. I gave you coffee. I made you some toast. So I'm going to give you a chance to correct that last statement. If I like what you have to say, I won't spray salt water into your head wound."
Eddie Champagne's eyes darted around the room. He didn't look scared. He didn't even look worried, exactly. He sort of seemed to be enjoying this.
"You know," he said, "we redid this kitchen."
"I didn't know that," I said.
"Yeah," he said. "I moved in, it was stainless steel. Real cold, uninviting. It was my idea to put in those glass-faced cabinets. I picked out the granite for the island, made Cricket get one we could put chairs around. She wanted to have a sink in the island, but I told her she wouldn't need it since she wouldn't be doing that much cooking. She liked that idea. Let me tell you. What lady wants to cook?"
He looked at Fiona then and gave her a crooked smile, which probably gave other women a warm feeling, but which only caused Fiona to glare at him. That had a silencing effect on Eddie.
"When did you decide to bleed her?" I said.
"You don't just decide that sort of thing," Eddie said.
"More of a life choice?" Sam said.
Eddie cleared his throat. "I've got a few abilities," Eddie said, "none of which make for a good living. But after I met Cricket, I really thought she was the kind of lady I could get used to loving. But then, once I got in it, all these lies I'd already told, what was I supposed to do?"
"Telling the truth would have been an angle," I said.
"Not gutting her life," Fiona said.
"Not stealing money from wounded soldiers," Sam said.
"So there are three choices," I said. "You want more?"
Eddie pointed to his coffee cup, indicated he'd like some more. In a show of good faith, I clipped off Eddie's cuffs, told him that if he did anything outwardly stupid with his hands he'd lose the use of them, permanently. I poured him another cup and watched him take a few sips. He held his pinky out at an angle, like he was of the royal class. He had all the moves.
"Guys like you and me, Hank, we can't always deal in truth. Look at you and your crew here," he said. "I don't presume to know what your game is, but I'm going to say you've never met Dixon Woods, either, or else you wouldn't be trying to play that psycho. That pussy Rosencrantz just swallowed your whole bait. Teach me to work with educated people. Am I right?"
Smart. Trying to make a connection with me. Attempting to get an empathetic response. Probably thinking, like Stanley Rosencrantz before him, Here's a guy I could make a deal with.
"Eddie," I said, "we're nothing alike."
"Don't be so sure," he said. "I mean, here you are with Cricket, too. Similar tastes, right? And anyway, I came back today. I was ready to take you out. See? End of the day, I felt bad. Contrite. Ready to make amends."
"Yeah," I said. "Listen. I hate to tell you this, but I do know Dixon Woods. And I'm afraid, Eddie, that you're going to need to deal with him yourself."
Eddie finally seemed to leave his comfort zone. "That guy is a monster. You can't let him have his way with me." Eddie detailed his last meeting with Dixon, which involved a tire iron, a broken wrist and a lingering jaw problem. "I want it noted for the record," he said, leaning into his coffee cup, like it was microphone, "that I really did love his mother. You know, she passed on and that bastard didn't even have the kindness to come back for her funeral. No problem busting me up, but he won't do the honor of burying his mother? You look up the records, see who paid for her funeral expenses. Tell your people that."
"Noted," Fiona said.
Eddie started to say something, but then stopped, looked hard at Fiona. "Do you do any modeling?"
"No," Fiona said, though I could see where this was headed.
"You look familiar. Your lips, for some reason. And no disrespect, but your right breast, too."
"I have very uncommon breasts," she said.
"You ever do any calendar work?" Eddie asked. "Maybe I saw you online somewhere?"
"I'm in a coed naked volleyball league," she said.
Eddie again tried to say something, but it didn't seem like his mouth was working, which was good, because I was done talking to him, his very voice making me sick. "Sam," I said, "cuff and gag him."
"What?" Eddie said. "I thought we were getting along."
"Yeah," I said, "you thought wrong."
After we got Eddie subdued again, we sat him in the living room, which frankly smelled awful and would require an industrial cleaning very soon, and I snapped a few photos of him. When we had one that looked sufficiently morbid, I put in a call to Brenda Holcomb at Longstreet. Sam told me to make it a point not to call her Bolts. "She finds it disrespectful," he said.
"Brenda," I said when she answered "this is Hank Fitch. The man who didn't kill you."
"You've caused a lot of problems, Hank."
"I know," I said. "I'm sorry about that. But I'm calling you now to do you a favor, show I'm good on my word."
"I already called Dixon," she said. "What he does, he does."
"Right," I said, "I get that. But listen. I have a guy here whose been impersonating Dixon for the last two years. He's made Dixon a lot of enemies. But he's also made Dixon a lot of money."
Silence. Money always causes silence.
"You still there?" I asked.
"Go on," she said.
"I have a picture of him I'd like to send to you, that if you could forward it on to Dixon, I think we could end all of our mutual problems." Hopefully by around six, I thought. "Do you have a number I can use?"
Brenda sighed. "I lose my job, I come after you."
"You wouldn't want to do that," I said.
"Who are you, exactly? Because you're not Hank Fitch."
"I am today."
"The only Hank Fitch I could find in all of America is married to a woman named Linda and lives in Utah with his eight kids. You don't sound like the marrying kind. Or the Mormon kind."
"You'd be surprised." Brenda gave me a number and I sent the photo to her. "One other thing. My friend's car. Good faith."
"You two run a clean operation. I couldn't find a thing of use in that car," she said.
"Why don't you park it across the street, and we'll call it all even?"
"You have a strange idea of even, Mr. Fitch," she said, but then agreed, though she sounded more resigned than anything.
"Did the pictures come through?" I asked.
Silence.
"Yes," a male voice said. I guess all that silence was Brenda patching me in to Dixon. "Where is he?"
"Right now? He's sitting across from me. Where he'll be is wherever you want him to be if it means we deal. I need that product."
"Put him down," Dixon said. "Send me a photo when you're done."
"I'm not going to kill him," I said. Eddie actually sighed through his gag, which isn't something you hear very often: a person sighing with relief while bound and gagged. "I'm happy to let you." Eddie's joy? Short-lived. "I hope you can understand."
"Where's your money?" he asked.
"The Dominican," I said.
"Give me the digits," he said.
Just like Sam, just like me before all of this, Dixon had contacts. If he wanted to know how much money was in a secure account, I have every belief he'd be able to find out, so I gave him the account number.
"Hold on," he said. A few moments later, Dixon was back. His entire disposition was changed. "Where'd you want to meet?"
"Hotel Oro," I said. "That work for you?"
"Yeah," he said. "Nice place. That's the one with cabanas, right?"
"Right."
"Why don't you bring me one of Champagne's fingers as a gratuity?"
"I'll bring you something better. Eddie and his bank account information so you don't need to beat it out of him. He's been very busy on your behalf. Six fifteen?"
"I'll be there," Dixon said and was gone.
I looked at my watch. It was three o'clock now. We didn't have much time, but I was going to make this work. In order to do that, I'd need to get Eddie to calm down-since he was now apoplectic-and I'd need to get the Hotel Oro ready to my specifications.
"Sam," I said, "I'm
going to need you to do me a favor."
"Whatever, Mikey," Sam said.
"I need you to blow up the Hotel Oro," I said.
13
When you're a spy, certain things are much harder than you'd think. You begin to expect that the entire world thinks like you do and therefore has an implicit understanding that actions have consequences. You start thinking that people will look at the world and will realize that it's better to just be good, that it's better not to pull every dog's tail, that it's better to live your life, earn your money, live within your means and if sometimes a deal falls into your lap that seems too good to be true, it's because it is and you should run like hell.
So if you're not a spy, you should pay your parking tickets. You shouldn't own a TEC-9, much less try to deduct one from your taxes, and you shouldn't have sex with people you'd have no compunction killing.
You shouldn't, finally, pretend to be someone you're not-because, eventually, you'll end up like Eddie Champagne, with a guy like Dixon Woods on your ass and the rest of the world coming to pieces around you, including a former Navy SEAL named Sam Axe using you to help him place small bombs inside a luxury hotel in Miami.
Sam didn't want to do it, but I told him it was the best way to dispose of Eddie Champagne without actually getting Eddie Champagne disposed, so the two of them left Cricket O'Connor's house and headed to the Hotel Oro, where he'd reserved a room under Eddie's name and even used Eddie's credit card. Making a paper trail.
The way Sam had it figured, being placed in charge of Eddie Champagne wasn't the worst job in the world, especially since he sort of liked the elegance of triangulation. It was just the checking-in that concerned him, since he'd need to convince Eddie to be equally elegant while being forced into a posh hotel against his will.
And in plastic cuffs.
We all knew that if Eddie bolted, we might never see him again, and that just wouldn't work. You rack up a bill, you pay your debt.
So after parking Cricket's Benz across the street in self-parking, figuring maybe waiting for the valet at the end of the evening wouldn't be the best bet, all things considered, Sam broke it down for Eddie. Eddie was still half sauced, though with all that coffee, toast, fear and anxiety he'd found a sort of stoned equilibrium and had actually broken down in tears in the car while Sam drove, realizing that they were literally driving in his car. Sam couldn't figure out if the tears were real or another ploy, but they helped him with the plan.
