Strange Bedfellows

by Rob Byrnes

  “Jamie told us ten.” Grant and Chase folded their arms across their chests and settled back in their chairs. It was a synchronized move that was even more planned out than it appeared; they used it as a demonstration of solidarity and insistence whenever someone was giving them a hard time, especially about money. It didn’t happen often, but it happened.

  The politician studied their body language for a moment and decided to push the issue.

  “Jamie heard wrong.”

  “What?” Jamie squawked and shifted in his folding chair. “I’m sure you said—”

  Grant cut him off. “Maybe you should find yourself some cut-rate crooks, Mr. Wunder. The city is full of ’em.”

  “You have to understand…” Wunder affected a reasonable tone as he propped his wide ass back on the edge of the desk, which actually gave him a little bit more height and authority. “This is a political campaign. We’re not in the pre-Watergate years anymore. We don’t just have a stash of cash lying around. We have to run lean and mean, and every penny has to be accounted for.”

  “You make a good argument,” said Grant. “But it’s still a twenty-thousand-dollar job. Plus, we’re only here because we were promised ten thousand dollars.”

  Wunder felt his forehead dampening. “Would you take ten?”

  “No.”

  That reasonable tone began to crack and was peppered with an undertone of pleading. “You have to understand we’re under constant scrutiny from the FEC and the media. Constant. I’d really like to ask you to cut me a break here. Do the job for five thousand and maybe down the road, after he’s elected, future Representative Peebles will be helpful to you.”

  “You keep this up,” said Grant, “it’ll be a thirty-thousand-dollar job.”

  “All right, all right.” Wunder threw up his hands. “I’ll split the difference. Ten thousand.”

  “Ten is what brought us to the table. Now it sounds like twenty.”

  “Like I said, split the difference. Ten!”

  Grant sighed. “First, I know my math. Ten thou ain’t splitting the difference. Twelve-five would be splitting the difference between five and twenty. Ten thou is you trying to screw us. Second, the cost for our services is twenty.”

  Wunder shook his head. “I only need you to steal one tiny picture off a computer.” He dropped his head, probably trying to seem boyish even though his boyish days were a solid decade in the past, as underscored by the bald circle he unknowingly revealed when he dropped his head. “One teeny, tiny picture.”

  “C’mon, Wunder.” Grant frowned. “We both know it won’t be that easy. I might not know what globs are—”

  “Blogs,” said Jamie.

  “Shuddup. I might not know that, but I know that this photo is very valuable to you. I also know that if this July Fourth dame—”

  “June Forteene,” said Jamie.

  “Did you not hear me tell you to shut up?” Jamie nodded. “Then shut up!” Grant turned his attention back to Wunder. “If this picture’s that valuable—to you and to her—then you can bet she’s got copies all over the place. That means we’re gonna have to go through every computer file she’s got, and maybe even her phone. That’s the kind of thing that takes time, and time increases risk, and risk means…”

  “More money.” Wunder was deflated.

  “More money,” Grant agreed. “You see a five-thousand-dollar job and all we have to do is slip in and out. We see a twenty-thousand-dollar job that’s gonna take time and involves a lot of risk.” He paused, giving his words time to sink into Wunder’s head. “So do we have a deal? Or do we walk?”

  Kevin Wunder mulled that over. “I suppose so,” he finally said.

  “Twenty thousand?”

  Wunder sighed. “I’ll find it somewhere.” This time when he extended his hand, Grant accepted it.

  “Now that’s out of the way, where do we find this July Fourth?”

  “June Forteene.” He’d accepted the higher price for their services, so Kevin Wunder was done playing games. Not that he was all that sure Grant was playing games, but still…

  “Her office is on Eighth Avenue.” He grabbed a notepad and jotted down the address, then handed it to Grant. “You know the Hell’s Kitchen area?”

  Chase took the piece of paper from Grant’s hand and smiled pleasantly. “We know Hell’s Kitchen.”

  “And where does she live?” Grant asked as he watched Chase pocket the slip of paper.

  Wunder shrugged. “I don’t know. Somewhere on the East Side, I think. Maybe Turtle Bay. Why?”

  Chase answered for Grant. “She might have a backup of the picture at home. Meaning we might have to, uh, pay a visit to her apartment in order to complete this job, if you know what I mean.” He smiled at Wunder and waited for a nod. He got it. “Can you get us the address?”

  “I can try.”

  “It’d be helpful.”

  “It’s essential,” Grant said. “Because if she’s hiding computer files in her apartment…”

  Wunder started thinking for himself again. “Using that logic, couldn’t she have a copy on a thumb drive locked in a safe deposit box, too?”

  Grant nodded. “That’s always a possibility…in which case you’re on your own. Twenty K covers a sweep of her office and home, not a bank. A bank job will cost you, oh…” He pretended to calculate, although he was really mentally reciting song lyrics to himself, because there was no way anyone was breaking into a bank over this. If Wunder could’ve read his mind, Grant thought he might appreciate that.

  Finally, when enough time had passed to make it seem as if he’d put real thought into it, he said, “A bank job will run you at least three hundred thousand. Maybe more.”

  Wunder swallowed hard. So hard that not only did the humans hear it, but even the Derek Jeter bobblehead moved.

  “I understand.”

  “And,” Grant added, “If we find anything in her apartment we want, we get to keep it.”

  “Uh, I…” Wunder felt his brown dampen again. “Okay.”

  Grant shook his head. “Sounds like you found yourself one hell of a candidate, Wunder.”

  Kevin Wunder’s head hung low. “Not that it’s any of your business, but that’s how it works out sometimes. If I had been the candidate, none of this would have happened. But my last name isn’t Peebles and I’m not married to a Concannon, so…” He looked up with a resigned half smile. “So I play the cards I’m dealt.”

  Since there was nothing else for them to discuss, and since Grant and Chase needed to get home and start figuring out how they were going to burglarize June Forteene’s home and office, and since they were both getting a little jittery behind four locked doors, Grant decided it was time to get out of there.

  “So if we could just get the deposit…”

  Wunder hiked an eyebrow. “Deposit?”

  “Yeah, the deposit. Fifty percent now, the rest when we bring you the photo.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Wunder laughed until he saw Grant wasn’t kidding. “You don’t understand the way this works. I thought I made it clear that we don’t have cash on hand. This has all got to conform to the election laws and hold up to media scrutiny.”

  “So…” Grant tried to process that. “So how were you expecting to pay us?”

  Wunder held his composure. “It’s easy. After the job is done, you’ll submit an invoice for consulting fees. You won’t be itemizing the services you provided, of course. I’ll make sure it’s processed through the campaign committee right away, and you’ll receive a check in four to six weeks.”

  Grant held up one hand. “Wait. Four to six weeks?”

  “Yes.”

  “A check?”

  “Why, of course.”

  Grant turned on Jamie. “Didn’t you explain to this guy how things are done in our business?”

  Jamie hunched his shoulders. “It didn’t occur to me. But what’s wrong with a check?”

  “Checks leave a paper trail. Next
thing you know, I’ll have to pay taxes.”

  Wunder scrunched up his face. “Well, of course you’ll have to pay taxes. It’s earned income.”

  “It is, but it isn’t.”

  “What Grant means,” said Chase, his voice calmer but still every bit as alarmed as his partner, “is we don’t want the IRS snooping into our business. Business that is sort of illegitimate, by government standards.”

  “Not to mention the standards of most of the rest of society,” added Grant. “Except people who do what we do. Or people like you who hire people like us.”

  Kevin Wunder sat back down on the edge of the desk. “Gentlemen, you have to understand this from the campaign’s perspective. There are laws—”

  “Some of which you want us to break,” said Grant.

  “Look, maybe I can get the check expedited—”

  “It ain’t about the timing.” Grant looked at a blank wall, which seemed to calm him. “I’ve waited longer to be paid for a job. I didn’t like it, but I waited. This is not about the wait, it’s about the way you want to pay us.”

  “Can’t do it that way,” Chase agreed.

  “Well, then…” Wunder’s voice drifted off and he stared at a yellowing ceiling tile somewhere above the wall Grant stared at. “It sounds as if we’ve just wasted each other’s time.”

  They were all in reluctant agreement…until Jamie had a thought.

  “I can do it.”

  They looked at him and Jamie’s face brightened. He liked being the center of attention.

  “You could do what?” asked Grant. “Steal the picture?”

  Jamie brushed his words away. “Not that. But I can be the middleman.”

  “Huh?”

  “Sure! I’ll invoice the job and the campaign can send the check to me. Then I’ll make the payoff to you guys”—he indicated Grant and Chase—”and everything will look nice and legit.”

  Grant eyed him with a heightened level of suspicion. “What’s your angle?”

  “No angle. All I get out of the deal is my twenty percent finder’s fee.”

  “Huh? You think it’s worth four Gs just to process a check?”

  Jamie shrugged. “I mean…I assume I’m getting a finder’s fee for bringing you the job, right?” When Grant didn’t answer, he mistakenly took that as agreement. “So think of this service as a bonus I’m providing you for no extra fee.”

  “I think of it,” said Grant, “as Jamie Brock getting twenty percent for not doing a damn thing. That’s how I think of it.”

  “I really wish you’d look at the positives here.” Jamie ran a hand through his hair, making Grant grip the edge of his seat so tightly his knuckles turned white. “You’ll still get sixteen thousand dollars. Tax-free!”

  “And you’re paying the taxes out of your share?”

  “Nah. I always operate a couple of businesses at a loss, so I won’t end up having to pay taxes either.”

  “You have businesses?” That made no sense to Grant. “You’re a businessman?”

  Jamie made a little motion with his head in the direction of Wunder. “I’d rather not go into all that right now.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Grant. “I figure this guy’s got your number already.”

  For his part, Wunder held up his hands to stop the back-and-forth, and was more than a little surprised it worked. “I really don’t need to know these details.” He stood again, growing shorter in the process. “Just make this happen.”

  Grant turned to Chase and didn’t bother to mute his voice. “Think we can trust Jamie?”

  “I think we have to.” Chase stared down Jamie. “Of course, if he tries to screw us, we know where he lives.”

  Grant frowned but nodded at Wunder. “I guess we’ve got a deal.”

  Those beads of sweat that had been forming on-and-off on Kevin Wunder’s brow had been on again, but now he happily wiped them away. “That’s great. I’m sure you’ll do a fantastic job, Mister…?”

  “First names will do, Wunder. You just find out where this June whatever lives, and hopefully you’ll never have to trouble yourself with any of the details.”

  Kevin Wunder readily agreed it would be better that way.

  Chapter Four

  When the criminals were finally gone, Kevin Wunder poured a generous dollop of sanitizer on his hands and rubbed briskly. The worst part, he realized, was that after almost two decades in politics, they weren’t even the seamiest characters he’d ever dealt with.

  He’d raised a lot of campaign money from Bernie Madoff. He’d negotiated legislation with Jack Abramoff. He’d even come far too close to being an alternate delegate for John Edwards at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

  No, these criminals weren’t the seamiest by far.

  He almost had to give them credit for being more up front than many of the memorable people who’d been part of his political life. There was none of the backslapping, “how-the-hell-are-you” bonhomie that masked an agenda. None of the wink-and-nod quid pro quo. None of the tell-you-one-thing-do-another outright lying.

  The criminals had been very direct and straightforward: They would do a job, and they would do it for twenty thousand dollars. In a very begrudging way, he had to respect that.

  The difference was that Kevin Wunder understood political treachery and double-dealing and backstabbing and promises that were never intended to be fulfilled. He’d been immersed in it for almost twenty years, after all, and a person didn’t survive an immersion in politics if he didn’t understand the rules.

  But he did not understand the rules of the underworld in which these criminals plied their trade. He was sure there had to be a set of rules—even crooks needed to operate with some basic order—but those were beyond his comprehension. Fortunately, he had no desire to learn them, which was why this job had been outsourced.

  He began the process of turning off lights and locking doors behind him. It had been a long day, and he was looking forward to spending the rest of his evening in solitude at his apartment, which was only a twenty-block walk away.

  Kevin Wunder always did his best plotting in solitude.

  With “Wunder” as his surname, it was inevitable that people would call him “Boy Wunder.” That taunt had started in grade school, continued through high school, and probably would have hit a peak in college if he hadn’t gotten involved in politics, which is where the nickname peaked instead.

  Kevin Wunder had been a young man in a hurry when he arrived on the New York political scene as a college senior and was tagged “Boy Wunder” within the first five minutes of his first campaign. For a while, he’d tolerated it with good humor on the surface. In time, though, as his connections solidified and he gained a reputation as a political operative—along with an increasing degree of political power—he grew much more comfortable expressing his displeasure at the nickname.

  Soon, people called him “Boy Wunder” only behind his back. They still used the nickname as frequently as ever; he just didn’t hear it, and therefore didn’t know about it, and therefore was fine with the situation.

  As predictable as the nickname was, in recent years it wasn’t all about the predictability. Sometimes it was about the irony. As time passed, the term “Boy Wunder” began to take on an increasingly biting tone. Now that he was in his late thirties, balding, and could stand to lose a few pounds, Kevin Wunder was no longer a young man in a hurry, let alone a boy. Time had caught up to him and threatened to pass him by. Now he was more or less a conventional political operative and strategist, his status no different from any of several hundred other thirty-something men and women who were doggedly good at their jobs but not individually exceptional.

  Kevin Wunder had lost the exceptionalism that defined his twenties. He was no longer a rising star. He was no longer a Young Turk. He was even starting to edge out of the late bloomer demographic. Now he was just…average.

  Not only was there nothing “boy” about him, there w
as little wonderful about him anymore but his surname.

  It was bad enough that he knew it. It was even worse that everyone else did, too.

  Those years in the not-too-distant past—when his name was on everybody’s lips as an up-and-comer and the term “Boy Wunder” had not yet acquired such cruel irony—were his glory days. He still found himself reliving them in his head more often than was probably healthy. He was becoming the white-collar equivalent of the high school quarterback who was unable to let go of Big Game memories as he settled his middle-aged bulk into a La-Z-Boy with a six-pack of Bud and two canisters of Pringles.

  During those glory days, the conventional wisdom predicted he’d soon be elected to the state legislature, or maybe even a congressional seat. He’d most likely have a long and powerful career ahead of him. And while no one actually said the words “President of the United States” out loud, Kevin suspected they had thought it. He certainly knew he had.

  But every life has its twists and turns. Kevin Wunder’s life had been no exception.

  The biggest twist that stymied his advancement was incumbency. Every elected official in his base on the Upper East Side of Manhattan seemed determined to remain an incumbent until death, or until they could figure out a way to hold their seats after death. The state legislators and congressional representatives had no term limits, and the city council members kept finding a way around them. And the voters, well…the voters loved their incumbents—mostly because they recognized their names—and kept returning them to office over and over and over again.

  The incumbents would remain in office forever. The incumbents would never die. Occasionally, one might get indicted, but the incumbents usually beat the rap. The path to career advancement veered away from him at every turn, effectively shutting him out.

  Still, Wunder had to try to position himself for the future—just in case—so he accepted a job as Representative Catherine Cooper Concannon’s chief of staff. Which soon became his second obstacle, because once he’d become a behind-the-scenes player for Triple-C, he became invisible.