by Tod Goldberg
“I don’t think you’re living up to the spirit of the oath in agreeing to help Sugar with anything.”
“Maybe not,” Sam said.
“We need to get Henry out of this house,” I said.
“And into a safe facility. And I’m not talking about my mother’s garage.”
“I’ve got a buddy does a little work with unstable types for the VA,” Sam said.
“What kind of work?”
“Well, it’s not really the VA as it’s legally constituted,” Sam said. “More like she helps with secret prisons and that sort of thing. But her business card says VA on it.”
“She owe you any favors?”
“Mikey, everyone owes me a favor.”
“Henry needs help,” I said. “Not confinement.”
“You mind if the help is mobile?”
“Mobile?” I said.
“Let me talk to my buddy,” Sam said.
A thought occurred to me. “Your friend,” I said. “She be willing to sign an official death certificate?”
“Mikey,” Sam said, “that’s a federal crime.”
“I know,” I said. “But so is being a Russian national with a rocket launcher on American soil. They call that terrorism now. We have a witness who had a psychotic break after a horrific terrorist attack on his business and now fears for his very life.”
“Henry’s not exactly a viable witness, Mikey.”
“When has that ever mattered in matters of national security?”
Sam pondered this for a moment. “That’s asking my buddy to extend herself pretty far.”
“You’re a persuasive guy,” I said.
“I do have my charms,” Sam said.
“First thing,” I said, “is we need to get Henry out of this house and into some kind of care. And maybe keep him away from anything explosive. He had this place wired pretty well.”
“What do we tell Brent?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Not until we know he’s safe from all of this. He gets compromised and he’ll spill everything.”
Sam agreed. He took out his cell phone and made a call. “Marci? Marci, this Sam Axe. Sweetheart, I have a small favor I need to ask.. .. No, no, not that again. Unless you want to do that again. I’m not opposed to that, just let me adjust my insurance coverage again… Now that- that’s not even legal on a Sunday in Florida, sweetheart.. ..”
A high-pitched squeal erupted from Sam’s phone-loud enough that Sam had to pull the phone away from his ear-which was my cue to move to another part of the house while he convinced his buddy to acquiesce to his demands. I didn’t want to ruin my dinner.
Two hours later, a yellow Econoline van pulled up in front of Henry’s house. According to the sign on the side of it, the van belonged to ALL-AMERICAN INSULATION amp; AIR-CONDITIONING REPAIR. According to the bulletproof tires, I had a sneaking suspicion that the van actually belonged to Sam’s friend Marci and her cohorts. It’s not every air-conditioning service that can afford Teflon-honeycombed antigun, antiexplosion, extreme-terrain experimental tires that I’d only previously seen in Iraq.
From the living room window I could see the van’s passenger door open and a woman of no less than six full feet of height step out. She wore a tan jumpsuit with a utility belt and held a clipboard, the universal uniform of anyone who wants to look nonthreatening. Though I had a slight twinge of fear that Henry might think it was also the universal uniform of the New World Order. Fortunately, I could still hear Henry snoring away. Well, snoring and intermittently shouting in his sleep.
Sam came up behind me and looked out the living room window. “That’s my girl,” Sam said.
“That’s a woman,” I said.
“You don’t need to tell me that,” Sam said.
“She’s a doctor?”
“Among other things.”
“What other things?”
“Geneva Convention prevents me from saying,” Sam said. He stepped away to open the front door and in walked Marci. She greeted Sam with a hug that practically lifted him off his feet and then she gave him a firm slap on his backside. It was… awkward. But Sam seemed to like it.
“What do we have here?” she asked. She walked into the living room, regarded me with nary a mention, and then sat down in the recliner and stared directly at her clipboard, as if she didn’t want to take in too much information other than what she was asking for. That or plausible deniability was big in her world.
“Big favor, Marci,” Sam said. “We’ve got a subject in the bedroom that we need to get off the grid.”
“Enemy?”
“No,” Sam said.
Marci wrote something on her clipboard. “Client?”
“Not in the traditional sense,” Sam said. He looked over my way. “Maybe you noticed another person in the room?”
“I don’t see anyone,” she said.
“Well, the person you don’t see, he’s a friend of mine named Michael,” Sam said. “We sort of-how should I say this-help people occasionally.”
“I’ve never heard of Michael Westen,” she said, which was interesting since Sam hadn’t said my full name.
“Right, great,” Sam said. “At any rate, the subject in the bedroom is, uh, emotionally unstable. We’re helping his son with some business regarding, uh, well, a gentleman named Big Lumpy and another gentleman named Yuri Drubich and, uh, we need our emotionally unstable client to get the help he needs in a secure facility and, uh, well, here we are.”
Marci looked up. “Did you say Big Lumpy?”
“I did,” Sam said.
“This house,” Marci said. “I expect that it will be cleaned after I leave?”
“Of course,” Sam said.
“No fingerprints, no hair, nothing?”
“Pro job all the way,” Sam said. “I’ll burn it down if you want me to.”
“And Yuri Drubich, correct?”
“Correct,” Sam said.
“I’ll get back to you on the burning. Where’s the asset?”
“Back bedroom,” Sam said.
“You mind if I drug him? We’re going to pile him in an insulation roll and people, especially crazy people, tend to get claustrophobic when wrapped in insulation.”
“Be my guest,” Sam said.
Marci finally turned my way. “Like your work,” she said.
“I haven’t done any in a while,” I said.
“Belgrade in 2001,” she said.
“Ah, yeah, that was fun,” I said.
“You single?”
“Uh,” I said. “Not really. Yes, in a way. It’s complicated.”
“Always is.”
“My ex-girlfriend is violent.”
“She get mean and beat you up?”
“It’s happened,” I said.
“I knew you looked like a good time.” She stood up, walked toward me and then stopped a few feet away so she could look me up and down. I actually misjudged Marci’s height when she got out of the van, because now that she was standing directly in front of me and the distance between us seemed to be closing incrementally with every breath, I thought she was probably closer to six foot three. Tall enough to cast a shadow on me, at any rate.
“Maybe some other time,” I said.
“You’ll be in a military prison some other time,” she said.
“Maybe,” I said. I tried to catch Sam’s eye, but he was busy staring at the floor. I couldn’t tell if he was jealous or, like Marci, wanted plausible deniability should Fiona learn about any of this. “Listen. I might need another small favor down the line with the asset.”
“Yeah?”
“Any way we might be able to get him declared dead?”
“Why?”
“Insurance,” I said, “against getting killed.”
“We can make him go away for a long time, but I thought he had a kid.”
“He does,” I said. “It’s insurance against him dying, too.”
Marci finally looked around the living room. She
picked up a photo of Henry and Brent from the fireplace mantel. “Cute kid.”
“He’s older now,” I said.
“He know his father is crazy?”
“That’s why we’re working for him, Marci.”
“I like the way you say my name,” she said. “You like Italian food?”
“I’m more a Persian food guy,” I said.
“I like Persian food,” she said.
“I know a great little place in Fort Lauderdale,” I said. “Outdoor seating. Breeze from the ocean in your hair. Palm trees swaying in the wind. It’s like being on the Mediterranean.”
Marci licked her lips, which made me feel like I was watching a nature documentary. She might have been six foot four.
“Did you just ask me out on a date?” she said.
“I think you just made me ask you out on a date,” I said.
This got Marci to smile. Thank God. And then she made that same high-pitched squeal I’d heard earlier through Sam’s phone. “You live through this,” she said, “I’ll consider all of your propositions.” She pulled a walkie-talkie from her utility belt. “Come on in,” she said into it. “Bring the barbital and the insulation roll.”
10
Getting ambushed isn’t any fun. One moment you’re happily going about your normal life, worrying about taxes and cancer and what to eat next. The next moment someone has shot you in the face and you’re dead. That’s the second-best-case scenario, really. What you don’t want is to be ambushed, captured and then tortured to death. All things being equal, a bullet to the brain is a far more humane way to die.
There exists, of course, a third possible result of an ambush, the first-best-case scenario, as it were: You’re taken by surprise but not injured beyond repair-physically or emotionally. The problem with this angle is that if someone didn’t want to hurt you physically or emotionally they wouldn’t ambush you in the first place.
Which is why I was somewhat surprised when Big Lumpy appeared at my loft later that evening. There was a knock on the door and when I looked out the window I saw Big Lumpy’s Escalade idling across the street, the glow from the nightclub on the street turning the bright white paint yellow, then pink, then blue.
I didn’t bother to look through the peephole to see if Big Lumpy was alone. If he had guts enough to show up at my door unannounced, he probably wasn’t here to kill me.
Plus, if you want to kill someone without ever touching them, the best way is to wait for them to stare at you through a peephole. A peephole is structurally the weakest portion of a door. It’s just a hole, bored through wood, with glass on either end. So if you want to stab someone in the brain, wait until you see light being interrupted on the other end of the hole and then shove a long-bladed-preferably serrated-knife through the hole with as much force as possible. A serrated knife will do far more damage, so it really is the weapon of choice.
Or just shoot a single bullet through the hole. That will also do the trick. If you’re any good, you won’t even leave a fingerprint.
Even still, you can’t be too careful these days, so I got my shotgun from under the sink, racked it and opened the door.
“Can I help you with something?” I said.
“Is this a bad time?” Big Lumpy said. He was still wearing that absurd white outfit, but now had a portable oxygen tank with him, too, as well as a slim laptop.
“I’m a formal guy,” I said. “You should have called first. I would have taken out the nice linens and china.”
“I would have, but you’re not listed. I looked all through the Yellow Pages under ‘burned spies’ and the only name that came up was a Jesse Something-or-Other.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Call him next time.” I stepped around Big Lumpy and swept my shotgun over the courtyard where I park my car. It was empty and the gate was closed. “Where’s your manservant?”
“In the car,” he said. “Where is yours?”
“I gave him the night off,” I said. “He had a near-death experience this afternoon.”
I put my shotgun down to my side and invited Big Lumpy inside my loft. He stepped in, pulling his oxygen tank behind him, and then stopped to survey his surroundings.
“Spartan,” he said.
“I didn’t intend to stay long,” I said.
“How long ago was that?”
“Longer than I thought,” I said.
“Longer than you deserved?”
“Depends on who you ask.” This answer seemed to satisfy Big Lumpy. He walked over to my kitchen counter and set his computer down and took a seat. “Make yourself at home,” I said to his back. I put my shotgun on my bed and went into the kitchen and stood across the counter from Big Lumpy and waited for him to say whatever he wanted to say.
“I don’t suppose the boy is here?”
“No,” I said.
“Good. Wouldn’t want him seeing me and being unimpressed.”
“You ever meet his father?”
“Once. He wasn’t aware of the fact that he was meeting me, however. I used a proxy. Better to convince him to pay. I watched from a distance. I’m a bit of a voyeur in that way.”
“He’s crazy,” I said.
“I don’t doubt that,” he said. “I put the fear of God into mortal men.”
“No,” I said, “I mean he’s nuts. Clinically.”
“You found him?”
“I’ve found evidence of him,” I said. I didn’t know what Big Lumpy was doing at my place, but the fact that he was there at all told me something was niggling at him, so I decided to take a few chances, see where they led. “And the evidence indicates to me that he’s had a break from reality. If he’s alive, he might be too far gone to matter.”
“This is my problem how?”
“I don’t think he knew what he was doing when he was betting with you,” I said. “Did you know he accidentally killed his wife?”
“I was his bookie, not his therapist,” Big Lumpy said.
I told him the story Brent had told me that afternoon, including the part about his personality changing. I even told him about the conspiracy books I found in Henry’s house, figuring the more evidence for madness I could provide, the more likely Big Lumpy might feel.. . something. I wasn’t sure what he was made of exactly, but I knew that his impending death had to have some effect on him, even if he didn’t want to admit it.
“Terrible story,” Big Lumpy said when I was done.
“Maybe Lifetime will make it into a movie that the whole family can enjoy.”
“Are you really that dead inside?” I asked.
“Do you think I’m stupid, Michael?”
“No.” And I didn’t.
“Then why are you trying to squeeze empathy out of me?”
“I’m just trying to see if you’re a human being.”
“There’s no empathy in my business,” he said.
“Or mine,” I said.
“That’s not true,” he said. “Look at you now. Helping the helpless. Friend to the great unwashed masses who embark on stupid criminal pursuits. You’re like Robin Hood in Armani.”
“This isn’t my business,” I said. “This is my life. I’ve been forced to separate the two. You might look into it.”
This got Big Lumpy to smile. “You’re an odd man,” he said.
“I’ve had an odd life,” I said.
“I know,” he said. He opened up his computer then and swung it my way. “I’ve been reading your file.”
“I don’t need to look at that,” I said. “I have my own copy.”
Big Lumpy nodded once and then made a few clicks on his keyboard. “Have you seen mine?”
On his screen was a series of documents that were largely redacted. “Impressive,” I said. “You’ve been a real black mark.”
Another smile. He still hadn’t told me what exactly he was doing at my house and I wasn’t going to ask. He seemed to be enjoying this cat-and-mouse game, showing me that he was in as deep as I was with the gove
rnment, letting me know that the stakes of Henry’s life were small comparatively. I just didn’t know why yet.
“I spent some time looking at the InterMacron Web site,” Big Lumpy said. “Impressive.”
“I thought so.”
“How old is he?”
“Nineteen.”
“Only child?”
“Only child.”
“And his father, you say he’s crazy. His mother is dead. Grandparents?”
“I don’t know. Probably dead,” I said. “I think he has an aunt somewhere.”
“Texas,” Big Lumpy said.
“Right,” I said. “I forgot you’d threatened her life.”
“I only provided intel. I made no actual threats of my own. Outsourcing, Michael-you should look into it.”
“Next career change I might,” I said.
“I spent some time quizzing Sugar on his friend’s life today, too. Just to make sure no one was lying to me about things. I’d hate to think I was dealing with a nineteen-year-old savant only to learn that I was dealing with some intricate multinational plot.”
“That happened before?”
“More than once,” he said. “It helped that I was the nineteen-year-old.” He made a few clicks on his computer again and up popped a photo of Sugar strapped to a table and covered in electrodes. “I figured it would be easiest just to polygraph your friend Sugar versus figuring out all of his slang. Did you know his legal name is actually Sugar?”
“No.”
“It came up as a lie, but he swore it was true. It made for a good control question.”
“So?”
“So it seems everyone is being honest. A true revelation.”
“You came here just to tell me that?”
“I came here to make a deal.”
“We already made a deal.”
“No, you won a bet.”
“You don’t have anything I want,” I said.
“This isn’t about us. It’s about the boy. Brent.” Big Lumpy’s oxygen machine made a beeping noise. He looked down at it and swore under his breath, then reached down and came back up with a power cord. “Would you mind plugging this in for me? My manservant apparently didn’t juice it up enough before I left and so now I have only fifteen minutes of oxygen left and then you’ll have to give me mouth-to-mouth.”
