The Bad Beat bn-4

by Tod Goldberg

  Sam nodded. It was nice outside. A pleasant breeze. The palm trees were free of rats. The sky wasn’t smoggy. I couldn’t smell my mother’s cigarette smoke. I could probably get into my car and drive to the Keys and come back in a week and all of these problems would be gone, one way or the other.

  “This might be a good time for me to say, again, that I apologize for getting us into this mess,” Sam said.

  “How much do you know about wind technology?” I asked.

  “I once had to go out to the Marine base in Twentynine Palms, outside Palm Springs and I saw that big wind farm they’ve got out there. Sort of creeped me out. Windmills look dangerous.”

  “Apart from that?”

  “Apart from that, not much.”

  “Well,” I said, “when the messenger arrives with the information Big Lumpy came up with for us to deliver to Yuri Drubich, I suggest you spend some time getting acclimated to the nuances of all things involving wind technology.”

  “So… ”

  “Yes,” I said. “You’re now Big Lumpy. You have any all-white outfits?”

  “Not since Miami Vice,” he said.

  The front door opened and Sugar stepped out. “Your moms wanted me to come out and check on you,” he said. When I didn’t respond, because I knew he was lying, he said, “All right, man, you know, she’s relentless with the judgments. I’ve had a bad week, bro, and she’s all up on me for my life choices, so I had to bug out.”

  I said nothing.

  “And so, yeah, I was thinking, maybe I’d bounce, if that’s cool?”

  “You planning on taking the bus?” Sam said. That he’d spoken at all was a surprise.

  “Naw, man, I was hoping you could set me up with a ride and a safe place for a few days, till this Russian madness ends.”

  “Sugar,” I said, “the moment you leave this house, you’re a dead man. Do you realize that?”

  “Your mom hates me,” he said.

  “You’re easy to hate,” Sam said. “Give me your watch.”

  “What?” he said.

  “Your watch,” Sam said. “Give it to me.”

  “Look, I’ll hook you up with those Dolphin tickets-you just gotta give me some time.”

  “Sugar,” I said, “give Sam your watch before he takes it with your arm still attached.”

  “If I give him my watch,” Sugar said to me, “will you get me out of here?”

  “Sugar,” I said, “I have a feeling Big Lumpy bugged you. The easiest place to look is your watch. After that, we start going through your internal organs. So please, with cherries on top, give Sam your watch.”

  Sugar unclasped his watch and handed it to Sam. “Be careful,” he said. “It’s a Rolex.”

  “Aren’t you a little young to have a Rolex?” Sam asked.

  “I got big money,” he said.

  Sam handed me the watch so I could look at it. It said ROLEX on the face and it was covered with diamonds… except that the diamonds were obviously cubic zirconium, since the only person who could afford the size and sum of encrusted diamonds on Sugar’s watch was the Sultan of Brunei. Even he would think it was gaudy. I turned the watch over. It said MADE IN CHINA right there on the plate.

  “Where’d you get this?” I asked.

  “You know. I got people who find me deals.”

  “They got you a great deal on this one, then,” I said and handed it back to Sam, who set it on the ground and stomped on it until it broke apart. The “diamonds” crumbled like… well, like the glass they turned out to be.

  “What are you doing?” Sugar fairly shrieked.

  “It’s a fake, Sugar,” I said. “It was made in China.”

  “What about the diamonds?” he said.

  “Those were made in a window store,” I said. I reached down and pulled out the parts and found the bug immediately-Big Lumpy hadn’t bothered to put a small, top-level bug into the watch, opting instead for one about the size of a nickel.

  “This come with your phone?” I asked.

  “Aw, man, c’mon,” Sugar said. “You think I knew they’d bugged me?”

  “During your traumatic time of capture,” Sam said,

  “were you ever without your lovely Rolex?”

  “That weird little dude? Monty? He asked me if he could shine it for me. Right before we came to your place, Mike. I was like, damn, you know?”

  “This was before they wrapped you in plastic and stuffed your ears with cotton and taped up your mouth?” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “And you found nothing suspicious about the fact that they returned your watch to you all shined up and sparkling like it was the day you paid all eleven dollars for it?” Sam asked.

  “Man, I was out of my mind. You know? I just, you know, like reacted to freedom and wasn’t thinking about it. I’m not a pro at being kidnapped like you guys are. Maybe I had that Frankfurt Syndrome or some shit.”

  “I think you mean Stockholm,” I said.

  “Frankfurt, Stockholm, Fort Lauderdale, my shit was scared, yo.”

  It was hard to stay mad at Sugar. He was like a dog that pees on the floor every time the doorbell rings. Not much you can do but shake your head and drag it outside and tie it up when people come to visit-the difference being that you couldn’t just leave Sugar chained up outside for the rest of the day. At least not legally.

  I examined the bug for a moment. It was a government-issue high-density bug-the kind they hand out like M amp;Ms to spies around the world-which lent credence to both Big Lumpy’s bona fides and Monty’s. .. or Steve’s… or Agent Zero’s. Whoever he was. I looked for a fingerprint on the bug but found nothing. He’d be too good for that.

  “Sam,” I said, “you think you could find out who Big Lumpy’s manservant Monty actually is?”

  “You don’t trust him?”

  “No,” I said, “I actually do trust him. But I want to know who our new business partner is before we send you into combat with Yuri.”

  “I’ll make some calls,” he said.

  “I need to know if he’s someone who can be reasoned with or someone I might need to shoot first, like Sugar, but I have a feeling you’re going to have a bit of homework when the deliveryman shows up.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that,” Sam said.

  “You’re the only person here who resembles the words ‘Big Lumpy,’” I said.

  “I can tell you right now,” Sugar said, “that Monty fool has his swerve down. He made my watch look tight even if he did bug it. But if you want to put a cap in his ass, I’m with that.”

  “No one is putting a cap in anyone’s ass,” I said.

  “Least of all you.”

  “Just saying, Mike, I’m riding with you, I’m riding with you to the end, player.”

  “Do you practice these lines?” Sam said to Sugar.

  “Or do they just roll out of your mouth as natural as the day you were born?”

  “You know,” Sugar said, “when you got game, you got game.”

  A black van with the logo FOUR POINTS DELIVERY SERVICE pulled up in front of my mother’s house then. The delivery guy got out and saw us standing there. “This the Westen Spy House?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. Good old dead Big Lumpy. He had a sense of humor, at least.

  “Cool. One of you want to help me with the boxes?”

  “Boxes?” I said.

  “Yeah, I got two file boxes full of stuff, plus a couple envelopes and a laptop computer.”

  “Have at it, Sugar,” Sam said.

  Sugar, to his credit, didn’t respond in any negative way to Sam, and instead went to the curb to help the deliveryman. The delivery guy opened up the back of the van, and Sugar stepped in and came back out with two white boxes stuffed with information.

  “Where you want this stuff?” he asked when he got up to the porch.

  “Put it in the kitchen,” I said, “and tell my mother not to touch it.”

  “Man, I�
��m not telling her anything. I don’t need her yelling at me like I’m her kid.”

  The deliveryman walked up behind Sugar with the envelopes and the laptop. “You need to sign for all of this,” he said. He handed me the envelopes-one marked with my name, one marked with Brent’s-and handed Sam the laptop. He went back to his truck and came back with a clipboard and showed me where to sign. “Okay, thanks.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” I said.

  “Sure,” he said. “Is it about the creepy dude?”

  “The creepy dude?” I said.

  “The little Asian dude,” he said. “If he’s your cousin or something, I apologize. He just gave me the creeps.”

  “It actually is about him,” I said. “Where did you pick this information up?”

  “That’s part of the creepy bit,” he said. “I picked it up about a block away from here.”

  “From here?” I said.

  “Yeah. Parking lot of that church down the street? You know it?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Weird since he could have just dropped it off himself, right?”

  “Right,” I said. And then a thought occurred to me. “When did they place the delivery order?”

  He flipped through the pages on the clipboard. “Uh, let’s see. Looks like the order came in two days ago.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Yep. Prepaid delivery authorized on Saturday.”

  Saturday. I hadn’t even met Big Lumpy yet on Saturday. “What time?”

  “Uh, let’s see. Did it online at eight in the morning. Early risers, I guess.”

  And with precognitive abilities. Sam and I met with Big Lumpy on Sunday at noon. Which either meant Big Lumpy had the world’s best Ouija board or was well aware of Brent’s situation-and his connection to me-long before we ever met. I had a suspicion that either Brent’s home phone was bugged-likely, really-and that more than likely Big Lumpy had been tracking Brent for a very long time. It made sense if Henry Grayson was in as deep as he appeared to be. I could see Big Lumpy wanting to have a pawn to play with for his money, only to discover something far more interesting and then, as was his wont, taking a few bets on how things might turn out. All an elaborate game for his enjoyment and, perhaps, a little deathbed edification.

  “Thanks,” I said. “That’s helpful.”

  “No problem,” he said, but then he didn’t go anywhere. “Information, you know, it’s the currency of the future, but you can’t pay your rent with it, if you get my meaning.”

  I did.

  “Sam,” I said, “tip the man.”

  “You should wear more comfortable shoes,” Sam said. “Trust me. You’ll be having back problems soon enough if you’re not careful. You need to start lifting from your legs and then carrying all boxes in what we in the ergonomic profession call the strike zone. So, middle of your thigh to the middle of your chest.” Sam patted the delivery guy on the shoulder in such a way that he actually managed to get him turned around back toward his van. “No need to thank me now. Your sciatica can send me a thank-you note from the old folks’ home.”

  We watched the van drive off in silence, both of us contemplating the news we’d learned.

  I looked at Sam and tried to imagine him all in white and filled with two file boxes and a laptop computer’s worth of information. He apparently was having the same revelation, since he now looked even more sickened than usual by the early hour.

  “Better go inside and ask my mother if you can borrow her reading glasses,” I said to Sam.

  “You ever learn that Evelyn Wood Speed Reading technique?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, “I always preferred to actually read.”

  “They say if you learn something in an altered state, you’ll recall it better in an altered state. So I’m thinking maybe a mimosa is the call here.”

  “I’m going to say no,” I said.

  “You sure you don’t think Sugar could pull off being Big Lumpy?” he said.

  “No.”

  “So Big Lumpy knew we were coming,” Sam said.

  “Seems like it.”

  “I wonder how much more he knew.”

  “I’m going to guess quite a bit,” I said. I told him I thought Brent’s place was probably bugged and my ideas about Big Lumpy’s initial reasoning.

  “Makes sense,” Sam said. “You really think he’s dead?”

  “I’ll call the coroner to find out,” I said, “but I’m going to guess that he killed himself.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it would be more entertaining for him to watch this from some spectral plane than to actually be in it. And because he was already dead, for the most part. Last night he told me he had three months, but I wouldn’t have placed money on that being true. The man could hardly function. He didn’t even torture Sugar.”

  My mom stepped outside then and slammed the door behind her. “He’s an idiot,” she said.

  “I know,” I said.

  “Are you going to stow him in my garage while you go out saving the world?”

  “Not this time,” I said.

  “Good,” she said, “because he’s not safe here.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “It’s bad enough that he’s an idiot,” she said, “but his self-tanning lotion is giving me a migraine. Someone should tell him that the color orange does not occur in nature.”

  “I’ll mention it to him,” Sam said. He put an arm around my mother. She had a soft spot for Sam, probably because Sam had an ability to make anyone like him, and probably because she knew he’d kept me alive on more than one occasion. “Why don’t we go inside and you can help me learn all about the fascinating world of wind, and if Sugar does anything to annoy you, I’ll put him in a sleeper lock. How does that sound?”

  Before she could answer, Sam had her turned around and was walking her back into the house. The man could defuse a nuclear bomb with a drink in one hand.

  I’d planned on leaving Sugar behind, but circumstances had changed. I hadn’t expected Big Lumpy to die. I hadn’t expected to be the unwitting dupe in some larger game-a position I was absolutely not comfortable with, but which I’d need to react to with suitable force and control. And I hadn’t expected the need to get Sam trained in the fine art of wind technology, the burgeoning echo system of black market bandwidths and, of course, make sure it was all plausible enough to get Yuri to bite on it, so that the rest of the plan could go forward. Getting a man who shot rockets into businesses off the street was a good thing, but the more tangible issue was that otherwise he would kill Brent the first chance he got. And Fiona’s death was a real possibility, too. Yuri Drubich probably considered Fiona’s breaking his wrist as bad form. What I did know, however, was that Yuri wanted to see Brent and Henry, wanted to make them pay for his inconvenience. They probably knew what Brent looked like by now, but they probably had no idea what Henry looked like. They knew enough to blow up his office, but not enough to destroy his home, which told me they were still grasping at straws.

  So I needed to find someone who could plausibly pass for Brent’s father.

  I needed someone who would do exactly what I said and wouldn’t ask too many questions.

  I needed someone who might know how to manage a few million dollars discreetly… and who wouldn’t mind working with Sugar, if need be.

  That decreased the pool by a legion.

  I opened up the envelope Big Lumpy had left for Brent and read the terms and conditions of his inheritance, such as it was. A good lawyer would help, but the closest thing I had to that was another man good at moving papers around. And, as it happened, the perfect person for the job at hand, too.

  “Barry,” I said into my cell phone when my favorite money launderer answered, “I need you.”

  12

  When you occupy a defensive position, it’s important to find good cover. If good cover isn’t available, a spy will try to conceal himself as best as possible. This
can mean that he hides behind a bush or a mustache, in a burned-out car or on a crowded bus. Concealment provides time to reorganize and recalibrate an attack and, if done correctly, might also allow a spy to do a little… spying. Because there’s nothing a spy appreciates more than the opportunity to view and analyze his own information-which is why Sugar and I were sitting on the patio of Odessa sipping tea while we waited for Barry to show up.

  None of Yuri’s people knew about me, as far as I could tell, and Sugar had escaped out the back door of Henry’s office before he could be spotted. And since Sugar’s car wasn’t registered in his name, whoever Yuri thought he was intimidating by destroying the car wasn’t actually Sugar.

  If we were going to exchange information and money, I’d want to do it in public, but I’d want to do it in a place where Yuri felt comfortable, so I figured visiting his place of business was a nice way of getting the lay of the land.

  Plus, I’d placed bugs inside the main shop beneath several of the shelves holding tea and accoutrements while we waited to be seated.

  “You really think this is a good idea?” Sugar said.

  “Well,” I said, “if anyone here suspected we were anything but tea enthusiasts, they would have poisoned us already.”

  “I do feel itchy,” Sugar said.

  “That’s probably an allergic reaction to being wrapped in plastic.”

  “Man, I wasn’t made for this spy game,” he said.

  “Which is why you shouldn’t say things like ‘I wasn’t made for this spy game’ in public. It tends to be a red flag.”

  “You just want me to sit here and shut up?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Sip your tea. You may find you enjoy it.”

  “It tastes like dirt, you want my opinion,” Sugar said.

  “That’s one thing I don’t want.”

  We’d been there for only fifteen minutes and thus far I hadn’t seen a man with a broken wrist or a woman with balance issues who was also bleeding from the ears, so maybe they were both taking a personal day. Our waitress was a young Cuban woman-maybe nineteen or twenty-who didn’t seem to possess any outward signs that she was a Castro supporter here to overthrow the American government, nor did she seem all that interested in bringing us hot water in a timely manner. In fact, the entire tearoom seemed to be filled with people mostly interested in doing their jobs at the rate tea steeps. Which was fine. They didn’t even bother to attempt to peek at the folder filled with documents that I brought with me. I was just another businessman on a business lunch with his drug dealer.