And then he started plotting a way to lose a finger, maybe two, just to keep his mother in the station she’d grown accustomed to. He also thought one more good job would seal the deal.
Now, sitting in the car next to this whack job Fiona, he wasn’t sure any of it was worth it. She was pretty, for sure, but he was supposed to be in business with Michael Westen, who according to Barry, was like a Jedi. He liked the idea of hiring a Jedi to help him out. Figured he could tell a few lies, leave out some key points, what would Obi-Wan know? But then this Fiona girl . . . she frankly scared the crap out of him, so he just figured he’d tell the straight truth, see where that got him. Worse came to worst, he was in the same position as he was ten minutes ago. But she was cute, so there was that.
“In retrospect,” Bruce told Fiona, as they rounded yet another street filled with old ladies out on their porches talking on their portable phones or playing solitaire, “I should have just chopped my finger off and been done with it.”
“You’re enthralling me with your tale of woe,” Fiona said. “And most of it even seems plausible, except for the part about smart girls thinking you were cute, but what happened with the stash house?”
It was stupid, Bruce had to admit. After getting released from jail, minus a finger, minus the $500 he had to pay to lose the finger, but plus the $750,000 his insurance paid out that he was able to give to his mom for her bills while he was inside, he moved in with his mom, determined to just be a good son, which he felt he was. Good citizen, which meant he wouldn’t help his friend Barry do anything cash-based, just give him some occasional advice, maybe even get a job working at the Starbucks across the street, or the one next door, or even the one half a block away.
And for two months it worked. Well, apart from the Starbucks thing. He got a job instead working at Kinko’s, just to pass the time. But then his mom got sick again—this time the cancer was in her liver—and he started thinking about giving her some comfort. She was eighty-eight now and even if it all worked out with the cancer, how much longer did she have?
The thing was, he couldn’t go back to prison. And the last time he’d robbed a bank he found out the hard way that banks in Miami in the late nineties weren’t like crap-ass savings and loans in small towns in Oregon: You could break into the safe-deposit boxes, you just couldn’t get your ass back out, at least not with a broken leg. And that was twelve years ago. So Bruce went looking for a stash house, something run by drug dealers, so they’d be working from straight cash, and preferably crystal meth or coke dealers, since they frequently got high off of their own supply and couldn’t stand to be locked up at home.
It only took him a couple of weeks of scouting, first by going to the colleges at night and watching the dealers pull up to the fraternity houses to make drops, and then later tinkering around the hot spots in South Beach, looking for actors and actresses and models with runny noses and then seeing where they went. A couple of times he thought he’d found a good spot to rob, as they were in nice neighborhoods lined with expensive homes, but then he got to looking and realized that those nice places had security systems and Neighborhood Watch and talkative kids on bicycles who might notice something.
So when he finally found the ideal spot—a piece-of-crap house on the edge of the Everglades—and an ideal pair of marks—two stupid longhairs with modified motorcycles that roared like injured lions, which made them about as inconspicuous as Siegfried and Roy used to be, and who just let people walk in all day and buy drugs—he went to work. If he’d been younger, that would have meant getting city plans of the house, taking pictures of all the angles, maybe even enlisting a getaway car, but at sixty- five, and with these morons, it seemed easier to wait for them to leave for the night, break in through the ceiling—his go-to route, since these guys weren’t gonna call the cops anyway, and because there’s less absorbent surface to leave fingerprints and such—and rob the place.
Which is exactly what he did.
Two in the morning on a Saturday—your basic come-down time—both morons hopped on their bikes and headed out, messenger bags over their shoulders to make their drops in Miami, and Bruce headed in. Popped through roof tiles into the attic, out through the attic door with a rope ladder and into a bedroom closet, which was good because it was right where he needed to be. File cabinets of paperwork, boxes, bags—actual bags!—of cash. And drugs. Ziplocs filled with crystal meth, crack, pills. It was pitch-dark in the closet and the door was locked from the outside and, smartly, made of steel. On that measure, these boys were wise. Everything else, not so much.
Bruce took all the money, of course. Filled his car up. And then thought, you know, what drug dealer keeps paperwork? And so he broke back in and took the files, too, thinking he’d have a few more arrows in his quiver. Maybe some car information, house deed . . . who knew? He didn’t try to read anything in the dark, just took everything he could and got the hell out, thinking that if his mom got really sick, whatever he found would be worth something to someone. Plus, he really couldn’t lose another finger.
“How much money?” Fiona asked.
He hated to tell her, since he had the sense that maybe she’d robbed a few places in the past, too. “Three hundred,” he said.
“All of that for three hundred dollars?”
“Thousand,” he said. “Three hundred thousand.”
“Oh, my,” she said. Weird. Maybe she liked him, since her voice took on a much huskier tone. “And when did you find out it was a Ghouls’ house?”
“That night when I started going through the paperwork. I didn’t even think twice about it then, though,” Bruce said, though actually he’d been quite happy. “But then word got back to me that they were looking to find out who would be stupid enough to do the crime, lots of money being thrown around to find out, which meant that soon enough they’d find me. That’s why I just want to give what I have back, before they put it all together.”
Fiona reached into her bag and pulled out her cell phone. “Anything else you care to add?” she asked.
“Are you single?” he asked. Worth a try.
“I’m free any night for the right price,” she said, smiling, “and my price right now includes men with all of their fingers, so you just missed out.”
She dialed a number on her phone, still smiling, still giving off one vibe, but clearly not meaning it. She must have robbed banks, Bruce thought.
“Michael,” Fiona said, “he’s an idiot and he’s in trouble, but he’s not a liar.”
5
Every successful organization, pedestrian or criminal, has a hierarchy. The United States, apart from the occasional hijacked election, is the perfect example of this. Every four years, without violent civil unrest, leadership is allowed to change and, with it, ideology. Countries with dictators also have a hierarchy and within it change also frequently occurs. That change might not include the murderous head of state, but on a local level ministers and department heads move around, different mullahs are favored more than others, and the occasional bureaucrat makes a leap because of a well-timed snitch operation. But belief systems rarely change in dictatorships because no one wants to die for beliefs anymore. Well, unless there’s a coup, and then those beliefs are probably the ones people like me have, at some point, put into motion.
Even then there are rules. Break them and people will die, or at least lose their job, or die and lose their job, depending upon just how serious the violation.
You’d think the Ghouls Motorcycle Club wouldn’t have an extensive operating constitution; its members would understand that their jobs were to sell drugs, commit crimes and terrorize people on Honda motorcycles.
You’d be wrong.
Spread across a lovely wicker coffee table that hadn’t been dusted since Clinton was in office, there were pages and pages of the Ghouls’ rules and regulations, a manual as thick and thorough as the actual constitution. Sam and I sat in the living room of Grossman’s house going through the papers, eac
h one stolen in the dark of night from the stash house, while Fiona sat outside with Zadie, apparently having a long conversation concerning US Magazine. From my view in the living room, it looked like they were getting along like sisters. That was Fiona’s unique ability: She could scare you or charm you, all within a few moments.
“So, just so we’re clear,” Sam said to Bruce, “you don’t want to move to Canada, right?”
I’d called Sam after Fiona told me about Bruce’s plight, and now the two of us were trying to figure out how best to keep Bruce alive. Sam’s ideas heretofore had also included face- transplant surgery and literally moving underground, like in an old bomb shelter, because trying to elude the grasp of the Ghouls was like trying to catch water in a strainer.
“I can’t,” he said. “They don’t allow ex-felons there.”
“I’ve got a buddy who could get you a very nice passport,” Sam said.
Bruce seemed to consider this.
“Says here the Ghouls have an organization in Canada, too,” I said. That the official records of the organization were kept in a stash house in the Everglades felt like perpetual stupidity, but then I thought that if I had to look for this information, the last place I’d look would be there, too. And that made sense. Stupid sense, but sense. “In fact, according to this, they have ‘colors in all the corners of the world,’ which means you better start looking at space travel. You know anyone at NASA, Sam?”
“I could make a call,” Sam said.
Bruce exhaled hard from his mouth. Apparently, he didn’t care for our line of conversation. “Look,” he said, “I can’t just disappear. I robbed that place for my mother. If I leave now, who takes care of her? And I’m fifty-five years old.”
I looked at him. He sat in a recliner that was probably first purchased so Zadie would have a comfortable seat for the moon landing. But then, the entire house had a dull, antiquated cast to it from all the cigarettes over the years. Lick the sofa and you could probably get a nice nicotine hit.
“Do you want Fiona to come in and talk to you?” I said.
A dash of wonder and pain shot through Grossman’s eyes. He did and he didn’t. “Okay, fine, sixty-five,” he said. “But my point is that I can’t start running now. I’ve never run in my entire life.”
“I understand,” I said. “But you’ve put yourself in a position.”
“I thought Barry said you knew how to help me, that you were a spy or something,” Bruce said.
“That’s right,” I said. “That doesn’t mean I have invisibility potions. If these guys want to find you, Bruce, they will find you.”
“Why can’t I just mail this stuff back to them? I used to do that all the time.”
“So that was you?” I said.
Bruce looked outside toward his mother and Fi but didn’t say anything for a minute. “Listen,” he said, “my mom? She doesn’t know about all that. She thinks I was an architect. And just to be clear, I was never tried for anything but that last job, so I’m not guilty of anything apart from that.”
“Which is why the FBI wanted to hire you as a consultant?” I said. “Because you’re a failed bank robber?”
“How do you know that?” Bruce asked.
Sam started to say something, but I put a hand up to let him know I still needed to show that I was the alpha in this organizational hierarchy, not that Sam had any idea that was what I was doing. He probably just thought I didn’t want to be interrupted. “Let’s just say I know things,” I said.
“Be that as it may,” Bruce said, like he was putting on a show for someone. There was a quality to him that reminded you of a magician, as if every moment might contain a bit of sleight of hand. “I have to stay here. My mother has friends, this is where her doctors are and if this is her last hurrah, I want her to be comfortable. You can understand that, can’t you?”
I could and I told him so. “How much money have you spent?” I asked.
“About twenty thousand,” he said. “Paid some bills, paid for a nurse for a couple days, bought my mom an air purifier. Probably too late on that one. I haven’t opened the mail today, so who knows how much the next bill will be.”
“How much does your mom have left? From the finger incident?”
“Not much,” he said. “That was twelve years ago. And she’s been sick off and on for ten years. Maybe five grand.”
“What all did you drop off at the FBI offices?”
Again, a look of shock crossed Bruce’s face, but he tried to play it off, or maybe he just realized I really did know things. “A couple role sheets,” he said. “Thought if the FBI arrested the crew, they’d be off of me.”
“Good idea,” Sam said, “but you can’t just arrest someone for being an asshole anymore. You actually need to catch them breaking the law. Or breaking their leg while breaking the law. That counts, too.”
Bruce shrugged, like: What can you do? You can’t do nothing.
“What makes you think they’re on to you?” I asked.
“These people have connections everywhere,” Bruce said. “They might even have guys in the FBI for all I know.”
I was about to say I found that unlikely, but then I thought better of it. If anything is true, it’s that every organization has retention and, conversely, leak problems. One person says one thing to the wrong person, and in some cases, an entire spy operation in Moscow could be wiped out. Or a thief in Miami living with his mother could be fingered for a job.
Better to deal with known possibility than wishful thinking.
“Have you told anyone about the job?”
“Just Barry,” he said. “He’s the one told me they were making inquiries, which got me thinking, you know, don’t be a schmuck, get rid of whatever you can and ask for help. Was that wrong?”
“Barry you can trust,” I said, already feeling relieved. If he’d told only Barry, we could close the circle, solve the problem, get everyone back to living in peace and harmony and . . .
“And I might have mentioned it to Nick Balsalmo.”
He said the name like it should mean something. It didn’t. At least not to me. I looked at Sam, whose expression was likewise blank. We all stared at each other for a while, until it became clear none of us was going to offer more information, so Sam finally said, “Of the Miami Balsalmos?”
“We know each other from Glades,” Bruce said carefully, as if he already knew that it was the wrong thing to say.
“You might have told someone you did time with that you robbed the Ghouls?” I said. There is no might in these situations, just like I told Barry the previous day. People either do or don’t do things. I had a feeling I knew the answer.
“Technically,” Bruce said, “I didn’t know it was the Ghouls when I told him.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Sam said. “Or else you might have told him the total truth.”
Bruce took off his watch and started rubbing at his wrist. You spend enough time around people used to being in handcuffs and you’ll begin to notice a similar compunction when they realize they’ve put themselves in a position to be back in cuffs . . . and soon. “I owed him a favor and knew he could get rid of the drugs I grabbed,” he said. “Just having them in my mother’s home was a shanda. Nick is trustworthy. He always had my back.”
If you’re sent to prison, it’s important to understand that the people you’re doing time with are not, by definition, trustworthy. One of the first rules of incarceration is simple: Don’t owe anybody anything. As soon as someone has you, they have you forever. This means inside and outside. You might not know it when it’s happening, but eventually the scales will tip.
“Was Nick Balsalmo part of a prison ministry program?” I asked.
“Uh, no,” he said.
“Does Nick Balsalmo work for the police department?” I asked.
“Uh, no,” he said again. He was beginning to get the path of this line of questioning.
“Does he work in hazardous waste disposal?”
/>
“No.”
“No,” I said. “No, I’m going to guess Nick Balsalmo is a drug dealer. Would that be an accurate description?”
“More like a courier. He doesn’t sell on the streets. I couldn’t trust a guy who sold drugs to kids or something.”
“Of course not,” I said. “Who could?”
The sarcasm was lost on Bruce.
“Right, right, my feeling exactly. But he works with bigger businesses, I guess you could say.”
“A middleman,” Sam offered.
“Exactly, exactly,” Bruce said. “A middleman.”
“So it might stand to reason that Mr. Balsalmo would be in the business of selling your stolen drugs to people who suddenly found themselves, say, low on product? Would that sound plausible?” I said.
“Uh, yes,” Bruce said. And there it was. Dawning.
“When did you speak with him last?”
“Three, four days ago. He called to thank me. Said he was having good luck moving the stuff, wanted to know if I wanted, you know, a cut. I said no, of course.”
“Of course,” Sam said.
“Of course,” I said. I gave him a big smile and then said, “You might want to give him a call. See if he’s still alive.”
The color left Bruce’s face then. He’d known this was serious before, certainly, but for some reason he hadn’t seen all of the consequences of his actions. I tossed him my cell phone and he dialed Nick’s number on speaker. After a few rings, an automated voice announced that the voice mail was full.
“What kind of drug dealer doesn’t check his messages?” I said.
“Maybe he’s out of town?” Bruce said.
“That’s why people have voice mail, Bruce, so they can get their calls anywhere. Especially drug dealers. Do you know where he lives?”
“He lives with a Cuban girl out in Little Havana. I went over there for dinner once. Nice place.” There was a matter-of-factness to Bruce that sometimes felt very odd: He was essentially a very simple guy. For a person who did twelve years, he didn’t seem to be all that jaded, or damaged, which meant that for some reason he hadn’t had a terrible experience in jail. Or not as terrible as others.
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