The Giveaway bn-3

by Tod Goldberg

  “That A-Rod is a bum, right, Scooter?” the bartender said. The cat turned at the sound of his name, but didn’t have a ready response.

  “You know they eat those in China,” Rod said, referring to the cat.

  “Really?” Sam said. He was just happy Rod was finally communicating.

  “They’re a delicacy. But after the SARS outbreak, people stopped eating them as much.”

  “Why is that?” Sam asked.

  Rod looked at the cat kind of sideways, which reminded Sam of the way Rod used to look at the women on the streets of the Maldives. “They carried the disease,” Rod said.

  This really was a dive bar, Sam thought.

  “Good to know,” Sam said. “One less food I need to worry about being forced to eat.”

  “They also make coffee out of their fecal matter,” Rod said.

  “Who are ‘they’?”

  Rod didn’t respond. He was still looking at the cat, though he actually seemed to be trying to do some sort of mind-meld with it. It wasn’t unusual for people to leave the military and then join either the post office or the DMV, as both required a slavish, military degree of subservience. Both also required people to find joy in repetition, which was just a precursor to madness as far as Sam was concerned. Doing the same thing every day and expecting to go home happy wasn’t the definition of madness, but damned if Sam could figure out why it wasn’t, since Rod seemed positively loopy.

  “So, Big Rod, the little errand I asked you to do,” Sam said, “what do you have for me?”

  Rod handed Sam the envelope, but kept his eye on the cat. Whatever was happening there was between Rod and the cat. Sam pulled out the documents and started going over them. According to what Rod had pulled from the computer, the woman living at the address where Nick Balsalmo had met his demise was a seventy-five-year-old woman named Maria Cortes. The DMV had her going five-two and weighing in at 283 pounds. That didn’t seem right. Sam had seen stuff on the Internet, of course, but Nick Balsalmo was a thirty-five-year-old guy running drugs out of Little Havana. He didn’t seem like a granny chaser.

  “Rod, you sure about this?” Sam said.

  Rod finally turned his attention from the cat and regarded Sam with something like disappointment. “Of course,” he said, as if he couldn’t believe he was being questioned.

  “See, the thing is, I think I’m looking for someone younger.”

  “These Cuban families,” Rod said and then drifted off in his sentence, his eye back on the cat. “Is that thing getting closer to us?” he asked.

  “No,” Sam said. “It’s on a chain.” He wondered if Rod had suffered some kind of mild stroke. “What were you saying about these Cuban families?”

  “Maybe half of them are legal, the other half came on a boat, they all use the same names. Could be twelve Maria Corteses in that family.”

  That was already something Sam had considered, which meant that the real Maria in question here was probably illegal, which would make it doubly hard to track her down.

  “Did you happen to run any old car registrations for this person?”

  “It’s all there, Sam,” Rod said, though he kind of spat the words out. “I took initiative.”

  Guy sure was bitter, Sam thought, but after pulling through a few pages, he found a current registration for a 1991 Honda Civic to an address only a few miles from the building where Balsalmo was killed. It was a place to start.

  He sifted through the rest of the papers and found a few more car registrations, along with a permit for a vehicle not currently being operated dated a few months earlier to the same address as the Civic. A 1977 Ford Ranchero. A good sign.

  “What do I owe you for this stuff, Rod?”

  “Nothing,” Rod said.

  “No favor I can do for you?”

  “No,” Rod said. He’d locked eyes with the civet, which had begun to emit a low growl. “You ever feel like you were born into the wrong species?”

  “Can’t say that I have,” Sam said.

  “You know of any available jobs out there in the private sector, Sam?”

  “You’re in the private sector,” Sam said.

  “You know what I mean,” he said. “Something where I got a little action.”

  If it was up to Sam, he’d prescribe a course of action for Rod that involved large sums of psychotropic drugs, followed by intensive regression therapy. And a promise that he would never be allowed to proctor a line at the DMV again.

  “Can’t say that I do,” Sam said.

  “Then what are you doing? Why do you need this information?”

  Sam was pretty comfortable with most of his friends. They rarely asked questions, and when they did it was usually just to protect their own asses. Understandable. But Rod seemed like he just wanted a piece of the action.

  “I’m doing some process serving,” Sam said. “Maria here is getting sued by Sears. Owes thirteen hundred on a Bowflex she bought on credit. It’s actually a pretty interesting case.” Sam continued to prattle on until Rod lost interest and started staring at the cat again, which caused the cat to start pacing back and forth on its leash, that low growl turning more guttural. After a good five minutes essentially describing the plot of an episode of Simon amp; Simon that he remembered, Sam concluded by saying, “So, if you’re interested in that, just let me know.”

  By this time, the other patrons in the bar had noticed the cat’s change in personality and were scooting to the other side of the bar, which reminded Sam of how people used to sit in the nonsmoking section on airplanes, as if the metal tube they were locked in could somehow discern where the smoke went. If that weird-ass cat thing decided to rip away from the wall and attack Rod and start eating faces, it was Sam’s impression that being on the other side of the bar would only increase the fun for the beast. The only person who didn’t move was the drag queen-or who Sam had decided was a drag queen, since very few women that he knew had a growth of beard and a tattoo of a naked woman riding a dragon inked on their forearms. It was a good disguise, anyway, and suggested that an aggressive Asian cat was the least of his (her?) concerns.

  Unfortunately, the bartender was not so encumbered, as he noticed the change. “Easy, Scooter, easy,” he said, and then started to make his way over to the table with a bat in his hand. Sam didn’t know what he was planning with the bat, and anyway it was all a little too late, really, since Sam had wanted a beer about fifteen minutes earlier, but now just wanted to get psycho Rod back to the DMV before he did even more damage in public. Sam yanked Rod out of the booth by his sleeve and got him out the door before they had to fight their way out. Used to be you could go into a bar without encountering civet cats and drag queens, but Sam thought maybe it was the person he was hanging out with that brought on these odd circumstances. Sam made a mental note to find a better DMV source, perhaps someone who hadn’t been mentally neutered at some point in the recent past.

  An hour later, Sam parked in front of a house on the eastern edge of Little Havana. It was an old house, probably built before 1930, conveniently located next to a coin-wash Laundromat and Kwik Stop on Northwest 8th. Across the street was the Olancho Cafe and a dollar store. It was one of those weird neighborhoods where these classic old houses were now wedged between commercial properties, which for Sam was a good thing. It meant that you could park in front of a house and no one would assume you were casing it, even when that’s precisely what you were doing.

  The house looked to be no more than a thousand square feet, but there were enough cars parked behind the chain-link fence separating the property from the sidewalk to suggest that those thousand square feet were being occupied by quite a few people. The Honda Civic was there, as was an old Ford truck, its hood a rusted red, a lowered Camaro, a primer-colored Karmann Ghia on blocks and, parked all the way in the back, the Ranchero. It had a camper shell on it, which looked absurd, but then Sam didn’t exactly consider the Ranchero a practical car as it was.

  From the exterior
, the house looked to be in good shape. It had a fresh coat of yellow paint, the front porch was trimmed in white, there was a rocking chair just beside the front door-which was open-and an Adirondack-style chair on the other side. Whoever lived here, Sam thought, actually lived here.

  The chain-link fence was joined in the center by two swinging gates padlocked together. Sam never understood why people somehow thought padlocks would keep them safe or keep their possessions from being stolen. All anyone needed to do was climb over the fence, hot-wire the car and drive it right through the fence. Or, with two paper clips, they could pop the padlock open in under twenty seconds. Sure, if you shoot a lock it might not open, but if you actually just disengage the locking system, it’ll pop right open.

  Running around inside the fencing was a big Labrador. Another good sign.

  Sam got out of his car and walked up to the fence. He could hear the drone of a television coming from the inside. The television was turned to either the news or an action film, as all he could hear was explosions and screams and sirens. Hard to tell the difference these days. The Labrador was rolling around with a stuffed penguin on the mostly dirt front lawn, paying Sam absolutely no attention in the least. Sam had a brief vision of what it would be like with that weird-ass civet in there, too. The Lab would probably lick it to death.

  “Hello?” Sam shouted. He did it a couple more times until an older gentleman wearing Bermuda shorts and no shirt came out onto the front porch.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  Real pleasant.

  “Chuck Finley,” Sam said. “From the Department of Motor Vehicles.”

  “You got a warrant?”

  “No, sir,” Sam said. “Not a criminal matter. Just here about the registration on your Ranchero there in the back.”

  The man walked down the front steps, stopped next to the dog and just stared at the animal, like he was trying to will it into action. “Some guard dog,” the man said. “My stepdaughter, she tells me this dog will help keep us safe. Two years, it’s never barked once. I don’t even know if it has vocal cords. Just chases that stuffed penguin around the yard all day.”

  The man knelt down and scratched the dog’s head. The man was older, but Sam couldn’t figure out just how old. He had ruddy brown skin and his eyes carried deep bags, but his shirtless torso was lean and muscular. No tats, no notable scars, not even really any hair to speak of. He could be fifty. He could be seventy.

  “Man’s best friend,” Sam said. “He’d probably bark if a penguin walked up.” The man snorted out a laugh, but didn’t move any closer to the gate or make a move to let Sam in. “So, about the Ranchero. I just need to check to make sure you’ve not been driving it.”

  “I look stupid to you?” the man said. He looked at Sam without any sense of aggression, maybe because he was still petting his dog. Studies said dogs made people more placid. Maybe they were right. “Since when does the DMV make house calls?”

  “Part of the stimulus plan,” Sam said. The great thing about the stimulus plan the government had recently put into motion was that no one had any idea what was in it. You could tell people purple monkeys were part of the stimulus plan and if you said it with some conviction, they would consider it for at least a few minutes.

  But not this guy.

  “If you’re looking for my stepdaughter,” he said, “she’s gone.”

  Not a good sign.

  “Out shopping?”

  “How many times do you think you can threaten someone before they get the hint?”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ve lived here fifty years,” he said. “No one ever comes here and threatens me. She has her own life. I live here too long to be bothered by idiots.”

  “You the original owner of the house?” Sam said. Just keeping it light. Pretending that bit about the threat slid right past him.

  “It was built in 1929. I moved in a few days later,” the man said, a hint of a laugh in his voice. Keeping it light, too, but still not budging from his spot next to the dog.

  “When did Maria move in?”

  “You do think I’m stupid, don’t you?”

  Not good again. The thing was, Sam got the sense the man was enjoying the game.

  “What did you say your name was?” Sam asked.

  “Shouldn’t you know that?”

  Sam walked back to his car and pulled out the envelope of documents. They were all in the name of Maria Cortes.

  “I’m looking for a young woman named Maria,” Sam said. “Or a big woman named Maria. You’re not either of them, right?”

  “DMV doesn’t know if I’m a man or a woman? I’ve been driving a car since before you were born.”

  The problem wasn’t with the DMV. It was with all of the government. “Yes, yes,” Sam said, “I see it here.” He didn’t, but that didn’t mean he was going to admit that. See if maybe the man would just give up his damn name, make it easy on everyone.

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Chuck Finley,” Sam said.

  “Like the ballplayer?”

  “No, not like anyone. Just me. Chuck Finley.”

  “There was another Chuck Finley,” he said. “Owned baseball teams.”

  “That was Charles O. Finley,” Sam said. “That’s not me, either.”

  “Could be you,” he said. “That guy was known not to play on the level too much. He once tried to trade his manager. Who does that?”

  “Not me,” Sam said, trying to figure the guy out. It seemed clear he was smart, knew a few things about life and didn’t believe a single thing Sam was saying. Sam sort of admired him for that. These old Cuban guys. They’d seen so much crap in their lives, it almost didn’t make sense to try to con them for information.

  “One other thing you got going for you?” he said. “You’re not like the other dudes been showing up. You got a car. Not a nice car, but not some screaming motorcycle.”

  Uh-oh.

  “You said you were Maria’s stepfather?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Her mother around?”

  “No,” he said. “They left together. Fine by me.”

  “You’re a tender guy,” Sam said. He decided being straight was the only way to get what he needed. He wasn’t sure it was a two-way street, however. “Bad guys come here looking for your stepdaughter and you just boot her out?”

  “She got in with a bad crowd,” he said. “I warned her that Nick was no good, and so she came crawling back here, I told her, ‘See, I told you.’ But she’s a grown woman now. Her mother, too. What can I do?”

  “Maria is in a lot of trouble,” Sam said. “I’m not here to hurt her. I’m here to protect her.”

  “I bet.”

  “Her boyfriend Nick is dead.”

  “I told you he was a bad guy.”

  “He was cut up in pieces inside an apartment rented in your wife’s name,” Sam said. “Then he was dumped in acid. Was he that bad? Is anyone that bad?”

  The man stopped petting the dog, considered the sentence Sam said, patted the dog once and then stood up. Finally, Sam thought, a reaction.

  “You’re not with those bikers?”

  “No,” Sam said.

  “And you’re not DMV, right?”

  “Right.”

  This answer actually seemed to ease him more than the negative answer on the biker issue. Everyone hates the DMV. No wonder Rod was how he was. “I’m Jose,” he said. “And I drive that Ranchero all the time. Just hate to get it registered, you know? Piece of crap. Let it sit.”

  “Right,” Sam said.

  “Now, then, who are you?” Jose asked.

  There was the rub. Sam couldn’t quite tell him the truth and couldn’t quite lie, not if he wanted his help in getting Maria safe. “I’m just someone who wants to help her stay alive.” Sam scratched out his cell phone number on the back of the envelope and reached it over the fence toward Jose. He finally moved away from the dog a
nd took the envelope. “I don’t care if she’s illegal. I don’t care about anything but keeping her safe.”

  “She’ll call you tonight,” Jose said and then he and the dog went inside, closing the door quietly behind them.

  9

  Before you attack a fixed enemy position, you always want to do a proper amount of reconnaissance. This is true if you intend to attack with firepower or if you intend to attack with psychological warfare. Either option requires a precise understanding of the lay of the land.

  The first order of business is to obtain as much information about the physical area as possible. This is usually done by having several different people watching the same area from different vantage points, who then obtain salient intelligence and report back. In an ideal situation, all of that intel would be gathered and then you’d grid out the area from all angles and plan your attack.

  You’d then break into seven teams: the assault team, which does the assaulting; the security team, which handles securing the area from reinforcements; the support team, which assists the assault team indirectly; the breach team, which cuts through obstacles; the demolition team, which blows stuff up; and the search team, which is sent to ferret out any remaining hostiles.

  To do this effectively, a team of about fifty men would be best. A dozen claymore mines would help, some tank support wouldn’t offend anyone and an extraction team with a gassed-up Black Hawk would make it a nice, polite party

  If you have less than fifty men, no claymores, no tanks and only a DVD of Black Hawk Down, you’re going to need to make adjustments. When you’re a spy, you’re often asked to do the work of fifty men simply by being better at everything.