Formerly Fingerman

by Joe Nelms

  Brad composed himself enough to get a sentence out.

  “Holy Christ! Holy shit! Holy fuck! What just happened? Why are you standing there? Kill these guys! Get me out of here. DO SOMETHING!”

  Brad tried to position himself behind Stump as the gunmen casually reloaded. Stump shook his head and rendered judgment.

  “Fail.”

  “Fail?! I failed what? Dying?”

  Stump nodded to the gunmen. “Thanks.”

  “No problem, Stump.”

  “You got it, Stump.”

  They smiled and slid their guns, now filled with live ammunition, back into their discreet holsters. The “baristas” slid out of their coffee shop aprons and the “customers” put the overturned chairs back in place.

  Upon a closer look, Brad noticed the similarities in all three customers. Short hair. Rigid posture. Cheap suits. Company men. Same thing for the baristas. Both took off their imprudent hats and lost their contrived slouches to reveal similar company man characteristics.

  “You know these guys?”

  Customer number one grinned. “We’ve done this before.”

  “What is this, a frat?”

  Customer number two righted another chair. “It’s part of Stump’s relocation candidate training.”

  “Your . . . this is a thing? A rehearsed thing? You make your witnesses shit their pants on a regular basis?”

  Stump raised an eyebrow.

  “No. I didn’t. But I mean, seriously, what the fuck?”

  “We were trying to make a point. Do you know what it was?”

  “Don’t order the Gigante?”

  “Be ready. For the rest of your life.”

  Brad considered the advice. Apparently, he hadn’t been giving off enough of a scared-for-his-effing-life vibe in the last few days. It was a valid point but, he was rather busy with his mix of panic, lies, and posturing. Unfortunately, that was not something he could explain to Stump. The good news was that as cruel as his little morality play was, Stump was proving himself to be singularly focused on keeping Brad safe. Whether he believed his story or not, Stump was a true ally. Certainly no one he could befriend or confide in or even be honest with yet, but someone who might be interested in Brad staying alive a little bit longer. It was a start.

  As for the fear, well, that was now wide awake and clawing nonstop at the back of his eyeballs. Brad took a deep breath and accepted that the condition was something he would have to get used to. But, really, there was no better way to send that message?

  “Uh-huh. Now, that’s something you couldn’t have let me know in some sort of authoritative tone once we sat down? Maybe told me an anecdote of someone who didn’t follow your advice? Written it on a Post-it?”

  Stump shrugged.

  “You’ll remember this.”

  Brad stared at the television, still steaming about the events of a few hours earlier. And he never even got his goddamned latte. Stump had resumed his position in the doorway and hadn’t spoken a word since they got back to the safe house.

  “Are you ready for lesson number two?”

  Brad turned and scanned the room for any ninjas or zombies Stump might have hired to help him illustrate his next point.

  “Is that the one where you light the house on fire to remind me not to leave the iron on?”

  “It’s about improv. The key to survival in your new life is knowing how to improv in sticky situations.”

  “Improv? Like I pretend I’m a plumber and whoever is trying to kill me is a cowboy?”

  “No, like you think on your feet no matter what the situation is. You im-pro-vise.”

  “Okay. I improvise some improv. Got it.”

  “Do you know what the key to improv is?”

  “A two drink minimum?”

  “Yes, and . . .”

  “And . . . a cover charge?”

  “As in Yes, and I would like to add to that thought you just laid out there despite how unsettling it is. That’s how you answer when you don’t know where things are going. Yes, and buys you time to think. Yes, and puts whoever you’re talking to at ease. Always Yes, and, never deny.”

  “Yes, and.”

  “You go along with the premise. Improv until you can extract yourself from danger. Stay in your character. Breaking character is a form of denial. If you break character, someone may notice you. Your goal for the rest of your life is to not be noticed. If someone notices you, they might remember you. If they remember you, they might mention your quirky little character break to someone else. It goes on and on until the wrong person hears and becomes suspicious and you might get killed. Understand?”

  “If I don’t, are you going to fake shoot me again?”

  Stump waited for a real answer.

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  “Let’s practice.”

  “Um, okay.”

  Stump approached Brad. A little close for Brad’s liking. Stump shook his shoulders out, presumably calling up a new character or situation for a round of improv, before settling his laser-focused gaze on Brad.

  “You ever see monkey porn?”

  “Whoa, I . . . no.” Brad stepped back.

  “Now see, that’s denial. No good. Try again.”

  Stump cracked his knuckles, sucked a big breath in, and released it. He stepped forward.

  “This is important. Yes, and.”

  Brad sighed heavily.

  “Okay.”

  Stump leaned in as if speaking to a co-conspirator.

  “I need some help moving a body. You in?”

  “Wha—No. How is this saving my life?” Brad moved back another couple of steps. Stump followed him, suddenly all business again.

  “Again, denial. Very dangerous.”

  “I thought we were going to practice real life situations.”

  “We are. Try again.”

  “All right. But where are you planning to hide me, a Law & Order episode?”

  “Again.”

  Stump rolled his head around his neck a few times, stretched his mouth out, and took a beat to gather himself before speaking.

  “Hey, is it cool if I use the ‘N’ word?”

  “I’m not doing this.”

  Stump pointed his hand, shaped like a gun at Brad, and pulled the trigger.

  “Bang. You’re dead.”

  The silence of Brad’s incredulity was broken by a Tupac Shakur “I Get Around” ringtone. Stump slid his phone out of his jacket and answered it without ever losing eye contact with Brad.

  “Stumberg . . . Yes, we did . . . No, subject did not wet his pants . . . Yes . . . Understood . . . We’ll be there tomorrow.”

  He hung up and slid his phone back into his jacket.

  “You got a job.”

  Tucson

  Brad was fine with wearing a disguise. But the one Stump handed him for the trip to Arizona was not one he would have picked out himself. The big, bushy beard and trucker hat were a little too Gyllenhaal-in-between-movies for him. Brad suggested something in a Unibomber look, or maybe a Trenchcoat Mafia vibe, but Stump wouldn’t let him leave the house without the beard and hat. The coffee shop was one thing. They had been surrounded by FBI agents hip to the deal. But taking a commercial flight to Tucson was a very different story. Frank Fortunato had a lot of soldiers on the payroll. Who knew who was hanging around the airport? Frank was willing to shoot Carmine in broad daylight. It was hard to imagine him being shy about sending a few thugs with hand cannons to the passenger drop-off area of Terminal B.

  Stump whisked them both through security and straight onto the plane before anyone could get a second glance. In his coach window seat, Brad sat avoiding eye contact with the surrounding Middle Americans heading back home on the same flight. Through the airplane window he could see the distant Manhattan skyline.

  Looking wistfully at his soon-to-be former home, he thought about his soon-to-be ex-wife. She must be wondering where he was by now. Surely, in one of the many post-coital glows Brad imagin
ed her enjoying since his departure, she had noticed that his side of the bed had been empty for a few days now. At least at night. His absconding made good sense when viewed in its current imminent mob death threat context. But, as far as Gracie knew, her husband had stopped showing up for his marital duties with a cowardly absence of explanation.

  Was she calling the hospitals? Checking with the police? Asking around at strip clubs?

  Did she care?

  That was the big question. Did it really matter that he left? It mattered to him. Deep down, where no one but Brad could see, was a kernel of what he suspected was regret. What a rash decision he had made. What a drastic choice to change his life without so much as a consult with the woman he married.

  Of course, Brad understood the possibility that Gracie had an identical twin sister who happened to be in love with the guy servicing Brad’s cable was virtually impossible. And the chances of Gracie being involved in some sort of government mind-control experiment were infinitesimally small. An elaborate NSFW staged prank? Stop it. All conceivable options were improbable. But still. It chafed him the tiniest bit that he never gave Gracie the chance to explain herself. And like it or not, he was in love with her and that doesn’t just get doused with a bucket of anger and a blanket of harsh judgment.

  He wondered and considered and mulled the thing over internally for a moment or two before deciding that there would never be a satisfying answer. And besides, it was too late. The card had been played and, much like a joke that falls flat at a parole hearing, there was nothing to do with that regret kernel but to try to ignore it and move on. At some point, he would have to face Gracie and tell her why he left. He would also have to borrow some money from her to pay for his divorce lawyer. But that day was not today.

  The details of who stuck what where, how often, and why would be worked out later, but, at that moment, Brad knew the best thing for him to do was to suck on the bitter pill of cuckoldry and use its lingering aftertaste to remind himself that he needed to do what was best for him. Right now, that was to leave without a word.

  The New York City skyline waved goodbye to Brad and wished him well on behalf of all of its residents, and somewhere in one of those buildings Gracie was still the girl whose eyes twinkled when she smiled at him. Back among the one and a half million residents of Manhattan, she still had the same laugh when he told his dumb jokes. He would miss her soon, and then what?

  God, she made throwing his life away hard.

  He squashed his sentimentality into submission, jammed his earbuds in, and turned up his music to drown out his own thoughts. Electronic devices were supposed to be off during takeoff, but if his Daft Punk was powerful enough to bring down the big, bad plane carrying him away from New York City, well, that was life.

  Five hours later Brad woke up in Tucson. He had slept most of the plane ride, and the difference in his mood was dramatic. Time to start a new life.

  Stump drove their rented Hyundai through nondescript Tucson to a nondescript suburb and into the nondescript driveway of a nondescript home.

  They had taken the long way to get there, checking for tails along the side streets as they drove, even going so far as to give the stink eye to an old lady who made the same turns as them three times in a row until she pulled over and let them go on alone. Once he was sure they were clean, Stump made his way to their new home.

  Manhattan and Tucson are similar in that they are both situated on planet Earth, populated by carbon-based life forms, and most residents in each city have basic cable. Other than that they are not very much alike.

  Manhattan is a rich and vibrant melting pot of race, culture, history, and wannabes. Tucson is a preplanned matrix of chain restaurants strategically positioned to link subdivisions and malls. Brad understood that much by driving to his new home from the airport. He wasn’t that anxious to go exploring.

  Their new house was a standard issue three-bedroom, two-bath. A cookie-cutter floor plan that could be found at four other addresses on the same street. The rest of the houses in the subdivision were cut from similar cloth, but different enough to give prospective buyers the impression of having a choice. Inside, the rooms were decorated with inoffensive furniture and tepid art work.

  Stump cleared the house while Brad surveyed his new kingdom. Clean. Empty. No mob killers. No cheating wife to speak of. So far, an improvement.

  “I can live with this.”

  A stack of brochures on the counter announced that the subdivision’s name was “Cactus Bluff” and that it was “The heart of Tucson.”

  Stump walked in, holstering his gun.

  “We’re all clear.”

  “Is this the model home?”

  “We needed something quickly. A friend handles sales for the area. His business is slow and this is furnished.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Brad lugged his suitcase into one of the bedrooms to unpack his life in the heart of Tucson.

  The next morning the program was good enough to cover a shopping spree for Brad’s new non-vegan diet. He had decided to make the jump from superficially committed non-meat-eater to full-blown whatevervore. He only hoped he could maintain the lifestyle.

  As they wandered the supermarket, Brad decided to shake Stump down a little about what would happen next. Stump had been pretty tight lipped on the plane ride as a matter of safety, but in the anonymity of Arizona, he opened up a little and explained that Brad would be working for a large packaged goods concern in Tucson. Stump would stay around until the trial and then Brad would be on his own.

  “But, I thought I was in the program? Aren’t you guys going to protect me afterward?”

  “Of course. But if we do our jobs right and you keep a low profile, there’s no need for us to be standing next to you all day every day. What’s important is that we establish a credible identity for you and then you make sure it sticks. Improv, remember?”

  The thought of flying solo hadn’t really occurred to Brad. In fact, he really hadn’t thought much further than the idea that the program could get him out of the situation he had found himself in a few days ago. Maybe it was time to do a little planning.

  As Brad organized his new life in his new room, he thought back on the last time he had moved to a new city and started a new job. He was right out of college, full of potential and ready to rumble. He drove the full twenty-eight hours straight from San Antonio to New York in his excitement. His East Village studio was filthy, riddled with roaches, and, in the winters, colder than a lesbian bartender’s stare. But he loved it as soon as he saw it.

  As he folded his jeans in his new desert-themed bedroom, he remembered pulling his paints out of their moving box in New York and putting them on the shelf in the closet. Just until he got settled in his job was the plan. Shore up a little security before he released a massive art-by-Brad hurricane on NYC. A few years later he threw them away after promising to buy some higher quality stuff to replace them. Or maybe he left them there. Who remembers. Hmm, with all the downtime running for his life would surely allow him, maybe he would pick up a few tubes of paint and start—

  The doorbell rang. Without thinking, Brad threw himself on the ground and quickly wriggled under the bed. Improv. Peeking out from underneath he saw Stump’s shoes in his doorway, observing Brad’s G.I. Joe action. Stump walked away.

  “Don’t get up. I’ll get it.”

  On the dining room table, an overnight delivery envelope sat unopened. Stump had assumed his usual position standing stock still in a central location of the house. Watching. Brad walked into the living room and noticed the envelope.

  “Is this for me?”

  Stump remained silent, but evidently the answer was yes since Brad was not put into any sort of Okinawan headlock when he reached for it.

  It was addressed to Stump, but Brad broke the seal on top anyway and poured out the contents—a passport, a social security card, an Arizona driver’s license, a birth certificate, an American Express (green card, g
ee thanks), and a Safeway club card. The new Brad.

  He picked up the passport and savored this moment of truth. As soon as he opened it up, his new identity would take hold. A new name. A new beginning. A new life. Like when they fast-forwarded five years ahead on Desperate Housewives. Suddenly, anything would be possible.

  Brad made a big show of opening it. Presenting himself to the world.

  “And the winner is Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaad . . .”

  Holy fucking sweet baby goddamn Jesus H on a Popsicle Christ.

  “. . . Pitt.”

  Brad’s face dropped. In a split second he had gone from proud owner of a cool new name to a guy hiding from bloodthirsty killers who just found out his new secret identity was one of the most recognizable names on the planet.

  “Brad Pitt? My name is Brad Pitt? What, Robert DeNiro was taken? I thought the point was to not be noticed.”

  It was. This was a bit of a problem. The FBI software usually came up with something particularly bland for Stump’s clients. And Pitt would have worked just fine if Brad hadn’t been named Brad. No one would notice a Larry, Jeff, or Charlie Pitt. They would never think twice about it. But Brad Pitt. This was a spot of bother. Especially because Stump knew that the red tape involved with getting a revised name issued was really tough. Like a few months tough. The program was designed to get new names out as fast as possible. But they rarely had to change anyone’s name. Asking a government agency to change course midstream was like asking an old person to TiVo Game of Thrones. It would take fucking forever and you would end up with a recording of the Spanish version of Top Chef. Stump mentally backfisted himself. Why hadn’t he thought to ask them to install a celebrity filter?

  “Would you consider ‘Bradley’?”

  Brittany’s Insurance

  “Nothing? You can’t get anything out of it? Jarvis, come on. It was just a little coffee, right?”

  “Actually, it was a lot of coffee.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “And, that’s the computer equivalent of kicking a porn star in the nuts. No workee no more.”