Formerly Fingerman

by Joe Nelms

  Maybe it was worth it.

  The Fingerman Issue

  The girl from the FBI had interrupted again a few minutes before to introduce a man she claimed to be a missing eyewitness, although he looked like he worked here. Malcolm tried to make heads or tails out of what was being told to him by Tim Irikura while filtering out the jib-jab coming from the terribly agitated defense lawyer.

  “So let me understand, Mr. Irikura. Your star witness, the key to your case, was lost?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “But now you found him. And he’s here today and you want him to testify?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Tommy Giggles was definitely not laughing. He was already extremely unhappy with the speed at which this process had moved. They shouldn’t be in the courtroom for another two years. And now a surprise witness gets thrown into the mix? One that he had been told was no longer among the living? Outrageous.

  “Your Honor, this is absurd. We were told the witness was dead.”

  Tim pounced before Giggles even finished talking.

  “Who told you that, Counselor? It certainly didn’t come from our office.”

  “I know for a fact he was dead!”

  “Well, that’s something we can take up later. I’m sure I know some people who would be very interested in why you would have thought that. In the meantime, I would remind the court that Mr. Fingerman has been on our witness list since day one.”

  “Well, we never got to talk to him.”

  “You never asked.”

  “Because he was dead.”

  “Apparently not.”

  Giggles’s head just about exploded. Why the hell was he told Brad was dead when he wasn’t? Fucking Frank told him that. That’s why they were rushing the trial. It was supposed to be a sure thing. Why was he the only one who did his job right?

  Tim pressed harder.

  “Your Honor, I haven’t spoken to my witness in months. I’m as unprepared as Mr. Gigliani to question him, but he’s got something to say and I’m afraid that if he walks out that door we’ll never see him again. He’s disappeared on us once already, and you can see how good he is with disguises.”

  Tim, Giggles, and Malcolm looked over at the prosecution’s table where Brad stood listening in on the conversation. He indicated to the mustache he had put back on for security reasons and raised his eyebrows a few times.

  “So, unless Mr. Gigliani doesn’t feel like he’s up to the task of asking Mr. Fingerman a few questions, I think you should allow it.”

  Malcolm considered the issue. Normally, this would have taken a week or so. It was a highly visible murder trial and, traditionally, he was a man who liked to hear every side of the argument before rendering a decision. He was thoughtful like that. Until today.

  Malcolm was now a man. A man who made decisions without hesitation or regret. He was the big dog in the room, and he was going to act like it. So he might be overturned on appeal. Fine. He may catch flack in the papers. Screw ’em. He might make the wrong decision.

  No, he wouldn’t.

  Malcolm looked up to see Lola standing in the back of the courtroom next to a large chicken. She looked stunning as she smiled and winked at him. She said she would stop by, and there she was. Here to see her man. And it didn’t look like she was wearing a bra. It was all Malcolm could do to suppress the urge to growl or howl or go mark some territory with his own urine. Instead, he marked some territory with his newfound decisiveness.

  “I’ll allow it.”

  The courtroom exploded with the murmurs and chattering of reporters and audience members. Oh, this would definitely make the news tonight.

  Malcolm sat back, ignoring the whining of Tommy Giggles, and enjoyed his first taste of judicial machismo.

  He looked back to Lola and returned her lurid wink. It felt good to be a man.

  Brad Testifies

  “I, Brad Fingerman, do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”

  “You may be seated.”

  “Mr. Fingerman, I know we have limited time with you, so I’ll just cut to the chase. Can you tell me what happened on the afternoon of September the eighth of this year?”

  Brad looked around the courtroom. Brittany sat on the edge of her seat. She nodded encouragement to him. In the back of the room, Owen, chicken head now off to reveal his excited eyes, pumped his fist. The older woman next to Owen appeared to be blowing kisses toward the front of the room, possibly even at Brad. Then she rolled her tongue around the inside of her cheek. How that was supposed to inspire him, he didn’t know.

  Brad began his testimony.

  “On the afternoon of September the eighth, I entered the elevator on the fourteenth floor of 1635 Broadway to find a man whom I later learned to be Carmine Mastramouro. The doors closed, the elevator went down a few floors and stopped.”

  Brad paused once more to enjoy the last few seconds before he threw his life away. He thought of Yo and Stump and wondered what they might have made of him right then. Stump would have given him a hard blank look before shrugging Go ahead. It’s your life. Yo would have chuckled at the sheer subversiveness. This was better than screwing the system by not paying taxes or towing cars with an illegal truck. It was brave. As different as they were, Stump and Yo would both have enjoyed this.

  “Mr. Fingerman?”

  “Before the doors opened, I noticed a scuff on my shoe and bent down to clean it off. The elevator opened and a pair of black shoes stood in the open door. While I was cleaning my shoe I heard a few muffled noises I presume to be silenced gunshots and I sneezed. Then next thing I know, the black shoes were gone, I was alone in the elevator with Mr. Mastramouro, and he had a bunch of bullet holes in him.”

  And the crowd went crazy. Frank Fortunato and his defense team high-fived and chest bumped and winked at a few members of the jury. The audience of fans laughed and cheered. Reporters scribbled furiously.

  Malcolm banged his gavel with newfound authority and threatened everyone with expulsion if they didn’t shut right up.

  Brad’s testimony was not quite what Brittany expected to hear, and her face showed it. Now he brings up the sneeze? Where was the smooth-talking tough guy? Where was the cornball movie dialogue? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE GODDAMNED JAPANESE ACCENT? Who was this guy and why was he telling lies?

  Tim shot a look back at Brittany. She shook her head, just as bewildered as he was. He turned back around to ask more questions.

  “So, did you see who shot Carmine Mastramouro?”

  Brad looked at Brittany and said he was sorry with his eyes.

  “No. Unless you count his shoes.”

  Tim rubbed the highest part of his nose and decided to plug ahead.

  “Okay, you saw some shoes. Can you tell us about them?”

  “They were black.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s it? They were black? Can you tell us anything else about them? Were they lace ups? Were they loafers? Were they clown shoes? What kind of shoes are we talking about?”

  “They were black. Lace ups. And I’m not sure what else.”

  “That’s what you brought us all here to listen to. You saw a pair of black shoes.”

  Giggles stood up, barely controlling his laughter.

  “Your Honor, I move to dismiss the case. They got nothing!”

  Malcolm shushed Giggles. “I don’t believe Mr. Irikura is done yet. Mr. Irikura?”

  “Ah, well, yeah. Okay. Think back, Mr. Fingerman. Brad, can you tell us any details about the shoes?

  Brad was really sweating now. He had imagined the testimony part would be the easiest of the whole thing. Nobody was trying to kill him while he was up there, and he had decided to tell the truth. His plan was to tell exactly what he had witnessed, nothing more, and let Frank know that he hadn’t actually seen anything incriminating. Why would he want to kill him if he had nothing to offer the prosecution’s case? Frank would get off and Brad could leave
and stop worrying about guys in overcoats with jailbroken nail guns. It was so simple it was brilliant. Except that now everyone was staring at him. And he couldn’t remember anything except those dumb black shoes. Why now? Why obsess on those? How could they possibly be relevant? He had bent down to clean his shoe and sneezed and when his eyes cleared he saw those dumb shoes and their dumb laces and their dumb label.

  “There was a label.”

  “What did it say?”

  Brad had always been good under pressure. Considering the amount of pressure he was under right then, you’d think he would have been able to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem. He closed his eyes and trusted his mind to come up with something worth saying out loud.

  Brad had never actually thought about the shoes. He had always been focused on the sneeze, hoping to remember some lost frame of vision from when his head was shaking around. But never the shoes. And still, he had nothing.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Tim deflated and the crowd murmured and Frank’s team grinned like the bullies they were.

  Giggles stood up to state the obvious.

  “Pardon me, Your Honor. But this is a joke.”

  Speaking of pardons, do they give those to star witnesses for being an asswipe?

  Pardon.

  Brad then realized how beautiful a thing the subconscious mind is. Oh sure, sometimes it would land you in embarrassing situations by switching words around, words like “mother” and “girlfriend” during therapy, but it also did some heavy mental lifting when you least expected it to.

  “Pardon.”

  Tim turned around.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Parda. The label on the shoes said ‘Parda.’”

  Tim looked over at Frank. Then back to Brad.

  “Parda?”

  Brad was as sure of that as anything he had been in his life. He was good under pressure.

  The team of lawyers supporting Tim suddenly huddled and began talking amongst themselves in hushed but excited voices. They called Tim over and explained their excitement to him. Tim nodded and returned his focus to Brad.

  “So, let’s just go over this one more time. You were in the elevator when Carmine got shot. You bent down to clean a scuff mark off your shoe, giving you an excellent view of the murderer’s black shoes. And on one of those black shoes, you saw a label that read ‘Parda,’ P-A-R-D-A. Do I have this correct?”

  “Uh, yeah. Sorry.”

  “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  Giggles stopped laughing with Frank and his crew long enough to stand up and thank Brad for coming by. They had no questions for the witness. Frank gave a thumbs up as Brad was escorted out.

  The Rest of the Trial

  Brad was whisked out of the courtroom by Brittany alone, taken to his car, and released without so much as a “Thanks for ruining my life” from either one of them. His testimony had caught everyone off guard and now it was over.

  Meanwhile, what neither of them realized was that the prosecution had exactly what they needed. The shoes Brad mentioned were a one-of-a-kind custom pair, cobbled by a Korean guy in Brooklyn. Prada knockoffs. Parda was the cobbler’s little joke. He spoke perfect English and knew full well how Prada was spelled. It was also right there on the shoes Sal brought in for him to copy, but he was pissed when Frank didn’t want to pay what the work was worth.

  The state asked for a recess while they tracked down the cobbler, and Malcolm granted it because he goddamn felt like it.

  Yes, there was more to the trial than Brad’s testimony. It was a murder trial. Of course there was more to it. But, Brad was the important part. His testimony was the meat of the matter that got Frank convicted, even with the jurors he had bought off.

  Naturally, Giggles objected and filed motions and all the other bullshit defense lawyers will do, but ultimately, it was no more effective than yelling at those kids to get off your lawn.

  In the end, the jury took only four hours to convict Frank Fortunato of murder in the first degree.

  A month later, in a quick hearing, Malcolm sentenced him to life.

  ONE

  YEAR

  LATER

  Frank “Fancypants” Fortunato

  Frank was dead. Rumor has it he lasted about six weeks in prison before getting shanked with a sharpened toothbrush for substituting generic cigarettes for Marlboro Reds.

  He was given a hero’s funeral in Flushing and his obituary in the Post was glowing, although it did refer to his former occupation as “head of one of the most powerful crime families in New York.”

  Malcolm and Lola

  Malcolm and Lola got married. And joined a swingers club. They couldn’t be happier.

  Brittany

  Brittany was late for a production meeting. So it was odd that she kept thinking about the Bureau. Her days now were filled with worries about ratings and booking her next guest and boy was she behind on writing her book. She hardly ever thought about Project Fancypants. And she tried not to think about the time just after Frank’s sentencing that Jarvis pulled her aside and showed her the rest of the data he finally retrieved from her fried computer. It showed a lot more. Not everything, but enough to realize that Frank didn’t kill Carmine. It was Sal. He just couldn’t let Frank do it. Seems he had also paid the cobbler for a pair of shoes just like Frank’s.

  Another piece of recovered video showed Frank entering the hallway, stopping, and then running off. There’s no way he could have done it. Brittany watched the footage and let it soak in. Then she poured a can of Pepsi on the computer and went to return her new agent’s call. Jarvis kept his mouth shut and got his promotion.

  Today’s episode was “Stripper Love Triangles.” Not quite the hard-hitting, crime-oriented show she had imagined herself hosting. But Brittany lived in a sweet penthouse apartment, dated an underwear model, and instigating babymama fights sure as hell beat coming up with nicknames to impress Anfernee.

  Brad

  Brad’s Crammers! campaign was by now a sensation. As predicted, college students bought them by the case, and binge drinking was all the rage. So, hurray. Presumably, the campaign won a slew of awards, but Brad couldn’t have told you for sure. He never checked.

  Brad was not Brad anymore. At least not the Brad we knew.

  He was no longer the pretentious ad guy concerned with perfecting that onion-dip print ad or the lost soul scrambling to get ahead in the world of in-house agencies. And he certainly wasn’t hiding.

  Brad had become a landscaper with a thriving business in Islamorada, Florida. His advertising-trained eye for composition and color translated quite well into deciding where to put the Chinese fan palms and choosing complementary groundcover. And to top it off, there was nobody telling him the climbers weren’t target-market appropriate, and no one was trying to glom on to the credit for the edgework.

  It was all Brad and that felt good. There was no more magical thinking. No more wondering where the next vine would take him. The only vines left in Brad’s life were the overpriced ones he planted for the retirees who hired him.

  And he painted at night. So far, nothing MOMA-worthy, but it sure made him happy when he sort of got down on canvas what he saw in his head. Maybe he’d try to sell them one day. Stranger things had happened.

  He and Gracie divorced without so much as a whimper. Turns out the Brad she had asked for when her husband called from the rooftop was a CrossFit trainer with whom she had recently begun a meaningless affair. So they called it quits and it was easy. Brad wanted nothing from her and she didn’t want to give anything up. Win-win.

  FYI, the name of Brad’s business is Fingerman’s Landscaping. He decided to stick with his actual name, despite what he found in Dr. Yo’s trunk.

  The lockbox. Brad opened it to find Yo’s entire plan to disappear: a brand new passport, brilliantly faked birth certificate, an authentic-looking social security card, a fully loaded .45, a pound of rock-star weed (man, Yo loved weed), and $380,000 in twenties.
Altogether, there were three lockboxes hidden in the trunk. The grand total ended up being north of two million dollars of untraceable cash.

  According to the documents, Yo’s new identity was named Nicholas Hamilton Steele. Nick Fucking Steele.

  A lot of guys would have taken Nick Steele’s identity—used that birth certificate to get a new passport and driver’s license with their own picture, and enjoyed the perfect credit of a man who hadn’t bought anything for the last ten years. It would have been so easy to slide right into that lifestyle, disappear into the generic landscape of America, and never look back.

  But Brad didn’t apply for a new passport with his own picture and he didn’t get a new driver’s license. He tossed them both, along with the gun, into the Atlantic on his way over the Seven Mile Bridge just below Marathon.

  Make no mistake. Brad wasn’t a fool. He took the money. And the weed. But not the name. After all he’d been through, it just didn’t seem right.

  Nick Steele wouldn’t have worn a chicken suit to sneak up to the courthouse. He would have jet-packed in. Nick Steele wouldn’t have told the lame, boring truth Brad told. He would have made up something cool and appropriate for Jerry Bruckheimer to option as a Tom Cruise vehicle. Nick Steele would have never started a landscaping business in the Florida Keys or used a pair of pliers to extract the last few drops of paint from a tube to finish his painting. Nick Steele just wasn’t Brad Fingerman.

  Fuck Nick Steele.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to everyone who supported me while I wrote this book and, more important, while I waited.