Formerly Fingerman (11 page)

Window Man smiled and ran off.
Calling the cops? Rushing over to my building to talk me down himself? Checking the Internet to see how to handle this emergency?

Nope. Not at all.

Window Man came back into his window stripped completely naked. He had a raging hard on and began pleasuring himself like an Amish butter churner working a Shake Weight. Again with the eyebrows, only this time they seemed to be saying,
Now, wasn't this worth the wait? Huh? Right?

While it wasn't exactly the warm nose of a trusty companion nuzzling his ankles or the adorable voice of a newsboy-capped ragamuffin asking
Hey mister, whatcha doing?
, it did gross Brad out enough to shake him from his suicidal fugue state. He might need to rethink this.

True, the choice to grab the vine that went straight down would be his and his alone, influenced by no one. He would own it. But ultimately, it was tough to justify the control-affirming aspect of it with the end result. Death by homoerotic suicide or the Witness Protection Program? While the latter was intimidating in its potential for a lackluster future, the former would not be treated kindly by the
Post
. Also, Brad would be dead.

Shit.

Brad hopped off the ledge and backed away from the option that wasn't really an option. Window Man was devastated, pleading with the one finger to
wait-wait-wait
. It seemed that something exciting was about to happen, but Brad decided not to stick around for the big finale.

Stump fired up the dark, American-made sedan illegally parked in front of the building and Brittany watched the street as James held the passenger door open.

“James, if you see my wife, tell her I left. And I'm never coming back. And I know there's no such thing as spontaneous herpes.”

James considered Brad with the eyes of a man who had seen this too many times before.

“All right.”

“Breasts. Two for a dollar.”

“In your dreams, sicko.”

Owen probably should have seen that one coming. He hadn't meant for today's coupon to sound like a sale inside this passing woman's blouse. Chicken breasts really were the special of the day, and they were being sold in pairs. It was Chuck's idea and it had not struck him that there was anything inappropriate in his marketing strategy. Chuck only knew he had ordered too many chicken breasts and had to unload them pronto.

Stump's government-issue ride pulled up to the curb in front of the fire hydrant and idled. Owen checked his reflection in its tinted windows. Oh yeah, still a very handsome chicken if he didn't mind saying so himself. He went back to work.

“
Chicken
breasts. Two for a dollar.”

Stump got out and walked around the car to the sidewalk. Owen held out a flier.

“Wing wangs are on sale today, too.”

Stump ignored him and looked around to make sure the coast was clear before signaling to the car.

The back window of the sedan rolled down a crack.

“
Owen!
” came the harsh whisper from the back seat.

Subtleties of speech tend to be lost on people in chicken suits and whispering can be especially tricky. You generally have to be in a position where they can actually see you whisper. Owen looked around and whisper-yelled back.

“
Hello?
”

“
Owen, over here
!”

Again, not much help if your ears are inside a large chicken head and therefore incapable of triangulating voice origins.

Brad rolled the window down a few more inches.

“In the car, Owen!” he half-yelled.

Owen turned his chicken suit around to look at the car.

“Brad?”

Brad leaned into the sunlight for a brief second. The giant chicken did a quick double take.

“Hey man, you're late for work.”

Brad motioned him over. Owen walked over and leaned in.

“What are you doing? I told Chuck you were probably just sick, but if he sees you in this car he might not believe me anymore.”

“Owen, I'm leaving.”

The meeting was not going as Brittany envisioned it. In her perfect world, Brad's friend would not have been dressed like a big, bright junior-college mascot and standing next to their car in the middle of a crowded Manhattan sidewalk. She tried to roll the window up.

“Brad, this wasn't a good idea. We're going to have to cut this short.”

“I want to say goodbye. That was part of our deal.”

Brittany sighed and hopped out of the car. She caught Stump's eyes and indicated the chicken. Stump looked Chickenman over quickly and decided that he could easily snap his neck through the car window, if necessary. He stood behind Owen. Brittany quickly flashed her badge to the chicken's mouth and opened Brad's door.

“FBI. Get in the car.”

“Is this about that website? Because my friend said it was okay to use his password.”

“Please get in the car, sir.”

There was a bit of cramming, but Owen somehow wedged himself into the back seat. He waited until he was all the way in to take his chicken head off. Brittany and Stump stood guard outside.

It took a few seconds before his eyes adjusted to the light, but when they did Owen brightened visibly.

“Wow! Is this your new job? Your interview must have gone awesome.”

“Owen, did you hear that Frank Fortunato got arrested for murder?”

“No.”

Brad quickly went over the high and low points of his day, finishing with his plans to testify, but leaving out the minor detail that he, in fact, saw nothing.

“Wow. Congratulations.”

“On what?”

“On doing the right thing. Man, that takes guts.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“What about Gracie?”

“Oh, um. She's fine with it. You know, wants me to do the right thing.”

Owen let out a long whistle. “Well, good luck.”

That summed it up pretty well. Brad looked at Owen and realized that this really was the end of his life as he knew it. No more chicken suits. No more Gracie. No more pretentious ad friends. No more hoping he could fix it all before anyone noticed. It was over. And the best that anyone could do was say,
Well, good luck
.

They shook hands and Owen shoved his chicken head back on. He somehow got back out of the car without breaking character. Instead he looked like an important chicken arriving at the Chicken Shack. That had to be good for business.

Stump and Brittany got back into the car. Brad leaned over and rolled down the window.

“And Owen, good luck on your bailiff test.”

The chicken on the sidewalk gave Brad a big thumbs up and then waved goodbye.

The safe house was a modest affair in Jackson Heights. The plan was to stay there under Stump's vigilant watch until arrangements had been made for Brad's new life in AnywhereButHere, U.S.A. Fine with Brad. The newness of everything was still sort of exciting if a little unsettling. This was an adventure. Kind of like hitting Shuffle on your iPod before a run in the park, hoping to God Celine Dion doesn't play, but knowing that if she does you'll deal with it. They pulled into the single car garage and closed the door behind them.

Stump instructed Brad to stay in the car under Brittany's protection while he took a look around this perfectly secure home to placate his compulsive need to protect. Brittany couldn't take the silence.

“Well, this is exciting, isn't it?”

“The Mafia putting a price on my head?”

“Doing something for the American people. Something meaningful. Making a difference.”

Brad was not buying what she was selling.

“At least it's probably a high price. That's got to make you feel special.”

One of the many things Brad did not like about himself was his name. Brad Fingerman. He had never felt like a Fingerman anyway. It connoted a career spent as a substitute teacher. It was more likely to be the third from the last name in a footnote of a medical journal than topping a movie poster. It was not memorable for any of the reasons one would want a name to be remembered.

One sentence that was never heard in good company was,
Oh, Fingerman? Of the Upper East Side Fingermans?
No, Fingerman was more of a saddle on which bullies, hecklers, and jokesters rode various wordplays amusing to all but the owner of the name. Finger-me. Fingerfuck. Man finger. Oh, it was good times in middle school.

So yes, Brad had always wanted to change his name, but it was never really a viable option, much less a pressing necessity. Until now.

This was his opportunity to do something big. To really cross something off his “Stuff to Change about Myself” list. Part of the Witness Protection Program entry process was the selection of a new name. Brittany had mentioned it when she first offered up the program. When he remembered it on the way to the safe house, the thought quickly nestled itself in the forefront of Brad's mind, and he begin trying various combinations out on an imaginary theater marquee.

Mike Blackstone. Jake Schwartzenstallone. Brock Granite. He would have to walk the fine line between action star and porn actor, but Brad was confident he could pull it off. It was like a whole world opening up to him.

That night, after Brittany had left and Stump had cleared the entire house, yet again, Brad lay in a strange new bed on the verge of sleep, vacillating between thinking thoughts like
Holy God, what have I done?
and dreaming up awesome new names that girls would totally go for.

The wedding ring he had slipped off during his contract negotiation with Brittany sat on the dresser next to his watch. He had pulled it out when he undressed but hadn't quite figured out if he should throw it into the kitchen disposal and be done with it or have it melted down and recast as a keychain. He had decided to figure that out later.

Brad was exhausted.

“How many times do I have to tell you people,
the low-fat raspberry vinaigrette is mine.
I wrote my name on it and it is the height of inconsiderate behavior to use it without asking. That's called theft. You know in Arabia, they would cut your hands off for that.”

As usual, the eyes of Malcolm Middleton's fellow coworkers found something else to look at while he made his indignant speech. Everyone in the break room was by quiet default pleading innocent. Well, that was highly unlikely. Someone must have used the newly opened salad dressing without asking. It didn't crawl out of the bottle on its own. This is exactly why he insisted on locking his door whenever he left his office. Even to go to the bathroom. You couldn't trust anyone around there.

Malcolm shook it off and got ready for another day of the job he loved. Say what you will about his sticky-fingered coworkers and the disrespect they showed for his personal items, Malcolm wasn't going anywhere.

“Middleton, I'm going to give you Fortunato.”

“Okay.”

“
Okay?
That's it? This is a career-making decision. You're going to be a legend around here after this. And you're just . . .
Okay
?”

“If it's so important, why give it to me?”

“Look, don't turn this into a thing. It's an important case and I want you to act professional. Keep things moving. Okay?”

“Okay, but you didn't answer my question. Why me?”

The room was quiet as Malcolm's boss considered the answer he would give to the one question he had really hoped Malcolm wouldn't ask. He decided to be honest.

“You're the only one who's free.”

Malcolm Middleton was a federal judge. In theory, with his experience, he could have taken a high-paying job in a New York City law firm. Except that no one would have hired him. As a lawyer, he simply wasn't aggressive enough. He was smart. He had a deep understanding of and profound respect for the law. But he was a thinker. An über-thinker. He enjoyed the process of thinking. Not the pushy type of questioning found in so many overly thoughtful people, but a pure and deep curiosity about absolutely everything. For Malcolm, examining both sides to the point of exhaustion before saying yay or nay was good sport regardless of whether it was a debate concerning the morality of the death penalty or a question of supersizing his fries. And it generally took him fucking forever to make a decision.

So it was a bit of a relief for both him and Malcolm Middleton Sr.'s entire law firm when his father landed him a job as a federal judge through his network of powerful and influential friends.

Sitting at the front of a courtroom, listening to shark lawyers pick every piece of meat off a legal bone was pure heaven for Malcolm. Their job was to think things over to the point of absurdity. His was to enjoy the process and decide the winner based on the overwrought facts.

For the last twenty-two years, Malcolm had made quite a name for himself as a judge. The judge who would entertain just about every fool motion your overpaid lawyer could dream up. Yes, Malcolm was very popular with that type.

So he had listened to the arguments from both sides of Frank Fortunato's case on whether or not Frank should be allowed to leave jail before the trial. They ranged from logical (
He's a known gangster
versus
He's a devoted family man with ties to the community
) to the outright emotional (
He killed a man in cold blood!
versus
It's his birthday!
). Malcolm considered them all.

While most bail hearings took no more than an hour all in, Frank's took the better part of the day, thanks to Malcolm's unrelenting curiosity. Where did Frank live? Does he have a passport? What kind of ties to the community are we talking about? Is there a party planned? Who's invited?

In the end he decided that the reasons for keeping him in jail (one, he's a suspected murderer with a record longer than one of those pythons they find every two years in a Queens bathroom, and two, there's an eyewitness and surveillance footage) outweighed the reasons for setting a reasonable bail (one, his mother swears he's a good boy, and two, he buys fireworks for the kids in the neighborhood on the Fourth of July). But barely.