Formerly Fingerman (20 page)

“But, you said you did. To the FBI.”

“Look, I was in a weird place. I tried to tell them I missed the whole thing, but they wouldn't believe me and then a bunch of stuff happened and I said I saw the murder so I could get into the Witness Protection Program because no one would hire me in New York and I'm pretty sure my wife is having an affair. My story is complete bullshit and to top it all off, it got me nothing. Now I'm stuck in Tucson making diaper ads.”

“You could have crashed with me.”

“Uh . . . oh.”

Well now, that would have been a simple solution, huh? Brad told himself that things were complicated and Owen just didn't understand.

“I don't know what I'm going to do.”

“Come clean. Tell the truth.”

“No. Something else.”

“I don't see a lot of options here.”

This was not exactly turning into the motivational seminar Brad had hoped it would be.

“All right, whatever. Never mind. I just have to be convincing on the witness stand.”

“Well, how hard could that be? You were there when it happened, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, you must have seen something.”

“No, nothing. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I was cleaning my shoe. I didn't actually, technically see the murder. I'm lying to the FBI.”

“You can't lie in court. That's . . . sacred.”

“I can't go back to my old life.”

“Oh man, this is bad.”

Brad sort of wished he had called an Indian tech support line instead. At least they would have the decency to lie to him and say everything was going to be all right.

“I gotta go. Take care, Owen. I'll steal another phone soon.”

Brad hung up and took a moment to stare at the golf course, now golden in the setting sun. Some people would call it wallowing.

“That's some fucked up shit.”

Uh-oh.

Brad rounded the corner of the stairwell housing to find a man leaning against the wall as if it were the east side of Union Square Park. Baggy jeans. Huge white T-shirt. Lit joint hanging loosely from his lips. When he spoke, Brad noticed a few gold teeth.

“Lying to the FBI. Mmm.”

There were a few different ways to handle this situation. Pretend his new friend misheard what had been said and explain that he was talking about a movie he once saw. Beg the eavesdropper to not say anything about what he definitely heard. Be righteously indignant and demand an explanation for this sneakery. But Brad was too aggravated to act any way other than the way he was feeling. Pissed.

“Who are you?”

“Yo.”

“Hello. I said, who are you?”

“I'm the guy who heard all your dirty little secrets.”

Brad quickly realized that he had blown his cover in less time than it took to generate the documents that supported it. But he couldn't help indulging in a tiny bit of frustration. Can't a guy have a simple, super dangerous, mission-compromising conversation without someone listening in? Now what? He'd have to go into Witness Protection Protection?

“Yeah, well, marijuana's illegal.”

Weed Guy chuckled and took another deep puff. He kept it in and held the joint out to Brad.

This decision was an easier one. Brad took the joint and inhaled deeply as well. Weed Guy finally exhaled.

“Well, I guess we both know something about each other then, huh?”

Brad exhaled. Now that was some helpful therapy. He figured since he was smoking the guy's herb, he might as well introduce himself.

“I'm Brad. I'm the new guy.”

“I know who you are.”

“Have we met?”

Brad passed the joint back. Weed Guy took another major hit.

“Nope. I'm Dr. Yo.”

This guy did not look like a doctor. He was wearing cornrows, for Christ sake. Maybe a PhD from state university, but even that was a tough sell.

“What are you doing up here?”

“Same thing I do up here every day.”

Dr. Yo stubbed what was left on his shoe, stuck the roach in his pocket, and headed for the stairs.

“Later.”

“My friend is going to get some air.”

“Your friend is going to get some air.”

“But he's not going to get it in Zone B.”

“Okay.”

“And he's not going to get it in Zone C.”

“Not Zone C.”

Sometimes Sal was so bad at talking in code it made Frank's forehead hurt. He was fine with pronouns. The guy with the thing at the place. No problem. Frank could decipher that without thinking twice. They had been talking like that for the better part of thirty years, so understanding that particular dialect of Sal-speak was easier than Frank Jr. flunking algebra. He and Sal had more interpretations of the words “thing” and “guy” and “place” than the Eskimos had words for snow. And the feds could never crack it because it only made sense to the two of them. It was a beautiful system. As long as they were talking about a thing or a guy or a place.

But when it came to putting other symbolic words into the channel, Sal was awful and usually indecipherable. So, as they sat there in the Rikers visitation chambers talking over handsets, it took all the self-control Frank could muster to not derail the conversation by calling Sal a fucktard and focus on figuring out what valuable information was being delivered.

Not going to Zone B for air. Not going to Zone C for air.

“My friend is going to get some air in . . .”

Not B. Not C. Why did he skip A? Ah. He's going to get some Air in Zone A. Arizona.
God, that was a long way to go for a code word.

“Got it. Any particular place in Zone A?”

Sal looked around to see who was listening. Like that's how the feds did it. Sneaking up with a cup against the door or pretending to get a drink at the water cooler and hoping to overhear your murder plot instead of picking up a backroom extension of the line they were on. What an idiot.

“Well, I'll have to ask my son about that. Not my number one son, though.”

Charlie fucking Chan over here with another prizewinning riddle. Not number one son. So . . . his number two son. Number two son. Ah.

“Got it.”

“You want that I should set up a
scholarship
for my friend?”

Wow, was Sal a bad actor. He even tilted his head down and raised his eyebrows when he said “scholarship.”

“No. Don't do anything. I'll handle the scholarship or whatever.”

“No, Frank, not a real scholarship. A scho-lar-ship.”

“Yeah, I understand. Scholarship. I'll handle it. I don't want you touching anything for a while, okay? Stay clean.”

Sal was visibly hurt by this perceived rejection. Here he was bringing information that could shoot a big hole in the conviction that was looming and Frank's treating him like a fat stewardess.

“I just thought . . .”

“I said I'll handle it. But I still want you to go see about that thing.”

“The guy with the thing or the thing at the place.”

Frank grimaced and cocked his head at Sal as if he should know already.

“Oh, that guy. You got it.”

Brad held firm that they shouldn't show the work any earlier than was absolutely necessary, effectively earning him and Stump six hours of dicking-around time the next day. He was pacing himself.

They filled their time with Stump-approved Internet gossip sites, online chess, and a passionate debate (on Brad's side) over the merits of paparazzi rights. Stump couldn't have cared less, but it was fun to push Brad's buttons.

“What if they're putting innocent lives at risk?”

“Celebrities are not innocent. If they didn't like risking their lives they wouldn't eat at The Ivy.”

“Knock knock!”

It was Mike D., as in Determined, to interrupt their fake work process.

“Hey, guys! How's it going? You kicking some killer ideas around?”

“Brad thinks TMZ is the Bible.”

Mike D. stood there, D. for Dumb.

“Were you looking for something, Mike D.?”

Mike D. snapped to.

“Oh, yeah. I wanted to see what kind of progress you guys were making on the brochure project. We've got a status call with sales tomorrow, and I'm hoping you can go over stuff with Alan and make revisions before then so we can keep this thing moving. Have you shown the big guy anything yet?”

“Not yet. We were going to stop by after lunch.”

“But it's done?”

“Yeah, it's all done.”

“Sounds good.”

This was an unusual protocol for Brad. He was used to the more creative-driven agencies where his department conducted activities in Opus Dei–like secrecy and let the account team know when they were good and ready.

Now, why the hell was Mike D., as in Doofus, still standing in the doorway, smiling?

Oh.

“Sounds good, Mike D.”

“Thanks, team!”

Mike smacked the doorframe like it was a right tackle's ass and set off on his merry way.

Just for that, Brad decided to make the account team wait a few more hours by making Alan wait a few more hours.

“Lunch?”

“Don't you think we ought to see if Alan's free?”

“Later.”

Stump shrugged. Not his problem.

Brad opted for the bacon cheeseburger and garlic cheese fries. Sort of an extended toast to Gracie. Stump joined him at a table in the middle of the large seating area of the cafeteria after piling two plates full of vegetables and tofu.

“We should figure out how to frame the work.”

Stump knitted his eyebrows. Huh?

“How we're going to sell it to Alan. How we set it up. So he buys it.”

“Can't you just show it to him?”

“Mmm hmm. Sure. We'll walk in, dump it on his desk, and leave. That's how all the great salesmen do it. ‘Somebody order some ads?' Let's make it a point to do it in thirty seconds or less. I hear that goes over big.”

Brad stuffed his mouth with fries and talked anyway.

“We have to make him love this stuff. And in the process give him the tools to go sell it to everyone else.”

“So they can sell it to the public.”

“Right.”

“What if it's the wrong stuff and you're just really good at selling it to your boss?”

This guy had no idea what he was talking about. Brad took a beat to compose himself before he started explaining the complex world of advertising to the cretin sitting across from him.

“You can't be honest with people. That never works. You have to figure out an angle. For instance, with these brochures and bookmarks, we didn't just create some offline marketing tools. We thought about it and asked ourselves,
What do old, incontinent people do and what do they really need?
”

“No, we didn't.”

“I know. But I'm just saying. It's a good way to set up the work. We asked the question and the answer was
If you haven't discovered Assure yet, you probably spend a lot of time on the can . . . reading.
”

“Ah.”

Across the hall, Brad noticed Dr. Yo standing by the exit, calmly observing him. Yo gave him the universal man chin bob, acknowledging that they had seen each other. Brad returned the gesture, but flavored it with a bit of question. Yo flicked his head sideways,
follow me
. Brad nodded. Yo turned and walked out. Stump didn't see Yo's half of the conversation and thought the head movements were somehow an acknowledgement that he and Brad were now on the same page.

“Got it.”

“I'm going to go grab some more lemonade. I'll meet you back at the office.”

Brad got up and moved toward the drink section before detouring and heading out the exit after Yo.

Down the hall to the left, Yo stood waiting. He opened the stair doors and went in. Of course, Brad understood that following the gentleman who was essentially a stranger into uncharted territory without his bodyguard's knowledge was behavior that Stump would frown upon. A lot. At the same time Brad realized that if Yo were the hired assassin a suspicious mind might suppose him to be, Brad would have been dead on the roof already.

He trailed Yo down six flights of stairs to find him holding the door open in the second subbasement. The floor was white and sterile like some secret government lab. Down the hall were a series of doors, each secured with a security card lock.

“Yo.”

“I know. You told me. I'm Brad.”

“No, I mean Yo, as in hello.”

“Oh. Yo, Yo. Where are we?”

“I'm gonna show you something. Come here.”

Yo ran his security card across the scanner on the lock to his office and the light above it turned green. He opened the door and welcomed Brad to the dark room where he spent his days.

Yo closed the door and slid into his chair in front of the desk that held four monitors for the computer tower below. Brad looked around and let his eyes adjust to what little light there was.

“So, what is this?”

“This is what I do for a living.”

Brad was still adjusting to the darkness.

“Okay, so what do you do for a living? Develop negatives?”

“I watch people. I'm the head of liability security.”

“Are you going to sell me some insurance?”

“No. I have cameras. I read everyone's e-mails. Listen to their voice mails. Monitor the websites they go to.”

“You get paid for that?”

“Someone's got to do it. It's an easy way to keep the company safe from intellectual property theft, harassment suits, corporate espionage, bullshit like that. My main job is to protect Assure from losing money, IP, or being sued for someone doing something stupid.”

“Adult diapers have intellectual property?”

“And it's all digital. But everyone lives on the computer now, so it's easy for me to keep track of pretty much everything that's going on.”