Formerly Fingerman (29 page)

Brad snuck along the side of the house to avoid appearing in any type of light until the last possible moment. The detached garage had a long set of shadows that would take him right out to the street. He crept along the darkest parts, plastering himself to the wall, until he passed a window.

Weh-heh-hell. What was this?

Inside the garage was a car. A big, boss muscle car. No way the real Getrude Abernathy spent her weekends working on that. Brad seriously doubted she drove this bad boy to her weekly bridge game. He snuck back to the door at the front of the building. It was locked, but he checked one of the keys on the chain and it slid right in, unlocking the door as if it were expecting him. Brad slipped into the garage and looked at the car. It was a Buick.

1970 is considered by many in the car world to be the year of the American muscle car. It was also the year that Buick released the GSX, but only six hundred seventy-eight of them.

Brad didn't realize it as he drooled and prayed to sweet baby Jeebus that one of the keys he was holding fit the car he was looking at, but he was standing before a meticulously refurbished GSX, complete with functional scoops, front and rear spoilers, color-coordinated headlamp bezels, TH400 turbo transmission with a Hurst shifter, power disc brakes, a Rally Ride Control package (featuring rear stabilizer bar, front and rear firm ride springs, and rear lower control arm assembly), and the eight-track player that the previous owner had used to wear out Zeppelin's fourth album. It was a spectacular feat to have re-created such a monster of a car to this level of perfection, and it had taken Yo the better part of two years to do so. Sold on the open market, this masterpiece could fetch well over one hundred thirty thousand dollars. But this was all lost on Brad.

As far as he was concerned, it was what looked like a fast car that no one would associate with him. And that made it beautiful for reasons most car enthusiasts never consider when judging refurbished 1970 muscle cars.

He slid into the driver's seat and tried the key. VROOOOOMMM. The powerful engine fired up, so smooth. The gas tank was full. Even the air freshener had recently been replaced. He turned the car off and checked the glove compartment for a registration. The car had been registered three months earlier to one Gertrude Abernathy. All part of Yo's planned anonymity. Brad imagined Gertrude wouldn't mind if he took it out for a spin.

Six hours later, the sun began its predictable rise in front of Brad as he motored along Interstate 10, trying to look as inconspicuous as he could in a pristine, Saturn-Yellow GSX. He had made it past El Paso and still had no plan as to what he intended to do or where he was going to end up.

Canada was out. Too cold. Mexico was out. Too exotic. Like so many American desperados before him, he was headed in the general direction of Florida. If he was going to get hunted and killed like an animal, perhaps he could get some snorkeling in first. It beat waiting for death in some landlocked redneck town. Hopefully.

His six hours on the road had given him time to think through what had happened pretty thoroughly, and to make some big decisions regarding the rest of his life. So far, he had figured out that he was going to get as far away from Stump and Yo's murders as he could, he was going live a quiet life under an assumed name he had not decided on yet, and he should have bought a muscle car a long time ago. Beyond that he was wide open and fascinated by the idea that the future was entirely in his hands.

The adrenaline he had been overflowing with earlier in his escape had begun to subside, and he started to realize just how exhausted he was. Coffee and beef jerky could only keep a man going so long. Brad pulled into a truck-stop parking lot and eased the GSX to a stop between two eighteen-wheelers. He turned it off, climbed into the back seat, and fell fast asleep.

No wonder Stump didn't check in last night. They were supposed to discuss what he had found while studying Brad's video testimony. That's what Stump had thought anyway. Brittany had finally managed to squeeze into her skirt and bull-effing-shit if she was going to the Justice Department and tell them Brad was changing his story now. There was too much at stake and she was totally ready. Mostly ready. Jarvis hadn't really gotten much further and all of her other witnesses had been killed. But as long as she had Brad testifying, she was fine.

But Brittany had gotten a call first thing this morning from the Tucson police department telling her about the double murder at Assure and the fire at Brad's house.

“And you're sure the body at the house is Brad Fingerman?”

“We're not aware of a Brad Fingerman, Ms. Marinakos. Is this someone we should be considering a person of interest in this investigation?”

“No, no! Please, don't.”

Brittany thanked the Tucson officer and excused herself from the call without using the word “Fingerman” again.

Dammit. Brad was dead. She had kind of liked him. He was doofy and a terrible liar, but Brad was a nice guy and definitely deserved better than dying under an assumed name in Tucson. Poor thing.

Speaking of which. Now what?

The trial was in twenty-four days and she had no witnesses left. Give up? Fat chance. Move forward with only Brad's video testimony? Would Justice go with that? It was such a long shot, but Frank Fortunato was a big catch. To pull out now after all the press would be nothing short of embarrassment. And it's not like any new evidence was going to come along.

It was settled, then. If they were going to get Frank for Carmine's murder, they would have to do it with what they had. Fine. She decided to fight with Brad's video testimony, her agents' affidavits, and her own testimony serving as circumstantial evidence. Brittany was on a mission and even something as crippling as Brad getting himself killed wasn't going to stop her. It was what reality show contestants refer to as “time to step up.”

There was still a job to be done here. Frank would go down. Brad would be avenged. That G.D. skirt would be worn on national television.

And right then, Jarvis called.

It didn't take long for the news to work its way back to Frank. Prison gossip is a very efficient machine. He was thrilled his plan had worked and even shrugged off the lack of video documentation. The important thing was that he was going to get off and enjoy the remaining years of his life, God willing, in his own home, with his friends and family and a few girlfriends.

When Frank congratulated Mitchell the Aryan on a job well done, it sort of looked like Mitchell was surprised. Maybe he wasn't used to gratitude. Maybe appreciation was considered a sign of weakness in here. Whatever. That no-good rat was dead along with all the other scumbag agents. Burned to death! Totally untraceable to Frank. That's what mattered.

He had to pay a little extra since the assassin had died in the process, but in Frank's mind it was a minor penance. He told Mitchell to put it on his bill.

Back with The Boys, Frank told Pete the Phone to have Moldy Tony get the word out that everybody, everybody including Sal, needed to hit the mattresses until after the trial. He wanted to make sure nothing screwed this up now that it was practically a done deal.

He also had Johnny Pancakes make arrangements to anonymously send Brittany a dozen roses along with a
Sorry for your loss
card. God, he was in a good mood.

Brad was awakened late in the afternoon by the honking of a trucker angry at him for taking up a primo eighteen-wheeler parking spot with the GSX. It took a few moments for him to shake off the confusion of where he was and why he was sleeping in his clothes in the back seat of someone else's car. He hoped it was some sort of buddy road trip that involved a sorority, but as the cobwebs cleared, he remembered the whole murder-witness-on-the-run-from-bloodthirsty-killers thing.

Brad looked around to find himself still sitting in the rest stop parking lot, no longer protected by the trucks he had hidden between this morning. His bright yellow car was sitting out in plain sight, blocking valuable truck parking.

He cranked down his window to hear the driver behind him.

“This is for trucks only, asshole.”

“Right, sorry.”

Inside the truck stop, Brad gnawed on another piece of jerky and chased it with a sip of maybe the worst coffee of his life. The question was how much of his cash should be allotted for food. The more he ate, the less he had to spend on gas and chances were when he ran out of gas money, he was staying wherever he was. For a brief moment, as he stared at the moon pies on the counter next to the cash register, he thought maybe he could trade Sal's gun for some snacks. This was Texas, after all. They loved guns here. But then, based on his current status of Guy Running For His Life, he decided against it and erred on the side of spending his cash on gas in the hopes of coasting into Florida on fumes. He did allow himself one indulgent purchase. A prepaid cell phone.

When you called Owen's home and he wasn't there, the outgoing message played a recording of a high-as-a-kite Owen saying, “Yoooooou know what to do . . .” followed by a minute and a half of Owen channel surfing before saying, “Is this still on—(BEEP).”

Brad called hoping to talk to the one person in the world he knew he could still trust. But he got the machine instead. He didn't leave a message because it wouldn't have helped anything to drop his problems on Owen. So that left Brittany.

Despite the fact that someone in her agency had ratted him out to Frank, Brad still felt like he could maybe/kind of trust Brittany. And he really needed to talk to someone. If nothing else, to get the truth off his chest. It's not like he was going to testify in Frank's trial now. Maybe it would help if he had one less burden to carry around. Maybe if he came clean with Brittany, they could start fresh and she could wire him fifty dollars or call a cousin who lived in Orlando so Brad could crash on their couch instead of at another truck stop or Walmart parking lot.

Brittany sat on the edge of the couch in Jarvis's bay, once more watching him peck away at her surveillance video. He had come up with something interesting in the footage after Brad bent down. Brad had sneezed. She didn't know what to make of this detail, but wondered if it wasn't significant. He had never mentioned the sneeze before and according to her calculations based on the timing of the shots, the sneeze had to happen just before Carmine was shot. What did that mean? How did it affect the story Brad would have told if he weren't blackened Fingerman right now? This would have been so great to have had two weeks ago.

As Jarvis fiddled and tweaked, Brittany distracted herself with a phone call from her grandmother. Listening to her blather on about her next date was excruciating, but would hopefully one day get Brittany into heaven.

Brittany almost ignored the call on her other line when she didn't recognize the number. Not that she didn't want an excuse to get rid of her grandmother. The details of senior-citizen Brazilian waxing were way beyond the point of too much information. Lola was planning “something big” for her new boyfriend, and felt like some girl talk with her granddaughter. How could this help anyone? As if having Brittany's best marshal killed and her star witness burned to a crisp weren't bad enough, Lola started in on how some overly hot wax gave her a blister that could ruin her whole evening. Brittany shivered in disgust, interrupted, and clicked over.

“Hello, Brittany. It's me, Brad Pitt.

When she heard Brad's voice, she almost made in her pants.

“Where are you? I'll send marshals.”

“I can't tell you where I am. And I don't want any marshals.”

“Look, Brad, I know you're scared, but we can protect you.”

“Uh, no, I think we tried that.”

Brittany bit her lip, hoping some intense pain would help her think. What could she possibly offer Brad to save the trial of the century and, let's face it, her television career?

“I'll come get you myself.”

“Look, I just called to talk. I could only afford like four minutes on this thing.”

“Brad, I really need your testimony. All my other witnesses are dead.”

Oops. Maybe she should have bitten a little harder.

“Funny you mention that. I have something I have to tell you. You know, about being a witness.”

“That's great. Let us come pick you up.”

“I didn't—”

“Brad, if you don't show up at the courthouse in three weeks, my case gets thrown out and I lose everything. I've worked too hard on this to lose it now. It's my whole career.”

There it was. She laid it all out. Almost. “Oh, and Frank will get off. Don't forget, Frank will get off.”

Brad drove in silence for a moment. He really felt bad destroying Brittany's career, but there was the gaggle of Mafia trigger men to consider.

“I just called to tell you—”

BOOM!

Brad dropped the phone and scrunched down for cover. The car began to swerve violently and he struggled to maintain control.

Holy Christ, they found me. That trucker must have sold me out. I hate truckers!

It took a few moments before he realized he was not, in fact, a victim of trucker backstabbing, but instead, a flat tire.

“Brad? Brad, what happened? Brad, Jesus, are you all right?”

He picked his phone up and hit the Off button. Obviously, he was not meant to confess to Brittany just yet.

Brittany barked into her phone a few more times, but got no response. The last thing she had heard was a loud noise (gunshot?), a bunch of commotion, and then silence.

Really? He's killed and then he's alive and then he's killed again? How is that fair?

She tried calling his number back, but guessed there wouldn't be an answer. She was right.

Brad glided the car to a stop and sat in silence. And then he cried. He cried for being alone and helpless and having no idea what to do and for not just telling Brittany he hadn't seen anything in the first place and for not knowing if he was going to have to live like a scaredy-cat baby the rest of his life or even if he was going to have a rest of his life. And then he got mad at himself for crying. If the truckers hadn't turned him in before, they definitely would if they saw him like this.