Like I said: She’s complicated.
And then, of course, I also had friends like Barry. People who could get me things I needed. People who referred work in my direction. People who, on a few occasions, had put their ass on the line for me. When I returned to Miami after getting my burn notice, I knew I could still turn to Barry for help. He might ask a few questions just to make sure he wasn’t going to find himself looking down the barrel of a gun or staring at an indictment, but for the most part he was as cool as the other side of the pillow: He did his job, got his fee and walked away like nothing ever happened. You treated Bad Check Barry well; Bad Check Barry treated you well.
The bartender filled Barry’s drink and brought it back, this time not bothering to say anything to me at first, but still staring at me with a confused look on her face. “I realize where I know you from,” she said.
“American Idol?”
“You have a brother?”
“Depends,” I said. “He owe you money?” My younger brother, Nate, has a habit of owing people money. Particularly people in bars.
“Yeah,” she said. “He walked out of here without paying his tab one night last week, but the moron left his wallet on the bar. He had a picture of you in it. I only remember because I thought you were cute and wondered how such a fuckup could have such a cute brother. One of those weird things you think about on a dead night, you know? If you want, it might still be in the lost and found.”
“Keep it,” I said.
The girl shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said.
Barry watched her walk away. “I’ve been coming here for ten years, no one says a word to me. You’re here ten minutes, you’re already cute.”
Ten minutes was already too long. “You wanted to talk to me about something, Barry?”
Barry took a sip of his drink. “I don’t normally drink cranberry juice,” he said, “but I’m trying to cleanse my system. Start taking a little bit better care of myself, you know? Investing in me.”
“Vodka integral to that plan?”
“That’s just to mask the taste of the cranberry,” he said. “One-part question: How do you feel, generally, about criminals?”
“Generally? I don’t care for them, Barry. Specifically, I like you. I have feelings for Fiona. Why?”
“I have a friend,” he said. “He used to work in transactions.”
“Transactions?”
“Banking.” Barry took another sip of his drink and this time grimaced. “My mom? She used to drink cranberry juice all the time. Can’t figure out why.”
“Plumbing,” I said.
Barry thought about that for a moment. “You know what you never see kids drinking anymore?” he asked.
“I don’t spend a lot of time around children, Barry.”
“Ovaltine.”
“That’s a tremendous insight.”
“Another one? Delaware Punch. Sanka, too. No one drinks Sanka. My mom practically lived on Sanka. Sanka and cranberry juice. You think it’s related?”
“I think I want you to stop avoiding whatever it is you wanted to ask me about your friend the banker,” I said.
“He isn’t exactly a banker,” Barry said.
“Stunned,” I said.
“He actually robbed banks.”
“With a gun or with hundreds of bad mortgages?”
“Funny thing,” Barry said, “he was known for not using a gun.”
“Just charmed people into giving him their money?”
“He actually robbed safe-deposit boxes,” Barry said. “That was his thing. Or it was until he got caught.”
“I’m not busting your friend out of prison, Barry.”
“He’s out. Did a full bid at Glades, got out after twelve years for good behavior. You know they got cable in prison now?”
“I’ve never been to prison,” I said.
“But you know such places exist?”
I checked my watch. This was now fifteen minutes I’d never get back. Across the way, the Germans were now trying to set fire to the pools of spilled beer on their table. “Barry, I don’t mean any offense here. We’re friends. You’ve done me a lot of favors. But if you don’t tell me what you need in five minutes, I’m going to ask those German tourists to set me on fire.”
Barry nodded once but then didn’t say anything for a moment, which I took to be a bad sign. Barry isn’t an especially chatty guy. Oh, he’ll go on at some length about things he’s really interested in-forgeries, gold bullion, places one can purchase black-market kidneys on the cheap-but what makes Barry an especially good financial criminal is that he’s quick to get in and out of a situation.
“Hypothetically,” Barry said, “say you found yourself stuck in a place with no way of really earning a living.”
“Hypothetically.”
“And you had a mother that was driving you crazy, but you loved her, and didn’t want her to suffer, so when she got sick and you couldn’t afford her bills, you did the one thing you’ve been trained to do just to keep up with your mom’s prescriptions and medical appointments.”
“Have you been watching me, Barry?”
“Even Charles Manson had a mom,” Barry said. “And besides, this is all hypothetical. Your mother is sick, lots of bills, you have a skill set that allows you to pay those bills off with a minimum of exertion, hypothetically, don’t you do that? I mean, for your mom.”
Thinking of all the things I’d done for my mother, Madeline, was like sticking pins in my eyes. I nearly died cleaning out the calcified remains of Tater Tots beneath the seat of her car just a few weeks previous. “Hypothetically, what did this friend of yours end up doing?”
“He might have robbed a stash house out in the Everglades.”
“Either he did or he didn’t.”
“I thought we were still pretending this person didn’t really exist?”
I pointed at my watch. “Two minutes,” I said.
“Then he did.”
“And how is this now my problem?”
Barry exhaled. “See, here’s the thing, Michael. I like to think that you and me, we have a nice working relationship, right? You scratch my back, I scratch your back, and in the end, we both feel good, right? Just two guys who like to scratch each other, metaphorically speaking.”
“Tick, tick, tick,” I said.
“Now, a homeless person, a person with no real friends, whoever scratches a homeless person’s back, you know? You have an itch, you have to rub yourself against a wall or something, right? You following me?”
“Not in the least, Barry, but please continue. I have to know where this ends up.”
“My friend-we’ll call him Bruce-he’s been on his own for a long time and now he needs someone to scratch his back, but maybe I don’t have long enough arms. Or maybe I just don’t know how he likes to be scratched.”
“Barry,” I said, “speak English.”
“He wants to give what he stole back.”
“Really.”
“Most everything.”
Most everything. Two words that might equal the entire sum of human knowledge, but probably included drugs and guns. Maybe it just meant baseball cards and Three Dog Night eight-tracks, but probably not.
“And this is from his warm core of altruism?”
“There might be some extenuating circumstances, but that’s the rub on the deal. I thought maybe you could help him out. Stand behind him. Look menacing. Maybe send Fiona to lay a little ground fire. Whatever it
