And even then you probably won’t get a gun.
You’ll be an analyst or an interrogator or you’ll be in charge of analysts and interrogators.
If you want the gun and the charge to use it (or any other weapon, including your own hands) regardless of the Geneva Conventions, it’s important to have a slippery moral center that the government views as potentially beneficial. Spreading democracy is the end goal, of course, but it’s nice if you’re willing to achieve that goal by using any means necessary.
When you’re no longer a spy-or waiting to become one again, presuming at some point the axis that tilts your world finally rights itself and the people who’ve burned you are willing to rescind the lies they’ve told about you-that slippery moral center (and understanding that you could be doing paperwork in a basement, too, if not for something as random as luck, or chance, or unique dexterity with a firearm) really only comes in handy if you spend your free time with someone like Fiona Glenanne, helping bank robbers with their problems.
“So,” I said, “just so we’re clear. You kneecapped Clete, cracked his coccyx and broke his wrist all in under ten seconds?”
“It’s about being graceful,” Fiona said.
“You didn’t think that was excessive?”
“Excessive? No. He called me a skank, Michael,” she said. “He’s lucky to be respirating.”
We were parked in front of a medical center in Coconut Grove waiting for Nate to come out with Bruce and Zadie. After hearing the general thrust of the conversation the Ghouls were having-that they were only one step behind Bruce Grossman and it was a short one-I figured providing security on top of Nate’s certainly excellent, totally coherent bodyguarding was wise counsel.
“And how long to dispose of the man in the hall? What did you call him?”
“The Hobbit was less than five seconds. One motion and then to the ground he went.”
“Less than five seconds, really?”
“It happened so quickly it couldn’t even really be measured in time,” Fiona said.
The medical plaza teemed with activity, but thus far no one who looked like they manufactured crystal meth for fun and profit. Most likely, those people were trying to figure out how one tiny woman was able to get by three different men without a peep being made. There was a good chance that at least Clete would claim there was more than one person involved, as his pride was likely so high that admitting the truth was worse than the pain of the truth itself.
That is, if they didn’t kill him for letting someone in. The phone recorded fifteen minutes of conversation, ending with the sounds of a person picking up the phone and slamming it into something, most likely the toilet. Maybe the wall, but certainly something solid enough to destroy it.
If they were smart, they would have checked to see the last number dialed by the phone and then maybe they’d try to get that traced and then maybe they’d show up at a server somewhere in Lawrence, Kansas, or wherever eVoice was based. And maybe, if they were really smart, smarter than I or anyone might justifiably give them credit for, they’d muscle out the e-mail address where the recorded messages were sent, which would be good investigative work indeed, except that e-mail address doesn’t exist anymore.
Plus, judging from the recording, the phone was destroyed.
There’s a reason some people are in biker gangs and some people are spies.
“How long do you think it will take them to find Bruce’s name?” Fiona asked.
“Not long,” I said. The truth was that all they had to do was go to the Florida Department of Corrections Web site and type in the last name “Grossman” and work their way through the list of released inmates, something I did about five minutes after Fiona delivered her news.
It was a short list.
Only twelve men with the last name Grossman had been released from Florida prisons in the previous ten years. There were only five men named Grossman actually doing time.
If the Ghouls tended toward the alphabetically inclined, they’d hit Bruce Grossman second on the list of released inmates, right after Abe Grossman. Abe was seventy-seven at the time of his release nine years ago, he’d been incarcerated for twenty- five years and would now be eighty-six.
If they were methodical, maybe they’d look at each person’s sentence and crime and decide who would be the likely candidate to rob their stash house. Abe and Bruce seemed least likely, since at sixty- five Bruce probably seemed just as dangerous as old Abe. So maybe they’d try out Kelly Grossman, a twenty- eight-year-old who did time for assault. Or Pierce Grossman, aka Thomas Pierce, aka Pat Gross, forty-three, and released after six years on a fraud charge.
It didn’t matter how they conducted their business, really. After what went down that afternoon, the Ghouls would hit Bruce’s house soon.
Maybe that night.
The advantage working in Bruce’s favor was that he was living at his mother’s. It would take the Ghouls more time to locate that record, since it wasn’t public. But that’s the nice thing about having leverage against common workaday civilians-like, say, the knowledge that they’ve purchased illegal drugs-if you need information, there is a good chance someone you know can supply it.
That might buy us ten hours. No more than twenty-four.
There was a lifetime of information inside Zadie’s house, which meant we needed to change our plan.
I called Sam. “We’re going to need those bikes tonight,” I said.
“No problem,” Sam said. “My guy delivered them both to your place today. Let me tell you, Mike. You’ve not lived until you’ve taken one of these choppers through South Beach. Now, I get my fair share of ladies looking my way, there’s no question about that, but it’s a whole different level of attraction when you’ve got all that horsepower between your legs.”
“That’s great, Sam.”
“You ever see Easy Rider?”
“Once or twice,” I said.
“Different time, different place, that could have been us, Mikey, just taking the trails, the lone road, all that. You and me, Mikey, heading to Florida, looking for America.”
“Didn’t everyone die at the end of that movie, Sam?”
“Well, I’d get a rewrite on that part,” Sam said. “I’m just saying, the wind in your hair, smell of coconut oil, ladies in bikinis hopping on the back for rides. It’s a little addictive, Mikey.”
“That’s just great,” I said. “What did you learn about Maria?”
Sam told me about his experience with Jose and the dog. “She hasn’t called yet,” he said. “But her old man, he wasn’t the kind that seemed to scare easy, so I’m going to guess that he probably sent his daughter away. Or his stepdaughter. Whatever she is. Maybe she isn’t even family. Who knows? He might have played tough with me, but I can’t see him just letting her run off.”
“She calls you,” I said, “you need to lean on her to come in, get her to Ma’s house. That’s one more person who knows Bruce, that’s one more person who could be dead by tomorrow. These guys don’t play around.”
“Got it,” Sam said.
“And I need you to call your friend at the DMV again,” I said. “I need to know who owns this car.” I gave him the license number of the gold Lincoln.
“Yeah,” Sam said, “about that friend. He’s gone rogue. I might need to get this from someone else.”
“Get it from Captain Crunch,” I said, “it doesn’t matter to me. Then let’s meet at Grossman’s in an hour. We’ll need to see about finding some clothes appropriate for a mission.”
“Body armor?”
“More like a vest with a nice logo on it, something that says ‘dangerous biker gang member.’”
“I’m ahead of you,” Sam said. “My guy gave me a nice stash of vests to choose from.”
“Who is this guy?”
“Top secret.”
“They’re all top secret, Sam.”
“You ever see Billy Jack?”
“Once or twice.”
“He’s like that guy. Deep cover, though. He said they still use his cover method as a teaching tool in the Czech Republic to this day.”
