I saw Bruce and Zadie walk out of the medical center, but didn’t see my brother, Nate. That wasn’t good. “Gotta go,” I told Sam and hung up.
“Where’s Nate?” I asked Fiona.
“Isn’t it good you can’t see him? Wouldn’t that mean he’s doing his job?”
“He’s not that talented,” I said.
I got out of the car and started cutting through the parking lot. Even though I didn’t see anything dangerous, that didn’t mean there wasn’t something nearby. We were parked a good hundred yards from the entrance to the medical facility, close enough that I could see everything, far enough that Zadie wouldn’t see us and freak out. Keeping her sane and feeling safe was job one.
But now they were standing in the wide open-an easy shot for anyone. This wasn’t exactly a biker haven-the medical center where Zadie went for her radiation was just a block from CocoWalk, the make-believe downtown of Coconut Grove, so most of the people on the adjacent streets had that vacant zombie-look of people who just want some Hooters wings or a slice of fifteen thousand-calorie Cheesecake Factory cheesecake. But in the last decade, biker gangs in Miami haven’t been shy about fighting right out in the open. It’s sort of their thing-what would you do if you saw fifteen men with bats smacking the crap out of someone?
If you were smart, you’d not intervene.
At that moment, I didn’t see anyone with bats, but I wanted to make sure that if they showed up Bruce and Zadie would be safe.
The only issue is that a parking lot in front of a medical center in Coconut Grove is more dangerous than a minefield.
I dodged a Cadillac driven by a hundred-year-old woman that was backing up whether or not anyone was behind it and a Land Rover driven by a 120-year-old man who couldn’t see above the wheel and didn’t seem to mind. A Mercedes with a handicap placard nearly ran me over from the side, perhaps because the car’s windows were tinted black, to the point that you’d need a flashlight just to find your seat belt.
All that and I still managed to keep my eyes on Bruce and Zadie.
Where was Nate?
A black Lincoln Town Car skidded to a stop in front of me, ten yards or so from the front of the medical plaza. Just as I was about to reach for my gun, the window rolled down.
“Easy there, big shot,” Nate said. “This isn’t a pedestrian state.”
“Actually,” I said, “it is. And this pedestrian almost shot you in the face. Where have you been?”
“I wasn’t going to just sit here in the parking lot,” Nate said. “What if someone made me?”
“What if?” I said. Nate didn’t have an answer. He got out of the car and walked over to Bruce and together they helped Zadie across the short path of the parking lot. Her face was flushed red and she was sweating.
“How are you?” I asked her.
“Nuclear,” she said and then got into the backseat without saying another word.
“She’s always pretty fired up after radiation,” Bruce said. “She’s both wired and tired at the same time. It’s a terrible way to be.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
There was a sad look on Bruce’s face. I had to imagine that none of this was what he wanted from this life. But we make choices and we deal with the ramifications. His mother’s illness was beyond his control; everything else he’d done belonged to him. “I guess we all get old,” he said finally.
“That’s the hope,” I said, though I wasn’t convinced that Bruce was going to get to be as old as his mother. He’d pissed off the wrong people.
“Where’s that Fiona?” he asked, his demeanor brightening noticeably.
“She’s sitting in a car about a hundred yards from here,” I said. “She’s probably got a gun pointed at you, but don’t take it personally.”
“I don’t,” he said. “May I ask you a personal question?”
“No,” I said.
He ignored me. “Is she your… uh… girlfriend? Is that the right word?”
“Yes,” said Nate.
“No,” I said.
“So, if it’s no,” Bruce said, “do you think I could, if everything works out here with us, ask her out?”
“No,” I said.
“No,” Nate said.
At last, we agreed on something.
Bruce shrugged. “I thought I’d ask,” he said.
“Get in the car, Bruce,” I said.
Bruce opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it and then walked around to the other side of the car and got into the front passenger seat.
“Interesting guy,” Nate said.
“That’s not the word I’d use,” I said.
“Last night? After you guys went to sleep, we sat up telling war stories. You know he robbed something like a hundred banks?”
“That’s what he says,” I said.
“Never once used a gun. Never even hurt anyone.”
“That’s what he told you?”
“He even had a nickname. You wanna hear it?”
“The Idiot?” I said.
“The Gray Grifter,” Nate said.
“Fiona said he was called the Safe-Deposit Bandit,” I said.
“That’s not much of a nickname,” Nate said.
“No,” I said. “And he wasn’t gray when he was robbing all of those banks.”
“No?”
“No,” I said. “A hundred banks. Really?”
“He said he didn’t have an exact number. Anything more than three or four is nails.”
“Right,” I said. “Nails.”
“Way he explained it,” Nate said, “he ended up only keeping the stuff he needed. Gave back most of it. Only stole from people he thought could really afford it. That seems okay to me in the long run.”
It was time to give Nate an object lesson. “Where’d you get this car?”
“It’s a rental,” he said. I didn’t believe him. But that was an issue for another day.
“So if I saw you on the street,” I said, “it would appear you’d have enough money to weather the loss of whatever you might keep in your safe-deposit box, right?”
“Well…”
“Precisely,” I said.
“He said he’d show me some tricks.”
“And Dad and Mom once vowed to love each other through sickness and health,” I said. “Not everything is as it seems.”
Nate sucked on his bottom lip for a second. I always had to remind myself not to be so hard on Nate, but the problem was that he was like a dog who never learned to stop peeing on the rug. You loved the dog, but, man, you got sick of cleaning up after it made a mess.
“Listen,” I said, “things are heating up. I need you to get Bruce and Zadie back to Ma’s, but I want you to go a different route than the one you took here.”
“How many routes are there?”
“Do you remember when we were kids?”
Nate smiled. Of course he remembered. He was still a kid. Perpetually sixteen or so. “Yeah, I remember that.”
“Remember that time I stole that Corvair from the neighbors?”
“The white one?”
“Uh… no. The black one,” I said.
