“You set him up to be killed?”
“No!” she said, her voice rising. “No. No. I just thought, you know, these guys would mess him up. Get their drugs, mess him up, I’d get some money and, you know, get a new life. Get out of Little Havana.”
Sam saw Brenna Fender come out of the front of the ME’s office. She had a plain brown bag in one hand and her purse in the other. She wore a cute pair of scrubs-Sam thought all scrubs were cute, really, a lasting impression from being in a secret military hospital in Bucharest and meeting a very friendly nurse while pumped full of Dilaudid-and didn’t seem to bother with looking inconspicuous. Brenna stopped next to the garbage can and chatted with the three other people in scrubs who stood there smoking. Sam never understood how you could work at a hospital and still smoke.
“How much did they give you?” Sam asked.
“They were supposed to give me twenty grand,” Maria said, “but they only gave me five hundred up front and then came by my parents’ place and told me to get out of town before they did me like they did Nicky.”
“They said that?” Sam said. When Maria didn’t respond, he added, just for the sake of continued clarity, “They told you they’d do you like they did Nicky?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Where are you?” Sam said.
“Out of town,” she said.
“Out of town?”
“I’m in the Ranchero, okay?”
“Don’t go anywhere,” Sam said. “I’ll send someone to come and get you.”
“And what?”
A good question. He’d have to find out if Madeline was prepared to take on more houseguests. He imagined Maria might be somewhat surprised to find Bruce Grossman living and breathing when she got there, but he’d deal with that later. Maria Cortes was now evidence.
“You get to use a bathroom inside and we’ll keep you safe,” Sam said.
“Who are you again?”
“Not the cops,” Sam said. “Ask your stepdad.”
Silence. And then: “Okay,” she said, “but my dog comes, too, okay?”
Oh, Madeline would love that. “Thirty minutes,” Sam said and then had to hang up. A woman with a human hand in a brown bag was knocking on the passenger window. He unlocked the door and Brenna Fender slid in. She smelled of formaldehyde with a hint of Chanel No. 5. Classy.
“How are you, Sammy?” she said. All smiles. Big eyes. Friendly. Like this was something she did every day. She set the bag down between them.
“I’m good,” Sam said. He wondered how much a hand weighed. Two pounds? Three?
“Which is why you need this hand?” No smiles. Small eyes. Not terribly friendly. Like this was something she did every day and then, later, showed up in uniform to arrest the perpetrators.
“Complicated situation I’m working on,” Sam said. “You’ve heard of the Kobayashi Maru, I assume.”
“No,” she said. That was good… since Sam was pretty sure the Kobayashi Maru was something from Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, which he’d watched in bed after getting home from dueling with the Gluck brothers.
“Well, then, I’m afraid I can’t divulge the exact reasons behind our need for the hand. For our eyes only and all that, you understand.”
Brenna regarded him with real skepticism, but Sam decided he’d stay firm. She’d already brought him the hand, after all, so she couldn’t be feeling too moral about the situation.
“Take a look, then,” she said. “Make sure you got what you need.”
Sam was afraid she’d say that, but he opened the bag and took a peek. “Yep,” he said, “that’s a hand.”
“Anything else you need, Sam, before I lose both of my jobs?”
There was one thing that vexed Sam. “Who did this belong to?”
“You read about that pimp who got cut up by about ten of his girls a few nights ago?”
“Must have missed that one,” Sam said.
“That’s because it wasn’t in the paper,” she said.
“No?”
“Nope.” Brenna got out of the car but didn’t close the door for a moment. She looked both ways, presumably to make sure no one was watching, good guys or bad guys, and then poked her head back inside. “They never found the body,” she said. “You have a good day now, Sam Axe.”
15
There’s no easy way to fake your own death anymore. Used to be all you needed to do was squirrel away the cash you’d need to make a new life, get a fake passport from your local forger, and then roll your car off a cliff in the middle of the night. Twenty-four hours later, and a continent or two away, you’d be sitting on a white sand beach, or at an outdoor cafe, or just beneath the majesty of the Alps, plotting your next life.
Now, just getting through security at the airport would be a challenge. Sneaking into Mexico might not be terribly difficult, provided you’re able to get to a border city without leaving a trace of your real self along the way- there are cameras everywhere now, even if you’re not aware of them-which is where the complications might arise. And then once you’re in Mexico, provided you don’t die of swine flu, or get kidnapped, or get murdered in the crossfire of a drug war, you’ll realize that Mexico isn’t exactly paradise lost and you’ll want to find greener, less smoggy, less dangerous pastures. And then you’re back to the same problem of traditional air travel.
Terrorism may have made air travel annoying for those of good legal standing, but it’s made it damn near impossible for those attempting to fake their death. Minus that, there’s just so much DNA we all leave behind now- fingerprints, hair fibers, saliva, urine-that if you really feel like you need to fake your death, you might want to consider actually killing yourself.
At least that way you won’t get caught.
In Bruce Grossman’s case, he was actually taking his death pretty well. He sat wedged between his mother and my mother on the sofa and watched one of those “I have terrible taste and need help” programs on HGTV. Maria Cortes and her dog were asleep in Nate’s old bedroom. After Maria got over her initial surprise at seeing Bruce alive and well-Sam had to convince her that he wasn’t a ghost and that no one was avenging anyone, at least not in my mother’s house-she quickly made herself comfortable. Apparently sleeping in a car had left her exhausted.
Fiona, Sam, Nate and I were in the kitchen, along with a brown bag containing what would be the proof of Bruce Grossman’s death, provided someone was able to chop the appropriate finger off. More important, however, if this was all going to work, I needed to make sure Maria was going to be the witness Bruce would need to really disappear safely. As it stood now, I felt like we could forestall the Ghouls by giving them the hand and then selling them their own goods back. Maybe they’d engage in an even bloodier war with the Banshees, but eventually, because he was Bruce Grossman and couldn’t keep his mouth shut for more than ten seconds at a time, he’d tell someone about how his best score was the time he robbed the Ghouls twice. And once with a spy! And then, well, then one day the Ghouls would show up at his house with bats, and acid, and there wouldn’t be a way out.
Bruce Grossman had to give the Ghouls back the works and then he had to disappear. And somehow, we needed to keep Zadie safe, too. The best option was not one I suspected Bruce would leap at.
“Do you think Maria would go on the record about Nick?” I asked Sam. “Because if she can deliver the evidence that there was a bounty on him, along with what Fi recorded at Purgatory, there’s probably enough to get Bruce and Zadie into protective custody.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, “but he did rob that stash house. You think the FBI is going to smile on that?”
“They wanted him once before, didn’t they?” Fiona said.
It was true. Back when he was in prison they’d offered to make him a consultant, but he was a different guy then. Younger. Dumber. And probably more skilled. Plus, his mother wasn’t dying. If he went into their hands now, she’d get the best medical care.
“I don’t know,” I said. “He doesn’t seem like much of an asset anymore.” In the living room, Bruce was
