That seemed to resonate with Bruce. “Okay,” he said, “okay. I get that.”
“One thing,” I said. “If Sam can swing this, you have to recognize that your life of crime is over.”
“What about, say, I see a pack of gum at the CVS and no one is around?”
“You wait at the counter with your fifty cents.”
“What about running red lights? I still get to run red lights every now and then? What about cheating at cards? Is that against the law?”
Bruce was getting agitated, just as I figured he would, which is why I left out one key ingredient to this conversation. One dangling carrot that I knew Bruce could not resist if offered.
“There’s maybe one thing you could do,” I said.
“Yeah? Cheat at bingo?”
“How would you like one more score?” I said.
“I’ve seen this movie,” he said, but, oh, there was a spark in his voice, so I played it out.
“Never mind, then,” I said. “Sam will call the feds, see what we can work out.”
“Let’s not be hasty,” Bruce said. “You haven’t even told me the score.”
I smiled. “That’s the super criminal we know and love,” I said. I waved Sam and Fi over.
“Finally,” Fiona said, this time loud enough that everyone could hear.
Sam sat down between Bruce and me on the sofa and handed him the laptop. “You recognize this?” he asked.
On the screen was a two-story house in what appeared to be a nice neighborhood. The lawn was cut. The windows had white shutters. In the driveway was a Volvo SUV. You could almost hear the sound of a gold dog barking and small, adorable children telling their J. Crew-model mother that they were bored.
Suburbia personified.
“Am I supposed to?” Bruce asked.
“It’s a stash house belonging to the Banshees,” Sam said.
“Nice taste,” I said. I looked at the address. It was a neighborhood only a few miles from my mother’s that was once just open fields but was now a housing development absurdly called Coconut Commons. Still, the homes were the kinds thirtysomethings imagined in their Pottery Barn dreams.
“The Banshees just know how to protect their interests,” Sam said.
Sam was probably correct. Houses in nice neighborhoods don’t get robbed as often as houses in bad neighborhoods and just because the Banshees were criminals, it appeared they at least read the newspaper more often than the Ghouls did. Pick up the Miami Herald on any given day and you’re more likely to see a home invasion robbery in the toughest parts of Liberty City or Miami Gardens than in the toniest areas of Key Biscayne.
“So you never cased this place?” Sam said.
“No,” Bruce said, “it doesn’t look familiar.”
“What’s inside?” I said.
“My buddy who did undercover? He says they have a couple houses like this all through Miami that they grow marijuana in.”
“In?” I said.
“Yeah,” Sam said, “they gut all the rooms and turn the entire place into a hydroponic farm. Maybe have two or three guys living in the place, tending to the crop.”
“What’s there to steal?” Bruce said.
“Finally,” Fiona said, “someone asks a good question.”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Sam said. “They don’t keep cash here, or if they do it’s just a small amount, and we don’t know if they’ve got a new crop that they are cutting and bagging, so could be that the worst case is that all there is to steal is a bunch of trees, which might be hard for Bruce to hustle out.”
“He wouldn’t be going alone,” I said.
“I dunno, Mikey,” Sam said. “You get caught walking out of that house holding a bunch of trees, that’s not something you can easily talk your way out of if the nosy neighbors get the law involved. Last thing you need is to get picked up by the police.”
“I can think of worse things,” I said.
“You don’t want to be locked in one place for too long,” Sam said.
“Well, that’s true,” I said. “Besides, I thought Fiona might enjoy this.”
“There is no ‘might,’” Fiona said. “I will enjoy this. Provided you don’t slow me down, Bruce.”
She gave him one of those looks that makes men do stupid things in hopes of seeing it again, maybe with fewer clothes involved. Bruce, naturally, had no chance with Fiona, but then very few people did.
I’d seen that look a few times. Never regretted the outcome. Too much, anyway.
“What if there is a new crop?” Bruce said.
“You don’t need to take all of it,” I said. “Just enough to make the Banshees angry.”
“How will they know who they are mad at?” he asked.
“I’ve got that worked out,” I said and told him what our plan was. All the Banshees would need to see was a single Ghoul patch left on the floor. No one had access to Ghoul colors but the Ghouls; or at least that was the case prior to Bruce Grossman’s booty. Fiona and Bruce would leave just enough evidence to point the Banshees in the right direction. And then we’d do the rest.
“What if this doesn’t work?” Bruce asked.
“That’s not a possibility,” I said.
“You can say that,” he said, “but you’ll pardon me for saying that I’ve never done a job with a partner before. You want me to break into the place without ever having seen it. I normally spend a few days, maybe a week, making sure I know every angle. How much time do we have for this?”
I looked at my watch. “None,” I said. “We case it now. Then we make our move.”
“I don’t get it,” he said. “How can you be sure the Banshees will be out of the house? And what about the neighbors? Have you thought any of this through?”
When you’re a spy, sometimes the best way to explain a complex plan is to lie. It saves everyone a lot of worrying and heartache.
“It’s all taken care of,” I said. “We’ve actually been planning this for months, Bruce. Really. Since long before you came on the scene.”
“Really?” he said. He looked to all of us and we all nodded.
Yes.
Sure.
Absolutely.
It didn’t matter, really. Bruce wanted to hear the positive responses because he wanted to do the job. The only thing that could dissuade him would be if I told him it was going to end with him in a body bag. Bruce was a good bank robber, but he wasn’t a “please go on without me, I’ll just die right here” kind of guy.
“Okay, then, I guess I’ll have to put my trust in you, Michael. And Fiona,” he said. “I trust you, Fiona.” Bruce gave Fi a smile that was probably very enticing over at Sherman’s Deli but didn’t do much for women under seventy.
“Okay,” I said. “You agree to this, then you’re agreeing to Sam making a few calls to see what can be done for you. There’s no guarantee. If the feds don’t want you, your friend Barry is going to have to find you a new life. Either way, your time as Bruce Grossman is done. Understand?”
“Being Bruce Grossman was never that great, honestly,” he said. He looked down at his hand, at his missing finger, and shook his head. “You know, if I had to do it all over again, I think I would have made a pretty good spy. What do you think, Michael?”
“Maybe something a little less interactive,” I said.
He chuckled. “Hmm, maybe so. You know what I might like to do in this new life? Maybe get a wife and settle down. After my mom is all taken care of, of course. Get a house in Big Sur. Maybe have a couple dogs or chickens or hamsters, you know? Something I have to take care of that I can’t mess up too badly. That sounds like a good life, you ask me.”
“Maybe take Maria with you,” I said. The girl was listening to Bruce prattle on, but didn’t seem upset. She had her own dreams, some of which the Ghouls had frightened right out of her.
“Naw,” she said, “I just wanna go home. But Bruce, you got the idea. Nicky? He never had no idea what he
