“Are you going to write that down?”
“No, Max,” I said.
“Good, I mean, because this shit here, man, it’s not permanent. It’s, like, my passion, but not my permanent passion. Does that make sense?”
“Eight minutes,” I said.
Max Yennie looked into the house and then back at me. “This fungus, it won’t blow up the house if I get out in eight minutes?”
“It won’t blow up if we are able to get underground and stop it, in seven and a half minutes now.”
“See, the thing is-” He started rambling on about the government and about legalization of drugs and about his dad, so I did the only thing I could to close this situation out in a timely fashion: I hit Max Yennie in the face. I grabbed him on the way down and brought him to the floor lightly so he wouldn’t blow out his knee. I punched Max in the chin, not hard enough to do any permanent damage but just enough to keep him out for long enough to get him away from the house.
I waved Sam up to the door.
“You perceive a clear and present danger here with Spicoli?” Sam asked.
“He wouldn’t stop talking long enough for me to convince him to get out,” I said. “Evasive action needed to be taken.”
“What are we gonna do with him? Your mom’s house is getting a little crowded.”
“Let’s drag him inside and tie him up. We’ll figure it out from there. Where’s Bruce?”
“They’re parked about two miles away,” Sam said. “I gotta tell you, Mikey, Fiona is slightly agitated.”
“How can you tell?”
“She texted me. She said she was slightly agitated. Apparently Bruce keeps asking her out for dinner. She’s thinking she might drive him off of a pier if things turn out adversely.”
“I thought she wanted to pick his brain,” I said. “She should be enjoying this quiet time with him.”
We gathered up Max Yennie and tied his hands behind his back with his own belt. It was made from hemp, so it had nice strength. We needed to get him out of the way so that when Bruce and Fiona “broke into” the house, he wouldn’t pose a problem. It would have been easier for me to run in and do the job myself, but in order for us to get Bruce aboard-really, to save him from himself-I needed to have him feel like he was the mastermind of a great crime. Having Fiona help him was just a bit of sugar; something he could hold on to in the future when he was working with suits on issues related to bank security.
Or that was the plan provided Sam ever heard back from his buddies in the Bureau. If he didn’t hear back from them, we’d need Barry’s help. “Bring the van around,” I said to Sam once we had Max restrained appropriately. “Let’s get this guy out of sight.”
While Sam got the van, I took a look inside the house. The entryway was nicely tiled and the living room looked like it had been cut and pasted from a Pottery Barn catalog. But one thing you can’t hide with nice tile and furniture is the smell of an entire forest of marijuana being cultivated inside of a house, particularly since the temperature in the house was at least eighty-five degrees, which gave everything a dank, swampy feel.
I opened a door at the end of the entry hall and found what used to be a kitchen. There was still plenty of counter space and a nice sink in place, but the flooring had been ripped out and a series of tubes and cables crisscrossed the place where the floor used to be. Water sprayed periodically into the air from one of the tubes and a whirring overhead fan spun lazily. For a moment I was reminded of Havana, until I remembered that when I was in Havana I never saw ten- foot-high marijuana trees inside a $500,000 house.
I heard a sound behind me and saw that Max was starting to stir. I would need to handle this situation delicately. I knelt down in front of him.
“Max,” I said, “you’ve been hit in the face.”
“My jaw really hurts,” he said.
“It’s going to for about a week. You might want to see a dentist if your bite feels off.”
Max processed that. “You’re not here to kill me?”
“No,” I said, “but I am going to need to kidnap you for a little while. When we release you, I’d advise you to find another line of work. Because eventually? Your bosses would find a reason to kill you and that’s no kind of job security.”
“Yeah,” Max said. “The economy, man, you know.”
“I know,” I said. Sam pulled the van around, so I stood Max up and walked him outside. We put him in the back of the van, which didn’t seem to bother him, since he just kept jabbering on.
“Should I duct-tape his mouth?” Sam said.
I thought for a moment. “No,” I said, “let’s see if we can find him some pork rinds.”
“Good plan,” Sam said and closed the door on Max.
After we got the van moving, I called Fiona. “You ready?” I asked when she picked up.
“What am I doing again?”
“You’re indulging a fantasy,” I said. “And probably saving a life.”
“And what do I earn on this?”
“Steal whatever you like,” I said.
“No one to beat up, then?”
“I think you’ve done enough.”
“I just assumed there’d be some terribly scarred and intermittently stoned caretaker I could engage.”
“No, I took care of that,” I said. “The house is empty. The street is vacant for at least thirty minutes, so get in and out and make as big a mess as possible.”
“Yes, about that.” Fiona lowered her voice. “Bruce wants to break in through the roof.”
“So break in through the roof,” I said.
“Michael, I don’t want him falling on me,” she whispered.
“The front door is open,” I said. “Tell him to check it first and then get in and out.”
“That’s a plan I can support,” she said, a hint of mischief in her voice. Happy again. Nothing like the freedom to do a rush bang-and-run job to get Fiona off the bubble.
“Just make sure to leave enough evidence,” I said.
“Michael, if Bruce keeps hitting on me, I might leave a body,” she said. “Anything else?”
“Don’t touch the SUV in the driveway,” I said. “It’s wired with enough C-4 to take out the eastern seaboard.”
“Nice touch.”
“And if any soccer moms return to their homes early, try not to do anything that might accidentally send the SUV up in flames. Or any of their SUVs.”
It’s not that I think Fiona would actually do these things. Rather, it’s important to point out to her that I know she’s capable of doing these things, which will put the seed in her head, true, but will also remind her that she’s not allowed to blow up everything in the vicinity. These days, with no one protecting me and no one protecting Fiona but me, it’s wise to keep a buffer between myself and wholesale destruction.
“You are the enemy of fun,” Fiona said. “Would you like to speak with Robin Hood before we initiate our crime spree?”
“No,” I said.
“Great, here he is,” Fiona said and then Bruce said, “Hey, buddy. This is going to work great.”
“Fantastic,” I said.
“I’ll show our little Irish friend a trick or two.”
“You do that.”
“And Michael?”
“Yes, Bruce?”
“Thank you,” he said. “For all of this. I’m an old man. And I know that.”
“You’re welcome,” I said and meant it.
“If something happens to me,” he said, “you’ll take care of my mother?”
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” I said.
“But if something did.”
Working with clients is often more about human resources management than actual hand-to-hand fighting or
