chance you know any dependable muscle in that part of the country?”
“I got some favors I could call in,” he said. “Might cost a bit.”
“Barry,” I said, “you’re the client. Remember?”
“This is odd for me.”
“I know, we’ll work through it. In the meantime, I need guys who wear suits,” I said. “Maybe ex-feds who now use their powers for evil. Know anyone like that?”
“I only know you and Sam,” he said. “What about ex-Coast Guard? Miami is filled with ex-Coast Guard.”
“Just a few guys who can sit behind the wheel of an American car in front of the Craftsman periodically. Let Bruce and Zadie know they are being watched, but in a good way.”
Barry made a noise into the phone that sounded a lot like a painful groan. As if maybe he were having a root canal without Novocaine.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Just thinking about the cost,” he said. “How do people afford all of this? Isn’t it easier to just go to the police?”
“Yes,” I said. “You should do that.”
Barry groaned again. “I see the fly in the ointment here,” he said.
“That’s the problem with being a criminal, Barry. You just can’t turn to the police when you really need to.”
“You know, Mike, I didn’t realize this was going to become an international incident. I would have just booked a cruise for Bruce and his mom if I had-one of those Alaskan ones? You know where you’re on board for a month and you tour icebergs?”
“It’s all right,” I said. “These things happen when you’re a small-business owner.”
“I know,” he said, “I’m just trying to make it clear to you that getting me involved in something this large as payback would be, you know, within reason. I’m just not looking forward to the part where some Cold War relic comes searching for you and decides to take me out first to send a message. I’ve seen that before.”
“You have?”
“Get cable, Mike,” Barry said. “You’ll learn a lot.”
I told Barry he’d hear from me shortly, to stay by one of his fifteen phones and be prepared to possibly book a charter flight out of Miami. This news did not make him happy, either.
I hung up with Barry and briefed Sam and Fi. “Next time you speak to Barry,” Fi said, “let him know I could use a few ex-Coast Guard boys, too. I have a couple of shipments coming into town that they might be just right for. Grenade launchers can be very cumbersome to carry.”
“Cubans again?” Sam said.
“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe I’ll just keep them for July Fourth.”
I tried to steer the conversation back toward something near productivity. “What else did you guys pick up on the bug?”
“Banshees are ready to move,” Sam said. “They just don’t know where to hit.”
“Maybe we should show them,” I said.
“I don’t know how fast those bikes we have are,” Sam said. “They growl and they look nice, but if I’m being chased by a hundred angry bikers, I’d like to have some extra juice.”
“How long would it take you to install a new power tube and ignition?” I asked.
“Couple hours, give or take,” he said.
“Before midnight?”
“If it’s the difference between being fast and being slow?” he said. He reached for a pencil and made some calculations on a scrap of paper. “Says here a six-pack of Corona and some limes and a nice wrench set will assure that the bikes are tricked out by eleven.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet, gave Sam whatever I had-somewhere around five hundred bucks, the last of the cash Barry gave me to front this job-and then watched Sam leave the loft. He was somewhere between giddy and joyous. Hard to tell the difference in a man like Sam, but I had a feeling that the money I gave him would cover the parts, the six-pack and probably another six-pack or four.
That left Fiona and me alone. There’d been something brewing between us these last few days-not exactly flirting, because Fiona was constantly flirting, but just a reminder that there existed a bright aura of availability.
“You ready?” I said.
“James Bond could get a jet pack and anti-shark repellent in less than hour,” Fiona said. She’d settled down onto my bed with another cup of yogurt, though she was eating it with some apparent distaste. She was much more of a carnivore. “And here you are, eleventh hour, sending Sam out for parts.”
“And beer.”
“James Bond would have us drinking martinis.”
“You fell for the wrong spy,” I said.
“Pushed,” she said. “Led by unseen forces beyond my control.”
I sat down beside her on the bed. I wasn’t sure why. But things were feeling… positive.
And then the phone rang.
“Michael,” my mother said when I picked it up, “there’s a man with a beard standing across the street.”
“They’re back in fashion,” I said. I was still leaning in toward Fiona, things still seemed like they might well work in a direction I could be comfortable with, at least until I became uncomfortable and even that would be okay, I supposed…
“There’s another one standing next to him holding a bat. They look like Laurel and Hardy.”
… and then I was bolt upright.
The Glucks.
Something, somewhere, had gone wrong in the plan.
“Where’s Nate?” I said. I went to the kitchen and grabbed my gun. And then another gun. And then one more. Fiona didn’t know what was happening, but she took my aggressive arming as a sign and did likewise. She now looked palpably more excited than she had when it appeared I was about to kiss her.
“He’s taking a nap. He’s had an exhausting day taking Zadie back and forth to appointments, so I didn’t want to bother him. But he and Maria seem to be getting along very well. She might be a nice girl for him, Michael. Like Fiona could have been if you hadn’t messed that up.”
“Mom,” I said, as calmly as possible, “wake Nate up and tell him to secure the house. He’ll know what to do.”
I didn’t actually know if this was true, but it would take me ten minutes to get home and with what we already had in place surrounding the house, all Nate really needed to do was turn off HGTV, close the shutters and make sure he had plenty of bullets nearby.
“What about me?” she asked.
“Grab your shotgun and stay low,” I said.
There was a pause. This was not a time for pauses.
“Where’s your shotgun, Ma?”
“In the car with Bruce.”
No.
No.
No.
This was not happening.
We were already out of the loft, running down the stairs. The bikes were there, as was the Charger. I wasn’t looking especially biker-ish in my worker uniform anymore, so I didn’t bother with the artifice. At some point, disguises and poses and your ability to sidle up to someone become irrelevant.
In those cases, a bad man with a bad woman, armed to the teeth with automatic weapons and driving a 1974 Charger usually suffices.
“Where is Bruce?”
“Don’t use that patronizing tone, Michael. He’s an adult.”
“Ma,” I said, “those two men out in front of the house are there to kill Bruce. They are also there to probably
