Again with the voice of reason…
I took out my cell and called Barry.
“I’ll meet with Grossman on one condition,” I said. “I take this, I need some cash, you pay my fee. I don’t want whatever money he’s holding on to.”
“That makes me think you don’t trust him,” Barry said.
“I don’t,” I said.
“You realize I don’t work nights at a Christian charity, right?”
“Your stolen money is cleaner,” I said.
“That’s kind.”
“I also know where you live.”
There was a pause on the line. “You do?” he said finally.
“Tell Grossman I’ll be at his house in two hours,” I said and hung up. Best to leave some questions unanswered.
3
No spy wants to work with a double agent. Even if you might want to give off the impression that you’re only in the game for the money or the glory or the opportunity to visit lovely Third World nations and assassinate their leaders, even the most jaded spy probably still has a love for his country. You spend too many years training to suddenly realize you hate everyone and everything about the country you’ve been sworn to protect.
A double agent, however, has allegiance only to himself, and thus goes through the training because he sees a way to prosper personally. This makes trusting him nearly impossible, cornering him unrealistic. The best way to get a double agent to acquiesce to your demands, or just play nice in the sandbox, is to present him with another double agent to confuse him. Two people out for only themselves causes a certain amount of friction, particularly when there’s only one of whatever they both want.
Which is why I brought Fiona with me to meet Bruce Grossman. And why I first gave her a tour through Aventura’s hottest suburban spots. There’s something about suburbia that makes Fiona homicidal, and Aventura is one of those master-planned communities developed in the 1970s and 1980s to remind people what they thought the world was like in the 1950s and 1960s. Back then, the future occupants of Aventura lived in Chicago or New York or Detroit and had an idea that the suburbs would be a good place to retire to, only to find that by the time they actually retired, the suburbs were filled with the people that now scared them.
Shops and outdoor cafes dotted the streets, and every few feet there was a cluster of octogenarians in close conversation. In front of a retro-cool-looking joint called the Blintz there were two women who literally had blue hair, which would have been surprising if not for the other two making their way along Northeast 207th toward the Shoppes at the Waterways. Across the street was a cluster of high-rise condo complexes, and I imagined that at night the windows glowed blue, and not from all of the running televisions. Beside me in the Charger, Fiona made a clucking sound with her tongue, which she sometimes did when she was particularly sickened by something.
“Promise me you will shoot me if I ever do that to my hair,” Fiona said.
“I promise,” I said.
“Mean it,” she said. “Tell me what you’d use. I want to be sure I will die.”
“I’m going to guess a Russian GSh-18 would do the trick,” I said.
Fiona slapped her hand against the door. “Does anyone know how to keep a secret anymore?”
“Selling arms to Cubans doesn’t seem like a great idea.”
“They were using them for strictly democratic aims,” Fiona said. “And they paid double.”
“Why didn’t you ask me to cover you?”
“Because I didn’t want you skulking in the background,” she said. “Cubans would think you were bad juju. Sam emits good juju.”
I could only shake my head. Used to be Sam and Fiona hated each other, or, at the very least, distrusted each other immensely. Now they probably pinkie-swore on their mendacity. “Fi, you don’t know what could have happened.”
“Michael, are you saying you were worried?”
“No,” I said.
“That’s very sweet,” she said. She reached over and squeezed my cheek. Hard. To the point that I had to really focus with my left eye so that I didn’t slam into the traffic in front of me. “I like that you were worried for me long after any danger had already passed.”
“How am I supposed to know if I should be worried if you don’t even tell me what you’re doing?”
“You’re the hero, Michael,” she said. “I’m just the damsel in distress.”
Sometimes I want to kiss Fiona. And sometimes I have, and more. And then, sometimes, I wish I was in Abu Dhabi negotiating a transfer of black-market pearls into the hands of a terrorist, who would then get arrested at the airport while smuggling them into the States and I’d get to interrogate him for a nice long night.
Ah, the good times.
“I’m just saying,” I said, “that I want you to be careful. People might come through you to get to me. Just be vigilant.”
“Just so we’re clear,” she said, “this is actually about you?”
“No,” I said.
Fi looked at me for a second, and I couldn’t tell if she was taking all of this seriously or not. I wasn’t sure if I was at first, but I was by the end. “That’s terribly sweet, Michael,” she said softly. And then she slapped me. “And that’s for not being sweet enough to pay attention in the first place and forcing me into this weird serious conversation with you.”
My face hurt. “You feel better?”
“Somewhat.”
We drove in silence for a few minutes while I did jaw exercises to get my bite back in line and Fiona calmed down from her brief flirtation with actual human emotion and physical violence; her two basic states of being.
I turned down a palm tree-lined side street just off of 207th and parked in front of Zadie Grossman’s house. All around the home were the long shadows of the high-rise condos, which gave the street an eerie darkness even in the middle of the day. The house also seemed anachronistic compared to the luxury we’d passed on our way here-one- and two-million-dollar homes, driveways lined with Lincolns and Cadillacs, all the plastic surgery a ninety-year-old needs in order to feel seventy-in that it just looked like a poorly decorated starter home. There were the flamingos, of course, but also a rock lawn and palm trees that looked closer to dead than paradise. It seemed oddly familiar.
And that station wagon, too.
“If he’s a bank robber,” Fi said, “why does his mother live in such a hideous home?”
“He’s been in prison for twelve years.”
“How long has he been out?”
“Six months,” I said.
“That’s plenty long to get a decent score. At least get rid of those flamingos. Dreadful taste.”
This could have been my childhood home, I thought. I suppose I could have ended up robbing banks, too.
“And why am I here?” Fiona asked.
“To keep Bruce honest,” I said. “Crook to crook.”
“You might not like what you hear,” she said.
“I’m prepared for that.”
Fi got out of the car and I followed her up the walk, but even before we got to the door, Bruce Grossman opened it up, stepped out and closed it quietly behind him. “My mom’s sleeping,” he said, his voice just above a whisper.
He was tall-at least six-three-and had a body roughly the shape of a pear. His head, neck and chest were skinny, but his stomach slouched over his belt line and his legs were chubby, too. He wore a button-down blue shirt
