Spread across a lovely wicker coffee table that hadn’t been dusted since Clinton was in office, there were pages and pages of the Ghouls’ rules and regulations, a manual as thick and thorough as the actual constitution. Sam and I sat in the living room of Grossman’s house going through the papers, each one stolen in the dark of night from the stash house, while Fiona sat outside with Zadie, apparently having a long conversation concerning US Magazine. From my view in the living room, it looked like they were getting along like sisters. That was Fiona’s unique ability: She could scare you or charm you, all within a few moments.
“So, just so we’re clear,” Sam said to Bruce, “you don’t want to move to Canada, right?”
I’d called Sam after Fiona told me about Bruce’s plight, and now the two of us were trying to figure out how best to keep Bruce alive. Sam’s ideas heretofore had also included face- transplant surgery and literally moving underground, like in an old bomb shelter, because trying to elude the grasp of the Ghouls was like trying to catch water in a strainer.
“I can’t,” he said. “They don’t allow ex-felons there.”
“I’ve got a buddy who could get you a very nice passport,” Sam said.
Bruce seemed to consider this.
“Says here the Ghouls have an organization in Canada, too,” I said. That the official records of the organization were kept in a stash house in the Everglades felt like perpetual stupidity, but then I thought that if I had to look for this information, the last place I’d look would be there, too. And that made sense. Stupid sense, but sense. “In fact, according to this, they have ‘colors in all the corners of the world,’ which means you better start looking at space travel. You know anyone at NASA, Sam?”
“I could make a call,” Sam said.
Bruce exhaled hard from his mouth. Apparently, he didn’t care for our line of conversation. “Look,” he said, “I can’t just disappear. I robbed that place for my mother. If I leave now, who takes care of her? And I’m fifty-five years old.”
I looked at him. He sat in a recliner that was probably first purchased so Zadie would have a comfortable seat for the moon landing. But then, the entire house had a dull, antiquated cast to it from all the cigarettes over the years. Lick the sofa and you could probably get a nice nicotine hit.
“Do you want Fiona to come in and talk to you?” I said.
A dash of wonder and pain shot through Grossman’s eyes. He did and he didn’t. “Okay, fine, sixty-five,” he said. “But my point is that I can’t start running now. I’ve never run in my entire life.”
“I understand,” I said. “But you’ve put yourself in a position.”
“I thought Barry said you knew how to help me, that you were a spy or something,” Bruce said.
“That’s right,” I said. “That doesn’t mean I have invisibility potions. If these guys want to find you, Bruce, they will find you.”
“Why can’t I just mail this stuff back to them? I used to do that all the time.”
“So that was you?” I said.
Bruce looked outside toward his mother and Fi but didn’t say anything for a minute. “Listen,” he said, “my mom? She doesn’t know about all that. She thinks I was an architect. And just to be clear, I was never tried for anything but that last job, so I’m not guilty of anything apart from that.”
“Which is why the FBI wanted to hire you as a consultant?” I said. “Because you’re a failed bank robber?”
“How do you know that?” Bruce asked.
Sam started to say something, but I put a hand up to let him know I still needed to show that I was the alpha in this organizational hierarchy, not that Sam had any idea that was what I was doing. He probably just thought I didn’t want to be interrupted. “Let’s just say I know things,” I said.
“Be that as it may,” Bruce said, like he was putting on a show for someone. There was a quality to him that reminded you of a magician, as if every moment might contain a bit of sleight of hand. “I have to stay here. My mother has friends, this is where her doctors are and if this is her last hurrah, I want her to be comfortable. You can understand that, can’t you?”
I could and I told him so. “How much money have you spent?” I asked.
“About twenty thousand,” he said. “Paid some bills, paid for a nurse for a couple days, bought my mom an air purifier. Probably too late on that one. I haven’t opened the mail today, so who knows how much the next bill will be.”
“How much does your mom have left? From the finger incident?”
“Not much,” he said. “That was twelve years ago. And she’s been sick off and on for ten years. Maybe five grand.”
“What all did you drop off at the FBI offices?”
Again, a look of shock crossed Bruce’s face, but he tried to play it off, or maybe he just realized I really did know things. “A couple role sheets,” he said. “Thought if the FBI arrested the crew, they’d be off of me.”
“Good idea,” Sam said, “but you can’t just arrest someone for being an asshole anymore. You actually need to catch them breaking the law. Or breaking their leg while breaking the law. That counts, too.”
Bruce shrugged, like: What can you do? You can’t do nothing.
“What makes you think they’re on to you?” I asked.
“These people have connections everywhere,” Bruce said. “They might even have guys in the FBI for all I know.”
I was about to say I found that unlikely, but then I thought better of it. If anything is true, it’s that every organization has retention and, conversely, leak problems. One person says one thing to the wrong person, and in some cases, an entire spy operation in Moscow could be wiped out. Or a thief in Miami living with his mother could be fingered for a job.
Better to deal with known possibility than wishful thinking.
“Have you told anyone about the job?”
“Just Barry,” he said. “He’s the one told me they were making inquiries, which got me thinking, you know, don’t be a schmuck, get rid of whatever you can and ask for help. Was that wrong?”
“Barry you can trust,” I said, already feeling relieved. If he’d told only Barry, we could close the circle, solve the problem, get everyone back to living in peace and harmony and…
“And I might have mentioned it to Nick Balsalmo.”
He said the name like it should mean something. It didn’t. At least not to me. I looked at Sam, whose expression was likewise blank. We all stared at each other for a while, until it became clear none of us was going to offer more information, so Sam finally said, “Of the Miami Balsalmos?”
“We know each other from Glades,” Bruce said carefully, as if he already knew that it was the wrong thing to say.
“You might have told someone you did time with that you robbed the Ghouls?” I said. There is no might in these situations, just like I told Barry the previous day. People either do or don’t do things. I had a feeling I knew the answer.
“Technically,” Bruce said, “I didn’t know it was the Ghouls when I told him.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Sam said. “Or else you might have told him the total truth.”
Bruce took off his watch and started rubbing at his wrist. You spend enough time around people used to being in handcuffs and you’ll begin to notice a similar compunction when they realize they’ve put themselves in a position to be back in cuffs… and soon. “I owed him a favor and knew he could get rid of the drugs I grabbed,” he said. “Just having them in my mother’s home was a shanda. Nick is trustworthy. He always had my back.”
If you’re sent to prison, it’s important to understand that the people you’re doing time with are not, by definition, trustworthy. One of the first rules of incarceration is simple: Don’t owe anybody anything. As soon as someone has you, they have you forever. This means inside and outside. You might not know it when it’s happening, but eventually the scales will tip.
“Was Nick Balsalmo part of a prison ministry program?” I asked.
“Uh, no,” he said.
“Does Nick Balsalmo work for the police department?” I asked.
“Uh, no,” he said again. He was beginning to get the path of this line of questioning.
“Does he work in hazardous waste disposal?”
“No.”
