Formerly Fingerman (13 page)

“Oh. So then you know what happened.”

“We all know what happened.”

D'oh.

They all knew what happened. They knew Brad was an eyewitness to a stubborn scuff mark and some awkward small talk. They knew he had not tried to stop anything with his rapier wit or
Matrix
-esque physical prowess. They knew he was no Jean-Claude Van Costner.

“Then why am I here?”

“Between you and me, all of our equipment got fried right before Frank got to the elevator. Thank God you were there.”

Oh.

Inside, Brad exhaled like a pregnant woman spotting a rest-stop exit on the turnpike.

No video. Nothing. That was just the kind of thing a big fat liar wanted to hear. There was nothing else to contradict his story. No other witnesses, digital or living. Nothing. It was his word against Frank “The Guy Everyone Already Thinks Did It” Fortunato. The show was back on.

So Brad painted Brittany a picture. He wasn't so brazen as to include all of the helicopter kicks and heart-snatching kung fu he fantasized about earlier, but he did throw in a dusting of machismo and a sprinkling of swagger, including the part about how he matched Frank's steely gaze and that he was surprised at how cool he remained when staring down the barrel of Frank's massive symbol of overcompensation. Not quite the blockbuster he had conjured up in the bathroom, but moderate hyperbole nonetheless. It ended up being a concise, easy-to-remember tale of unlikely heroism and awkward dialogue.

Brittany reviewed her notes. Time to double check a few things.

“So he pulls the gun out and says
This is the end, Carmine.
”

“Right.”

“And then what?”

“I knew he was going to make his move, so I had to do something.”

“Go ahead.”

“So I grabbed his hand and we wrestled. I tried to get the gun away, but he managed to get a shot off.”

“Five shots.”

“Right, five shots.”

“Okay.”

“Anyway, he breaks free, punches me in the gut and runs away. And then you showed up.”

Uh-huh. Brittany paused and gave Brad the kind of easy, thorough stare you lay on a relative right before you loan them the money to start their stupid Internet business. She closed her notebook.

“Great. Let's call it a day.”

Brad closed the door behind Brittany and basked in his own minor accomplishment. Sure he had to bob and weave a little bit, but overall he was pleased with how he came across in the story. Not like the enormous coward he was in real life, hiding behind a chicken suit and a web of lies. Nope, just a web of lies this time. As far as Brad was concerned, that was a step up. And he was glad he had made the decision to paint himself in a nonsteroidal heroic light. In retrospect, the action-packed epic would have been too much. Yessir, Brad knew deep down that he had played this one pitch perfect.

Brittany seemed distracted on her way out, but that was to be expected after he dropped that testosterone-saturated chef-d'oeuvre on her. Poor girl. She might have fallen the tiniest bit in love with old Brad just now. He congratulated himself on a performance well delivered.

I. Fucking
.
Nailed. It.

“What a goddamn liar.”

The drivers in the cars next to her couldn't actually see steam coming from Brittany's ears, but it wouldn't be too tough to figure out that she was more frustrated than Madonna at a Dress Barn sample sale. So many things just didn't fit.

Brad had been embellishing his story. A lot. A boyish ploy to impress her? A delusional stance taken to appease her obvious lust for conviction? Was he fucking crazy? And what was with that awful Japanese accent? If that little shit thought he was going to screw up her shot at TV syndication gold, he had another thing coming.

She knew there was a story in there, but not the one he told her. Which meant she had to cool off, let the reality of the situation sink in to Brad's thick skull, and then come back and dig the truth out of his lying liar's memory. And it better be right next time. If Brittany wanted to listen to a load of self-indulgent bullshit, she'd call her grandmother.

Malcolm spent the previous evening in quiet contemplation of whether or not the Fortunato thing was a blessing or a curse. He had discussed the issue with Mother, but as usual, after a few hours of listening to Malcolm go back and forth she begged off to go watch her stories. Malcolm was left to his own analytic mental whirlpool. There was a lot to consider. It would be a high-profile case and a clever person might be able to make quite a bit of hay with this. Imagine if the assignment had gone to DiRienz. Now that would be a circus. But it hadn't. It had gone to Malcolm. Was it really because he was the only one free? How long would this take? Would people really be talking about this for the next ten years? Was this the kind of attention he wanted for himself?

It was after midnight when Malcolm finally fell asleep.

“Move it, Squirrelhead.”

Malcolm didn't even like coffee, but definitely felt like he needed a little pick-me-up after last night. He was exhausted from lack of sleep. That's probably why it took a few moments, and a couple other choice words grumbled by the Cup 'n Mug customer behind him, for Malcolm to realize that she was referring to his carefully coiffed head. He wondered if perhaps he had gone too light on the mousse this morning.

He turned to find a stunning woman in a leopard dress. Attractive, well put together, and obviously a Pilates enthusiast, she was roughly Malcolm's age and, by his observation, not wearing a wedding ring. As usual, he did not know what to say. She leaned in and directed him like a parent who's had enough of this shit from her five-year-old.

“Order. Your. Drink.”

Stunned by this personification of beauty, Malcolm turned back around to find he was indeed at the head of the line and there was a doe-eyed barista awaiting his order. He did as he was told. Love at first sight is a powerful thing.

“Hot chocolate, please.”

Two minutes later, he watched the magnificent Cougar fix her coffee just so and Malcolm fell for her even harder. Skim with two sugars. She was so decisive. So feral. There was no consideration of soy versus regular milk. No reflecting on the potential presence of growth hormone residue in the two percent. No regard for the fat content of the whole milk. She slopped a few ounces from the closest silver thermos pitcher, dumped a pair of sugar packets in at the same time, and stirred. Kapow! Now, this was a woman who knew what she liked.

Maybe it was the sleep deprivation. Maybe the hot chocolate triggered some sort of mortality alarm. But, in the moment that his new dream girl walked by him on the way to the door, Malcolm Middleton acted in a way he had never acted in his entire life—spontaneously.

“I'm not gay.”

Whoops. That's not what he expected to come out. His plan was for something a little more Cary Grant-esque. Suave-er. The opposite of what he had just done.

But she stopped and gave him the once-over.

“Well, no shit. Just look at those shoes.”

Cheese and crackers! He was in. Malcolm manned up and pounced. Sort of. Actually, he thought about pouncing and then backtracked a little to consider his best option for approach. Was pouncing appropriate? What about some sort of clever line? Or something simple. An introduction. How about a joke? Women liked jokes. Or there was the option of . . .

Too late. She was out the door. Probably to meet some young stud.

Malcolm Middleton was definitely not gay. Despite what most everyone who met him thought. Oh, those knowing looks when he mentioned ice skating. The smug smiles when he pulled out his ornate scrapbook. The pregnant pauses they allowed after mentioning their significant others. It was his belief that suspicion, debate, and mockery regarding his presumed homosexual activities abounded when his back was turned.

To be fair, Malcolm was finicky. He was neat. He knew antiques and dressage. But byproducts do not make the man.

He was heterosexual and understood fully what an anti-pheromone the gay rumors could be, so Malcolm spent a tremendous effort attempting to disprove them to those suspecting snickerers, debaters, and mockers by constantly dropping mentions of curls at the gym, bass fishing, and tequila shooters. None of which he participated in and all of which sounded downright silly coming out of his mouth, but he felt he had to do something.

People did laugh at Malcolm behind his back, but not entirely because he was so femme. There were plenty of other reasons as well. His ugly sweaters, for instance. The fact that he was so uptight about his condiment inventory. His ever-so-slightly-crossed eyes.

And his hair.

Oy, Malcolm's hair. He had a comb-over.
The
comb-over. A terribly obvious affair that was dyed a little too black and manicured like it was Trump's lawn. Not a hair out of place, aside from the tidal wave of locks forcibly marched from the back of his head to the front and then turned abruptly right so as to imply a part. It was just wrong. Especially for a fifty-seven-year-old man. If anything, the tipoff should have been when little kids pointed and laughed. Malcolm assumed it was because they thought he was a closeted queen, but that's not usually the domain of toddlers. Nope, they were laughing at the hair. And sometimes the sweaters.

He had always intended to get married or at least land a serious girlfriend, but so far Malcolm's intense over-consideration of details had led to a lonely life of occasional lukewarm first dates followed up way too late by second date requests that were usually turned down by women who had moved on with their lives, some even to marriage, in the ridiculous yawn of time in between calls. These rejections naturally had to be analyzed over and over on a granular level, which filled his free time and might explain why he didn't have room in his schedule to join up with his fantasy lumberjack buddies for a weekend of drunken four-wheeling. The truth was he was an overly thoughtful man who took things way too personally, and it prevented him from becoming too close to anyone for the first fifty-seven years of his life. So he was alone.

But maybe this vision in coffee was a sign that things were going to turn around. He decided to think about that for a little while.

Maybe the most uncomfortable feeling in the world is sitting through your fourth
Naked and Afraid
of the day while a U.S. marshal watches you from slightly outside your line of sight. Stump hadn't moved all morning. Or maybe he had. The guy was so sneaky there was no way of knowing what he was up to unless you were staring right at him. And even then, not so much.

Brad had been to the little boy's room three times already today. Stump had not been once. He had to urinate sometime, right? Or had Stump figured out some way to do it telekinetically? Was he so good at his job that he could teleport this morning's Arnold Palmer into the toilet without budging from his watchful post? But, if so, how would he flush? Again with the mental projection. Of course it was impossible, but a more plausible solution was not presenting itself.

Sometime in the late afternoon, Brad had given up even the awkward head bobs of recognition he had been doling out as he passed Stump on the way to the bathroom. He hadn't gotten a response and figured it was some weird cop thing.

“Mind if I use the phone?”

“Yes.”

He already knew the answer. There wasn't even a landline in the house. But the silence between them was so awkward he needed to break it somehow, even if by asking dumbass questions. He sat back down on the couch and tried to bore himself back to sleep until the bureaucratic machinery of the Witness Protection Program cranked out where he would be going.

Stump wasn't playing weird cop games. He was sizing Brad up. Looking deep into his soul, trying to determine how well the specimen would fare in his new life on the run. So far, he was not impressed. Stump's inside coat pocket vibrated a concise alert. He checked his phone, slid it back into his jacket, and considered Brad for a beat longer.

“Let's get a coffee.”

Brad jumped at the opportunity to get out of the house. Stump could have said
Let's go light a hobo on fire
and Brad would have offered to drive. Anything to crack the boredom. Stump drove them to a lowrent coffee shop about five minutes away. Cramped. Musty. Littered with two-year-old local garage band music zines. But as far as Brad was concerned, it was the Taj Mahal.

Two entitled baristas stood behind the counter in their skinny jeans and climate-ironic knit caps, waiting to either create delicious coffee concoctions or be crowned the next kings of indie-ville. It was hard to tell which. A few patrons spread out across the tables in front, reading and filling in Sudoku matrices. One of the future kings moseyed on over to the register and addressed Stump, possibly sarcastically.

“May I take your order, sir?”

“Nothing for me.”

Stump motioned for Brad to order.

“Can I have a half caf, half decaf, soy latte with agave?”

“Size?”

“Large.” Why not? The government was buying.

“One
Gigante
decafcafsoy-te
con
agave. Can I have your name please?”

Brad looked around the shop. He was the only person ordering. The rest of the customers had their coffees. It would be pretty tough to forget that the only coffee being made belonged to the one guy standing in front of the counter. He glanced over to Stump to exchange eye rolls over the ridiculous robotic barista protocol, but Stump was looking out the window, no doubt keeping an eye on any suspicious foot traffic outside the shop.

And then Brad blanked. What had Brittany told him about his name? It was still Brad, right?

“Umm . . . it's, um . . .”

King Jackass clicked his retractable sharpie slowly.

“You want me to take a guess, sir?”