Formerly Fingerman (15 page)

“Uh-huh.”

Brad lugged his suitcase into one of the bedrooms to unpack his life in the heart of Tucson.

The next morning the program was good enough to cover a shopping spree for Brad's new non-vegan diet. He had decided to make the jump from superficially committed non-meat-eater to full-blown whatevervore. He only hoped he could maintain the lifestyle.

As they wandered the supermarket, Brad decided to shake Stump down a little about what would happen next. Stump had been pretty tight lipped on the plane ride as a matter of safety, but in the anonymity of Arizona, he opened up a little and explained that Brad would be working for a large packaged goods concern in Tucson. Stump would stay around until the trial and then Brad would be on his own.

“But, I thought I was in the program? Aren't you guys going to protect me afterward?”

“Of course. But if we do our jobs right and you keep a low profile, there's no need for us to be standing next to you all day every day. What's important is that we establish a credible identity for you and then you make sure it sticks. Improv, remember?”

The thought of flying solo hadn't really occurred to Brad. In fact, he really hadn't thought much further than the idea that the program could get him out of the situation he had found himself in a few days ago. Maybe it was time to do a little planning.

As Brad organized his new life in his new room, he thought back on the last time he had moved to a new city and started a new job. He was right out of college, full of potential and ready to rumble. He drove the full twenty-eight hours straight from San Antonio to New York in his excitement. His East Village studio was filthy, riddled with roaches, and, in the winters, colder than a lesbian bartender's stare. But he loved it as soon as he saw it.

As he folded his jeans in his new desert-themed bedroom, he remembered pulling his paints out of their moving box in New York and putting them on the shelf in the closet. Just until he got settled in his job was the plan. Shore up a little security before he released a massive art-by-Brad hurricane on NYC. A few years later he threw them away after promising to buy some higher quality stuff to replace them. Or maybe he left them there. Who remembers. Hmm, with all the downtime running for his life would surely allow him, maybe he would pick up a few tubes of paint and start—

The doorbell rang. Without thinking, Brad threw himself on the ground and quickly wriggled under the bed. Improv. Peeking out from underneath he saw Stump's shoes in his doorway, observing Brad's G.I. Joe action. Stump walked away.

“Don't get up. I'll get it.”

On the dining room table, an overnight delivery envelope sat unopened. Stump had assumed his usual position standing stock still in a central location of the house. Watching. Brad walked into the living room and noticed the envelope.

“Is this for me?”

Stump remained silent, but evidently the answer was yes since Brad was not put into any sort of Okinawan headlock when he reached for it.

It was addressed to Stump, but Brad broke the seal on top anyway and poured out the contents—a passport, a social security card, an Arizona driver's license, a birth certificate, an American Express (green card, gee thanks), and a Safeway club card. The new Brad.

He picked up the passport and savored this moment of truth. As soon as he opened it up, his new identity would take hold. A new name. A new beginning. A new life. Like when they fast-forwarded five years ahead on
Desperate Housewives
. Suddenly, anything would be possible.

Brad made a big show of opening it. Presenting himself to the world.

“And the winner is Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaad . . .”

Holy fucking sweet baby goddamn Jesus H on a Popsicle Christ.

“. . . Pitt.”

Brad's face dropped. In a split second he had gone from proud owner of a cool new name to a guy hiding from bloodthirsty killers who just found out his new secret identity was one of the most recognizable names on the planet.

“Brad
Pitt
? My name is Brad Pitt? What, Robert DeNiro was taken? I thought the point was to not be noticed.”

It was. This was a bit of a problem. The FBI software usually came up with something particularly bland for Stump's clients. And Pitt would have worked just fine if Brad hadn't been named Brad. No one would notice a Larry, Jeff, or Charlie Pitt. They would never think twice about it. But
Brad
Pitt. This was a spot of bother. Especially because Stump knew that the red tape involved with getting a revised name issued was really tough. Like a few months tough. The program was designed to get new names out as fast as possible. But they rarely had to change anyone's name. Asking a government agency to change course midstream was like asking an old person to TiVo
Game of Thrones
. It would take fucking forever and you would end up with a recording of the Spanish version of
Top Chef
. Stump mentally backfisted himself. Why hadn't he thought to ask them to install a celebrity filter?

“Would you consider ‘Bradley'?”

“Nothing? You can't get anything out of it? Jarvis, come on. It was just a little coffee, right?”

“Actually, it was a lot of coffee.”

“And . . . ?”

“And, that's the computer equivalent of kicking a porn star in the nuts. No workee no more.”

“So we have nothing.”

“We have up to the part where everything cuts out.”

“Are you sure you can't get in there and do some technical stuff to recover the file?”

“Well, I can hit the Enhance button a few times. That should do it.”

“Really?”

“No, that was a thing in
Blade Runner
. It hasn't been invented yet.”

Fucking tech guys. Always with the snark. They sit in their little tech rooms doing tech stuff that no one else understands and make their tech jokes.

Of all the smarmy tech guys, Jarvis was Brittany's best bet of recovering her sting audio and video surveillance. The guy lived to show off his mad skills. But even Jarvis couldn't get the 1s and 0s of her hard drive back in order.

Not that Brittany really cared. She had Brad. Brad was her guy. She would ride him all the way to Moneybag Street in the heart of Emmy-AwardLand. It was just that somewhere in the back of her mind, a shrill, relentless voice that sounded a lot like her grandmother was telling her to play it safe. And to at least
try
speed dating.

She was definitely too career oriented to have a boyfriend right now, but having that video in her back pocket probably was the smart thing. Why not play it safe? Why not push Jarvis to his nerdy limits?

“That's okay. I'll ask Eidelsberg if he can take a look.”

Jarvis bristled like Simon Cowell at a Hooters sing-along.

“Come back in two hours.”

“Aww, Jarvis. You're the best.”

In-house agencies are the bastard children of the advertising world. They have the unenviable task of working exclusively on products their parent company produces. There is no hope of winning new accounts unless the guys in R&D come up with something really socko. The crew in the in-house agency just keeps cranking out work for the same stuff year after year. The excitement of the job tends to be frontloaded into the process of landing employment. And the agency name.

In-house agencies will predictably have those sad and overcompensating names that try a little too hard to be clever, intense, or invoke some sort of energy.
Concept Factory! Turbo! Fifth Gear!
Think of the dopey third-act plot twist of a straight-to-DVD Scott Baio movie. Same idea.

Ask any self-important ad guy (like Brad) and he'll tell you that working in an in-house agency means you're either on your way up and only stopping by for a short period of time before your résumé officially begins or you're on your way down and this is the last stop on a LinkedIn profile that will never be updated again. Or you suck.

More than likely you suck too much to get a job at a hip agency that doesn't answer directly to the vice president of creative services. So instead, you try to scratch your artistic itch by creating brochures for internal distribution, stilted videos on sexual harassment policies, or the in-store product displays derived from the stylebook of the real agency that produced the ads currently running during your favorite show.

On the upside, in-house agencies tend to be fairly low-pressure affairs. They're generally staffed with people who have used hope to fill the massive void left by lack of talent. So they're super upbeat.
Who knows? Maybe today's the day we do something great! Come on, gang! Let's put on a show!
But usually, it's the brochure stuff and maybe some trade-show banners for the boys on fifteen. Plus cake. It's always someone's birthday.

Certainly, there are worse places to work. Your daily duties do not include shoveling animal byproducts, scaling high buildings, or breathing toxic chemicals. But for a former
real agency
ad guy, they might as well.

“So what do I do when someone asks me about my past?”

“Lie.”

Gee, never tried that before.

“Lie about everything?”

“No. Just the important stuff. Like cities and real names. Change everything just slightly. The closer you stay to the truth the easier it is to remember.”

“Seems like a lot of work.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Can't I just be vague?”

“You can try.”

“I'll do that.”

“Good luck.”

Stump let the Hyundai glide into a parking space. They could have been in any metropolitan office park in America. The only thing distinguishing the building they were sitting in front of from the two flanking it was the triumphant signage proclaiming it the home of
Assure Worldwide. A family-friendly company
.

“Assure? This is an ad agency?”

Brad knew the answer before he even finished asking the question, but suffered with quiet dignity Stump's explanation of what an in-house agency is.

“Look, I don't mean to be ungrateful, but I thought I was going to a real advertising agency.”

“This is a real agency. They make advertising.”

“I know, but I mean, with my experience and my portfolio, I really should be—”

“You don't have any experience. Brad Fingerman has experience. You're not Brad Fingerman.”

Stump was okay with the silence in which they sat for the next two minutes. Finally, Brad composed himself.

“So what happens now?”

“We're going to meet a man named Alan Silver. He runs the creative department.”

“You know him?”

“Oh, sure. Alan and I used to work black ops in Indochina during the mid-nineties.”

“Really?”

“Or maybe I met him that time the cops busted in on a Chinatown massage parlor and we both ended up naked in a closet. Man, that was close,
ifyouknowwhatImeanright?
”

“Umm . . .”

“Or is it that I used to play bass for his Marvin Gaye tribute band, Grapevine.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know him.”

“Oh. Oh! Is he in the program, too?”

Duh.

“Can we trust him?”

“I can trust him. I put him here.”

Alan Silver grew up in that part of Los Angeles that most of us read about in
Parade
magazine or see on reality shows about spoiled sixteen-year-olds. Nannies, private schools, a Malibu address,
They paid how much for that prom dress!?
, that kind of thing.

But a young, short-fused Alan Silver needed more out of life than his ever-rehabbing, former-model mother and power-broker-talent-agent father's money could provide. Adventure. Danger. Excitement. Illicit bong hits and weekend rainbow parties just weren't going to do it for him like they did for his buddies. His bar was higher.

So he went out and found some new buddies. Guys who stole for fun. Guys with nicknames instead of business cards. Guys who could use a boy with a hot temper like Alan's.

Alan was sixteen the first time he got arrested. And the second. By the time he was twenty-one and failed out of several Ivy League schools, he was immersed full time in the fringes of the Los Angeles chapter of the Russian Mafia, running a book and dealing a little coke. Then the bookie business tanked and Alan spiraled into a raging alcoholic with immense debt who owed favors all over town to the wrong people. And that's how he became a contract killer.

Alan generally choked out his victims with his hands. It was easy to do and surgical gloves made it tough to trace. Not that the cops looked too hard. His victims were usually deadbeats and losers who no longer had the option of paying off their debts. Dirtbags no one would miss. And his employers were nice enough to clean up the mess afterward. All Alan had to do was the actual killing. It paid well, the hours were amazing and, as long as you could stomach that kind of thing (Alan just had to find something to get angry about), you would always get work. Unless you got caught.

Alan got caught.

Having been in the business for a few years, Alan knew quite a bit about what was going on. That, in combination with the fact that he really, really didn't want to go to jail, made him an ideal candidate for the Witness Protection Program.

His testimony resulted in the conviction of a small group of Russians who were planning to grab a dignitary's daughter out of a car wash a week after Alan was busted. And all he wanted out of the deal was for the cops to forget about the couple/three lowlifes he had put down. Alan was given a few anger management classes and, under Stump's supervision, moved out to work as a creative director at Assure.

Stump swept his eyes across the horizon out of habit as he ushered Brad into the Assure Worldwide lobby.

“Don't be a wiseass with this guy.”

“He's corporate? Uptight?”