Formerly Fingerman (26 page)

“It's six thirty.”

“A lot early.”

“To do what?”

“Work.”

“Work.”

“What, are you busy doing something else?”

Stump couldn't figure out what the heck was going on here, but it didn't really matter. His job was to make sure Brad stayed alive through the trial, regardless of whether he was at home as usual or at work super early.

“I'm just going to grab the paper.”

The early morning sun welcomed them as they pulled into the Assure office park. Brad concentrated on steering his energies toward creating greatness. He would be a machine. The Terminator. Today he wouldn't stop until he had absolutely wrung brilliance out of this assignment. Or someone killed him.

Their drive over had been utterly silent.

Brad spent the entire time psyching himself up and trying to ignore the fact that he was the biggest target in the country.

Stump quietly reviewed the facts of the news story and internally translated them into how they could affect their lives. Someone was coming. He would have to be on guard every second. Thank God Brad didn't know. That would have complicated things.

Stump pulled into their assigned space and Brad was out of the car and marching toward the front door before Stump could get his seat belt off. He scrambled and caught up just as Brad swiped his security card across the scanner next to the locked door.

This time Brad really did go rogue. Not at first. In the morning he played it strictly by the book, translating Mike D.'s creative brief into a series of concepts, each one better than the next. He truly believed that not only was he going to win this game, he was going to do it playing by the rules. A daring gamble for a creative like Brad.

The nagging steak knife of fear that had been jammed behind Brad's ear served as an unlikely motivator. Anytime he had visions of Luca Brasi sneaking up behind him, Brad forced himself to think of another image involving adult diapers. His first few campaign ideas involved concrete boots and decapitated horses, but eventually he got into a groove.

There's a zone that good copywriters and art directors can get into if they focus. On those rare occasions when they sit their lazy asses down and really concentrate on what they're doing, the ideas just flow. First comes a germ of an idea. That germ blossoms into a concept. Then that concept bounces off the walls of their brain and turns into something else a little bigger and a little better. And that bigger-and-better something else generates spin-off ideas that start bouncing off brain walls as well, and there ends up being a snowball effect that leaves a trail of concepts and scraps of campaigns. And at some point in this creative tornado, there will be one massive idea generated that leaves all else in its dust. The leftover, also-ran concepts and scraps can be crafted into campaigns on their own and presented along with the one big idea, but they are straw dogs. They will be outshone and disregarded. Whenever the one big idea is in the room, nothing else matters. The other ideas disintegrate like German soldiers at an Ark of the Covenant opening.

Brad silently worked himself into one of these frenzies, and by lunch he was in such a good place he allowed himself to drift away from the rigid constraints of Mike D.'s creative brief.

And boom, he had the big idea.

Big enough that he stopped what he was doing, leaned back in his chair, stretched, sighed, and said one sentence out loud.

“I've got it.”

He wouldn't explain what “it” was to Stump. There was no time. If it was going to be presented and sold to Alan before he went to Jack, Brad would need every second. He hunkered down and started laying out print ads and storyboarding rich media flash banners and writing television spots as fast as his mind would work.

What he wanted to present had not a thing to do with Mike D.'s brief. Didn't matter. The idea was too huge. It was bigger than Mike D.'s creative brief. Bigger than that moronic anthem. Bigger than the product category itself. He had abandoned all hope of competing on a level playing field with über-cerebral-writer-guy and j-pop-retro-punk-look-art-director-girl. He was playing an entirely new game and he would either win big or lose big. All or nothing.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep or the immense pressure of his impending testimony in a major Mafia trial, or more likely the stress of having an enormous price tag resting on his sort-of-innocent head, but Brad was convinced that he was doing something that would change the world of diaper advertising as we know it. God's work.

By four forty-five, he had done enough to get his idea across in a thorough and meaningful manner. It was all printed, organized, and the whole collection tucked under his arm as he and Stump marched down to Alan's office.

“So should we do the joke about the guy with the white pants?”

“I like it. I think it breaks the ice. Really sets the tone for the rest of the stuff.”

“All right, then let's lose the all-you-can-eat joke.”

“Sounds good.”

Brad knocked on the doorframe of Alan's office as if he were a vampire who needed to be invited in. Alan looked up from his preparations with Mike D.

“Hey, buddy. We're kind of busy getting ready for Jack. Can we talk tomorrow morning?”

“I have more work.”

“We have the work. We're all set. Remember,
Dryyyyyy Is Whyyyyy
?”

Alan had a terrible singing voice, but Mike D. started snapping and back up dancing from his seat on the couch anyway.

Brad watched calmly as he screamed in his head.

LOOK, GUYS! I'M GOING TO BE DEAD BY TOMORROW MORNING! LET ME SHOW YOU SOME SOON TO BE POST-HUMOUSLY CELEBRATED WORK.

When Alan was done, Brad spoke calmly. Almost like an adult.

“Just give me five minutes. I guarantee you'll like this.”

Alan looked to Mike D. to see if they had five minutes. Mike D. checked his watch. Sure, why not.

“Okay, this is a bit unorthodox. I know you're expecting to see diaper ads for seniors with incontinence problems. But I veered slightly off that path. What I'm proposing is creating a new revenue stream from existing assets.”

Alan leaned back. This should be good.

Stump hung back out of the way as Brad went on to make the second-best presentation of his life. It involved a complete redesign of the Assure packaging to create a new product line, an entirely new branding effort, a whole new tag line, and a totally new target audience. The new product was called Crammers! The new target audience was college kids. The new tag line was
No, thanks. I'll wait.

The television spots, print ads, and banner ads involved college kids frantically preparing for exams, too busy to stop for something as petty as a bathroom break—they had finals!

Brad read through each ad and each spot with enthusiasm and charm. He pointed out the benefits of positioning themselves as the new best friend of a target market that renews itself every four years. And he reminded Alan and Mike D. that no one would actually buy these for studying. Road trips and nonstop partying on the other hand, definitely.
Why stop to pee when you can keep on trucking? Keg stand? Sure, I'm wearing Crammers!

Brad finished presenting, sat back, and finally relaxed. There was nothing left in his tank. It had taken exactly five minutes.

“So, what do you think?”

Mike D. didn't say a word. He looked a little stunned. Alan became more red than anyone in the room had ever seen him. Finally, he stood up, grabbed all of über-cerebral-writer-guy's work, scooped up all of Brad's Crammers! work, and stomped out of his own office.

Mike D. took a deep breath and stood up.

“Okay. Thanks for that.”

Hello, rat.

Or should it be something new? Sal felt like the whole rat thing had been played out. He'd heard other guys were using it when they did someone. This must be how LOLcats started. One guy does it for years and then someone finally notices and starts doing it also. They do it in front of people who matter, it catches fire, and soon the whole nation is burning out one catchphrase like,
You're fired!
or
That's bananas!
or some other whitestar trend.

Maybe he should try something new.
Time's up, pigeon. Game over, squealer.
Then again,
Hello, rat
was a classic.

Sal kept looking for a plug. Of all the things he had to take care of, charging up his goddamn phone should have been top of the list last night. For whatever reason, recording video of the killing was important to Tiko. But Sal fell asleep with his phone on his chest. Now, if Brad came home too early, he'd have to keep it on the charger cord and that would be awkward.

Uh, could you just move over this way a little bit? That's kind of a weird angle to kill you at and my cord is only so long. Thanks so much.

He decided that next time he would bring one of those extra power things he saw in
SkyMall
. And a tripod. Ooh, and lights! Dammit, why didn't he think of these things earlier?

Sal began to plan for the worst. Okay, Brad is most likely going to come home with his big caveman bodyguard and head for the kitchen. To do that they'll have to pass through the laundry room from the garage. Plugging the phone into the outlet just inside the living room would give him enough slack to get the drop on the marshal and still capture the magic.

He checked the lighting in the room to make sure it would suffice for his cinematic standards. It worked, so he decided he'd go with his plan, plugged in, and waited. The sun was starting to set and, not that he had ever held a straight job to use as a frame of reference, Sal imagined Brad would be coming home within the hour.

He pulled out the picture Tiko had given him. The Nuevos were thorough. They had tracked down a recent picture of Brad, his current address, and even found out who his marshal was. Guys who do a lot of meth can sometimes be overachievers.

There was a jingle outside as a set of keys slipped into the front door lock. Sal's little brain clicked into the dumb guy's version of overdrive. Fuck! This was not the plan. The phone wasn't charged up and there was no way the cord would reach far enough for him to get a good angle on the front hallway. He hadn't even checked the lighting there. Who knew what kind of shadows he'd have to deal with in there? What about the framing and composition? None of this had been planned out.

All right. Sal decided he had to wing it. He would ambush his prey first and worry about the video later. The killing was the important thing here, right?

The front door opened and a figure entered into the darkness of the front hallway. Sal tiptoed over to the corner inside the kitchen, gun drawn.

“Yo! Who's here?”

Dr. Yo entered the living room and flipped on a few lights.

“Guess I'll just have to get this bitch started up myself.”

He pulled a fat joint out of his pocket and lit it before grabbing a PlayStation controller, plopping down on the couch, and turning the TV on.

“All right, who wants some?”

Okay, Sal wasn't ready for this. The guy on the couch looked very different from the one in the picture. The guy in the picture was the same height and weight, but had lighter hair and blue eyes. Also he wasn't black. And where was the Marshal? Sal was pretty sure this wasn't Brad Fingerman. He double-checked the address on the back of the picture with some mail on the counter. Yup, this was the place.

He couldn't just stay in the kitchen and wait. Brad and the marshal might come home and walk right in. The whole element of surprise would be gone, and even if the phone was charged up by now, what kind of video would that make? A terrible one is what kind.

“Yo.”

Sal walked in from the kitchen, gun drawn, to find the guy who was not Brad Fingerman too immersed in his game to respond.

“I said, yo.”

Yo flicked his eyes over to Sal briefly before returning them to his game. He assumed Sal was another marshal here to help out and figured Stump must have briefed him on Yo's identity. He mumbled a greeting.

“. . . whassup.”

This was completely not going as Sal had planned. He cleared his throat loudly. Nothing. This guy really loved video games.

BLAM! Sal shot the PlayStation console.

Yo stopped focusing so much on the television and looked over to Sal.

“You're not a marshal, are you?”

“And you're not Brad Fingerman, are you?”

“Who's asking?”

BLAM! Sal shot the couch.

“Where's Brad?”

“I don't know any Brad.”

Sal figured he'd ask a few more times nicely and then start putting bullets through various appendages in Yo's body. It usually took two or three before the really tough guys gave up their buddies. And then he noticed a folder on the table next to the couch.

Yo was smart enough to keep staring forward at the smoking remains of the PlayStation as Sal walked over and looked at the new employee benefit folder on the table. He kept his gun on Yo as he flipped through.

“Hmm. I think I know where Brad is.”

“So we're cool?”

“No.”

Sal stuffed the employee benefits folder in his pocket, reloaded his gun, and unplugged the phone from the wall. The PlayStation had begun to smolder quite a bit as he gathered everything up, but that was hardly his concern. He had killed Yo as soon as he realized he no longer needed him, and that meant his time here in Tucson was limited. Sal had to get busy.

Today was one of those days Alan wished he still drank. He had spent the day worried he was going to choke someone out before nightfall, thanks to all the stress of the creative fire drill. Then the thing with Brad piling on at the last minute. God, a nice strong belt would have helped then.

He had not only kept it together but also sold the shit out of that ridiculous choir campaign Mike D. insisted on presenting. And Jack loved it. Shook Alan's hand. Patted him on the back. Used his first name. Mike D. had tried to worm his way in there for some credit, but Jack froze him out. D., as in Don't even think about it. Jack knew who the creative genius was around here.