The Bad Beat

6

No spy likes to go into a meeting with an unknown adversary-if you don’t have an idea how a person will react in a given situation, it’s difficult to plan your own diversionary tactics. The nice part about working for a huge government agency is that there is always someone you can call in the middle of the night who can provide you with key bits of information. When meeting with an Afghan warlord, for instance, it’s nice to know ahead of time if he has a child you can threaten, or maybe a relative living in the United States that you can abduct beforehand and accuse of being a terrorist, or even if the warlord happens to have a particular unseemly fetish you can exploit. No matter who you are, when someone presents your fetishes to you, it’s more than a little embarrassing.

But when you’re working alone, without all of the resources of spy planes and moles and years and years of surveillance, and are relying only on secondary information from an unreliable source-in this case, my brother, Nate-you need to work on instinct, which is what Sam and I had to do.

“They don’t make dive bars like they used to,” Sam said. We’d arrived early to the meet-up at the Hair of the Dog Saloon in hopes of catching a glimpse of Big Lumpy, but instead had spent the better part of thirty minutes watching young women drinking coffee.

The Hair of the Dog Saloon sounds like one of those places decent people avoid unless they’re looking for someone to hire for a contract killing. But like all things these days, nothing is as it seems.

Instead of being a dark bar located in the shadow of that old abandoned warehouse or just across from the decrepit docks that were left to rot away when the new docks were built a few miles south, or whatever other cliche might apply, the Hair of the Dog was actually tucked into the sun-dappled center of a new outdoor shopping center near the Miracle Mile in Coral Gables called the Shoppes at Mariposa Circle.

On one side of the Hair of the Dog was, of course, a Starbucks. On the other side was a Panera. There was also a clothing store called Blonde across the palazzo from the Hair of the Dog which featured clothing that could fit only on mannequins and that only mannequins would dare wear. Palm trees with overgrown fronds, presumably for shade and not for the Norwegian roof rats who liked to live among them, were placed decoratively every few feet along the inlaid-brick walkways surrounding the other shops, while young women, apparently in the midst of a nudity competition, sat on dark wood benches chatting on their cell phones and practicing looks of general disinterest. Other shops-or, as the shopping center thought of them, shoppes-extended outward from the center cluster in spokes of shaded walkways. Logistically, it was a perfect place to meet someone you might want to abduct or kill, since there were ten different offshoots from the center island, thus making surveillance a nightmare.

The Hair of the Dog had a large outdoor seating area, where patrons sat drinking beer and watching one another or one of the fifteen flat-screen televisions running ESPN. A banner stretched across the front of the bar read SHOTS AND BEER. RED MEAT. THAT’S IT. Charming.

“Most dive bars don’t open up with the intent of being a dive,” I said. “I think that’s the difference.”

Sam picked up the binoculars from between us and trained them on something in the distance. “What I like about this place,” he said, “is that it’s not trying too hard. Tough guys like to go to a place with a lot of flat-screen televisions. Known fact.”

“And the smell of freshly baked bread wafting over from Panera is probably nice, too,” I said.

“Cuts down on that meth rank,” Sam said. “What I don’t get, Mikey, is how the girls on the patio don’t all get chest colds.”

“It’s ninety degrees outside, Sam.”

“Still,” he said. “Whooping cough is going around. I should warn each of them personally.”

“You looking at the girls, Sam, or do you have something else of interest on the other side of the binoculars?”

“Both,” he said. “I think I’ve got our guy.” He handed me the binoculars. “Look at two o’clock. Just to the right of the Apple Store. Down the second spoke. White shirt. Big floppy white hat.”

I looked where Sam told me and saw a man wearing a white shirt and a big floppy white hat sitting on a bench… staring back at me through binoculars, too. “I think we’re made,” I said. I waved and White Shirt waved back.

“Think so?”

“You said he was an expert in game theory warfare,” I said. “You weren’t kidding.”

“He probably thought the kid would bring cops,” Sam said. “Statistically speaking, the odds favored him bringing someone, right?”

“Let’s go tell him we’re someone, then,” I said. “Ease his mind.”

We got out of my Charger and walked across the parking lot toward Big Lumpy, but he didn’t bother to get up and meet us. Either he had guys getting ready to grab us and throw us into the back of a van or he was just rude.

My bet was that he didn’t care much for etiquette. NSA guys tend to think the world revolves around them, perhaps because they tell themselves that every day at work as they issue warnings and edicts about national security. But it was always men like me who ended up doing the dirty work.

When we reached the Hair of the Dog, Big Lumpy finally got up from the bench and made his way over. Sandy blond hair poked out of the bottom of his white hat and I could see that although he’d graduated from college at a young age, the years hadn’t been a friend to him-he had deep lines around his eyes and mouth and red splotches on his nose and cheeks. But as he got closer to me, I realized that those lines and splotches weren’t the weight of time: He had skin cancer. Or was healing from it. For a guy who was supposedly the meanest, most violent man alive, he didn’t look like much.

“You’re early,” Big Lumpy said as a way of introduction. “Where’s the kid? A safe house in Phoenix or something?”

“Something,” I said.

A hostess wearing a name tag that said SANDY! on it greeted us and asked us where we’d like to sit. Another new invention: a dive bar with a perky hostess. “Outside is fine,” Big Lumpy said. “I already have cancer, after all. What’s the worst that could happen?” When the hostess didn’t respond, because she probably hadn’t been prepped for that sort of response in her extensive job training, Big Lumpy turned to me and said, “Unless you two plan to have me shot. You don’t plan to have me shot, do you?”

“Not in broad daylight,” I said.

“Then I’ll be sure we’re out of here by sundown,” he said.

Sandy! showed us to a table on the patio and explained that although the sign said shots and beers only, they did have a few wines to choose from and that a selection of artisan pizzas, as well as chicken sandwiches, was available for lunch alongside the regular menu of red meat. When Sandy! finally left us alone, Big Lumpy let out an exasperated grunt. “She’s not right for this place,” he said.

“She seems too happy,” Sam said. “And not enough tattoos.”

“I’m not as involved as I should be in the day-today operations, clearly,” Big Lumpy said. “Her name tag is ridiculous. That will be addressed.”

“You own this place?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “And the land beneath your feet, too.”

“The bookie business must be very lucrative,” Sam said.

“Let’s not be foolish,” Big Lumpy said. “I wouldn’t dare try to launder my illegal money in property. It’s much easier to buy things with my legitimate earnings. That way no sneaky government agency will try to seize it on an ill-founded whim.”

“I know something about that,” I said.

A waiter came and dropped off waters then and Big Lumpy ordered a bucket of beer for the table to share, along with a dozen limes. Just three buddies having a Sunday afternoon man date at a faux dive bar. Maybe later, we’d go to a strip club and tell each other Chuck Norris jokes. As it was, we’d been sitting with one another for ten minutes and Big Lumpy still hadn’t bothered to ask who we were, which troubled me. It meant either he wasn’t concerned or he already knew. Or both.

“Now, then,” Big Lumpy said, perfectly gracious.

“Where’s my money?”

“You’re not getting any more money,” I said.

“No?” he said.

“Not from Brent Grayson, no,” I said. “Besides, what’s fifteen thousand dollars to a man like you?”

“Same as it is to any businessman who has outstanding debts from his clients. I’m sure you can understand that.”

“It’s not his debt,” I said.

“Do you really think the boy doesn’t know where his father is? He’s been paying off his debts all over the city. You tell me how a college student has the capital to do that.”

“You know of Yuri Drubich?” I asked.

Big Lumpy raised his eyebrows in actual surprise. As best as I could tell, it was his first uncalculated move of the day. He took off his white hat and set it down on the table. His blond hair was thin and nearly translucent and I noticed for the first time that he had only mere wisps for eyebrows. I thought he was either still in chemo or was only a month or so out of it.

“That’s deep water,” he said.

“Deeper than he can swim in, I assure you,” I said.

“I read in the paper this morning that someone blew up Henry Grayson’s office,” he said. “That sounded a bit more extreme than the usual loan sharking and debt collection that goes on in this town.”

“They used a laser-guided shoulder-mounted rocket launcher,” Sam said.

“Really,” Big Lumpy said. “Overkill, don’t you think?”

“I dunno,” Sam said. “I heard about a gentleman in town who cuts off people’s eyelids when they don’t pay their gambling losses.”

Big Lumpy tried to hide a smile, but then just let go and began to laugh. He said, “Don’t believe everything you hear.” Our waiter brought us the bucket of beer, though Big Lumpy didn’t take one. “Please, help yourselves,” he said, and when Sam reached in and grabbed a Corona, he said, “Mr. Axe, don’t be shy. Take two.”

Sam did as he was told. Might as well. It wasn’t like Big Lumpy didn’t know who he was at that point.

“You don’t drink?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I can’t afford to lose any more brain cells.”

“I heard you had a two hundred IQ,” I said. “What’s a brain cell when you’re in the top one percent of the entirety of the human race?”

“I’m dying,” he said matter-of-factly. “So the chemicals inside me and my disease have already taken me down to at least one ninety-eight. I’d like to keep the rest of my wits about me.”

“Skin cancer?” I said.

“Yes, but that’s just an unlucky occurrence,” he said.

“Let’s just say my entire body has gone on strike and now my skin has finally gotten on board with the rest of the union.”

“How long do you have?” I asked.

“Doctors say maybe a year,” he said. “But they didn’t know I was having lunch today with an assassin.”

“Which one of us would that be?” I said.

“Don’t be coy, Mr. Westen,” he said. “You can call yourself a spy, but that’s just a fancy name, isn’t it? A spy is a part-time errand boy and a part-time killer. Pretending otherwise does a disservice to the fine psychopaths who’ve held your job since 1776.”

Well, that solved that.

“So, no disrespect, Mr. Lumpy, but in light of your condition, why bother with Henry Grayson at all?” Sam said. “And his son-that seems like bad form, you ask me.”

“Principle,” he said. “Mr. Axe, if your SEAL unit got called tomorrow by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to go into some despotic foreign land to take out an evil dictator along with maybe an entire village of his supporters, as a Navy SEAL, wouldn’t you agree to do that just on the mere principle of your position? On the principle of your team?”

“It’s my job,” Sam said. “I chose it. And I’m not dying.”

“Precisely,” Big Lumpy said. “And this is my job. And I chose it. And you are dying, Mr. Axe. You could walk out of this poor excuse for a bar and be run over by a bus, or you could go home and drown on the mojito you’re sipping or I could have a sniper shoot you between the eyes right where you’re sitting. Or, or, maybe you stub your toe and an embolism travels to your heart and kills you before you even realize you’re sick.”

Sam put down his beer, got up and changed seats so that he was sitting directly next to Big Lumpy instead of across from him. Harder to shoot a man when he’s practically sitting in your boss’ lap. I was still in the wide open but at least Sam was safe.

“You know what I just did?” Sam said.

“Made an impulsive decision?” Big Lumpy said.

“No,” he said. “I improved my odds for survival.”

“Clearly,” Big Lumpy said, “you know nothing about odds. But really, as it relates to Mr. Grayson and his son, it just comes down to this: Don’t make bets if you can’t pay up. Simple as that. Henry Grayson was never very good at that idea. Always in trouble. Always one step ahead of some violent numbers man, never smart enough to move to Las Vegas and bet legally. That’s the wonder of it all, really.”

“You’re not curious about how Yuri Drubich is involved in this?” I said.

“Oh, I am,” he said. “I can’t see Henry Grayson contacting him for anything. And I can’t see Yuri Drubich ever needing a man like Henry. All I can think of is that Henry must have won the Bad Luck Lottery. Do they offer that one in Florida?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“Do you know that Henry always bets the favorite? Are you aware of that?”

“No,” I said.

“He’s a mark, Mr. Westen,” Big Lumpy said. “He takes bad beats because he never plays the underdog, never plays the numbers, always just goes with the favorites. It’s stupid and how frat boys bet, not grown men. So I have to assume that somewhere along the line he made a bet with Yuri Drubich and lost.”

“You’re wrong,” I said.

“I’m never wrong. I’m just not right yet.” Big Lumpy took a sip of water and then reached across the table for a lime, squeezed it into the water and took another sip. “The water tastes septic,” he said. “All of this treatment has destroyed my taste buds.” He put his hat back on, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “Now let me spend a moment on this, if you don’t mind.”

“Please,” I said. “I can’t wait to see how a man named Mark McGregor earns a name like Big Lumpy.”

For the next five minutes, Big Lumpy sat nearly motionless save for the slow tapping of his fingers on both thighs. It was as if he was typing. He was, certainly, one of the most unusual men I’d ever met. The information Sam had on him was slim enough that we had only a vague idea of what we might be dealing with, which wasn’t surprising. If he was ex-NSA (or, as Sam rightly noted, likely still working for them as a consultant, since very few great minds ever really leave the covert side of the government unless, of course, they get burned), he probably controlled his outward persona meticulously. Maybe he wasn’t the violent psychopath. Maybe he just employed violent psychopaths. Maybe none of that was true.

What was becoming increasingly apparent to me was that there was a way I could get Big Lumpy to help Brent solve his problem with the Russians. I had a good sense that Big Lumpy would like the chance to tangle with someone like Yuri Drubich.

Finally, Big Lumpy opened his eyes and sat forward in his seat again.

“I thought we’d lost you,” Sam said.

“It’s hard to concentrate completely when you know that at any moment the person sitting next to you might be shot in the head,” he said. “Are you ready, Mr. Westen, to know how Henry Grayson and his adorable son got involved with Yuri Drubich?”

“Impress me,” I said.

“You’re already impressed by me,” he said.

“Then show me you’re more than just a sideshow,” I said.

“You know what I like about you, Mr. Westen? You’re not scared of me.”

“You’re a dying man dressed like a piece of taffy,” I said. “What’s there to be scared of?”

A thin smile worked its way across Big Lumpy’s face. “Fair enough.” He began to arrange the items on the table into two distinct quadrants. There were three forks, three beers and three lime wedges in front of Big Lumpy and three napkins, three sugar packets and three glasses of water in front of me. “So, imagine this as a Revolutionary War killing field or, if it’s easier, a chessboard. Your side of the board represents Henry Grayson. My side of the board represents Yuri Drubich. Now, in a chess game, it would be reasonable to assume that the more skilled and ruthless player would have a real advantage over someone who, say, has played only checkers before. We can agree on that?”

“We can,” I said.

“And we can agree that in an actual war, the superior armed force usually wins, discounting, of course, every war fought in Afghanistan.”

“We can,” I said. I wasn’t sure where this was going, but at least he had my attention.

Big Lumpy began moving the items on the table in rapid succession, his pieces quickly and efficiently destroying mine: He carved up my napkins with his fork, poured beer over my packets of sugar and squeezed his limes into my water. “A superior chess player, he’ll have a rank novice in checkmate in three moves. In war, maybe it’s a few more steps. But if you apply just a tiny bit of game theory, you can predict well within reason what your enemy will do. I kill your napkin, you decide to flood my army with your glass of water… but I’ve already poisoned your water, so you’re most likely dead. It’s all about understanding provocation and the reaction to provocation.”

“Okay,” I said. “So what’s your conclusion?”

Big Lumpy shrugged. “In order for a man like Yuri Drubich to come after Henry Grayson and his son with rockets, they would have needed to provoke him in such a way that that was the only possible result, because it is so extreme, it is so public and stupid, that it would need to be the last message, not the first. If you blow up a building, you’re asking for government involvement. You shoot the son of a degenerate gambler, the police will be interested, but not for long. Scum killing scum. It makes life easier for the police. So, it’s impossible. Mathematically impossible, humanly impossible-there’s no possible nexus where these parties would ever meet-and theoretically impossible. I can only conclude you’ve been lied to.”

“So you think Brent Grayson happened across a rocket launcher and blew his own father’s business up?” Sam said. “The kid doesn’t even wake up before noon.”

Big Lumpy turned to Sam and patted him once on the shoulder. “You don’t think your friend Fiona could get him a fairly good-sized rocket launcher? If she could get one, any serious black market arms dealer could get him one, too.”

Logical enough. But I had an idea.

“You’re a smart man,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “So where’s my money?”

“You’re a smart man,” I said. “Wouldn’t it stand to reason that a person like me wouldn’t be helping a college kid? What gain do I have?”

“Michael,” he said, “you’d help Idi Amin get his cat down from a tree if you found out he had a bad childhood.”

“And if I haven’t been lied to? What will you do for me if I can prove that it’s all true? That all of your minions have been taking Yuri Drubich’s money, which means when Brent can’t pay, Drubich’s eventually going to come find you?”

Big Lumpy closed his eyes again. “Let me think,” he said.

“How long are you going into your trance?” Sam said. “In case I need to visit the little boys’ room. Or fly across the country.”

Big Lumpy ignored Sam. “Shall we put odds on it?” he asked after about thirty seconds, his eyes still closed.

“No, straight up. I convince you of the truth, you stay away from Brent Grayson and you call off your stray collection dogs, too.”

“His father is not in this equation,” Big Lumpy said. “He came by his debts honestly.”

“Fine,” I said.

“And if I’m not convinced, what then?”

“You’re at war with me,” I said.

“Hmm, yes, I figured. You’re not a difficult army to theorize against. So convince me, Michael Westen, that your client has somehow engaged Yuri Drubich.”

I told him the story, even had Sam pull out a BlackBerry and show him the Web site for InterMacron.

When I finished, Big Lumpy sat quietly for a solid minute. Then he reached across the table and plucked one of the beers from the bucket, popped the cap and took a long drink. “So if I’m to understand,” he said, “a college boy conned one of the biggest black market import/export men in all of Russia?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“This technology, what did you call it?”

“Kineoptic Transference.”

“Nice name,” he said.

“I thought so, too,” I said.

He took another sip from the beer. “I never liked the way this tasted.”

“Beer?” Sam said.

“Failure,” Big Lumpy said and I knew I had him. “Do you know why Drubich so willingly put his money on the table for this? Other than greed, of course.”

“I feel like you’re about to tell me,” I said.

“Because we’ve been trying to develop this technology for over twenty years. It’s the next level, except no one can even find a stepladder to get there. It’s all theoretical.”

“When you say ‘we,’” Sam said, “who are you talking about exactly?”

“The government,” Big Lumpy said. “Any sort of alphabet agency that employs scientists. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a team on the Arctic Circle at this very moment trying to figure out new equations.”

“I looked it up online,” Sam said, “and there was nothing. Nothing but Brent’s Web site, anyway.”

“That’s correct,” he said. “That it’s not been scrubbed already just means that there’s a Democrat in office, that’s all. A couple of years ago, Brent Grayson would be in a prison underneath a mountain, getting water-boarded for information. I promise you that.”

Big Lumpy was excited. We hadn’t appealed to his good side, we’d appealed to the scientist and the gambler. It wasn’t my initial plan, but now I had to set the hook.

“Clearly,” I said, “there’s much more money to be made from Drubich if someone happens to be enterprising enough to string him along further. Maybe a scientist smart enough to provide actual specs. Far more than fifteen thousand bucks, anyway.”

“It’s a big gamble,” he said. “It would take me a great deal of time to come up with a convincing schematic to deliver. And what can I expect my return would be?”

“He’s already paid Brent close to $150K and that’s just based on what he saw on the Web site,” Sam said. “You show up in a fancy suit holding your diploma from MIT in your hand and then talk in big words, you’d probably get ten times that much money.”

“It would still be a challenge,” he said. “He already suspects he’s been duped.”

“Isn’t that what you want?” I said. “Isn’t that what this is all about for you? This whole charade of being the most evil bookie in town? Isn’t it all about intellectual challenges? Now more than ever?”

“Don’t play the dying card,” Big Lumpy said.

“You played it first,” I said.

Big Lumpy stood up and waved his hand once above his head. A few seconds later, a white Cadillac Escalade pulled up in front of the Hair of the Dog and idled there. “I must be going,” Big Lumpy said. “It was a pleasure getting to know the two most dangerous men in Miami.”

“What’s with all the white?” Sam asked.

“Makes me look mysterious,” Big Lumpy said. “It’s good for the public relations. No one expects a terrible person to always be wearing white, now do they?”

“I guess not,” Sam said.

“So,” I said, “do we have a deal?”

Big Lumpy stared intently at me for a few moments, as if he was trying to determine what the result might be if he reneged on our bet. He sighed once and then put out his hand to shake. His grip was light, his skin thin and feathery. “I’ll need backup,” he said.

“You’ll have it,” I said.

“And I’ll need Henry Grayson,” he said. “He owes.”

“We’re working on it,” I said. “You’ll have to trust me.”

“I do,” he said. “I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

Big Lumpy walked to the Escalade and his driver-a tiny Asian man also wearing all white, including a white baseball cap and white shoes-met him on the passenger side with a portable oxygen unit, which Big Lumpy immediately hooked himself up to before getting into the SUV. He didn’t close the door, he just sat there in the passenger seat inhaling. After a few minutes, he pulled his mask off and motioned for us to come over.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I knew you’d be here?” he said.

“It hadn’t occurred to me,” I said.

“Of course not,” he said. “You’re an American spy. Well, you can thank your friend Sugar.”

“He bets with you, too?” Sam asked.

“No,” Big Lumpy said. “I had him kidnapped last night. I’ll keep him until you deliver Henry Grayson, if you don’t mind.” He closed his door then and the Escalade drove off, leaving Sam and me just as he’d hoped: dumbfounded.

“Well,” Sam said eventually, “that was a surprise.”

“I take it you didn’t leave Sugar in a safe location?” I said.

“I just took him home,” Sam said. “You didn’t want him in your house, did you?”

“No,” I said.

“So it looks like we’re in business with Big Lumpy,” Sam said.

“Strange,” I said.

“You believe a word he said?”

“Hard not to,” I said.

“Me, too,” Sam said. “Say what you want about him, but that psychopath plays it straight.”

“I think he just took the right odds with us,” I said, “just as we’d done with him.”

“What are we going to do about Sugar?”

“Find Henry Grayson, I suppose,” I said.

“You’re just going to hand him over to Big Lumpy?” Sam said. “That doesn’t sound like a wise plan.”

“No,” I said. “But if his debt is honest, which I suspect it is, then he should pay it. I just don’t think he should pay with his life.”

My cell rang. It was Fiona. “Where are you?” I asked.

“I just had tea with Yuri Drubich,” she said. “Lovely man.”

“Tea? Is that a euphemism for kneecapping him?”

“Michael,” she said, “I’m not a savage. We had a nice conversation and came to some very strong conclusions about Brent’s future.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “He intends to end any possibility of it.”

“Tell me some good news,” I said.

“I was able to convince them to go into business with us,” she said.

“That’s ironic,” I said, “since we just got Big Lumpy on the team, too.”

“And I can assure you Yuri will keep at least one of his hands clean,” she said and then went on to tell me about her pleasant cup of tea.