The Bad Beat

5

Taking on a disguise is not about changing the way you look. It’s about changing the way you think. Someone who has never met you before and doesn’t have access to DNA technology is going to have a difficult time identifying you as anyone other than who you say you are, so when you take on a new identity, you have to make sure you know all the possible angles of inquiry. If, for instance, you say you’re from the South, you should have more than a passing knowledge of grits, college football and sweet tea and you should probably still have a strong opinion about the Civil War… or the War of Northern Aggression, as it were.

You also need to be aware of the knowledge base of the person you’re hoping to deceive. If he’s also a spy, your cover needs to be more than rock solid-you need a fake mother, a fake sister, a fake wife and two fake dogs, one dead, one still alive. Fiona was going to get as close to Drubich’s local operation as possible using whatever cover she deemed best. Being an attractive woman often requires only that a very short skirt be utilized in the building of a backstory, so she had it easier than I did, though I assumed dealing with someone named Big Lumpy wouldn’t require much in the way of world building, either.

Or at least I assumed that until Sam got to my loft that next morning.

First, he filled me in on everything that he’d learned about Brent’s father-most of which was a surprise to Brent, particularly the $2.5 million he stood to earn upon his father’s death-and the more upsetting news that the Russians hadn’t just casually destroyed his office but had actually brought a rocket launcher with them. Not exactly the kind of thing you pack as an afterthought.

“Brent,” I said, “did these guys give you any indication that they’d be coming to see you with weapons of mass destruction?”

“No,” he said. He was curled up on the floor in front of one of his laptops downloading all of the information I’d asked for from him: the voice mail and e-mail from Drubich’s people, Brent’s correspondence, a trail of every dollar he’d spent (I had a feeling this would be difficult, but I wanted to make sure he wasn’t omitting anything that might cause all of us trouble down the line) and the text of all of his Web pages. “They just said either they’d get what they paid for or they’d kill me.”

“And so you thought Sugar could fix that?” I said.

“Sugar and Sam,” he said. “But I didn’t think they were serious. I mean, you know, we’re businessmen.”

“Really?” I said.

“Well, sort of.”

“Neither you nor the Russians are businessmen. You’re both fakes. You just happened to piss off a fake named Yuri Drubich who typically does business with Chech-nyans and the odd Afghan warlord moving poppy seeds.”

“Cool,” Brent said.

“No,” I said. “Not cool. Not cool at all.”

“I didn’t mean it was cool literally. I just, I guess, think it’s kinda crazy that I’m involved with people like that. It was just a Web site.”

It was just a Web site, true, but it was also a fantastic idea for a new way to move information, even if it was one born out of total fantasy. That someone like Drubich found it and wanted a piece of it said a lot about Brent’s idea and about his actual smarts. Even if his smarts didn’t exactly pop up on display in casual conversation.

It occurred to me that I’d failed to ask him perhaps the most important question. “How did Drubich know to send his men to your father’s office?”

Brent stopped typing for a moment, but didn’t look up from his computer. “I made another mistake,” he said quietly.

“Let’s just settle on the fact that this is all one huge mistake and be honest with each other, okay?” I said. “I need you to be a man, Brent. And that means owning up to your mistakes. Don’t be your father.”

I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. I sounded.. . parental. And certainly nothing like my own father.

“All right,” he said.

I walked over and closed his laptop. “Now,” I said, “look me in the eye and speak.”

“One of the last times I e-mailed them back,” he said, “I did it from the wrong e-mail address. I used the one I have through my dad’s business, so when all of this fell apart, they sent me a message saying they’d be there yesterday at three and I’d better have their money or the specs for the Kineoptic Transference devices, because they were beginning to think they’d been had. I assured them they weren’t and then, you know, I called Sugar.”

“And he called me,” Sam said. “He ever talk to you about any Dolphins tickets, Brent?”

“No,” Brent said.

“Mikey,” Sam said, “remind me to never do any favors for Sugar ever again. Did you know he even promised me parking? Who promises parking and doesn’t even really have tickets?”

“A liar,” I said.

Sam didn’t like that answer. He went into my kitchen and opened the fridge, pulled out three beers and set them on the counter. “You got any limes?” he asked.

“All out from the last time you got disappointed by life,” I said. “Tell me about this Big Lumpy.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, “about that. I was under the impression that maybe he was some New York wise guy slumming in Miami. You know, one of those guys who gives himself a nice, threatening nickname but is mostly a businessman now?”

“And he’s not that?” I said.

“No,” Sam said. “You want to know how he got his nickname? His professors at MIT gave it to him. He apparently has one of the largest brains in history. So, you know, they got cute and called him Big Lumpy.”

“MIT?”

“Yeeeeeah,” Sam said. He opened his first beer and drained it in a few swallows. “About that. Turns out Big Lumpy is actually a guy named Mark McGregor. That name mean anything to you?”

“Should it?” I said.

“No,” Sam said. “No. That would be easy. Mark McGregor graduated at age nineteen, top of his class, from MIT in 1989. Worked for seven years in the NSA, then left to gamble professionally. Took down most of Las Vegas. This ringing any bells?”

“Only alarms,” I said. “What did he do in NSA?”

“Computer security, intelligence analysis, game theory as warfare, that sort of thing,” Sam said. “His IQ is supposed to be two hundred. That’s even higher than that ‘Ask Marilyn’ lady in Parade. ”

“And now he’s a bookie?” I said.

“He’s been banned from every casino in the world,” Sam said. “Might as well make his own odds, I guess.”

“So he sounds like someone we can reason with,” I said.

“Hmm, no,” Sam said. “I made a few calls last night to some local lowlifes I happen to know? And it turns out he’s known for his unusual brutality.”

“Who’d you call?”

Sam coughed, opened the second bottle, drained it and then kept talking. “So, yeah, he’s known to cut off important parts of people. Fingers. Toes. Eyelids. Brutal guy. Not a nice person at all. To be avoided at all costs if you happen to, you know, stiff him for cash like our young friend’s father did.”

“Sam,” I said, “who’d you call?”

“Mikey, understand that when I say ‘lowlife,’ I mean that as a term of endearment, truly.”

“Sam,” I said, “tell me you didn’t call my brother, Nate.”

“I didn’t call Nate.”

That was a relief…

“I texted him,” Sam said. “I thought it was too early to call, but it turns out that when you don’t go out until three a.m., nine a.m. is dinnertime.”

My brother, Nate, lived in Las Vegas with his, uh, lovely wife, Ruth, but had spent the previous three-plus decades in Miami. He wasn’t a spy. He wasn’t even gainfully employed on a regular basis. He was the kind of guy who could get you a suit for a good price, because he’d found it in the back of an open truck somewhere and decided that “finders keepers” was an actual law. When he still lived in Miami he helped me out on a number of occasions, usually by mucking situations up and occasionally by shooting someone at just the right time.

He also had a bit of a reputation for, well, being a lowlife. Not a mean lowlife, just a person leading a life of slightly lower moral standards than most.

I walked over to the kitchen and took Sam’s third beer, opened it and poured it down the sink. “I don’t want him involved in our business, Sam. He’s finally safe in Las Vegas.”

“Safe in Las Vegas?” Sam said.

“My point is, you ask him for advice and then he starts feeling like he’s out solving crimes and that causes bigger problems down the line. Last thing I need is for my mom to call and tell me Nate’s in trouble three thousand miles away and I’m stuck here.”

“I hear you, Mikey,” Sam said, “I do. Problem was, I couldn’t find anyone else to talk to. I mentioned Big Lumpy to all of my normal dirtbags and most of them hung up on me. Apparently he’s considered some mad genius. A buddy of mine? A guy named Sal? He told me he was pretty sure Big Lumpy was a telepath.”

“I highly doubt that,” I said.

“He did work NSA,” Sam said. “Did you know they have a whole division of psychics?”

“Sam.”

“It’s true. I met one once. We were in Chile. She had a body like a rocket, Mikey, and she knew all of my moves before I even tried them. Spooky stuff, Mikey. Spooky stuff.”

“You don’t exactly cloak your thoughts, Sam,” I said.

“Well, be that as it may, she was pretty much a Ouija board in a skirt. Could be Big Lumpy is one of those, too. Minus the skirt.”

The more likely scenario was that Big Lumpy was probably just much more intelligent than the people who decided to bet with him. And if he was setting the odds, it was a good bet that he was setting them in his favor.

“If he’s such a bad guy,” I said, “why would anyone bet with him?”

“They don’t know they are most of the time,” Sam said. “Nate said the guy franchises. So you think you’re betting with Frankie Four Fingers, but he’s actually kicking upstairs to Big Lumpy. And the only time you find out is when you’re really late and then, you know, you’re probably not in a position to complain too loudly.”

Which meant that Nate had been really late at some point, since I couldn’t imagine he’d learned any of this information through dogged investigation. It also meant that a good many of the people Brent had already paid off could be working under Big Lumpy, too. If Henry Grayson was dumb enough to bet directly with Big Lumpy, it was likely a choice of last resort.

“Savvy,” I said. And it really was. “Well, then, we’ll just have to appeal to his good side.”

“I don’t think he has a good side,” Sam said.

“Well,” I said, “he hasn’t met us yet.”

“That’s my concern,” Sam said. “If he’s NSA, what are the odds he still does some contract work with them? The guy is an expert on game theory warfare and has no moral center. That seems to me like two traits the NSA likes to have near for special projects. Mikey, there’s a good chance he already knows you.”

“Which is why I have the perfect covers for us,” I said. “You’re going to be an ex-Navy SEAL named Sam Axe and I’m going to be a spy named Michael Westen.”

“Play it straight?”

“Yep,” I said.

“I don’t know if I know how to play it straight,” Sam said.

“Have another beer,” I said.

“What about me?” Brent said. I’d nearly forgotten he was in the room. Once he’d stopped making whining noises, he was actually very quiet.

“You’re going to stay here,” I said. “Fiona will be back in a couple of hours.” Provided she hasn’t had to shoot a bunch of members of the Russian Mafia on your behalf, I thought, though I decided not to mention that detail out loud.

“You don’t have any food here,” he said. “And you don’t have cable, either. And Fiona is mean.”

“The kid’s got a point there, Mike,” Sam said. “Fiona is mean.”

“I haven’t eaten in like forever,” Brent said. “You’re basically starving me to death here. You know, yogurt isn’t even considered food? It’s not. It’s a culture.”

While Brent droned on about the toil of his life, I did the one thing I really didn’t want to do: I called my mother, Madeline.

“Ma,” I said, “you have any plans this afternoon?”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” my mother asked.

“Of course not,” I said.

“Because I got a call from your brother a few minutes ago and he sounded very worried,” she said. “He didn’t say you were in trouble, but I felt like he was holding that back from me.”

“You didn’t agree to send him any money, did you?”

“I told him I would,” she said. “He has no blood family out there, Michael. I told him I’d send him money to get a new shirt. He still needs his mother, unlike some people.”

“I do need you, Ma,” I said. “That’s why I’m calling.” Brent had now engaged Sam in a conversation that, as best as I could tell, involved other food groups that were not, technically, foods. They’d moved on to the legitimacy of salads. “I have a young man I’m… mentoring… and I was wondering if I might drop him off at your place for a few hours.”

“Mentoring?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Like a big brother-type thing.”

“Really, Michael?”

“No,” I said. It was just easier to be honest. “I’m actually protecting him from some Russian gangsters, every bookie in the city and Fiona.”

“Oh, I see,” she said.

“And he hasn’t had a home-cooked meal since his mother died,” I added.

“When did that happen?”

“Years ago,” I said.

“Oh, I see,” she said. “You’re not just saying that, are you, Michael?”

“Not this time, Ma, no,” I said.

“Do you think he likes tuna casserole?”

My mother’s tuna casserole was notorious for having a consistency somewhere between plaster and the substance that BP used to stop the oil leak in the Gulf.

“I’m sure he does.”

“Then bring him by,” she said.

“Thanks, Ma. I really appreciate it,” I said.

“And, Michael,” she said, “will you pick me up some more shells for my shotgun?”