The fix

3

The next day, Sam picked me up at eight thirty in the morning. He was clean shaven, his pants looked pressed and his shirt was absent any sort of floral or fruit arrangements. I looked into the backseat and noticed an actual blazer, still in the dry cleaner's bag. When I slid into his Cadillac, he handed me a plastic grocery bag.

"What's this?" I asked.

"I took the liberty of picking you up breakfast," he said, "just to show you how much I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to assist me in this venture."

In the bag were two dozen containers of yogurt. Some were even flavors I liked.

"Coming on a little thick this morning," I said.

"You think?"

"Is there already a complication in your damsel-in-distress scenario?"

"I went by last night and met the damsel," he said. "Cricket O'Connor is her name. She's… challenging."

"Excellent," I said. "That's exactly what I'm looking for. More challenging women with problems." I told Sam about my meeting the previous day at the Hotel Oro, about the rather precarious situation it revealed and how it presented a few fresh issues for me to deal with, not the least of which was trying to figure out who would provide false information to the Russians in my name, and why. Sam would have the contacts to get to some of the truth, but in times like these, a little financial grease would probably be needed.

And, as usual, apart from the thousands and thousands of dollars in my frozen bank accounts, I didn't have much money, a fact that seemed to make Sam happier than I would have liked.

"Then this job we have is coming at just the right time," Sam said.

The Miami I grew up in isn't the one I returned to. I knew this before, but on this day, as Sam drove us through the neighborhoods surrounding my place and then east on the Dolphin Expressway toward the MacArthur Causeway, where we'd pick up a private ferry to take us to Fisher Island, where Sam's said damsel (one Cricket O'Connor) lived, I couldn't help but notice how little I recognized this as home. A normal kid, maybe he sees all the tourist points of Miami before he turns twelve, goes to the Orange Bowl, maybe takes in the Art Deco tour, sees the Blue Angels at the Air and Sea Show, watches the Winterfest Boat Parade.

By twelve, I was sure my father wasn't just a bully but a bastard, that my mother was her own particular kind of horror show and that my brother, Nate, would always complicate things.

By twelve, I'd already stolen a dozen cars.

By twelve, I was already figuring out how to get the hell out.

Miami has always been a city of rogues and ruffians-that much is certain-but in the twenty years since I left town for good, only to return for a day or two at a time, though not long enough to actually be there when my father finally died, leaving my mother to her paranoia and Nate to, well, Nate, it's become this odd mix of glitz and sham, so that even the humble neighborhood I grew up in is a mark for those who want to speed into town and speed back out with cash in their pockets.

Real estate, once a bargain, has turned into the irresistible boom, impervious to the real world, since the people with six million dollars to spend on a waterfront home aren't carrying subprime loans and surely don't live in the real world. Crockett and Tubbs couldn't stop the drugs and neither has anyone else, the cocaine trade becoming a cash crop far more lucrative than sugar and just as easily attained, so in came even more drugs, like heroin, and cheaper drugs, like meth, all of which then fed and grew until Miami became not just the party capital of the country but also the center for identity theft, murder and narcoterrorism.

Ah, home.

With all of those things comes another kind of evil, or at least one of the more egregious sins: envy. You can't be too rich in Miami; you always have to have something more than your neighbor, always have to live somewhere even more extravagant, so that your wealth isn't merely the end result of your hard work-it's the hole card that provides the flush of other people's envy.

"You know what I wonder?" Sam asked. We were on the private ferry-which is pejorative to ferries, since this was more like a cruise liner that happened to carry expensive cars, along with the few clunkers belonging to the help, or just the help themselves, most too poor to own cars-halfway between the causeway and Fisher Island at this point, but had opted to get out of Sam's car to take on the view of the private isle.

"I can't even pretend to know."

"You see all of these minimum-wage people? They spend all day on this little slab of paradise, and they'll never, at the rate they're going, ever have enough money to even own a blade of grass on the island."

"Yeah?"

"So why do they even bother? Why even wake up in the morning when you know that you're always going to be crawling out of the same rut, until you're too old for that rut, and then you'll be forced to get into an even worse rut?"

"Everyone needs a job," I said. "Look at us."

"Naw," he said, "what we did was make it so everyone could feel safe in their crappy lives, and for what, really? Float out here from Cuba for a better life and end up working for some rich despot just the same."

"That's capitalism at work," I said.

Sam stared out over the water and squinted, as if he were trying to see something that wasn't there. "Listen," he said, "this thing with Natalya Choplyn, that's not something to trifle with."

"I know, Sam."

"Mikey, she might have impressed you with her husband and family but she's still calling shots around the world," he said. "She saw your mother. If Fiona hadn't been on top of her game, she'd be dead and probably two or three dozen other people would be too. The kind of juice she must have to get the no-call names, to get actual agents out on this, that means whoever told her you dimed her is big. Let's just pull the plug here, let the CIA know she's here and go on with our lives. You don't have to let this concern you."

Sam was probably right. But I'd been threatened.

"You don't think the CIA knows where she is? They've probably been tracking her on Echelon for fifteen years," I said. "And you don't think she'd be a step ahead of us? Waiting for that? If her source is so good, it probably is CIA." But there was something more, something that niggled at my mind, an inkling that whoever was trying to get her out by using me was involved with my burn notice and that, if I solved this, I might have one more piece of the puzzle fixed. And then there was the likelihood that somewhere there were pictures of us palling around Dubai and I'd be tried as a traitor and hanged, all of which I mentioned to Sam, as well, and which didn't sound like a great way to spend an afternoon.

Sam digested all of that. "Then let me help you, at least."

"Are we having a little bit of a moment here?"

"Little bit, yeah."

I patted him on the back. "You're hired," I said. An announcement rang over the PA system that we'd be docking on Fisher Island in five minutes, that we should be mindful of the island's strict twenty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit and that the temperature on the island was a perfect eighty-two degrees. "Maybe, if things work out, we can get ourselves a blade of grass out here to retire on."

Prior to 1905, Fisher Island didn't exist. But when the dredging project to create a shipping lane into Miami left a couple hundred acres of green island adrift in Biscayne Bay, the island was born. What was once just mangroves became a millionaire's retreat, the property shifting hands between some of the nation's wealthiest people, eventually ending up in the hands of the Vanderbilts, before turning into what it is now: the most exclusive address in Miami.

As Sam drove towards Cricket O'Connor's house, we passed the private resort that was once the Van-derbilt estate and is now a playground for those for whom price is no problem, replete with towering coconut trees, a distinctly Gatsby-ish expanse of tennis courts and a rippling golf course peopled by men wearing sweaters tied over their shoulders, as if a squall were just around the corner. A ten-story condo complex hugged the coastline and offered astonishing views starting at two million dollars. Along the narrow avenues were elaborate guard gates and surprisingly tasteful manors, usually with a design mirroring the old Vanderbilt estate-Spanish influences abounded with a neo-Art Deco flair tossed in for flavor.

From the moment we drove off the ferry, I counted seven Bentleys, fifteen Mercedes, two dozen face-lifts, double that many boob jobs (usually on women more accustomed to being called Bubby than Baby) and enough tummy tucks and lip implants to make one wonder how anyone functions with the fat cells they were born with.

The air was warm.

The streets perfectly clean.

The views were impeccable.

It was, frankly, making me a little paranoid.

But then I had the strangest memory.

"I've actually been here before," I said.

"You're thinking of Grenada," Sam said. "The night before the invasion, right? It was just like this. Helluva time. Female med students have special needs in times of war, if you know what I'm saying."

"I was in eighth grade when we invaded Grenada," I said.

"A shame," Sam said. "We could have used you. You know, I still have a tiny piece of shrapnel in my left big toe from that. Cold days, it's like someone's sticking a fork into my foot."

It was probably very near the time Sam was storming the beach that I was last on Fisher Island, though it didn't look quite like it did on this day, at least not in my memory. My father and mother were fighting, throwing dishes and frozen food at each other, so Nate and I sneaked out of the house and just rode the buses around Miami. Nate had stolen a bunch of transfer passes, so we ended up going clear across the city and found ourselves at the very marina Sam and I had just departed from. We sneaked onto the ferry-a very different ferry, as I recall, since the island was not yet the address it is now-and made it all the way to the island before a security guard noticed us trying to walk off the ferry by ourselves. We were taken to the resort and sat in the guard shack there for three hours while we waited for one of our parents to pick us back up after security finally managed to finagle our phone number out of Nate. We both prayed it would be our mother who'd show up, but it was dad who rolled up in our old Ford Fairmont station wagon. We could see him through the window, his face scraggly with a week's worth of beard, a Marlboro dangling between his lips, his eyes covered by those narrow black Ray-Ban sunglasses he used to wear, even though it was near dusk by then. He didn't bother to turn the car off and come inside the shack; he just leaned on the horn.

"That your pop?" the guard asked. When neither of us answered, he sighed deeply and opened the door. I don't remember if the guard seemed pained by the experience, embarrassed or just happy we were leaving, though I'd like to think it was pain I heard in the sigh. "Well, get on, then," he said and we did. I expected Dad would snap at us or take a swipe at our heads, but he just drove home in stony silence the entire way, chain-smoking and listening to talk radio, which was even more upsetting. It was predictable that he'd blow. This new quiet was something larger and somehow more aggressive, so that when we got home and found our bedrooms trashed, the posters torn off our walls, our beds turned upside down, Star Wars action figures and GI Joes tossed about, it all made sense and made me happy we'd sneaked out to this odd piece of paradise, if only to save ourselves from something that was apparently far worse.

"Here we are," Sam said. We'd pulled up in front of a two-story cream-colored compound. As we made our way onto the property, I put down the windows in the Cadillac and inhaled deeply to erase the old memories and to get acclimated to the new situation. The house was surrounded by a dozen swaying palms and row after row of three-foot-tall rosebushes that sprinkled the light breeze coming in off Biscayne with a sweet, florid fragrance, but I noted that they were in desperate need of trimming. I turned and looked behind me and saw that the box hedges lining the front of the drive were more like dodecahedron hedges. There was an acre-wide expanse of lawn along the eastern side of the house; it was also overgrown. Clouds of aphids could be seen here and there, as well, moving about in the humid afternoon.

In front of the house was a circular drive around a tasteful marble fountain, the water blooming out from the center and falling down like strands of hair. The house itself was a testament to natural light, with huge picture windows dominating the face of the home and wrapping around the length of the residence, the ocean visible even from the front yard.

Clarity on my creeping nontopiary suspicions came when I stepped out of the car and noticed a sign plastered to the garage door of the home, its corners reinforced with duct tape, announcing a public auction of the property and its contents in ten days' time.

"You didn't mention this," I said, pointing to the sign.

"Are you looking to move?" Sam said.

"It speaks to a certain amount of emotional and economic instability," I said.

"I said she was difficult," Sam said.

Before I could respond, the front door opened and a woman in her early fifties stepped out onto the front porch. Cricket O'Connor was tall, maybe five foot eight, and had shoulder-length blond hair, which she nervously tucked behind both of her ears when she saw us standing on her drive. I hoped she hadn't heard our conversation, but it was quickly apparent she had.

"I've tried to take the notice down," Cricket said. There was an absent, resigned quality to her voice, which belied her confident demeanor. She was dressed in a yellow St. John knit sweater set that revealed a tan expanse of neck and a thin gold necklace bedazzled with diamonds. A matching bracelet was wrapped around her left wrist. She wore a single diamond ring on her wedding finger and what looked liked a charm bracelet that dangled a single item on her right wrist. "But it's apparently against the law. Someone drives by every couple days to make sure it's still there, and if it's down, they put another up. It's not as invasive as the people who come to take photos, so I've learned to live with smaller inconveniences, even if it speaks to a larger instability."

"That's all anyone can be expected to do," I said. I walked over and extended my hand. "I'm Michael Westen. You have a lovely home."

Cricket forced a smile, shook my hand gingerly and then toyed with her single charm, which I saw was actually a military dog tag, before responding. "Well, for now at least. Please come in."

The difference between trained liars and your garden-variety fibbers is that specific training allows for certain insights into the human condition not normally acquired while playing shell games on the pier or trying to con your waitress out of more change. At the (grateful) expense of the American tax payer, you're taught to look for signals of weakness so that whatever your particular cover might be or whatever your particular lie is eventually targeted to mete out can have its most effective power.

But sometimes, all you need to do is listen to someone talk and you can work out the subtext of their lives without once checking for the slight rise of red into their neck when they're sad, the sweat that appears first along the hairline when the first hint of stress appears or the involuntary reflexive shift when your intestines pick up the speed of fear.

Sam and I sat beside each other on a down-filled sofa in the middle of what was probably once a very well-appointed living room, but now looked a lot like an empty living room, save for an antique coffee table covered with old issues of Architectural Digest, including one that featured on the cover the very house we were sitting in, and an ottoman missing its chair. Across from us was a marble-lined fireplace with an elaborate mantel covered in framed photos of two men, one old and one young. The older man was pictured aboard a yacht in one photo, in black tie in another and with his arms around a much younger Cricket in yet another. The young man was pictured as a toddler, as a teen and as a Marine.

Over a dozen other framed items lay beneath one of the picture windows atop a white sheet.

Cricket stepped into the room and set a platter of cheese and crackers on the coffee table and then sort of stared at us, like she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do, which was probably the case.

"Sam tells me you have a problem," I said, because I was already starting to feel depressed about this whole situation that was about to be presented and I didn't even know what it was. Something about a six-million-dollar home up for auction and suspiciously missing most of its furniture tends to get me down. Plus, I had the general sense that every moment I wasn't figuring out the Natalya situation was another moment the target on my back got a little larger.

Cricket sat down on the ottoman and stifled a laugh as she sunk into it. "Do you know what this ottoman is worth?"

Sam leaned forward and touched the fabric. "What do you call that?"

"Chenille," she said.

"Very nice," he said. "I'd say a grand."

"I think it was a rhetorical question," I said.

"No," she said, "I'm done with rhetorical questions. I'm hoping to just get a decent appraisal. You two seem just as qualified as anyone else. Everyone seems to want a little less for good work these days."

"Looks like fine Italian craftsmanship to me," Sam said. "I'd give you fifteen hundred dollars for it."

"Sold," she said. "I'll take cash."

"I'm a little short," Sam said, and the way things were going, it didn't seem like this was going to be one of those jobs that would change my financial profile, either.

"Yes, well," she said and then made a sweep of her hand across the room and her eyes started to well up.

Crying women have never been my forte, nor furniture, so I said, "Cricket, I don't mean to be rude here, and I appreciate the cheese and crackers and the emotional vulnerability, but could we jump to the part where you just start talking about things directly? I'm sort of a no-metaphor guy."

Sam shot me a look that I ignored. It was probably meant to convey disappointment.

"I'm sorry, but this is all very embarrassing. I don't know where to start."

"Why not try the beginning?" I said. "But skip over the bits you don't think I'll care about."

Cricket smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle on her shirt and smiled faintly at me, which made me feel bad about being short, but the problem with most people is that they could work out most of their problems if they didn't spend so much time qualifying their lives. Give me an assignment, let me fix it and we'll go from there.

"My late husband, Scott O'Connor," Cricket said, pointing to the older man in the photos, "was a very wealthy man, but not an exceptionally good man, I'm afraid. He bought and sold companies for a living, just like his father had done, and his grandfather, too. I was under the impression that we had a very strong marriage, that I was the love of his life and that he cherished our son above all things. When he died from a heart attack a little over ten years ago, I learned that he had other women-an uncountable number, it would turn out-and other children, at least nine, though that number tends to fluctuate depending upon the month and the lawsuit. So what was once a great amount of money was significantly less, but more than enough, certainly. Nevertheless, I've spent the better part of the last decade giving away most of the money to charities throughout Miami, trying, not so vainly, to undo some of what I think of as my husband's least admirable traits."

Cricket stood up then and went across the room, picked up a few of the framed items from the sheet and handed them to me. They were certificates of appreciation from organizations like the South Beach AIDS Project, the Homeless Fund and the American Cancer Society.

"You've done good work," I said.

There were also photos of her cozied up with numerous celebrities, including a few fellows who ran for president over the years. In some of the photos, it was hard to tell if she was out on a date and was caught by paparazzi or if she actually was doing good work, though everyone gets to make their own choices about what is and isn't work these days.

"I've tried," Cricket said. "I hate who I found out my husband was, but I still love Scott, the man I was married to, the boy I met in college. I've tried to honor that original emotion, but then everything got fouled up." She went on to explain that her son, Devin, enlisted in the Marines after September eleventh, despite being in his second year at Princeton. "It was foolish," she continued. "I tried to dissuade him from it but he said that he felt useless, that college wasn't for him, which it wasn't. He took that from me, I suppose. But he went and I'm happy to say he was a fine soldier, that he loved what he was doing." Her voice trailed off then into silence.

"I was in Iraq for a little while," I said. "Anyone who went there, who lived even a day, is a better man than anyone walking on South Beach."

"Still," she said, "I'd prefer he was alive."

"How long has it been?" Sam asked.

"Two years last month," she said. Cricket started pacing the length of the room, her story flowing out of her like an avalanche of utter personal misery. It was after Devin died that things really fell apart for Cricket O'Connor, if it's possible to have your life fall apart even more than finding out the man you loved happened to love several other women and a baseball team of children. At first, she was feted in the local press, a minor celebrity for the fact that her son had perished, that her son had even enlisted in the first place, since rare is the warrior who comes from grace, and grace is something Cricket O'Connor possessed in spades. Benefit after benefit called upon Cricket O'Connor to be the face of their own grief and she just kept saying yes, giving money and time and press. And then there were the dates with celebrities.

Meetings with politicians.

A place in society.

Her hair perfect.

Her clothes designer.

Her jewels sparkling on the pages of Haute Living, the society column of the Miami Herald following her every date, South Beach naming her the most eligible woman in the city, and the most giving. Palm Life naming her one of their Fifty Most Beautiful Under Sixty.

"And then I met Dixon Woods," she said.

"Why do I know that name?" I asked.

"He did a little Special Forces time," Sam said. "The Tupac Amaru action in Panama?"

"I wasn't there," I said. "Not technically."

"Neither was he," Sam said. "Not technically. Buddy of mine in the NSA says he was also not technically in Nicaragua, Haiti and Bakino Faso, but that he's technically been in private service since 2002."

Just like every gun with a debt margin they want to work down, though I had a difficult time imagining anyone who'd done the things Dixon Woods was likely to have done somehow ending up in the arms of Cricket O'Connor. I had sensed the difficult part of Cricket O'Connor's life story was just now unfolding.

That and Sam was sort of twitching in his seat.

"Just how did you end up meeting Dixon Woods?" I said.

"On the Internet," she said.

"Pardon me?" I said.

"I'm part of several online support groups for relatives of military dead. One of them is also for singles. He contacted me there."

I already knew where this was headed. The world was simpler when people actually met each other in real life. The old model of getting drunk, dancing and doing things you regretted was a good one.

"You married him and he stole your money."

The color drained from Cricket's face. "How did you know?"

"Because predators can smell the weak even through a computer screen." What I didn't tell her: Because if I'd lived a second longer with my father, if I hadn't gone into the military after high school, I'd probably be doing the same thing as Dixon Woods.

A bully can always find a victim.

"I hate to be a cliche," she said.

"You're not," I said. "You're a foregone conclusion. That's worse, I'm sorry to say. But you don't need me to tell you that."

"That's why I need your help," Cricket said. "I needed someone to tell me that, obviously, and I need someone to help me find Dixon before I lose everything."

Need. Everyone thinks they need something. What Cricket O'Connor was really talking about was want: She wanted me to solve her problems, to fix what she'd wrecked with her own needs.

"I'm sorry your husband was a scumbag. I'm sorry your son is dead. I'm even sorry you married someone you met on the Internet. But you need to call the police. Let them handle this."

"I can't do that," she said.

"Sure you can," I said. "Dial nine-one-one. They'll ask you if this is an emergency. Say yes. Go from there."

"Sam said you'd be able to help find Dixon," she said.

"Really?" I said to Sam.

"Mikey," he said, "there're some mitigating circumstances that don't exactly scream for proper law enforcement involvement."

"Is this where the sort-of drug dealers come in, or did I miss that part?"

"That would indeed be this part, yes," Sam said.

Cricket explained that the last time she saw Dixon he informed her that he needed a substantial amount of money to pay off a debt to opium dealers he was "engaged with in Afghanistan," where, he told her, he was working under contract with a private security firm, overseeing "certain American interests" in the opium trade. As soon as he got back from the job, he'd be reimbursed and she'd be reimbursed.

"And there'd be a little something on the back end for you, too, right?"

"Yes," Cricket said.

"How much?"

"I don't know. A couple hundred thousand. Maybe less."

"For a rich person," I said, "you sure are greedy."

Cricket began to well up, and I decided that, no matter what was going on with this woman, I was having a hard time feeling any sympathy for her. You feel like you can run with wolves, every now and then you have to expect to get bitten.

"What do you take me for, Mr. Westen?" she asked, her voice just a whisper.

"The truth?"

"It would be refreshing these days."

I told her. And then I told her if there was nothing else, we'd be on our way.

"Wait here for just a moment," she said. She left the living room and made her way upstairs. I could hear her moving from room to room, opening and closing drawers.

Sam stood up, stretched and then went over to the mantel and picked up one of the photos of Devin, the Marine. "Remember when you enlisted?"

"Best day of my life," I said. "Of the seventy-five hundred subsequently, this one is near the bottom."

"She's a complicated woman," Sam said.

"She's a socialite with a champagne problem," I said. Sam handed me the photo of Cricket's son. When I was a kid, I always thought of Marines as men, but those old John Wayne movies lied. Back before the war, you enlisted and the oldest guy you were likely to run into in your battalion would be twenty-five. Devin O'Connor didn't look old enough to change the oil in a car, much less drive a Bradley. When you're twenty, you think it will all last forever. And how long was forever these days? A month, the girl at the Oro told me.

I handed Sam the photo back just as Cricket was coming back down the stairs. In her hands was a stack of cards, letters, photos.

"Cricket," I said, "I understand: You give away a lot of money to big corporate diseases and you sleep with celebrities who give even more money and that you're very, very important and…"

Before I could continue, Cricket dropped the bundle on the coffee table and I saw that these were different kinds of photos. Men-boys-with missing arms, legs, feet, eyes were smiling up in photos. Entire families. I sifted through the letters. Some were those annoying Christmas rundowns on fancy printed paper, others were handwritten in crayon. Some were Hallmark cards that inside simply said thank you a hundred times. Pictures of babies. "What is this?" I asked.

"The day Devin was killed," she said, "he was on a mission in Tikrit. He and fifteen other boys were going house to house looking for weapons. Suffice to say, they found some. Seven of those boys died, the rest suffered horrible, horrible injuries. I've been using whatever resources I have to take care of those families. Most of them have nothing, you know, just what the government gives them. So I've paid for what I can. Pyschiatric care. Car payments. Mortgages. Whatever they have asked for, I have been happy to help with. And you know what the funny thing is, Mr. Westen?"

I couldn't think of anything funny.

"They hardly ever ask. So I ask them. Every night. I send out a hundred e-mails, probably, to these poor boys and their families, and I ask what they need. And they need so much, but they so rarely feel like they should. That's what I was using that money for, Mr. Westen. That's what I have stopped doing these last few weeks. That is what I must do. Do you understand?"

"I do," I said. I did. I really did. Cricket O'Connor smelled like a victim and that was a shame.

"I may be stupid, but I'm not evil. I'm trying to do good things. I'm trying to give someone the same opportunities my son had. I'm trying to help people. I thought this money was legitimate. I thought Dixon was legitimate."

"Okay," I said. "Okay. I get it. Now, when did the drug dealers start threatening to kill you?"

"Why would you think that?"

"Experience. Intuition. The very fact that Sam has me sitting here with you in the first place when I could be at home doing sit-ups."

Cricket looked over at Sam, who just shrugged. He looked smart in his sport coat, which probably made her think he was the brains in the operation and I was the muscle, or at least she figured Sam understood her better since he was sleeping with Veronica. "Just after Dixon left for Afghanistan again," she said. First, she told us, it was just a series of phone calls asking for Dixon and when she told the callers that Dixon was gone, wouldn't be back for months, that if they had a problem they should contact Long-street, the security firm he was employed by. This was met by laughter, which she found disconcerting. By the last phone call, her responses were met with simple threats upon Dixon's person. It was a few days later that she noticed the same boat circling past her property over and over again. And then, finally, the knock on her front door.

At three a.m.

When she opened the door, there were three men standing there with guns.

"Dixon told me that there might be trouble one day," she said. "But I didn't expect this."

"Really," I said. "Pretty prescient on his part." There was nothing about Dixon Woods, at least in Cricket's description, that made me think he was anything like a Special Forces guy. Guys like Dixon Woods, if he thought his wife was in danger, would have guys like me, or guys like Sam, waiting for the trouble and in a place to defuse it.

"He said that in his line of work, sometimes people got angry. That for my own safety, it might be important for us to assume new identities, things like that."

"And that wasn't a red flag, Cricket?" Sam said. His voice was plenty calm because he was trying to sound sensitive, I suspect, but I also think he couldn't believe what he was hearing now, either.

"I thought it was exciting. I thought it would be an adventure. I haven't been a happy person and this offered me a release. Neither of you are women. You don't know what it feels like to be with a person who is dangerous. It's exhilarating."

The funny thing was, I did know what she was talking about. Fiona and I had once had the very same conversation. At least Fiona knows how to handle herself. "Who did you think you were going to be," I said, "Nick and Nora Charles?"

"I didn't think at all," she said.

The men came inside, searched the house for Dixon, sat down where Sam and I were sitting at that moment and gave her a very clear ultimatum: They'd like their money back. Now. She gave them what she had on her-a few thousand dollars-and then they began taking things like jewels and furniture.

"Back up," I said. "When was the last time you saw Dixon?"

"It's been almost three months," she said. "He was in Afghanistan for a few weeks, came home and then left again."

"Uh-huh," I said. "This Dixon, what's his waist size?"

"Like on a pair of pants?"

"Exactly."

"Well," she said, "I'm not sure."

You want to know how well a woman knows her husband, ask her the size of his pants. You want to know how well a woman doesn't know her husband, ask her the same question. I knew the answer to the next question, but I asked it anyway. "Do you have a picture of him, Cricket?"

"No," she said, "he never allowed that. He said it was a security issue."

"Of course he did," I said. "Did he ever refer to himself as a spook?" Cricket reached for her neck and I actually heard Sam give out a little groan. I took that as an affirmative. "And how long have you been married?"

"A year."

"And how much money did he need?" I asked.

"The last time?"

"God, yes, the last time," I said.

"A million dollars," she said.

"And you just cut a check?"

"He's my husband," she said.

"And how much did the bad guys want?"

"Two million dollars," she said.

"And you cut another check?"

"No," she said. "I took equity from my home. And then they came back. And then they came back again. They keep coming back asking for more and more money, or they'll kill me and kill Dixon, as soon as they find him. And now, well, now I'm going to lose everything and so will those families, Mr. Westen."

"Okay," I said, "but tell me you're not doing this for Dixon, too."

"He's my husband," Cricket said again.

"Probably not," I said.

And that was when the tears really came. It might have been smart to get Fiona involved in this situation ahead of time, since, when she wants to, she can provide feminine comfort and that sort of thing. But instead it was me and Sam watching this put-together woman of means break down into sobs. Sam got up and guided her back over to the ottoman, sat down beside her, patted her knee, told her to settle down, that we'd get through this together and that we'd get the bad guys who were putting her through all of this, though I didn't really have any concept of who the bad guys actually were or what this was. I got the Dixon Woods part, but I didn't see who else was involved. I figured Sam didn't either, but that Cricket was one of Veronica's friends and he needed to be sensitive to that.

Or, like me, the crying was starting to make him frantic.

What I'd figured out and would have happily elucidated to Cricket was that it was highly unlikely Dixon Woods was anywhere near Afghanistan. I would have also told her that she'd probably been scammed out of her money (and I didn't know yet how much money in total that equaled) and that she was better off looking into a trade of some kind, or maybe dialing up one of the famous people whose arm she'd found herself on when she had money and asking them for a small loan to get out of town with. I might have also told her that I had real doubts that Dixon Woods was actually Dixon Woods, but then Cricket blew her nose, dabbed her eyes and thanked Sam for his kindness.

And just like that, Cricket O'Connor was perfectly composed again. There was something about Cricket O'Connor that I found troubling: how a person who seemed so capable of handling life could be so incapable of seeing how much she was risking before it actually happened.

It reminded me of Natalya.

"You'll have to pardon me," she said. "I understand, Mr. Westen, that you think I'm a fool, but I wonder if you've ever found yourself in a situation beyond your control."

If she only knew. "There've been occasions."

"I fell in love with Dixon," she said. "That was probably a mistake. We don't always make the right choices in whom we love, but I believed in him and I believed him when he told me he'd been in the Special Forces and I believed him when he told me he was providing private security in Afghanistan and I believed him when he told me he was in trouble and desperately needed my help. And I believed the men who came to my home and threatened to kill me if I didn't turn Dixon in. I loved him, Mr. Westen. I love him. Maybe people like you and people like Dixon can just turn real emotion on and off, but for the rest of the human race, things are a bit more trying." She paused then and tried to smile, as if changing her facial expression could change the outcome of all that had come before. "And I believed Sam when he said you would help me. If I go to the police, these men will find Dixon and they will kill him. And I know they will kill me. And…" She paused again. "I don't want this to be in the paper. As soon as the police know about this, it will be all over the papers. I'll be a mockery. I have nowhere else to turn. I can't pay you much, but whatever I can give you, I will. Please, Mr. Westen."

"These bad guys," I said, "they give you a way to contact them? A drop zone for the money? Anything?"

"They gave me a cell phone," she said.

"Go get it," I said.

A few moments later, Cricket came back with a burner, a prepaid cell you can get in any half-assed check-cashing front shop in Little Haiti or the nicest sundry shop on South Beach. Used to be only drug dealers and sixteen-year-old girls whose mothers didn't trust them not to abuse their minutes had burners. Now, half the world. They're impossible to get a wire on because once you're up on them, they're already dead.

"They call on this, make sure I'm home, then come for the cash," she said.

"When are they due to call again?"

"Thursday. The fifteenth. It's always the fifteenth."

"Pay day," Sam said.

"Not anymore," I said.

"So you're going to help me?" Cricket said.

When you're a spy, or a former one, or just one trying to figure out how your life got turned upside down by someone else's choices, someone else's agenda, someone else's ego and hubris and wanton disregard for who you are as a human, sometimes, well, a soft spot opens up for people in a similar situation.

"I'm going to get your money back," I said, "as much as I can. Enough for you to live. To help the other people. But you have to listen to me. You have to do as I tell you to do. And you have to understand one thing."

"Anything," she said.

"You're not married to Dixon Woods," I said. "You've probably never met him. This guy you're not married to is a criminal, and he's gaming you. When I find him, after I get your money, he's likely going to be hurt. He might be dead. He might well be going to prison. And this house? This lifestyle? It's over. It's not yours. You want to help people. To really help people? I'll get that back for you if I can."

Cricket closed her eyes. Her head moved slightly in agreement.

"Why don't you go upstairs and pack a bag?" I said. "Sam will come back later and take you somewhere safe."

Sam and I watched Cricket mount the stairs toward her bedroom and then, when we heard the sobbing begin, let ourselves out of the house.

"Nice speech," Sam said once we were outside.

"These people," I said, "don't know how lucky they have it."

"Yeah," Sam said. "Still. Quite a bit of oration there."

I put on my sunglasses and walked back along the side of Cricket's house. From there I could see Biscayne Bay, full this day with sail boats and yachts lazing back and forth through the shipping lanes. Sam came and stood beside me. "Nice view," I said.

"If you like this sort of thing," Sam said.

"I could get on a boat from here," I said. "Sail all the way up the Eastern Seaboard. Park in New York. Hop on a train, be in Washington D.C. in no time. Start pounding on doors. Who'd ever know?"

"I would," Sam said.

"Or I could just go due south. Find a sandbar and call it home. Forget this burn notice and everything else."

"Ah, Mikey, that's not your life," Sam said.

And the truth, the sad truth, was that he was right.