The fix

4

There's nothing easy about having a lot of actual cash money, particularly if your job description is something other than armored-car driver. If you sell drugs, extort cash from socialites or happen to be running an international cartel funded by Colombians and protected by Russians, or just happen to be a grifter with a way with women, you still need to find a place to keep your money other than the bank, because a million actual dollars weigh a ton. Literally. You get a million dollar bills, they will weigh a ton. You get your million dollars broken down into hundreds, it's only twenty pounds.

You still need to find a way to pay your bills. So you have to clean that money, get it into the system so that you can live.

Because even if you're a malicious crime lord or evil genius, you probably still have cable, water, power and HOA fees to take care of at your secret hideout, which, usually, is just a very large home in a master-planned community since underground lairs, hollowed-out volcanoes and bases on the dark side of the moon have become harder and harder to come by. But beyond that, if someone hands you a check for a million dollars, you can't just deposit it and you can't just cash it.

Fortunately, Miami is only a puddle jumper away from the Caribbean, where illegal banking is practically a spectator sport. Or, if you're really industrious, you can go on a run from the Caribbean down to Guyana, where money laundering and the drug trade make up a sum close to fifty percent of the country's economy. So if you're a drug dealer, have a few million dollars in American cash and the ability to set up a nice shelter corporation-say, a timber company, which in Guyana is the favored business of drug dealers looking to get legit return on their dollars-and have a fast boat, or a decent plane, or enough contacts, you can do just about anything to get your money back into the U.S. in a way that it comes back smelling like Tide.

I had a pretty good idea that the money being moved around the perimeter of Cricket O'Connor's life was being cleaned by someone, somewhere. First rule of dealing with assholes: Follow the money.

"When I was robbing banks for the IRA, it wasn't so difficult to move money," Fiona said. I'd gone to her condo in the marina after meeting with Cricket, and Sam went off to do a little snooping. I filled Fiona in on the details, plus some of my suspicions, and then sat at her kitchen table and thumbed through a stack of society magazines that Cricket O'Connor had given me earlier in the day, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man she called Dixon Woods in the background of someone else's photo spread, since she told me the two of them had "made the scene" whenever he was in town. The "scene" looked to be something like the senior prom, but with elaborate ice sculptures instead of balloon art and no one under fifty-five to be found, but in pretty much the same gaudy outfits.

While Fiona cooked a Persian dish that had a lot of onions, peppers and lamb in it, and that smelled vaguely like the month I spent living above a cafe in Iran a few years back, I also tried to figure out how to approach the whole Natalya issue. I hadn't told Fiona about Natalya yet, knowing that it would be the sort of thing that would probably cause her to purchase guns for her own personal use, and I wanted to control that situation for as long as I could.

"You walked in," Fiona continued, her voice downright wistful, "shot a few people in the knees, locked a few others in the vault and then took what you needed. You drove down the street, ran up the stairs of the flat, dumped the money out on the bed, rolled around a bit and then went out for a pint."

"A simpler time," I said. The magazine I was reading-and by reading, I mean flipping through with a growing unease-was something called Palm Life, a magazine dedicated to, according to the slug line on its masthead, "the good life and golden years beneath the palms." There weren't any actual stories in the magazine, just elaborate photo spreads with a descriptive paragraph about who was in the picture and why those people were, I guess, living the good life beneath the palms. "Tell me something, Fi. What is the allure of being seventy and wearing a tiger-print miniskirt?"

"Being trashy isn't just for young women anymore, Michael," she said. Fiona set a plate of sizzling vegetables and meat in front of me and took the magazine from my hands. "You could do quite well in this world. Find yourself a refurbished wife and just stand by her side while she gets her picture taken. You'd need a better tan, though. And a pair of yellow pants wouldn't hurt, apparently."

"If that's the good life, I'll stick with whatever this is."

"It's funny how none of these women have any wrinkles," she said, flipping the pages.

"None that you can see." I ate a few bites of the dish. It was surprisingly tasty. "When did you become such a good cook?"

"Your mother and I are taking an online cooking class together," she said. She'd stopped on a double-page spread of a pool party at some mansion. There were men in Speedos who would have been better off in girdles.

"When I was a kid," I said, "if it wasn't made from a box of macaroni and cheese or wasn't served in a tin foil dish courtesy of Swanson's, it wasn't homemade."

"You're a little old to be blaming your bad childhood for anything," she said. "At least not anything you've done since you met me."

Fiona was probably right. But I'd learned plenty about being a spy by being a kid. First improvised-explosive device I ever made was in the backyard of a neighbor's house after Nate and I were kicked out one evening for complaining about the culinary options. You want to blow something up but are afraid you just don't have the skill set? Go into your garage, grab some disinfectant. Better: If you live in a place like Miami, you probably have a high-grade pool cleaner, but even if you don't, your local home-improvement store does. Buy a gallon. Grab some liquid soap.

Mix them together.

Stand back.

You're done.

Potassium permanganate and glycerin: best friends for young arsonists and prospective spies alike. You have children and want to get their attention away from their iPods, video games and the Internet? Teach them to blow things up.

We saw our dad create that particular explosive concoction in the garage one afternoon by accident. It's one of my few good memories of him. Anyway, it taught me how to make things go bang during a bad situation.

Which got me thinking about Dixon Woods again. I had to figure out a way to draw him out, get close enough to him to figure out where the money was, or where it had gone, and why he needed it in the first place. I figured if he just wanted a quick score, he could have had one. Coming back for more, getting married, all that-it screamed of intricacy. Greed was one thing. But this kind of personal involvement was something different.

"You say you're doing something online with my mother?" I said.

"Online. Offline. We are getting very close." Fiona was already working through another issue of Palm Life, this one with a picture of Priscilla Presley gracing the cover. She sat on the hood of a Bentley beneath a headline trumpeting a charity called "Hound Dogs for Humanity." Fiona flipped a page and I saw her eyebrows rise in actual surprise, rare coming from Fiona. She slid the magazine over to me. "How do you dance when you're hooked to an oxygen tank?"

"Slowly," I said. In the foreground of the photo, a man in pink gabardine slacks and matching liver spots was doing a kind of palsied shimmy alongside his tank and a girl-she wasn't a woman, at least not in the conventional sense, particularly since her most prominent parts didn't look much older than toddler age-in a tight black dress and about a quarter million dollars in diamonds.

But that wasn't what Fi was surprised by. In the background of the picture was a woman who looked a lot like Cricket O'Connor doing a shimmy of her own, but the man she was dancing with was blurred by movement. The paragraph beneath the photo indicated that it was taken during a fund-raiser for literacy… held at a nightclub called Love/Blue. Not a lot of things that happen in Miami make sense when you look at them directly. A benefit for literacy at a nightclub didn't even register on my egre-giousness barometer. But the picture was a nice reminder: Scan the background, dig a little, you'll find the dirt you expected.

In this case, there were likely hundreds of shots taken at this event-probably two dozen of this one moment alone, particularly if the photographer had a sense of humor-and that meant there was a strong likelihood a photo of Dixon Woods, whoever he really was, would be in one of them and we'd be able to start making good on one of my core beliefs: that people frequently do illegal things out of desperation and stupidity. It was clear Dixon was desperate for money-and that whoever he'd screwed was desperate to get their money back, too-but it was also clear Dixon was stupid in a very basic way: He made poor, sloppy decisions, and that meant he was probably already juicing someone else like he had juiced Cricket, or was about to.

Figuring out what the hell he looked like would be a good start. Cricket's description of him-"tall wavy brown hair, brown eyes, a little thick in the middle, a very hairy chest and a body like Sam's"- boiled him down to about three billion men. Not a good statistical control.

Nevertheless, Sam was going to spend the afternoon checking a bit more deeply into Dixon, though we both knew that it was unlikely to lead us anywhere directly related to Cricket's problem. We also knew that to know Dixon Woods' name in the first place meant that whoever was pulling this grift knew more than he should.

It was a level of the game we didn't impart to Cricket. I figured it could wait. First, we had to figure out who we were dealing with. I told Fiona that I thought it would be nice if she used her online time-in between her Learning Annex classes with Mom-to create an enticing profile on one of the singles support groups Cricket had originally used, a plan she immediately embraced.

"Maybe I'll get a bit of an eyebrow lift, too," she said.

We'd need to see about a photo, no matter what. The offices of Palm Life might turn up the evidence Cricket couldn't. Predictably, according to the masthead, the offices for Palm Life, which covered the good life of the golden years under the palms, were located in a fashionable neighborhood of Coral Gables, a good dozen miles from even a marginal life. I made a bet with Fiona that the offices would be surrounded by palm trees that not a single drunken couple had managed to desecrate and that they'd be happy palms, unlike the ones near my mother's house, which have that sad, dead look caused by too many fruit rats using them as their winter homes.

I checked my watch. It was just past noon. Plenty of time to play dress-up with the media folks.

"You feel like going on a field trip?" I asked.

"Depends," she said. "Are we stopping by the Hotel Oro first to exact some bloody revenge?"

I figured I had two choices here. Tell the truth or lie. The problem in dealing with Fiona is that either response was likely to end up with violence. Fiona didn't think fondly of Natalya, to say the least. She never really appreciated knowing anything about anyone I'd ever been with who wasn't her; tended to react poorly upon meeting these women, tended to react with escalating anger, then violence, then protracted gun battles and high-powered explosives. Best-case scenarios involved the pulling of hair.

Gut punches performed with brass knuckles.

Car bombs.

Certain treaties being revoked.

This situation? The threats against her? The threats against me? Well, that was the sort of deal that would take some massaging, particularly if I wanted her to help me, which I would. Eventually. Not quite yet. But soon.

"That turned out to be nothing," I said.

"Did you know that I have perfected the Palestinian hanging technique?"

I took a bite of lamb and peppers, and chewed thoughtfully. "This really is excellent."

"What is so interesting is that you don't even really hang. It's more like death by crucifixion, minus all of that awful martyrdom. A slow, excruciating death." Fiona took the fork out of my hand, stabbed a chunk of gristle that I'd pushed to one side of the plate, and then ate it, smiling all the while. "This is lovely. You're right."

"Fi…" I said.

"Of course," she said, "I've been reading quite a bit about this new torture technique they're testing now in Pakistan. It's really very revolutionary. You take a conventional hot box and you throw in a live electrical wire. As the humidity in the room rises from the prisoner's labored breathing, the air actually turns electric. Like a lightning storm in a room. Only done it on rats thus far, but I'd be willing to bet that a human would make it work spectacularly."

"Fi," I said, "listen. I handled the situation. Everything is going to be fine. A little issue of mistaken identity. But I cleared it up and everyone involved is sorry that you were ever in jeopardy. They'd even like to buy the guns."

"That's so sweet," she said. She reached over and touched my cheek and I thought, Huh, I didn't think that was going to work. Especially that part about the guns. That was a real stretch. How am I going to make good on that? And then I realized that the touch Fiona was giving me was actually gaining in intensity, that she was now actually gripping my face, was digging her thumb into my jaw. Was sort of affecting my breathing.

"Fi," I said, but it came out sounding more like flea because my jaw wouldn't open and my tongue's movements were impeded.

"Natalya Choplyn? Really, Michael? You're lying to me about her again? I have to hear it from Sam?"

I liked it better when Fiona and Sam didn't get along, kept secrets from each other, used me only as a sounding board for complaints and threats. For the better part of a decade, it was one of those points I knew would remain fixed. For the first month I was back home, I was fairly certain Fiona would shoot Sam, provided Sam didn't dime her to one agency or another, foreign or domestic. There was an incident several years ago-money was lost, bullets were fired, flesh wounds were had-that left both feeling, well, distrustful of each other.

Things have changed.

Having them in cahoots makes things far less predictable, far more personally painful, at least as this situation started to present itself.

I could have just grabbed Fiona's arm and flipped her over her chair, pinned her to the ground, put an elbow to her throat and told her to believe me, but I didn't have time to have an entire afternoon of acrobatic, angry, vengeful sex with Fiona. Not that I didn't want to. Not that I probably didn't need to. But that I couldn't. Vows have been made: Keep things less personal. More professional. The fewer nude exchanges the better. I knew better than to engage Fiona physically. It never ended well emotionally and I've been trying to be more neutral there.

Search for ennui.

Find inertia.

Avoid foreplay at all costs. And fighting with Fiona was better than a dozen roses, diamond earrings and a steak dinner combined.

"I was going to tell you," I said. It came out sounding a lot like I was going to kill you, so Fiona let go of my face. An expression of eager anticipation glossed over her. I swiveled my head around and reset my jaw. I have to admit, she did look pretty cute when she was ready to really hurt you. "First," I said, "I want to remind you that when Natalya and I had our… summit… you and I were not you and I. And that you and I are not you and I."

"Oh, yes, I recall," she said. "That was one of your sabbaticals." She picked up my plate of food, which I wasn't finished with, walked over to the sink and scraped it all into the garbage disposal.

"Fi, do you want to know what's going on, or do you want to fight about things that happened in the last century?"

"I'm listening," she said. "I am also passing judgment, but don't let that stop you from spinning your little yarn." I told her everything there was to know. I didn't even leave out the part where Natalya told me I was looking good… except I tweaked that a bit to say she'd just complimented me on my suit and asked where I got my sunglasses. All the while, Fiona kept her back to me and pretended to clean her kitchen. As I neared the conclusion, I saw that she'd actually taken out several guns and was lining them up in an orderly fashion aside the drain board. The way the sun cut through the windows in her place made them shine across the room, so that I was nearly blinded by Fiona's passive-aggressive nonchalance.

"What do you propose to do?" Fiona asked.

"Well, first thing, I guess I need to find out why someone in our government is trying to get the Russians to kill me or have me tried for treason, or just pegged as a drug kingpin, none of which seem like great outcomes. And then figure out how to get Natalya to accept that I haven't done what I'm accused of. And, then, if all else fails, see where to get my hands on whatever vig she's in for. Or…" I paused and thought about it. "Or I guess I figure out how to get rid of her."

This brightened Fiona's mood considerably. "Why don't we just jump to the last choice?"

I explained, again, to Fiona that this was a person with kids. With a husband. With a life. That I couldn't just leave a trail of bodies around me wherever I went. Plus, I had the impression that Natalya had… changed. At least incrementally. I told Fiona, "When I said get rid of her, I didn't mean via a bullet to the back of the head and then a watery grave."

"I envisioned a threshing machine. No bullet at all. Very little residual evidence."

The truth was that I was prepared to do what I had to if she came at me.

Or my family.

Or Sam.

Or Fiona… again.

"Let's see where the Gandhi approach takes us first."

"It's nice you could have such humanistic feelings for a person who would have had me killed had I not been ten times more intelligent than she is," Fiona said. "Does she still have that awful hair? I recall her having awful hair and a very sinewy body. Or at least that's how she looked through my rifle scope. Terrible hair and truly repugnant taste in men."

When you're planning to infiltrate a hostile environment, it's important to take into consideration important factors: topography, weather, special equipment needs, disposition of the enemy, need for air support. You want to know the mind-set of the people you'll be dealing with so that you won't be surprised by the choices in logic they make. You want to know how to escape if everything collapses.

You want to avoid Coral Gables.

Specifically, the Alhambra Plaza, home to a pink stone Hyatt Regency and a complex of high-end office spaces and busy courtyards designed to make you feel like you're in Italy on the muggiest day in history. Coral Gables was one of the first planned communities in Florida, which means there are plenty of places for tourists to walk around with wall-eyed wonder at the shops and restaurants, for college students from The U to ride their bikes drunkenly down the wide paseos, and for four-way stops that bottle traffic while drivers consult their maps. A simple clue: Home is to the north. When you hit Canada, stop.

Palm Life's offices occupied the top floor of the Alhambra Plaza and were a testament to the power of pink. Pink marble on the ground. Pink sofas and chairs-all stuffed to the point of cotton explosion- in the lobby. Pink roses in towering vases placed in every corner. If I followed the receptionist home, I'm sure she'd have a little pink house.

As it was, she was young, beautiful, lithe and tanned to the point of crispness. I suspected that her name was probably Star, too, and that if I looked over her resume it would indicate a booming career updating her MySpace page and a degree in Face-book. Unlike the reservation clerks at the Oro, the receptionist here was actually allowed to sit behind a desk, albeit one made of pink marble, too. There were back issues of Palm Life fanned out around her, but I noticed she had an issue of US open on her lap. Didn't anyone read Soldier of Fortune anymore?

"Can I help you?" she asked. I noticed she had her fingernail pierced. Very classy.

"Yes," I said. "I'm Jay Gatz and this is Daisy Miller. We have an appointment with the photo editor concerning our upcoming charity event."

The receptionist raised her ears and eyebrows up at the same time. I guess the look she was going for was surprise followed by deep thought. It was a neat trick. If only more cocker spaniels could do it, the world would be a different, more introspective place. "Why do I know your names?" she said to me.

"He's exceptionally rich, darling," Fiona said. "He's in your magazine nearly every month. Maybe you don't recognize him without his oxygen tank."

This seemed to satisfy the receptionist. She made a few clicks on the computer and then picked up her phone and called someone, presumably the photo editor. Before we'd left Fiona's, I'd checked the masthead and hadn't found a single person listed in that capacity. I figured, best-case scenario, we'd get an editorial assistant who'd just give me whatever I asked for. Worst-case scenario, Fiona would hold the entire place under siege, and I'd get whatever I asked for.

I was hoping for a little uncontested middle ground.

"Hi, James? I have Jay Gatz and"-the receptionist pulled the phone away from her mouth and whispered to Fiona-"I'm sorry. What was your name?"

"Daisy Miller," Fiona said. It didn't matter. The receptionist was already back on the phone.

"Someone here to see you about their charity event." The receptionist nodded, scribbled something down on a Post-it, made a he's so crazy face at Fiona, just two girlfriends sharing the moronic intricacies of the male sex with each other and then hung up. "James says he doesn't have you down in his Crack-Berry, but since it's you, Mr. Gatz, he's happy to get you in." She ripped off the Post-it and handed it to me. "That's Mr. Dimon's office number. His name isn't on the door yet."

"What happened to…?" I began.

"Gunther? Bailed to a younger-skewing magazine in Dallas. Said that was going to be the next hot place. Lots of clubs and stuff. Did you know that Lindsay Lohan bought a place out there? It's about to jump off."

"Darling," Fiona said, "don't you own an oil field there?"

"Two," I said.

"Oil is cool," the receptionist said.

"Like black gold," I said.

The receptionist got up and walked us over to a twelve-foot-tall smoked-glass door and flashed an ID card to unlock it, then held it open as we walked past. Used to be the only places with decent security actually had something to protect. What were they protecting here? The good life?

"I just love your nails," Fiona said, tapping her finger on the ring dangling off the girl's right pinky. "That style is ready to jump off."

James Dimon's office was decorated in Bekins- boxes stacked up in every corner, a desk covered in packing popcorn-but the walls were covered in framed covers of Palm Life, some dating as far back as the eighties. The weird thing about the 1980s is that even though that's when I grew up, I don't actually remember everyone looking like they'd just been cut out of a Nagle painting. I also don't remember seeing so many people wearing shoulder pads. But there they were.

"You'll have to excuse the mess," James said. He'd taken a seat behind his desk in a leather chair that looked brand-new after he cleared a spot for Fiona and me on an equally pristine-looking sofa, but kept getting up and moving around. Less nervous twitch, more Red Bull. "I'm still unpacking. Crazy move. I'm going to get these photos down, too. We're really changing the whole image of the magazine. Embracing the now." He wore tight, narrow-legged jeans that had a strategic tear along the left hip that revealed a splash of too-white skin. Of all the things not to be pink. He had on a black-and-silver pinstriped shirt that was unbuttoned one button too low and revealed a clammy-looking chest completely devoid of hair. His office smelled like an eighth-grade dance: too much cologne, nebulous sexuality.

"Where are you down from?" I asked. I wasn't trying to sound like Jay Gatz, but it was working for me, so I figured I'd ride it. Plus, I've always wanted to use down in that way, but always felt like it wouldn't come off unless I had a sweater tied over my shoulders or a sailor's cap on my head.

"Across, technically," he said. "I was working for a magazine in LA LA Land. Thought I'd give the Right Coast a try." When he said Right Coast, he made an air-quote gesture with his fingers. "I had an offer to roll in"-air quote-"the Hampty Hamps. Another shot in"-air quote-"Hot Lanta. Had another chance to go to"-air quote-"Vegas, baby"- here he laughed, because that's what guys like James Dimon do: They laugh when they say Vegas, baby — "but in the end, it's all about South Beach. Being present in the moment."

I expected that, at any moment, he'd refer to New York as the Apple, Paris as the City of Light and Beirut as the Paris of the Middle East, and that he'd use air quotes each time. I also expected that if we somehow got back to his job in Los Angeles, he'd drop City of Angels and Tinseltown in the mix, as if La La wasn't enough. If he managed to work his way to Reno being the Biggest Little City in the World, I was going to throw him off the building.

"Yeah," I said. I had to gather myself a little. The air quotes had me dizzy. "Listen. Daisy and I appreciate your time. Gunther was always so helpful, and we've had such a great relationship with the magazine over the years, and so I hope you can do me the smallest favor."

"Mr. Gatz, I'm happy to do anything you need. It's just an honor to meet you. I'm a fan of all that you do," he said. "And even though we're changing the direction of the rag, we'll always have space for you and your-" James stopped midsentence, as if he wasn't quite sure where he was going in his conversation with me, which was possible, since he had already professed to being my fan. He looked at Fiona. He looked back at me. Had some cosmic convergence, continued on. "And your"-air quote- "lady"-air quote-"as long as I'm in charge of the art. Though, candidly, we're going to be moving more toward a photojournalism vibe… toward a feeling of…" He started searching for words again, but I was afraid he was only given to one cosmic convergence a day, my sense being that James Dimon only knew about a hundred, hundred and fifty independent words, and the rest were catchphrases.

"Being present in the moment?" Fiona suggested.

James Dimon snapped. As in, he actually started snapping. "Yes! Yes! That certain pate de foie gras you just can't find in other magazines out here. Gritty. Real. That's where I'm headed with Palm."

"Wonderful," I said. And I meant it, so I put air quotes around it, let James know we were of the same mind-set.

"Stunning," Fiona said.

Fiona turned and gave me a coy glance that, in the past, has meant that the fuse is lit and we have twenty seconds to get out of the building before it comes crashing down around us. I figured it was more of an interior fuse in this case, so I said, "Wonderful," again, because if James Dimon truly hated everything that had come before his arrival-and I suspected his stay would be short enough that he'd probably want to hold on to the boxes, lest he announce that anyone or anything else had a pate de fois gras-he probably would have no problem whatsoever letting me look through the photos of Cricket O'Connor tripping the light fantastic for literacy. In fact, I suspected that if I said tripping the light fantas tic, he'd start snapping again, which was something I wanted to avoid until I really needed it, as an idea was beginning to take shape in my mind about how I might use someone of James Dimon's particular… skill… down the line. If he wanted gritty, realistic, present in the moment shots of South Beach's glitterati, I thought there'd be some opportunities for us both to benefit. "About that favor, sport," I said.

"Anything, Mr. Gatz."

Once you've infiltrated a hostile enemy environment, the best way to find out if anyone cares about anything is to be as general as possible. Have specifics ready in case the conversation should devolve, but on the strong chance you're dealing with someone who clearly only has eyes for themselves- which, in the civil world (or the world not possessed by top secret documents, locations of missing nuclear warheads, stashes of drugs and guns) is the majority of the population-all you'll need is earnest banality rendered in the blandest colors.

"There was a benefit we attended last year; and Daisy just adored the ice sculpture. We were hoping we might take a look through your file photos, perhaps make a copy or two, so that Daisy can show it to an artist she has in mind for our own event." I reached over and put my hand on Fiona's, to let James know this was all her fault, that we were just two guys who knew that when our ladies wanted something, well, we did what we could.

"What was the gig?"

The gig. I wondered if I was on camera somewhere. "A fund-raiser for literacy held at Love/ Blue," I said.

"Yeah, yeah," James said. "What month was that?"

"May," Fiona said.

"May, and they had an ice sculpture?" James said. He shook his head like he was trying to get water out of his ears. "Cuh-razy." James gave us both an incredulous smile.

"Tell you what," I said. I was pretty much done being Jay Gatz. "Why don't you go get that magazine, figure out where you keep the photos and maybe bring me and my lady a bottle of water?" A yogurt wouldn't hurt, but I figured I shouldn't push it. Not that James Dimon would feel the push. He wouldn't have known if I broke two of his ribs. He'd just keep on keeping on. I added, "Please," however, just to be cordial.

"Hey, pas de probleme, Mr. Gatz." James stepped outside his office for a moment and came back in with the issue in hand. A moment later, an assistant walked in with water for both of us. I wasn't thirsty, but I liked asking James to get us water. "Yeah, yeah," he said. He had the magazine open and was scanning each image, commenting page by page. "Lighting was all wrong. Can't tell if it was a party or a funeral. Too many saggy-baggies. Gunther, always an F-stop off."

"James," I said. "Sport. That favor. The pictures."

An hour and forty minutes later, we found what we were looking for. James Dimon was long gone, as even he had quickly tired of our patter as we sifted through the photos-I said sport at least twelve times, Fiona used darling as a verb, noun and adjective, sometimes in the same sentence-and left us in the art morgue after the first five minutes, saying he had to get back to the renovation of the moment. I told him I'd be in touch. Fiona kissed him on both cheeks. He sent in his assistant with coffee and even more bottled water. It was like being on vacation.

After searching through contact sheets and stills filled with photos of young women dancing with old men, old women dancing with young men, young men dancing with old men, and young men dancing with other young men, all in the name of literacy and, it appeared, very shiny clothing, we finally found a photo of Dixon Woods and Cricket O'Connor.

It wasn't from the original photo in the magazine that first drew us into the office of Palm Life, but one that was taken as the guests were first arriving at the event. There were actually four photos taken of the couple, all a millisecond apart. In the first photo, Cricket and Dixon can be seen holding hands and looking straight ahead, but already Dixon's hand is rising up to cover his face, by the last photo he's fully concealed. There isn't a single shot of his entire face, but rather four shots of his face in varying degrees of cover.

"You can piece these together into a head shot?" I asked Fiona.

"Easy," she said. There was a more serious tone to her voice than I expected.

"Do you know him?"

"No," she said.

"He's not Special Forces," I said, though he had his game down, at least in terms of photos.

"No," she said, "he's not."

"I'd guess he wasn't even ROTC."

Fiona rearranged the photos on the table, put a hand over Cricket, then over Dixon's hair, then again across his midsection.

"Is there a reason he'd want to buy guns?" Fiona asked.

Before I could answer, my cell rang. It was Sam.

"Mikey," he said, his voice a barely audible whisper, "I'm in a bit of a… situation."

"Where are you?"

"Offices of Longstreet Security," he said. He gave me the address. It was near the airport, just a few miles away.

"Armed?"

"Them?"

"You."

"Not enough."

I checked my watch. "We'll be there in fifteen minutes."

"At the gate, if they ask, tell them you're with Chazz Finley," Sam said. "That's two Zs."