The fix

9

Best-case scenario: You have a plan of attack and everything happens just as it is supposed to. Let's say, for instance, you're waiting for men to arrive with whatever it is you need.

A hostage.

Guns.

Money.

Or maybe it's just a message: The definitive new set of rules that dictate that no one shall make bombs defused by using either a red or blue wire but instead everyone will use the much more easily found black wire and that popular myths of bomb defusion shall reflect said change.

That would be a good message. Helpful to the world. Kids would grow up safer. The terrorists and bad guys and evildoers would lose.

The problem is, most messages, if they're delivered to you personally, end up being bad news. So you learn to prepare for the bad news first. You plan and you counterplan. You devise. You configure. You craft.

You alter.

You mine.

Your best-case scenario ends up being that you've prepared the perfect trap and you end up not needing to use it at all. James Bond, he never had a plan. He had gadgets some research-and-development team would have needed decades to perfect. Jason Bourne? A robot in human skin. Every spy you've ever seen on TV or in a movie has the benefit of special effects-when it gets down to business, all you really have is your plan and your ability to throw it out the window and react to circumstance, deal with consequence, keep fighting.

Or, as I first learned: You either follow tradecraft or you create it.

I didn't fully understand that credo then, but now, when all I can depend on is what I can find myself, it's never made more sense.

Which is why Fiona was in Cricket's garage making tear gas.

Which is why Sam was planting solar-paneled Malibu lights under the windows of Cricket's window… and then running fuses from them to tiny explosive squibs under the dirt. Tomorrow, if things went according to plan, those Malibu lights would deliver Fiona's tear gas.

Which is why Cricket O'Connor was standing on her circular staircase watching as Nate and I dragged in new furniture.

Appearances are important, so I asked Nate if it would be possible for him to find some nice furniture we could borrow for a few hours. When he demurred, I mentioned the truck full of men's suits. And now there was a living room filled with furniture.

"Do I want to know where you got this stuff?" I asked. We'd just dragged in a love seat, and Nate was hanging a circular mirror above the fireplace.

"Probably not," Nate said.

I lifted up the cushion on the love seat. I found just under a dollar in change, a takeout menu for a Thai restaurant and a High School Musical DVD. "Tell me this wasn't in a kids' room."

"It wasn't in a kids' room."

"A lot of adults watching High School Musical these days, Nate?"

"Yes, for your information."

I pulled the DVD out and handed it to Nate. "You're responsible for getting this back to its rightful owner. Can I trust you on that?"

"Sure, bro, sure."

I caught my breath and looked at what Nate and I had assembled. A love seat, another sofa, some pillows, enough to make the place look lived in again.

"Any problem if someone bleeds on the rest of this stuff?" I asked.

"Not from my point of view."

"What about the point of view of the owners?"

"Lot of empty houses around these days," Nate said. "Subprime loans that went upside down. Snowbirds. Easy pickings."

"How do you know about subprime loans?"

"I've got a TV. I read the newspaper," Nate said. "You know, while you were off not stopping terrorism from entering our shores, I did learn how to read."

"Comics don't count. Or your horoscope."

"The word is astrology," Nate said.

"Whatever," I said. "I'll try not to get any blood on anything."

"I do you a favor, you could say thank you."

He was right. It's hard for me to say thank you. I'm learning, still. "I appreciate it, Nate," I said. "I really do. With a gold star on top for best behavior. How's that?"

"Just what I wanted to hear," Nate said. "If you'd like something you see, I could probably arrange to get you a few pieces for your place after all of this is up."

"I'm more of a minimalist," I said. I pointed at the mirror. "It's crooked."

Nate looked at it one way. Looked at it another. "Don't see it," he said.

"Trust me," I said. "It's about a half an inch off on the right."

"It's not permanent."

I went over and readjusted the mirror.

"Now it is crooked," Nate said and he went over and pushed it the other direction.

This went on for a couple minutes, until Cricket said from above, "It's fine, Mr. Westen."

"See?" Nate said.

"She was talking to me," I said.

"Why, because she said Mr.? You do that all the time, thinking people don't respect me. I'm here doing a job just like you are," Nate said. "A guy could learn to resent his brother really quick."

"Learn?" I said.

And so it went for another few moments, until Sam, who I hadn't see enter the room, but who nonetheless was standing in the entry hall between the kitchen and the living room holding a band of copper wiring, cleared his throat. When I turned and saw him, I also saw Cricket, who by this time looked even more stricken than usual and was standing beside Sam.

"I'm sorry," I said to Cricket. "Family."

"I know," she said. "I'm not upset about that. I'm upset that I don't have that anymore. You two arguing reminds me of my son and his father. You two have a real shorthand, even when you're angry or frustrated. You only find that with people who love each other. I guess I should have recognized that sooner."

I understood and said so. "Nate," I said, "I don't think you've been properly introduced. This is Cricket O'Connor. She's the person we're helping here. Cricket, this is my brother, Nate Westen. He's kindly found us some furniture to use for the day."

Nate wiped his hands off on his pants, then apologized for wiping his hands off on his pants, and then finally just walked up and shook Cricket's hand. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said, as if he were at a funeral for someone he didn't know, which, in a way, he was. We all were.

"Of what?" Cricket said.

"Of everything," Nate said.

Cricket smiled wanly at Nate. "I appreciate your help," she said. "It's not for me, though."

Nate looked at her quizzically, so I stepped in before he could speak any more. "I haven't explained everything to Nate," I said. I ran down the basics.

"Why haven't you just found this asshole and shot him?" Nate asked when I finished.

"What good would it do for those families Cricket is supporting if I kill him, Nate? How does that make me any better than he is? This is about getting back what's been taken and using it for the right reasons."

"I get it," Nate said, "though you have to admit it would be awfully satisfying to shoot him."

Everyone agreed that was true, including, much to my surprise, Cricket. That, too, would pass. If everything went according to plan, or even if it didn't, Cricket would still have her own heartache to deal with. The difference between love and hate isn't so severe when you're in the thick of either emotion and I did realize by then one important thing: Though Cricket had been bamboozled, had lost everything, really, she still felt something for the man who swept her off her feet, even if it was a lie. I thought about the photos Fiona and I saw of them at that benefit. Thought about how happy Cricket looked. How as she and Eddie Champagne walked into that party they looked like real people, like people you'd see in a magazine and imagine had the most perfect life, people you'd wish you were.

Your life is never as rich as what other people presume it is or, often, what you believe it is. It happened to Cricket with her first husband, too, which made it all the worse. But I guess it happens to all of us, eventually: We lose track of what it was we thought we were doing with ourselves, and one day, we wake up, and we are in a fix beyond our control.

Cricket O'Connor got her own burn notice.

I'd try to make it right for one of us.

Bullies never take on anyone they can't beat. That's what makes them predictable. You want to find a coward? Remove all forms of inevitability. Change circumstances. Introduce unusual danger.

Or, barring that, know how to make tear gas.

Everything you need can be found at Home Depot or Lowe's, or, if you live in a city that has a Super Wal-Mart, you can get all your tear gas ingredients at the same time you purchase a rifle, the entire first season of The Love Boat on DVD and clothes made by Malaysians. And since 9/11, they even carry gas masks now, too. Bulk shopping at its best: entertainment, fashion, terrorism and safety all in one place.

Guns are easy until you have to use one. In the history of combat, before we started desensitizing our soldiers and happily allowed them to return home mentally neutered, traditionally only 15 percent of the people tasked with shooting another person were actually able to do it. There's a reason why firing squads were used for decades-most of the shooters will miss out of simple human nature. But if you aren't sure you're the person who provided the kill shot, it's much easier to go through life without putting another bullet in your own head.

Tear gas, on the other hand, has no moral component.

Nor does Fiona when it comes to making weapons.

"If you gave me a bit more time," Fiona said, "I could make a batch of mustard gas."

"That's all right," I said. "No reason to take down the whole island." Fiona and I were in Cricket's garage mixing up a usable sum of tear gas to use for personal consumption. And by personal, I mean I was going to take great personal glee in using it on the people shaking Cricket down, who, I was beginning to suspect, were far from real bad guys. Real bad guys don't just keep coming back for more money like their mark is an ATM machine or the newest fish in a pyramid scheme.

Real bad guys would expect someone like Cricket to go to the police. Real bad guys would have killed Cricket. Real bad guys didn't give a shit about people like Eddie Champagne, because a real bad guy would know a guy as sloppy and stupid as I was beginning to see Eddie was could never be someone like Dixon Woods. Dixon Woods wasn't stupid. Dixon Woods wasn't sloppy. Dixon Woods might be a bad guy, he might be a good guy, but what he wasn't was a fool.

Tomorrow, I'd see if I could work around that.

"Too bad," Fiona said. She'd set up a workstation in Cricket's garage and was now running a length of rubber tubing outside to a hose spigot. "Clamp this," she said when she returned and handed me one end of the tube and what looked like a jam jar. She moved around behind me, her hand sliding across my back, and stood beside me again, and started measuring out the sodium bisulfate. She worked delicately with the compound, cutting and sizing while I fixed together a series of tubes and ad hoc beakers, using mostly things we'd cleaned out of Cricket's cabinets and refrigerator.

The problem with using things like peanut butter and jelly jars instead of sanitized lab equipment is that you can never be sure what's been left behind. A little peanut oil can mean a lot of fire. And when you're making tear gas, a lot of fire is not, patently, a good thing.

"Careful," I said. Fiona was about to mix the sodium bisulfate with glycerin soap-not the perfect recipe for tear gas, but one that will do in a pinch, or when you can't find a craft store that has the purest stuff. Fortunately, Cricket had plenty of very good soap, and very good soap is what you need if you want to make tear gas in the garage of your mansion.

"Careful, yourself," Fiona said. "You should stand back. I'm going to heat this now."

I moved closer to her.

A weird thing happens between Fiona and me when we make weapons.

It's not sexual in the physical sense, but it certainly is mentally. There is a quality of excitement when you know you're working on something lethal with someone who understands what lethal really means. It's more than shared experience, of course, because if it were, I'd find Sam equally attractive. You spend your life feinting from things that can hurt you or you dive headlong, there is no middle ground, and so when you find someone who shares a chemical disposition toward immersion… and if she happens to casually roll against you in ways that make you think of the sex you imagined before you ever had sex… even when you're wearing gas masks, which, at the moment, we were… well, you keep them in your life, even if it's ultimately bad for your health.

"If we are both permanently disfigured," I said, "we'll still have each other."

"Enticing," Fiona said and then she mixed the sodium bisulfate and soap together without incident. We spent the next several minutes hip to hip, finger to finger, breath to breath (albeit in gas masks), capturing gas into rubber-stopped glass vials.

It was the best date I'd been on in a long, long time.

When we were done, we washed off using the hose on the side of the yard so we wouldn't bring any residual chemicals into the house. Even I couldn't disregard how bizarre things sometimes were between us.

"What are you smiling about?" Fi asked.

"This," I said. "You and me. Giving each other a hose shower after making tear gas."

"It's not the strangest thing."

"No," I said. "No, it's not."

"It could be a lot worse, Michael. You could be searching for women on the Internet."

"That would be worse." We hadn't heard from Eddie through Fiona's profile yet, but I had a feeling today would be the day. Call it intuition. Call it knowing that Eddie Champagne was about to have a cash-flow problem. Call it by any name you want, but what's great about bullies, even weak ones, is mat they are predictable, and, if you know what vou're doing, you can plan for things they don't even know they're about to think.

I turned off the hose and Fi and I toweled off using a few of Cricket's guest towels, which must have had an insanely high thread count, since even Fi sort of paused and rubbed it along her cheek.

"You could be in a situation like Cricket's," X said.

"Oh, that wouldn't be so bad," she said. "I could get used to this house. These towels. A Bentley or two. I might even take up badminton."

"A couple weeks in a place like this, you'd be robbing banks again."

"You don't know, Michael. I might really enjoy hitting the shuttlecock." I laughed. It felt pretty good. Of course, I'd have to give up meaningful moments like this with you."

"I don't know, Fi. You're right about that," I said, 'though I might be inclined to look you up online eventually, see if you were interested in former spies looking for a good home."

"It wouldn't be a good home," Fiona said. She was close to me now, as close as we'd been making the tear gas. "You'd be gone before I would be."

"Maybe."

"And there'd always be someone like Natalya for you to worry about."

"Who said I was worried?"

Fiona patted my chest and then left her hand there, her fingers pressing and releasing. "You're human, Michael, even if you swear you're not."

"Fi," I said.

"I know. I know. I saw the movie, too."

"Which one was that?"

"Bad man. Bad woman. Bad things happen and then the woman inevitably is left to pine away for her dark man. And then he comes back, someone smirks and it's a happy ending. Always so stupid. You'd think one day someone would call for a little authenticity. All the endings I've been part of have been unhappy, if you want the truth, if it involves bad men and bad women."

Fiona was smiling now, aware of her moment, probably thinking, Yeah, now I've got Michael ponder ing how mundane we've made these things. They even make movies about it…

"What is that, The Maltese Falcon?"

Smile still there, but a little angry now. These games we play, they're fun. They are. But at base, she's a woman, I'm a man and we're always about one reflex away from platonic going erotic. "The point is, Michael, I already know the why. It doesn't change things, because here we are."

"Don't tell me it was a Bond film. Those things make me crazy." Above us, a plane was making its descent into Miami, the airport only a few miles away from Fisher Island, but another world away in every other sense. The buzzing of the engine caught Fiona's attention, too, and for a moment we both just watched the plane as it banked slightly to the east to start its circle down. When it was gone from overhead, I looked down at Fiona. She was beautiful. Is beautiful. And yet. And yet. "You ever wonder, Fi, about what else is out there for you."

"I've told you before, Michael, I know what's out mere. It's not compelling."

"This is? Whatever we have here?"

"It's better."

"Maybe you'll die because it was better. That ever occur to you?"

"You wouldn't let that happen, now, would you, Michael?"

I wanted to kiss her. I really did.

"No, I suppose I wouldn't. Aren't you lucky. Did I tell you Natalya called you my pit bull?"

"Failed to mention that."

"I thought you'd like that," I said.

I had a really good sense Fiona wanted to kiss me, too. It was the way she was pressing herself into me, theway I was intimately aware of the word pelvis.

"She call me any other names?"

"Not that I recall," I said.

Things were moving at a pace I wasn't entirely comfortable with, but which were nonetheless acquiring their own velocity. I put a hand on Fiona's clavicle and gently pushed her backward. "You need to get out of here," I said. I checked my watch. It was four thirty. I wanted Fiona back at my mother's, just in a case any more Communists showed up. Sam and Nate needed to leave me and Cricket alone, at least for a little while.

"Of course I do," she said, that smile back again. She finally stepped away from me, though I could still feel her fingers on my chest, other parts of her on other parts of me. "That's what makes it compelling, Michael. You're the only man who can push a woman away even when you know it would be a good time."

"I can't be the only one," I said.

"The only one I care about," Fiona said.