Or that was the plan provided Sam ever heard back from his buddies in the Bureau. If he didn’t hear back from them, we’d need Barry’s help. “Bring the van around,” I said to Sam once we had Max restrained appropriately. “Let’s get this guy out of sight.”
While Sam got the van, I took a look inside the house. The entryway was nicely tiled and the living room looked like it had been cut and pasted from a Pottery Barn catalog. But one thing you can’t hide with nice tile and furniture is the smell of an entire forest of marijuana being cultivated inside of a house, particularly since the temperature in the house was at least eighty-five degrees, which gave everything a dank, swampy feel.
I opened a door at the end of the entry hall and found what used to be a kitchen. There was still plenty of counter space and a nice sink in place, but the flooring had been ripped out and a series of tubes and cables crisscrossed the place where the floor used to be. Water sprayed periodically into the air from one of the tubes and a whirring overhead fan spun lazily. For a moment I was reminded of Havana, until I remembered that when I was in Havana I never saw ten- foot-high marijuana trees inside a $500,000 house.
I heard a sound behind me and saw that Max was starting to stir. I would need to handle this situation delicately. I knelt down in front of him.
“Max,” I said, “you’ve been hit in the face.”
“My jaw really hurts,” he said.
“It’s going to for about a week. You might want to see a dentist if your bite feels off.”
Max processed that. “You’re not here to kill me?”
“No,” I said, “but I am going to need to kidnap you for a little while. When we release you, I’d advise you to find another line of work. Because eventually? Your bosses would find a reason to kill you and that’s no kind of job security.”
“Yeah,” Max said. “The economy, man, you know.”
“I know,” I said. Sam pulled the van around, so I stood Max up and walked him outside. We put him in the back of the van, which didn’t seem to bother him, since he just kept jabbering on.
“Should I duct-tape his mouth?” Sam said.
I thought for a moment. “No,” I said, “let’s see if we can find him some pork rinds.”
“Good plan,” Sam said and closed the door on Max.
After we got the van moving, I called Fiona. “You ready?” I asked when she picked up.
“What am I doing again?”
“You’re indulging a fantasy,” I said. “And probably saving a life.”
“And what do I earn on this?”
“Steal whatever you like,” I said.
“No one to beat up, then?”
“I think you’ve done enough.”
“I just assumed there’d be some terribly scarred and intermittently stoned caretaker I could engage.”
“No, I took care of that,” I said. “The house is empty. The street is vacant for at least thirty minutes, so get in and out and make as big a mess as possible.”
“Yes, about that.” Fiona lowered her voice. “Bruce wants to break in through the roof.”
“So break in through the roof,” I said.
“Michael, I don’t want him falling on me,” she whispered.
“The front door is open,” I said. “Tell him to check it first and then get in and out.”
“That’s a plan I can support,” she said, a hint of mischief in her voice. Happy again. Nothing like the freedom to do a rush bang-and-run job to get Fiona off the bubble.
“Just make sure to leave enough evidence,” I said.
“Michael, if Bruce keeps hitting on me, I might leave a body,” she said. “Anything else?”
“Don’t touch the SUV in the driveway,” I said. “It’s wired with enough C-4 to take out the eastern seaboard.”
“Nice touch.”
“And if any soccer moms return to their homes early, try not to do anything that might accidentally send the SUV up in flames. Or any of their SUVs.”
It’s not that I think Fiona would actually do these things. Rather, it’s important to point out to her that I know she’s capable of doing these things, which will put the seed in her head, true, but will also remind her that she’s not allowed to blow up everything in the vicinity. These days, with no one protecting me and no one protecting Fiona but me, it’s wise to keep a buffer between myself and wholesale destruction.
“You are the enemy of fun,” Fiona said. “Would you like to speak with Robin Hood before we initiate our crime spree?”
“No,” I said.
“Great, here he is,” Fiona said and then Bruce said, “Hey, buddy. This is going to work great.”
“Fantastic,” I said.
“I’ll show our little Irish friend a trick or two.”
“You do that.”
“And Michael?”
“Yes, Bruce?”
“Thank you,” he said. “For all of this. I’m an old man. And I know that.”
“You’re welcome,” I said and meant it.
“If something happens to me,” he said, “you’ll take care of my mother?”
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” I said.
“But if something did.”
Working with clients is often more about human resources management than actual hand-to-hand fighting or innovative spying technology. People, at the end of the day, want to be protected and want their families to be protected. Bruce, on the other hand, had already done the most he could to try to keep his mother safe, had sacrificed time-years, really-a finger, and was willing to commit a crime against a gang of men who’d just as soon kill themselves as let him walk the earth knowing he’d gotten over on them.
It wasn’t guts, exactly.
It wasn’t heroism.
It was probably a lot like love.
We do things for our parents because even if we have issues with them, there’s a genetic responsibility. There’s a reason I fixed up the Charger and there’s a reason I’ve fixed my mother’s disposal ten times in the last eighteen months.
“If a tsunami rolls into Miami,” I said, “or a hurricane or a plague of locusts or every motorcycle gang in the country, know that all of them will need to go through me to get to your mother. And then Fiona, too.”
“Really?”
“Really,” I said.
“Okay, then,” he said. He gave the phone back to Fiona.
“All taken care of,” I said.
“Wonderful,” Fiona said and then, in the background, I heard Bruce shout, “Let’s do some crime, little lady!”
19
If you really want to violate someone, to make them feel afraid and lost and vulnerable, steal something from them that appears to have zero street value. Stealing a computer or a television or a car is an understandable crime-there’s a tangible reward along the line. But if you steal someone’s shoes, or their photo album, or a single candlestick, the person you steal it from is going to have complex emotions of loss coupled with the sense that their lives are somehow being perpetually invaded.
Which is why Fiona stole all of the Banshees’ C-4 from beneath the SUV.
And the steering wheel from the SUV.
And the Obama sticker.
And destroyed the hydroponic system in the kitchen and set off a fire extinguisher in the upstairs bedrooms, which is where packages of marijuana were being packed and readied for shipment.
So while Bruce carted away enough marijuana to start his own summer reggae tour-which he and Fiona then promptly dumped into a canal-Fiona carted away the security the Banshees had.
Not only had they been robbed.
Not only was their man of the house missing.
Not only had their means of continued production been destroyed.