Formerly Fingerman (10 page)

With alpha dog now firmly established, Brittany moved forward.

“Let's start the paperwork.”

Brittany and Brad sat at the long conference table, while Stump stood watching. Despite the fact that they were in a secure room in FBI offices, Stump was on full alert. Sunglasses on. Knees slightly bent. Breathing regulated. He could stand for hours and God help the man who entered the room without knocking first. Even Brad was careful not to make any furtive movements, sipping his Pepsi nice and easy.

Brittany clicked her pen and got down to brass tacks. “So, here's the story. You're going to disappear. You're leaving your life behind today and starting over completely.”

Brad nodded. Fine with him.

“Now it's customary to bring along a wife, girlfriend . . .”

“Both.”

That was Stump's favorite joke. Brittany continued.

“. . . both if you must. Children or anyone else who might be important to you. Of course they'll have to abide by the same rules you do, and as you might imagine it can be very hard on a marriage to start over as someone else. We do provide counseling to help you through the rocky parts if you need it. Or if you're free and clear, we bring you in alone.”

As Brittany spoke, Brad flashed through the events that brought him back to her office this afternoon. He was a Mafia-targeted, chicken costume wearing, fast food restaurant flier distribution technician who had blown a huge interview for the only job in town before walking in on his wife banging the bejeezus out of a complete stranger. Brad realized he was dealing with the anxiety of these memories by twirling the gold band around his left ring finger and eased it off his hand like a tipsy salesman in the middle of a lap dance. He slipped it into his pocket, and felt his finger sans wedding ring. Better.

Brittany wrapped her speech up.

“So, anyone you might want to join you in this new life?”

“Do I have to bring someone?”

“No. But if you don't, you won't be allowed to see them again.”

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

Brad didn't hesitate.

“Nope. No one. I'm free.”

“Great then.”

She scribbled a few lines in Brad's file.

“No family to move. That certainly makes things easy. So if you'll sign here, we can get you out of here.”

She turned his file around and slid it across the table to him with a pen. Brad raised his eyebrows, unsure of what to make of this paper.

“It's an agreement between you and the government stating that in exchange for a new identity, a lifetime of protection, and a guarantee of safety, you agree to testify in a court of law about what you saw in the elevator with Carmine Mastramouro. We can fill in the details from that day once we get you situated.”

“A contract?”

“You could call it that.”

“Shouldn't I have a lawyer look at this or something?”

The answer was yes. Any reasonable person would have told Brad to seek the advice of counsel. Except for the fact that there was a ticking clock in the form of Frank Fortunato and his legion of soldiers that may or may not know who and where Brad was at that moment.

“Of course you're welcome to have an attorney look this over, but Brad, you're helping us out. Do you really think we're trying to screw you?”

Truth be told, the contract was little more than a trophy for Brittany to show her superiors. If she could have had a life-size replica of Brad stuffed and mounted on her office wall she would have done that, but most likely that wouldn't fly with FBI office regulations. Instead, there was this piece of paper. There were equal chances it would be filed with the main office or pasted into her scrapbook of work memorabilia. It served mostly as a symbolic gesture between two mutually dependent entities. Like small talk with a hooker. Most Johns don't really care about the recent cold snap; they just want to establish that neither party in the transaction is a psycho while they park their sedan behind the Winn Dixie.

If Brad decided he didn't want to testify after he signed the contract, there was very little they could do. Drop the protection. Walk away. But that was about it. They had no leverage to make him testify. And if he didn't say anything in court, Brad didn't need protection anyway. He was in the driver's seat. And once the trial was done, as far as Brittany was concerned, Brad could spend his life on a beach somewhere pissing away the government's money on rum drinks and foot rubs. As long as she got what she wanted.

Come on and sign, motherfucker.

Brad stared at the blank signature line. There was always counseling, right? Didn't Gracie recommend that to her clients before they divorced? Probably not, but it seemed reasonable. Just to make sure no stone was left unturned. Didn't couples go through stuff like this all the time and survive? Rough patches. Rocky spots. Spats. Didn't he owe her at least that much? They were married, for heaven's sake. On top of that, Brad knew he was a talented guy. The vodka thing would blow over eventually, no? He wasn't always going to be in a chicken suit. Things had to change. They had to. If he just kept his head up and his nose to the grindst . . .

Fuck it. Brad looked up.

“Can I say goodbye to one person?”

Brittany looked to Stump who nodded almost imperceptibly, as if he'd been waiting for the question.

“Okay, but we're going with you.”

Brad had no idea where this vine was headed. But even if he ended up faceplanting into a massive sequoia, it had to be better than where he was now.

Brad wrote his signature on the contract and it was done.

Brad called ahead to make sure his wife wasn't still home and there would be no strange workmen servicing his, err, apartment. Gracie was not the one person he was interested in saying goodbye to. But his clothes and PlayStation weren't going to pack themselves.

There was no answer at the apartment, so he called her cell phone. When she picked up, he heard the sounds of the street. It sounded like she was out, so he hung up. She was usually headed to spinning right about now. Or maybe to sleep with the Knicks. She had one of those flexible schedules.

“All right.”

This time James didn't give Brad the crazy eye. Just the usual I'm-clocked-in-until-six-whether-you-need-me-or-not greeting, as if everything had been a dream or somehow forgotten. Brad couldn't help but wonder how many Gracie-and-cable-guy type of hookups James was aware of. Must have been dozens. Brad couldn't be the only one getting cuckolded here, right? It's a big city. This was a big building. Twenty-five floors of opportunity. His mind reeled with the possibilities. And who knows what James thought of Brad walking in with a stiff like Brittany and a stallion like Stump. Did Brad now have the stink of adultery by association? Was it just another day at the office for James? Infidelity another delivery to be signed for?

Brad stepped over to ask his doorman who else was getting their cable upgraded on a regular basis, but James cut him off with some rote politeness.

“Yes, sir. Nice weather, isn't it? Can I get you a cab?”

“I just walked in.”

“All right.”

Brad held his gaze on James for a beat, but the guy kept looking out to the street like a fully realized idiot. Those secrets were going to the grave with him.

“Is my wife still here?”

“Oh, no sir. She left about an hour ago. Looked like she was headed to the gym.”

“Uh-huh. Thanks.”

Brad headed for the elevator.

“Oh, and congratulations Mr. Fingerman. She said you finally got HBO. She seemed thrilled.”

Stump and Brittany waited in the lobby to give Brad the last bit of privacy he would enjoy for a long time. There was virtually no chance Frank could have figured out Brad's address yet, and Brad would be inside on a high floor for a brief amount of time, so this tiny breach could be allowed.

Brad walked into his apartment to find it exactly as he left it this morning. The bed was made. The dishes were done. The view was fabulous. It still smelled a little like sex. So maybe not exactly as he left it this morning.

He went to the bedroom closet, ripped a suitcase from the back of his top shelf and tossed it on the bed. He pulled every piece of clothing he had out of his closet and threw the pile into the open suitcase, hangers and all, like he'd seen in the movies so many times. Then he took them all out and removed the hangers. No way was that ever going to fit.

Surrounded by the pictures and knickknacks that were now essentially memorabilia from his life with Gracie, he couldn't help drifting back into a few fond memories. Their trip to Carmel. Skiing at Big Bear. That one summer they rented the house in the Hamptons and the gardener kept showing up to trim the same hedges every time Brad went for a jog on the beach. Wait. Dammit!

Brad stormed into the bathroom and dumped all of his toiletries into a Dopp kit. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and realized he was crying. He was going to miss this life he and Gracie shared together. Aside from her revolving door of a vagina, it had been pretty nice. They got along pretty good for people who had been married for five years. They laughed at the same jokes, tended to like the same desserts, and both passionately hated Salma Hayek's ridiculous accent. Really, aside from the whole vegan thing and her having relations with a high percentage of TV's most coveted demographic behind his back, there weren't any real problems. Such a shame.

Brad's thoughts were interrupted by the buzz of the doorman's phone. James was calling up. Uh-oh. Was this the heads up that Gracie was on her way back up? Did James have Brad's back? Had Brad misjudged him?

“Hello?”

“Your friend says you got to go.”

“Stump?”

“Excuse me?”

“The big guy I came in with.”

“That's him. He says you have to go.”

“Tell him I'll be right down.”

Brad took a moment to compose himself. He should leave a note. Be the bigger person, or at least mitigate the cowardly act of running away with some sort of explanation. That way she wouldn't have to sneak around anymore. If nothing else, Brad was thoughtful.

He grabbed a pen and a few slips of the
Brad and Gracie
stationery her brother always gave them for Christmas. No point in conserving that anymore.

He carefully folded the note in half, wrote her name on the front and tucked a corner of it under the vase of tulips by the door. Then he pulled it right back, ripped it up, and used one of her most expensive lipsticks to leave a note on the mirror.

Brad left his keys on the dresser, grabbed his suitcase, and walked out the front door. When the elevator finally came, Brad stood and stared long enough for it to close without him. Then he hit the Up button. The same door opened again and he got in. Maybe there was one last option.

The great thing about the roof deck that Brad's building bragged so much about in their
Sunday Times
ads was the three-hundred-sixty-degree view. You could see for miles from up there. There was one building across the street, but it was about two stories lower than his so it didn't interfere too much. The other great thing was the access one had to the edge. A twenty-five-story view straight down. It was beautiful in a way that most people would never see because they would never stand on the rail like Brad was right then.

His thinking was that maybe there was a clean solution to this, after all. Brad would simultaneously remove himself from several situations where he clearly wasn't wanted, and he wouldn't be wasting anyone's time by lying about what he saw in that elevator. On some level it made sense. It wasn't the East River swallowing him up like he had envisioned so many times, but the results would be essentially the same, if a little messier. It felt right. More right than when he pretended from the safety of the bench that he was doing it. The river was for posers. This was the real deal. He might even make the
Post
. Yes, there were definitely pros to this plan. The cons were obvious, but in Brad's current swirling fog of emotion, it was unclear which side outweighed the other. If only there was some way to know for sure.

It would have been so awesome if he had a super-smart dog that ran up and started yanking at his pant leg with his teeth, or a plucky neighbor kid said something cute and/or clever to stop him from jumping, but those were relationships that he had never formed. It was Brad alone standing on the ledge, thinking about what would happen if he took one big step forward. He looked down again. Yup. Still way high. Aside from Stump and Brittany, who would notice he was gone? Frank? He would probably have his men put a few bullets in Brad's flat body anyway, just to make a point. Gracie? It didn't seem like a stretch to assume she would get over it pretty easily. Would anyone really care that this nobody with nothing had jumped?

Something in one of the apartment windows of the slightly shorter building across the street caught Brad's eye. It was a shirtless man waving furiously at him.

Wow. Maybe someone did care.

The man raised his eyebrows as high as he could get them and held up a finger to say
Hold on one second
. Brad looked around to make sure he was the intended recipient of the message. It appeared he was. He nodded his agreement. Did this perfect stranger have some insight into Brad's turmoil and confusion? Perhaps even been in his situation before? Could it be that someone who didn't even know him actually gave a shit?