Tod Goldberg: The End Game

The nice thing about being paranoid? It gets you to cover your ass when you might normally let it hang out in the open. Even though Sam was no longer regularly informing on me to the FBI, it was important to keep him abreast of potential issues that might arise in the event that I’m at some point implicated, along with Fi, in blowing up a million-dollar yacht.

So, after we hit Miami Beach, and after I called my mom to let her know we were running a little late because something had just blown up in Biscayne Bay, I dialed Sam. “Just if you’re curious,” I said when he answered, “that didn’t have anything to do with me.”

“What didn’t?” he said.

I could hear talking in the background and dishes being gathered up. The clink of glasses. Silverware. I looked at my watch. It was about twelve thirty, which meant Sam had been at the Cafe Carlito for about two hours and five to seven beers. I doubted he was watching the news.

“Some yacht just went kaboom in the bay,” I said.

“Funny thing,” he said. “I just met with someone about a yacht.”

“I know where you can get one cheap,” I said. “Might need some work.”

“A guy with a job,” Sam said. “Needs some discreet help. I told him I knew just the person.”

“How discreet is it if you tell everyone who asks?” This caused Sam to pause and think. While Sam has had to act as the eyes and ears on me for the government, it’s more passive than aggressive. In fact, it’s almost completely passive now. We have an agreement that he’ll give the least he can and I won’t imperil him more than I have to. It works about fifty percent of the time, and that’s largely his fifty percent. “Fi and I are having lunch with my mother. Where are you going to be in an hour?”

“Training for a ten K,” Sam said.

“So the Carlito?” I said.

“Unless they run out of limes,” he said.

“Got it,” I said.

“And you said a yacht blew up?”

“A big one.”

“You see any Italians in expensive suits running from the scene?”

“I didn’t see the scene,” I said. “It was on the water.”

“Well, good. What about in sweat suits?”

“Sam,” I said, “have you agreed to help some mobbed-up pigeon?”

“No, no,” he said.

“You’re just keeping an eye out for Italians in expensive suits and track wear these days?”

“Give your mom my best,” he said. “She and Virgil having a special day, too?”

Virgil was an old friend of Sam’s who, inexplicably, took a shine to my mother after we twice helped him with special problems, once involving vicious drug dealers and once… well, involving another group of vicious drug dealers. Subsequently, he and my mother have had a thing. Not a thing like what Fiona and I have. Nor a thing I really want to consider, ever, or even a thing like my mother and father had, but a thing no less. You never want to think of your parents having a romantic life. It’s the sort of thought process that makes therapy appointments even more uncomfortable.

It was also an excellent way of changing the subject. You deal with people with psy-ops training, you have to figure they’ll occasionally put their training to use.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Ah, Mikey, it’s good for both of them. Just like that song said. Two less lonely people in the world,” Sam said.

“I’m afraid I don’t know that song.”

“Little before your time. We tortured Noriega with it. Now it sort of runs in a loop in my head. Anyway, I think it’s sweet. Have a laugh, Mikey-it’s a funny situation.”

“This is me laughing,” I said, and hung up. We were driving down 5th Street and Fi told me to take a right on Collins, and then a brief left on 3rd Street, and then had me stop in front of a big red-striped edifice that made me wonder if my thoughts were somehow getting uploaded to a master computer that was transmitting directly to Fi and my mother.

“T.G.I. Friday’s?” I said. “You told my mother to meet us at T.G.I. Friday’s?”

“Your mother loves it,” she said, “and they actually serve protein-based foods, so it will be a nice shock to your system.”

As we walked into the restaurant, I tried to remember how we used to spend Mother’s Day, back when Dad was still alive and Nate and I were still just kids, not whatever we are now. I had a vague memory of a trip north to Weeki Wa chee Springs to see the mermaid show, another memory of Ma throwing a plate of frozen meat at Dad after he forgot to get her anything, another of us asking when kid’s day was and her telling us that every day was kid’s day, except that I don’t precisely recall ever having a day that felt all that celebratory for being the kind of kid I was.

Ma sat at a table with a huge vase of flowers in the middle of it. She looked positively beatific in her glow. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw her like that. When she saw us, she jumped up from the table and threw her arms around me.

“Oh, Michael,” she said, “you shouldn’t have.”

“It was nothing,” I said. I had no idea what she was talking about.

“It was just so unexpected,” she said. She was still holding on to me as I tried to get to a seat at the table, so I sort of had to drag her a bit. “So thoughtful! How did you remember my favorite flowers?”

I looked down at the vase. It overflowed with pink lilies, a burst of yellow sunflowers and a sprinkling of light blue irises. “I don’t know,” I said, but then I saw the card affixed to the vase. It said, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, MICHAEL & NATE.

“Oh, it’s perfect,” she said. “Such a surprise. I had to bring it from home so Fiona could see it. Isn’t it lovely, Fiona? Isn’t it a wonderful surprise? I didn’t think he’d remember now that he’s home.”

“It sure is,” Fi said.

When you’re not a spy anymore, it’s important to sometimes expect the best of people, even when past history suggests otherwise, because you might just find yourself pleasantly surprised by the actions of people like your dumb little brother, who maybe isn’t so dumb after all.

After a lunch consisting of Fiona quizzing my mother about the number of childhood friends and girlfriends I had (“I remember a neighbor girl named Julie Quint,” Mom told her, which got Fi excited until I reminded my mother that the Quints moved while I was still in preschool, and then she mentioned three friends, including Andre, who were currently guests of the state of Florida), I decided to wait until after we ordered dessert to bring up the uninvited appearance of Davey Harris in my life, or at least in the Target I frequent.

“Ma,” I said, “I can’t stress this enough. You can’t keep telling people your son the spy is home.”

“I don’t see why not,” she said, “no one believes me, anyway.”

“There’s a reason I didn’t tell you what I was doing all those years. You’ve seen enough now to know that it’s not a thing to play with. So if someone asks what I do for a living, just tell them I’m in sales. Retail. Import. Export.”

“I hate to lie, Michael,” she said.

“Since when?”

“Since always.”

“Well, then, just pretend. You don’t have a sudden moral opposition to pretending, do you?”

“You used to love pretending.”

“When you do it for a living,” I said, “it becomes a little less fun. Just, please, avoid the subject of what I do. Or did. We’ll all be safer.”

A sprightly dressed waiter dropped off a plate of chocolate cake for my mother, another mudslide for Fi and a squirt of frozen yogurt for me. For a time, we ate in silence. It felt nice. I hoped I’d essentially put a cap on the issue and we could all live our lives in perfect happiness for another thirty minutes, or at least the amount of time it took me to meet up with Sam and find out what job he’d conscripted me into.