Tod Goldberg - The fix

"I can turn around," Fiona said. "Let Bolts have her way with you. Shall I? Let her beat on your face some more. Maybe if she hit you just right, she could get your eyes to finally line up straight."

"I'll have you know that I didn't even attempt to hit her back," Sam said. "That's the kind of gentleman I am. But I did shoot up her office, which was probably a mistake. Did you know that you can get an armor-plated laptop now?"

I did. It made shooting them out of frustration a real option, particularly the Dells.

"Bolts would have gouged your eyes out and eaten them," Fiona said. I knew where this was all headed, but I was trying to pay attention to Dixon's application, and it's fun sometimes to remember the good old days when Sam and Fiona hated each other. "You do recall that event in New York, don't you, Sam? You recall how you folded like a hand puppet in the face of-"

"Okay, children," I said.

We drove in silence for about two minutes. And by silence, I mean that I could hear Sam breathing. He was also mumbling things. Fiona was drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.

A hundred miles.

I hadn't been that far out of the city of Miami since, well, since getting to Miami. "How fast do you think I'd heat up if I had to drive to Jupiter?"

"You wouldn't get out of Fort Lauderdale," Sam said.

About what I thought. "According to Dixon's job application, his mother lives in Jupiter. Linda Woods. He lists that as his permanent address. I'm going to guess she found herself missing some part of her savings recently." I gave Sam back the application so he could see for himself. "You say you've got a driver's license picture coming in?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "But it's twenty years old. Probably looks like the keyboard player from the Cure in it."

"Cricket will be able to tell the difference," I said.

"You really think so, Mikey? She can hardly tell the time right now."

"She'll know," I said. "You sleep with someone a few times, you know them well enough to spot a baby picture."

"That true, Fiona?" Sam asked. An olive branch. A bit of pleasant banter.

"I wouldn't know," she said. "Michael never was much for showing off mementos from his childhood," Fiona said. Everyone was chippy. "Just all the terrible, terrible mental scars. Isn't that right, Michael?"

"Anyway," I said, because what I didn't need was Fiona's wrath acknowledged again. Let Sam deal with that. "I'm going to guess Linda Woods' son wasn't real happy about her losing whatever she lost. We get back to my place, call your guy. Get a copy of that police report. Whoever made the complaint, that's our Dixon."

"Nice bit of revenge, taking his name," Fiona said. "Maybe I'll start going by Natalya Choplyn."

"That's funny," I said.

"Isn't it?" Fiona said.

No, not really, I thought. Instead, I said: "Do you really think that guy in the photo tried to buy guns from you?"

"Yes," she said.

"When was that?"

"Six months ago. Maybe less."

"I don't recall you selling any guns six months ago."

"That's because I didn't tell you."

"Keeping secrets is wrong," Sam said.

"So is back hair," Fiona said. "We pick our battles, don't we?"

"How many did he buy?" I asked, ignoring them both. The sooner we were out of this car and back in a place where I was fairly certain they wouldn't start hitting each other and somehow place me in peril as a result, the better. Until such time, I was Switzerland.

"None," she said. "We were to meet in the lobby of the Mandarin Oriental to discuss prices. But when I got there and saw him, I had a sense that perhaps he was not the kind of person to keep their mouth closed about illegal arms."

"Why was that?" I asked.

"He was wearing a shirt that said Co-Ed Naked Vol leyball on it," Fiona said

"Classy," I said.

"And the hotel was filled with real estate agents attending a conference. I watched him for a time and he seemed to know many of them, or at least he said hello to them all. My impression was that he'd look lovely in one of those yellow coats, or with his head on top of a sticky calendar. The amount of perfume and large hair in that hotel was enough to turn me off."

"How did he contact you initially?" I asked.

"Through channels," she said.

"Fi."

"We all have secrets, Michael," Fiona said, "that are better left unknown to certain third parties who deem secret keeping wrong."

"Wrong is blowing up someone's car," Sam muttered.

"Fi."

"Fine, Michael," she said, and then went on to explain that she received a call from someone named Etienne, who'd received a call from Mario, who'd received a call from Gwyneth, who'd met a man named Holton, who knew a person who was looking for three AK-47s, of which Fiona was known to have easy access to.

Which is the definition of channels. None of those people were likely to know anything, less likely to, even if they did know anything, say a damn word.

"How long will it take you to put together that online profile?" I asked.

"A few minutes. All I'll really need is a photo and some interesting hobbies to punch it up. Maybe something about loving sex with overweight men and giving money away by the bushel."

"How long to get that head shot together of Dixon, or whoever he is?"

"No time at all," she said.

"Good," I said. "We get that picture. We get that license photo. We get the name off the police report, and we're in business." Just when I was about to suggest that Fiona and Sam could get over their differences concerning her shooting up his Caddie by riding to Jupiter together tomorrow to talk to Linda Woods, my cell phone rang.

It was my mother. I decided to let it go to voice mail, but the problem was that having it go to voice mail meant my mother would leave a thirty-minute-long message that would be more painful to listen to than the actual five-minute conversation I could reasonably have with her prior to losing service. So, even after deciding I'd let it go to voice mail, I answered it.

"I'm in a meeting, Ma," I said.

"Who are you meeting with?"

"Very important world figures. We're discussing how often they call their mothers. What do you need?"

"Some people came by the house looking for you," she said.

"When?"

"About two hours ago."

"What kind of people?"

"They talked like Communists."

"Ma, you need to be a bit more specific."

"They dropped off a package for you. They said you'd know what it was about."

"Is it ticking?"

"Michael, I'm not stupid."

That was true. But she was frustrating. "Does it smell like cordite?"

"It smells like a manila envelope, Michael."

"They leave any instructions?" These days, it was hard to tell who might drop by, good guys or bad guys.

"Yes," she said. "They said that they were bringing something to Nate's house, too, but that they'd wait to hear from you first."

"Nate?"

"They seemed to know him," she said. "Are you two working together again? It's always so nice when you include him. You know, he told me last week that he really feels close to you now. Isn't that nice?"

Fiona pulled up in front of my place. There was already a line of people waiting to get into the club and it wasn't even dark out yet.

"Where is the package now, Ma?"

"I put it in the bathtub… just like you taught me last time."

My mother, full of surprises. "I'll be there," I said. "Don't touch it."

If you ever happen to become a spy and then happen to get burned and are forced to live in one town under threat of death, try not to make it the same one your mother lives in. In the event that is unavoidable, at some point ask your mother to unlist her phone number and cancel, finally, the subscription to Highlights that still comes to her home in your name. See about getting her to move permanently into an assisted-living facility that doesn't allow smoking or outside phone calls. See about getting your brother to leave town, too, particularly if he happens to be named Nate. See about asking the people who are burning you if, respectfully, they could drop you in Walla Walla, Washington.