Tod Goldberg - The fix

"I already called Dixon," she said. "What he does, he does."

"Right," I said, "I get that. But listen. I have a guy here whose been impersonating Dixon for the last two years. He's made Dixon a lot of enemies. But he's also made Dixon a lot of money."

Silence. Money always causes silence.

"You still there?" I asked.

"Go on," she said.

"I have a picture of him I'd like to send to you, that if you could forward it on to Dixon, I think we could end all of our mutual problems." Hopefully by around six, I thought. "Do you have a number I can use?"

Brenda sighed. "I lose my job, I come after you."

"You wouldn't want to do that," I said.

"Who are you, exactly? Because you're not Hank Fitch."

"I am today."

"The only Hank Fitch I could find in all of America is married to a woman named Linda and lives in Utah with his eight kids. You don't sound like the marrying kind. Or the Mormon kind."

"You'd be surprised." Brenda gave me a number and I sent the photo to her. "One other thing. My friend's car. Good faith."

"You two run a clean operation. I couldn't find a thing of use in that car," she said.

"Why don't you park it across the street, and we'll call it all even?"

"You have a strange idea of even, Mr. Fitch," she said, but then agreed, though she sounded more resigned than anything.

"Did the pictures come through?" I asked.

Silence.

"Yes," a male voice said. I guess all that silence was Brenda patching me in to Dixon. "Where is he?"

"Right now? He's sitting across from me. Where he'll be is wherever you want him to be if it means we deal. I need that product."

"Put him down," Dixon said. "Send me a photo when you're done."

"I'm not going to kill him," I said. Eddie actually sighed through his gag, which isn't something you hear very often: a person sighing with relief while bound and gagged. "I'm happy to let you." Eddie's joy? Short-lived. "I hope you can understand."

"Where's your money?" he asked.

"The Dominican," I said.

"Give me the digits," he said.

Just like Sam, just like me before all of this, Dixon had contacts. If he wanted to know how much money was in a secure account, I have every belief he'd be able to find out, so I gave him the account number.

"Hold on," he said. A few moments later, Dixon was back. His entire disposition was changed. "Where'd you want to meet?"

"Hotel Oro," I said. "That work for you?"

"Yeah," he said. "Nice place. That's the one with cabanas, right?"

"Right."

"Why don't you bring me one of Champagne's fingers as a gratuity?"

"I'll bring you something better. Eddie and his bank account information so you don't need to beat it out of him. He's been very busy on your behalf. Six fifteen?"

"I'll be there," Dixon said and was gone.

I looked at my watch. It was three o'clock now. We didn't have much time, but I was going to make this work. In order to do that, I'd need to get Eddie to calm down-since he was now apoplectic-and I'd need to get the Hotel Oro ready to my specifications.

"Sam," I said, "I'm going to need you to do me a favor."

"Whatever, Mikey," Sam said.

"I need you to blow up the Hotel Oro," I said.

When you're a spy, certain things are much harder than you'd think. You begin to expect that the entire world thinks like you do and therefore has an implicit understanding that actions have consequences. You start thinking that people will look at the world and will realize that it's better to just be good, that it's better not to pull every dog's tail, that it's better to live your life, earn your money, live within your means and if sometimes a deal falls into your lap that seems too good to be true, it's because it is and you should run like hell.

So if you're not a spy, you should pay your parking tickets. You shouldn't own a TEC-9, much less try to deduct one from your taxes, and you shouldn't have sex with people you'd have no compunction killing.

You shouldn't, finally, pretend to be someone you're not-because, eventually, you'll end up like Eddie Champagne, with a guy like Dixon Woods on your ass and the rest of the world coming to pieces around you, including a former Navy SEAL named Sam Axe using you to help him place small bombs inside a luxury hotel in Miami.

Sam didn't want to do it, but I told him it was the best way to dispose of Eddie Champagne without actually getting Eddie Champagne disposed, so the two of them left Cricket O'Connor's house and headed to the Hotel Oro, where he'd reserved a room under Eddie's name and even used Eddie's credit card. Making a paper trail.

The way Sam had it figured, being placed in charge of Eddie Champagne wasn't the worst job in the world, especially since he sort of liked the elegance of triangulation. It was just the checking-in that concerned him, since he'd need to convince Eddie to be equally elegant while being forced into a posh hotel against his will.

And in plastic cuffs.

We all knew that if Eddie bolted, we might never see him again, and that just wouldn't work. You rack up a bill, you pay your debt.

So after parking Cricket's Benz across the street in self-parking, figuring maybe waiting for the valet at the end of the evening wouldn't be the best bet, all things considered, Sam broke it down for Eddie. Eddie was still half sauced, though with all that coffee, toast, fear and anxiety he'd found a sort of stoned equilibrium and had actually broken down in tears in the car while Sam drove, realizing that they were literally driving in his car. Sam couldn't figure out if the tears were real or another ploy, but they helped him with the plan.

"Here's the deal, Ed," Sam said. "I'm getting real tired of how Hank is running our crew." Co-opting Eddie's language was sort of fun for Sam, though he thought that Eddie had probably picked up his vernacular from someone else, too. "You and me, we sort of see eye to eye on a lot of things."

Eddie wiped his nose on his shoulder. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "Way I figure it, you and me? We could work together down the line. Who knows?" Sam saw the rotors working in Eddie's head already.

"Absolutely," Eddie said.

Absolutely, Sam thought. The thing about most criminals is that they aren't wicked-they're stupid. They're opportunists. "I'm going to try to get this Dixon problem away from you in a way that doesn't, you know, end up in your death."

"Thanks, buddy," Eddie said. He sounded like he really meant it, which he probably did.

"But you're going to have to man up some," Sam said. Man up. Who talked liked that? "Take a broken arm. Maybe another broken jaw. Or maybe just a bullet somewhere fatty." Sam gave him a poke in the shoulder, which, Sam was disturbed to find, was about as fatty as his own shoulder. He really needed to start cutting out starches.

"I've had worse," Eddie said. He was actually getting jubilant.

"Okay," Sam said. "But you need to cooperate with me. No scene in the hotel at check-in. No shitting yourself or anything nasty."

"Done," Eddie said.

"We get to the room, you cooperate, and you have my word, you will see tomorrow."

"Maybe you'll take me to see Cricket? I mean, of course, if everything ends up kosher?" Sam saw that Eddie had tears in his eyes again. Incredible. The guy was either in line for an Oscar, or he was really starting to feel the weight of his deceptions.

Sam put his money on the Oscar. "Sure, Eddie, sure."

Eddie pursed his lips in thought again. "You think, maybe, I could get some room service, too? Maybe a steak?"

Oh, yeah, Sam thought, the Oscar is his. But that was okay. If it was enough to get him into the hotel and maybe get him to trust Sam a bit, he was willing to get the man a steak for his troubles. "We'll get two," Sam said, and then he pulled Eddie out of the car, put a coat over Eddie's cuffed wrists, grabbed a duffel bag out of the trunk-a duffel bag filled with solar Malibu lights and some light soldering equipment-and made his way into the hotel.