Tod Goldberg - The Bad Beat

“Very well. Then I will let Mr. McGregor’s contacts know of the information Mr. Drubich has in approximately forty-five minutes. Chew quickly,” he said and was gone.

I clicked my phone off. “Let’s go,” I said.

“But… when does the shooting start?” Brent asked.

“It’s not always like that,” I said.

“I thought there was going to be a bunch of explosions and that maybe someone would die,” Brent said. “Isn’t that what being a spy is all about?”

“Not if you’re any good,” I said.

Life, it turns out, is full of repetition whether or not you’re a spy. There are some things that happen over and over again irrespective of who anyone thinks you are, really. So I wasn’t surprised when, a few weeks after Yuri Drubich was found to have purchased “state secrets” as part of a long-range espionage ring involving a rather charismatic (and dead) former government agent named Mark McGregor, I found myself sitting in the waiting room of my mother’s podiatrist’s office while she had her corns shaved. My mother had a standing appointment for the second Tuesday of every month with Dr. Klinger, and if I wasn’t being held at gunpoint somewhere, or didn’t have someone held at gunpoint somewhere, she expected me to take her.

I was surprised, however, when Big Lumpy walked in and sat down beside me, oxygen tank, white-on-white outfit and all. He looked as awful as he had when I’d seen him last. Maybe worse.

“You’re not dead,” I said.

“Not yet, no,” he said.

“Did you follow me here?”

“No,” he said, “Dr. Klinger is my podiatrist. The last time I was here, I saw your mother, so I made the appointment after hers.”

I didn’t bother to ask him how he knew who my mother was. Clearly, he knew more than the average dead person. “Are you dying?”

“Surely,” he said. “And according to the coroner, as you found out, I’m certain, I already am dead.”

“Brent has been keeping your grave clean,” I said. “He’ll be disappointed to know you’re not inside it.”

“As will many others,” he said. “I understand he is already doing very well at MIT.”

“He’s a smart kid,” I said.

“What is he going to do with the money?”

“I suspect he’ll give it away. That’s what he told me, anyway. His father’s care isn’t cheap, but other than that, I don’t see him blowing it on strippers and blackjack.”

“Then he’s missing out.” Big Lumpy smiled and I could see that his teeth had large gaps in them, a common side effect from intensive and long-ranging cancer therapy.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?” I asked.

“You owe me two hundred dollars, cash, for your brother.”

“I thought that was just in the game, Mark,” I said, using his real name to let him know I was onto him.

“A debt is a debt,” he said, “and I always collect.”

“I do want to keep my eyelids,” I said. I took out my wallet and pulled out all of the cash inside-it totaled sixty-seven dollars. “I’m going to need to owe you a hundred thirty-three dollars.”

He took my money, counted it and then stuffed it into his pocket. “We’ll call it even,” he said.

“How much time do you really have left?”

“Maybe I live out the year. But probably not.”

“So why fake your death?”

“I thought,” he said, “that I might live like a normal person for the rest of my days. And no one was going to let me do that as the ruthless Big Lumpy. So I’m back to being Mark McGregor for what I’m calling my coda. You should try it, Michael.”

“I’m already who I am,” I said.

“Really? Helping the helpless? That’s you?”

“It is now,” I said.

A nurse came into the waiting room and called Big Lumpy’s name, so I helped him out of his chair. “For how long do you intend to do this?” he asked

“As long as it takes,” I said. I extended my hand and Big Lumpy shook it weakly. “Enjoy the rest of your life.”

“I already have,” he said.

My mother came out a few moments later, a shoe in one hand, a cigarette in the other. “The doctor takes a perverse joy in my pain,” she said.

“I doubt it, Ma,” I said.

“I thought I heard you talking to someone. Was it that strange man in all white?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Who was he?”

Who was anyone, I thought. “His name,” I said, “was Mark McGregor. He was a bad guy. He was the one who got Brent in trouble with the Russians, in a roundabout way.”

“And you just let him go?”

“No,” I said. “He’s dead.”