The Directive: A Novel

by Matthew Quirk

  Annie regarded me with barely contained rage. Given the evidence against me, I was getting off easy. I climbed the steps to the porch. After last night, I was just glad to be alive to hug her. It was like squeezing an oak. She pushed me away.

  “Are you serious?” she asked.

  We had a good-sized audience of aunts and cousins and friends in the picture window now, pretending to eat canapés while watching the action on the porch.

  “I can explain.”

  “You’re unbelievable.”

  “I tried to go the FBI, but—”

  Annie’s father stepped onto the porch. I threw up my hands. This was bad enough without Clark in the front row watching as my life imploded.

  “Maybe we could talk about this later,” I said to Annie. “I’ve had a truly awful night.”

  “Looks like a decent night to me,” she said, looking from my clothes to Bloom, who was standing beside her car. Annie glanced at her father, then moved closer to me. “We are absolutely going to talk about this later. There’s going to be a goddamned symposium on this. Make yourself presentable.”

  Was today her shower? Then what was the spa thing? I may have had other things on my mind besides Annie’s social calendar, but there seemed to be an endless chain of prewedding events, of female relatives and friends throwing around gadgets and champagne and tissue paper. It was hard to keep them all straight.

  At least having a house full of guests bought me a brief reprieve from the trouble I was in with Annie. I looked back at her.

  “What are you grinning about?” Annie asked. I hadn’t realized. I was just so happy to see her, for us both to be safe. But I really should stop smiling like someone who’d just had the night of his life. “Are you high?”

  Just dog pills. And I had a prescription.

  I didn’t answer her. All my attention turned to a car coming around the corner. It was a Dodge Charger. I peered at the window. Lynch’s man in glasses was driving, with three other men in the car.

  The Charger double-parked in front of our house, blocking the driveway.

  “Get inside, Annie!” I said.

  “You’re giving me orders now?”

  I put my hand on her back and steered her toward the front door. Then two hundred and fifty pounds of future-father-in-law stepped in front of me to protect his daughter.

  “I don’t have time to explain, Annie. Just get inside. These men—”

  “Stop it, Mike. I know what’s going on.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out an envelope crammed with thousands of dollars in twenties.

  “The police came by today in front of my whole family. They were here to bring you in for questioning about that murder on the Mall. Have you completely lost your mind? You’re a lawyer. You can’t run around robbing or conning people or whatever the hell you and your brother are really up to. I thought that was sort of a given. I can’t even believe what I’m saying here. It’s like a bad dream.”

  “Annie. You’re not safe. Just go inside.”

  “I can’t believe I fell for your bullshit yesterday. You lost your main client and didn’t tell me? Who are these people you’re hanging out with? Did your brother get you involved in some kind of…a gang? Are you in a fucking gang?”

  She clearly didn’t care anymore who heard her.

  “I’m trying to protect you.” I took her arm. Clark put his hand on my chest.

  “Just stop,” Annie said. “Stop lying. And her.” She looked over at Bloom. “You’re obviously sleeping with her, so don’t insult me by pretending otherwise. It’s two weeks until our wedding. What the fuck, Mike?”

  “I swear nothing happened. I—”

  “I thought you wanted all this,” she lifted her hand toward the house, the tidy garden. I saw her grandmother inside, watching us and enjoying my comeuppance. I couldn’t argue with Annie now. I didn’t have time. Soon Lynch and his men would come for blood. I just had to get her to safety and hope I survived. Then I could find some way to explain it all, to ask forgiveness for the unforgivable.

  “But you can’t stand it,” she went on. “You can’t stand me. You think this is about your brother? It’s not. You’re using him as an excuse to get your hands dirty and steal away from me every chance you get. You told me you could change, Mike. But I don’t know anymore. You act like it’s the right thing, a means to some honorable end. But it’s your whole family. It’s in your blood. You’re one of them. You’re a lost cause.”

  She threw the money down at my feet.

  “It’s better I find out now, before I make the biggest mistake of my life.” She gave me a look I knew well. It was the look she’d been hiding from me ever since she’d seen me kill a man. It was a mix of pity, suspicion, and fear.

  She held her forehead and sighed. “I can’t believe what I’m saying, but this is over.”

  “Annie. Please, just give me a chance to talk to you, but not now. Now I need to get you someplace safe.”

  I reached out for her. She backed away. Her father blocked my path.

  “I think she’s finally seen you for who you are, Michael. Now I suggest you go.”

  “Me?” I turned on him. “I’m the fucking criminal?”

  I’d told myself I wouldn’t do this. It would only blow back in my face, only make me look petty. But I was too broken down to hold back. The sight of that smug prick basking in my downfall was too much, the hypocrisy of it all just too much.

  “I may be trash,” I said as I stepped toward him. “But at least I’m not some self-loathing hypocrite con man whose whole life is a lie.”

  He shook his head.

  “Has it ever seemed odd, Annie,” I asked, “that he gets fifteen percent returns for twenty years in a row, no matter what happens in the markets? That a London real estate guy pulls together a billion-dollar fund in a few years while everyone is hiding their money under their mattresses?”

  Annie looked down. She was entering the embarrassed-for-me stage.

  “Your father is the real crook. Ask him about his first deals in London. Ask him about blockbusting. Ask him about the fires in Barnsbury.”

  She looked at her dad. And for a moment I saw the doubt flicker on her face, saw that at one time or other she had wondered about him, too. She turned back to me. I had her.

  “This is just pathetic, Mike,” she said.

  I turned to the side. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.

  My prepaid phone rang. It was Lynch. I had to answer, to at least negotiate Annie’s safety, no matter what it cost me.

  “One second,” I said.

  “You’re taking a call in the middle of our life falling apart?”

  “It’s an emergency. I swear.”

  I stalked across the lawn. “You or any of your men come near my home, and I’ll fucking kill you,” I said into the phone, seething.

  “Oops,” he said; I watched as his car pulled around the corner and stopped. He stepped out and started walking toward my house.

  Bloom had stood silent beside her truck the whole time, examining the edging around my sidewalk and doing her best to spare me any further embarrassment. Maybe she was hanging around because it was clear I was going to need a lift soon.

  I looked from her to Lynch, then back.

  I lifted my phone and then dialed the number I’d seen Lynch call back at the FBI. My cell rang in my hand. But it wasn’t the only one. Another ring echoed it. It was coming out of Bloom’s pocket. She silenced it.

  “No.” I said. “You?”

  I walked closer.

  “You? What the hell did I do to you?”

  Bloom stepped over and put her arm around me.

  “Just business,” she said.

  I flicked open the knife. “Get these men away from my house.”

  “Lovely,” she said. “But I don’t think sticking me in plain view is going to help your nice-guy case with Annie. You see that truck?”

  I looked past the grass beside my house. There was a b
lack Chevy Suburban on the side street. The rear window was open.

  Annie stood on the porch, clearly shocked that I had decided to huddle with my mistress in front of our extended family at a time like this.

  “Let me tell you how this plays out,” Bloom said. “You tell Annie that you’re coming with us. We’ll call it a bachelor party. Then you get in the car, and we go do this job. No one gets hurt. Understand?”

  “Don’t you dare threaten her.”

  “I haven’t, actually. I don’t think that’s necessary. But if you need convincing, here are a few things you should know. Lynch has a guy at your father’s house right now. I just talked to him. He’s watching your dad read a paperback on his deck. There’s also a man in that Suburban. Both have suppressed HK416 rifles and two-way radios, and both are waiting on a single word from Lynch. He, as you may have noticed, is getting increasingly erratic, so it’s best not to give him an excuse. He might try to wing her, but there’s no such thing as a safe shot. He could just as easily end up paralyzing her from the waist down or worse, you know?”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Of course he would. You’ve seen him do it. Do you want him to put the red dot on her to prove his point?”

  I looked back at Annie, at our appalled families. I knew that if I went with Bloom, it would be the end of the best thing that had ever happened to me. The price was Annie. She would never speak to me again, but at least I could buy her safety. And that was more important than anything else.

  “Tell Annie what I just told you,” Bloom said. “And then get in the car. One wrong word and the triggers get pulled.”

  I looked at Lynch, his push-to-talk phone held up to his mouth, ready to give the order. I took a step toward the porch.

  “I have to go,” I said to Annie. “I can’t explain. Go to your father’s.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m sorry, Annie.”

  “Don’t,” she said. I could see her fists clench, the muscles in her jaw tighten.

  I walked toward Bloom, then looked back at Annie one last time. It was like standing too close to the edge of a cliff. My body refused to move. I had to will it, step by step. Bloom climbed into the driver’s seat, leaned over, and opened the passenger door.

  “If you leave now, Mike,” Annie said, “this is the end.”

  I’d been feeling sick since the morning before, when I realized that Jack had been playing me from the beginning. Now, as this trap closed around me, shame and regret filled me, crawled down my spine like the worst hangover I’d ever had.

  “I love you,” I said, standing beside the open car door.

  Bloom pulled me in by my belt. “Come on, Romeo.”

  She put her arm around my shoulder and smiled across the passenger seat at Annie. She gave her a little wave as she kissed me. Then we pulled away.

  Chapter 38

  “THAT’S ANNIE, HUH?” Bloom said, and wrinkled her nose. “Is she always like that? Seems like a drag.”

  “Pull your men back,” I said.

  She raised Lynch on the radio and confirmed the order. In the rearview, I saw the cars line up behind us as we pulled out of my neighborhood.

  “Keep your enemies close,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Something like that.”

  “Who’s paying you?”

  “This is my show, Mike. Give me a little credit.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Believe what you want.”

  “So you’re the police and the thieves?” I said, and thought it through for a moment. “I guess it makes your investigations a lot easier. Bloom Security, always somehow able to penetrate the underground, to navigate the most corrupt nations on earth. And if you have any criminal competition, you just snitch them out, burnish your credentials with law enforcement at the same time.”

  “I wish it were that easy. But you know how these things go. There are no bright lines on the ground. Sometimes we’re bad guys pretending to be good guys, sometimes we’re good guys pretending to be bad guys. Sometimes we do the necessary evils the good guys can’t. Half the time I don’t know what the fuck is going on. I just cash the check.”

  “Don’t even try to sell this as some elaborate undercover job. You’re a criminal.”

  “If you work in this field your whole life, you find that straight/criminal distinction less and less meaningful. I imagine you can relate. Let’s just say I’m a pragmatist. An opportunity seeker. A good American entrepreneur.”

  “You forgot murderer.”

  “No. As far as the Sacks business goes, I’m a general contractor with some quality assurance issues in one of my subs.”

  “Was your billion-dollar inheritance not enough? You needed more?”

  “It’s not about money, Mike. After the first ten million or so, it’s all the same hamburger. You just start to worry about how not to fuck up your kids with all the cash around.”

  “Bloom senior clearly did a bang-up job.”

  “My family’s been doing this sort of thing a long time. You have to get your hands dirty. We were losing our soul, turning into a handmaiden for a bunch of law firms and hedge funds.”

  “A rich girl steals for thrills. What could be more obnoxious? You just like slumming?”

  “I do, actually, and so do you. But the point was to buy back the company. I needed to revisit some revenue streams we’d turned away from. And sure, I get bored sometimes. What am I supposed to get excited about? Dining room tables? A new place in Mustique? Trying really, really hard to earn a pat on the head from the board, a bunch of old men who divvied up my family’s legacy and sold it off to the highest bidders? It’s just my nature. And it’s important work. You can’t have the white market without the black. There needs to be a go-between. That’s where we come in.”

  “You seem so on the ball, and yet this is so fucking crazy.”

  “So I’ve heard,” she said. “It’s the times. The government’s outsourced everything. Intelligence. Interrogations. It’s one of the downsides to privatizing security. You end up with a lot of grays.”

  “You end up with paid enemies who do better the worse things get.” I watched the cars following us in the rearview. “All very interesting. You should write something up for the Outlook section after you dump my body.”

  We were driving out near where the Beltway intersects 395, an agglomeration of recently built apartment complexes and office parks tangled between highway overpasses and cloverleafs.

  “I like you, Mike. This isn’t a kidnapping.” We pulled into an underground garage. “It’s a corporate apartment, a pretty nice one. Think of it as an off-site meeting, some team building. We’re just going to do the job you agreed to do.”

  The rest of the convoy trailed in and parked beside us. Lynch searched me thoroughly, taking extra care to poke me hard in my fresh stitches. We trooped over to the elevators.

  It was a brand-new apartment tower. We took the elevator up to twelve and entered a beautiful open-floor-plan apartment that looked like a realtor’s model. The only thing I had going for me was that there was an espresso machine built into the cabinetry next to the fridge.

  “Welcome,” Bloom said. “And since I believe you were just tossed out of your house, you can crash here until we head up to New York for the job.”

  “The job? You’re unbelievable. You just shot me—”

  “It didn’t even go in that far.”

  “—you threatened my fiancée—”

  “Ex-fiancée.”

  “—and you nearly killed my brother.”

  “Only because you tried to be sneaky with us, Mike. So those are all good reasons to cooperate this time. See how easy it can be.”

  She walked over to a bowl on the granite counter, lifted an apple, and bit a chunk out of it.

  “And who knows where this will lead?” she continued. “You’re a competent guy. I’m very impressed so far. You do dirty. You do clean. You’re fun to have
around. So come work with us. You already have been, so what’s the big deal? We’re crooks, Mike. You can’t change your nature. Stop being tortured and have fun with it. I wish somebody had told me that fifteen years ago. It would have saved me a lot of time and pain.”

  She offered me a bite.

  “Very subtle,” I said.

  “You’re angry. I get it. And this isn’t the Soviet Union. It’s your choice.”

  “What’s the choice? What if I say no?”

  She waved that notion away. “Let’s keep it positive. That’s the key to success. One day I asked myself, why should cops and robbers be going round and round in a zero-sum game? So much entrepreneurial spirit wasted. Let’s make it win-win. Grow the pie. And right here, Mike,” she said, pointing back and forth between us, “I see a lot of synergies. Let’s focus on those.”

  That was the nicest way anyone has ever threatened to kill me. It was almost possible to forget that this was coercion at the point of a gun.

  “I’m sorry about how this all worked out,” she went on. “I was hoping to bring you in without the unpleasantness. You should rest up. We’re heading to New York tonight or tomorrow morning. Then it’s Fed Day. So what do you say? This is in your blood, same as mine. So stop lying to yourself and just go with it. Are you in?”

  “You don’t know a goddamned thing about me.”

  “Don’t I? I know about what happened to your father, Mike. You know the thieves have more honor than the law. So why bother with their bullshit distinctions? Don’t try to pretend you’d be happy with fantasy football and rote sex twice a month. You need this, haven’t you realized? You try to live between the lines, you’ll die of boredom.”

  Bloom was speaking out loud the thoughts that kept me up at night, staring at the ceiling of my American dream house, the thoughts that haunted me when I nodded over china patterns or picked out the gold ring I’d wear until I died.

  The moves I had tried against Lynch and Bloom had left me with my life in shambles and a hole in my back. I had one out left. The only option was to play along. I could take them all down, but I would have to take myself down with them, and I would have to pull the heist first.