Formerly Fingerman

by Joe Nelms

  “A contract?”

  “You could call it that.”

  “Shouldn’t I have a lawyer look at this or something?”

  The answer was yes. Any reasonable person would have told Brad to seek the advice of counsel. Except for the fact that there was a ticking clock in the form of Frank Fortunato and his legion of soldiers that may or may not know who and where Brad was at that moment.

  “Of course you’re welcome to have an attorney look this over, but Brad, you’re helping us out. Do you really think we’re trying to screw you?”

  Truth be told, the contract was little more than a trophy for Brittany to show her superiors. If she could have had a life-size replica of Brad stuffed and mounted on her office wall she would have done that, but most likely that wouldn’t fly with FBI office regulations. Instead, there was this piece of paper. There were equal chances it would be filed with the main office or pasted into her scrapbook of work memorabilia. It served mostly as a symbolic gesture between two mutually dependent entities. Like small talk with a hooker. Most Johns don’t really care about the recent cold snap; they just want to establish that neither party in the transaction is a psycho while they park their sedan behind the Winn Dixie.

  If Brad decided he didn’t want to testify after he signed the contract, there was very little they could do. Drop the protection. Walk away. But that was about it. They had no leverage to make him testify. And if he didn’t say anything in court, Brad didn’t need protection anyway. He was in the driver’s seat. And once the trial was done, as far as Brittany was concerned, Brad could spend his life on a beach somewhere pissing away the government’s money on rum drinks and foot rubs. As long as she got what she wanted.

  Come on and sign, motherfucker.

  Brad stared at the blank signature line. There was always counseling, right? Didn’t Gracie recommend that to her clients before they divorced? Probably not, but it seemed reasonable. Just to make sure no stone was left unturned. Didn’t couples go through stuff like this all the time and survive? Rough patches. Rocky spots. Spats. Didn’t he owe her at least that much? They were married, for heaven’s sake. On top of that, Brad knew he was a talented guy. The vodka thing would blow over eventually, no? He wasn’t always going to be in a chicken suit. Things had to change. They had to. If he just kept his head up and his nose to the grindst . . .

  Fuck it. Brad looked up.

  “Can I say goodbye to one person?”

  Brittany looked to Stump who nodded almost imperceptibly, as if he’d been waiting for the question.

  “Okay, but we’re going with you.”

  Brad had no idea where this vine was headed. But even if he ended up faceplanting into a massive sequoia, it had to be better than where he was now.

  Brad wrote his signature on the contract and it was done.

  Brad Packs Up

  Brad called ahead to make sure his wife wasn’t still home and there would be no strange workmen servicing his, err, apartment. Gracie was not the one person he was interested in saying goodbye to. But his clothes and PlayStation weren’t going to pack themselves.

  There was no answer at the apartment, so he called her cell phone. When she picked up, he heard the sounds of the street. It sounded like she was out, so he hung up. She was usually headed to spinning right about now. Or maybe to sleep with the Knicks. She had one of those flexible schedules.

  “All right.”

  This time James didn’t give Brad the crazy eye. Just the usual I’m-clocked-in-until-six-whether-you-need-me-or-not greeting, as if everything had been a dream or somehow forgotten. Brad couldn’t help but wonder how many Gracie-and-cable-guy type of hookups James was aware of. Must have been dozens. Brad couldn’t be the only one getting cuckolded here, right? It’s a big city. This was a big building. Twenty-five floors of opportunity. His mind reeled with the possibilities. And who knows what James thought of Brad walking in with a stiff like Brittany and a stallion like Stump. Did Brad now have the stink of adultery by association? Was it just another day at the office for James? Infidelity another delivery to be signed for?

  Brad stepped over to ask his doorman who else was getting their cable upgraded on a regular basis, but James cut him off with some rote politeness.

  “Yes, sir. Nice weather, isn’t it? Can I get you a cab?”

  “I just walked in.”

  “All right.”

  Brad held his gaze on James for a beat, but the guy kept looking out to the street like a fully realized idiot. Those secrets were going to the grave with him.

  “Is my wife still here?”

  “Oh, no sir. She left about an hour ago. Looked like she was headed to the gym.”

  “Uh-huh. Thanks.”

  Brad headed for the elevator.

  “Oh, and congratulations Mr. Fingerman. She said you finally got HBO. She seemed thrilled.”

  Stump and Brittany waited in the lobby to give Brad the last bit of privacy he would enjoy for a long time. There was virtually no chance Frank could have figured out Brad’s address yet, and Brad would be inside on a high floor for a brief amount of time, so this tiny breach could be allowed.

  Brad walked into his apartment to find it exactly as he left it this morning. The bed was made. The dishes were done. The view was fabulous. It still smelled a little like sex. So maybe not exactly as he left it this morning.

  He went to the bedroom closet, ripped a suitcase from the back of his top shelf and tossed it on the bed. He pulled every piece of clothing he had out of his closet and threw the pile into the open suitcase, hangers and all, like he’d seen in the movies so many times. Then he took them all out and removed the hangers. No way was that ever going to fit.

  Surrounded by the pictures and knickknacks that were now essentially memorabilia from his life with Gracie, he couldn’t help drifting back into a few fond memories. Their trip to Carmel. Skiing at Big Bear. That one summer they rented the house in the Hamptons and the gardener kept showing up to trim the same hedges every time Brad went for a jog on the beach. Wait. Dammit!

  Brad stormed into the bathroom and dumped all of his toiletries into a Dopp kit. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and realized he was crying. He was going to miss this life he and Gracie shared together. Aside from her revolving door of a vagina, it had been pretty nice. They got along pretty good for people who had been married for five years. They laughed at the same jokes, tended to like the same desserts, and both passionately hated Salma Hayek’s ridiculous accent. Really, aside from the whole vegan thing and her having relations with a high percentage of TV’s most coveted demographic behind his back, there weren’t any real problems. Such a shame.

  Brad’s thoughts were interrupted by the buzz of the doorman’s phone. James was calling up. Uh-oh. Was this the heads up that Gracie was on her way back up? Did James have Brad’s back? Had Brad misjudged him?

  “Hello?”

  “Your friend says you got to go.”

  “Stump?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The big guy I came in with.”

  “That’s him. He says you have to go.”

  “Tell him I’ll be right down.”

  Brad took a moment to compose himself. He should leave a note. Be the bigger person, or at least mitigate the cowardly act of running away with some sort of explanation. That way she wouldn’t have to sneak around anymore. If nothing else, Brad was thoughtful.

  He grabbed a pen and a few slips of the Brad and Gracie stationery her brother always gave them for Christmas. No point in conserving that anymore.

  Dear Gracie . . . Nope, too soft.

  You filthy whore . . . Mm-mm. Needs to build.

  Gracie, I realize I haven’t given you what you need to be fulfilled in your life. I’m sorry to say that it’s probably best for both of us if we go our separate ways. I am moving on to a new path and only hope you can someday find the happiness you are looking for. Thanks for the good times, Brad.

  He carefully folded the
note in half, wrote her name on the front and tucked a corner of it under the vase of tulips by the door. Then he pulled it right back, ripped it up, and used one of her most expensive lipsticks to leave a note on the mirror.

  G—

  Yes, those white pants make your ass look fat.

  —B

  Brad left his keys on the dresser, grabbed his suitcase, and walked out the front door. When the elevator finally came, Brad stood and stared long enough for it to close without him. Then he hit the Up button. The same door opened again and he got in. Maybe there was one last option.

  The great thing about the roof deck that Brad’s building bragged so much about in their Sunday Times ads was the three-hundred-sixty-degree view. You could see for miles from up there. There was one building across the street, but it was about two stories lower than his so it didn’t interfere too much. The other great thing was the access one had to the edge. A twenty-five-story view straight down. It was beautiful in a way that most people would never see because they would never stand on the rail like Brad was right then.

  His thinking was that maybe there was a clean solution to this, after all. Brad would simultaneously remove himself from several situations where he clearly wasn’t wanted, and he wouldn’t be wasting anyone’s time by lying about what he saw in that elevator. On some level it made sense. It wasn’t the East River swallowing him up like he had envisioned so many times, but the results would be essentially the same, if a little messier. It felt right. More right than when he pretended from the safety of the bench that he was doing it. The river was for posers. This was the real deal. He might even make the Post. Yes, there were definitely pros to this plan. The cons were obvious, but in Brad’s current swirling fog of emotion, it was unclear which side outweighed the other. If only there was some way to know for sure.

  It would have been so awesome if he had a super-smart dog that ran up and started yanking at his pant leg with his teeth, or a plucky neighbor kid said something cute and/or clever to stop him from jumping, but those were relationships that he had never formed. It was Brad alone standing on the ledge, thinking about what would happen if he took one big step forward. He looked down again. Yup. Still way high. Aside from Stump and Brittany, who would notice he was gone? Frank? He would probably have his men put a few bullets in Brad’s flat body anyway, just to make a point. Gracie? It didn’t seem like a stretch to assume she would get over it pretty easily. Would anyone really care that this nobody with nothing had jumped?

  Something in one of the apartment windows of the slightly shorter building across the street caught Brad’s eye. It was a shirtless man waving furiously at him.

  Wow. Maybe someone did care.

  The man raised his eyebrows as high as he could get them and held up a finger to say Hold on one second. Brad looked around to make sure he was the intended recipient of the message. It appeared he was. He nodded his agreement. Did this perfect stranger have some insight into Brad’s turmoil and confusion? Perhaps even been in his situation before? Could it be that someone who didn’t even know him actually gave a shit?

  Window Man smiled and ran off. Calling the cops? Rushing over to my building to talk me down himself? Checking the Internet to see how to handle this emergency?

  Nope. Not at all.

  Window Man came back into his window stripped completely naked. He had a raging hard on and began pleasuring himself like an Amish butter churner working a Shake Weight. Again with the eyebrows, only this time they seemed to be saying, Now, wasn’t this worth the wait? Huh? Right?

  While it wasn’t exactly the warm nose of a trusty companion nuzzling his ankles or the adorable voice of a newsboy-capped ragamuffin asking Hey mister, whatcha doing?, it did gross Brad out enough to shake him from his suicidal fugue state. He might need to rethink this.

  True, the choice to grab the vine that went straight down would be his and his alone, influenced by no one. He would own it. But ultimately, it was tough to justify the control-affirming aspect of it with the end result. Death by homoerotic suicide or the Witness Protection Program? While the latter was intimidating in its potential for a lackluster future, the former would not be treated kindly by the Post. Also, Brad would be dead.

  Shit.

  Brad hopped off the ledge and backed away from the option that wasn’t really an option. Window Man was devastated, pleading with the one finger to wait-wait-wait. It seemed that something exciting was about to happen, but Brad decided not to stick around for the big finale.

  Stump fired up the dark, American-made sedan illegally parked in front of the building and Brittany watched the street as James held the passenger door open.

  “James, if you see my wife, tell her I left. And I’m never coming back. And I know there’s no such thing as spontaneous herpes.”

  James considered Brad with the eyes of a man who had seen this too many times before.

  “All right.”

  “Breasts. Two for a dollar.”

  “In your dreams, sicko.”

  Owen probably should have seen that one coming. He hadn’t meant for today’s coupon to sound like a sale inside this passing woman’s blouse. Chicken breasts really were the special of the day, and they were being sold in pairs. It was Chuck’s idea and it had not struck him that there was anything inappropriate in his marketing strategy. Chuck only knew he had ordered too many chicken breasts and had to unload them pronto.

  Stump’s government-issue ride pulled up to the curb in front of the fire hydrant and idled. Owen checked his reflection in its tinted windows. Oh yeah, still a very handsome chicken if he didn’t mind saying so himself. He went back to work.

  “Chicken breasts. Two for a dollar.”

  Stump got out and walked around the car to the sidewalk. Owen held out a flier.

  “Wing wangs are on sale today, too.”

  Stump ignored him and looked around to make sure the coast was clear before signaling to the car.

  The back window of the sedan rolled down a crack.

  “Owen!” came the harsh whisper from the back seat.

  Subtleties of speech tend to be lost on people in chicken suits and whispering can be especially tricky. You generally have to be in a position where they can actually see you whisper. Owen looked around and whisper-yelled back.

  “Hello?”

  “Owen, over here!”

  Again, not much help if your ears are inside a large chicken head and therefore incapable of triangulating voice origins.

  Brad rolled the window down a few more inches.

  “In the car, Owen!” he half-yelled.

  Owen turned his chicken suit around to look at the car.

  “Brad?”

  Brad leaned into the sunlight for a brief second. The giant chicken did a quick double take.

  “Hey man, you’re late for work.”

  Brad motioned him over. Owen walked over and leaned in.

  “What are you doing? I told Chuck you were probably just sick, but if he sees you in this car he might not believe me anymore.”

  “Owen, I’m leaving.”

  The meeting was not going as Brittany envisioned it. In her perfect world, Brad’s friend would not have been dressed like a big, bright junior-college mascot and standing next to their car in the middle of a crowded Manhattan sidewalk. She tried to roll the window up.

  “Brad, this wasn’t a good idea. We’re going to have to cut this short.”

  “I want to say goodbye. That was part of our deal.”

  Brittany sighed and hopped out of the car. She caught Stump’s eyes and indicated the chicken. Stump looked Chickenman over quickly and decided that he could easily snap his neck through the car window, if necessary. He stood behind Owen. Brittany quickly flashed her badge to the chicken’s mouth and opened Brad’s door.

  “FBI. Get in the car.”

  “Is this about that website? Because my friend said it was okay to use his password.”

  “Please get in the car, sir.”

>   There was a bit of cramming, but Owen somehow wedged himself into the back seat. He waited until he was all the way in to take his chicken head off. Brittany and Stump stood guard outside.

  It took a few seconds before his eyes adjusted to the light, but when they did Owen brightened visibly.

  “Wow! Is this your new job? Your interview must have gone awesome.”

  “Owen, did you hear that Frank Fortunato got arrested for murder?”

  “No.”

  Brad quickly went over the high and low points of his day, finishing with his plans to testify, but leaving out the minor detail that he, in fact, saw nothing.

  “Wow. Congratulations.”

  “On what?”

  “On doing the right thing. Man, that takes guts.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “What about Gracie?”

  “Oh, um. She’s fine with it. You know, wants me to do the right thing.”

  Owen let out a long whistle. “Well, good luck.”

  That summed it up pretty well. Brad looked at Owen and realized that this really was the end of his life as he knew it. No more chicken suits. No more Gracie. No more pretentious ad friends. No more hoping he could fix it all before anyone noticed. It was over. And the best that anyone could do was say, Well, good luck.

  They shook hands and Owen shoved his chicken head back on. He somehow got back out of the car without breaking character. Instead he looked like an important chicken arriving at the Chicken Shack. That had to be good for business.

  Stump and Brittany got back into the car. Brad leaned over and rolled down the window.

  “And Owen, good luck on your bailiff test.”

  The chicken on the sidewalk gave Brad a big thumbs up and then waved goodbye.

  The safe house was a modest affair in Jackson Heights. The plan was to stay there under Stump’s vigilant watch until arrangements had been made for Brad’s new life in AnywhereButHere, U.S.A. Fine with Brad. The newness of everything was still sort of exciting if a little unsettling. This was an adventure. Kind of like hitting Shuffle on your iPod before a run in the park, hoping to God Celine Dion doesn’t play, but knowing that if she does you’ll deal with it. They pulled into the single car garage and closed the door behind them.