Formerly Fingerman

by Joe Nelms

  Malcolm had been back every morning since that fateful day in the hopes she would show up. A few key details were still in question: Was this her regular coffee shop? Was she single? Would she ever be back? If she was, what should he say? Would she remember him? Was this the kind of thing he had missed out on for years because he didn’t drink coffee? And most important, who was she?

  Maybe just one more hot chocolate. Work could wait.

  “WelcometoCup’nMug.WhatcanIgetyoutomakeyourdaybetter?”

  Malcolm ordered his drink and tried to ignore the curious looks of the staff who were forced to mumble this cheery statement to keep their jobs. Working in a high-volume shop like this, they quickly learned to overlook the quirky behaviors of their customers. But four small hot chocolates in an hour raised even the weariest of eyebrows.

  “Dollar eighty-five.”

  Malcolm pulled out his wallet and found only a dollar left. He hadn’t planned on spending so much today. Of course they took credit cards, but it seemed silly to charge such a tiny amount. Then again, he did pay off his card every month, so it wasn’t like he would incur interest on the charge.

  “That’s a dollar eighty-five, sir.

  From the other end of the counter an equally disinterested voice called out.

  “Small hot chocolate, ready for pick up.”

  Malcolm pulled out his credit card and then wondered if he had enough change in his pocket to supplement the single dollar and avoid the hassle of a credit card.

  “One moment.”

  He dug in his pants, pulled out a few coins and started to count them. There was more than enough here, so the question became which combination would leave the least volume in his pocket as an end result of his payment.

  “You again? Jesus H. Take a little longer, why don’t you?”

  There was no mistaking the voice that yanked him right out of his thought spiral. It was The Cougar. Right behind him. He turned to find her in all of her on-the-way-to-the-gym splendor. Oh boy. How should he introduce himself? Is it inappropriate to approach a woman in a coffee shop before ten A.M.? Should he determine some sort of six-month plan to ask her out? That would put them in summer. Do people date in the summer? What if it’s too hot?

  “Hello. I was about to—”

  “Sir, your hot chocolate is one eighty-five.”

  “I thought perhaps—”

  “I have a hot chocolate. Rrrrready. For. Pickup.”

  The Cougar couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Excuse me, would you mind speeding it up. Some of us need our fix.”

  “Hot chocolate, still ready for pickup!”

  “One eighty-five.”

  Malcolm turned around, whipped out his credit card, and handed it to the cashier.

  The Cougar ordered her usual as Malcolm stood casually (in his mind) near where the finished drinks where handed out. Of all the things he had considered while dreaming of this day, his current choice of location was one he knew would pay off. Naturally, the coincidence that it was called the pickup counter was lost on him.

  Ideally, there would be a nice lag time between when she ordered her drink and when she picked it up. Time for Romeo to say something clever. Or dashing. Or debonair. One of those.

  The Cougar paid up and grabbed the coffee handed to her by the cashier and walked over to the condiment bar. Not the pickup counter. Of course. She hadn’t ordered a fancy drink that would be handed out later. She had ordered a regular coffee. Damn the details. He hadn’t planned on this. Now what? This was a whole other plan of approach. Should he come from the left or the right? Should he wait until she was done and follow her outside, or perhaps interrupt her stirring with some witty remark? Better yet, why not—

  “Hey, Hot Chocolate. You got a name?”

  In his flash flood of introspection, he had lost track of his prey and she had snuck up on him. Actually, she had walked right over to him.

  “Malcolm.”

  “Malcolm. I’m Lola. Would you like to join me?”

  Malcolm’s only hesitation this time was to take a moment to smile.

  “Would you mind if I used the facilities first?”

  They sat at an open table in the back.

  “All right, so you’re not gay. What are you?”

  Yes, Malcolm’s first impression as a squirrelheaded non-homosexual was pretty bad. The second one, again clogging up traffic, not so great. But, once he was able to fill in some blanks for Lola, his third impression went pretty well. Being a tenured federal judge carried a lot of weight with women who were always running into guys claiming to be some sort of macher, only to find out they were middle management drones. Lola listened closely and liked what she heard. Malcolm knew enough to keep it short and sweet before turning the conversation back to his tablemate.

  “Lola, tell me everything about yourself.”

  Lola was once divorced, once widowed. She loved her gym and her granddaughter whom she spoke with at least once a day, and she was considering piano lessons.

  “So, look. I’ve got a hot box class in ten minutes, but I’d like to continue this conversation. Here’s my number. Why don’t you give me a call sometime? Maybe we could have dinner.”

  YESSSS! What a dream come true. Couldn’t have planned it better yourself, Malcolm. Looks like you’ve still got it. Still got the old magic.

  He carefully folded the paper and slid it into his pocket.

  “I’d like that.”

  Brittany Returns

  “Brad. Were you . . . exaggerating a little bit last time we talked about what you saw?”

  It wasn’t hard to see that Brittany already knew which way this conversation was going to go. Her way. She was hungry for a conviction and clearly intended this exchange to be one that pointed her in that direction.

  She had called ahead to let Stump know she would be coming to Tucson and waiting for them when they got home. No point in getting her neck broken for the sake of dramatics.

  “. . . Uh . . .”

  There was the distinct possibility that she was coming on too strong. Then again, that could be exactly what Brad needed. She had given him leeway in their first interview and he had given her back a Bollywood remake of Magnum, P.I.

  “Maybe you were trying to tell me what you thought I wanted to hear?”

  Her words said, Don’t worry, I’m your friend. Her tone said, Maybe you haven’t heard, but I’m a badass. She thought it struck a nice balance.

  “. . . Yes?”

  Jarvis had actually made a little progress in the last week. Brittany’s casual threat to hand the job off to Eidelsberg lit a great big nerd fire under him. Jarvis worked day and night, called up old professors, picked the minds of software engineers in the private sector. So far he had recovered another eight seconds of video that consisted of a smiling Brad trying to make eye contact with Carmine in the elevator.

  Her eyewitness cruising the murder victim wasn’t exactly trial gold, but it was more than they had before. And it gave her hope that there was more on the way. What a presentation that would be. Video. An eyewitness. She would have to remember to tell Tom to get a haircut. Every detail mattered. She should probably start eating salads and what was going on with her roots?

  “Why don’t we go over it again? And this time, let’s stick to the facts. I know you’re a big, brave cowboy, but we want the truth about what happened in the elevator with Carmine, okay? It’s important, Brad.”

  Brad nodded and indicated to the Handycam set up behind Brittany.

  “What’s with the camera?”

  “I need to get this on video for Frank’s grand jury.”

  “Oh.”

  Video seemed like such a commitment.

  “I can’t risk you setting foot back in New York until the actual trial, so I worked out a deal with the U.S. Attorney’s office. You testify on video for now and, a few weeks in, we’ll set you up on satellite so both sides can ask you some questions. This way we only have to go back to N
ew York once.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Brittany took his answer to mean Great. No problem. In fact, it was an acknowledgement of how profoundly unsafe Brad understood himself to be once he translated Brittany’s explanation to mean There are a lot of people trying to kill you, big boy. We don’t like the odds of bringing you in twice. Which meant bringing him in once was a huge risk.

  “Shouldn’t I wear a disguise?”

  “Do you have a disguise?”

  Actually, yes. He still had the giant beard and trucker hat Stump had made him wear on the plane ride out. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like such a bad look.

  Brittany wasn’t opposed to the idea. As long as he testified, she didn’t care what he looked like.

  Brad went back to his room. The beard was buried behind some T-shirts in his dresser. On top of his wedding ring. Hadn’t he thrown that away? Apparently not, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember why not.

  Gracie was the best lawyer he knew and she could have told him exactly how to handle this. She would have at least trimmed the beard to make it look less Park Slopey. But he was on his own here. Thanks for nothing, Gracie. He slid the ring into his pocket and told himself he would toss it out the window the next time he and Stump drove anywhere.

  As he closed the drawer, he caught a good look at the scared little man in the mirror. Brad had easily lost five pounds, despite his new omnivore diet. Those crow’s feet were definitely not there two weeks ago. And it wasn’t just that he had forgotten to pack his Clinique for Men Age Defense Hydrator. How many years was this whole affair shaving off his life? This was real stress. Not the bullshit kind like when the client asks what you think of their son’s idea for a tag line. This was the kind of stress that affects your body on a cellular level. The kind that happens to other people.

  He hadn’t testified yet. It wasn’t too late to hop out the window, steal Brittany’s car, and live the life of a nameless drifter. It seemed like a pretty decent lifestyle if the Disney movies of his childhood were to be believed. Maybe he could learn to play the guitar by campfire light and get adopted by a Sandra Bullock–type character who would encourage him to play football his way. Probably not. Also, he didn’t have the first clue how to hotwire a car, and he had heard the Arizona hitchhiking laws were pretty strict. Better just to play along. For now.

  Brad slid the beard on and jammed the hat onto his head. Honestly, it worked with the crow’s feet.

  Brad sat back down.

  “Maybe an accent? Should I do an accent? Indian or hillbilly or something? Jack Nicholson?”

  “I think the disguise is enough.”

  Brittany clipped a mic on Brad’s shirt and hit a button on the remote to start the camera recording.

  “So why don’t you introduce yourself.”

  As if it were connected to his head via some psychic Ethernet cable, as soon as Brittany hit the record button, Brad’s brain went white with panic.

  What did she know? Holy God, what did she know? Was she on to him or just under some judiciary, red tape deadline? Is that how the FBI worked? There was no way to know.

  On top of those worries, the only story he could think of was the two-hundred-million-dollar tentpole he had dreamed up in the shower. That wasn’t going to work. In fact, it was probably a great way to raise Brittany’s suspicions of his fundamental intentions. No one needs a delusional narcissist on the witness stand.

  He quickly cut the story down to its bare bones in his head. Forget the Van Damme splits. No Steven Seagal stare. Maybe the Korean line. The Korean line gave his character depth. No, no Korean line. Just the facts. He had to tell the truth. She could use that, right? She probably already knew it anyway. Were there agents outside the door waiting to arrest him? What was the mandatory sentence for perjury? Did he remember it being fifteen years, or was that for unlawful imprisonment of an animal?

  Wait. It can’t be perjury. There hasn’t been a trial yet. Okay. Maybe it really was time for the truth. Brad replayed the day’s events one more time. He went on a job interview. Nailed it. Got on the elevator. Tried to share a little sunshine with Carmine. Noticed a scuff on his shoe. Bent down to rub it off. Two black shoes walked in. Brad sneezed. Carmine was dead.

  No.

  That sounds idiotic. Who would believe he missed the whole thing? A mob murder happened three feet from him and he didn’t catch it? Seriously. That’s worse than how he lost the vodka job. He could hear Champ laughing already. Nope, once again, he really didn’t have much choice but to lie. This situation called for a carefully curated load of bullshit.

  “Hi, I’m Brad Pitt.”

  Brittany turned the camera off.

  “Brad. You can’t use your new name. Then people would know your new identity and it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, would it?”

  “Right. Sorry, I’m a little nervous.”

  “Let’s try it again.”

  Stump shook his head in disgust. He might have to schedule another trip to the coffee shop.

  Brittany hit Record again.

  “Hi, my name is Brad Fingerman, and I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

  “Brad, can you tell us what happened the day of Friday, September eighth?”

  “Well—”

  Oops. He shouldn’t have looked at Stump. Standing there in the doorway watching over the whole exchange, Stump looked at Brad with those preternaturally intense eyes that always seemed like they were dismantling the machinations of his mind like a snobby watchmaker picking over the insides of a knockoff Rolex. This was going to be harder than he thought.

  “I had just finished up an interview at Red Light District Advertising in the 1635 building.”

  “The job you didn’t get.”

  “Yes, Brittany, the job I didn’t get. Thank you for reminding me on the public record. But, you know, I really thought I did well in the interview. So, anyway I get on the elevator.”

  “Mmm hmmm.”

  “And then . . .”

  And then he lied lied lied. Not as much as before, but definitely not the truth. He left out the bone-crushing antics of his swashbuckling doppelganger from the initial version of the story, settling instead for a more subdued, early-David-Carradine-esque, Zen approach in which Brad attempted to reason with Frank on a bro level.

  “So Frank was crying?”

  Brad thought he saw Stump’s eyes roll the tiniest bit. He quickly rethought his position.

  “No. He had something in his eye.”

  “Did he tell you that?”

  “I could just tell. Anyway, he ran off and you guys showed up before I could chase after him.”

  And then it was done.

  Brittany nodded and turned off the camera. Man, it was quiet in there.

  “Thank you for being honest, Brad.”

  Nailed It Again

  She bought it. What a relief. Finally, Brad could get back to his life selling diapers to retirees with weak bowels.

  Close Enough

  All right, so he lied again. But not as much, and it was pretty believable. A little coaching from an experienced attorney and they would be good to go. Brittany fired up her rental car and headed back to the airport, content with the knowledge that her impulsive trip to Tucson was worth it.

  Brad’s Zygomaticus Major

  Stump had watched the whole thing pretty closely, studying Brad’s facial muscles for indications that betrayed what was the truth, what was an exaggeration of the truth, and what was fantastical nonsense. His vantage point was from a side angle and the beard and hat covered a lot of acreage, so he couldn’t see every twitch and contraction of Brad’s face, but Stump still wasn’t convinced Brad was telling the truth.

  Based on the gymnastics routine Brad’s face was performing, he wasn’t even convinced that Brad had been in the elevator at the time of the murder. The lateral pterygoids, corrugator supercilii, and zygomaticus major activity were off the charts. The levator labii superioris a
nd frontalis pars lateralis were all over the place. And what about that depressor labii inferioris? Ridiculous.

  It didn’t help that Brad had sweat about a gallon while he spitballed his version of the truth on camera. Maybe he was nervous about performing, but this was a guy who sold stuff to strangers for a living. It didn’t make sense.

  He reminded himself to ask Brittany for a copy of that video. He needed to study it from a head-on angle. Something was up with that guy.

  Assure

  There are two different governing philosophies within advertising agencies. The first says that the idea is king. The creative directors and copywriters and art directors swagger about and present their work as if it were a gift from on high. They are the holders of the key to the enchanted cave of clever concepts, and everyone else is just support. The second says that creatives are an integral but subjugated part of an advertising machine that serves the god of strategy and account planning as translated by the oracles known as account executives.

  Generally, the choice of which philosophy is to be followed is dictated by whoever happens to be running the agency. If it’s an account guy who worked his way up through the ranks to become top dog, then creatives look to the account floor for approval. If it’s a creative director who successfully made a power play for the chair at the end of the table, then the account execs kowtow to the arrogant creative teams.

  Alan Silver liked to think of himself as a creative at heart. A trait he discovered only in recent years. But when he was offered this job, it was with the understanding that as good as an idea is, in the end it’s got to satisfy the needs of the people upstairs. The account people.

  In other words, no matter how great the work that came out of his department was, if it didn’t have an enormous yellow Assure logo in the corner and their cheery tag line Confident, from the waist down! underneath, it was going to get dumped on. Getting dumped on was not something that Alan took very well. In fact, it was a great way to trigger the loss of his teeny-tiny patience. And that was the hardest part of Alan’s job—not strangling people who dumped on his work.