As I go through the doorway, I’m visualizing how it’s gonna go. Even though Shea has been pacing all morning for me to show up with this valuable package, he’ll probably make me wait while he finishes his salmon blinis or shouts sell sell sell into his iPhone.
I am dead wrong.
This guy is out of one of those weird backless stool-chairs running at me with a mouthful of hummus.
I do not believe this. That’s my third thing: sucking coffee, greasy fingers, eating with your mouth open.
You know what? People are animals.
You’re not a monkey, I want to tell this guy. Shut your goddamn face.
It’s too much tension. So I giggle.
“It’s about time, McEvoy . . .” he begins, then hears the giggle and his techno trainers squeak to a halt on the wooden floor. “What? You’re laughing at me?”
Shea has got bits of food in his limp goatee. How am I gonna take this person seriously?
I remind myself that I am pretending to be dumb. Or more accurately dumber than I am. If I wasn’t dumb, would I be here in the first place?
“No, sir, Mr. Shea,” I blurt. “I got this condition. It’s a stress thing, Mom says. It’s like A . . . D . . . something and another D. I got stuff, like medicine, but we’re outta Cheerios so I didn’t take it. You’re like the real deal, Mr. Shea, and I ain’t never been in a penthouse. You know your door is like the hotel but shrunk down?”
I fear I maybe have played the shit-kicker card too strong but Shea is moved to laughter by my speech.
“Do you hear this bullshit, Freckles?” he asks Blood Spatter. “Mike said he was a retard and for once the man was right.”
I have one new piece of information now and an inference; The head muscle’s nom-de-goon is “Freckles,” which by the law of inverse proportions means he must be meaner than a snake.
Shea zigzags himself back into the ergo-stool and I take a heavy-lidded look at the guy, trying to see past the hummus for the moment, though I’m not ruling out bringing it up later.
Shea isn’t much more than a boy. Maybe twenty-two, dressed straight out of Abercrombie, probably stands in line with the other kids on the weekends. He’s got acne traces on his forehead and really well conditioned blond hair, artfully sticking up a hundred ways all at the same time. If this youngster is at the top of whatever organisation is being run out of this place, then he just got here.
Maybe the king is dead and this kid found himself on the throne.
Shea drums the desk a little with his forefingers and nods at me to sit.
“See, here’s what happened, McEvoy.”
I do not want to hear what happened. Finding out what happened rarely leads to happy ever after.
“You can tell me if you want, Mr. Shea,” I say, wondering how long they can possibly buy this dumb act for. “But if I gotta repeat it back, Mr. Madden says to record it on my phone.”
Shea smirks at Freckles and I know I’m screwed. “No need to record anything, McEvoy. You won’t be repeating shit.”
“Okay, then.”
Shea resumes his storytelling, shoveling food into his mouth from a deli carton as he speaks. “Mike. Mr. Madden. My dad let him have his own little operation out in the suburbs because he owed Mike a favor or two. Mike’s deal is small time, who gives a shit? But now Dad is gone and we’re in a recession, so all the small times need to be amalgamated. You stack up a hundred cents and they make a dollar, right?”
“That is right,” I say, amazed.
“I sent a representative to speak to Mike. A friend of mine. Nice guy, grew excellent weed. Harvard graduate like me, you know.” Shea wiggles a finger and I see a Harvard ring all pimped out with diamonds. “What a school? Wall-to-wall smart pussy.”
I nod along with the beat of his patter, waiting for the point.
“So there’s a misunderstanding with one of Mike’s people and now my boy is out of action for half a year at least and his nerves are shot to fuck, which really inconveniences me personally. My pot parties are legendary, man. You ever hear about my parties, McEvoy?”
“No. I never hear about ’em. Was I invited?”
This is outrageous bullshit, but they’re hooked now. I hear snickering behind me.
“I wanna do Irish Mike,” continues Shea. “But Freckles convinces me to settle ’cause he’s tight with old Mikey.”
Shea’s Harvard accent is slipping and I hear the nasal wah-wah of Brooklyn bashing through.
“So Mike agrees to partnering up and promises to reimburse me for my trouble and send me the name of the man who decked my boy in an envelope, as a peace offering. You got that envelope, Daniel?”
My confused look is now genuine as I am not sure what Mike’s play is if I’m supposed to be the guy who decked his Harvard buddy. He’s gotta know I’m not going down easy.
Shea snaps his fingers and hummus plops onto the desk. “Hey, rocket scientist. Do you have my envelope?”
I reach into my pocket slowly. “I got it here somewheres. This jacket has so many pockets but my other jacket is at the cleaners. It’s at my mom’s really but I don’t like to say that in front of the guys so I say cleaners.”
Shea nods at Freckles. “Looks like we’re talking to the dumbest guy on earth.”
Freckles taps his temple. “He ain’t all there, boss.”
“Don’t call me boss,” snaps Shea. “My father was boss. Like some plantation owner. Call me sir.”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Shea. Just reflex. I’m an old dog, you know?”
Shea nods like ain’t that the truth. “Well, we know what happens to old dogs.”
Oh. Hello there. A little tension in the camp.
Shea drums the table again. “Envelope, please.”
I slide it over and begin visualizing my moves. Freckles has shifted slightly, out of my field of vision, so he’s what my Ranger buddies would call the prime hostile. Shea is just a kid and I can tell by his posture that he’s not a physical guy, but I still gotta factor him in. You never know who’s a crack shot or can throw a knife. Maybe this prick grew up on Duke Nukem and can decapitate a rat at fifty paces.
I still can’t figure the play. Why would Mike throw me into this mix? I’m chaos and unpredictability. If Mike wants to suck up to this varsity kid, surely he’s gonna sacrifice one of those mooks he keeps around the Brass Ring.
He should know that at some point I am going to see an opening and bludgeon my way through and then come home in the dark.
Shea counts out the bonds then slides one across to me. “This word, dumb ass,” he says, tapping the bond. “What is it?”
“Bearer,” I say, sounding out the syllables.
“You know what that means?”
I can guess but I give him the answer he might expect.
“Something about being like naked?”
“It means that you’re the bearer, the guy. I don’t know if you’re the actual guy but Mike has no use for you.” Shea slides the empty envelope back to me like it’s Long John Silver’s black spot. “I think your boss is trying to kill two birds with one stone and, Mr. Daniel McEvoy, you’re one of those birds.”
I have a road to Damascus moment, the penny drops from a great height, and I see Mike’s vision of the future stretched out before me. Irish Mike is as dumb as moss, but he has a condition that makes him very dangerous; he sincerely and in spite of all evidence to the contrary believes himself to be clever. A master strategist.
And I think he’s bumped into some other dumb smart guy.
This is what I think: Freckles and Mike have partnered up.
Freckles asked Mike to send over a patsy so Freckles can shoot Shea and blame the patsy and step into the vacant top slot. This poor college grad is getting disinherited.
But Mike is also running his own game. Instead of sending some clumsy stumblebum he sends ex-military Daniel McEvoy in the hope that I will be forced to kill both of these guys just to stay alive.