The Bad Beat (10 page)

Sam did as he was told. Might as well. It wasn’t like Big Lumpy didn’t know who he was at that point.

“You don’t drink?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I can’t afford to lose any more brain cells.”

“I heard you had a two hundred IQ,” I said. “What’s a brain cell when you’re in the top one percent of the entirety of the human race?”

“I’m dying,” he said matter-of-factly. “So the chemicals inside me and my disease have already taken me down to at least one ninety-eight. I’d like to keep the rest of my wits about me.”

“Skin cancer?” I said.

“Yes, but that’s just an unlucky occurrence,” he said.

“Let’s just say my entire body has gone on strike and now my skin has finally gotten on board with the rest of the union.”

“How long do you have?” I asked.

“Doctors say maybe a year,” he said. “But they didn’t know I was having lunch today with an assassin.”

“Which one of us would that be?” I said.

“Don’t be coy, Mr. Westen,” he said. “You can call yourself a spy, but that’s just a fancy name, isn’t it? A spy is a part-time errand boy and a part-time killer. Pretending otherwise does a disservice to the fine psychopaths who’ve held your job since 1776.”

Well, that solved that.

“So, no disrespect, Mr. Lumpy, but in light of your condition, why bother with Henry Grayson at all?” Sam said. “And his son—that seems like bad form, you ask me.”

“Principle,” he said. “Mr. Axe, if your SEAL unit got called tomorrow by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to go into some despotic foreign land to take out an evil dictator along with maybe an entire village of his supporters, as a Navy SEAL, wouldn’t you agree to do that just on the mere principle of your position? On the principle of your team?”

“It’s my job,” Sam said. “I chose it. And I’m not dying.”

“Precisely,” Big Lumpy said. “And this is my job. And I chose it. And you are dying, Mr. Axe. You could walk out of this poor excuse for a bar and be run over by a bus, or you could go home and drown on the mojito you’re sipping or I could have a sniper shoot you between the eyes right where you’re sitting. Or, or, maybe you stub your toe and an embolism travels to your heart and kills you before you even realize you’re sick.”

Sam put down his beer, got up and changed seats so that he was sitting directly next to Big Lumpy instead of across from him. Harder to shoot a man when he’s practically sitting in your boss’ lap. I was still in the wide open but at least Sam was safe.

“You know what I just did?” Sam said.

“Made an impulsive decision?” Big Lumpy said.

“No,” he said. “I improved my odds for survival.”

“Clearly,” Big Lumpy said, “you know nothing about odds. But really, as it relates to Mr. Grayson and his son, it just comes down to this: Don’t make bets if you can’t pay up. Simple as that. Henry Grayson was never very good at that idea. Always in trouble. Always one step ahead of some violent numbers man, never smart enough to move to Las Vegas and bet legally. That’s the wonder of it all, really.”

“You’re not curious about how Yuri Drubich is involved in this?” I said.

“Oh, I am,” he said. “I can’t see Henry Grayson contacting him for anything. And I can’t see Yuri Drubich ever needing a man like Henry. All I can think of is that Henry must have won the Bad Luck Lottery. Do they offer that one in Florida?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“Do you know that Henry always bets the favorite? Are you aware of that?”

“No,” I said.

“He’s a mark, Mr. Westen,” Big Lumpy said. “He takes bad beats because he never plays the underdog, never plays the numbers, always just goes with the favorites. It’s stupid and how frat boys bet, not grown men. So I have to assume that somewhere along the line he made a bet with Yuri Drubich and lost.”

“You’re wrong,” I said.

“I’m never wrong. I’m just not right yet.” Big Lumpy took a sip of water and then reached across the table for a lime, squeezed it into the water and took another sip. “The water tastes septic,” he said. “All of this treatment has destroyed my taste buds.” He put his hat back on, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “Now let me spend a moment on this, if you don’t mind.”

“Please,” I said. “I can’t wait to see how a man named Mark McGregor earns a name like Big Lumpy.”

For the next five minutes, Big Lumpy sat nearly motionless save for the slow tapping of his fingers on both thighs. It was as if he was typing. He was, certainly, one of the most unusual men I’d ever met. The information Sam had on him was slim enough that we had only a vague idea of what we might be dealing with, which wasn’t surprising. If he was ex-NSA (or, as Sam rightly noted, likely still working for them as a consultant, since very few great minds ever really leave the covert side of the government unless, of course, they get burned), he probably controlled his outward persona meticulously. Maybe he wasn’t the violent psychopath. Maybe he just employed violent psychopaths. Maybe none of that was true.

What was becoming increasingly apparent to me was that there was a way I could get Big Lumpy to help Brent solve his problem with the Russians. I had a good sense that Big Lumpy would like the chance to tangle with someone like Yuri Drubich.

Finally, Big Lumpy opened his eyes and sat forward in his seat again.

“I thought we’d lost you,” Sam said.

“It’s hard to concentrate completely when you know that at any moment the person sitting next to you might be shot in the head,” he said. “Are you ready, Mr. Westen, to know how Henry Grayson and his adorable son got involved with Yuri Drubich?”

“Impress me,” I said.

“You’re already impressed by me,” he said.

“Then show me you’re more than just a sideshow,” I said.

“You know what I like about you, Mr. Westen? You’re not scared of me.”

“You’re a dying man dressed like a piece of taffy,” I said. “What’s there to be scared of?”

A thin smile worked its way across Big Lumpy’s face. “Fair enough.” He began to arrange the items on the table into two distinct quadrants. There were three forks, three beers and three lime wedges in front of Big Lumpy and three napkins, three sugar packets and three glasses of water in front of me. “So, imagine this as a Revolutionary War killing field or, if it’s easier, a chessboard. Your side of the board represents Henry Grayson. My side of the board represents Yuri Drubich. Now, in a chess game, it would be reasonable to assume that the more skilled and ruthless player would have a real advantage over someone who, say, has played only checkers before. We can agree on that?”

“We can,” I said.

“And we can agree that in an actual war, the superior armed force usually wins, discounting, of course, every war fought in Afghanistan.”

“We can,” I said. I wasn’t sure where this was going, but at least he had my attention.

Big Lumpy began moving the items on the table in rapid succession, his pieces quickly and efficiently destroying mine: He carved up my napkins with his fork, poured beer over my packets of sugar and squeezed his limes into my water. “A superior chess player, he’ll have a rank novice in checkmate in three moves. In war, maybe it’s a few more steps. But if you apply just a tiny bit of game theory, you can predict well within reason what your enemy will do. I kill your napkin, you decide to flood my army with your glass of water . . . but I’ve already poisoned your water, so you’re most likely dead. It’s all about understanding provocation and the reaction to provocation.”

“Okay,” I said. “So what’s your conclusion?”

Big Lumpy shrugged. “In order for a man like Yuri Drubich to come after Henry Grayson and his son with rockets, they would have needed to provoke him in such a way that that was the only possible result, because it is so extreme, it is so public and stupid, that it would need to be the last message, not the first. If you blow up a building, you’re asking for government involvement. You shoot the son of a degenerate gambler, the police will be interested, but not for long. Scum killing scum. It makes life easier for the police. So, it’s impossible. Mathematically impossible, humanly impossible—there’s no possible nexus where these parties would ever meet—and theoretically impossible. I can only conclude you’ve been lied to.”

“So you think Brent Grayson happened across a rocket launcher and blew his own father’s business up?” Sam said. “The kid doesn’t even wake up before noon.”

Big Lumpy turned to Sam and patted him once on the shoulder. “You don’t think your friend Fiona could get him a fairly good-sized rocket launcher? If she could get one, any serious black market arms dealer could get him one, too.”

Logical enough. But I had an idea.

“You’re a smart man,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “So where’s my money?”

“You’re a smart man,” I said. “Wouldn’t it stand to reason that a person like me wouldn’t be helping a college kid? What gain do I have?”

“Michael,” he said, “you’d help Idi Amin get his cat down from a tree if you found out he had a bad childhood.”

“And if I haven’t been lied to? What will you do for me if I can prove that it’s all true? That all of your minions have been taking Yuri Drubich’s money, which means when Brent can’t pay, Drubich’s eventually going to come find you?”

Big Lumpy closed his eyes again. “Let me think,” he said.

“How long are you going into your trance?” Sam said. “In case I need to visit the little boys’ room. Or fly across the country.”

Big Lumpy ignored Sam. “Shall we put odds on it?” he asked after about thirty seconds, his eyes still closed.

“No, straight up. I convince you of the truth, you stay away from Brent Grayson and you call off your stray collection dogs, too.”

“His father is not in this equation,” Big Lumpy said. “He came by his debts honestly.”

“Fine,” I said.

“And if I’m not convinced, what then?”

“You’re at war with me,” I said.

“Hmm, yes, I figured. You’re not a difficult army to theorize against. So convince me, Michael Westen, that your client has somehow engaged Yuri Drubich.”

I told him the story, even had Sam pull out a BlackBerry and show him the Web site for InterMacron.

When I finished, Big Lumpy sat quietly for a solid minute. Then he reached across the table and plucked one of the beers from the bucket, popped the cap and took a long drink. “So if I’m to understand,” he said, “a college boy conned one of the biggest black market import/export men in all of Russia?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“This technology, what did you call it?”

“Kineoptic Transference.”

“Nice name,” he said.

“I thought so, too,” I said.

He took another sip from the beer. “I never liked the way this tasted.”

“Beer?” Sam said.

“Failure,” Big Lumpy said and I knew I had him. “Do you know why Drubich so willingly put his money on the table for this? Other than greed, of course.”

“I feel like you’re about to tell me,” I said.

“Because we’ve been trying to develop this technology for over twenty years. It’s the next level, except no one can even find a stepladder to get there. It’s all theoretical.”

“When you say ‘we,’” Sam said, “who are you talking about exactly?”

“The government,” Big Lumpy said. “Any sort of alphabet agency that employs scientists. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a team on the Arctic Circle at this very moment trying to figure out new equations.”

“I looked it up online,” Sam said, “and there was nothing. Nothing but Brent’s Web site, anyway.”

“That’s correct,” he said. “That it’s not been scrubbed already just means that there’s a Democrat in office, that’s all. A couple of years ago, Brent Grayson would be in a prison underneath a mountain, getting water-boarded for information. I promise you that.”

Big Lumpy was excited. We hadn’t appealed to his good side, we’d appealed to the scientist and the gambler. It wasn’t my initial plan, but now I had to set the hook.

“Clearly,” I said, “there’s much more money to be made from Drubich if someone happens to be enterprising enough to string him along further. Maybe a scientist smart enough to provide actual specs. Far more than fifteen thousand bucks, anyway.”

“It’s a big gamble,” he said. “It would take me a great deal of time to come up with a convincing schematic to deliver. And what can I expect my return would be?”

“He’s already paid Brent close to $150K and that’s just based on what he saw on the Web site,” Sam said. “You show up in a fancy suit holding your diploma from MIT in your hand and then talk in big words, you’d probably get ten times that much money.”

“It would still be a challenge,” he said. “He already suspects he’s been duped.”

“Isn’t that what you want?” I said. “Isn’t that what this is all about for you? This whole charade of being the most evil bookie in town? Isn’t it all about intellectual challenges? Now more than ever?”

“Don’t play the dying card,” Big Lumpy said.

“You played it first,” I said.

Big Lumpy stood up and waved his hand once above his head. A few seconds later, a white Cadillac Escalade pulled up in front of the Hair of the Dog and idled there. “I must be going,” Big Lumpy said. “It was a pleasure getting to know the two most dangerous men in Miami.”

“What’s with all the white?” Sam asked.

“Makes me look mysterious,” Big Lumpy said. “It’s good for the public relations. No one expects a terrible person to always be wearing white, now do they?”

“I guess not,” Sam said.

“So,” I said, “do we have a deal?”

Big Lumpy stared intently at me for a few moments, as if he was trying to determine what the result might be if he reneged on our bet. He sighed once and then put out his hand to shake. His grip was light, his skin thin and feathery. “I’ll need backup,” he said.

“You’ll have it,” I said.

“And I’ll need Henry Grayson,” he said. “He owes.”

“We’re working on it,” I said. “You’ll have to trust me.”

“I do,” he said. “I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

Big Lumpy walked to the Escalade and his driver—a tiny Asian man also wearing all white, including a white baseball cap and white shoes—met him on the passenger side with a portable oxygen unit, which Big Lumpy immediately hooked himself up to before getting into the SUV. He didn’t close the door, he just sat there in the passenger seat inhaling. After a few minutes, he pulled his mask off and motioned for us to come over.