The End Game

“That’s very generous,” Fi said and returned Sherman’s smile, even gave an extra flourish with her eyes, licked her lips twice, let him really think that a ticket on a yacht was just the sort of thing a girl like her would really want. She kept that look of honest rapture and joy on her face as she said, “But I still need the driver’s name, or else I’m afraid the police will be showing up here in about an hour to arrest you, and so I can stop my assistant from calling your insurance carrier to let them know of the malfeasance your organization has been party to.”

Sherman swallowed hard. “His name is Robert Roberge.”

Not a name he wanted to give up. Interesting, Fi thought. Now that he was frightened, she had him precisely where she wanted him. Scared people think they can talk their way out of problems, think that by giving up the information you ask for that they’ll stay out of trouble, particularly someone like Sherman, who seemed like he had something to hide, or at least something he didn’t want to tell the kind woman from Allied Car Rental.

“Social security number?” Fiona said, thinking, what the hell, why not fish a bit. Besides, she needed to get him out of the office for a few moments so she could plant a wire in the room, since she figured the real interesting news would come after she left.

“Why do you need that?”

“Mr. Sherman, do you see this?” She waved the police report. “This is not a joke, sir. This is the police.”

“I’ll need to get his file,” he said. He was positively bashful as he walked out of his office, perhaps because he saw his entire career flashing before his eyes. Wait until he found out his race was fixed.

Fiona would have felt slightly sorry for him if he’d been gentleman enough to offer her two tickets for the yacht party; one ticket was just smarmy. And anyway, she didn’t have time to feel much of anything. She needed to get Sherman’s office rigged for sound.

It used to be that getting a surreptitious wire on someone took tremendous sleight of hand and incredible risk.

That was before cell phones.

Cell phones have two notable characteristics that make them excellent for use in clandestine operations in suburban settings: They are easily lost and entirely nonthreatening. So if you want to wire someone who wouldn’t normally be looking for such things, all you need are two cell phones, one to leave sitting open in the vicinity of the person you’re interested in and one pressed to your ear listening in.

A fully charged cell phone battery will last three days, which should be more than enough time to glean the information you desire.

Fiona opted for the fake tree sitting on top of the file cabinet just adjacent to Sherman’s desk. She noted the faux leaves were dusty, which meant it had probably been a good week, probably more, since the cleaning crew in the building had bothered to run a feather duster over the atrocity. Fiona thought that having a fake plant in Miami was a sin just as egregious as the fake tan out front. Some things just didn’t need to be replicated when the original was perfectly well and good.

A few moments later, Sherman returned holding Roberge’s file. It wasn’t terribly thick, though Fiona thought there was probably something of interest to be gleaned from having a look inside.

“His number is 534-24…” Sherman started.

“435, okay,” Fiona said. “What was next?”

“No,” Sherman said, “534.”

“534,” she said, writing while she spoke, “25, you said?”

“No,” Sherman said. He repeated it again and Fiona pretended to take it down, and then read it back to Sherman, all in the wrong order again, which seemed to frustrate poor Mr. Sherman.

When she couldn’t get the spelling of Roberge’s name down-nor his driver’s license, or his address, all information needed for the application, and so she could have one of Sam’s buddies run a background on him, provided she didn’t get everything she wanted just by asking Mr. Sherman-it appeared to Fi that Sherman was about to have a stroke.

Fiona could smell perspiration and not the healthy, clean kind, but the kind that is generated when your body goes into fight-or-flight mode. “Here,” he said, and tossed the file to Fiona. “It’s all right there on the front page. Just copy it yourself. Okay? Just copy it yourself!”

He sat back in his chair and laced his fingers on top of his head, gathered up his hair and tugged. Not a good day to be king.

Roberge’s employment file noted that he worked as security guard for the company. It also noted that he’d previously been convicted of a felony. On the line where it said, “If Yes, Please Explain” Roberge had scrawled, all in caps ASSAULT, EXTORTION, ETC. It shuddered Fiona to imagine what ETC. meant. If you put assault and extortion on an application, what aren’t you admitting? Drowning puppies?