The Giveaway Read Online Free Page A

surreptitiously dropping it off in front of the FBI field office on Northwest Second.”
    “Why would he have . . .” I began, but then stopped. “They’re not watching him, are they? They’re protecting him.”
    “Not quite,” Sam said. “They’re just curious how an ex-con living with his mommy happened to run across this information and then felt compelled to drop it on their doorstep. Especially since he could have just as easily dropped it with some members of the Banshees and solved a lot of problems.”
    The Ghouls and the Banshees were the biker gang equivalent of a family feud gone wrong. The Banshees splintered from the Ghouls a decade ago, and the resulting war between the two groups was one of those organized-crime wars that the authorities were usually happy to let happen; as long as they just killed one another, there was a net gain for society.
    “He had to know there were cameras,” I said, which made me realize: He had to know there were cameras . And there it was. The extenuating circumstance Barry mentioned. The stash house belonged to the Ghouls Motorcycle Club, an outlaw gang whose propensity for violent crime made even the Hells Angels seem like an esteemed group of kind and generous fellows with a shared interest in motorcycles. If he was dropping off their materials at the FBI office in broad daylight, and in a bright red sweater no less, that meant he was scared.
    I came back to the photos of the house in Aventura. From the outside it looked like a standing set from Miami Vice : the facade was faux Art Deco and statues of pink flamingos dotted the lawn. In the driveway, however, was a yellow Ford Fairmont station wagon, replete with wood paneling and a luggage rack.
    “How sick is the mother?” I asked.
    “Gets radiation five days a week,” Sam said. “Maxed credit cards. Looks like Medicare is picking up some of the rudimentary stuff, but I guess cancer isn’t all that rudimentary.”
    I thought about my mother, who smoked like Chernobyl but miraculously didn’t have cancer. Meeting Bruce’s mother might be a nice object lesson. Or it might just give her someone to smoke with. “Is she dying?”
    “Old people die,” Sam said. “Old people with cancer don’t have improved odds, they just die more painfully.”
    “Let me ask you something,” I said. “Why should I take this job?”
    “All the people you’ve ever helped, you think he’s half as bad as most?”
    “He’s a bank robber,” I said.
    “So is Fiona,” Sam said. “And for a terrorist organization, I might add.”
    “That’s not been substantiated,” I said. “There’s some muddy area concerning whether or not she knew she was working for the IRA.”
    “She also sells guns to criminals,” Sam said. “As in she had me watch her back yesterday while you were meeting with Barry. Sold a trunkful of Russian GSh-18 pistols to some Cubans.”
    “Cubans?”
    “Planning a revolution or something. Real beauties. Anyway, I admit that when Fiona does a little crime, it’s hot, real hot, but you can’t pick and choose your bad guys. Plus, while Fiona probably wouldn’t smother her dying mother, she’s not known for her Florence Nightingale tendencies, Mikey. At least Grossman is doing all he can to save his mother. Or at least make her comfortable.”
    When Sam is the voice of reason, I know there’s something fundamentally wrong. But then he added, “And you owe Barry, Mikey.”
    Again with the voice of reason . . .
    I took out my cell and called Barry.
    “I’ll meet with Grossman on one condition,” I said. “I take this, I need some cash, you pay my fee. I don’t want whatever money he’s holding on to.”
    “That makes me think you don’t trust him,” Barry said.
    “I don’t,” I said.
    “You realize I don’t work nights at a Christian charity, right?”
    “Your stolen money is cleaner,” I said.
    “That’s kind.”
    “I also know where you live.”
    There was a pause on the line.