Chapter 3

I’m not big on excuses, be they mine or someone else’s. I long ago decided that if something went south, you just owned up to it and faced the music. Because, when you get right down to it, nobody really cares about the “why.” They might say they do, but it’s just because they think it will bring some kind of closure. And you know what? It never does. Finding out the reason somebody screwed you over only makes you more angry if it was a stupid reason, and overwhelmingly guilty if it was a good reason.

Since I have no use for either of those, I divided up offenses into two basic categories: forgivable and unforgivable. If someone does something to me that gets me into hot water, I make up my mind right then and there whether or not I can ever forgive them. If I can forgive, then I deal with it. If I can’t, I move on. I eliminate that person from my life as much as possible.

In the case of Anita McGuire, however, I was faced with a few obstacles to this. First, I wasn’t sure if she had actually screwed me. I couldn’t really tell you if her coming in to see me was a decisive ploy meant to throw off her tail, or if she even knew that she was being followed. I didn’t know if she had actually done anything wrong, or if she was just some innocent woman caught in the middle of something.

In short, all of a sudden, the “why” seemed pretty damn important.

I left the Humidor early, that day. I had some serious thinking to do, and business would have to take a back seat. I hated that most of all. I sincerely like what I do, and I don’t like taking a day off, for any reason. But, if I was to get to the bottom of this whole thing, I was going to have to get in touch with some people that had connections I didn’t—connections, I should add, I didn’t want.

I walked back to my house and opened my garage. The 1972 Dodge Dart that was nestled inside was a thing of beauty. Well, to me, it was, anyway. The Dart isn’t exactly amongst the top ten on anybody’s muscle car wish list, but it has a quiet elegance that I’ve always loved. The car was exactly as old as I am, and it always made me feel better to hear the engine rev without a single catch. I figured, as long as this old girl could still run strong, so could I.

I don’t take her out too much. I prefer to walk, and since everything I need in life is within a two-mile radius of my house, it works out. But there are some destinations that require wheels, and on the rare occasions when I do need to leave my neighborhood, the Dart has never let me down.

Today, she was getting a bit of a treat. We were driving all the way across town, to Gandy Boulevard, and across the bridge to Pinellas County.

Gandy Beach has been referred to as the Redneck Riviera, the Everyman’s Yacht Club, Beer Can Alley, and several others. To those that frequent, it’s generally called Dog Beach. Gandy Beach is one of the few places left where you can drive your car or truck on the beach, open up a beer, and let your dog run loose. It is not a beach that will ever make its way into a tourist magazine, and that’s just fine. Gandy Beach is a hangout for locals, and that’s the way they like it. Most everyone there keeps to themselves. People bring their families on the weekend, and the local college kids enjoy taking a dip between classes.

For the most part, there isn’t any trouble. That’s partly because nobody wants to wreck a good thing by bringing the cops down and closing the place, and partly because the regulars have a “don’t put up with crap” policy that has been known to be a little heavy-handed.

It was a couple of those locals that I was going to visit. Hank and George had been setting up their tent at Gandy for nearly five years, now. They started when Hank lost his job and George got tired of working. They got this crazy notion of selling hot dogs on the beach, and it kind of took off. Nobody knows where they get their dogs, but everyone agrees that they are some of the best in town.

With the amount of business they pull in everyday, they could have moved into a stand-alone building some time ago, but they prefer the beach. Hank thinks that they would lose business by moving, and George thinks that a building would be too much like work for his taste. So, they remain on the beach to this day, known lovingly as the Hot Dog Brothers.

I timed my visit just right—at the tail end of the lunch rush. I like to watch them work. They have a way of making the wait in line part of the experience, and their customers wouldn’t have it any other way.

Entertainment was a big part of the Hot Dog Brothers business. They were out here to have fun, and they both agreed that the second it stopped being fun, they’d stop doing it. As usual, Hank manned the grill and the buns, while George took the money and kept the orders straight. As they worked, they hurled insults at each other and engaged in some of the most bizarre banter a human brain could ever concoct. Topics of conversation ranged from the psychosocial effects of depriving lawyers of post-it notes, to how often ants farted. They also, on occasion, challenged each other to strange and bizarre competitions—usually involving food or cooking in general. I blame the food channel.

Today, they were keeping themselves, and their customers, occupied by playing a game they called, “Work with that.” It was simple enough in theory. One of them would spout out a list of ingredients that must be used in a recipe. The other would have to think up a dish on the spot that would incorporate them. It was usually impossible to determine the winner, since neither of them would ever acknowledge that their dish was inferior, and because they were all theoretical. You can’t really taste an idea, after all.

I sat and listened to George explain how he would use sauerkraut, seabass, and funyuns in a dish that, by the end, actually sounded pretty good, and collected my own thoughts. They would be clear of the crowd in about 20 minutes, and then I could sit and chat with the two of them.

You see, Hank and George also had another claim to fame. They knew just about everything that happened in the bay area. Particularly, the kinds of things that were done in dark places.

Both of them were locals, born and bred—something of a rarity in Florida, where most everyone is from somewhere else. They had grown up in some of the rougher parts of town, and had managed to rub elbows with some of the heavy-hitters of the criminal world. As far as I know, both of them had always stayed on the non-offending side of the law, but they always made sure that they were kept in the loop of what was happening.

They had each been approached by the Tampa Police Department on many occasions, trying to get them to act as informant, but they had staunchly refused. It wasn’t that they held some kind of “honor among thieves” or anything like that. They simply liked being in the circle, and having the cops around all the time pumping you for information was a quick way to get booted out—minus a few body parts.

When the line finally petered out, I sat at the little picnic table they had set up and waited. Sure enough, within five minutes, Hank and George were sauntering over with a plate full of their best red hots.

“Lester Calvin! I haven’t seen you in a while,” rumbled Hank, as he plopped his frame with an audible thud onto the bench beside me.

“Yeah,” agreed George, making his way to the other side. “What have you been up to?”

I made a few general comments that told nothing, as courtesy dictates, then helped myself to a hot dog. The two men nodded as though that was sufficient, and each grabbed a dog for themselves.

“So, Calvin,” George began between bites, “what can we do for you?”

“Did it ever occur to you that I was just hungry?” I asked, innocently.

“If you were hungry, you would have stood in line, instead of waiting for half an hour for the line to clear out,” Hank observed.

Of course, he was right. But I really had no intention of trying to be coy with these two.

“I need some info,” I announced. Neither of them looked surprised. Nor should they, I had used them as a source before.

I didn’t waste any time. I told them the whole thing, from start to finish. If I was to get good information, I had to provide them with everything.

“So you want to know…what, exactly?” Hank asked.

“I want to know what this McGuire woman was involved in. What is this whole thing about, and how deep into it am I?” I asked.

George had the long-distance look on his face that he always got when he was sorting something out. Hank was fidgeting with his hot dog. Both were good signs. It meant they had made up their mind to help me.

“The FBI guy asked you for the serial number?” George asked, recalling my tale.

“Yes.”

“But not the ATF?”

I thought about that a moment, searching my memory. Did they? I couldn’t remember them asking for it—even when I told them about Agent David’s interest.

“No, they didn’t, actually. In fact, they just kind of dismissed it when I brought it up!”

The two men looked at each other knowingly.

“The Edgewater thing,” Hank announced.

“The Edgewater thing,” George agreed. I waited a moment for more details, but they just sat there.

I had had enough already. Clearly the two of them had pieced something together, and I wanted to know what it was.

“What are you guys talking about? What Edgewater thing?” I asked.

George smirked, “The old Edgewater Plant out on 41. It’s been abandoned for as long as anyone can remember, because the Edgewater company pumped the ground so full of toxins and chemicals that you can’t even walk into the place without a gas mask. That, and the fact that it’s out in the middle of nowhere, makes it a perfect spot for a drop or a meet-up you don’t want anyone to know about.”

“That’s probably why the FBI chose it when their undercover agents made a buy with a big arms dealer about 6 months ago,” Hank continued. “They put a big wad of cash together for that one.”

“How big?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“About…what, 20 million?” asked Hank.

“Yeah, there abouts,” confirmed George. I know the look on my face at that moment must have been comical, but the Hot Dog Brothers were kind enough not to laugh. The very idea of such an immense amount of money was more than I could completely take in.

“I’m sorry…did you say 20 million? As in 20 thousand thousand?”

George looked almost kind as he saw my disbelief.

“The Feds were after one very big fish, so they needed a very large piece of bait,” he explained. “They had been dancing around with some of his local guys for about two years, and now they were ready to make a big move, and bring the whole operation down in one move.”

“So, what happened?”

George laughed to himself.

“The money never made it to the drop. The undercover agents got jumped on the way, and all that money got taken.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope,” Hank chimed in. “The bust was a total wash-out, the Feds were out 20 million, and the undercover agents have been under administrational leave ever since. Not exactly a red-letter day for the FBI.”

It was a very interesting story, but I wasn’t quite making the connection, yet. It must have shown, because George decided to enlighten me.

“Your friendly neighborhood G-man, Agent David, wanted the serial numbers to match against the missing money. Obviously, this McGuire woman is involved, or at least suspected. It’s about the only thing that fits.”

“So, why wouldn’t the ATF want to follow up the same lead?” I asked.

“They already did, remember. They’ve been following McGuire for a while. Hell, they probably were watching when she got her hands on the drop money.”

I was trying to wrap my head around this. I may not be the most upstanding of citizens, but I really do try and keep my hide on the right side of the law. Convoluted criminal schemes were not part of my usual routine.

“I’m still a little confused, here.”

“About which part?” asked George.

“All of it,” I answered truthfully.

“With that much money in the pot, agencies like the FBI and the ATF aren’t given a lot of incentive to cooperate or play nice. Basically, whoever gets the collar, gets the cash. If the ATF guys can nab your mystery woman and get to the 20 mil, then they get to throw it into their operational budget, and the FBI can just eat their hearts out over it.”

“So,” finished Hank, “they aren’t too likely to do anything that might inadvertently help the FBI, are they?”

“I suppose not,” I agreed.

“I am afraid, Calvin, that you have gotten yourself stuck smack in the middle of a government agency peeing contest.”

“Yeah,” I said aloud, “that’s about what it feels like.”

I had a lot to think about. The Hot Dog Brothers had proven, once again, to be the right source for the info that mattered. What I needed to do with that information, however—that they couldn’t help me with. I finished off about two more dogs before parting. I didn’t pay. Not because I’m a cheapskate, mind you, but because I knew that when the time came to repay the favor, they wouldn’t hesitate to give me a call. It’s how it worked with people like us. We took care of each other.

As I pulled back onto Gandy Boulevard, I wanted nothing more than to point the Dart back toward Tampa, and the solace of my house. But, I didn’t. There was an errand I had to take care of on this side of the Tampa Bay.

I had mentioned earlier that there was a phone call I was putting off. Well, the recipient of that call lived in St Petersburg, just a few miles away, and I figured that, as long as I was over there already…

My destination was a small family restaurant across from St Pete Beach called, simply, Nana’s. Normally, the piece of real estate it occupied would be way too expensive to support a tiny little business like it, but the owner had been in that locale long before the rest of world had decided it was valuable, and despite the numerous offers made to her year after year, she was content to serve her customers the good food they had come to count on from her.

I pulled into a narrow parking space across the street, and sucked in a calming breath as I made my way to the door. As soon as I walked in, the familiar smells washed over my senses, forcing a smile out of me.

“It never fails, does it?” asked a lilting, almost musical voice. I looked up to see Miranda, possibly the world’s best waitress, smiling at me from across the small lunch counter.

“What never fails?” I asked.

“The smell of Nana’s Borscht is a healing balm to the soul, perfect for every moral, ethical, and emotional crisis.”

I smiled genuinely. She was right about the borscht.

“You should write that down. It would make a great marketing line,” I offered. Miranda smiled beneficently at my obvious flattery. She had that way about her—she could smile at you, and just by doing so, you felt like a better person.

“Can I get you a bowl?” she asked.

“No. I’ll grab one from the kitchen. How’s she doing, today?” I asked, hoping she couldn’t tell how nervous I was in asking the question.

“She’s yelled at the new cook three times, threatened to fire everyone—including me, and she threw a pot at the cat.”

“So… She’s in a good mood,” I replied. Miranda giggled her agreement.

“Go on. Get back there and say hi before she starts to accuse you of avoiding her.” To emphasize her point, she flicked a towel out toward me and walked off to tend to her customers.

Having no other excuse for stalling, I ducked behind the counter, then pushed through the double doors leading to the kitchen.

As soon as I walked in, I could hear her. Nana was breathing out threats to the short order cook who had recently been hired. I didn’t recognize him, which meant he had probably replaced the last new cook they had hired. I tried to track in my head how many cooks that made it since Julian left.

“If you had any idea what you were doing, I wouldn’t have to explain how to make a simple meat pie to you, again!” she blustered.

I could hear the cook arguing back, which was the worst possible thing to do with her. Nana yelled at everyone. Equally. The trick was learning when she was yelling because she was feeling feisty, and when she was yelling because she was mad.

Neither occasion ever invited the opportunity to yell back.

“I don’t care where you learned to cook! All those schools ever teach anyone is how to screw up perfectly good recipes, anyway. You want to work in my kitchen? You want to cook for me? There is only one way. Mine!”

This was followed by a rather long and vehement string of Russian, which I hoped the cook couldn’t speak. I knew that I had two choices, right then. I could either turn around and go home, or run to the poor fool’s rescue.

Before I could make up my mind, however, the decision was made for me.

“Oh, now I get the prodigal grandson. Maybe you could show him how to turn the oven on!” she snapped at me. I considered it a good sign. I hadn’t stopped in to visit for quite some time, so she was just as likely to throw me in with the cook and yell at us both at the same time. Only I understood Russian, so I would get the worst of it.

“Good to see you, Nana.”

She huffed her response as she turned away and walked to her tiny office. I could see the cook was about to try and continue the argument, so I intervened.

“I’m sorry. We haven’t met. I’m Lester, the good-for-nothing grandson who never visits. And you are?”

He looked confused for a second, as though he couldn’t quite figure out what was going on.

“Jack…Feston.”

“Great to meet you, Jack. Listen, I’ve got to talk with Nana for a bit. Do you mind if I steal her away for a moment?”

“Yeah, sure…” he mumbled, turning back to the grill.

I smiled to myself. He must be a really good cook, otherwise Nana would have thrown him out on the spot.

As I approached the door to her office, I summoned up what inner strength I had.

“Got a minute for your favorite grandson?” I called through the door.

“I always have time for Julian. Only he moved to New York six months ago,” she called back.

I opened the door and walked in.

“Then can I talk to you while you wait for him to come back?” I asked. I knew that she was still a bit sore at my cousin for leaving, and it didn’t really matter that he was given an opportunity to run one of the hottest restaurants in Manhattan. She saw it as a loss—not just of a great cook, but as the next generation of café owner once she passes.

“Have you eaten?”

“I had lunch,” I confessed. The disapproving look that she shot me spoke volumes.

“Of course. Why would you come to a café on an empty stomach? I’ll get you a bowl of borscht. You want bread?”

I smiled as I nodded. She led me out of the office back to the kitchen, where she eyed the cook evilly, before brushing past him to get to the massive pot containing the beet soup.

Nana poured out a large bowl for me, then dished out one for herself before heading back to the dining room.

“Grab the spoons and a loaf. I can’t do everything!”

Once we were seated, we tucked into the savory Russian soup. Even though I hadn’t been told to, I had grabbed the sour cream along with the black bread and spoons, and Nana was quick to drop a heavy spoonful into her bowl.

“So, what immoral and distasteful deeds have you been up to, lately? I keep checking the news to see your arrest notice, but so far, nothing.”

“I’ve been keeping my nose clean as much as possible, Nana. I’m too scared of you to do anything else.”

Nana gulped down a spoonful and nodded.

“Thought about getting a job?”

“Only with distaste. I’m doing good, Nana. The business is going well—and I’m happy. I’d hope that would be worth something.”

She paused, then took another bite. It was as good as I was going to get, and I had learned long ago to appreciate the value of it.

“Still holding court in that den of iniquity?”

I slumped my shoulders. This was leading down a path I didn’t like.

“It’s a cigar bar, not an opium den, Nana. There are a lot of good people there—you would know that if you ever came to see.”

“Bah!” she argued, “there are good people in church. You’d know that if you ever came to see!” she retorted. I knew this was coming. It always came down to me going to church, eventually.

“Nana, you know how I feel about that.”

“I know you have every kind of excuse, but no real reason. This is usually the case with people who reject God, but of course, you’re different,” she said quickly. If it isn’t clear yet, I inherited my sarcasm from my grandmother.

“So, what? I should sit and sing hymns while some priest tells me that everything I enjoy is wrong? Or should I do what everyone else does, and work the crossword until it’s time to throw my share of extortion money into the plate so I can feel like a good person? Where exactly is the line that separates saints and sinners, anyway? Is it a dollar amount? Or is there a timesheet I need to fill out every Sunday?”

“You are being disrespectful to God, Lester,” Nana warned. I was coming dangerously close to making her angry, and I knew it. The truth is, I was doing it on purpose. I wanted her to know I was serious. This constant pestering about going to church was getting really old.

“I’m being truthful. All those years of sitting in church, Sunday after Sunday, I never got one clear answer about anything that mattered. I was told what to do and what not to do so I could live a good, clean, inoffensive life; I got lecture upon lecture about piety and purity and prayer; but if I had an actual on-this-earth problem, I got a pat on the head and the cover-all advice of ‘pray.’ Pray. That was the solution to every problem. A bully is taking your lunch money. Pray. You’re trying out for the soccer team. Pray. Your girlfriend dumps you and you feel horrible. Pray. Your mother is sick, and the doctors can’t do anything to help her. Pray.”

I knew it was time to segue into the reason I came to visit at this point.

“Your father decides he would rather run off to some God-forsaken South American leper colony than take care of his family… Pray.”

We both remained quiet for a moment after that. There wasn’t a whole lot of things that you could say. Nana knew that I had never forgiven my father for leaving my mother and I, while she was still lying in her sick bed, slowly dying from inoperable cancer. Of course, back then, there wasn’t nearly the level of care and treatment there is today. Cancer was a death sentence. Even at the young age of 13, I knew that. I guess my father did, too. Only, he couldn’t face it. I didn’t have a choice. So, while he flew away to Peru on some humanitarian mission, I got to stay home and care for my mother until she died.

I was young and naïve enough, then, to think that he would come back after the funeral. Hell, I was stupid enough to think he would show up for the funeral. I was wrong on both accounts. He never came back. He never even sent word about what he was doing. Three years after he left, we got word from the company funding the school he was running, telling us that they had lost contact with the man. No one seemed to be able to find him. He had, quite literally, vanished.

“It is not the church that is to blame for what happened to your mother, or the actions of your father. You may not choose to accept it, but there were many people in the church who reached out to you. Many people who looked after you.”

“I remember, Nana. And I am grateful for them. But they weren’t kind to me because they went to church. They were kind because they were good people—and they would have been, no matter what religion they chose.”

We were starting to verge away from the point I needed to make. I had to get this conversation back on track quickly, before I lost my nerve.

“Nana, I didn’t come here to talk about church…”

“I know why you came,” she said without looking up.

“It’s been nearly 25 years, now. Far too long to leave things undone,” I said, quietly. She said nothing. She just took another spoonful of soup.

“Have you even looked at the papers I sent over?” I asked directly. She nodded that she had.

“I just want to protect you, Nana. You still have him listed as half owner of this restaurant. More than half, actually. What if…” I hesitated. As much as I needed to talk about this, it was still pretty hard.

“What if?” she asked. It was the question that I had never dared to actually ask, despite the fact that it had been on my mind for as long as I can remember.

“What if while he was down there he had another family?” I managed. “As long as he is listed as 60% owner of Nana’s café, then you open yourself to some stranger coming in and taking it from you, because your son wrote out a will giving your business to a total stranger.”

“You think so little of your father, that he would do this?”

“History kind of bears me out on it. He’s already abandoned us. What makes you think he would even hesitate to take the café away from you, to give it to some son or daughter that doesn’t even know you?”

She didn’t reply. She simply reached out and grabbed a hunk of the black bread, broke it, and handed me half.

“Spaceba,” I said, accepting the bread. My Russian was out of practice, but she didn’t mention it.

“Bjalsta,” she muttered, dunking her own bread into the soup.

“I’m only trying to protect you—and Miranda. You’ve invested your entire life into this place, and Miranda has sacrificed a lot to be here. She deserves to know that it’s going to still be here tomorrow.”

“You are so certain of this? That your father would do such a thing? Or are you just angry at him, and want to do something to show it?” she asked, pointedly.

I had an answer, but I chose not to give it. As much as she protested, I knew that she was just as angry as I was, which is why she never mentioned my father by name.

“I will tell you what I am certain of, Nana. I am certain that he has hurt this family so deeply that we are all still feeling it. And until we put him to rest, he always will. That’s what those papers are for,” I answered her softly. I reached out and took her hand in mine.

“No one has heard from him in 22 years. Ever since he decided to walk off into the rainforest and disappear. He made a choice, then, to leave everything behind. So, even if he is still alive, he’s nothing to us but a memory. That’s all those papers do, Nana. They make him a memory.”

She stopped eating and just stared at her spoon for a moment. Declaring her own son dead was something that she just plain didn’t want to do, and I knew it. But after all this time, it was important—and not just legally. I wasn’t kidding about making him a memory.

“He was a good son, once,” she said quietly. “He was a good father, too, though you wouldn’t remember. He lost his way when your mother got sick. I always hoped he would someday find his way back.”

“Hope is a good thing, Nana—so long as what you are hoping for is actually possible. I don’t think this qualifies.”

She looked up from her soup and stared straight into my eyes. It was a gaze that few people could stand up against. I am not one of those few.

“That hope is all that I have left of him, Lester.”

For a moment, I wanted to tell her to forget about the whole thing. It wasn’t important. She was probably right, and I was most likely making a big fuss over nothing. But I couldn’t do it. As much as I respected my grandmother, and her right to remember her son however she wanted, I also loved her too much to allow even a chance of her losing the café. Maybe she was convinced that my father would never take the café away from her, but I was not.

“Nana,” I began, “you need to let him go.”

There is really no way to read Nana with any measurable degree of accuracy. As she sat there, across the table, I couldn’t tell if she was angry, sad, or just deep in thought. It was a scary place to be, wondering if I was about to be thrown out, cursed out, or—worst of all—if I was to be the witness, and the cause, of my own dear grandmother’s painful tears.

“I will think about it,” she finally announced, as though it were an official decree. Which, I guess, it kind of was, from her perspective. We finished our borscht in relative quiet for a while. As I savored the food before me, I couldn’t help but look up to the small plaque above the entrance. It was a quote from the Bible, written in Syrillic: “Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations.” I knew that my grandfather had placed it there many years ago, as a reminder to his children never to forget their heritage. To me, however, it was a mockingly cruel thing. I wondered, at that moment, how Nana felt about it. Did she look at that plaque and think about the husband she had lost? The two children that were also taken from her? How does a person ever put that kind of pain to rest?

The truth is I will probably never know. And, I’m good with that. Because, the only way to know something like that is to experience it.

I was still considering that stark and painful thought as I was driving back over Gandy Bridge to the comfort of my home. I suppose if I allowed myself the luxury of professional psychological help, they would probably tell me that it was the fear of such a loss that kept me from experiencing a meaningful relationship. That, they would tell me, is what I was sacrificing to my fear of loss, stemmed from abandonment by my father, and the early death of my mother. To which, I would respond, “duh.”

I might have really worked myself into a nice little breakdown, letting my thoughts dwell on such things. Fortunately, my cell phone intruded on those dark thoughts.

“Hello,” I answered, not even bothering to see who was calling. I didn’t care. Any human voice was welcome at the moment.

“Hey Calvin, we got to thinkin’ about something,” George’s voice answered back. “You said that you hadn’t contacted that McGuire woman yet, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “It’s most likely a fake number, anyway.”

“Maybe not. Hank and I were just talking about your little conundrum, and something occurred to us.”

“I’m listening.” I had learned a long time ago to listen when someone like George or Hank has a thought.

“How did McGuire get your number?” he asked.

I thought about that for a moment.

“I’m asking because, you aren’t exactly in the yellow pages—and even if you were, it’s unlikely someone on the run would stop to let their fingers do the walking and look up…well, whatever listing you would fall under, right?”

“Actually… She didn’t have my number. She called the Humidor and asked for me.”

“Isn’t that a bit odd?” asked George.

“It’s not normal, I can tell you that.”

I was trying to figure out where George was going with this. I really didn’t understand why it was significant.

“Think, Calvin. How do clients usually find you?” he said, sensing my confusion.

“Word of mouth. Somebody tells them that they know a guy…” And that’s when it hit me. Anita McGuire came looking for me—by name. My services are, for lack of a better term, by invitation only. Somebody who knows me suggests that I can help, or I run into someone who needs my kind of assistance, in every case, however, there is a connection. Nobody just “shows up.”

“You get my drift, now, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I think I do.”

“Whoever Anita McGuire is, she knew who you were before she met you. She went looking for you—specifically. Which means, of course…”

“Somebody gave her my name,” I finished for him.

“It also means that she probably was looking for more than just a diversion for the Feds. She really did come to you for help. She just couldn’t tell you.”

“I don’t know, George. I see your point, but if she really wanted my help, she could have left me a little more of a hint.”

“She left you everything you needed, man. She paid you for nothing, using 5 hundred dollar bills that could easily be traced back to the Edgewater deal. She set up this cockamamie story that was bound to get you asking questions, and she left you with her phone number, so you could contact her when you figured it all out.”

“Maybe.” I wasn’t fully convinced. And, even if I was, it didn’t mean I wanted to help her. For all I knew, she was a major arms dealer to a terrorist group. I don’t need that on my resume—or my conscience.

“Maybe nothing. Look, I’m not telling you what to do, but you need to figure out how this woman got your name. I’d start taking a good look at your client list if I were you.”

George was making sense, but the picture wasn’t quite complete, yet.

“It couldn’t have been a client,” I said aloud. Whether I was talking to George or to myself, I wasn’t sure. “Anyone that I’ve worked for would have my phone number. She called the Humidor.”

“Then that’s a great place to start. You just got to figure out who would know you, know what you do, and know where you hang out, but not have your digits. How long could that list be?”

“Yeah,” I said, “how long.”

The truth is I had no idea how long that list would be, because I couldn’t even conceive of anyone to put on it.