The Giveaway Read Online Free PDF

off?”
    “No,” I said.
    “No?”
    “Bruce, this is my friend Fiona,” I said.
    “Friend?” Fiona said. She was angry. I’ve tried my whole life to avoid angry women. Avoiding angry Fiona should be a national pastime.
    “Associate,” I said.
    “Associate?” Fiona said.
    I looked at Bruce. He seemed perplexed.
    “What is the right answer, Fiona?” I said.
    She cocked her head at me and then ran her tongue over her teeth. I’ve seen nature videos where panthers do the same thing. “What is it you want me to do here?” she said. “That will determine my answer.”
    I took a deep breath. “Bruce, this is Fiona. She’s going to interrogate you about your story, because you’ve clearly lied to Barry about how you came across this information you need returned. I feel like you’ll probably lie to me, which will cause both of us great pain and sorrow, so I thought my . . . Fiona . . . could get the truth out of you without either of us getting hurt in the process.”
    Bruce got a queer look on his face. “Is she going to torture me?”
    “Maybe,” Fi said.
    Bruce took a step back toward the door.
    “No,” I said. “No, she is not. No, she is absolutely not. Are you, Fiona?”
    “Everyone is so dull around here,” she said, a noticeable pout in her voice.
    I handed my keys to Fiona. “Fiona is going to take you for a drive, Bruce. If she likes what she hears, she’ll bring you back here and we’ll have a deal. If she doesn’t like what she hears, she’ll drive you back here and I’ll be gone. Understand?”
    Bruce looked over both of his shoulders and then back at both of us. We stared back at him. “I thought someone was going to come up and blindfold me. That’s how the FBI does it.”
    “I’m not the FBI,” Fiona said. She took Bruce by the hand and guided him toward the car, even opened the passenger door for him. He looked back at me, shrugged and climbed in. Fi locked him in, which gave him a visible start.
    “Don’t hurt him,” I said.
    “Not even a little?” Fi asked.
    “Not even a little,” I said.
    Fi sighed. “One day,” she said, flirtation coming back to her, “you’re going to regret that I wasn’t allowed to hurt more people.”
    She got into the car without another word, but I was pretty sure that finding out the validity of that threat would be either the best or the worst day of my life.
    I watched the car round the corner at the end of the street and disappear and then made my way inside, in case Bruce’s mother woke up and needed something, because even a burned spy knows how to make a glass of water.

4
    The way Bruce Grossman figured it, robbing safe-deposit boxes was a victimless crime. If people kept large sums of money in safe-deposit boxes—and there were always large sums of money to be found—that meant those people were probably crooks. If you’re a normal person, there’s no good reason to keep your money in a place hidden from use. Oh, sure, maybe you harbor fears that the Nazis are coming or the Commies are coming or the end of the Mayan calendar is nigh and the world is coming to an end, but even still, what would having money hidden away do for you? People who hide their money do it because they are doing something wrong.
    That’s not to say he robbed safe-deposit boxes to get back at the bad guys, because that wasn’t the case in the least. Starting out, he just wanted to have things. A nice house. A nice car. A place for his mother in a safe neighborhood in Miami. Maybe some flash cash, just so the ladies knew he was more than a receding hairline and an odd personality, because, shit, he knew he wasn’t all that . No, starting out, that money got him places. Opened doors. Got return phone calls from smart girls.
    And if he got in deep with somebody, say at the bookie’s joint, he just had to pop a score in some no-name town and come back with whatever money he needed to pay off his debts. Used to be, before a night out in Detroit—back