The Broker

"I need to run to the office and sue a guy, okay? I’ll be back around noon to sign everything and get the money."

Neal hustled to his office, two blocks away, with a nervous pain in his stomach. Lisa would kill him if she found out, and in a small town secrets were hard to bury. In four years of a very happy marriage they had made all decisions together. Explaining the loan would be painful, though she would probably come around if he told the truth.

Repaying the money would pose a challenge. His father had always been one to make easy promises. Sometimes he came through, sometimes he didn’t, and he was never too concerned one way or the other. But that was the old Joel Backman. The new one was a desperate man with no friends, no one to trust.

What the hell. It was only $4,000. Richard would keep it quiet. Neal would worry about the loan later. He was, after all, a lawyer. He could squeeze in some extra fees here and there, put in a few more hours.

His primary concern at that moment was the package to be shipped to Rudolph Viscovitch.

With the cash bulging in his pocket, Neal fled Culpeper during the lunch hour and hurried up to Alexandria, ninety minutes away. He found the store, Chatter, in a small strip mall on Russell Road, a mile or so from the Potomac River. It advertised itself online as the place to go for the latest in telecom gadgetry, and one of the few places in the United States where one could purchase unlocked cell phones that would work in Europe. As he browsed for a few moments, he was astounded at the selection of phones, pagers, computers, satellite phones-everything one could possibly need to keep in touch. He couldn’t browse for long-there was a four o’clock deposition in his office. Lisa would be making one of her many daily check-ins to see what, if anything, was happening downtown.

He asked a clerk to show him the Ankyo 850 PC Pocket Smart – phone, the greatest technological marvel to hit the market in the past ninety days. The clerk removed it from a display case and, with great enthusiasm, switched languages and described it as "Full QWERTY keyboard, tri-band operation on five continents, eighty megabyte built-in memory, high-speed data connectivity with EGPRS, wireless LAN access, Bluetooth wireless technology, IPv4 and IPv6 dual stack support, infrared, Pop-Port interface, Symbian operating system version 7.0S, Series 80 platform."

"Automatic switching between bands?"

"Yes."

"Covered by European networks?’

"Of course."

The smartphone was slightly larger than the typical business phone, but it was comfortable in the hand. It had a smooth metallic surface with a rough plastic back cover that prevented sliding when in use.

"It’s larger," the clerk was saying. "But it’s packed with goodies – e-mail, multimedia messaging, camera, video player, complete word processing, Internet browsing-and complete wireless access almost anywhere in the world. Where are you going with it?"

"Italy."

"It’s ready to go. You’ll just need to open an account with a service provider."

Opening an account meant paperwork. Paperwork meant leaving a trail, something Neal was determined not to do. "What about a prepaid SIM card?" he asked.

"We got ’em. For Italy it’s called a TIM-Telecom Italia Mobile. It’s the largest provider in Italy, covers about ninety-five percent of the country."

Til take it."

Neal slid down the lower part of the cover to reveal a full keypad. The clerk explained, "It’s best to hold it with both hands and type with the thumbs. You can’t fit all ten fingers on the keypad." He took it from Neal and demonstrated the preferred method of thumb-typing.

"Got it," Neal said. Til take it."

The price was $925 plus tax, plus another $89 for the TIM card. Neal paid in cash as he simultaneously declined the extended warranty, rebate registration, owners program, anything that would create paperwork and leave a trail. The clerk asked for his name and address and Neal declined. At one point he said, with great irritation, "Is it possible to simply pay for this and leave?"

"Well, sure, I guess," the clerk said.

"Then let’s do it. I’m in a hurry."

He left and drove half a mile to a large office supply store. He quickly found a Hewlett-Packard Tablet PC with integrated wireless capability. Another $440 got invested in his father’s security, though Neal would keep the laptop and hide it in his office. Using a map he’d downloaded, he found the PackagePost in another strip mall nearby. Inside, at a shipping desk, he hurriedly wrote two pages of instructions for his father, then folded them into an envelope containing a letter and more instructions he’d prepared earlier that morning. When he was certain no one was watching, he wedged twenty $100 bills in the small black carrying case that came with the Ankyo marvel. Then he placed the letter and the instructions, the smartphone, and the case inside a mailing carton from the store. He sealed it tightly, and on the outside he wrote with a black marker please hold for marco lazzeri. The carton was then placed inside another, slightly larger one that was addressed to Rudolph Viscovitch at Via Zamboni 22, Bologna. The return address was PackagePost, 8851 Braddock Road, Alexandria, Virginia 22302. Because he had no choice, he left his name, address, and phone number on the registry, in case the package got returned. The clerk weighed the package and asked about insurance. Neal declined, and prevented more paperwork. The clerk added the international stamps, and finally said, "Total is eighteen dollars and twenty cents."

Neal paid him and was assured again that it would be mailed that afternoon.

In the semidarkness of his small apartment, Marco went through his early-morning routine with his usual efficiency. Except for prison, when he had little choice and no motivation to hit the ground running, he’d never been one to linger after waking. There was too much to do, too much to see. He’d often arrived at his office before 6:00 a.m. breathing fire and looking for the day’s first brawl, and often after only three or four hours of sleep.

Those habits were returning now. He wasn’t attacking each day, wasn’t looking for a fight, but there were other challenges.

He showered in less than three minutes, another old habit that was aided mightily on Via Fondazza by a severe shortage of warm water. Over the lavatory he shaved and worked carefully around the quite handsome growth he was cultivating on his face. The mustache was almost complete; the chin was solid gray. He looked nothing like Joel Backman, nor did he sound like him. He was training himself to speak much slower and in a softer voice. And of course he was doing so in another language.

His quick morning routine included a little espionage. Beside his bed was a chest of drawers where he kept his things. Four drawers, all the same size, with the last one six inches above the floor. He took a very thin strand of white thread he’d unraveled from a bed sheet; the same thread he used every day. He licked both ends, leaving as much saliva as possible, then stuck one end under the bottom of the last drawer. The other end was stuck to the side brace of the chest, so that when the drawer was opened the invisible thread was pulled out of position.

Someone, Luigi he presumed, entered his room every day while he was studying with either Ermanno or Francesca and went through the drawers.

His desk was in the small living room, under the only window. On it he kept an assortment of papers, notepads, books; Ermanno’s guide to Bologna, a few copies of the Herald Tribune, a sad collection of free shopping guides he’d gathered from Gypsies who passed them out on the streets, his well-used Italian-English dictionary, and the growing pile of study aids Ermanno was burdening him with. The desk was only moderately well organized, a condition that irritated him. His old lawyer’s desk, one that wouldn’t fit in his current living room, had been famous for its meticulous order. A secretary fussed over it late every afternoon.