An hour and a half later, he’s on Long Island, standing in front of the plastic window at a Hempstead Dairy Queen. He’s been a big fan since he was a kid.
“Can I help you?” the girl behind the window asks.
Damn. Is she even old enough to be working?he wonders. With her brown ponytail and bangs, she doesn’t look more than fifteen. Then again, she could be twenty. He’s not sure. He doesn’t know how to judge these things anymore. For all he knows, she could be a young single mother.
“Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Blizzard Treat,” he says. The official name.
“Coming up.”
She clearly doesn’t care that a middle-aged man is standing alone on a cold autumn night ordering a ridiculous ice cream specialty.
Metcalf pays for his Blizzard and gets back into his car. He turns it on. As he eats his ice cream, he listens to Springsteen sing “Hungry Heart.”
The Blizzard and the Boss. Both are as good as he remembers.
CHAPTER 6
I’M STARTING TO WORRY.
The one good thing you can say about cartels is that they’re unbiased. Whoever you are, cross them in even the mildest way, like adding too much cilantro to the guacamole, and they will smash your head in like a rotted pumpkin without regard to your race, religion, ethnicity, or country of origin.
Even being a wife or girlfriend doesn’t earn you any brownie points. Sad to say, I’ve seen cartel women with enough black-and-blue marks to audition for a new reality show,Bruises Gone Wild.
And those were women who wereloved.
God knows what they’d do to a female FBI agent.
So, putting aside all dreams of a new car and a revised reputation, I realize there are certain hazards awaiting me. When you go undercover, there are risks involved. Death is a distinct possibility. Losing an eye, a limb, or various parts of your face is not out of the question. Sure, I love milkshakes as much as the next guy. But I’d rather not spend the rest of my life eating everything through a straw.
Yes, spying on the cartel has its downside.
But taking care of a baby? Now, that’s truly terrifying.
I stayed up late reading a bunch of baby-care manuals I downloaded. But there’s really no way to prepare for the job until it happens. It’s like trying to prepare for a beheading.
In the mirror this morning, I see my wild bloodshot eyes with yesterday’s smeared makeup underneath. In fact, I bear a striking resemblance to the classic Bride of Chucky. I wash it all off. Metcalf has given me strict orders: No makeup today. He’s arranged for me to visit a stylist. Or, perhaps in my case, anun-stylist. A “concealment professional” whose job, in Metcalf’s words, is to “drab you down.”
Shouldn’t take long.
My burner phone buzzes. I look at the screen. It’s the address for where I’m going: 430 Hudson Street, suite 307.Typical FBI move. No info communicated until the precise need-to-know moment.
Thirty minutes later, I’m getting off the elevator on the third floor of a creaky Greenwich Village building. I pass a psychic’s office, a party planner, an attorney, and another psychic (really handy if you need a second opinion). Then, at the end, is suite 307. The door readsINGRID STEPANCHIKOV. I ring the bell.
I expected some sort of drop-dead gorgeous cosmetologist. But no. Ingrid is a chunky woman in her late forties wearing a denim shirt and baggy khaki pants, her gray hair piled on top of her head in a bun surrounded by flyaways. Even before saying hello, Ingrid looks me up and down a few times to check out my body. Reminds me of the old days when I used to go to singles bars.
“Take off your clothes,” she says as soon as I’m inside.
Now Ireallyfeel like I’m in a singles bar.
“Where are you from?” I ask. Anything to take my mind off my slow striptease.
“Russia,” she says. “Town of Vyazemsky.”
Oh.
Ingrid makes me turn around slowly, like a middle-aged ballerina. “I think we’re wasting taxpayer money,” I say as I twirl. “I’m already invisible.”
She shakes her head no. “Too thin,” she says. Words I never expected to hear in my lifetime.
