An hour later, Michael and Fiona knew more about smuggling drugs in butternut squash than they ever thought they would need to know. The amount they had thought they would need to know about smuggling drugs in butternut squash was zero, by the way.
"Yeah, so, best as I can tell, they just whack open the squash, scoop out the guts, fill it with their choice narcotic of the day, shrink wrap the thing back together, and ship 'em off to Canada," Sam said. "They throw some cash at the local truckers to haul a crate or two with the regular load. It's never enough to catch anyone's attention for a given load. It's actually pretty brilliant. I mean, who checks squash?"
"You're really not supposed to shrink wrap squash," Spencer said. "The skin needs to breathe. I mean, why would anyone think it's okay to shrink wrap squash? Wow, like, just, wow. I don't get people sometimes."
Michael stared at him. "Spencer, I'm guessing the customs inspectors don't concern themselves much with the health of squash skin. You, in fact, might be the only person concerned with the health of squash skin."
"Oh, okay, whatever," Spencer said, rolling his eyes. "I'm going to the men's room,"
Michael sighed as he watched Spencer nearly trip over the too-long jeans on the way to the bathroom. "So you got a way in, Sam?" he asked.
"You better believe it. I say we go old school. Get 'em worked up about a rival smuggling group using their lanes, then have the feds there to sting 'em when they try to kill us."
Michael looked at Fiona and took a deep breath. "No. We need something else."
"Whaddya talkin' about, Mike? It's so easy it should be a sin," Sam said.
"We're not doing something where plan A – the plan we like, the plan before everything goes to shit – is that an organized drug ring is going to try to kill us."
"Since when?" Sam asked, genuine confusion on his face.
"Since Charlie," Fiona answered. "Michael's very worried about this kind of thing now.
Sam leaned in. "It's still gettin' to ya, brother, huh?" Michael didn't answer. "Well, that's no problem. We'll just think of another way."
The other way came to all of them at basically the same time 30 seconds later. They'd just call the FBI.
For the first time in years and years, none of them was on the run from any U.S. law enforcement agency. Michael and Fi were still iffy in parts of Europe, and Michael accepted early on that he should never return to Ukraine or the east part of Africa, but they were good at home. Sam and Jesse could go anywhere, but they liked to stay home. Unless Sam was on a cruise with Elsa. Sam liked to cruise with Elsa. They had a 15-day Mediterranean voyage coming up in a few months.
And none of them had any problem in Canada.
This business with Spencer was a textbook problem for the feds. A painfully innocent man had been duped and made a party to something illegal. He didn't know. Nobody would doubt he didn't know. Someone – probably Sam, because he oozes trustworthiness and morality – would take Spencer in to the Miami office of the FBI, the feds would debrief Spencer, Sam would schmooze with some old buddies, and he'd probably make a new buddy or two while he was there. Sam makes buddies very easily.
"I'm embarrassed I didn't think of this first, you know," Sam said as they were walking out. "Guess we've just been in the habit too long. And I gotta say, I'm kinda disappointed. It sounded fun. This Jennifer looks like a real piece of work. Woulda been fun to kick her around."
"Don't worry, Sam. At the rate Fi's going, she'll find us something dangerous and horrible within the week."
Fiona kicked Michael in the shin.
Michael and Fiona deposited Spencer into Sam's custody and headed home. They'd cleared their schedules to deal with the now squashed Operation Squash. So they found themselves with six and a half hours before they had to get Charlie.
Neither of them considered picking Charlie up early.
"What are you going to do?" Michael asked as they pulled into the driveway. "I may go for a run."
"Michael."
"What?"
"Seriously?
"What?"
"Michael, we have sex approximately 75% less often than we did before Charlie. Let's just assume that when we have some free time together, we'll be having sex."
Michael closed the car door behind him. "I don't know how you do it, Fi, but you can make sex sound as appealing as dental work."
Fiona raised her head and looked down her nose at him. "Just for that, there will be something involving teeth."
Thirty-six minutes later, Michael's phone rang at a most inconvenient time.
"Leave it," Fiona panted.
"Charlie," Michael panted back. "Could be . . . Charlie." He tried to reach the phone on his night table, but Fiona was blocking him. "Fi, come on. Just wait a minute." She ARGHHHHHHHed dramatically and rolled off him.
Michael grabbed his phone on the fifth ring. "Yeah?" he said without checking the screen.
"Yeah, is this Michael?" said an unfamiliar male voice.
Michael pulled the phone away from his ear to look at the screen. MOM.
"Who is this and why are you on this phone?" Michael said sternly, putting the phone on speaker for Fiona to hear.
"This Michael?"
"You first. Who is this?"
"This is Enrique Febrán. I'm a cabbie, man. I got this lady here who gave me her phone and told me to call you."
"Put me on speaker," Michael ordered. A moment later background noise and moaning came out of Michael's phone.
"Ma? What's wrong?" Michael asked.
"Oh, Michael, I fell down the goddamn back steps and I think I broke my wrist," Madeline said, the pain clear in her voice.
"Why'd you call a cab?" Michael asked. He and Fiona had both jumped out of bed and were getting dressed as fast as they could.
"Jesus, Michael, you think I can drive myself to the hospital? What's the matter with you?" snapped/weeped Madeline.
"I mean why didn't you call me?" Michael said.
"I don't know, Michael! I was in agony. Excuse me for not remembering my phone etiquette. Ahhhhhhhh . . . " Maddie moaned.
"What hospital are you going to?" Michael asked. Silence. "Enrique, what hospital are you taking her to?
"Uhhhh, we're closest to UM."
"Okay, go to UM. Ma, we'll be there as soon as we can," said Michael, and he hung up the phone. "Let's go," he said to Fiona, grabbing his keys from the dresser. Fiona hurried after him, hopping on her right foot as she pulled the strap of her sandal behind her left ankle. "Let me drive, Michael. For obvious reasons," she said.
"Fine. You know," he said as they got in the car, "my mother never walked in on me having sex when I was in high school. And then I left for 20 years. This is probably karmic retribution."
"I presume so. It's also punishment for your comparing my sexual company to dentistry. I trust you won't do that again."
"Not likely, no."