Free Practice to Deceive by David Housewright

had never tasted it before, usually going with a less expensive brand.
    “What’d I say?” asked the window washer named Bob. “Top-of-the-line brew. I buy it all the time when I go to the Saints baseball games.”
    “You a St. Paul Saints fan?” I asked.
    “Damn right. Seen every home game since they started the Northern League. Got season tickets right behind home plate, about halfway up. You like your baseball, you gotta go with the minor leagues; forget those spoiled brats in the bigs.”
    As much as I loved the Show, it was hard to argue with him. Especially since the strike. I changed the subject.
    “Tell me, gentlemen, how much money do you make a year?”
    Again they looked at each other, then back at me.
    “I made twenty-seven thousand last year,” Sid confessed.
    “Twenty-seven thousand?” I was genuinely surprised.
    “I made about the same,” Sid added, on the defensive now. “People think we make a lot of money, because we work high. But we only get thirteen dollars an hour.”
    Thirteen dollars an hour? You couldn’t get me up there for less than a thousand. “Gentlemen, you are grossly underpaid,” I told them.
    “Then why pick on us?” asked Bob. “We’re just little guys. Why don’t you pick on some big guys for a change?”
    “Yeah,” Sid added.
    I put my hands up, showing that they were empty—the universal sign for peace.
    “That’s why I’m here. There’s a millionaire named Levering Field with an office on the thirty-fourth floor of the building you’re working on. We want to put some pressure on him, send him a message.”
    “Yeah?” Sid asked.
    “How would you two like to make five hundred dollars doing a small job for your government, two-fifty each?”
    T HE NEXT MORNING Levering Field found the word REPENT painted on the outside of his office window. Of course, from his side of the glass it was spelled TNEPER , but what the hell.
    T HE MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN behind the counter read the ad back to me:
    PROFESSIONAL
    Corporate SWM 45 offers emotionally mature, affectionate, attractive, sensuous woman a relationship of mutual respect and physical pleasure. I am kind, handsome, financially secure, and extremely generous.
    #11789B
    “Sounds good,” I admitted.
    “The first twenty words are twenty-five cents each, the rest are fifty-five,” the woman explained. “That comes to nine dollars and forty-five cents. Now, Mr. Field, we can hold the responses in a PO box here for you to retrieve, or we can forward them to your home for the cost of mailing.”
    “Send them to my house,” I said, giving her Levering Field’s address.
    “Y EAH, THIS IS Levering Field,” I said, speaking through Sara’s cell phone. “Levering, yeah … LEVERING … Huh? … Problem is I got mice all over the fucking place. When can you send out an exterminator?… No, I can’t hang around my house all day, I work for a living.… Saturday’s good.… No, I don’t mind paying extra as long as I get rid of these goddamn rodents.… See you Saturday, then.”
    L EVERING F IELD LIVED two blocks from Eastcliff, the residence of the president of the University of Minnesota, located in a posh neighborhood on the St. Paul side of the Mississippi River. His was a tall redbrick house on a corner; the front door faced one street, his garage the other. Ivy grew on the brick. The lawn was green but spotty; it hadn’t recovered yet from the winter. On a thin stake pounded into the lawn was a sign. I read it carefully with a pair of Bushnell 7X25 binoculars I keep in the glove compartment of my car. The sign said THIS PROPERTY IS PROTECTED BY TOTAL SECURITY, INC. I cursed. Unlike most home security firms, these guys actually knew what they were doing. Oh, well. I hadn’t planned on B and E anyway. Instead, I sat in my car across the street with a universal remote garage door opener, working the code, trying to find the right combination that would open Field’s door and set off the burglar alarms.
    As I