Burn Notice: The Fix

The problem with having your business partner being your former and maybe future girlfriend is that it s hard to make any essential mandates about behavior. You risk pissing off someone who may or may not call your mother either way. It s only slightly worse when the same person happens to be a former IRA gunrunner who still has something of an opaque moral center and who doesn t understand personal boundaries.

"Do tell," I said.

"Just girl stuff, Michael."

Girl stuff. Ten years of interrogating hostile enemy targets, you d think I d be able to break through that code, but give me twenty Enigma machines and fifty men sitting in a locked room at Quantico, and there d be no way of figuring out what the hell girl stuff means.

I d have been more upset with this whole line of conversation had I not been distracted, which is actually how I generally like to feel during conversations with my mother. That way I don t get too emotionally involved, or, in a pinch, can plead ignorance if important dates or activities are mentioned.

Across the pool, three white guys in Cuban shirts, tan chinos and ankle holsters were trying their best to look natural, which would have been easier if they weren t all wearing the same shirt, which is what happens when you try to look natural by letting some intern buy your resort wear. That they weren t trying to look natural while monitoring me was of some concern.

"We should do this more often, Michael," my mother said.

"What s this, exactly?"

"Family time. You know it wouldn t kill you to take me out to lunch every week. I read where the president calls his mother every day. She even vacations with him sometimes."

The three white guys in Cubans were a little on the chunky side and their skin was almost translucent, which meant they weren t normally field agents. Field agents tend to have a few fast twitch muscles and maybe a decent farmer s tan from sitting with their arms out car windows, waiting for something to happen, or s