Later(50)

I didn’t know whether to nod my head or shake it, so I just sat there.

“Danny—my brother-in-law, now majoring in waste management—was just entry-level at Bear when Bess married him, but he had a clear path forward. Future was so bright he had to wear shades, if I may borrow from an old song. They bought a house in Tuckahoe Village. Hefty mortgage, but everyone assured them—me included, damn my eyes—that property values out that way had nowhere to go but up. Like the stock market. They got an au pair for their kid. They got a junior membership in the country club. Were they overextended? Fuck, yes. Was Bessie able to look down on my paltry seventy grand a year? Ten-four. But you know what my father used to say?”

How would I? I thought.

“He used to say that if you try to outrun your own shadow, you’re bound to fall on your face. Danny and Bess were talking about putting in a swimming pool when the bottom fell out. Bear Stearns specialized in mortgage securities, and all at once the paper they were holding was just paper.”

She brooded on this as we passed a sign that said NEW PALTZ 59 POUGHKEEPSIE 70 and RENFIELD 78. We were a little over an hour away from our final destination, and just thinking that gave me the creeps, Final Destination being a particularly gory horror movie me and my friends had watched. Not up there with the Saw flicks, but still pretty fucking grim.

“Bear Stearns? What a joke. One week their shares were selling for over a hundred and seventy dollars a pop, the next they were going for ten bucks. JP Morgan Chase picked up the pieces. Other companies took the same long walk off the same short dock. The guys at the top made it through okay, they always do. The little guys and gals, not so much. Go on YouTube, Jamie, and you can find clips of people coming out of their fancy midtown office buildings with their whole careers in cardboard boxes. Danny Miller was one of those guys. Six months after joining the Green Hills Country club, he was riding on a Greenwise garbage truck. And he was one of the lucky ones. As for their house, underwater. Know what that means?”

It so happened that I did. “They owed more on it than it was worth.”

“A-plus work, Cham…Jamie. Go to the head of the class. But it was the only asset they had, not to mention a place where Bess, Danny, and my niece Francine could lay down their heads at night without getting rained on. Bess said she had friends who were sleeping in their camper. Who do you think kicked in enough so they could keep up with the payments on that four-bedroom white elephant?”

“I’m guessing you did.”

“Right. Bess stopped looking down on my seventy grand a year, I can tell you that. But was I able to do it on just my salary, plus all the overtime I could glom? No way. Because I got part-time work as security in a couple of clubs? More no way. But I met people there, made connections, got offers. Certain lines of work are recession-proof. Funeral parlors always make out. Repo companies and bail bondsmen. Liquor stores. And the dope biz. Because, good times or bad, people are going to want to get high. And okay, I like nice things. Won’t apologize for it. I find nice things a comfort, and felt like I deserved them. I was keeping a roof over my sister’s family’s head, after all the years Bess high-hatted me because she was prettier, smarter, went to a real college instead of a community deal. And, of course, she was hetero.” Liz almost snarled this last.

“What happened?” I asked. “How did you lose your job?”

“IAD blindsided me with a piss test I wasn’t ready for. Not that they didn’t know all along, they just couldn’t get rid of me right away after I pitched in with Therriault. Wouldn’t have looked good. So they waited, which I suppose was smart, and then when they had me in a box—at least they thought they did—they tried to turn me. Get me to wear a wire and all that good Serpico shit. But here’s another saying, one I didn’t learn from my father: snitches wind up in ditches. And they didn’t know I had an ace up my sleeve.”

“What ace?” You can think I was stupid if you want, but that was actually an honest question.

“You, Jamie. You’re my ace. And ever since Therriault, I knew the time would come when I’d have to play it.”





57


We drove through downtown Renfield, which must have had a big population of college kids, judging from all the bars, bookstores, and fast food restaurants on its single main street. On the other side, the road turned west and began to rise into the Catskills. After three miles or so, we came to a picnic area overlooking the Wallkill River. Liz turned in and killed the engine. We were the only ones there. She took out her little bottle of special blend, seemed about to unscrew the cap, then put it away. Her duffle coat pulled open and I saw more smears of dried blood on her sweatshirt. I thought about her saying her septum was gone. Thinking about how the powder she was snorting was eating into her flesh was worse than any Final Destination or Saw movie, because it was real.

“Time to tell you why I brought you here, kiddo. You need to know what to expect, and what I expect of you. I don’t think we’ll part friends, but maybe we can part on relatively good terms.”

I doubt that was another thing I didn’t say.

“If you want to know how the dope biz works, watch The Wire. It’s set in Baltimore instead of New York, but the dope biz doesn’t change much from place to place. It’s a pyramid, like any other big-money organization. You’ve got your junior street dealers at the bottom, and most of them are juniors, so when they get popped they get tried as juveniles. In family court one day, back on the street corner the next. Then you’ve got your senior dealers, who service the clubs—where I got recruited—and the fat cats who save money by buying in bulk.”