Later

56

After we got on the Thruway, Liz helped herself to another bump of her special blend. I’d say she was starting to scare me, but we were well past that point.

“Do you want to know how we got here? Me and you, Holmes and Watson off on another adventure?”

Adventure wasn’t the word I would have picked, but I didn’t say so.

“I can see by your face that you don’t. That’s okay. Long story, not very interesting, but I’ll tell you this much—no kid ever said they wanted to grow up to be a bum, a college dean, or a dirty cop. Or to pick up garbage in Westchester county, which is what my brother-in-law does these days.”

She laughed, although I didn’t know then what was funny about being a garbageman.

“Here’s something that might interest you. I’ve moved a lot of dope from Point A to Point B and got paid for it, but the blow your mother found in my coat pocket that time was a freebie for a friend. Ironic, when you think about it. By then IAD already had their eye on me. They weren’t sure, but they were getting there. I was scared to death that Tee would spill the beans. That would have been the time to get out, but by then I couldn’t.” She paused, considering this. “Or wouldn’t. Looking back it’s hard to tell which. But it makes me think of something Chet Atkins said once. You ever heard of Chet Atkins?”

I shook my head.

“How soon the great are forgotten. Google him when you get back. Excellent guitarist, up there with Clapton and Knopfler. He was talking about how shitty he was at tuning his instrument. ‘By the time I realized I was no good at this part of the job, I was too rich to quit.’ Same with me and my career as a transporter. Tell you one other thing, since we’re just passing the time on the good old New York Thruway. You think your mother was the only one who got hurt when the economy went tits-up in ’08? Not true. I had a stock portfolio—teeny-weenie, but it was mine—and that went poof.”

She passed another double box, being careful to use her blinker before swinging out and then tucking back in. Considering how much dope she’d ingested, I was amazed. Also grateful. I didn’t want to be with her, but even more than that I didn’t want to die with her.

“But the main thing was my sister Bess. She married this guy who worked for one of the big investment companies. Probably haven’t heard of Bear Stearns any more than you’ve heard of Chet Atkins, right?”

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.”