Read an Excerpt
1
The banker was not so much a traditionalist as he was simply
a man who, somewhat lacking in creativity or imagination,
greatly enjoyed the comforts of consistency in his habits.
When he drank scotch, he took no water, soda, or ice, never pouring
more than two fingers into a widemouthed, heavybottomed
glass tumbler. When he snorted cocaine, he always rolled a crisp
one hundred dollar bill into a tube and used the same pearlhandled
miniature pocketknife to form the unvarying inchlonglines of the drug.
That night he had many crisp onehundred dollar bills to choose
from. Five hundred of them. Five packets of a hundred each.
Though they would easily have fit in a large envelope, or even the
pockets of his suit jacket, they had been delivered in a small plastic
attaché case. He removed them and stacked them on the glass coffee
table. The briefcase went by the door so that he would remember
to put it out with the garbage when he left for the office in the
morning.
The Glenlivet 18 was running low. He thought he would finish
the bottle that night. He wrote a note to remind himself to have a
case delivered the next day. He was not an alcoholic—he rarely had
more than two or three drinks in an evening—but he had a dread
of running out and not being able to sleep. It was difficult to fall
asleep alone. Ever since Agathe had taken the children and escaped
back to his mother’s house in Cornwall, he had begun to have problems
sleeping. The big apartment, taking up the top two floors of
the building, with views of Hamilton Harbour, the islands, and
Great Sound beyond, felt both much too large and uncomfortably
small. The humming of the electric clock in the kitchen could be
heard in every room on the first floor. The electronic click of the
American refrigerator—the one thing that Agathe probably regretted
leaving behind—when the circulating motor turned on, could
be deafening in the vast lonely emptiness of three a.m.
The suspicion that fifty thousand dollars was too much—too
big a bribe for the favor he had performed—nagged at him again.
He sipped the whiskey, surprised as he always was by the strength
of the peat in the long finish. There was so little in the nose, on the
lip, but so much remained long after the swallow.
He had facilitated opening an account without checking the
man’s identification. The man’s name was unknown to him, though
the name on the account was not. He had seen that name on the
pages of the Financial Times often enough. Questions as to why such
a man would want to open an account at such a small private bank
had been quashed by the first utterance of the man with the cold
gray eyes across the desk. He was being paid not to ask.
Tomorrow he would write down all of the particulars—
everything he remembered about the man, the words he spoke, the
details of the transaction—and send the document to his uncle, a
London barrister, to hold “in the event of my early demise.” Then
he would forget about it all and enjoy the thought of fifty thousand
dollars—invisible to the tax authority, to Agathe and her solicitor,
and even to his grabbing bitch of a mother, whom he had been
supporting ever since his father’s death a decade ago and who repaid
his kindness, generosity, and filial duty by siding with Agathe in
this latest episode of the guerrilla warfare that passed for their
marriage, now halfway through its second decade of insult, degradation,
and remorse.
He took the little polythene baggie from his pocket and shook it,
admiring the mound of white powder. The American had offered a
gram or two along with the cash, but the banker had insisted upon
a full ounce. His business was negotiation; he never took the first
offer. An almost iridescent light reflected off the rocks and shards of
the coke. It appeared to be quite pure. Even at his current rate of consumption,
an ounce of uncut cocaine would last him a month or
more. Weeks of not having to speak to the acned social misfit in
client accounting, who regularly supplied the banker and his colleagues
with the crystalline spice that made life in the stultifying
environment of Bermuda banking bearable.
The little knife made a grating sound as he chopped the larger
crystals into a fine powder. The consistency of the cocaine was
slightly different than he was used to—flakier, he thought—a factor
that he attributed to the described purity of the drug.
The banker broke the wrapper on a packet of hundreds, removed
the top bill, and rolled it into a short tube. He preferred using American
currency; it seemed appropriate, as the price of cocaine was,
like petroleum or gold, universally quoted in U.S. dollars. The conversion
factor for British pounds was something he knew much
about, as the most updated number flashed on his Bloomberg Terminal
all day long. Every transaction he engaged in for his clients—
from purchasing German stocks priced in euros to South African
real estate trusts offered in rands—he thought of in terms of pounds,
making the conversion automatically and effortlessly. It was what
his clients wanted. But whenever he thought of cocaine, and he
thought of it often, he thought in terms of dollars. And with only a
modest bit of selfdiscipline, he now had enough dollars to keep
himself supplied for years.
He snorted the first line. The freeze hit immediately and he felt
the left side of his face begin to numb. The cocaine was very good,
possibly the best he had ever had. The big American with the odd
request had outdone himself. The second line went up his right
nostril, producing a similar glow and restoring his symmetry. He
moistened the tip of his index finger and wiped up the remaining
dust where the two lines had lain. He gently rubbed it across his
gums and felt the cold numbness penetrate. Very good cocaine.
He put his head back and waited for the rush. A moment later,
his eyes closed. He sat up abruptly. That was the strangest reaction
he had ever had to the drug. He felt good, warm and safe, languid,
and at the same time sexually aroused. His whole body had become
a single erogenous zone. A momentary flash of paranoia tripped
through his numbed consciousness. This was very unusual. But the
thought was gone before it had fully taken shape. The soaring
euphoria erased all fears. He may have been a very small god, even
a lonely one, the ruler of a small bit of couch in an empty apartment,
but he was still a god. He took a breath. He was suddenly
very aware of his breathing, not that it took effort exactly, because
he was allpowerful
on this couch and effort had become a meaningless
concept, as though the very air had become irrelevant.
The cocaine dripped from his sinuses down to the back of his
throat, coating, soothing, numbing. He lost all sense of taste; his
sense of smell was already gone. His fingers seemed to be a long
distance away. They were clumsy and thick and wooden. He forced
them to pick up the paper tube and they answered slowly and reluctantly.
He leaned over and snorted up the two remaining lines and
felt the top of his head lift off. His eyes bulged, and he exhaled in a
hoarse rasp, unable anymore to control even his vocal cords.
The hundred dollar bill dropped from his fingers and slowly
unraveled on the glass table. He stared at it, trying to think of why
such a small piece of paper had any importance in his life, but his
eyes closed and he forgot about it. He kept sinking. It was a long
way down. Already halfdreaming,
he took one last gasping breath.
His heart continued to beat for a short while before it too gave up
and surrendered.
2
We hadn’t walked to school since Angie, my exwife
and the mother of my unusual child, had been murdered
on Amsterdam Avenue, shot by members of a Central
American drug cartel. She had been protecting the boy, throwing
her own body between a hail of bullets and her son. I should have
been the target, not the Kid, not my exwife.
Angie and I had our history and our baggage, and her death had not released me from
all the anger, resentment, hurt, and betrayal. I carried all of those,
plus the guilt that if I had done things differently, or been a different
man, she would still be alive.
My second career—the first as a Wall Street trader and manager
having ended with a two year stint in a federal prison—often put
me in dangerous spots. I investigated fraud, sometimes acting as a
fixer or a finder in situations where street smarts met up with prison
yard ethics. I straddled both worlds, in ways that often surprised
me. The work had changed me—was still changing me. I had
become both more tolerant and more skeptical, stronger and less
fearful, yet more thoughtful and forgiving. What was legal was
sometimes just not right, and those who broke the law were more
often merely weak rather than evil.
The Kid had changed me, too. My son. Now six years and eight
months. I had barely known him when I was sent away. I certainly
had not known of his autism. Seeing life through his eyes had
opened mine. If you graphed the spectrum with Asperger’s on the
far left, the Kid was definitely right of center, but he was verbal and
a bright and curious learner. He was also a handful. And though I
would not have wanted my ex back in my life in any capacity, my
son deserved a mother.
The school was just a mile up Amsterdam and a half block over.
The Kid used to run ahead each block, dancing impatiently at
the cross streets, waiting for me to catch up and burning off a
small percentage of his postbreakfast
energy spurt. Not spurt.
Explosion.
I had changed our route these past six months.
When we left early enough, we would take the bus, the M104,
up Broadway and get off at Ninetysixth
Street. The Kid liked the bus. It was rarely crowded at that hour, as we were heading in the
opposite direction of the morning commute. The Kid would take
one of the handicapped seats up front—though he was not physically
challenged, his autism gave him squatter’s rights to those
seats—and I would stand over him. The Kid watched the driver,
and I watched him.
Most mornings, though, we were in a hurry and took the subway.
The Kid was not an easy, nor an early, riser, but there were
other issues that slowed us down. Getting his shoes on was near the
top of the list. I had bought him more shoes than worn by the whole
cast of Sex and the City, in a futile attempt to find ones that did not
“hurt.” It took the two of us a year to accept the fact that, though
shoes are generally less comfortable than going barefoot, you can’t
go barefoot in New York City—especially in December. That morning
we took the subway.
We were a few minutes behind schedule as we came out of the
subway at Ninety-sixth Street and quick-walked toward Amsterdam.
The Kid ran. I watched him as he bobbed, weaved, ducked,
and sprinted, avoiding the many obstructions in his path—some of
which were imaginary. I loved watching him run. When he walked,
he tended to lock up his knees and hips, as though in constant fear
of falling, so that he looked like a mechanical man, made up of
nonmatching spare parts. But when he ran, he looked like a child.
If not happy, at least untroubled. Free.
A blast of chill wind blew dust in my eye and I put my head
down, taking the irritating assault on my nascent bald spot. For that
one moment I was not watching my son.
The sidewalk was narrow just there, and broken, a nondescript
and barren tree having driven its roots laterally in an attempt to
seek nutriments in a concrete wasteland. On the other side was a
short, spiked, black iron fence guarding the basement entrance, and
empty garbage cans, of a sixstory
apartment building.
I looked up and my eyes watered and blurred in the wind, but
I could tell that the Kid was not ahead, waiting at the corner.
A momentary flare of anxiety caught in my chest and I whirled
around in a panic. The Kid was a half block behind me, squatting
at the curb and trying to engage the attention of a piebald pigeon.
Almost shaking with relief, I walked back to him, not trusting
my voice to call, nor trusting him to come without an argument—
and cursing myself for my inattention. I squatted down next to him.
The pigeon ignored both of us.
“Come on, Kid. Time for school. Ms. Wegant will be worried
about us if we’re late.” I had never seen his teacher worried, nor
flustered, nor impatient, nor happy, for that matter. Mr. Spock had
a wider range of emotion. “Come on,” I tried again. “Mrs. Carter
will be mad at me.” This was much closer to the truth. Mrs. Carter
held the desk in the entryway at the school, checking in all students
and keeping out anyone who did not have a welldocumented
reason for being on school grounds. She was a large woman, but
with both the strength and agility to carry it off. I was sure that I
could take her in a fair fight, and I was just as sure that she wouldn’t
fight fair.
I took his hand. I was impatient. I knew better. He screamed.
I let go and stood up. The screaming stopped. A childish and unworthy
thought of just walking away flashed through my head. I
forgave myself. If I beat myself up every time I succumbed to despair,
I would have been permanently covered with blackandblue
marks. I thought about just kicking the pigeon, but held back. I
would wait. Patience was the best medicine I could offer my son. It
also did wonders for me.
A sudden flash of déjà vu hit me. Not really déjà vu, more a distorted
memory. When my ex-wife was killed, one of the assassins
had escaped by running down a side street. Could it have been that
block? Or was it a few blocks farther uptown? The Kid and I would
have had to move out of Manhattan altogether to avoid any reminders
of his mother, or her death. I had a touch of dizziness. Possibly, I
had stood up too quickly. I was disoriented, the wind blew and my
eyes blurred again.
Two men turned the corner, coming down from Amsterdam.
They were short, squat, and brownskinned. Latinos.
One had a black brush of a mustache; the other, slightly taller, had a badly
broken nose. Despite the cold, they both wore nothing warmer
than dark hooded sweatshirts, their hands tucked into the pouches
in front. They looked just like the men who had killed my exwife—
who had attempted to kill my son, and who had threatened to kill
me. And I had wondered ever since if they were going to come back
and finish the job. Or when. And here they were. Moving quickly.
Stonefaced. Not angry, but determined. I imagined their hands
coming out, holding small guns that grew in size every time I
blinked.
The white van jumped the red light, accelerated across three lanes,
and suddenly slowed. The sliding panel door opened and a long-barreled
weapon emerged and began spitting red f lashes. Phwat. Phwat. Phwat.
Like the sound of slapping a rolled-up newspaper against your thigh. Only,
it wasn’t a rolled-up newspaper, and people were falling.
“Kid, get up. We go. Now.” I took his hand and walked back
toward Broadway. The Kid must have heard the fear in my voice
because for once he did not scream or fight. He stumbled along
with me, his feet barely touching the ground.
Just as we approached the entrance to the next building, a woman
emerged with a small dog on a leash. I rushed forward and
grabbed the door before it closed, pushed the Kid inside and followed
him. The lock clicked as the door shut. We were inside and
the two Latinos were outside. For the moment, we were safe. But
only for the moment.
The Kid stood behind me, whimpering. He had caught my fear
and absorbed it. His teeth were chattering and he was shaking.
There was a mail alcove to our right. I pushed him toward it and
backed him against the wall. I could see the street, but it would be
very difficult for anyone to see in at that angle.
“It’s all right, Kid. We’re safe. Those men won’t find us here.” I
didn’t believe it and neither did he. He was crying and beginning
to gasp. The gasping sometimes prefaced one of his seizures.
“I pick you up,” he whispered. He never wanted to be held or
picked up. Never except for the few times when that was all he
wanted. I took him in my arms and held him tight. Squeezing
helped. It helped both of us.
The two men stopped at the front door and stared in the window.
The window was plastic—Lexan probably—with a wire mesh
running through it. An older building, a holdover from a less safe
era. The one with the mustache pressed a button on the intercom
and spoke briefly. He looked familiar. Had I seen him before or
did he look like a thousand other Latino men I had passed on the
streets of New York City?
No one buzzed them in.
We were trapped. We couldn’t move without them seeing us,
but they knew we had entered the building and it would not take
much heavyduty guesswork for them to realize we must still be
hiding in the lobby. They would figure out a way to get in soon.
The mustache put his face up against the window and yelled.
The blood was pounding in my ears and the Kid was crying—I
couldn’t hear a thing. The man grabbed the door handle and shook
it. The door suddenly looked a lot less formidable a barrier than it
had a moment earlier.
I pulled out my cell phone. Who could I call? How fast could a
squad car get there? Five minutes? It seemed much too long. There
was no one else. I punched in the numbers.
“911. State the nature of your emergency.”
“I’m being followed. By two men.”
“Are you in immediate danger?”
Define the word immediate. “I think so.”
“Name and location.”
“Jason Stafford. I’m in the lobby of a building just east of
Broadway.”
A short, thin Latino man in overalls and a red plaid shirt walked
through the lobby toward the door.
“What’s the address, sir?” the voice on the phone asked.
“Please hurry.” I stopped and called to the man. “Hey. Hey. Don’t
open that door!”
If he heard me, he gave no sign.
“Can you give me the address, sir?”
“I don’t know. We just ducked in here.” We were on the north
side of the street, so it was an oddnumbered building. Broadway
divided the block in two. “It’s 249 West Ninety-fifth,”
I yelled into the phone. I thought it was Ninety-fifth.
Could it be Ninety-fourth?
The man in the lobby stopped and looked at us suspiciously.
“Can I help you?” he said, sounding like he had meant to say, “Who
the ‘f’ are you and what the ‘f’ are you doing here?”
“Don’t let those men in here. They followed us.”
“Those men? I don’t think so,” he said with a sarcastic cough that
could have been a laugh.
“No, really. I’ve got police on the way. Please wait.”
“Hey! No cops. Shit! Look, I’m the super here. These guys work
for me. They’re my painters.” He opened the door and spoke to the
two men in rapid Spanish. The man with the mustache laughed.
The other guy looked worried. Below their sweatshirts, both men
wore paintspattered baggy blue jeans and canvas sneakers. They
no longer looked like hit men, they looked like painters. Mustache
didn’t even look familiar.
“Sir? Are you there? Can I use this number as a callback in case
we’re disconnected?”
“What? No. Sorry. Please cancel the call. I’m fine. It was a mis
take.” The three men walked past. The one with the mustache was
grinning. The other painter didn’t think it was quite so funny.
“Are you all right, sir? Are you under duress?”
“No, really. I’m very embarrassed. Everything is okay here.” I
wanted to melt into a pool of slime and seep out under the door and
into the gutter. “Thanks anyway.” I hung up.
The super was leading the other two through a door down to
the basement. I called after them. “Sorry about that. Really.” The
mustached man turned and gave a wave and a last grin.
The Kid began hitting me in the chest with the heel of his fist.
“Down. Down. Down.”
I put him down. He shook like a wet dog and gave me a look of
deep distrust. His beautiful strawberryblond
hair shimmered.
Angie lay on the pavement, partially hidden from view by two parked
cars. I stepped up and saw the blood. She looked so small. The breeze from
a passing car blew her hair off her face. She looked surprised. Death was
something for which she should have planned ahead.
Nice work, I thought. I had panicked, managing to racially profile
two innocent men, possibly causing them a hurricane of troubles
if the police had arrived. And I had terrified my son. I was supposed
to be his anchor, helping and supporting him against all of his
usual terrors; instead I had created a new one. His father was nuts.
“Sorry, bud. I don’t know what happened.” Yes I did. I didn’t like
it but I knew what had happened. “Are you all right? Shall we get
you to school now?”
He walked to the door and waited for me to open it. I followed,
feeling stupid and useless—and drained. My hand shook as I pushed
the door open. It wasn’t the first time something similar had happened
to me. I’d experienced those flashes of paranoia before. I
needed to shake it off, get the Kid to school, do my morning run,
and go to work. I didn’t need to spend a lot of time thinking about
it, analyzing it, or explaining it to a child who would not understand
anyway. Hell, I wasn’t sure that I understood it.
