The Millionaires

3

“Here! Pay!” I shout, tossing Charlie my wallet and kicking open the door to the cab. He fishes out a twenty, tells the cabbie to keep the change, and bounces his butt out of there. No way he’s missing this.

Skidding across the ice, I’m already in apology mode: “Beth, I’m so sorry – I totally forgot!”

“Forgot what?” she asks, her voice as calm and pleasant as can be.

“Our dinner… inviting you out here…”

“Don’t worry – it’s already done.” As she talks, I notice that she’s blown her long brown hair completely straight.

“No bounce,” Charlie whispers, acting innocent behind me.

“I have my own key, remember?” Beth asks. She steps around me, but I’m still confused.

“Where’re you going?”

“Soda. You were all out.”

“Beth, why don’t you let me…”

“Go relax – I’ll be right back.” She turns away from me, and it’s the first time she sees Charlie.

“What’s shakin’, bacon?” He opens his arms for a huge hug. She doesn’t take him up on it.

“Hi, Charlie.”

She tries to step around him, but he cuts in front of her. “So how’s the world of corporate accounting?” he asks.

“It’s good.”

“And your clients?”

“They’re good.”

“And your family – how’re they?”

“Good,” she smiles, putting up her best defense. Not an annoyed smile; not a jaded smile; not even an angry get-outta-my-face-you-overhyper-little-gnat kinda smile. Just a nice, calming Beth smile.

“And whattya think of vanilla as an ice cream flavor?” Charlie asks, raising a devilish eyebrow.

“Charlie,” I warn.

“What?” Turning to Beth, he adds, “So you sure you don’t mind if I crash all over your dinner?”

She looks to me, then back at Charlie. “Maybe it’d be better if I left you two alone.”

“Don’t be silly,” I jump in.

“It’s okay,” she adds with a wave that tells me not to worry about it. She’s never one to complain. “You two should have some time together. Oliver, I’ll call you later.”

Before either of us can stop her, she walks up the block. Charlie’s eyes are on her L.L. Bean duck boots. “My God – my whole sorority had those,” he whispers. I pinch the skin on his back and give it a twist. It doesn’t shut him up. As Beth walks, her beige camel-hair coat fans out behind her. “Like Darth Vader – only boring,” Charlie adds.

He knows she can’t hear him, which only makes it worse.

“I’d give my left nut to see her slip on her ass,” he says as she disappears up the block. “No such luck. Bye-bye, baby.”

I shoot Charlie a look. “Why do you always have to make fun of her like that?”

“I’m sorry – she just makes it so easy.”

I spin around and storm for the door.

“What?” he asks.

I yell without facing him. Just like dad. “You can be a real jerk-off, y’know that?”

He thinks about it for a second. “I guess I can.”

Once again, I refuse to face him. He knows he’s pushed too far. “C’mon, Ollie – I’m only teasing,” he says, chasing me down the wobbly-brick stairway. “I only say it because I’m secretly in love with her.”

I stuff my key in the door and pretend he’s not there. That lasts about two seconds. “Why do you hate her so much?”

“I don’t hate her, I just… I hate everything she stands for. Everything she represents. The boots, the quiet smile, the inability to express anything approaching an opinion… that’s not what I – It’s not what you should want for yourself.”

“Really?”

“I’m serious,” he says as I work on the third deadbolt. “It’s the same thing as this teeny basement apartment. I mean, no offense, but it’s like taking the blue pill and waking up in a young urban twentysomething sitcom nightmare.”

“You just don’t like Brooklyn Heights.”

“You don’t live in Brooklyn Heights,” he insists. “You live in Red Hook. Understand? Red. Hook.”

As I shove open the door, Charlie follows me into the apartment.

“Well, bust out the Magic Markers and color me impressed,” he says, wandering inside. “Look who’s decorated.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play modest with me, Versace. When you first moved in, you had a used, stained mattress from Goodwill, a dresser you stole from our old bedroom, and the table and chairs mom and I bought from Kmart as a housewarming gift. Today, what’s that I see on the bed? A knockoff Calvin Klein comforter? Plus the Martha Stewart faux-antique crackle-paint on the dresser, and the table that’s now sporting the imitation Ralph Lauren tablecloth, perfectly set for two. Don’t think I missed that sweetheart touch. And while I appreciate what you’re trying to do, it’s like the existence of show towels, bro – the whole thing’s a symptom of a deeper problem.”

He repeats the last few words to himself. “Symptom of a deeper problem.” Stopping in the kitchen, he pulls out his notepad and jots them down. “For some, life is an audition,” he adds. His head bobs in place as he puts together a quick melody. When he gets like this, it takes a few minutes, so I leave him be. On his notepad, his hand suddenly stops, then starts scribbling. The pen scratches furiously against the page. As he flips to the next sheet, I spot a tiny, perfect sketch of a man bowing in front of a curtain. He’s done writing – now he’s drawing.

It’s the first thing that came naturally to him, and when he wants to, Charlie can be an incredible artist. So incredible, in fact, that the New York School of Visual Arts was willing to overlook his spotty high school record and give him a full college scholarship. Two years into it, they tried to steer him into commercial work, like advertising and illustration. “It’s a nice living,” they told him. But the instant Charlie saw career and art converge, he dropped out and finished his last two years at Brooklyn College studying music. I yelled at him for two days straight. He told me there’s more to life than designing the new logo for a bottle of detergent.

Across the room, I hear him wandering through the rest of the apartment and sniffing the air. “Mmmmm… smells like Oliver,” he announces. “Air freshener and loafer whiff.”

“Get out of my bathroom,” I call out from my bed, where I’ve already opened my briefcase to flip through some paperwork.

“Don’t you ever stop?” Charlie asks. “It’s the weekend – relax already.”

“I need to finish this,” I shoot back.

“Listen, I’m sorry about the vanilla joke…”

“I need to finish this,” I insist.

He knows that tone. Letting the silence sink in, he curls up on the foot of the bed.

Two minutes later, the lack of noise does the trick. “Sometimes I hate rich people,” I finally moan.

“No, you don’t,” he teases. “You love ’em. You’ve always loved ’em. The more money, the merrier.”

“I’m serious,” I say. “It’s like, once they get some cash – bam! – there goes their grasp of reality. I mean, look at this guy…” I pull the top sheet from the paper pile and wing it his way. “This moron misplaces three million dollars for five years. Five years he’s forgotten about it! But when we tell him we’re about to take it away from him – that’s when he wakes up and wants it back.”

He reads the letter signed by someone named Marty Duckworth – “Thank you for your correspondence… please be aware that I’ve opened a new account at the following New York bank… please forward the balance of my funds there.” – but to Charlie, it still looks like just another normal wire request. “I don’t understand.”

I wave the short paper stack in front of him. “It’s an abandoned account.” Knowing he’s lost, I add, “Under New York law, when a customer doesn’t use an account for five years, the money gets turned over to the state.”

“That doesn’t make sense – who would ever abandon their own cash?”

“Mostly dead people,” I say. “It happens in every bank in the country – when someone dies, or gets sick, sometimes they forget to tell their family about their account. The cash just sits there for years – and if there’s no activity on the account, it eventually gets labeled inactive.”

“So after year five, we just ship that money to the government?”

“That’s part of what I’m working on. When it hits year four and a half, we’re required to send out a warning letter saying ‘Your account’s going to be turned over to the state.’ At that point, anyone who’s still alive usually responds, which is better for us, since it keeps the money in the bank.”

“So that’s your responsibility? Dealing with dead people? Man, and I thought my customer service skills were bad.”

“Don’t laugh – some of these folks are still alive. They just forget where they put their cash.”

“Y’mean like Mr. Three-Million-Dollar Duckworth over here.”

“That’s our boy,” I say. “The only bad part is, he wants to transfer it somewhere else.”

Looking down, Charlie rereads the grainy type on the faxed letter. He runs his fingers across the blurry signature. Then, his eyes shoot to the top of the page. Something catches his eye. I follow his fingers. The phone number on the top of the fax. He makes that face like he smells sewage.

“When’d you get this letter again?” Charlie asks.

“Sometime today, why?”

“And when does the money get turned over to the state?”

“Monday – which is why I assume he sent it by fax.”

“Yeah,” Charlie nods, though I can tell he’s barely listening. His whole face flushes red. Here we go.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Lookie here,” he says, pointing to the return fax number at the top of the letter. “Does this number look familiar to you?”

I grab the sheet and study it close. “Never seen it before in my life. Why? You know it?”

“You could say that…”

“Charlie, get to the point – tell me what’s-”

“It’s the Kinko’s around the corner from the bank.”

I force a nervous laugh. “What’re you talking about?”

“I’m telling you – the bank doesn’t let us use the fax for personal business – so when Franklin or Royce need to send me sheet music, it goes straight to Kinko’s – and straight to that number.”

I look down at the letter. “Why would a millionaire, who can buy ten thousand fax machines of his own, and can walk right into the bank, send us a fax from a copy shop that’s right around the corner?”

Charlie shoots me a way-too-excited grin. “Maybe we’re not dealing with a millionaire.”

“What’re you saying? You think Duckworth didn’t send this letter?”

“You tell me – have you spoken to him lately?”

“We’re not required to-” I cut myself off, suddenly seeing what he’s driving at. “All we do is send a letter to his last known address, and one to his family,” I begin. “But if we want to be safe, there’s one place open late…” I sit up in bed, flick on the speakerphone, and start dialing.

“Who’re you calling?”

The first thing we hear is a recorded voice. “Welcome to Social Se-”

Without even listening, I hit one, then zero, then two on the phone. I’ve been here before. The speaker fills with Muzak.

“The Beatles. ‘Let It Be,’” Charlie points out.

“Shhh,” I hiss.

“Thank you for calling Social Security,” a female voice eventually picks up. “How can I help you?”

“Hi, this is Oliver Caruso calling from Greene & Greene Bank in New York,” I say in that overly sweet voice I know turns Charlie’s stomach. It’s the tone I save for customer service reps – and no matter how much Charlie despises it, deep down, he knows it works. “I’m wondering if you can help us out,” I continue. “We have a loan application that we’re working on, and we just wanted to verify the applicant’s Social Security number.”

“Do you have a routing number?” the woman asks.

I give her the bank’s nine-digit ID. Once they get that, we get all the private info. That’s the law. God bless America.

Waiting for clearance and unable to sit still, I pick at the seams of my sage green comforter. It doesn’t take long to come undone.

“And the number you’d like to check?” the woman asks.

Reading from the printout of abandoned accounts, I give her Duckworth’s Social Security number. “It’s under the name Marty or Martin.”

A second passes. Then another. “Did you say this was for a loan application?” the woman asks, confused.

“Yeah,” I say anxiously. “Why?”

“Because according to our files here, I have a June twelfth date of death.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m just telling you what it says, sir. If you’re looking for Martin Duckworth, he died six months ago.”