Spoonbenders

16 Buddy

—and he’s walking downstairs, into the kitchen, where his sister and brother sit at the table, without donuts. Donuts come later. Irene is trying to get Frankie to tell her what happened to him tonight. Frankie is mute, struggling to find the words. Buddy watches them from the shadows for a full minute, his heart full, until Irene notices him.

“Buddy,” she says. “You all right?”

But he’s not all right. Who is? Nobody in this house, that’s for sure. Frankie is staring into nothing, a lost man. Buddy drifts up to the table. Waggles his fingers palm up.

Frankie glances at him, barely seeing him.

“I think you’re blocking the driveway,” Irene says.

Buddy repeats the waggle. Frankie sighs—not a faked sigh, but a deep-down, Delta blues sigh—and reaches into a pocket.

Buddy walks toward the front door, Frankie’s keys jangling, and behind him Irene says to their brother, “Just start with Loretta. Why did she kick you out? Is this about the money you owe?”

“You know about that?” he says in a small voice.

Buddy walks to the driveway, unlocks the back door of the Bumblebee van. He rummages in the dark until he finds the box he’d once pictured himself finding, and then uses a key to slit it open. Inside are the expected four huge canisters of Goji Go! berry juice powder. He twists one open, exposing contents that look black in this light, and then dips a finger inside and puts it to his mouth, Miami Vice–style. It tastes like chalk and cough medicine. He spits several times to get the taste out of his mouth.

He feels bad about what he’s about to do. He tries not to hurt anyone, and most of the time he remembers enough to know that he’s not hurting them forever, or not as much as first appears. Like with Frankie. Yes, it was terrifying for him when the casino employees grabbed him, but nothing really bad happened, and Frankie had already learned how to take a punch. But this, this is different. He can’t remember what happens after September 4. What if what he does tonight has far-reaching ramifications beyond that date?

And yet: he has to proceed, as his future memory dictates.

Buddy reaches into his pocket and brings out the packet of DUSTED insecticide. He pours it into the top of the goji powder, stirs it a bit with the big Magic Marker he’s brought with him. Not too much stirring, though. The first dose will be scooped off the top. Then he screws down the lid and writes, Embrace Life!

It takes him only twenty minutes to make the delivery—traffic is light this time of night—and he remembers to stop at the Dunkin’ Donuts. He orders a dozen, most of it chocolate sprinkles (he’s partial to sprinkles), and adds a bear claw for the baker’s dozenth. He’s carrying the box toward the house when he remembers there’s something he’s supposed to do first. Something about the garage. Oh! Right.

In the garage, Teddy’s big Buick is sleeping. Buddy opens the driver’s side, and winces at the absurdly loud door chimes. Balancing the donut box in one hand, he leans down, fishes under the driver’s seat. He comes up with his prize, a Ziploc bag containing two marijuana cigarettes, one half consumed. Best not mix that with the donuts. He tucks it into his pocket for later.

Frankie and Irene are still at the table, but they’ve gone silent. Frankie sits with his head in his hands. Irene stares at the tabletop, arms crossed on her lap. It’s as if they’re playing an invisible chess game and they’ve lost track of the pieces.

Buddy opens the donut box, letting Frankie have first choice. A quiet oh of surprise escapes his brother’s lips. He reaches for the bear claw. Bear claws are his favorite. Always have been, always will be.

There are not enough donuts in the world to make up for what he does to his brother in Alton. It’s an act of selfishness. Selfishness born of great need, true and burning curiosity, but selfishness nonetheless.

He lies in bed next to Cerise, whose hair is long and blonde and entirely artificial. What he’s experienced in the past hour is real, however, the most real thing he’s ever lived through. For long stretches of minutes he was entirely in his body, in the moment. His mind wasn’t roaming through the past, or the future. He wasn’t staring at a glowing clock frozen at 11:59.

“You feeling okay, honey?” she asks.

He says, “I’ve never felt better.”

“I can tell by that goofy smile on your face.” She chuckles, her voice low and sexy. She nibbles at the lobe of his ear and he laughs with her. Still close to his ear, she whispers, “Is this your first time with a girl like me?”

His ears burn. He’s blushing.

She throws her head back and laughs. “I thought so! You were so enthusiastic.”

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he says. “Yet…” He waits until she’s looking at him again. Until her eyes soften. He says, “I’ve always known you. I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”

“Aw.” She kisses his forehead, pushes his hair back. “Ain’t you sweet.”

He closes his eyes. “I just want to lie here forever,” he says. “Back home I have to—well, my job is pretty stressful.”

“What do you do?”

He wants to tell her everything, from the first guessed baseball score until the day his mother gave him the medal. “My job is to predict the future.”

“Ooh. Are you a stockbroker?”

“It’s kind of like that. I try to figure out what’s going to happen, and find the way to the best outcome. It’s impossible to know all the details—”

“Who can?” Cerise says.

“Right,” he says. He sits up. “But I can spot trends. And sometimes I give things a nudge.”

“Ah,” she says. “You’re one of those Master of the Universe types, aren’t you?” Teasing him. “Doing a little insider trading?”

“It’s not like that.” But isn’t it? Everyone else is on the outside of the machine, and he’s running along under the glass, nudging the pinballs without being run over himself. He wants to tell her this. He wants to explain everything to her, but his own habit of silence is getting in the way. He wants to tell her that across town, his brother is being dragged from one boat to another.

“Oh, honey,” Cerise says. “You’re getting stressed out now. We can’t have that.” She takes his hand and puts it on her. “You have all the time you need.”

“I wish that were true,” he says.

She shushes him. “Don’t be that way.” She turns into him, and he feels Cerise’s cock harden in his grip. Even though he’s been picturing this night for years, he’s amazed every moment by what it’s like to be with another person. He thought it would be like masturbation, except a little better.

He was wrong. So, so wrong.

She says, “What else you want to try, your first day behind the wheel?”

“Everything,” he says.

Slowly, she teaches him how to please her. Yes, they have similar equipment, but they’re not the same. Cerise is Cerise. A miracle and a mystery.

He finds himself at a kitchen table, cards in his hands, three days before the Zap. Eventually they make enough noise that Matty stops pretending he’s sleeping and comes downstairs. Nobody worries about waking Teddy. He snores like a man twice his size, and his sleep is impenetrable.

Irene has made a pot of coffee, but Frankie has switched to beer and Buddy’s on his second tall glass of milk. Matty nabs the last chocolate frosted donut—that’s his favorite—and says, “So we’re having a party?”

“I thought you were grounded,” Frankie says.

Matty shoots him a worried look, but Irene is not in a rule-enforcing mood. “The game is seven-card stud,” she says to her son. “Low-high, nickel ante.”

“Nickel?” Matty says. “Pretty steep.”

“This is why you need a job,” she says.

“To lose it to you in poker?”

“Or win big,” Frankie says.

Matty looks away from Frankie, embarrassed. Covers it by hitching up his running shorts and affecting a world-weary voice. “Guess you gotta risk money to make money.”

Irene laughs, charmed by her boy, and Matty doesn’t hide his pleasure at this. Buddy’s reminded again that those two were on their own for years, a self-contained unit.

An hour from now, Buddy disappears to the top floor. He retrieves the blue envelope from the locked box in his room, the one with Matty’s name on it. Then he goes to Matty’s attic room, strips the boy’s bed, and puts on clean sheets. Frankie will have to take Matty’s room, because the new bunk beds in the basement are too small for him. Matty will fit, though. Buddy goes downstairs and unwraps a set of Kmart sheets and dresses one of the four bunk beds. In the springs of the bed above, he places the envelope and the Ziploc bag.

Then he goes up to his own room. He hopes to sleep for a few hours before resuming preparations for the Zap, including installing a new fire door for the basement.

But that’s in an hour. Now Irene deals him in. There’s no money to risk, however; everyone’s playing with handfuls of coins from Teddy’s change jar.

Buddy’s playing several games at once, in different eras. His mother asks if he’s got any sevens. Teddy leans close, his hands covering Buddy’s own tiny hands, as he shows him how to peek at the second card during the deal. A fourteen-year-old Irene, bored from babysitting duty, lays out a spider solitaire game while he watches. Frankie says, “You in or out?”

“I have two sevens,” Buddy says.

“What?”

Wrong answer. Suddenly he’s back in 1995, three days before the Zap. The end of history. There are no memories of future poker games. This is the last he will ever play. He will never win another hand from his brother, or watch his sister frown over her cards. And he will never see Cerise again.

Irene touches his arm. “Buddy?”

He tries to focus on his cards. There are no sevens in this hand, merely a loosely connected series of cards that will never become a straight or a flush, and he knows better than to try to bluff Irene. He mucks his cards, folding.

That’s okay. One less distraction. He can watch his family, all of them, play across the decades.

17 Matty

The blue envelope was tucked into the springs above his bunk bed. It was addressed to him, in black handwriting he didn’t recognize. Inside was a single page, from a yellow legal pad. The ink was faint and scratchy.

Her signature was beautiful: a mountainous “M,” a towering “T,” with beautifully spiky characters after each.

At the very bottom of the page was this:

Also tucked into the springs was a plastic baggie that contained the two joints Irene had confiscated: one full, one half consumed.

My grandmother, Matty thought, is delivering drugs from beyond the grave.

How did she know about what was happening to him? Could she travel into the future? Even if she could do that, who delivered the all-too-physical envelope and Ziploc bag?

The letter and pot were freaking him out, but the message of their simultaneous appearance was unmistakable: it was his duty to help Frankie.

A half hour later he snuck out to the nest behind Grandpa Teddy’s garage and lit one of the joints. He needed to get as much of it into his lungs before he was unable to keep smoking. He thought, This is not a healthy life choice. And then: Duty calls.

He stayed out of his body for hours, his longest trip on record. He hovered in Mitzi’s Tavern, in Mitzi’s office, practically in Mitzi’s shadow. Friday, payday, made her office much more interesting than in previous visits. He watched her receive visitor after visitor, all men, most of them white, who brought her envelopes of cash. Mitzi would put them into the desk drawer, chat for ten seconds, then send the men packing.

As soon as they left the room, she moved the envelopes to the safe. It was then that Matty would sweep in, push his ghost noggin close to hers, and steal a glance at the dial. But Mitzi continued to make it impossible to read the combination. She leaned over the safe from her chair, her bird hand covering the dial, and spun it fast, barely looking at the numbers. For all he knew she’d kept the same combination for decades and could do it blind. After a couple of hours, he thought he had the starting number—28—but even that was a guess, because the dial was hash marks between every fifth number, and it could have been 27 or 29.

Mitzi barely left the room. Between visits she smoked, ate from a can of peanuts, read the paper, and drank coffee. Matty read over her shoulder, and mentally suggested solutions to the crossword puzzle. (He was usually wrong; Mitzi was really good at crosswords.) He killed time by floating around the room, peering into nooks and crannies. How malleable was his shadow body? Could he shrink down to mouse size, and go looking between the walls?

He also spent time pondering the morality of stealing from this old woman, and whether this was what Grandma Mo meant by helping his family. Frankie said Mitzi was a major criminal, but to Matty she seemed like a bored old lady doing a boring job.

A big change to her routine came when she filled a tumbler of water to make a drink that wasn’t coffee. She opened up a canister of Goji Go! that was sitting on the floor and stirred in a healthy portion of powder. The canister wasn’t here yesterday. Embrace life! was written in marker on the lid. Frankie, evidently, could sell this stuff to anyone, even his worst enemy.

Another man came in and paid. Matty again tried to see past Mitzi’s hands, and again saw nothing. He felt his body—his real body—cramping up from sitting too long in one position. The pot was wearing off.

He was glad he hadn’t told Frankie he was trying again. Another failure would kill the man. He’d seemed so sad last night. Loretta had gotten mad at him, thrown him out of the house. He didn’t talk about it in front of Matty, but it clearly had to do with his money problems. Which sent Matty to bed feeling worse for his betrayal.

Then came the letter, and the means to help. What choice did he have.

Mitzi got up from the desk and walked down to the bathroom. This was her third visit in a half hour. He never followed her into there, no way. When she came back, she looked pale. She sat behind the desk just as another client, an old white guy with spiky gray hair, handed over his payment for the week. Mitzi barely seemed to be paying attention as he talked, and didn’t even bother to put the envelope into the drawer. When he left, she bent toward the safe.

Matty edged forward, eager to try a new idea. He thought of his body growing thinner. He spread out like Mr. Fantastic, thin as a slip of paper, and slid his transparent self between Mitzi and the safe. He was less than an inch from her hand when it touched the dial.

She turned the dial, and stopped. She’d never paused like this before, but he wasn’t going to question it. He counted the hash marks and saw that the first number was definitely 28. One down! Then she turned the dial again, and paused. Her hand slipped down. A moment later, a red goo spattered the front of the safe.

Matty drew back in alarm. The rest of the room became visible to him. Mitzi had slipped off her chair, and was lying on the floor. Goji-vomit was everywhere. She’d stopped throwing up, but her mouth was still moving, calling out, though he couldn’t hear what she was saying.

He moved beside her. “Are you okay?” he asked her, but of course she couldn’t hear him. He couldn’t yell for help, couldn’t help her to her feet. He had nothing but a ghost voice and a pair of ghost hands. Useless! He’d have to go back to his body and call 911. But what then? Hi, I know I’m several miles away, but I know for a fact there’s an old woman who’s real sick in a bar.

The office door opened. The bartender, an old man with a huge, multi-chinned face like Jabba the Hutt, walked in, bent down, and helped Mitzi to her feet. He escorted her to the bathroom, and he and Matty waited ten, then fifteen minutes until she reappeared. She still looked horrible. Eventually the bartender guided her out the back door, to a car, and they drove away.

What was he supposed to do now? Mitzi had left without even putting away the last envelope. He knew exactly one digit of the combination. The only person left in the bar was the waitress, and he was pretty sure she wasn’t going to open the safe.

He’d failed.

He found Frankie in the basement, interrogating Buddy about the damage he was doing to the house. Then Frankie finally noticed him standing on the stairs, and said, “What?”

“It’s about our thing,” Matty said.

His uncle’s face lit up, and that made Matty cringe inside. They went to the kitchen, out of Buddy’s earshot, and Matty said, “I started again. Visiting Mitzi’s. I was just there.”

“Oh my God! That’s fantastic! Did you get the combination?”

“That’s what I want to tell you. I didn’t get it. And I won’t be able to. Payday’s been canceled.”

The telephone rang. Frankie ignored it. “What are you talking about?”

“There was a problem,” Matty said. “Mitzi got sick, and she left.”

“Sick? Sick? Mitzi’s never sick.”

“It was pretty bad. A lot of vomit.” The telephone wouldn’t stop. “Maybe I should get that.”

“Don’t pick that up. Could be anybody,” Frankie said. “Just tell me what happened.”

Matty didn’t want to say what Mitzi had been drinking when she threw up. Instead, he said, “I don’t think she’s coming back. There’s nobody there now but a waitress.”

“Payday is never canceled,” Frankie said. “It’d be like canceling—” He made a sputtering sound, looking for the word. “—gravity. Not possible in the realm of physics.”

Buddy appeared at the kitchen entrance. He pointed toward the front door.

“What?” Frankie said.

The doorbell rang.

“Well, get it, dummy!” Frankie said.

Buddy slowly shook his head. Frankie stormed past him, heading for the door. Matty took advantage of the distraction and picked up the phone. Anything beat being yelled at. “Hello?”

A pause, and then a man said, “Oh! Hi. Is this Matty?” Matty didn’t recognize the voice.

“Yes?”

“It’s nice to meet you. Your mom’s told me a lot about you.”

“Uh…”

“I was wondering if she was home?”

“Can I say who’s calling?”

“It’s Joshua. Joshua Lee.”

The boyfriend. Or, as Matty had started to think of him, the Penis from Phoenix. “She’s not home right now. She’s at work.”

“She’s hard to catch. Do you know when she’ll be back? Or if there’s a better time to call?”

“It’s kind of busy here,” Matty said.

“Right. Okay. I’ll call back tonight.” He sounded desperate. No, like a desperate guy pretending not to be. “If you see her, tell her—wait. No, that’s okay. I’ll just call back.”

Matty hung up. Buddy was looking at him. “Has he been calling a lot?” Matty asked.

Buddy nodded.

“Is that Malice? I mean, Mary Alice?” He thought he’d heard her voice. Matty went outside, and Frankie was standing on the front lawn, saying, “Come on, Loretta. Please get out of the car!” Malice stood nearby, holding a lumpily full garbage bag. She saw Matty and walked up to him.

“Would you take this?” she asked. “He won’t.”

“What is it?”

“Clothes. Some other stuff he’d need.”

“Wow, your mom’s pretty mad.” Matty didn’t recognize the car, or the woman behind the wheel. One of Loretta’s friends, it looked like. Loretta sat in the passenger’s side, staring straight ahead, window firmly up. “What happened?”

“He didn’t tell you? We have to sell the house. Like, today.”

“What? That’s crazy. Why?”

Malice gave him a half-lidded stare. “Like you have no clue. You want to tell me what you two have been working on?”

“I…I can’t.” He felt so embarrassed. “I wish I could.”

Loretta had finally rolled down the window—but only to yell for Mary Alice.

“Wait,” Matty said. He leaned close to Malice and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Do you have any, uh, pot on you?”

Malice stepped back. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I wouldn’t ask, but I’m down to half a joint, and it’s really—”

“Mary Alice!” Loretta yelled. “In the car!”

Matty held the stub of joint between his finger and thumb, flicked the lighter, and puffed to bring it to light. His last bit of rocket fuel…

He flew back to Mitzi’s Tavern, wasting no time in transit. Inside, it was more crowded than it had been all afternoon, but it was Bomb Squad Silent. A dozen men of various ages sat at the bar or at the round, pockmarked tables, staring at their drinks as if trying to decide whether to cut the green wire or the red one.

Matty skirted and skittered around the edge of the room, anxious to leave, but knowing he couldn’t face Frankie unless he at least figured out if payday was in progress. Jabba the Bartender had returned, but he wasn’t talking to anyone, either.

Matty could feel the tug of his body back at the house. He’d made Uncle Frankie promise to keep his mom away from the backyard when she came home from work. He’d started to ask why, and then abruptly said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it. You do what you do.”

The bar was depressing him. Mitzi’s door was closed, and no one was making a move to walk in. He decided to take one quick pass through, just to make sure the safe wasn’t hanging open, and then head home to face Frankie’s wrath. He was drifting toward the door when the bartender pointed at a customer, and the man got up and started walking toward Mitzi’s office. Was Frankie right after all, and payday was on?

Matty slipped through the wall into Mitzi’s office and was surprised to see somebody new behind the desk. The man was at least as old as Mitzi and Grandpa Teddy, but looked like an Elvis left too long in the sun: gray pompadour, white teeth, beef-jerky arms. His clothing was period, too. His black short-sleeve shirt had flames on it, as if he were ready not so much to hop into a ’57 Chevy but to become one.

The guy from the bar didn’t sit down. He handed over an envelope, and Ancient Elvis pulled out the cash, sorted it in front of him, slapping the bills onto the desk as if sure he was going to catch the guy stiffing him.

Mitzi wasn’t like that. She would barely glance at the money, just run her finger across it while it was still in the envelope, and then talk politely to the client. Sometimes everybody was all smiles. Sometimes the client had to start explaining.

Evidently the money added up. Elvis waved the customer away and turned toward the safe before the guy was out of the room. Then he picked up a scrap of paper, and started dialing.

Matty zipped forward.

Elvis pulled open the safe, still holding the scrap of paper. Matty stretched himself, willing his invisible eyeballs closer.

28. 11. And—thumb. Elvis’s fat, grease-stained digit covered the only digit Matty cared about.

“Thumb, thumb, thumb…” Matty chanted.

The man swung his head toward the door—maybe someone had knocked?—and then dropped the paper. Matty swooped down, tried to focus on the digits, and the man snatched it off the floor.

“Oh come on!” Matty yelled. What he wouldn’t do for a pair of spirit tongs. Anything.

The door opened, and Mr. Pompadour started talking to the next client. Matty looked forlornly at the safe—and then realized the door was still open.

Still open.

Matty flew a few feet and turned until he could see the face of the door. The dial was still resting at the last number:

33.

“Twenty-eight, eleven, thirty-three,” Matty said.

He spun, held up his ghost hands. “Twenty-eight, eleven, thirty-three!” Pompadour and the new guest talked on, oblivious.

Matty zipped through the roof, chanting the digits to himself so he wouldn’t forget. He stretched out his arms like Superman and headed for home. God, he loved flying. And now, he knew Grandma Mo had loved it, too. Screw Destin Smalls. Let the evil government agents come for him. He was going to save Frankie! Save his mom!

Two blocks from home, he zoomed low over rooftops, buzzed a series of parked cars. Something about one of the vehicles pinged on his cannabis-fogged brain. He hovered in the air, turned back.

A silver van was parked under a tree. Then the driver’s side door opened, and a gray-haired black man stepped out. Cliff Turner. He put his hands on his hips, looked up at the tree, then turned—and locked eyes with Matty.

Turner nodded slowly, and then saluted.

Matty, in a panic, was snapped back into his body like a yo-yo. He shouted and opened his eyes and saw—

—Grandpa Teddy.

He sat in a lawn chair, legs crossed, hat on his knee.

Matty jumped up. “Grandpa!”

His grandfather held up a hand. “Settle down. You’re not—”

Matty spun around. The silver van was so close. He could be here any minute.

“What’s the matter with you?” Grandpa Teddy asked.

Matty tried to calm himself. “Nothing,” he said.

“You know, marijuana can cause paranoia.” Grandpa Teddy held the nub of the joint between two fingers. “I had to pinch it out. You don’t want to waste it. It’s expensive.”

“I’m sorry. I know!” There were no sirens. No squeal of tires in the driveway. Just a quiet backyard, a couple of empty hammocks, and his grandfather. How long had he been watching? Long enough to pull out a chair at least. Thank God Matty hadn’t been using his original travel method.

“Easy now, you’re not in trouble,” Grandpa Teddy said. “How long have you been at this?”

“I just tried it a couple times.”

He chuckled. “Not talking about the smoke. I’ve seen that look before, Matty.”

That look. Of course Grandpa Teddy would recognize a trance. He’d been married to the greatest clairvoyant and astral traveler of all time. He may have been the one to deliver her letter.

“You seemed pretty deep,” his grandfather said. “How far away were you?”

“Not far.” Matty didn’t know what to do with his hands. Should he sit down? Lean nonchalantly against the garage? No. No way could he pull off nonchalant. Chalant was the best he could do.

Grandpa Teddy, though, seemed perfectly relaxed. “What’s the farthest you’ve gone?”

“Uh…” Matty was having trouble concentrating. Were Turner and Smalls driving here, right now?

“Just estimate,” Grandpa Teddy said.

“How far is the lake?”

“That’s pretty good.”

“Is it?”

“For a thirteen-year-old it’s God damn amazing.”

Amazing. He was amazing. He didn’t even bother to mention that he was fourteen now.

“So tell me,” Grandpa Teddy said. “Why are you still shaking like a leaf?”

Matty didn’t want to say. But he was too terrified not to. “The government. They just spotted me. While I was, you know.”

“The government? Who?”

“His name’s Clifford Turner. He works with Destin Smalls? He looked straight at me. He saw me.”

“Well I’ll be damned. Cliff actually has some talent.”

“You know him?”

“Oh, I know him. Good guy. Just didn’t think he had it in him.” Grandpa Teddy did not seem as shocked as he should have been. But wasn’t he the master of the poker face? “And how did you catch their names? Did he talk to you?”

“Not this time.”

“This time? This has happened before?”

“No, not like that.” Matty quickly told him about meeting Smalls and Turner weeks ago, when they stopped him on the sidewalk. He talked fast, imagining SWAT teams converging on this location.

“Did Smalls threaten you?” Grandpa Teddy asked.

“No! I mean, not physically. He just said he could turn me off. Turn my power off. Like a light switch, he said.”

“Jesus,” Teddy said. “The God damn micro-lepton gun.”

“What’s a micro—?”

“A million-dollar boondoggle. Don’t you worry about it. Does anybody else know what you can do?”

“Uncle Frankie.”

“You went to Frankie with this? Your mother I could understand, but—”

“I could never tell Mom. But Frankie, I knew he would be…excited.”

Teddy grunted in agreement. “Probably right about your mother, too.” He looked at the joint in his hand. “And this helps, does it?”

Matty nodded.

“Someone should do some research into that.”

“What do we do?”

Teddy smiled. Was it the “we”? He said, “Your cover’s blown, kid. Destin Smalls is going to use you as his ticket back into the game.”

“What game?”

“The only one men my age care about—relevance. But don’t worry. I’ll deal with him. Right after I go see a friend of mine.” He handed Matty the joint. “Better hide that.” Then he stood and brushed out the creases from his pants. “Meanwhile, you better get inside and change into fresh clothes—your mother’s coming home.”

Oh, right. Better take a shower, too.

Teddy left in his car. Matty went into the house and was stopped before he made it to the bathroom.

“Well?” Frankie said.

“Twenty-eight, eleven, thirty-three,” Matty said.

18 Teddy

Somehow, without noticing it, he’d stopped throwing himself into love with a new woman every day. He’d forgotten his habit like an umbrella left behind in a restaurant, unmissed because the rain had stopped. It was absurdly late—late in summer, late in life—to realize that he’d abandoned his quest for a daily fix. Yet here he was, alone in a gleaming fortress of a kitchen on a Sunday morning, feeling like he was sitting in sunlight. All because of a random encounter with a woman in a grocery store.

Since Maureen had died he’d felt no need to get to know a woman, only to love her, briefly and intensely, and move on. And it was clear, after entering this house, that even if Graciella managed to love him, she wouldn’t be happy sharing his ramshackle life. Just look at this room! A quarry’s worth of granite, interrupted only by hunks of stainless steel, set on a plain of ceramic tile. His coffee cup rested on a slab of teak as big as a drawbridge. In these modern mansions, the kitchen served as both factory and showroom, like one of those Toyota plants staffed by robots. Even the phone he was talking on felt more expensive than one of his watches.

“That’s my final offer,” he said. “One test.”

“I’m bringing in Archibald,” Destin Smalls replied. “That’s nonnegotiable.”

A child ran into the room, yelling something about batteries, and stopped dead when he saw Teddy. It was the smallest one, about eight years old, the one he’d seen at the soccer game. Alex? No, Adrian. Teddy hadn’t seen or heard the other two boys since entering the house. He doubted he could find them if he went looking for them; the estate spanned time zones.

“You’re Teddy,” Adrian said.

“Mr. Telemachus to you. And I’m on the phone.” To Smalls he said, “So do we have a deal?”

The agent took a long time to answer. Smelling a trap? Maybe, but he was so hungry.

“Deal.”

Teddy hung up the phone, satisfied. One task finished—or at least on hold for now.

“Mom says you do magic,” the boy said.

“I do magic tricks. There’s a difference. But I only do them for money.”

“I don’t have any money.”

“Oh, you have money,” Teddy said. “Just look at this house.”

The kid didn’t get it. “Can’t you show it to me for free?”

“Sorry. No cash, no trick.”

“That’s mean.”

“Yes, but it’s the kind of mean that teaches you something.”

Graciella reappeared from the basement, holding that green cartoon lunch box. The boy wheeled toward her and said, “He won’t show me a magic trick.”

“Leave Mr. Telemachus alone. We’re going to tae kwon do now. Go get your uniform.”

“What’s in there?” the boy asked, reaching for the lunch box.

She lifted it out of his reach. “Robe and belt. Go!”

She watched him run out of the room. “He doesn’t understand what’s happening. I’m trying to do the right thing, but I’m never sure what they can handle. If they were older, they might be able to handle it.”

“You never stop worrying,” he said. “You never stop being their parent.”

She sat down absently, still contemplating the damage. Being this close to her intoxicated him. He loved the way she smelled. The gleam of her tanned legs. Her painted toes. He even loved the way her brow furrowed.

“Take my grown son,” Teddy said, to distract her from her nervousness. “He’s got himself into a mess.”

“Buddy? He did seem a bit…”

She didn’t want to finish that sentence, and Teddy let her off the hook. “Naw, Buddy’s just crazy, it’s Frankie who’s the trouble magnet. I’m just hoping his bad habits haven’t rubbed off on Matty.”

“He’s in trouble, too?”

“He’s been experimenting a little,” Teddy said. “Got mixed up with the wrong kind of people, drew some attention from the authorities.” This may have been the finest nonexplanation he’d ever delivered.

“Is that why Irene’s upset?”

“Irene’s upset? Did she say she was upset?” He’d kept his daughter out of all of the Matty business. He needed her focused on the Nick thing, not worrying about spies and agents.

“She hadn’t called me since she came back from her trip, so I called the house,” Graciella said. “She gave me an update on what she’d found with the company papers, but she sounded…wounded.”

“Irene’s touchy. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Graciella’s frown was there and gone in an instant. He didn’t know how to interpret that. If they were playing poker, it would have telegraphed that she’d picked a bad card, and he would have bet against her. But in the game of Real Women, he was forever a novice.

He said, “She’s sure working hard on those papers, though.”

“I guess that’s something.” She handed him the lunch box. “Hold this, I need to round these boys up.” She went to an intercom and pressed a button. “Adrian! Luke! We’re going to tae kwon do! Julian, you better have your homework done before I get back!”

A burp of static, and a voice said, “It’s a holiday weekend, Mom.” He sounded bored.

“Done before Sunday night, that’s the rule. The rest of you, I’m leaving in thirty seconds. Twenty-nine!”

She looked at Teddy. “Only a week into school, and Julian’s already behind.”

“He’ll be fine. You said the new school was better, right?”

Graciella walked Teddy to the front door. She glanced at the lunch box, winced. “I don’t like this, showing them to him.”

“He’s not going to believe unless he sees them. It’s too crazy otherwise.”

“So let’s say he believes, and he makes his promise. How do I believe him?”

“That’s why you’ve got to let me do the negotiating. I’ll know if he’s lying. I’ve got my secret weapon.”

“I’m sure Irene is really happy you talk about her like this.”

“You gotta admit, she’s a pistol. And not just for the mind reading. That girl’s a financial wiz.”

“I need her,” Graciella said. “No matter what happens in the trial Tuesday, the real estate office has to be clean from now on.”

The defense was about to rest. Bert the German and several others had already implicated Nick Junior in the murder. If Nick Junior didn’t testify against his father—and there was one last chance for him to take the stand, on Tuesday—then it was on to final arguments. The jury could hand back a verdict by the end of the week.

“Nick’s going to jail, or his father is,” Graciella said. “Either way, I’m not going back to him. I can’t have all this follow my boys around for the rest of their lives like a bad smell.”

Teddy wasn’t sure a grandson of Nick Pusateri Senior was ever going to smell like roses, but he kept that to himself. “You’re doing the right thing,” he said.

She unlocked the front door, nodded at the lunch box. “You think if I held on to that, he’d break into my home?”

“Let’s not think about that,” he said. Because Nick Senior would have to come for it. He couldn’t just let it sit in the house, waiting for Graciella to change her mind about the cops. “So…you got anybody living here with you?”

“Besides the boys? No. But I’ve got an expensive alarm system.”

He nodded as if that would make a bit of difference. Nick Senior’s guys had shot people in their own homes. They’d blown up cars by remote control, right in the suburbs. The Sun-Times had been running stories about suspected mob hits all through the trial.

Graciella seemed to know what he was thinking. “He’d never risk hurting his grandsons,” she said.

“No, no. But still.” And thought: Still, there’s you.

“I need them out of this, Teddy. No more contact with the Pusateris, all that family business.”

“I promise you, I’ll make this work.”

Adrian galumphed down the stairs, white robe open and green belt dragging behind him, followed by a lanky brother a few years older. That one was Luke. His uniform was cinched tight, and he wore a swoop of brown hair over one eye like a sixties cover girl. Adrian said, “That’s him,” as if ratting Teddy out. “He won’t do magic.”

“No tricks! We’re late,” Graciella said.

Teddy waved the smaller boy over. “Come here, your shoe’s untied.” Adrian reluctantly stepped forward and offered a scuffed, yet still garish shoe decorated with green cartoon animals wielding swords and such, each no doubt possessed of unique abilities and an elaborate backstory. Teddy went down on one knee. “I know people who can do magic. Real magic. And what does it get them? Nothing.” He struggled to hold the shoelace between finger and thumb. His fingers had turned into rusty shears. Once—decades ago, before Nick Senior—they could make cards dance. Coins and papers and even engagement rings would wink in and out of existence, his touch as silent and quick as a mirror flicking sunlight. Once, he was a phantom of the card table. Maybe it was time for the phantom to strike back.

“Doing real magic,” he went on, keeping up the patter like a professional. “That stuff makes those folk unhappier than if they had no magic at all, because it doesn’t do ’em a damn bit of good. But if you can do a magic trick, you get paid. Do you want to get paid?”

Adrian nodded.

“Other shoe. Good. Now here’s the thing.” Graciella stood in the doorway, listening. “Magic’s easy. It’s tricks that are hard. You gotta be smart, you gotta be prepared, and you gotta be patient. Sometimes it takes a long time for a trick to pay off. Years even. Most people can’t wait that long. They just want the magic, right now. Poof.”

“I’m patient.”

“We’ll see.”

“So when are you going to show me the trick?”

“You beg, borrow, or steal a fresh one-dollar bill, and then we’ll talk.”

Graciella laughed. “In the car! Now!”

Teddy stood up with an embarrassing pop of the knees.

“You can’t tell a kid to steal money, Teddy. However…” She kissed him on the cheek. “I’m still glad I ran into you that day in the grocery store.”

“I have a confession to make,” Teddy said. “I didn’t run into you by accident. I saw you, I thought you were a pretty woman, and I made sure I got close enough to do my mind-reading trick.”

“Oh, I know about that.”

“You do?”

“How many women have fallen for it?”

“I plead the fifth, my dear.”

“Well, that wasn’t the miracle. It was the fact you were there at all. That you turned out to know Nick Senior, and that you’re willing to help—that Irene is willing to help, too. You two are my pair of pocket aces.”

She knew he’d like that metaphor, and he liked that he knew that she knew. He strolled to his car, humming to himself, swinging the plastic box full of a dead man’s teeth.

He used to have no problem making promises. When he proposed to Maureen, he said, “You’ll never regret this.” When their daughter was born, he said, “I’ll be the best dad in the state of Illinois.” And when Maureen told him she was sick, he said, “You’re going to be fine.”

It was a freezing morning in late winter. He found her in the bedroom, her face wearing that peculiar expression of the working clairvoyant: head tilted, mouth tight, eyes twitching under closed lids like a dreamer.

“There’s a tumor,” she said.

She’d discovered it on her own. She’d been feeling sick to her stomach for weeks, and had stopped eating. Then, following what she called “an intuition,” she’d turned her attention to her own body. Not-so-remote-viewing.

He said, “You’re not a doctor. Stop being dramatic.” It wasn’t the kindest he’d ever been. It was seven in the morning, and he was tired, unemployed, and in pain. He’d spent most of the night in the basement, watching the TV and doing physical therapy, which in this case took the form of repeatedly lifting a heavy bottle with his bandaged hands.

“I’ve already gone to the doctor.” What she meant was “doctors.” Weeks ago she’d made an appointment to see first their family physician, then her gynecologist, then an oncologist. She said, “I couldn’t tell you until I was sure.”

“But we can’t know for sure until they do a biopsy. Did they do a biopsy?”

“It’s scheduled for next week.”

“Then it could be nothing.”

After the test results came back, with undeniable evidence of epithelial cell tumors, he doubled down: the doctors were wrong, the tests were wrong, and even if they weren’t, she could go into remission at any time.

She stood at the entrance to the basement, arms crossed, keeping her tears behind her eyes. “We need to talk about what to tell the kids,” she said.

“Tell them what? There’s nothing to tell,” he said from the couch. “We’re going to beat this.”

In 1974, nobody he knew “beat” cancer. Half a dozen friends had caught the lung variety—they were a generation of chimneys—and had croaked in a few years. One died of colon cancer, another of some kind of melanoma. Ovarian cancer, that was something else. They called it “the silent killer” because early symptoms—stomachaches, the urge to pee, loss of appetite—were easily dismissed. The tumors grew, and it wasn’t until the bleeding started that you knew something had gone terribly wrong. By then it was too late.

All through the spring and into summer, he avoided all mention of the Big C. Wouldn’t have the conversation with Maureen. Her dogmatic belief that she was doomed infuriated him. It was surrender. Negative thinking. He knew that if they talked about death, if they planned for it, they would only give it power over them. Why invite the specter into their house, pour it a cup of coffee, let it put its bony feet all over their couch?

No. They’d beat cancer, by cheating if necessary. Teddy had been training for the job his entire life.

But even he couldn’t remain blind to the changes in her body. She grew thinner through that summer. Their age difference once had bordered on the scandalous, but now she was catching up to him, aging at three times his speed, and angling to pass him. By August she was coming home from work exhausted. Irene was cooking then, and Maureen would sit with Buddy in her lap and look out the window as if she were already on the other side of it.

One night late in August, she roused herself to wash the after-supper dishes, and he watched her thin arms scrub the pots. That was the night she made him promise never to allow the children to work for any government. He’d made fun of her, and she’d shouted at him, wasting the last of her energy on him. He felt terrible. He apologized, and promised to do everything she asked—all without allowing himself to think there’d ever be a time he’d have to take care of the kids without her.

“I want you to come back,” she said that night. “Back to the bedroom.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Jesus, Teddy.” Exasperated. She leaned against him, and he put his hand around her shoulders. She seemed so light. A girl with eggshell bones.

They went into the bedroom and lay down side by side, on their backs, as if trying out burial plots. “I have to tell you something,” she said.

His chest went cold, dreading what she’d say next.

“I’ve done something bad,” she said.

He was relieved. There was nothing Maureen could do that was as bad as what he’d done, no weight as big as what he’d brought down, and he welcomed any shift in the scales. “You can tell me anything,” he said.

What she told him was impossible to believe at first. She had to go through parts of it several times.

After she’d finished, he thought for a long minute, and then said, “You’ve betrayed the American government.”

“Yes.”

“And disrupted our nation’s intelligence-gathering networks.”

“Yes.”

“And what else? Oh—allied yourself with a dissident Russian to also bring down the Soviet psychic warfare program.”

“Uh-huh.”

“My God, Mo, you’re an international criminal!”

“Pretty much,” she said.

They laughed together, like the old days.

“I’m so proud of you,” he said.

She begged him to stop talking, because her stomach hurt. No, really hurt. He rolled onto his side to watch her face. That fast, her concentration had moved away from him, down into the pain.

A minute or so later, she spoke without opening her eyes. “We have to talk about what to say to the kids.”

“Is this about the government thing? I promised you—they’ll never work for them.”

“I’m talking about me,” she said. “Buddy already knows, but—”

“You told him?”

“He already knew. He drew my grave.”

“Ah.” He thought that had all stopped for the kid. But maybe there was still a bit of the talent there. He was so God damn unreadable, that one.

Mo said, “But Irene and Frankie have to know what’s coming, too.”

“I’ll help you tell them,” he said. He touched a scarred hand to her cheek. “Tomorrow, I promise.”

He was so good at making promises, because he’d had so much practice.

From the basement came the high whine of a drill going full tilt into wood studs. Did he even want to look? For weeks he’d avoided going down there, afraid that he’d see the damage and burst an artery. But the mountain wasn’t coming to Teddy, so he had to go to the mountain.

Buddy stood at the base of the stairs, using both hands to drill into the wall beside the basement door. The door frame was shiny new metal, and the old wooden door had been replaced by a steel one. A fucking steel door.

Jesus Christ.

At Buddy’s feet lay an alarm clock, busted and sprouting wires. A spool of new wire was set beside it.

Teddy took a breath before he spoke. “Buddy. Buddy. Hey.” The big lump finally heard him and released the trigger on the drill, but did not turn around. “Could you put that down for a sec?”

Buddy looked over his shoulder, drill tilted up, a cowboy holding his fire.

“I’m not going to ask you what you’re doing,” Teddy said. “I’m sure you got your reasons.” Buddy said nothing. Waiting for the interruption to be over.

“I just want your advice on something,” Teddy said.

Buddy winced.

“Come on,” Teddy said. “Sit down with me, one God damn second.”

Buddy reluctantly set the drill on the floor, and Teddy led him through the steel door into the basement. It was dark in there, darker than it should have been. The row of garden-height windows were all covered.

Teddy flipped on the lights. The windows had been sealed with sheet metal.

“What the hell did you—?” He stopped himself. He wasn’t going to criticize. He wasn’t going to question.

Buddy hadn’t limited himself to remodeling and fortifying—he’d also been redecorating. A secondhand love seat and three ratty armchairs, all different colors, were set up around a twenty-six-inch TV, with a video-game gadget wired up to it. Lamps of various vintages were set up but not yet plugged in. The desk Irene had been using was pushed off to the side, the computer missing. And against the far wall were four unpainted bunk beds.

“Have a seat,” Teddy said. Each of them took an armchair. “I gotta go somewhere this afternoon, talk to somebody I don’t want to talk to. You know anything about that?”

Buddy looked off to the side.

“If it’s going to go bad, I’d like to know. Are you getting any, you know, glimpses? Anything like you used to?”

Buddy refused to make eye contact.

“Okay, fine, you don’t want to talk. I get it. You and me, we haven’t talked much lately. I know I used to put a lot of pressure on you, back in the day. And I know that was wrong.”

Buddy seemed to be holding himself to the chair through force of will.

“But I got a real problem right now, and the stakes are high,” Teddy said. “So how about this?” He reached into his jacket pocket and held out a manila envelope. “You don’t have to say a thing. Just nod or shake your head, okay? A nod or a shake.” He leaned forward, watching his son’s face. “Buddy, is this going to be enough?”

Buddy’s eyes flicked toward the envelope and away, as if it were a too-bright light.

Teddy said, “All I’m asking is a nod or a—”

Buddy jumped up and fled the room. Teddy listened to him clomp up the stairs and bang through the back door.

“God damn it,” Teddy said. He was going to have to do this blind.

He went upstairs to his bedroom, opened the closet door, and dialed open his safe. The top rack was piled with Maureen’s letters, the top one being the one he’d opened last month, as Graciella lay in the hammock.

He’d drunk them in as they arrived over the years, each pen stroke like a scratch upon his heart, summoning her to life and killing her again in the same moment. Her words had coached him and soothed him and chided him, helped him navigate the minefield of years. Made him a better parent, a wiser man. Each letter was like a pocket ace.

But the letters hadn’t told him what to do now, and no new letter had arrived today. He’d outrun the reach of Maureen’s advice. Fallen off the edges of the God damn map. He’d have to go forward into the dark, steering by his own lights. Improvising.

On the floor of the safe rested a black velvet tray. He eased it out and set it on top of the bed.

Arrayed on the velvet were two sets of gold cuff links, Maureen’s engagement ring, one diamond tie pin, and four watches of various worth: a Tag Heuer, a workaday Citizen, an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, and the one he was looking for. It was a near twin of the watch he was currently wearing, a 1966 “Paul Newman” Rolex Daytona with a diamond dial, and a novice pawing through his collection would have thought a second one redundant. Teddy, however, had held on to the one in the safe for sentimental reasons. If he was going to go see Nick Pusateri Senior, there was only one watch he wanted to wear.

He wound it, set the time, and realized it was time to go.

He went looking for Irene, and it wasn’t hard to find her. Whenever she wasn’t at work, she was parked at the dining room table. She turned the room into the command center for her dissection of NG Group Realty’s finances. File boxes were stacked on the floor, and her new computer was set up in the middle of the table, probably scarring the wood. Frankie was yammering at her while Irene kept her eyes on the screen.

“It wouldn’t be just a video-game arcade,” Frankie said to her. “We’d do food, beer, sports events—”

“I thought you were done with computers,” Teddy said to Irene.

“This one’s been disconnected from the Information Superhighway.”

“The what?”

“Dad. Dad,” Frankie said. “Tell Irene. You gotta invest your money rather than let it sit there, right?” He was talking fast, the mark of a desperate man. Loretta had kicked him out, and Teddy had a good idea why.

Teddy said, “What money? You’re broke.”

“But what if I wasn’t, huh? What I’m talking about is an arcade, a whole family thing, like Chuck E. Cheese without the fucking robots and the dress-up characters.” Frankie had always been scared of people in costumes. Never sat on Santa’s knee, ran terrified from the mall Easter bunny. “We serve good food, good beer, play good music. And here’s the clincher—no video games.”

Irene finally looked up from the computer. “You’re going to open an arcade,” she said, her voice flat. “With no video games.”

“Nothing but real pinball,” Frankie said. “It’s ready to make a comeback. Kids will eat it up.”

“You’re an idiot.” She did not quite glance at Teddy. “Do you know what this family would do for you? You’d throw everything away, and you have no idea what any of us—”

“Irene,” Teddy said, interrupting. “Time to go.”

“Where are you going?” Frankie asked.

“Out for an errand,” Teddy said. “Delivering some food to a sick friend. Irene, you ready?”

“Let me get my shoes,” she said. She did something on the computer keyboard, then stood up. “Don’t touch my stuff,” she said to Frankie. “And would you please wake up my son? He’s going to sleep the day away.”

“Let him sleep,” Frankie said. “He deserves it.”

“For what?”

Frankie hesitated. “For being a good kid who loves his mother.”

She snorted and went up to her room.

Frankie said to Teddy, “That’s Irene all over. Conventional. Not a risk taker. But you understand, right? I can’t just keep working as a phone tech. How’s Loretta supposed to respect me when I’m an installer? What are my girls supposed to think? I’ve got to work for myself. I’ve got to do something I’m passionate about. You wouldn’t believe the ideas I have for this place. I was thinking of making it a real, old-style arcade, with, like, 1950s memorabilia. You could come in with me!”

“My boy, my boy,” Teddy said. He walked forward, hands out, as if going in for a hug.

Frankie looked up at him eagerly. “You could be my partner! Silent partner, maybe, since you’ve never even gone to an arcade, but you could put in—”

Teddy gripped Frankie’s head. “Stop it. Just—” He didn’t know what to do with this kid. Never did know. He was the boy who wanted everything, and didn’t know how to get it. Hours in the corner, trying to levitate paper clips. “Stop it.”

Frankie tried to speak through squashed cheeks.

“No,” Teddy said. “I love you, but you’re killing me. Just killing me.”

The morning after he drove Maureen to the hospital and stayed the night at her bedside, he came home to shower and get a few things she’d asked for. Mrs. Klauser, their neighbor, had stayed the night and had made the kids pancakes.

Teddy called the children into the living room and tried to sit them down, but Frankie wouldn’t stay still, kept trying to explain the miracle that had occurred in their kitchen: “Best pancakes ever. Mrs. Klauser is the best. I want pancakes every day.”

Buddy was quieter than usual, on his own planet, crouched over a Hot Wheels car, pushing it through the carpet. Only Irene seemed to understand what was happening. She was almost eleven, only a year older than Frankie, but she seemed a decade more mature, a full voting member of the Parliament of Seriousness. Teddy was pretty sure she outranked him.

“Is Mom in the hospital?” she asked. He’d been planning to ramp up to the “H” word, but Irene had jumped ahead in the script.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Teddy said. “She wasn’t feeling well, so we thought the doctor should—”

“Is she going to die?” Irene asked.

This wasn’t in Teddy’s script at all. “No, of course not! We’re just checking some things out and—damn it.”

Tears were already running down Irene’s face. He should have known better.

“She’s very sick,” Teddy said. “That’s true. But the medicines they’ve got today, the tools they have available—it’s just amazing. They’ve got a machine there that zaps the bad stuff. Pow, like a ray gun.”

“I know about radiation,” Irene said. “She’s been going for months.”

“Yes, but—” Damn it, what didn’t Irene know? “We gotta let all the medicines work. We’re not giving up, because that’s not who we are. Frankie, stop that.” The boy was standing in front of Buddy, deliberately blocking the Hot Wheels car with his foot. “Leave Buddy alone. Did you hear what I was saying?”

“Mom’s in the hospital,” Frankie said.

“That’s right. Now later I’m going to come back and pick you up. Mrs. Klauser is going to get you all dressed, and we can go down there for a visit, okay? I want you to wash your hair. All of you. And put on something nice.”

Frankie said, “Could you tell Mom something?” Buddy drove his car in the other direction, his back to the rest of them.

“Sure, sure,” Teddy said. He crouched down to look Frankie in the eye. “What do you want to tell your mother?”

“She should buy blueberry syrup like Mrs. Klauser. It tastes just like IHOP.”

“Syrup,” Teddy said.

“Blueberry. Can I go play now?”

Irene hadn’t moved, not even to brush the tears from her face.

“I need your help,” Teddy said to her. He stood up, and brushed the crease from his wool pants. “Can you help get the boys ready?”

She nodded.

“Good girl. I’ve always been able to depend on you.”

He was still leaning on her, now literally. He hobbled up to Mitzi’s Tavern using the newly purchased tri-tipped cane, but for extra drama he made Irene keep a hand on his biceps, as if at any moment he’d pitch over onto the sidewalk. He’d told her to keep one hand on him at all times, and to not forget to be nice.

Another weekend morning, another empty tavern. Barney locked the door behind them. “Don’t want the drunks wandering in,” he said. He nodded toward the open door of the office. It took Teddy and Irene a while to get there.

Nick Pusateri Senior sat behind the desk. Unlike Barney, who looked like an air mattress that had been inflated and deflated too many times, Nick was essentially the same man, only more weathered. Teddy thought, God preserve us from the longevity of assholes.

“Great to see you,” Teddy said.

Nick came around the desk and shook hands, his grip deliberately crushing. Teddy didn’t have to fake the wince, and he saw Nick enjoy that sign of weakness. Teddy didn’t let on that his only desire was to jam his tri-cane down the man’s throat. Yes, it’d be more work than a regular cane, but so worth the effort.

“And you must be little Irene,” Nick said.

Irene smiled a tight smile. Teddy hoped she could pretend to be the dutiful daughter through this meeting. She was innately honest, like her mother. Deception was Teddy’s department.

They took their seats on opposite sides of the desk. Nick had six pencils lined up on the cherry surface, all perpendicular to the edge, all sharpened to exactly the same length. So, Teddy thought. He’s stressed. Nick’s OCD always kicked in when he was stressed. It had to be the pressure of the trial.

Nick said, “You’re looking well, Teddy.”

Irene’s hand tightened on his arm. Teddy smiled, kept his eyes on Nick. “And that haircut never gets old.” He leaned toward Irene. “Literally, it cannot get old.”

Irene kept her smile in place.

“Because it’s a fake,” Teddy said.

“Uh-huh,” she said without moving her lips.

“A toupee.”

“I get it, Dad.”

Nick laughed like it was a thing he’d seen people do in movies. “Still giving me the business, after all these years. Glad you still got some balls, Teddy.”

Teddy shrugged. “Mitzi not coming?”

“She’s feeling under the weather. Caught a bug.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Teddy said sincerely. “She seemed fine the other day.”

“She’ll snap back. She’s a tough bird.”

They agreed on this. Teddy told the story about Mitzi hitting an unruly drunk on the side of the head with a telephone. “What was his name? Right on the tip of my tongue.” He made a shaky gesture with one hand, playing the doddering old man, the scatterbrained ancient. The name of the victim was Ricky Weyerbach, and he used to be an electrician at the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse before he hurt his back. “Anyway. Big guy, twice her size, and bam, right on the temple.”

Nick laughed, and it nearly sounded human this time.

“This was one of those Bakelite monsters that weigh ten pounds,” Teddy explained to Irene. “Put the guy in the hospital.”

Nick liked that, Teddy saw. He liked any story about the fearsome Pusateris. At least any story that wasn’t on the front page of the Sun-Times.

“So,” Nick said. He frowned at one of the pencils, and made a microscopic adjustment. “I’m meeting with you out of respect for our history.”

“I appreciate that,” Teddy said.

“But your boy has already been in here, and we’ve worked out a payment plan.”

Frankie came on his own? God damn it. Teddy had deliberately not told Frankie what he was up to, so the boy wouldn’t do something stupid. And now he’d gone and stupided it up anyway.

Teddy let his annoyance show. “I told Mitzi I wanted to be the one to work out a deal.”

Nick shrugged. “He’s a grown man. And if you’re here to get back the house, that’s not going to happen.”

This was the first Teddy had heard about a house. But it might explain why Frankie had moved into Teddy’s.

“Why take a man’s home, when you can take cold hard cash?” Teddy asked. He reached into his jacket pocket—a move Nick paid close attention to. Teddy’s arthritic fingers came away with the envelope. Teddy set it on the desk, being careful not to disturb the pencils. “That’s fifty thousand. Mitzi let me know the full amount when I saw her.”

“The full amount,” Nick said. Putting a skeptical spin on it.

“Is there a problem?”

“Just that you saw her over a week ago.”

“Ah,” Teddy said. He pretended to just now understand that over a week meant that interest was due. “How much?”

“It’s not just the vig,” Nick said. “A lot has changed. The real estate market, for example.”

“How’s that doing?”

“It’s booming, Teddy. Fucking booming.”

Irene squeezed Teddy’s arm. “How much to make it all right?” Teddy asked. “The house, Frankie’s remaining debt, everything.”

“You don’t have that kinda weight, Teddy.”

“Try me.”

“A hundred K.”

Teddy let his face fall.

“And the watch.”

“What?” Teddy’s hand fluttered near his wrist, as if unconsciously protecting it.

Irene looked shocked. “What do you mean, his watch. That’s—that’s his pride and joy.”

“He owes it to me,” Nick said. “He’s owed it to me for twenty years. I should have taken it back then, but I fastened it to his fucking wrist, and let him go.”

“We’re leaving,” Irene said. “Come on, Dad.”

“No.”

Teddy lifted his head. He withdrew a second envelope, put it on top of the first. Then, without looking at the watch, he unlatched the steel band and slid it over his fingers. He dropped it onto the middle of the desk, sending the pencils rolling.

Nick quickly caught the pencils. Only when he’d lined them back up did he pick up the watch. “Jesus, that’s beautiful. Paul Newman used to wear one of these when he raced.”

“You don’t say,” Irene said.

“It was worth twenty-five grand when your pop won it in a poker game. And now? Who knows?”

“Right. Let’s go, Dad.”

Teddy put his hand over hers, so she wouldn’t move it from his biceps. “There’s one more thing,” he said.

Nick raised his eyebrows.

“It’s about your son,” Teddy said. “And your daughter-in-law.”

“Graciella?” Nick seemed genuinely confused.

“She never wants you to see her again. Or the boys.”

“What the fuck is that to you?”

“I said I’d speak to you on her behalf.”

“Are you talking? To my family?”

“And she wants you out of Nick Junior’s real estate company. It’s not going to be your front anymore. No more money laundering.”

Nick still didn’t seem to understand. “Graciella said this to you. A stranger.”

“We’re not strangers. I met her at the grocery store. By accident.” He held up a hand. “It doesn’t matter. The thing is, she’s offering something in return.”

“And what the fuck would that be?”

“Your freedom.” He nodded at Irene. She opened her purse and took out the lunch box. Nick looked impatient. Then Irene lifted out the clear-plastic container of teeth and set them next to the envelopes of cash. She was polite enough to not disturb the pencils.

“Those once resided in the mouth of Rick Mazzione,” Teddy said. “Before you evicted them. Nick Junior says that some of the blood on ’em is yours, though the FBI wouldn’t have to take his word for it. They’ve got labs for that kind of thing.”

Nick picked up the bag. He tapped the bottom of it, as if testing whether the teeth moved realistically.

“Graciella will take no action against you,” Teddy said. “She hasn’t talked to the cops. All she’s asking is that you promise never to contact her, or the boys, again.”

Nick couldn’t take his eyes off the teeth.

“She wants them out of the life,” Teddy said.

“The moron kept them,” Nick said in a faraway voice. “Why would he do that? Why would he fucking keep them?”

“Why do kids do anything?” Teddy said. “They disappoint us. Half the time they’re trying to win our approval, half the time they want to bury us.”

Irene dug her fingernails into his arm. That wasn’t a signal, except if the signal was “I’m pissed at you.”

“So what do you say?” Teddy said.

Nick rubbed a hand across his face. “Where are the other teeth?”

“I don’t know,” Teddy said. “I told her to put them in a safe place, not in her house.”

“You’ve got them, don’t you?”

“I’m not that stupid,” Teddy said.

“Oh yes you are. You’re an idiot if you think you can come between me and my grandchildren.”

“That may be so, but I felt I had to help her out. She was afraid to talk to you.”

“Why would she be afraid of me?” Nick asked, distraught. “I’m Pop-Pop. I’m God damn Pop-Pop.”

“All she wants is your word,” Teddy said. “If you promise to give up your interest in the real estate company, and promise that you won’t come after the boys or try to hurt her, she’ll give you the rest of the teeth.”

Nick shook his head in disbelief.

“Just your word,” Teddy said.

Nick leaned across the table. Teddy could see tears forming in his eyes. The old Nick never cried. The old Nick didn’t even own tear ducts. So maybe Graciella was right, and his grandsons had wrought a change in the devil. He hadn’t wanted to tell Graciella that he thought it was impossible, but he was willing to be proven wrong.

“I swear on my mother’s grave,” Nick said, voice hoarse with emotion. “I would never hurt Graciella. She’s like my own daughter. But if she—” His voice broke. “If she doesn’t want me to see the boys, if she thinks that’s really the best for them? Then I’ll do it. I’ll do it for them. Because I love those boys.”

Irene squeezed Teddy’s arm, hard.

“I’m so happy to hear that,” Teddy said. “I’ll let her know the good news.”

Nick didn’t shake their hands as they left. He was staring at the desk. At six pencils, two envelopes, and a collection of souvenirs.

Irene helped him into the passenger seat. Neither of them spoke.

He’d set up the feeble act back at Mitzi’s a couple of weeks ago, just so he’d have an excuse to have Irene in the room with him when he met with Nick. He needed her there, listening to the man talk. Every squeeze on his arm from her had meant a lie from that bastard.

They were two miles from the tavern when Teddy finally said, “Well?”

“He’s lying, top to bottom,” she said.

Teddy sighed. Of course he was. What a shame to be proven right.

“Let’s go,” Teddy said. “We need to warn Graciella.”

19 Irene

In the end, there was only one place to take them. Irene opened the front door to the house, peeked inside to make sure Buddy wasn’t naked or something, and said to Graciella, “As it turns out, we have a lot of spare beds.”

Graciella hadn’t wanted to leave her house. Dad, however, managed to persuade her without inducing panic. He’d presented the idea of a sleepover at his house as a lark, a bit of fun for the kids, while somehow getting across the idea that her sociopathic father-in-law might indeed want to break into Graciella’s home, kidnap his grandchildren, and shoot her in the head. Graciella took this implied news better than Irene expected. The woman’s primary emotion, however, seemed to be not fear, but anger. She was mad at Teddy, or else mad at herself for going along with him. Irene knew exactly how she felt.

Plus, who would want to leave that palace? Irene had known that Graciella had money, but she hadn’t realized just how much until she saw that home.

And now, unfortunately, Graciella was seeing theirs. Irene ushered her inside. Buddy was nowhere in sight, but he’d left a sawhorse in the middle of the living room. Sawdust coated everything.

“Uh, we’re doing a little renovation work.”

“I know,” Graciella said. “I was here earlier.”

“Right? Then come on in.”

Her sons looked around at the room, saying nothing. It hadn’t been easy to get them out of their house, either. The two younger boys, Adrian and Luke, didn’t have the first clue how to pack a bag, and the teenager, Julian, seemed to think that if he hid in his bedroom then they’d somehow forget about him and let him stay home. Fortunately, both Graciella and Irene knew how to herd young males.

And summon them. “Matty!” Irene called. “We have company!”

There was no answer from the basement. Was he sleeping again? How much downtime did a teenager need?

Dad came in through the back door. “The wagon’s all tucked away,” he said. He’d wanted to take the precaution of parking Graciella’s Mercedes in the garage and out of sight. “I know, it’s a silly thing, probably not necessary at all, but why not? No sense advertising your presence.”

Adrian, the youngest, held out a dollar bill to Teddy. “Now can you do a magic trick?”

Dad took the dollar from him. “You think you’ve been patient, eh?”

The boy nodded.

“All right, then. Ever hear of the shoe bank?” Dad sat down on the ottoman and pulled off a shiny black oxford. “The first step, so to speak, is to make a deposit.” He folded the bill with his stiff fingers and placed it inside the shoe. Even crude tools could do crude work. Enough to fool a child, perhaps. “Then we wait for interest to develop. Don’t worry kid, these are all jokes you’re going to get someday and just laugh.” He slipped the shoe back on and stood up. “Now the tricky part. How to make a shoe-to-shoe transfer?” He slid the money-laden shoe forward. “Let’s go toe to toe, shall we? No, the other foot—right foot to right. Press the tip against mine. This, you see, allows us to combine our digits. No? Nothing? Okay, now we order the money. This is called a money order.”

Graciella groaned.

“As I mentioned, someday, hilarious. Are you ready?” Adrian looked at his brothers, then nodded. Dad said, “Repeat after me: Money! Order!”

“Money order,” Adrian said.

“Transfer!” Dad said, and kicked his toe against Adrian’s. The boy hopped back as if he’d been shocked. Dad said, “Now let’s see if the wire went through. Take off your shoe, my boy.”

Adrian dropped onto his butt and pulled off his shoe. “Under the insole,” Dad said. “That’s right, pull it right out.”

The boy pulled out the foam insole. Underneath was a folded bill. “It made it!” Adrian shouted. He unfolded the bill. “And it’s a five!”

“Holy shit,” Graciella said.

“Mom!” Adrian said.

Graciella laughed. “How did you do that?” she asked Dad.

“He’ll never tell,” Irene said. She’d never seen that one before. It was a pretty good gag. He hadn’t touched the kid’s shoe, except to tap it with his foot.

“Now the best part,” Dad said. “You boys like video games? Because we’ve got a whole setup down there.”

“What kind of video games?” Adrian asked.

“A brand-new whosit whatsit.”

“An SNES?”

“Undoubtedly,” Dad said. “Right that way.”

Irene said, “If there’s a boy down there, wake him up.”

Adrian, one shoe off and one shoe on, jumped down the stairs. The older ones followed.

Dad was excited by all this drama, despite the danger. Or maybe because of it. Irene had always known that her father was once a gambler, what Frankie euphemistically called a “risk taker.” She’d thought that was all behind him. After Mom died, he was at first depressed and unengaged, then frustrated and unengaged, and finally just unengaged. All this time, she’d thought he didn’t like children, but maybe it was just that he didn’t like his children. Only an audience of strangers would find him entertaining.

“What are we doing for supper?” he asked Irene.

“Don’t look at me,” she said. “Where’s Buddy? And Frankie?”

“Buddy’s out back, cleaning the grill. Frankie, no idea.” He clapped his hands. “I guess we’re ordering out. What do the boys like?” His eyes lit up. “What about fried chicken? Boys love any food that comes in a bucket. I’ll get it. You girls get comfortable. Make her a drink, Irene. Graciella likes Hendrick’s.” And then he was gone.

“Wow,” Irene said.

“I think he’s enjoying this,” Graciella said.

“And a little afraid to be in the room with you.”

“You think so?”

“He doesn’t want to disappoint you,” Irene said. “Don’t worry. He will, sooner or later.”

Graciella gave her an appraising look. “How about that drink?”

They sat at the dining room table, among the file folders and boxes from NG Group Realty. Graciella picked up one of the listings that Irene had marked up with red pen. “How bad is it?”

“Could be worse,” Irene said. She walked her through what she’d found in the last two years of files. Going by the number of properties being handled, most of the business was legitimate. But the cash flow was seriously weighted toward the suspicious house trades—and almost all of those were done by one agent.

“If you’re going to run this clean,” Irene said, “you’ve got to fire this Brett guy. And if you’re going to make a profit, the other agents have to sell a lot more houses.”

“I appreciate that you’re not sugarcoating it.”

“Who has time?”

“I’ll drink to that.”

They both did. “To fucking Nick.”

“Junior and Senior,” Irene said.

“And how about your guy?” Graciella asked. “How’s that going?”

“Down in flames,” Irene said.

“I thought you seemed down after your trip. You broke up with him?”

Broke up. With Lev, her almost husband, and with other boyfriends, the phrase felt right; she broke them off from her, let them fall away like the spent stage of an Apollo rocket. She was stronger without them and never looked back. With Joshua, though, it was as if she’d left a piece of herself behind. She was the one who was damaged, incomplete, adrift. Destined to grow cold and die alone.

She needed a story to tell Graciella, however, so she invoked a different destiny. “It was never going to work,” she said. “He can’t leave Phoenix. He’s got a daughter, and they have split custody. He wanted me to move out there, get a job with his company, but I couldn’t even get through the interview.”

“What happened?”

“I found out they’d instituted a uterus tax.”

Graciella laughed. “Oh, one of those places.”

“Let’s just say that I’ll never work for those fuckers. I just hope I didn’t get Joshua fired.”

“Is he mad at you?”

“No! He feels guilty. Says he should have known more about what he was putting me into. He thinks I’m great and everybody else isn’t worthy.”

“Sounds like you’re up on the pedestal, right where you belong. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that he’s delusional.”

Graciella put two fingers to her pursed lips and bent forward—the signal used by sane people to indicate that they would have spit their drink in laughter, if only they were a teenager or Lou Costello. Irene appreciated the gesture. Graciella swallowed and said with a smile, “Explain.”

“We’ve only known each other for a couple months,” Irene said. “We’ve barely spent time with each other. He hasn’t even met the family!” And I haven’t met his, she didn’t say. “He keeps talking like everything’s going to be so easy, so wonderful, nothing but unicorns in the garden. He has no idea what it would be like to live with me on a daily basis.”

“The psychic thing?”

“Ah. Teddy told you about that?”

“He’s not a bit ashamed of it.”

“Well, I just know I wouldn’t be able to handle it when he started lying to me.”

“You’d be surprised what you can handle,” Graciella said. “I knew what Nick was when I met him. It was part of the attraction. And for almost twenty years, it was fine. I didn’t have to think about what he did with his father. I knew he was still doing things, not-so-nice things, but our family was good. If he hadn’t been arrested, I’d still be the happy homemaker.”

“Must be nice,” Irene said.

“To be happy?”

“To live like that. To not notice the lies.”

“Oh, I noticed them.”

“Really?”

“You haven’t been married, have you?”

“I got threatened with it once.”

“Here’s the secret. You both have to lie sometimes to make it work. He says, ‘You look great in that outfit.’ You tell him he’s right about Clinton. And when he comes home at three a.m. with a bag of fucking teeth, you make sure not to ask him who they belong to.”

“Jesus,” Irene said.

Graciella stared at her glass. “You’re right. That’s awful. How did I live like that?” Her eyes shone. Irene had never seen Graciella get emotional.

“I knew when Nick wasn’t where he said he was,” she said. “Or when he made up some story when he was working for his father. And I just…let it go.”

“You had the boys to think about,” Irene said.

“I was thinking of myself. All the things I had.”

“It is a pretty good house,” Irene said.

Graciella shrugged, admitting it. “Is Joshua well-off?”

“Better off than I am.”

“And you’ve known him for all of two months.”

“Almost three. We met online.”

“Online. I don’t get that. How much have you been with him in person?”

Irene tried to count the days. “Maybe a week’s worth? Ten days?”

“That’s crazy, Irene! Ten days and he wants you to move to Arizona?”

“I know. It’s not like me.”

But what was like her? Stay home and take care of the boys, for sure. To be the Designated Adult in the room. To put herself second. She said, “I’m just not sure what person I want to be anymore.”

“Stay here, then,” Graciella said. “Work for me. Take care of the money.”

“You want me to be your bookkeeper?”

“We’ll hire a fucking bookkeeper. I need you to be the chief financial officer. Someone who knows where all the bodies are buried.”

Irene made a face.

“Monetarily speaking,” Graciella said.

“You’re serious?”

“Dead serious.” Then: “I really need to find a different way of expressing myself.”

“I’ll think about it,” Irene said.

“I see. This is you being an adult. Non-impulsive. Let’s drink more.”

A few minutes later, Dad’s Buick slid past the picture window, heading for the driveway. Irene said, “Let’s get the boys.”

But Matty wasn’t in any of the bunk beds. Irene went up to the attic and knocked on his bedroom door. “Supper, kid!” After no answer, she knocked again. “Matty?”

She tried the knob. It didn’t turn—which meant that Matty had locked it from the inside—but the door wasn’t sitting flush in the frame. She pushed it open.

Matty lay in bed, unmoving, hands under the covers. Jesus Christ, not again, she thought. She started to back out of the room, then realized his eyes were wide open.

“Matty?”

She waved her hand in front of his eyes.

“Matty. You hear me?” He didn’t move. She put her hand to his neck and verified that he was still breathing.

“God damn it,” she said. Her son was an astral fucking traveler.

It was in the limo ride to the cemetery that she thought, Maybe now we’ll be normal. At the end of the service she realized: Nope. Never gonna happen.

On the way there, Dad seemed to be in a trance. He sat in the backseat, his hat beside him, watching the telephone poles slip by. It was Irene who had to keep Frankie and Buddy in line. Buddy had refused to sit on the seat, and was lying on the floor mat, drawing in crayon on his big pad of paper. Frankie kept putting his feet on top of him and saying things like “Wow, is this footrest comfortable!” Buddy would slap his feet away, and Irene would yell at both of them, and as soon as she looked away the whole process would start all over.

Dad ignored them. This only made her more angry with him. She was furious that he’d never come back from the hospital to bring them to see Mom. Mrs. Klauser had gotten them all bathed and into fancy clothes, like they were getting ready to go onstage. Then they’d been forced to hang around the house, not allowed to go play outside because they’d get dirty. After three hours of waiting the phone rang. Mrs. Klauser told them they weren’t going to the hospital. Only Irene knew what that meant.

Dad should have taken them that morning. Mom wouldn’t have cared what they looked like. But because he was so worried about appearances Irene wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to her mother. None of them were.

Well, at least now the act was over. There was no Amazing Telemachus Family without Mom. Now they could be just like everybody else.

The graveside service wasn’t nearly as crowded as the viewing the night before, or the church service that morning, but there were still over a hundred people gathered around the coffin. Dad got out of the limousine without looking back, leaving the boys to Irene. “Put the coloring book in the car,” she told Buddy. “Tuck in your shirt,” she said to Frankie.

“You’re not the boss of me,” he said.

“Stop it,” Irene hissed at him. “This is Mom’s funeral.”

“Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” Frankie had been a jerk from the moment they’d made him put on a tie.

The funeral home worker led them into a tent over the grave site, then to the front of the crowd, right next to the hole. They sat on white folding chairs while most everybody else stood.

Someone put a hand on Irene’s shoulder. She glanced up and saw that it was a red-haired woman she’d never seen before. “I’m so sorry, honey,” the woman said. “If you need anything, you can call on us.”

“Anything at all,” said the man beside the red-haired woman. It was Destin Smalls, huge as ever.

Later, Irene wished she’d said, “All I want is for you to leave our family alone.” But at the time she only said, “Thank you,” and turned back around.

The priest said yet more words, but Irene was beyond listening. What was left to say? Mom was gone, and Irene was trapped here, the next available adult in charge.

Finally it was time for the coffin to be lowered into the ground. Irene took Buddy’s hand, for herself as much as him. A couple of funeral home workers in black suits squatted beside the metal frame that surrounded the coffin and flipped some latches. The priest kept talking as the men worked the thick straps that held up the nickel-colored coffin. The box lowered a few inches, then stopped.

The funeral workers looked at each other. They lowered the straps some more, but the coffin wasn’t going down. It hovered, unsupported. A murmur ran through the crowd. Dad didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong. He was looking off in the distance, chewing at his lip.

Irene turned to Frankie. Tears coursed down his cheeks. He was standing stiffly, fists clenched.

Irene leaned close to his ear. “Stop it,” she said.

Frankie shook his head.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay. Just…let her down easy, okay?”

The coffin suddenly plunged two feet, and the metal frame shook. Someone in the crowd shrieked.

“Stop telling me what to do!” Frankie shouted, and ran for the car.

There was nothing to do but shut the door and wait for Matty to come back into his body. Graciella saw that something was wrong. “Everything okay?”

“He’s going to be eating later,” Irene said.

Dad dealt out chicken parts. “A leg to the gentleman with the Ninja Turtle shoes! A breast to the strapping young man across the table. And a lovely pair of thighs to Cool Hand Luke.”

Irene grabbed him by the arm. “Could you step outside for a second?”

“Wait your turn, my dear, these boys are—”

“Now.”

Dad finally looked her in the face and twigged to her mood. “Uh, Graciella, could you introduce your lads to the miracle that is Brown’s coleslaw? We’ll be right back after this brief interruption.”

Irene led him into the backyard. Buddy was unspooling a red cable, laying it across the lawn as if he was installing a sprinkler system. When he noticed them, he dropped the cable and walked toward the garage.

“Stop!” Irene said. “This is for both of you. Did you know about Matty?”

Buddy put up his hands and backed away.

“Come back here, Buddy.” He slipped into the garage via the side door. “Damn it!”

“What are you talking about?” Dad asked.

“Astral travel,” Irene said. “Remote viewing. Whatever you call it—Mom’s old stunt.”

“You’re saying Matty is psychic?”

“Don’t you Trebek me, Dad.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked innocently.

“You’re still doing it!”

Dad glanced at the house. “Perhaps we should keep our voices…? I mean—ahem—let’s keep our voices down.”

“Did you know about this?”

“I’ve recently learned that, yes, the boy has some ability. He’s had a few experiences, evidently.”

“He’s up there right now—” She waved in the direction of the attic room and the air above it. “—flying around in space! When the hell were you going to tell me?”

“Soon. Matty thought you wouldn’t take it well. He asked Frankie’s advice, and then I—”

“He told Frankie?” Suddenly those sleepovers made sense. “What’s next, getting the act back together?”

Teddy raised his eyebrows. “Do you think Matty would be willing to do that?”

“No!” Irene shouted. “It doesn’t matter what he wants. He’s fourteen!”

“You were nine when we started. Buddy was only five.”

“You do not get any parenting awards for that.”

Graciella opened the back door. “Chicken’s getting cold.”

“We’re not done talking about this,” Irene said to her father. “Not by a long shot.”

Irene stormed into the house. “Graciella. I want to start Monday afternoon. Because Monday morning I’m moving out of this house.”

“Okay…” Graciella said.

“Monday’s a holiday,” her oldest son, Julian, pointed out.

“I work holidays,” Irene said.

“Who’s moving?”

Matty had appeared at the doorway to the kitchen. Heads swiveled.

“What?” he asked. “What did I miss?”

“You, me, outside,” Irene said. “Now.”

“Can I get some chicken first? I’m starving.”

Irene took a breath. “One piece.”

Irene sat on the front porch—the new front porch, with its too-smooth tiles—and wished she had one of her son’s joints to smoke.

Matty’s father liked a good smoke. Irene did, too, back in the day. But that was just another bad habit she’d given up along with Lev Petrovski. She’d never told Matty why she didn’t marry his father. Maybe it was time to remedy that.

She’d only wanted two things from the man. (Man. Hardly. He was nineteen then, not even drinking age except in Wisconsin.) The first was a certain quality of DNA, by which she meant normal, unexceptional DNA full of dominant genes that would swamp whatever wild-ass trait the child might inherit from his mother and grandmother. She didn’t want a gifted child, an Amazing Telemachus. She wanted a normal son or daughter who would never be tempted to show off on a national talk show.

The second was Lev’s presence. His continuing presence. It seemed a low bar to require that he merely stick around after the child was born, but Lev couldn’t even manage that. The night she went into labor he was nowhere to be found. One a.m. and he was off with his buddies, unreachable. She’d told him to get a pager, but of course he hadn’t gotten around to it.

Dad was the one who drove her to the hospital. He wasn’t about to come into the room, however. “I’m not cut out for that,” he said, as if a glimpse of his daughter’s functioning cooch would send him spiraling into madness. She went in alone and lay down alone in a room that to her pregnancy-enhanced sense of smell was a steaming bath of disinfectant.

She’d never missed her mother so much. There’d been other milestones—birthdays, the death of her cat, her first period, her eighth-grade graduation—after which Irene would steal away to stare at her mother’s picture and hold one-sided mother-daughter talks. But that night in the hospital, pushing out a child into the hands of strangers, made her ache with longing. Even when they finally tucked her son beside her, she was wounded a second time, because she couldn’t show him to her.

Lev showed up later that morning. He apologized over and over. He expressed wonder at the baby. He said all the right things you should say after doing all the wrong things, but something had closed in her heart. He’d come straight from the bars, clothes thick with cigarette smoke, and she could barely tolerate him holding her son. Before he left the room she decided that he would never hold Matty again.

His presence was no longer required. And fourteen years later, it turned out that Lev had botched even the DNA portion of the test. The Petrovski genes were no match for the McKinnon magic.

It was time to have the talk she’d been dreading. Explaining the birds and the bees was nothing compared with the psychos and the psychics. Irene was thirty-one years old, the same age as her mother when she died, and a part of her had always believed that she’d be dead before she had to face this moment. But no.

Lucky her.

She was about to go back inside and chase down Matty when Frankie’s yellow Bumblebee van swung into the driveway and screeched to a halt. A moment later, a twenty-foot U-Haul eased up to the curb and parked in front of the house.

Loretta came out of the van and marched up the ramp, scowling like a demon. The twins scampered after her.

“Hey, Loretta,” Irene said. “What’s going on?”

“We’re moving the hell in is what’s going on. We’re God damn refugees.”

Irene stepped out of her way before she was run over. The twins threw themselves into Irene with a four-armed hug. “Auntie Reenie! We got kicked out of our house.”

“Some guys came and they put all our stuff on the lawn!”

“Dad got a truck!”

“You don’t say? Well, go in, and get yourself some chicken, girls.”

Mary Alice climbed out of the U-Haul and crossed the lawn. Frankie followed her, looking not so much like he’d driven a truck as been hit by one.

Mary Alice caught Irene’s eye, then shook her head and went inside.

Frankie looked up at her. “A temporary setback,” he said.

“Who kicked you out?” Irene asked.

“It’s complicated. Is Matty inside?”

“Stay the hell away from Matty.”

“What now? Why?”

“You heard me. You’re not his fucking coach. You wait right here. Do not move.”

“You can’t tell me what to do. I’m a grown-ass—”

She slammed the door behind her before he could finish. Matty stood in the hallway with Mary Alice, talking in a low voice. He was holding a white foam plate loaded with too much fried chicken and a pile of mashed potatoes.

“You,” Irene said, pointing at him. “Upstairs.”

“I thought you wanted to talk to me.”

The kid didn’t know what a stay of execution looked like. “To your room!” she said.

“Can I bring the food?”

“Consider it your last meal,” she said, her voice icy.

Matty traded a dark look with Mary Alice, then went upstairs with his heavy-duty plate.

Irene raised her voice. “Dad! I need you out here!”

He stepped out of the kitchen, still joking with someone she couldn’t see. He saw Irene’s face and frowned.

“You got to hear this,” she said, and went back outside.

Frankie was on the porch now. “Don’t bring Dad into this,” he said. “I’m handling it.”

“You have no idea,” Irene said.

Dad stepped out, which forced Irene and Frankie to move down the ramp. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Nick took his house anyway,” Irene said.

“Well, you said he was lying through his teeth,” Dad said.

Frankie was bewildered. “You know about Nick?”

Graciella had followed Teddy out of the house. “Which Nick?”

“We’ve got a problem,” Dad said.

“We’re going to need more chicken,” Graciella said.

“Jesus Christ,” Irene said quietly. “I’m done.”

“At least forty-eight pieces,” Graciella added.

“Done with the whole God damn show,” Irene said.

Dad seemed to have finally heard her. “Everybody calm down,” he said. “I’ll fix this.”

“Nobody needs to fix anything,” Frankie said. “I’ve got it handled. Handled!”

Irene screamed without words. Everyone looked at her as if waiting for a translation.

Surely they understood: it wasn’t reasonable to raise a son in this house, under these conditions. He was going to be normal, damn it. He was going to be boring.

She said to Frankie, “Where’d you rent that moving truck?”

20 Frankie

The plan was simple. Pretend to fall asleep. Sneak out of the house. Empty Mitzi and Nick’s safe.

Step one fell apart when he found himself unable to lie still. It wasn’t just nerves, it was the fucking humidity. He’d been exiled to the living room couch, where there were only windows to cool him off.

It took forever for everyone in the house to settle down. The twins were supposed to be sleeping with Loretta in one of the attic bedrooms, but they were too keyed up by the excitement of being in Grandpa Teddy’s house with all these strange kids running around. They kept making excuses to get up. Each of them visited the bathroom, then came down to the kitchen for “cool water” (because bathroom water was too warm?), and then they appeared beside his couch to ask him to make “chocolate milks.” The girls were desperate to find out what the other kids were doing in the basement. Irene and Graciella had gone down there at eleven and told them to turn out the lights, but it was impossible to know from here if they’d obeyed. Buddy had installed some kind of vault-like door, and when it was closed no light or sound escaped.

Twenty or so minutes passed without interruption from the twins. He wanted to wait till midnight, which was about forty-five minutes from now. Midnight seemed auspicious. No one except Matty knew what he planned—and the plan was going forward, damn it. Yes, his father had “talked” to Nick Pusateri. Dad wouldn’t tell him what they talked about, but it obviously hadn’t worked. Outfit guys had still shown up at his house and thrown out his family, then started dumping their belongings on the lawn: furniture, kids’ toys, pots and pans, piles of clothes. Frankie had shown up just in time to pull Loretta away from a guy. Frankie knew better than to try to interrupt or argue with the “movers”; mixing it up with presumably armed thugs was a quick way to get killed. Loretta’s rage had made her fearless, however. Only the presence of her (bawling, scared) children had stopped her from murdering them. And him. Oh, she hadn’t forgotten that this was his fault.

Another stretch of minutes crawled past. His eyes had adjusted to the gloom, but he still couldn’t make out the face of his watch. He listened to the house, and was relieved that the upstairs bedrooms were quiet.

He sat up, the back of his shirt a damp rag despite the sheet that Buddy had thrown over the leather cushions.

“Are you ready?” he whispered to himself. “It’s time, Frankie. Time to—”

He almost said, “Embrace life.” But he was done with the UltraLife. If he tasted another goji berry anything he’d heave his guts up.

Using guesswork and clues from dim shapes, he foraged for pants, socks, shoes. His pants pocket held the all-important piece of paper. The empty tool bag was in his hand. There were only two more things he needed before he left the house.

He went down the stairs, and nearly tripped over the huge industrial drill Buddy had left on the floor—even though Frankie had been looking out for it. His brother had been using it to screw a digital clock to the wall beside the basement door. Why? Who the hell knows. You’d get more answers from a chimp. But at least the red letters told him the exact time: 11:25. Jesus. He hadn’t even made it to 11:30.

He pushed on the metal door. It scraped open with a sound that he wouldn’t have noticed in daylight, but whose Night Volume went up to eleven. The room inside was lit only by the glow of Super Nintendo indicator lights. Somehow that made it darker.

“Matty?” he whispered. He stepped into the room. The new bunk beds were stacked against the far wall, but which one was his nephew’s? “Hey. Matty.” His foot caught on an invisible power cord, but he righted himself.

“He’s over there,” a tiny voice whispered.

“Thanks,” Frankie answered. Wow, was it cool down here. Had Buddy installed AC? Why the fuck was he sweltering upstairs?

“Hello?” a familiar voice called.

Frankie swung toward it. “Marco.”

“Polo,” Matty said.

Everybody was still whispering. The boy seemed to be on the lower bunk. Frankie bent low and crept forward, his hand hovering before him in the dark to stop him from cracking his skull against the wood.

“I need you on overwatch,” Frankie said.

“What?”

“You know. Watching over me. Up there.”

“You’re still going to do it?”

“Yes, I’m going to do it. Of course I am. Are we not Telemachuses? Telemachi?”

“Yeah, but—”

“I need you, Matty. You’re my—” He tried to think of a great sidekick from Greek myth, but Castor and Pollux were the only dynamic duo he could think of, and Frankie really didn’t want to think about his daughters right now. “You’re my lookout.”

The room lights flashed on. Frankie stood up, and whacked the back of his head on the bunk frame. He fell back, and nearly dropped onto his ass.

“What the hell are you doing?” Irene stood by the door, in shorts and a T-shirt, her hand on the light switch. The oldest of Graciella’s sons sat up in his upper bunk, and the youngest one, who’d spoken to Frankie in the dark, automatically covered his head with the blanket.

“I’m trying,” Frankie said, mustering his dignity, “to have a conversation.”

“This is not the time,” Irene said.

“I just wanted to—”

“Out.”

“All right, all right,” Frankie said. He tried to shoot a significant look at Matty, but the boy’s eyes were on his mom. “I’m going. You don’t have to look out for me.”

Irene caught up to him as he was heading out the front door. “What’s the matter with you? Where are you going? And what’s in the bag?”

“Nothing. It’s hot, Irene. I can’t sleep.”

“I want to talk about Matty. Give me two fucking seconds.”

“I’ve really got to go.”

“Where?” she said, exasperated. “Outside?”

He groaned.

“I can’t have you talking to Matty right now,” she said. “Not until I figure out what’s going on.” The porch light was on, and her face was half in shadow. She looked both older and younger at the same time.

“Come on,” Frankie said. “You know what’s going on.”

“No, I don’t. But when I get to talk to Matty, when we don’t have fifty people in the house—”

“Are you really going to take him away from us?”

Irene blinked at him.

“To Phoenix?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Probably not. But I can’t stay here. Not with all…this.”

“See, this is why Matty couldn’t talk to you. You hate everything about our family.”

“That’s crazy. I don’t hate everything.”

“Just the important parts. Listen—Matty wanted somebody to talk to who wouldn’t make him feel ashamed, okay? This is something to be proud of. He’s really good at remote viewing, maybe even better than Mom someday. But it’s scary, and when it happened to him, he came to me, because he knew that I’d think it was great.”

“And I’m glad he did.”

“What?”

“I’m glad he talked to you. He needed somebody, and if it couldn’t be me, I’m glad it was somebody in the family.”

“Okay…” Frankie couldn’t think of what to say.

“But that’s over,” Irene said. “No more filling his head with the glories of extrasensory perception until I get the whole story—from him.”

“Right. The whole story.”

Irene’s eyes narrowed.

“Because that’s what you need!” Frankie said. “Everything. Start to finish.”

“You gave him the pot, didn’t you?”

“Are you using your power on me, Reenie?”

“I don’t know, are you Trebeking me?”

He laughed. “Okay. Listen to me. I did not give your son marijuana. Do you hear that? Didn’t happen.”

“I hear it.”

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take in the night air.”

He stepped onto the porch and nearly slipped on the tile, now slick with condensation. The night air, it turned out, was as moist and thick as swamp gas. “Jesus, this humidity,” he said. “It’s…what’s the word? Cloying.”

“Like a Sally Struthers infomercial,” she said.

“Exactly.” Irene, she always knew the clever thing to say.

“I’m sorry about your house,” she said.

“Temporary setback,” he said, and climbed into the van.

That Irene. Always the smart one. She was only a year older, but he always felt like she understood things he didn’t, spoke in a language he didn’t understand. The language of adults. Of women. When they were little, Irene and Mom would exchange a look and it was like they were beaming information at each other in some frequency available only to the females of the species. He’d grown up with two moms, and he’d been unable to please either of them.

Not like Buddy. Buddy was an emotional wreck, yet somehow beloved. Mom and Buddy especially shared something inaccessible to him. Frankie would see them cuddling together, whispering to each other, and know there was no room for him there.

He moved his attention to Dad. A tough nut to crack, but the man with the keys to all the locked rooms. Frankie didn’t want to be like his father, he wanted to be him. He wanted to dress in a fine suit, pull a fedora low over his eyes, and set a roll of cash on the table. Teddy Telemachus was the opposite of invisible. He drew your eyes, and at the same time directed your attention to whatever he wanted you to see—an empty hand, a diamond-encrusted watch, the brim of a hat—while he made his magic.

Irene used to say that the only thing Dad cared about was the act. But that didn’t mean he didn’t care about the family. The family was the act and the act was the family. But back when they were touring, Frankie knew, deep down, that he was failing as a performer, and as a son. He couldn’t bend a paper clip. He couldn’t levitate a water glass. It shouldn’t have surprised anyone when the Astounding Archibald had revealed Frankie’s ability to be nothing more than Dad kicking the table to life. Dad had been doing all of Frankie’s tricks since they started performing. Irene needed no help; she had genuine ability. Buddy, when he wasn’t having a meltdown, could call every shot on the Wonder Wheel. And of course Mom was the best of them, a world-class talent in a second-rate vaudeville act.

And Frankie? Frankie was the faker.

It wasn’t until Mom’s funeral that he finally moved something, but even then he couldn’t take credit for it. The power seemed to come from outside himself, arriving of its own accord while he watched his mother being lowered into the ground. Then nothing, for years, until he found pinball, and again he felt like he wasn’t so much controlling the table as communing with it. The bond could break down at any time. His power was not something he possessed, but a skittish companion he had to woo to his side, and who’d vanish as soon as he showed fear.

He would have spent his whole life chasing that feeling, if he hadn’t walked into that bar on Rush Street and met Loretta. She was the first person who thought he was special. The morning after they first made love, he started to pull on his pants and leave, but she grabbed him by the waistband and pulled him back into bed. “Maybe you don’t understand,” she’d told him. “You’re my man now.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. And she said, “You’ll come around.”

He did come around. And stuck around. Loretta was ten years older than him, but by designating him as her man she’d promoted him to full adulthood. She wanted him to help raise her girl, and make more babies. She wanted her children to be Telemachus children. And when he told her he wanted to create his own business, she believed him. And when he said he wanted to do something great, she believed that, too. She fell for his con.

That was her mistake. His was that he fell for it, too. Now the only way out of this predicament, this clusterfuck he’d created, was to make all the lies into truths.

He had to do something great.

The paranoia that accompanied an act of greatness, however, was exhausting. Headlights seemed to be following him. On North Avenue he was certain a police car was on his tail, but then the vehicle passed him, and he saw it was just a sedan with a luggage rack. A luggage rack! How were those things legal?

Frankie parked on the street, about fifty feet from the mouth of the alley that ran behind Mitzi’s Tavern. It was out of sight of any video cameras Mitzi might have up, yet within a hundred yards of the back door. Not far to run, even with a bag of money. His tool bag would do for that.

The thought of video cameras reminded him of his disguise. He reached under his seat and pulled out the White Sox baseball cap he’d bought at Osco. Nobody would suspect it was Frankie Telemachus in a fucking Sox cap. He went through his mental checklist again. Disguise, tool bag…and what else? Right. The keys to the kingdom. He turned on his Bumblebee-issued Maglite and checked the slip of paper he’d been carrying with him. There were two sets of numbers on it: one for the door alarm, and one for the safe. Matty had provided them both.

He addressed the area above the van. “You on overwatch, Matty?”

There was no answer. And that, in a nutshell, was the major defect of remote viewing; it only worked one way. Somebody needed to invent a mobile phone for clairvoyants. You could call it—

A 1960s Chevelle passed him, going slow, and turned at the next street.

Too slow?

No, he thought. The paranoia was messing with him. Making him procrastinate. And worse, the name of the clairvoyant phone service was gone. A really good pun had been right on the tip of his tongue, and he’d lost it. He sat for a moment, trying to recall it. It was a company name…

Damn it! Procrastinating again.

“Okay, Matty,” Frankie said to the ether. “I’m going in. If I get in trouble, do not call the cops! Go find Grandpa Teddy. If he won’t get up, find Uncle Buddy. Last resort, your mom.”

He really should have said all this before he left. Stupid nosy Irene.

He pulled the cap low across his eyes, grabbed his tool bag, and marched down the alley, flashlight off. The alley grew so dark that he was afraid he’d trip and impale himself on something. Finally he switched on the flashlight. So bright! Burglar bright. He hurried to the back door of the tavern and aimed the light at the lock.

This was the diciest part of the plan, the step that gave him the terrors. He took a breath and gripped the doorknob.

Stealing from Mitzi required three things: the alarm code, the combination of the safe, and a way past the back door lock. When Matty confided in him about what he could do, the first two pieces of the puzzle were solved. All Frankie had to do was get past the door.

He spent weeks practicing in his garage, just like he had before the Alton Belle. He focused his mind on padlocks, concentrated on the innards of door locks, stared down doors of all kinds. He summoned every ounce of psychokinesis in his body.

And failed. Every fucking time.

Buddy Telemachus, in that one night in the casino, had destroyed his last shred of confidence. And without confidence, he was nothing. But if Buddy had taken that from him, at least Frankie could take one thing from Buddy.

He opened the tool bag and brought out his brother’s gigantic drill. The drill bit looked like a World War II artillery shell. He pulled the trigger, got the metal spinning at maximum velocity, and jammed it into the lock.

The shriek nearly made him let go of the drill and run, but he knew if he stopped now he’d never get another chance. He held the shaking device with both hands and bore down. With a clunk the drill bit punched through.

Fuck yeah. If he couldn’t depend on his power, he could at least depend on Black & Decker.

He reached into the hole with two fingers and pulled the remains of the lock bar free of the notch. Then he tugged the door toward him.

The door didn’t move, until suddenly it did.

And there was the alarm console. Two feet from the door, the keypad was lit up and beeping.

He threw himself inside. The bar was dark, but he knew this hallway well. And the alarm code was simple, so simple he’d memorized it. Or thought he had.

On the console a countdown was showing: 28, 27…

Where the hell was the slip of paper? The paper was gone. It began with a four, he thought.

Then he found the paper in his other pocket and held it under the flashlight. 4-4-4-2. Seeing it, he remembered.

He punched in the numbers. The box considered his entry, then blinked twice. He aimed his flashlight at the LCD panel. The countdown continued: 18, 17…

“Shit,” he said. He looked at the paper again. 4-4-4-2, just like he’d typed. He punched the number again, going slowly.

He stared at the alarm console, panic blinding him. What the hell was wrong?

“Jesus, Matty!” he said aloud. “Did you fuck this up? Did you fuck me?” The console showed 8, then 7. So many God damn numbers!

Then he noticed the enter key.

He pressed it.

The countdown was replaced by the words READY TO ARM.

He collapsed against the wall, breathing hard. Then he lifted his shirt and mopped the sweat from his face.

“I’m in,” he said to Maybe-Matty. “I’m sorry about the swearing.”

He needed to play it cool for Matty, but he knew in his heart that he could never do this again. Maybe real thieves got off on the danger. Maybe people like his dad could sit at a poker table and rob gangsters while looking them in the eye. But Frankie wasn’t that guy.

If he left, this very second, he’d get away a free man. But then what? If he bailed out now, he’d never get his house back, and Loretta would never forgive him. He could lose everything: his marriage, the twins, and most definitely Mary Alice, who resented his presence. He wanted to be that presence. He wanted to be the guy who stuck around even when she wanted him to leave, because he wanted to be better than her deadbeat dad.

No. The only way out of this was through it.

He put the drill into the bag, then followed the light of his Maglite down the hallway to the main room. The Bud Light sign glowed in the window, casting a red smear across the surface of the bar. Did they keep beer taps on at night? He should at least take a bottle of scotch before he left.

The door to Mitzi’s office was unlocked. He moved around the desk and pointed the light at the black safe.

“Okay, Matty,” he said. “Here we go.” He crouched down beside the safe, and held the piece of paper up to the glow of the flashlight. The second set of numbers was the safe combination: 28-11-33. His ears were roaring.

“I apologize in advance for any cursing,” he said.

He spun the dial to clear it, then dialed each number, left, right, left. There was no indication that the combination was correct. He pushed down on the handle, and tugged.

The door swung open.

“Thank you fucking Jesus,” Frankie said. Happy curses were allowed, he decided. “And thank you, Matty.”

Suddenly he remembered the name of the imaginary phone service: Astral Travel and Telephony. AT&T! Ha! He’d have to tell the kid that one.

He aimed the flashlight inside the safe. He couldn’t quite process what he saw. He swung the light away, then back, then played it all around the interior, as if looking for false bottoms, for mirrors. From the back of his throat came a high whine, like air being squeezed from a balloon.

The safe was empty. Or almost: a kid’s lunch box sat on the top shelf. It was too small to hold what he needed.

The inside of his head clanged with the same three syllables, over and over: NOMONEY NOMONEY NOMONEY…

He pulled out the lunch box, a soft-sided Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles model. Money? he asked the box. He yanked open the zipper. Inside was a plastic container holding the remains of some popcorn, or maybe white Chiclets.

No money.

Not even a fucking thermos.

“God damn it!” he shouted. “Give me a fucking break! One fucking break!”

There was one thing he’d learned this summer while practicing breaking locks, and failing: if he got really, really frustrated, he had the strength to pick up a safe and hold it over his head. Of course, he’d also learned that if he lost his balance he might accidentally drop it on his wife’s car.

This time when he picked up the safe—first hauling it to waist level, and then up to his chest—he picked his target. He tossed the thing onto Mitzi’s desk, and the explosive crack of wood was so satisfying it almost calmed him down.

Then he thought: I should get out of here.

He hurried down the hallway to the back door. Why would Mitzi move the money? It was already in a safe! That’s why they called it a safe. The stacks of money were supposed to be there, waiting for him. He was supposed to buy back the house—no, buy a new house, with two bathrooms, with AC installed. And a new car, too. He’d come home like a Greek hero in his Toyota chariot, and the twins would run to him. Even Mary Alice would smile. And Loretta—Loretta wouldn’t leave him.

The back door wouldn’t lock, of course. He pulled it shut as best he could, then strode down the alley, still fuming. He had to talk to Matty. When had the Pusateris moved the cash, and why wasn’t the kid watching when they did it? Maybe he could spy around Nick’s house, find out where he kept the dough. No way was the mobster putting that much money into a bank.

The wall beside him was suddenly lit by a swipe of headlights; even his silhouette looked surprised. The cops! For a long moment he was paralyzed, expecting strobe lights to erupt behind him, the whoop of a siren. But nothing, nothing except the clank of a car door opening. The sound unlocked his legs. He ran pell-mell for the street, the tool bag clanking at his side, and threw himself around the corner.

He reached the driver’s side of the van and smashed his elbow against the big mirror trying to brace himself. He yanked open the door, threw the tool bag and the fucking lunch box inside. Where were the keys? He searched one pocket, found nothing. Did he drop them? Where was his flashlight? He pushed a hand into the other pocket.

Keys!

He started the van and checked his rearview mirrors. The driver’s-side mirror was knocked askew, but the passenger’s side showed the shadow of a giant walking out of the alley. He turned, and his arm raised. If he didn’t have a gun, it was a very convincing mime.

Barney, Frankie thought. How the hell did Barney get here so fast? Why was he here, even?

Frankie peeled out, his head clanging with the same three syllables, all the way home:

No money.

No money.

No money.