CHAPTER 10

Finding the right employees to pursue his schmoes’ ragged resources was one of Philyaw’s biggest headaches. That’s one reason he tried to chase down the chicken girl. Besides, hiring a collector from inside a chicken suit was more fun than following your standard button-down Fortune 500 human resources strategies. Even if it was a dumb idea in the first place, it led him to this jailbird kid and if he worked out, Philyaw could feel better about his honking arrest. The kid’s failure to jump at the opportunity was a positive indicator. In his experience people who actually wanted to be collectors were a sadistic bunch. They became emotional and bullied schmoes needlessly, careening senselessly from power-mad to patsy and back again.

“It’s not like I don’t appreciate the offer,” the kid said. He was stretched out in the bunk across from Philyaw, hands cupping the back of his head. He had a respectably flat middle-class accent, another plus. Street inflections were unsettling. Not a particularly fair criterion, but Philyaw didn’t have to get into the collection business to know life is pretty much unfair anyway. That’s why he was in jail.

Eventually, whether he hired the kid or not, this whole episode would turn into just another funny story. But because he’d helped subdue one of the gang kids, now he could tell it with a little more pride. Stupid worrying about that sort of stuff at his age. But men were stupid. How else do you explain Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima?

“I know bill collecting doesn’t sound very . . . what’s the word?”

“Enticing?” the kid said.

“Exactly, not enticing. Or respectable. I didn’t like the idea either before I got into it. You should come down and check it out though. It’ll be different than you expect.” Philyaw always said that about his trade. It’s different than you expect. And for most people it was, though some of them still ended up hating it. This kid had a way about him. It wasn’t so much that he could handle the punks so efficiently. It was his attitude while he did it—nothing personal, just tending to a chore. He wasn’t overly impressed with himself.

“Look, I can’t do the job, okay? And then you’ll have to fire me.”

“Who’s talking about firing people?”

“I can’t talk to people anymore. I don’t know how.”

“You’re talking to me.”

“So?”

“Whaddaya mean so? What am I? Chopped liver?”

“It’s different.”

“What makes it different?”

“I don’t know. Because we’re in here maybe. I told you. I just did four years.”

“Nobody cares.”

“Yes they do.”

“So what’re you gonna do? Even criminals have to talk to people. You know, like, just the big bills, the jewelry too, that sort of thing.”

“Very funny.”

“It’s all the same, kid. In here, out there, talking’s the same.”

“So you’ve done a day and a half and you know all about it.”

“You got it all built up in your mind like some wall that’s not there. We’re all the same. All schmoes.”

“Schmoes,” the kid said, verifying.

“People on the collection list. You should hear what they call us. Hey, I’m telling you, you’ll be good. I can see it. You’ll even like it. Honest, it’s not what you expect.”

“If this job’s so great, how come you’ve got an opening? Somebody quit, right?”

“Two openings. They formed a partnership, went off on their own. First they copied a bunch of files, of course. They’ll try to steal all my clients.”

“You don’t look too concerned.”

“It’s been tried before. No big deal. It’s how I got my start.”

They both laughed.

“How’d you get into it? The collection business.”

“I’d tried different things. Nothing hit the way I wanted, but when customers owed me, I was always good at getting it. It was a natural evolution. Might be for you too.”

“I don’t even know when I’m getting out of here.”

“Horowitz will get to the bottom of it.”

“Horowitz?”

“My lawyer. At some point I’ll get to a phone.”

“I can’t afford any lawyer.”

“It’s okay, kid. It’s on my tab.” He was wearing down. Throwing in Horowitz should clinch it.

“Look, I don’t want to fuck up this time, understand? It’s really important. I need to find something . . . right, something that feels right.”

Monday morning when they changed shifts the jailers let Philyaw make all the phone calls he wanted. He tried to find his daughter first, but she didn’t answer and her voice mail was at capacity. Not surprising. He found Horowitz though, who got both of them out two hours later. They dropped the charges against Philyaw and had been holding the kid for not showing up to a hearing that he couldn’t get to because he was in the can. Classic Catch-22 situation. But Horowitz thrived on untangling such knots. He should have been secretary of state or something. Trouble was, he had a law degree from a school that two years after he graduated signed a consent decree to cease and desist all operations without admitting to any of sixteen counts. Also, Horowitz once ran for president—or was it vice president?—on a third party ticket with a hooker running mate. Horowitz would murder his mother to get his face on TV. In fact, for all Philyaw knew, Horowitz had murdered his mother to get his face on TV. But give him a case and he’d back up entire squads of opposing attorneys.

Horowitz had never actually seen this blue cop, but he’d heard about him. His name was Gillespie, and he turned blue after drinking silver compound doses to ward off some sort of Y2K calamity, which was funny because no one even remembered Y2K anymore, but it stuck a permanent idiot stamp on the dumb bastard. Other cops, Horowitz said, agreed he was a dumb bastard and once placed a live raccoon in his locker. Horowitz, though, stuck up for him. “He’s alive, right? The silver must have worked.” Everybody’s a comedian. “Ordinarily I enjoy collecting fees,” he said, “but I don’t see how we can file a complaint because he stood outside your cell and gave you a nasty look. Just keep me informed, okay? It’s probably nothing.”