CHAPTER 31

“Look, Mr. Bizzup, all I’m asking is do the right thing. Save us both a lot of trouble. Okay?” Silence ensued. All right then, Philyaw could outwait the bastard. Whatever it took. But a full minute passed, the granddaddy of phone silences. Did he detect breathing? Hard to say. He looked at his watch. Wait one more minute. I can take it if he can. And Philyaw heard:

“Do I need to send it special delivery or anything?” Bingo! A paying schmo.

“No, not if it’s postmarked today,” replied magnanimous Philyaw. “I suggest you mail it directly from the post office though. I’ll make a notation here to prevent anyone from coming out there in the meantime. So you’ve got till next Tuesday.”

Bizzup thanked him. The oddest part about him was his measured, baritone delivery. If you didn’t know any better you’d think he was at least reasonably intelligent. Yet he believed he’d been discussing his long-overdue MasterCard bill with Detective Rogers of the Bunco Squad.

“I’m just glad we caught this in time,” Philyaw/Rogers told him. But as he clicked off on the call, he had to meet the charge of Eddie, who scooted his wheeled chair across ten feet of floor and arrived next to him.

“Phil, what the hell you doing, man?” He spoke in sotto voice that wouldn’t be picked up by their colleagues, his sad eyes boring into Philyaw like a power drill. He had eternally morose eyes. They made you answer him even when you’d rather not. They could almost make you forget he’d worked at agencies that collected the same bills over and over again from Alzheimer’s patients. The line of acceptability moves with circumstances. Sonderkommandos in the death camps clung to life a little longer by lifting valuables from the gas victims, yanking the gold from their teeth, and turning everything in to the SS. Were they correct to eke out those extra weeks of life? If you’ve never been dead, it’s hard to know.

“Look,” Philyaw said, “you have no idea what’s going on here.”

“Ever read the Book of Job?” asked Eddie.

“Just give me the highlights.”

“The Lord, he tells Job he’s talking like a fool ’cause he’s got no understanding of what the Lord knows. That’s what you’re saying. But in case you haven’t noticed, you ain’t the Lord.”

Philyaw wished he could unburden himself to Eddie the way women talked with other women. Tell him how other kids go away to college and come back with degrees and his came back with a junk habit. Her latest scheme was to get his granddaughter home-schooled. He’d try to kill the plan by offering some kind of gift, although he knew better than to spell out a quid pro quo. It was like bribing a politician. But there was probably nothing he could do to get his little Bradwell her vaccinations. They’re the cause of autism, said Sonia, who knew better than any scientists. Much of her agenda was designed to drive him crazy, but even though he understood that, it still drove him crazy. “Maybe the Lord should take a minute to look at the phone bills for this place,” he told Eddie. “The Mother Teresa method, it’s not working anymore. I don’t know if it ever worked. Schmoes just don’t want to give it up.”

Philyaw read the Wall Street Journal. He knew the recession was over. But it didn’t seem that way inside the offices of Western Credit Associates. The economists who said things were on the mend measured data that had no relevance on the street. Their jovial assessments only made schmoes more miserable, reinforcing the suspicion that everything must be their fault.

It felt fragile out there. So many schmoes were trapped, like miners tapping forlornly to a faraway surface they’d never see again. Philyaw could pick them out on the street. Sometimes they exploded like cabbies who finally lost their minds in traffic, screaming out the window to no one who cared. Philyaw suggested counseling to one of them. “Listen asshole,” he replied. “I don’t need no one to talk to. What I need is money.” Philyaw could use both. Money and someone to talk to.

THIS WAS one of those days when Eddie dressed like a partner in a Wall Street brokerage—sharp creases, power tie, gleaming wing tips. From time to time he liked to remind himself and everyone else that he was an adult. It occurred to Philyaw he might try it himself once in a while.

The two of them poured coffees and went out on the porch. “I was thinking,” said Eddie. “You know how Liz found that pot shop of Weitzel’s? Every collector on earth after his ass and who nails him to the wall? Liz. She’s an A-bomb, man. I don’t want to tell you your business, but you gotta use her properly.”

“I want you to tell me my business. I count on it. But we are using her, and I can’t have you arguing with me in front of everybody. We’ve got to get some money outa these schmoes, understand? It’s crunch time.” Philyaw loved this coffee. He made a mental note that no matter where the future took him, he’d take this coffee pot along.

“You’re asking me to compromise my soul, man, everything I believe.”

“Eddie, I’ve compromised my soul plenty of times. It’s not so bad, honest.”

Eddie chuckled.

“I’m not kidding.”

“I know,” said Eddie. “But we don’t have to get down in the mud. We got Fortune 500 clients, man. We’re smokin’.”

“Look, if we go under, I’ll come out okay. I always know when it’s time to jump. But Sandra, Speed and the rest, what about them?”

“You’re not just talking about them. You mean me too. Like what would an old guy like me do if he lost his job?”

Phil didn’t try to deny it. Meanwhile an idea showed up. “You know what you said about Liz and the A-bomb? I’m thinking if she can find a $3 million chain of medical marijuana shops some guy’s holding in a custodial account for his poodle, what else can she find? Maybe when Horowitz files judgments, we should forget about skip tracers and sic Liz on them. Maybe we’re letting too many Madoffs slip through. Her first day she asked for all the hard cases. Maybe she was right.”

“But we can’t just forget about routine schmoes, and we don’t have enough people as it is.”

“Exactly. We need to hire another collector. We’re gonna expand.”

“That takes money,” said Eddie.

“I’ve got this emergency Berkshire Hathaway stock. I’ll sell it and double down. If it doesn’t work, at least I’ll keep the house.” Philyaw knew better than to mortgage his home to bail out a business. That’s how you wind up sleeping at the Salvation Army.

“You sure this is a good idea?”

“Of course not,” Philyaw said.