Breakfast had never been a real big deal in our house, even when my mother was with us. She’d eat with me or my father, whoever was around, but it was pretty rare for the three of us to sit down together. The morning of our scheduled meeting with Tony, my father poured cold cereal in bowls for both of us, then came into my room and woke me up. Instinctively, I assumed he was just coming home, still drunk, until I remembered that I’d seen him off to bed the night before.
After we ate, he left to make his rounds. I rambled around the empty apartment, bored and edgy, until he returned. Neither of us had ever hung a picture, painted anything, or picked out wallpaper as far as I could recall. It was as though time had stopped when my mother died. Any decorating or renovating projects had been hers. I knew that my father dusted and cleaned in the most general sense, even though I’d never seen him do it, because the place looked pretty well-cared for. But there were telltale signs that it had been too long since a woman had exerted any influence. The ceiling in the kitchen was peeling badly and there was a water stain between the windows in the living room. I knew that the Russian who’d bought the building a few years ago was decent about repairs, so this stuff was only a matter of nobody bringing it to his attention.
As I thought about it, I realized that no one but my father and I had been in our apartment since my mother passed away. It wasn’t like we’d been social butterflies to begin with, but at least the occasional friend or relative used to pop by. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had a visitor up. Most people in the neighborhood returned to the family’s house after a funeral, usually with tons of food. After my mother’s service everybody went to New Corners, on Seventy-second Street. My father had rented out the back room, and had it prepared with a buffet lunch. We ate and drank quietly at festively covered tables in the brightly lit restaurant, subdued Muzak coming in through the old speakers on the walls. It was like a wedding where all the guests know it won’t last.
When my father came back in he had sandwiches and coffee, so we ate on folding trays in the living room, with the TV on.
“Two meals so far today, and it’s not even dark out yet,” I said. “Is there something I should know? Is this like, the condemned man’s feast? Because meatloaf on rye doesn’t quite cut it.” I lifted up one of my slices of bread and looked underneath. “Especially with no gravy.” I was smiling when I said it, but my father’s look was serious.
“Don’t joke like that,” he said. “Not now. I’m not in the mood.”
I’d been counting on him to help me remain calm, to convince me that this would all be fairly straightforward. But he looked preoccupied and grim. I wished again that they had gotten the package when they jumped me, or if they hadn’t, that I’d immediately returned it to Tony. We were beyond any of that now, and I felt that at this late date I couldn’t even tell my old man what was really going on. To begin with, it would upset him too much, and it would probably shake the righteousness out of whatever he’d say at the meeting.
“Is there anything we should talk about?” he asked, like he’d been reading my mind.
“No,” I said, regretting it almost instantly. “Nothing that matters.”
He shrugged.
We spent the rest of the early afternoon making small talk and watching TV. The daytime talk shows had the usual freak-fest. One of them featured a woman who had been disfigured and partially blinded by a man who threw acid in her face because she wouldn’t go out with him. When he was released from prison three years later they got married, and now they sat on the stage on national television, holding hands. My father seemed to watch this with an intensity that I knew wasn’t typical of him, and I doubted was healthy for anyone.
There were four calls that afternoon before Tony’s, and with each one I tried to disguise the fact that I was jumping out of my skin. Three were people putting bets in with my father. The fourth was Gina. He said hello to her by name, loudly and with gusto, so I’d know and tell him what to do. I just shook my head, and he told her I’d gone out before he got in and that he’d tell me she called.
When Tony did call I knew it was him immediately. My father’s tone shifted and he lowered his voice so much that I couldn’t make out any of the conversation. They didn’t talk long, and when he hung up he turned to me and said, “Okay, let’s roll.”
“Where are we rolling?” I asked. “The club?”
“No,” he said with his back to me, putting his jacket on. “The Parlor Car.”
“Up on New Utrecht?”
“Yeah,” he said casually. “I haven’t been up there in years. You ever been there?”
“No,” I said. “Why the Parlor Car?”
“I got no idea. That’s what Tony said. What’s bugging you?”
“Nothing, I guess.” I put my coat on and we left.
The Parlor Car was at the corner of Seventy-first and New Utrecht, under the El tracks right at the foot of the stairs leading down from the Bay Ridge Avenue station. It was about six blocks from the apartment, and without discussing it we went past my car and headed up there on foot. What was bugging me was that I had assumed we would be meeting in Tony’s club, and if we weren’t, I wanted to know why. Also, this place was along the strip where Nicky had been killed, and I’d avoided New Utrecht Avenue—and anyplace else that had elevated tracks—ever since.
It was cold out but there wasn’t much wind, and the brisk walk would have been almost pleasant if I’d been going somewhere else. We hit New Utrecht at Sixty-ninth and turned right, approaching the bar from along the avenue. It was a little hole-in-the-wall place that had probably started as a quick shot-and-a-beer stop for the rush hour crowd coming off the B. I didn’t think people stopped off that way very much anymore. It looked from the outside like every other sad old man’s bar in the neighborhood. It was surprising that I hadn’t been in there before.
I began to shift from nervous to outright panicky as we neared the door. Zak stood in front, leaning against the cream-colored stucco, under the fake wood calligraphy that spelled the bar’s name. He smiled when he saw us, and his look had a mean kind of amusement that made me queasy. If it bothered my father he hid it well. Zak opened the door with a flourish and gestured broadly with his other arm for us to enter. He was really enjoying himself. I went in first, and as my father followed me he took a dollar bill and stuck it in the pocket of Philly’s overcoat.
“Thanks,” he said. “On the way out you can hail us a cab.”
“Don’t ever touch me, you fuck! Don’t you ever touch me!” he yelled at our backs, but he wouldn’t cross the doorway. It was like he was on a short leash tied to a meter at the curb. “You touch me again you leave here in a box.” Then, the show over, he stepped back out and closed the door.
We stopped about ten feet into the place, at the end of the bar, to let our eyes adjust to the sudden dimness. The lighting was provided by three low-wattage hanging lamps suspended from the ceiling over the bar area, and a small hooded fixture attached to the top of the cash register. It wouldn’t have been enough light for any room, and to compound the problem, the place was laid out like a cave. The woodgrain formica of the bar was almost black, the surface hammered copper. The floor had a maroon carpet with black octagonal designs that made it look like tile if you couldn’t feel it under your feet. Red shag carpeting ran up the walls, criss-crossed by fake wood beams as dark as the stuff covering the bar.
I was feeling a little better. Zak’s theatrics had had a calming effect on me. He’d never be a threat to us, and seeing my father flake off his smug veneer so easily was a bit of a confidence booster. Down at the far end of the narrow saloon, where the bar wrapped back around to the wall, were the only two people in the place besides us. They sat quietly, just outside the perimeter of light from the farthest hanging lamp. As soon as I took a step or two in their direction, I saw that one of them was black. I stopped moving forward when I recognized him as Todd; and an instant later when I saw that the other one was Edward, I began to back up until I bumped into my father. I allowed myself to lean into him for a second then. He was as good as a wall at my back.
I closed my eyes, realizing that this was the second time I’d found myself under the El tracks in Edward’s presence, and for the second time, I wanted to make myself disappear. My father put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, then left it there and propelled me forward toward Edward and Todd. It was a gesture designed to look casual and friendly to an observer, and feel reassuring to me. I suspected that it accomplished neither. I let myself be moved to just beyond Edward’s reach, then stopped. This time my father bumped into me and took a step backwards. If either Edward or Todd noticed our Laurel and Hardy act, they didn’t acknowledge it. I had to suppress a giggle, and realized that I was feeling a little hysterical. I had the urge to laugh or cry or scream, and hoped that if I gave in to any of them I could try to make it come off as rage, or something equally acceptable.
“You must be Todd,” my father said, and extended his hand past me and Edward. Todd was against the wall, and he almost blended in with the background in the darkness. I remembered the punchline of an old ethnic joke. Teeth and eyeballs. Todd wasn’t smiling. He took my father’s hand.
“Todd will do,” he said. “Have we met?”
“No. My son described you.”
“It must have been a very good description,” Todd said, and I got that same sense of his fucking around that I’d had in Tarrytown. It had made me furious then, but now I welcomed it, looking for anything that would lighten the mood.
“It was a wonderful description,” my father said. “Between the two of you,” he nodded to Edward, “I knew right away who was Todd.”
Todd flashed a brief grin and released my father’s hand. Edward hadn’t made eye contact with my old man since we’d walked in, but he’d been watching me intently. Even at that short distance—four feet or so—he seemed to be studying me. I felt like I was a bug in a jar and he was trying to decide whether to punch airholes in the lid. As soon as the image came to me I felt my throat close again, the way it had in the car the night they killed Shades. I couldn’t have spoken just then if I had to. I coughed to shake it, not wanting to embarrass my father.
“I didn’t know that you would be here,” Todd said. “I thought our meeting was just with Michael.”
“Really. I thought it was me an’ Mike meeting alone with Tony. Is he here?”
“No,” Edward said. He swung his head around slowly to face my father for the first time. “No one else is here,” he said quietly. “Just us chickens.”
My father nodded. “Well,” he said, “I’m used to being bullshitted. I don’t know about you, but I don’t take it so personal.”
“No reason to,” Todd said. “We all are, as your son was kind enough to point out to me, hired help.”
“What is it you’ve been hired to help out with today?” I asked. My father shot me a look that said shut up. I knew this was some kind of a dance, and I knew it was necessary, but the tension was killing me. We were still standing at the bend in the bar, and I was arching my upper body as far from Edward as possible. My back was throbbing along the spine. I pulled out a stool from the long side of the bar and sat. My father remained standing behind me.
“You are anxious to get down to business,” Todd said. “That’s good.”
“I’m not gonna do anything,” Edward said to my father, as though they were alone and he was finishing a conversation he’d started in his head.
“I didn’t say you were,” my father said.
“I just wanted to tell you. You can sit.”
“I’m fine. Thanks.”
I noticed that my father had one hand inside his jacket. It certainly looked like it might be resting on a gun. I’d never seen my old man with a gun in my entire life, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t stupid enough to try to bluff someone like Edward.
I hadn’t caught it before, but Edward had some kind of an accent. He spoke quietly, and the night of Shades’ murder he hadn’t said enough for me to pick up on it, but I heard it now. It was either the last remnants of a foreign language, or a really pronounced regional dialect.
“Would you like to talk about the bag?” Todd asked me.
I’d gotten my breathing under control, and I was pretty sure that my throat wasn’t going to close up again, but when Todd mentioned the bag out loud I came close to pissing myself.
“Good,” my father said. “What about the bag?”
“We would like it,” Todd said.
“Sure,” my father said easily. “Us too. I’m sure it’s worth a fortune. Tony can’t let something like that go. We’ll help any way we can.”
Todd wasn’t paying any attention to my father. He was looking at me. “You will help any way you can? Is that correct, Michael?” he said. He came off his stool smoothly and stepped around Edward. He paused in front of me, then walked the length of the place and went around behind the bar.
“Any way I can,” I said. I looked over at my father. He and Edward were watching each other like stray dogs over food. Todd came down behind the bar until he was opposite us. He turned to the bottles and studied them for a minute.
“There isn’t much of a selection,” he said. “What would you care for?”
“Nothing.”
“Please,” he said. “Join me.” He filled four glasses with ice and set them on the bar, then picked up a bottle of Chivas. “I suppose this will be all right.”
“Anything Irish?” Edward asked.
Todd turned back to the bar. “No. Wait, yes. Paddy’s.”
Edward shook his head. “The scotch,” he said.
Todd poured for all of us. He bent down and stowed the bottle under the bar. “We would like your help in recovering the bag,” he said to me as he straightened up.
“What do you want me to do?”
“We want you to tell us where it is,” Edward said.
My father picked up his drink and sipped a little, then placed it gently back on the bar. “You want to find the bag,” he said, “find the guys that took it.”
“I’m attempting to do that,” Todd said.
“Why isn’t Tony here?” I asked.
“Tony has removed himself from this. If the property cannot be located, his people will take the loss.”
“You should be looking for whoever jumped me,” I said.
“We did look,” Edward said. “We found them. And we know what happened.”
I didn’t dare pick up my drink. I knew my hand wouldn’t be steady enough. I wanted to look over toward my father—see his reaction—but I didn’t move.
“We didn’t believe you were really attacked,” Todd said. “Even after we found your assailants. The whole event was so amateurish, so poorly done, we were sure you set it up yourself. We owe you an apology. You had nothing at all to do with it.”
“If you caught the guys who jumped him,” my father said, “then you know who set it up.”
“We know all that we need to know.”
“Yeah, great,” he said. “I want to know.”
“You do not need to know anything,” Todd said.
“You want our help with the fucking bag?” he snapped. “You want my help then tell me who shot my son.” My father’s hand had been resting on my shoulder and his grip now became painfully tight.
Todd and Edward glanced at each other, then Todd turned back to me. “You were attacked on your first journey alone?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“There had been no prior incidents?”
“Not that I know of,” I said.
“Your friend was never approached before, during the run. And you were not approached in his company. Very few people knew the exact nature of your business.”
“Lou,” my father said quietly.
Todd said nothing. Edward swirled the liquor slowly in his glass and focused on the receding amber film as though it were a science project.
“It’s not Lou,” I said. “Lou?”
“Tony does sort of treat him like shit,” my father said, more thinking out loud than to anyone in particular.
“But it was me,” I said to my father. “I was driving the motherfucking car. Lou set me up?”
“Maybe he told them not to shoot,” my father said evenly, still just trying the theory out. “Maybe it was supposed to be cake but something got fucked.”
“Maybe he did not think you would resist,” Todd added.
“So you’re saying it was him,” I said to Todd.
“I’ve said nothing. We are all speculating.”
“You could be blaming him,” I said. “You know he doesn’t like you.”
Todd sighed. “The act, the organization, and the execution of the feeble plan was the work of someone quite, ah, limited. I leave the rest to you.”
“What did Tony say?” my father asked.
“He’s more afraid of the truth than the kid is,” Edward said, looking at me over the rim of his glass. “If he sees it, he’s got to do something about it. Closing the book early on this is costing him.”
I thought of how Tony had sounded on the phone. Had he already gotten the news then? Was he trying to cope? I wondered what he was doing right now.
My father looked surprised. “Tony’s gonna eat it himself?”
“He is,” Todd said, “but the cost has gone more to his character than his pocketbook.”
“Then the Old Man knows he called it off. How did that happen?” My father’s tone had become vaguely accusatory.
“This is not a schoolyard game,” Todd said roughly. “Your employer is a player. He has made decisions that have taken him out of the play. He will finish his days as you will, maneuvering in narrow corridors of power and shuffling small amounts of wealth generated by horses and whores from one broker to another.”
“And how will you end your days?” my father asked. “In bed when you’re an old man, your heart givin’ out while you’re in the saddle with a pretty little white girl? Or maybe burning in an alley with your fuckin’ eyeballs gone cause you aren’t always as smart as you think.”
No one said anything for a very long time, and I thought that my father had pushed too far. When Todd finally responded, he spoke very quietly.
“How I end my days,” he said, “is of no concern to you. I cannot make this more clear. I want the bag.”
“Okay,” my father said, “you want the bag. We all want the bag. The question is, why are we here?”
“You are here because, although he had no part in the planning, your son decided to capitalize on the situation.”
“I can’t believe that if Tony thought Mike had the bag, he would have ‘removed’ himself so quickly.”
“No one has made any representations about what Tony thinks,” Todd said.
“Then you’ve decided to capitalize on the situation,” my father said. “You aren’t recovering the bag for Tony.”
Edward shrugged. “You keep mentioning Tony. All’s we said is that we want the bag.”
“How did you get the meeting set up if it’s over?”
“Your son is being debriefed,” Todd said. “Like an astronaut.”
I felt my father shift his weight from one foot to the other behind me. “What did you tell him?” he said. “He would have wanted to believe anything. Did you tell him it fell down the sewer?”
Edward smiled. “Smuggled out of the country.”
“By the assholes you found?”
“No.” Edward glanced over at Todd. “He put it on two of his people.”
“You set up your own people?” I said.
“You didn’t seem terribly fond of Dar,” Todd said. “The point is, Tony already considers the package a loss, as does my employer, who is being compensated. So no one is looking for it.”
“No one but you,” my father said.
Edward finished his drink. “Nobody but us chickens,” he said.
“You have the bag,” Todd said to me. “It can’t be any other way.”
“Is that what the guys who jumped me said?”
“Yes.”
“You believe them?”
“Oh yes,” Edward said.
“Are they dead?” I asked. No one answered me. “Is Dar dead?”
“We would like the bag, Michael.”
“I don’t have the fucking bag.”
“What’s the deal?” my father asked. “What are you offering?”
“To make everything all right,” Todd said. “We leave you alone.”
“Proof?”
“It’s in our best interest,” Edward said.
“If we harm you,” Todd added, “it gives lie to the tale we’ve told. And you can’t go to Tony about us without confessing to stealing it yourself. We’re bound to each other’s deceit.”
My father pulled a stool out next to me and sat. He was quiet for about a minute. He finished his drink, then reached over and took mine. I hadn’t touched it. “All right,” he said finally. He turned to me. “Get the bag.”
“What?”
“This is as good as it’s gonna get. Probably better than if Tony did show up. Go get the bag.”
I didn’t know what he wanted me to do. It sounded like he knew I had it, but it also sounded like he was in on the whole thing. I couldn’t tell if he was serious or if it was just a trick to get me out of there.
“You get the bag,” Edward said to my father. “We’ll all have another drink.”
My father rapped the bar a couple of times with his knuckles, then looked over at Todd. “Let me talk to my son,” he said.
We went down to the front of the bar and stopped by the small window. I looked outside for Zak. I didn’t see him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t out there. “Dad, listen,” I said.
“Not now,” he said quietly. “I’m not crazy about leavin’ you here, but we ain’t in any position to bargain. I think they’re for real. It is a stalemate over the bag. They won’t do anything while they’re waiting for it, anyway. You have to tell me where it is.”
“How did you know?”
He shrugged. “You were lyin’ about something,” he said. “Where’s the bag?”
I told him.