The Forgotten Road

  There was a slight chuckle.

  “I liked Charles from the moment I met him. Charles was a team player. He believed in making others look good, not just himself. He knew his job and he took it seriously.

  “And he was a master on the stage. I would watch him and my chest would swell with both pride and envy. Sometimes I felt like Salieri watching Mozart, simultaneously worshipping and envying him, but always admiring him. Charles had more natural talent and drive than any man I hired before or after him. I take pride in being the one who discovered him.” McKay lifted a handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

  “It’s no secret that things didn’t go well with us in the end. Our relationship ended in a lawsuit. There were some bad days and bad blood. There were bad words. Harsh words. But it wasn’t all him. I played as big a part in our business divorce as he did. But I can honestly say that after the gavel came down and it was all over, what bothered me the most wasn’t the lost business or the lost income, it was the loss of a friend.

  “I want you to know something. Even though there were problems between us, I’ve never regretted giving Charles a chance or bringing him into the fold. Never.

  “I don’t fault him for his choices. In many ways he was as much a victim of them as anyone else. Charles was driven because he had to be. What made him great was also what made him volatile. He had grown up Dumpster-diving with his father, running from poverty. No, I don’t fault him for wanting more.

  “I had the opportunity to have dinner with Charles in the past month. It was good to see him. I’m grateful that I had that chance to let him know that I had come to peace with our past. And to let him know that I had forgiven him. I only wish that I had asked him to forgive me for not making him feel safe enough to trust me. That was my failure as a boss. And as a friend.” McKay hesitated again. He again lifted the handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t plan on being so emotional.”

  He wiped his eyes once more, then said, “You know, as I look back over my career, I can honestly say that the years I spent on the road with Charles were among the best of my life. Charles was like a son. Of course, that can be a mixed bag too.”

  Everyone chuckled.

  “But that’s how I thought of him. As the son I never had.” He turned and smiled at the two boys in the front row. “Until these fine young men came along.” His gaze lingered on them a moment before he looked back up. “I guess that’s why our disagreements hurt so much.”

  Disagreements? I had betrayed him.

  “Like you, Amanda, I also miss my friend.” He forced a sad smile. “But unlike you, Amanda, it won’t be for long. It won’t be long before I’m pushing back the curtain on that big stage in the sky.” He hesitated and I could feel the power of the emotion in the room. “I just hope that when I get there, I find Charles holding a microphone and mesmerizing an audience of angels. And I hope there’s Scotch in heaven. Good Scotch. We’ll have a drink for old times.”

  Even from the back of the room I could hear sniffling.

  “You know, I do have one regret. I wish that Charles were around to watch my boys grow up. I think they would have liked him, just like I did. Thank you.”

  McKay grabbed his cane and limped back to his seat. Amanda and his wife both stood. Amanda hugged him. His wife did as well, then helped him sit.

  Amanda walked back up to the lectern. “Is there anyone else who would like to share?”

  No one moved. Then Amanda’s secretary, Laura, raised her hand, stood, and walked up to the microphone. Amanda took a few steps back.

  “Hi.”

  There was a small chorus of “Hi” back.

  “I didn’t know Mr. James very well. I was kind of afraid of him, but I liked to hear him talk. He was the best storyteller I’ve ever known. He was also the best salesman I’ve ever known. I swear he could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo.”

  Laughter.

  “I also knew that Amanda, my boss . . .” She turned back toward Amanda. “I knew that she really thought the world of him, so I knew that even though he could be scary . . . he was a really good guy. Thank you.”

  Scary?

  Laura walked back to her chair and Amanda stepped back up to the lectern. “Thank you, Laura. Is there anyone else who would like to say anything?” She looked at me, raising her voice as she spoke. “Sir, would you like to share anything?”

  I shook my head.

  “Okay. Then that will conclude our service. Thank you, everyone, for coming. There’s a lot of food, so please take a few boxes home with you. I won’t have enough space in my car for it all.”

  I stood and hurried out of the room before anyone could see me, leaving my flowers on the chair where I’d set them. So much for my epic reveal.

  Chapter Six

  It would appear that the greatest dupe produced from the millions of dollars I’ve spent in hype is myself.

  —CHARLES JAMES’S DIARY

  I stumbled out of the hall in a daze. I hailed a cab on Grand and headed back to Oak Park.

  “Welcome back, sir,” the clerk said as I walked into the hotel. “Glad to see you’re feeling better.”

  I grunted a thank-you as I walked by. When I got to my room, I looked at my program, then wadded it up and threw it away.

  I remembered a story about Alfred Nobel. Nobel, founder of the Nobel Peace Prize and the inventor of dynamite, was falsely reported dead when a French newspaper confused him with his brother, Ludwig, who died in a French hospital.

  The press lauded his passing, calling him the “merchant of death.” Nobel became so distraught over his legacy that he decided to create the Nobel Peace Prize, celebrating those who “have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.”

  That pathetic memorial service was my legacy—my Alfred Nobel moment. No one cared about me except Amanda and the man I’d betrayed. Everything that mattered to me I’d given up. I had no reason to stay where I was, physically or figuratively. I had nothing to go back to. Something had to change. Something inside. In the meantime, I was going on my walk.

  Chapter Seven

  The problem with sin is that, if you have a conscience, you pay whether you’re caught or not.

  —CHARLES JAMES’S DIARY

  I woke the next day feeling dark inside. For the first time since the plane crash, I truly felt dead. I ordered breakfast from room service, then showered and got dressed, finishing as my food arrived. I ate quickly and went to work. There were details I needed to clear up before I started my walk.

  I pushed aside my breakfast dishes and laid out all the cash I had on the table. Ten thousand dollars from my home safe, the three thousand Amanda had given me at the airport for the temp company in Cincinnati, and seventeen dollars left from petty cash. Thirteen thousand and change. I did the math in my head. Route 66 was about 2,500 miles, so that came to about five dollars a mile. If I walked twenty miles a day, that would be 125 days, giving me about a hundred dollars a day to live on. Less than what I was used to living on, but doable.

  The most pressing thing I had to do before hitting the road was figure out how to protect my money. I didn’t know what my future held yet, but I wanted my portfolio secured no matter what. At last count I had accumulated a net worth of nearly eight million dollars, scattered throughout various accounts. A lot could happen to that in a hundred days.

  I used my smartphone to pull up my investment portfolio. There were seven different accounts: three business, two personal, and two investment accounts. The Charles James business accounts were sitting on more than two hundred thousand dollars of operational capital. Transferring money out of these accounts would be noticed immediately. Stephens, my CFO, would think my account had been hacked and the funds stolen, but I had no choice. If I kept my money in its current accounts, it would eventually be frozen, if not confiscated. The question was, Where could I safely park my money until I returned?

  As I looked over my portfolio, I remembered that one of my accounts wasn’t listed. I
smiled. I’d found an easy, unexpected solution. Six years earlier, at my partner Chris Folger’s insistence, I had opened an offshore banking account in the Cayman Islands. It was during a lunch in Palm Springs while I was complaining about how much I owed in taxes that he started telling me how best to evade them through offshore banking. He said the Caymans were the new Switzerland, but without all the scrutiny. Truthfully, I had no interest in Folger’s tax scheme, as I had no desire to spend time in prison for tax evasion—or to worry for the rest of my life about the possibility. Still, for whatever reason (likely that he wanted me to be criminally complicit), Folger insisted that I open an account and kept after me until I did. I put $25,000 in it and had pretty much forgotten about it until now. Fortunately, I kept all my account numbers in a secured financial app on my smartphone. I looked up the Cayman Island account number and began transferring all my funds into it.

  It was a little before noon when I completed the last of the transactions. I was satisfied that I was ready. It was time to begin my walk. I put on my hat and sunglasses and left the hotel.

  Chapter Eight

  “ ‘Begin at the beginning,’ the King said, very gravely, ‘and go on till you come to the end: then stop.’ ” Lewis Carroll

  —CHARLES JAMES’S DIARY

  The start of Route 66 is in downtown Chicago. I didn’t get an Uber this time. I wasn’t in a hurry, and I was now on a self-imposed budget. From now on I would travel by foot or public transportation.

  The Green Line metro station was just a few blocks south of the hotel. The Green Line has the reputation of being the most dodgy of all the metro lines into the city. The cars are about what you’d expect to find in any public place, though with the added bouquet of weed and urine. As I got on the train, my OCD kicked in and I had to wipe down the entire seat before sitting.

  I took the train to the Adams/Wabash station. As I got off, I stepped in a puddle of vomit. Fortunately, the ground was still wet from rain and I scuffed my feet along the sidewalk until my shoe was clean.

  Historically, the beginning of Route 66 has changed multiple times, but the currently accepted start is beneath a heavily decaled Route 66 sign on Adams Street, just a half block west of the Art Institute of Chicago. I touched the sign pole, then started my walk.

  I’d probably walked Adams dozens of times before, but this time it looked different. It felt different. Maybe things always look different when we leave them, like a lover. Or a battleground. (Sometimes those are one and the same.)

  Chicago sidewalks are filthy. There’s nothing profound about that. All sidewalks are filthy, that’s what happens when a million people walk on you, but in Chicago the sidewalks look as if they were poured that way. There are galaxies of black spots on the dirty surface, chewing gum that has been ground into the cement and become as hard as the pavement.

  Some cities, like Palm Springs or Beverly Hills, seemed to spontaneously sprout from rich soil, as full and fragrant as hibiscus. Not Chicago. Chicago is the gnarled, stout tree that pushed itself out from stone, surviving in spite of the harsh environment—or perhaps because of it. Even the train runs above ground instead of beneath it, as if the earth below the city were just too hard to penetrate.

  As I walked, I thought of the Chinese proverb A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Indeed. Just one foot in front of the other. The city towered around me in stark contrast to where I’d end up if I made it. If. There’s a lot to that two-letter word. All journeys face gravity and though I chose not to think about them, there were things that could stop my trek. I had no idea if I was up to seeing this all the way through. I could get hurt or sick. I could be mugged. I could even die. Wouldn’t that be ironic?

  It was a bustling Monday noontide and the streets were crowded with people scurrying off to lunches and appointments like mice in a concrete maze. Ahead of me, a window cleaner rappelled down a building, dropping like a spider on its line. I walked west on Adams, the long, skyscraper-lined corridor stretching out before me like a teeming cement canyon. In the distance I could see the freedom of a blue horizon.

  I continued on the road, crossing the bridge over the Chicago river. To my left, the Sears Tower stretched 110 stories high. I know, its new name is the Willis Building, but, like most Chicagoans, I still called it the Sears Tower. It’s not our fault. If someone changes their name after thirty-six years, the old name sticks.

  The Sears Tower is interesting in many regards, not the least of which is that its design was inspired by a cigarette ad. It was the tallest building in the world for twenty-five years, but those kinds of records are made to be broken. Man will always seek the next tower to heaven.

  I kept reminding myself that I was dead, just in case I ran into someone I knew. Fortunately, people on the streets of Chicago don’t look at each other as they walk. It’s an unwritten rule.

  About a mile into my walk, I stopped to eat breakfast at Lou Mitchell’s. Maybe it was just me getting in the mood for the Route 66 experience, but Lou Mitchell’s is the consummate Route 66 diner and perhaps the most famous one of all. The restaurant boasts that since their opening in 1923 they’ve broken enough eggs to wrap around the world twice. It’s the kind of place that campaigning US presidents visit to demonstrate their affinity for the city.

  A small crowd was congregated just inside the doorway. A woman walked up to me carrying a heart-shaped woven basket full of Lou’s signature offering: sugared doughnut holes and small boxes of Milk Duds.

  I took a doughnut hole, not because I wanted one but because I didn’t want to refuse her. She told me that there was a twenty- to thirty-minute wait for a table, but I could have a seat at the counter and eat, which I did. I ordered coffee, a fruit cup, and a Route 66 special, an apple and cheese omelet.

  A few minutes after I ordered, the man on the stool next to me, a gray-haired man with glasses and a sports coat, laid his newspaper in the no man’s land between us, next to the Tabasco sauce and salt and pepper shakers.

  The front page of the newspaper was an image of firemen shooting massive streams of water on an airplane’s burning fuselage. The headline read:

  FRIGHT 227. WHAT WENT WRONG.

  The waitress set down a cup of coffee in front of me. I poured some cream into it and turned to the man next to me. “Do you mind if I look at your paper?”

  He glanced over. “No. Help yourself.”

  “Thank you.”

  He added, “Tragic, that crash.”

  “Horrific,” I replied. I read quickly, hoping to find new information. According to the article, the plane’s cockpit voice recorder had been found, but FAA officials had not yet released the cause of the crash pending a full investigation. Some experts suggested mechanical malfunction, citing the separation of one of the engines on takeoff. Witnesses to the disaster reported that the plane had pitched sharply to the right shortly before crashing just three hundred yards from the end of the runway.

  Then something near the end of the article caught my eye.

  . . . notable passengers included Chicago alderman Susan Lisowski, real estate mogul Charles “Chuck” McHenry and bestselling author Charles James.

  I turned back to the man. “Could I buy this off you?”

  “You can keep it. I’m done with it.”

  “Thank you.” I tore out the article with my name, folded it up, and put it in my pocket.

  The man watched me out of the corner of his eye, then asked, “You know someone on that flight?”

  I hesitated. “Yes,” I said, looking ahead. “I did.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  The waitress delivered my omelet with a side of hash browns. As I ate, I overheard a conversation in one of the booths behind me. From the volume of the conversation I suspected that at least one of the women had hearing loss.

  “You remember Frances, from the Sandersons’ Christmas party last year?”

  “Which Frances?”

  “How many Franceses do you know? F
rances Laflin. From Lincoln Park.”

  “Was she the one who drank too much and started singing ‘White Christmas’?”

  “That’s her. Her daughter was on that flight.”

  “The one that crashed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh my.”

  “What makes it worse is that she and Frances had just gone the rounds and weren’t speaking to each other.”

  “That’s a shame. What were they fighting about?”

  “She never said. Probably had something to do with that boy her girl was engaged to.”

  “What a shame. It will probably haunt her for the rest of her life.”

  “Poor boy; he lost his fiancée.”

  I wondered how many conversations were going on about me. Was there anyone who might be haunted about my death? A better question was, Was there anyone who wasn’t on my payroll who would even care?

  When I finished eating, I paid my bill with cash and, putting on my sunglasses, walked back out of the restaurant. I continued west on Adams.

  According to my notes, I was about twenty miles from my first destination, the city of McCook, Illinois. I’ve always been a fast walker and my natural pace was a fifteen-minute mile. At that rate I could cover the distance in a little more than five hours. Of course that pace didn’t allow for a pack and I would slow as the day wore on, but even six hours would put me in McCook before dark.

  Leaving the shadow of the city was both a relief and a problem. It was a relief to be free from the noise and congestion and the risk of being recognized. It was a problem because I was entering a part of the city that was blighted and potentially dangerous. I knew the risks. Last year Chicago’s rise in homicides was so steep that it single-handedly raised the national homicide rate, which was otherwise falling. And I was carrying a good deal of cash.

  My worry was in vain. I passed only one other person, a homeless man, who was too busy trying to create his nest to even notice me.