“Well, then it can’t be me,” Tommy says sadly, “because Dad doesn’t trust me as far as he can throw me. Not the way he trusts Mel. Or the way he would trust you.”
“Dad knows I want nothing to do with The Life,” I argue.
“I think he respects that more than anything,” Tommy informs me. “That you stand up to him. And he knows how smart you are. If he could see you doing this Bill Gates computer stuff, he’d blow up with pride.”
Sometimes you talk to Tommy and it’s almost like having a conversation with a human. A lot of brothers would carry plenty of resentment, feeling the way he does. But Tommy just tells it the way he sees it. He isn’t a model citizen, but he has some good qualities just the same.
I stand up and sit him down in front of the keyboard. “The Internet isn’t rocket science,” I say kindly. “Here, let me show you….”
CHAPTER NINE
GRIM NEWS ON THE Alex front. Fiona, this girl in our New Media class, e-mails him at misterferraridriver.com to congratulate him on his Web site. And to Alex, this equals a declaration of undying lust. But when he asks her out, she says no.
“She’s evil,” he laments after school the day it happens. “She led me on just so she could slap me down.”
“She didn’t lead you on,” I try to explain. “She heard you talking about your site in class, and she checked it out. That’s it.”
“She says she has a boyfriend in Canada,” he moans. “What a crock. Whenever chicks make up a boyfriend, he’s always Canadian. Nobody ever puts the fake boyfriend in Uzbekistan.”
“Maybe she’s telling the truth,” Kendra says soothingly.
“She’s the devil,” Alex growls.
Believe it or not, this is more or less all my fault. In the old days, Alex would have told me about the e-mail from Fiona, and I would have had a chance to prepare him for the possibility that this was just a friendly message from a classmate. But I was with Kendra last night, incommunicado, and very happily so. I can just picture Alex, sitting at his computer, reading the e-mail for the fiftieth time, building the whole thing up in his mind until he’s convinced himself that the girl is crazy about him. So when he gets rejected, he’s devastated.
I know Alex, so I realize that now’s the time to stop arguing and start agreeing. Yes, he’s been badly wronged; Fiona is Public Enemy Number One, and it’s a travesty that there isn’t some kind of international tribunal empowered to handle this kind of injustice.
Unfortunately, Kendra doesn’t have the benefit of my experience. She thinks Alex can be reasoned with.
“Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be,” she offers gently.
“Meant to be?” Alex wails. “What are you, Oprah?”
“Alex—” I begin warningly.
“That didn’t come out right,” she admits. “What I’m trying to say is that, even if she went out with you, it still doesn’t guarantee that it’d lead anywhere. Some people are just wrong for each other.”
His expression scares me because I know what’s coming. If I had a gag, believe me, I’d use it.
“That’s a good point, Kendra,” he says, a little too conversationally. “I know a couple who really don’t belong together. I mean, this is practically like a cobra dating a mongoose. Can you imagine a—”
I grab Kendra by the arm. “Let’s go. You’ll be late for work.” As I hustle her out the door, Alex’s unspoken words resonate in my head: Can you imagine a Mob prince going out with an FBI agent’s daughter?
I cast him a look designed to freeze lava, focusing all my being into a single message: Don’t go there.
I’m surprised by the fear on his face. It’s possible that I’ve just conjured up the Luca Stare. Tommy can do it, and Dad’s an expert. But this is the first time I’ve ever come up with it on my own. I’m not proud of it, but Alex has crossed the line here. He has to know that it’s time to scramble back to his own side.
Kendra is bewildered. “Vince, what just happened there?”
“Alex’s cousin is getting divorced,” I lie smoothly. “He’s pretty upset about it, but I wasn’t going to let him take it out on you.”
We head for the parking lot. I can see right away that there’s someone sitting on my car. But it isn’t until we’re almost there that I realize who it is. I hardly recognize him without the black eye, split lip, and caked-on blood.
“Jimmy Rat!”
Jimmy slides down off the hood. “I recognized your vehicle.” No small feat for a guy who only saw the inside of the trunk. “How’s it going, Vince?”
It’s an awkward moment. I should introduce Kendra, but this is a guy who sometimes talks to my dad. So I just ask, “What are you doing at my school?”
“Excuse us, miss,” he says to her, and pulls me aside. “I got something for your father.” From the pocket of his blazer, he pulls out a fat money-size envelope. “Give him this, will you?”
I make no move to take it. “Why don’t you give it to him yourself? Or shouldn’t there be someone to collect this? Uncle Shank, or one of his guys?”
He shuffles and wriggles at the same time, and his nose twitches. I can see where he gets his nickname, and not just from being James Ratelli. “The envelope is a little lighter than it’s supposed to be. And your uncle Shank’s kind of touchy about stuff like that. Your father, too, and definitely your brother. But you, Vince—you’re a reasonable person. I can see that from our past dealings.”
“What past dealings?” I catch a questioning look from Kendra, so I drop my voice. “We don’t have any past dealings! You were locked in the trunk of my car!”
“And you were very reasonable about it,” he repeats. “You’ll have no problem explaining to your old man that I need a few more days to come up with the rest of the money. Tell him how sincere I am.”
“No!” I explode. “I have nothing to do with that business! Listen, Jimmy, I’m sorry you’re in trouble, but you’ll just have to find another way out.”
He grabs me by the front of my jacket. “Have a heart, Vince!” he sobs. “Shank’s got a thing about cutting off fingers! If they break your nose, you still got a nose! But fingers don’t grow back!”
Right there in the parking lot I have a murky flashback. I must have been eight or nine. Alex and I ride up the driveway on our bikes. A handful of uncles are in the side yard, Tommy with them. It was right after he quit school to work with Dad. I remember the excited laughing chatter that always came in the aftermath of a “job,” although back then I don’t know what “jobs” are all about. Uncle Shank—and I remember this clearly—is standing at the outdoor water tap, a big grin on his face. He’s rinsing off the sharp blades of a pair of pruning shears.
For a second, I feel like I’m going to pass out. I think I might fall over if Jimmy doesn’t still have a death grip on my jacket.
I snatch the envelope out of his hand. “I—I’ll see what I can do.”
Jimmy’s all over me, blubbering and kissing my hand. I’m trying to pull away, babbling, “This might not work! I don’t know if they’ll listen to me!” I hate my dad right now. The fact that I might wield such power over a person’s fate makes me want to cry. But I hold back because part of me is wondering what in God’s green earth I’m going to tell Kendra about all this.
I get her into the car and peel out of there with a squeal of tires. I must be pretty shaken up because she comments, “What happened with that guy, Vince? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
And I have. The image of those pruning shears gleaming wet in the sunlight doesn’t go away.
Bellmore Preschool is located in an old elementary school a few towns to the east of us. The day care is on the ground floor, with a senior center on the second level. This, Kendra explains, is ironic because it’s difficult for the seniors to negotiate the stairs, but the kids always seem to have enough energy to sprint up the side of Mount Everest.
She works in the toddler room—two-year-olds. They seem to love her because they all
run over to give her a hug. Then they give me a hug, and I realize that two-year-olds don’t know much.
I remember the head lice and switch to shaking hands. The kids stare at me like I’m nuts.
Five minutes in that place and I understand why Kendra is so exhausted after work. We play games; we sing songs; we march; we dance.
“When’s nap time?” I ask hopefully.
Bad news. We just missed it.
Thumper, the class rabbit, escapes his cage, and all hell breaks loose. In the melee, a little girl runs up and gives me a small piece of paper. I gawk. It’s a hundred-dollar bill.
“What the—?”
A little boy flashes by, and he’s got a fistful of money.
I have an irrational thought: What kind of parents send their two-year-olds to day care with bankrolls in their pockets?
Then I see it. The chair where I hung my jacket is lying over on its side, and Jimmy Rat’s envelope is half out of my pocket. Little kids are climbing all over each other to get their share of the money.
I run around like a wild man, snatching bills out of very small hands. Kids being kids, they fly into temper tantrums. I don’t care. Jimmy Rat entrusted me with this money, and I don’t even know how much is supposed to be there, but the payment is light and getting lighter. Even the rabbit is nibbling on a fifty. Who knows how much the hamster has squirreled away?
Now I’m at the center of a Hallelujah chorus of tears and rage. Kendra and her coworkers are furious.
“Vince, what’s going—?” She goggles at the small fortune wadded in my hands. “Where did you get all that money?”
“From the kids!” I shout back without thinking.
“What?”
Now I’ve done it. I’ve got no choice but to explain that Jimmy gave me the money for Dad.
She’s amazed. “What kind of business is your father in?”
“He’s in investments,” I reply, thinking on my feet.
“Like Wall Street?”
“Exactly. Only he doesn’t go into the city. He works out here on the Island.”
“Wall Street doesn’t trade envelopes full of hundred-dollar bills,” she says suspiciously. “All that’s done electronically.”
Heart sinking, I notice she’s wearing her reporter’s face. All the slack she cut me in the parking lot because I was upset is gone. I’ve got to find a way to come clean without actually coming clean. A sick feeling takes hold in the pit of my stomach as it sinks in that my next tap dance will determine whether or not I’ve still got a girlfriend five minutes from now.
“That guy Jimmy—obviously you can tell that he isn’t exactly the prince of England. A real bank would take one look at him and say, forget it. That’s where my father comes in. His company invests in people like Jimmy, and because it’s outside the normal banking system, some of the payments are made in cash.”
“You mean like a social service?” she asks. “Banking for the underprivileged?”
“Right.” Isn’t Kendra fantastic? Anthony Luca has teams of lawyers working for him, and I’ll bet none of them have ever hit on such a positive way to describe loan-sharking.
“Hey,” she says suddenly. “Do you think your dad would let me interview him for the Journal? I’ll bet most of the kids haven’t even heard of his job.”
“My father never talks about business,” I reply quickly. “It’s the number-one rule at our house.”
She nods wisely. “My dad is exactly the same way. He’s a clam about work. When I was younger some evidence got destroyed at home, and now he won’t even tell Mom what cases he’s working on.”
Yeah, right. Honest Abe Luca and Agent Bite-Me of the FBI. Sometimes I have trouble telling them apart.
Dad takes Jimmy Rat’s envelope, but he doesn’t look at it. His eyes stay focused on me. “How come you’re doing Uncle Shank’s job for him?”
We’re in the basement workshop, sitting uncomfortably on lopsided furniture. Ray and Tommy are there too. I’m trying not to stare at an enormous pine hutch, the latest project. It stands about ten feet away, with a claw hammer embedded in the cracked side, eloquent testament to Dad’s temper.
“I’m not,” I argue. “It’s just that Jimmy came to me to ask you for more time.”
“He’s using you, Vince!” Tommy explodes. “Do I have to put that bag of guts back in the car again?”
“No!” I say quickly. “He wanted to talk to me because Uncle Shank makes him nervous.”
“That’s the whole point of having a guy like Shank,” Ray explains. “To keep the Jimmy Rats of this world nice and nervous.”
“You should have seen him, Dad,” I plead. “He’s terrified! He thinks Uncle Shank is going to cut off his fingers.”
Dad leans back and very nearly overturns his ill-balanced chair. “You want no part of this business, Vince. Fair enough. So where do you get off telling me how to run it?”
I’m on the verge of preaching when I catch a warning glance from Ray and back right off. It’s nothing Anthony Luca hasn’t heard a million times from me, the FBI, the media, and an outraged populace. He was in The Life before I was born, and I’m not going to come up with any words tonight that will change his mind about it. Besides, it sure won’t help Jimmy Rat if I make my father mad.
So I say, “It’s just six hundred bucks. What’s that much money to you?”
“It’s never just six hundred from Jimmy Rat,” Ray puts in. “It’s a lot of six hundreds from a lot of Jimmy Rats. A guy like that—dumb, likeable, goofy. I don’t want to see him get hurt, but I don’t want to see us get hurt when the word spreads we don’t stick up for ourselves.”
I’m taking hits from Ray and Tommy, but I keep plugging away at Dad. “Aw, he’s such a loser, and you’re so powerful. Leave him alone, okay? I’m sure that if you give him a chance to get back on track, you’ll get your money.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Tommy roars. “You’re letting this two-bit beer hustler snow you!”
But Dad quiets him with a single look. Then he turns his gaze on me. “Seventeen years I’ve been waiting, Vince, to see what brings out the fire in you. And this is it? Jimmy Rat? I’ll bet he gave you the whole sob story about his wife and kids. Would it surprise you to know the guy’s a lifelong bachelor?”
I don’t back down. “Just give him a break, Dad. Please.”
My father stands up. “He gets one week. And it’s on you for every cent he comes up short.”
Tommy’s horrified. “Dad! If we go soft on a little creep like that, no one’ll respect us out on the street!”
“We’re not going soft,” Dad insists. “Jimmy’s got Vince vouching for him now. You got a beef with Jimmy, you talk to Vince.”
I’m not so sure I like the sound of that. But I don’t want to push it, so I say, “Thanks, Dad. You won’t regret this.”
Ray steps in. “If word gets around that the way to miss a vig is to talk to Vince, that high school is going to need a bigger parking lot.”
“That’s Vince’s problem,” my father replies. To me he says, “I hope you know what you’re getting into.”
I hope so too.
CHAPTER TEN
I CALL JIMMY RAT at the only number I have for him, the phone behind the bar at his place of business, a club called Return to Sender. I wonder if he gets any mail with a name like that. Certainly no one’s there early enough to straighten out misunderstandings with the letter carrier—I try him all day without results. By the time I get through, I’m on the road to pick up Kendra.
I know this sounds impossible, but when he finally comes on the line, I can actually hear the smoke. He cries when I give him the good news, and I get warm all over. I know I’ve done something special, not just for Jimmy, but for Dad and Tommy too. I’ve saved them from committing one more immoral act. While that may seem like a drop in the bucket, it feels very big to me.
“So you’re off the hook till next Friday,” I finish. “Let’s meet on
Thursday afternoon so you can give me the money.”
“Yeah, sure,” he agrees. “I’ll find you.”
A tiny alarm bell goes off in the back of my mind. “I think we should set a specific time—”
Somehow the connection gets broken, and I can’t dial in again. Probably a problem on his end, since my cell phone is brand-new.
I never pick Kendra up at home unless I know her folks aren’t there. We always meet somewhere. Today we hook up outside the Barnes and Noble where I supposedly work—one of my ersatz jobs. I may not have a future in the vending-machine business, but I sure seem to have the deceit part down pat. It’s nice to know that dating brings out the best in me.
“How was work?” she asks, sliding in beside me.
“Oh, same old, same old.” Our fingers intertwine over the gearshift console.
“What are we doing tonight?”
“It’s a surprise,” I tell her.
She goes nuts trying to guess what it is, but I don’t spill the beans. Eventually, we’re tooling up Sunrise Highway with her clamped on to me, half on the driver’s seat, begging.
“See that guy?” I point to a frail elderly man laboriously extricating himself from a parked Volkswagen Beetle. “Santa Claus on Slim-Fast.”
She isn’t taking the bait. “Come on. Just tell me.”
I’m enjoying myself so much pulling her chain that I actually pass by the place before circling back into the parking lot.
Rio Grande is a Mexican restaurant, but the thing is there’s a karaoke bar too, so Kendra can take her act on the road in front of a real audience.
She turns pale. “I can’t do it.”
“Sure you can,” I coax. “You’re awesome!”
“No.”
Well, we have to eat anyway—that’s the logic I use to get her in the door. Maybe an enchilada will change her mind.
The food is good. Everything is so fiery hot that we’re downing pitchers of Coke like water after a marathon. By eight o’clock, when the singing starts, we’re both wired from sugar and caffeine. Our table is in a ring of booths around the central bar part, so we’re right in the middle of the action.