A Dangerous Man

  PART TWO

  FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2005

  GAME ONE

  —Henry.

  That’s me, that’s my name. Henry Thompson.

  —Henry.

  But no one uses it anymore.

  —Henry. You must tell me.

  No one uses it because Henry Thompson is a man most everyone would like to see dead.

  —Henry. How does it feel to be here?

  But David is using it.

  —Henry? To be home?

  I don’t answer. Because this is not my home. Not even close.

  BRANKO PICKED ME up at the crappy apartment.

  He comes in and sees the bandage on my wrist, but says nothing. He uses my bathroom and sees the broken mirror, but says nothing. He takes me out to his car and drives me to the airport. And finally he says something.

  —You cleaned your apartment?

  —Yeah.

  —It was dirty?

  —Branko, it was filthy.

  —Yes, but it is always filthy.

  —I got tired of it.

  He points at the bandage on my wrist.

  —You hurt yourself cleaning?

  —Yeah.

  He nods. William DeVaughn croons “Be Thankful for What You Got” on the Camry’s CD player.

  —You packed no contraband?

  —You watched me pack.

  —The security, it is very strict.

  I haven’t flown in the U.S. since 9/11 and Branko is worried that I left a toe clipper in my bag or something.

  —There’s nothing.

  —Good. You need money?

  —No.

  The song plays. We turn off at the airport and Branko takes us down the departures lane.

  —If they pull you out of line, it is nothing. Go with them. They will open your bag and ask you to take off your shoes. In case there is a bomb.

  He grunts laughter at the ridiculousness of a shoe-bomb, knowing better places to hide explosives.

  —I know.

  —You will fly coach. First class I would have booked, but people, they walk past you and stare at your face. The people in coach, they hate the people in first class.

  —No problem.

  He starts to say something else. Changes his mind and pulls the car to the curb at the United gate. He puts the car in park.

  —You need money?

  —No. You asked.

  —Yes.

  He looks past me, through the car window and the glass doors, into the nearly empty terminal. It’s just after midnight, Friday morning. A few people who were in town for midweek specials are taking a red-eye back east, but the real traffic will be coming into the airport around eight when the weekenders start to arrive.

  —Branko.

  He doesn’t say anything.

  —What’s this about? Me in New York. That’s.

  He shakes his head.

  —You have somewhere else you would go? Yes? No. Go to New York. Do as you are told.

  —Yeah. Sure.

  He fishes a credit card out of his breast pocket and hands it to me.

  —At the automatic kiosk, you zip this. The ticket will appear. In the name on your driver’s license. The card, you throw away.

  —Right.

  I open the door and climb out. Branko gets out as well and comes around the car to my side. He reaches into the backseat, grabs my bag and hands it to me.

  He takes out his billfold and offers me a stack of cash.

  —I have plenty left from the other day.

  —Take it.

  —Branko.

  —Take the money.

  —Sure. Thanks.

  I take the money. He nods, puts his billfold away and walks back around the car. Before he gets in, he points at me.

  —Do as you are told.

  Then he gets in and drives off.

  I walk through the automatic doors, find the ticket machine and swipe the card. I take my ticket to the security line and show it and my driver’s license to a polite woman in a blue blazer. I shuffle through the short line and my baggage is X-rayed. No one asks to look inside. I board the plane and find my window seat. A middle-aged man sits on the aisle and when the door is sealed without anyone having claimed the seat between us he gives me a tired half smile, tilts his seat back and falls asleep. I stare out the window, watch the ground fall away, and try to remember what it was like the first time I flew to New York. Try to remember being very young and starting something new. But I can’t. I look at the sleeping man. I could be sleeping. I could be chewing down a couple Ambiens and sleeping dreamless and long. Instead I grind my teeth and watch the bad movie with the other insomniacs who lost their shirts in Vegas.

  THE PLANE BANKS and Manhattan appears outside the window.

  Coming back here.

  Coming back here makes me want a pill. But then again, so does breathing.

  —How does it feel? Being back, how does it feel?

  David’s Brighton Beach office is the living room of an apartment above the Winter Garden Restaurant, right on the boardwalk. It’s a strange corner turret. The exterior is corniced at the top, an old salmon pink building at the dead end of Brighton Street. El Marisol is spelled in black tiles outside the front door, harking back to some time before the Russian immigrants had taken over the neighborhood.

  —It feels weird.

  He comes over and stands next to me. He points out the window.

  —You can see Coney Island.

  I press my face close to the glass and look to my right. Far up the boardwalk, past the aquarium, I can see Deno’s Wonder Wheel, the red-and-white pillar of the observation spire, and, further on, the tower of the abandoned parachute drop. Coney was one of the last places I saw before I ran away from here.

  David taps the glass.

  —They have a baseball team now.

  —I heard something.

  He puts a hand on my shoulder and steers me away from the window.

  —Baseball I know less than nothing about, but the park is nice. A baseball park on the beach. When my daughter is married and has children, I will take them there.

  He places a hand over his heart. I long for this more than anything.

  He points at the brown leather couch. I take a seat and he sits in the matching overstuffed chair to my left.

  The office is crowded with furniture. The couch and chair, a coffee table, two end tables with identical ceramic lamps, a desk and office chair and two chairs facing it, a small sideboard with a selection of liquor decanters and soft drink bottles, three antique filing cabinets, a magazine rack, two floor lamps with shades wrapped in plastic, and an actual divan with a price tag still stuck on it.

  —You like it?

  —Sure.

  He smiles and tilts his head to the side.

  —You do not have to lie with me. It is tacky.

  I start to say something but he holds up a hand, blocking my words before they can come out of my mouth.

  —It is my wife. She does this to me. Buys these things and brings them here. She wants me to be comfortable. My guests to be comfortable. At first I tell her, Marya, no, it is too much. A desk, chairs, this is all a man needs in his office. She tells me my office must impress. So.

  He holds out his arms, inviting me to look at the clutter. You see who wears the pants.—So this is fine. I do not care. I care only about these.

  He points at the walls.

  The walls are covered in family photos. Behind the desk is the centerpiece: a poster-size soft-focus image in a massive gilt frame. David with a short round woman wearing large Gucci glasses, and an almost pretty young woman who is obviously fighting a pitched battle with her mother’s stocky genes and her father’s flat features.

  —These are my treasures. Everything is for them.

  He lays a hand on my forearm.

  —This you understand.

  He pats my arm.

  —Do not answer. It is not a question. This I know you understand. T
o do everything for one’s family. This is what it is to be a man. And you are a man, Henry. Of this can there be any doubt? The things you have done to prove it.

  He takes his hand from my arm and touches his whiskers with his fingertips.

  —And now there is more to do.

  —Yeah. David…—Yes? There is something on your mind? You must speak it.

  —David. I don’t even know what you want here. You want me to? What?

  He laughs.

  —What I want? No. Henry. It is what you have done.

  —Yeah, but.

  —Would I bring you to New York? No.

  He clutches his head with his hands. The insanity.

  —I still don’t.

  —It is your national pastime. This game. You, you can explain to me.

  He gets up and picks through the furniture to the magazine rack, comes back with a copy of today’s Daily News and drops it in my lap. The headline is something about someone blowing up something in the Middle East.

  —I don’t.

  —No, not this.

  He picks up the paper, flips several pages and drops it back in my lap. I look at the page, trying to find what it is he wants me to see. He taps his finger on the Mets Notebook and a small item headlined in bold type.

  —This.

  Mets Top Pick Moving Up

  Miguel Arenas, the Mets’ top pick and the first pick overall in the Major League draft, is already moving up. Having spent one day in rookie ball, the Mets will move Arenas to the single-A Brooklyn Cyclones. Arenas is expected to see playing time in this weekend’s season opening series against the Staten Island Yankees. The move was instigated by injuries that have plagued the Mets’ farm system this year, requiring the early advancement of several players, but it certainly won’t hurt Cyclones’ ticket sales to have the darling of last year’s Olympics playing at Keyspan Park.

  David sits in his chair and gazes at the photo of his family while I read about baseball.

  —You understand all of this?

  —Yeah.

  —Yes. I remember you like baseball.

  —Yeah. But I still don’t…

  —Henry. It is not clear?

  He takes the paper from me and points at the article.

  —This boy, he is coming now to New York. Now. And he asks for someone. For you. So now it makes sense, why you are here?

  It makes no sense. But I get it. And it’s a bad idea.

  —I can’t do it. I can’t be this guy’s bodyguard. He’s. There’s gonna be press. It’s. How can I?

  David turns his head to the side and puts up both hands, palms outward. Stop! You are going too fast.

  I stop. He lowers his hands and looks at me.

  —I will explain.

  He pauses, collects his thoughts.

  —This boy, he has a disease. He has the disease that he must gamble. Yes?

  I nod.

  —And so. And so he gambles. He bets on everything. Cards, dice, lottery, a spinning wheel with numbers, horses, dogs. Men are ahead of him in the bathroom, he will bet which will finish pissing first and take an over and an under on how many will wash their hands. He is sick. And while he plays for his high school and his college, Stanford, a school my daughter was accepted to, he gambles. When he plays for the USA at the Olympics, he gambles. And he bets on all things. He bets on baseball. Never on his own team, but he bets. And he bets only with the same bookie. The same bookie who was his father’s bookie, I think. A man who is a friend. He can trust this man not to take advantage of him, not to sell this information to a newspaper. The Olympic hero who gambles! He is protected from such headlines. But he is not protected from himself. He gambles, and what happens to all gamblers is what happens to him. He loses more than he can pay.

  David shrugs with just one shoulder. And what else can one expect?

  —His friend can no longer afford to take these bets. But he is a talent, and from a young age there are many who have faith in him, faith in his talent. And faith that this talent will earn money. And where there is that kind of faith, there is also credit, and many many IOUs.

  He lifts his hand slowly to show me the growing stack of IOUs.

  —Baseball, I told you, baseball means nothing to me. But I employ people who know this game well. Someone must set the odds, someone must make the spread. I am told. And one of these men watches when the boy plays baseball in the Olympics. You saw this?

  I didn’t. The summer of 2004 I was in my shitty apartment finding out how much Demerol I could take at once.

  —Missed that one.

  —I understood very little, but it was stirring. And this man, the odds-setter. He has heard of the boy’s gambling. And he asks questions. And he finds things. Among the things he finds are the many IOUs. And he suggests something to me. And I say yes. And so he starts to buy these IOUs. This is good paper. These are debts that one expects to have repaid. But a bookie will always rather have cash. Quietly he buys these IOUs. And then he has them all. Do you know how much, Henry?

  —No.

  —Guess.

  —I have no idea.

  —That is fine. You could not guess it anyway. Nearly 2 million. Nearly 2 million in paper. And I have bought all of it.

  He bugs his eyes slightly at the notion. Can you believe my foolishness?

  —Tell me, who is the worse gambler here, Henry, this boy or myself? Nearly 2 million. That is a great deal of money. I will tell you honestly, that is money I can not afford to lose. But life is a gamble. And sometimes even a businessman must gamble. It is how one stays on top. A risk from time to time is necessary. To prove to yourself that you do not fear the fates. But still, having bought all this paper, I am constipated for weeks.

  He winces.

  —And then.

  He smiles.

  —You know what happens, yes?

  —Sort of.

  —First pick. A number one. And he sets a record. Do you know what record?

  I shake my head.

  —He sets a record for the largest rookie signing bonus ever in baseball.

  He briefly raises his fists about his head. Yes!—Over 6 million. This is a good record to have, yes? But it is maybe not so much.

  He makes his right hand into a blade.

  —There is to be this much for the agent.

  He slices the air.

  —This much for the manager.

  Another slice.

  —This for the government.

  A very thick slice.

  —And so. I call him. I explain to him who I am. And I tell him of the paper I have bought. And I have a conversation with Miguel. In person, yes, but very private. In San Diego, where his home is. We talk about…everything. We talk about family and life and being young, we talk about love and women, we talk about New York City and what it will be like for him when he comes to live here. All of this. He also talks about baseball, but this I do not understand. And then, we talk about gambling. I tell him that I could ask for my money. But what then? He will have so little left. Where will be the house for his mother, the new car for himself, the many things a young man desires? I tell him this does not interest me. I will want my money, but not now. He wants still to gamble? Good. I will help. He will place all of his bets through me. If he wants to play cards, I will find him a game. If he wants to roll dice, I will find him a table. If he wants to bet on two men pissing, I will find him a toilet.

  He smiles at his joke.

  —And if he wants to go to Las Vegas, I will give him an escort to be sure there is no trouble for him. And he listens and he says, we will try it.

  He widens his eyes. Everything should be so simple and pleasant.

  —And so this paper has led to another investment. I have invested in this boy’s future. I have kept my money on the table and will spin the wheel once more to see where this boy will land. But I am not stupid. If the wheel falters, I will pull my paper back before it can all be lost. This is making sense?

 
It’s a long-shot bet David is laying. Does Miguel have what it takes? Can he make the bigs? Once there, can he stick? If he lives up to a slice of the potential he’s supposed to have? Jackpot. Give him a couple years and he’ll sign a free agent contract in nine figures. And huge chunks of it will be carved away by the spread every time he places a bet. And that’s not even the big payoff. If David can get his hooks in deep enough, if Miguel compromises himself in the right way, we’re talking fixes. A dropped ball here, a strikeout there, getting picked off first on occasion. Do it right and it doesn’t have to even be about throwing a game, just making sure the right team beats the spread.

  I nod.

  —It’s making sense.

  —Good. Now he comes the first time to play in New York. A young man with all that money. Many mistakes can be made in New York. So I call him, I tell him, this boy, I tell him he must have someone. And he says yes, that is fine, he will have you.

  David mimes a phone at his ear, pulls it away, looks into it. Did I hear right?

  —I say to him, Miguel, I have many good men. I will get one of them for you. You will have a magnificent time. You will be a prince and do anything you wish. But he says no. He will have only one man. He will have only you, Henry. This boy, he knows already what I know, that you are a good man. Already, this boy, he loves you. So this is good. You will escort this investment, keep him from harm, help him to have his fun.

  He wags his hand loosely. And help him lay his bets. And keep other bookies from him. All of those things.

  Keep him under David’s thumb.

  —You can do this?

  Can I do it? Can I help fuck up this guy’s life?

  Of course I can.

  It’s not that hard really, put your mom and dad on the other side of a scale and you’ll find the guy doesn’t weigh anything at all. Even if looking at him is like peering through the looking glass right into What Might Have Been Land.

  Besides, it’s better than killing.

  —Sure. Sounds good.

  My left hand rests on the arm of the couch. David wraps both of his hands around it.