He sticks it in the reader by his monitor and recites an amount that churns in my gut. “That’s $13,514.83.”
“What about the payment to ADP, is there any way to stop it?” Taking back the money from payroll, that’s apparently the kind of asshole I am.
The teller shakes his head, gestures to the cards spread out before him. “Do these cards all have a pin?”
“Yes. Well, all but the Amex.”
“Sorry, sir, but I can’t do anything without a pin.” He drops it back in the slot with a metallic ding that echoes in my bones.
I grip the counter with both hands, fighting a wave of dizziness. “How do I get a pin?”
“I believe you have to call their customer service.” He stuffs the Visa into the reader. “Enter the first pin onto the pad, please.”
I tap in the pin, then flip over the Amex, dial the number on the back, and drop it back in the slot. “Do this one last. I’m getting a pin for it right now.”
The process is excruciatingly slow. I cast an apologetic glance over my shoulder at the people in the line as the teller counts, then double and triple counts the Visa cash into a fat stack. With a Sharpie, he scribbles the total onto a paper label he uses to bind the bills, then clips the stack to the card. We move slowly down the line, repeating the process for each card while I listen to canned music in one ear, occasionally broken by a woman’s soft voice: Thank you for calling American Express. All our representatives are serving other customers. Approximate hold time is…six…minutes.
Six eternal minutes to think about all the ways I’ve messed up. All the wrong turns I’ve made, the questionable people I’ve chosen to partner with in order to expand the Lasky brand. That first bistro, in that tiny house in Peachtree Hills, feels like forever ago. A kitchen barely big enough for three chefs shoulder to shoulder and just enough tables to eke out a salary, but I loved that old rickety place.
It’s a juice shop now, but I wonder: If I went back to that concept, if I traded the Lasky Steak empire for a tumbledown bistro in Peachtree Hills, would I be happier? Would Jade love me as much if I wasn’t Atlanta’s Steak King?
What the hell happened? When did I lose my way?
By now, the woman to my left is gone, and the teller is punching in numbers and counting out cash with an accountant’s efficiency. Before too long, it’s one last straggler and me, a man in dark blue scrubs.
Approximate hold time…three…minutes.
Keys rattle in my other ear, the security guard flipping the locks on the doors behind me, a jingling that alerts me to closing time. Five o’clock on the dot. I peel the phone away from my ear and check the notifications.
Still no response from Ed. Goddammit.
Images of Jade whiz by in my brain—tied to that blue chair, staring down the barrel of a masked madman’s gun. Helpless while the kids scream for her from across the hall. I wonder if she’s conscious, if she’s beaten and bloody, if he’s broken any of her bones. Why didn’t I ask? Why didn’t I insist on talking to the Bees? I consider calling her back, right after—
An Amex representative, a real person this time, sounds in my ear, and my knees buckle in relief. “Thank God. I need a pin for my card.”
The teller gives me a look, one that says he’s glad there’s a thick slice of bulletproof glass between us, then goes back to counting out the cash while the Amex representative walks me through the steps. By the time the teller has clipped together the last stack of money, I have a working pin.
When the last stack is counted and marked and fastened, the teller points me to a glass-enclosed room at the far end of the building. An office, boring and generic—a desk, two chairs, a computer monitor and a giant poster on the wall. The room is dark, much like the rest of the bank. The security guard turned the lights off ages ago.
I turn back to the teller. “If you don’t mind, I’m kind of in a hurry. I’ll just take the money and go.”
“Sir, I will deliver the money to you in that office.” Not so much a question as a demand. He gathers up the piles of cash and drops them into a zippered bank bag. “We’ll have more privacy there.”
I turn, taking in the space around me, all of it empty. Even the security guard has moved on, disappearing with his rattling keys behind a padlocked door. I am the last man standing. We have all the privacy in the world.
The teller leans the Next Window Please sign against the glass and takes off with my bag of cash. I match him step for step, following him down the glass until he disappears behind a wall. A few seconds later he steps out of a door farther down, the bag of cash tucked under an arm. I hustle to the office, where he flips on the light and closes the door.