“Each month, deposit what cash you need in your account.”
“The IRS, they’ll smell out the discrepancy sooner or later.”
“You won’t have to deal with the IRS anymore.”
“That’s a nice dream.”
“I’ve set it up so the IRS’s computerized records will show you paying quarterly and filing annually, but you won’t ever pay again.”
“What do I say when they audit me?”
“I’ve set it up so they never will.”
“You set it up.”
“You saw what I can do.”
“Yeah, okay, but . . . sweet Jesus.”
“I’ve coded your IRS file with an automatic audit reject.”
“How does that work?”
“A few hundred people in government are so powerful they’ve exempted themselves from audits. I tucked you among them.”
“How do they get away with that?”
“It’s a tight-held secret. Besides, people who tell them they can’t do something—those people meet with grave misfortune.”
“Corruption everywhere.”
“We’re playing their game only to bring them to justice.”
She stares into her mug. Reflected in the dark brew, her eyes swell and shrink freakishly with the movement of the liquid, as if some force that speaks only through symbol and suggestion is warning her that what she is doing will deform her vision and her soul.
Michael says, “Aleem has seen a lawyer.”
“What do you mean?”
“The GPS record for his Cadillac Escalade is accessible to me. Yesterday, Aleem parked for forty-seven minutes at the building occupied by Bucklin and Aimes, a law firm that vigorously defends gangbangers like them. He’s got another appointment there today.”
“This has something to do with me?”
“Mr. Bucklin enters notes about meetings on his laptop. In this case, I don’t respect attorney-client privilege. I snooped. Aleem was there to discuss what paternal rights he has regarding John.”
Nina’s heart quickens. “Rights? None. He has no rights. What dime did he ever give me? What birthday did he bring John a present? None. He’s never as much as spoken to the boy.”
“It’s not that simple. The law doesn’t always go from A to B in a straight line. In fact, it’s usually a long and twisted route.”
Her mouth is dry. She wets it with coffee. The rim of the mug briefly rattles against her teeth.
She says, “When John goes to private school, I drive him to and from Saint Anthony’s, keep him close. But it isn’t right to make him a prisoner. He goes out to play ball with friends, goes anywhere, I worry Aleem will take him. But I didn’t think about lawyers.”
“In the end, I doubt Aleem will be patient enough to use the law. You’re right to worry he’ll snatch John.”
“I’m up and down and up ever since you first came here.”
“If he did go to court, you know how long the law will take to settle the situation in your favor?”
“Too long. And if Aleem grabs John, he’ll deny it. Aleem will hide him away, pretend he knows nothing.”
“And you? What happens to you?”
She meets his eyes. She sees kindness in them. Or it’s what she wants to see. Since the death of her mom and dad, there has been too little kindness in her life.
“Aleem won’t give me a chance to get John back. He’ll make it so I’m said to be an addict when they find me stone dead of an overdose. I know I’ve got to get away from him, but . . .”
Michael’s voice softens to a sympathetic whisper. “It’s hard to leave a life that’s working.”
“It was working. I don’t know about now.”
“I understand more than you think I do, Nina. You’re thinking Aleem wants your boy, and I want your boy, and is it one and the same thing.”
“Is it?”
“He wants to make the boy into a gangbanger. I want to see him reach his full potential. And I want him always with you.”
“It’s so Twilight Zone. It’s a big damn thing to do this.”
“Huge,” he agrees.
“But I keep going back to how you told me the truth about where the money comes from. You didn’t make it clean and neat.”
“I never lie. Not since I died. Before sometimes, not since.”
“Are you my bridge? My bridge over troubled water?”
“I will be if you’ll let me.”
“Because of Shelby Shrewsberry.”
“Yes. And because of your son.”
“I wish Shelby had told me how he felt. He seemed like . . . like such a good man.”
“He was the closest I’ve known to a saint. Not just my best friend . . . maybe my only one.”
“Good men haven’t often crossed my path.”
“Take this new path. Maybe that’ll make all the difference.”
THE BOY
The sky is overcast and the morning light bleak, but following Nina’s decision, the kitchen is filled with a spirit of quiet hope, as though what has begun here is the sanctification of a world gone wrong, which might in fact be the case if Michael’s intentions can be fulfilled.
She puts the duffel bag full of money in the pantry and gives him an opaque plastic bag with a drawstring closure, which she uses for groceries. He stashes the two guns in the sack, less concerned about keeping one in hand now that his eight-block walk will be in daylight.
“I could drive you,” she says.
“Thank you, but I’d rather walk.” Walking, he can more easily be in two places at the same time.
“I’ll list the house with a broker today, sell it furnished. Notify my clients I’m closing up shop, shoot all their data back to them. Not much to pack ’cept clothes and memories. We can be out of here in maybe four days.”
“Sooner is better. What’ll you do if something goes wrong and you need help?”
“I’ll do exactly what you told me.”
“I just want to hear you say it.”
“I keep my company website open. If I need you, I post a notice says, ‘The ninth hour.’ But how often will you check?”
“I’ll know the moment it’s posted.”
“Oh. Yeah. I still can’t get my head around that.”
“Some days, neither can I.”
The swinging door creaks open. The barefoot boy steps in from the hall and stands there in his rumpled pajamas, knuckling grains of lingering sleep from his eyes. He comes fully awake at the sight of Michael. “You’re him.”
On his first visit to this house, Michael had come under the guise of a potential new client seeking Nina’s accounting services. John had been attending classes at Saint Anthony’s.
“Pleased to meet you, John.”
“Mom told me about you, but not everything.”
“She’s been waiting to see if I’d keep a promise I made. I believe now she’ll tell you the rest.”
John is good-looking, with large brandy-brown eyes that seem to be lit from within. Michael cannot read minds or discern the quality of anyone’s character with a divining rod, but judging by what Nina has said and what the teachers at Saint Anthony’s School have written in their student reports, he believes this is a smart and steady kid, a fine man in the making. John’s posture, the inclination of his head, his quiet voice, and a hesitant manner suggest a healthy vulnerability that will inoculate him against the psychotic degree of self-esteem that shapes other boys into gangsters like Aleem.