Doctors and shrinks write a ton of prescriptions for it because it works, it's not addictive, and it's cheap. The biggest side effect is weight loss, and even that is good. It doesn't zone you out like, say, heroin or Quaaludes. It's not a supercharger like cocaine or crystal meth but you don't come crashing down from it either and you don't get holes in your nasal passage. All it does is let you be at your best.
This, says Yahya, is what makes it too good to last. Guaranteed, he says, that whenever that many people are having a nice time, someone will rain on their parade. Maybe the Fed, the AMA, or even the religious right. They'll say hold it. Life is a vale of tears, right? You're supposed to have ups and downs. What's all this up shit all the time?
It's already happening, says Yahya. More and more doctors are getting nervous. They say maybe this is too good to be true. They say screwing around with the brain's chemistry too long has got to be bad so they start weaning their patients off it. What does the patient say? He says fuck you, Doc. Next party I go to, I'm damned if I'll be the only wallflower there. Next time I have to speak before an audience, or I have a job interview lined up, or I want to strike up a conversation with the lady down the bar, I don't want to freeze up anymore. You won't renew the prescription? Okay. I'll ask some high school kid to point me to his pusher. I'll load up with a year's supply.
The more Julie thought about this, the less wrong it seemed.
There are drugs that do bad and drugs that do good. Even Pop wouldn't argue with that. Offer him heroin, he'd slap your face. But the morphine he took for the pain that last month, that was just liquid heroin, right? Did he care where it came from? If his doctor wouldn't give him enough, and his sons said don't worry, we'll go pick up some more on the street, would he have said no?
Yeah.
Yeah, maybe he would have.
The bartender was waving at him. The one who was wired.
Wired or not, he seemed a nice kid. The customers all like him and he doesn't dip into the till. Julie had no idea what agency he worked for but it had to be federal. Local cops don't have the patience to plant a guy full-time. They don't have the budget, either.
“Call for you, Mr. Giordano.” He's holding up the bar phone.
“Who is it, Jimmy?”
“Man named Parker. Says he wants to check a reference.”
No shit?
“Get a number. Say I'll call him right back.”
“You can take it right here, Mr. G. I'll give you some privacy.”
Kid . . . don't push it, okay?
“Five minutes, Jimmy. I'll call him from back in the office.”
Privacy, huh?
Christ! That means the kid has the whole fucking bar wired.
Chapter 23
Megan knew, somehow, that it wasn't Bronwyn he'd been thinking about.
You must have a different look in your eyes, thought Fallon, a different kind of smile, when the memory is an old one. And Megan was definitely jealous. Jealous and a little sad.
He had a sense that, in her life, relationships never lasted very long. It wasn't the frigidity thing. They would last until the guy found out whatever it is in her background that she's in no big hurry to reveal. Like her father was the commandant of Auschwitz or she used to drink the blood of sleeping children.
It was hard to imagine what she could possibly tell him that would make him want to back off. She was such a terrific woman in so many ways that it was hard even to feel the need to reassure her. Or explain about Mary Beth. About how there's nothing wrong with leaving room in your heart for special people.
On that subject, come to think of it, he was feeling a little guilty himself about how quickly he was getting over Bronwyn. Another remarkable woman. One in a million. He would never forget her. But Megan was . . . he didn't know ...
Fresher.
Softer.
And if she likes you, she lets it all hang out. That's how some women get hurt. But he would never hurt Megan.
She took the helm as they approached the Woods Hole Race. The race was a narrow channel with very strong and tricky currents. Most sailboats powered through. Needless to say, not Megan.
He stood behind her, his arms around her chest and shoulders, smelling her hair. Getting through the tidal rip took all her concentration. That was good. It was nice, for a change, to be able to think about other days without feeling like he was on a party line.
He never became a bully.
But he did, he supposed, become something of a snob. It happened very gradually.
He learned to play tennis and golf because Uncle Jake insisted and paid for the lessons. He would tell the instructors, “Keep on him until he's good.” He joined a sailing club and learned the basics because his uncle thought yachting was classy. His yacht was a Sunfish but you have to start somewhere. And he liked it.
He learned to play bridge but drew the line at joining a classical music appreciation club that Jake had spotted in the Notre Dame catalog.
“You don't want to know about opera? Ballet?”
“Uncle Jake, have you ever been to either one?” ,
”I was deprived. You aren't.”
“Well, I'm sorry. There are only so many hours in the day.”
“How about Rugby? Nothing like a good scrum to get your juices flowing.”
A good scrum?
It's not always easy to know when Jake is pulling your leg.
But overall, he'd been a pretty good student, top ten percent, a well-rounded if not stand-out jock, and people thought he was good-looking, especially in his ROTC uniform.
Add to this that dumb reputation. It was more than just those two episodes during his freshman year. His subsequent disdain for the karate club could only mean that he was far more advanced than anything they could teach him. He was rumored to be an expert in several disciplines of the martial arts. Denying it had no effect.
There was more. Add four years of whispers about certain powerful and mysterious New York connections, add being orphaned by some equally mysterious tragedy, and you had a young guy who was almost irresistible to the more vacuous young ladies of the country club set. Their fathers, oddly, seemed to like him just as much. He'd get invitations to their clubs whether he was actively seeing their daughters or not. It went to his head for a while.
One of the fathers actually proposed to him. Told him he could do a lot worse than marrying into the Johnson family. The Winnetka, Illinois, Johnsons. Princes of the automotive aftermarket industry. He and Tracey would make a beautiful couple. Or he and Kimberly. Michael couldn't remember. They were all named Tracey or Kimberly.
He majored in international marketing and minored in finance. This had been Uncle Jake's suggestion.
“International's the future, Mike. You remember when it was a big deal to say a thing you bought was ‘imported’?”
”Uh . . . no.”
“Trust me. But now everything's imported. Moving goods in and out and moving money. Those are two things you should know about.”
He graduated with honors, won a prize or two, lettered in football, and was commissioned a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserves. After stateside training, he would be joining an armored unit in Germany. Michael's first choice had been flight training in attack helicopters. Too dangerous, said his uncle. Stay on the ground. Michael applied anyway and was promptly rejected. He wondered aloud whether the army chief of staff, per chance, owed Big Jake Fallon a favor.
“Count your blessings,” was all his uncle would say. “If you're going to crash something, crash a tank.”
Both Uncle Jake and Moon came out for the graduation ceremony. Brendan Doyle had to beg off. He was tied up in court but he sent a nice watch that Michael promptly lost. He never did have much luck with watches.
Jake and Moon didn't look much like the other parents. Moon had worn a good suit for the occasion but on Moon, suits always had a sort of secondhand look. Suits on cops tend to have the same look for the same reason. Baggy. A full cut to
hide a weapon and to allow free movement.
The other thing about Moon was that he rarely looked anyone in the eye except when he knew everyone in sight. He would always be looking past them at what else was going on, at whomever was coming up next. Here again, it's the same with cops. But it's also the same with thieves.
Uncle Jake was another story. He looked right at you. And right into you. Even during small talk. In consequence of the many stories about Moon and Uncle Jake, most of them wildly untrue, quite a few people wanted introductions. A few of these were people with whom Michael had not been especially close, and some he actively disliked. There were smirks behind their smiles. He had already overheard a sampling of their remarks.
“Mike Fallon's uncle . . . politician from Noo Yawk …. so you know he has his hand out….fixes boxing matches….fight game is where Mike gets it…nigger's the bodyguard….ex-con, I hear…. doesn't look so tough…. looks more like a wino.”
If Mike was getting angry, and more than a little embarrassed, his uncle seemed to be having the time of his life. He kept bragging about his nephew, told New York stories, fight game and mob stories. Some were true, some invented on the spot, all while he was chewing on a cigar.
Actually, most of the parents seemed to enjoy him. But one man, dressed in a club-crested blazer, walked away saying to his wife, “Do you believe that Irish clown?”
Michael wanted to go after him. He didn't. He looked over at his uncle and saw his uncle looking back. Looking deep. With a touch of disappointment. Jake then turned and ambled after the man who had made the remark. He put an arm around his shoulder and whispered into his ear. The man didn't move for a long moment. When he did, he had his wife by the arm and was dragging her, head down, toward the parking lot.
They went to dinner that night. Moon was more than usually quiet. Over coffee, his uncle handed him an envelope.
”A graduation present. It's from your father.”
Michael didn't understand.
“Open it.”
He did. There were several documents on Merrill-Lynch letterhead. They were the earnings statements of a group of mutual funds. The account was in his uncle's name but it was held in trust for Michael Fallon. The amount was just under two hundred thousand dollars. Michael could only stare.
”I took the cash from the apartment, same day he died. You knew it was there, right?”
Michael nodded. “But this much?”
“It grew. How come you never asked what happened to it?”
”I . . . assumed you've been spending it on me.”
“Some, maybe. The rest is for when you get married, maybe need to buy a house or something. Meantime, it stays put.”
Again, Michael stared. In his mind he saw himself, back in that apartment on Horatio Street, peeling off bills to buy groceries. He took only what he needed because he realized, even then, that it would have to last. He knew that his father might never hold a job again.
As for its source, he had tried not to think about it. Certainly it had crossed his mind that his father might have embezzled it, or had been paid off for cooking someone's books, or perhaps had simply accumulated it over the years. Cash payments for services rendered. Under the table. Tax-free.
He had tried not to think about it because then he'd also have to think about his mother, who also must have known, who had lost all respect for his father, who had walked out of their lives without taking a dime of this money. Most of all, he would have to remember that his father had killed himself on the one day when he managed to stay sober until noon, and after his son had shamed him by going off with his Uncle Jake. “You go, Mike. Your uncle knows best.” Then, bitterly, “Your uncle always knows best.”
“Uncle Jake . . . how bad was it?”
“How bad was what?”
“How dirty is that money?”
His uncle looked at him through hooded eyes.
“Is it drug money?'' Michael asked.
The question seemed to startle him. Even Moon. “Drugs like what?” Jake asked him.
“You know. Heroin. Cocaine.”
And now he seemed relieved. “No. Nothing like that.”
Moon looked away.
“The money,” his uncle said at last, “was severance pay. The deal he had with the Eagle outfit, it had what they call a noncompete clause. That's why he didn't work after that. Anyway, he didn't have to.”
“But . . . this much severance ... for a bookkeeper?”
“Lump sum. They were closing up shop anyway.”
“Then why a noncompete clause?”
Jake Fallon grunted. “Mike ... do you trust your uncle?”
“You know I do.”
“Then here's all you have to know. Anything that needed to be fixed is fixed. What's past is past and money is money. Go live your life.”
“Think you can take me yet, Michael?”
Moon asked this question after Uncle Jake rose to find the men's room.
“Ah . . , what brings that up?”
“Just askin'.”
Michael thought for a moment. “It would be ... closer.”
“Maybe. But not if you got your nose so high in the air you wouldn't see me comin’”
Michael grimaced. “Am I doing that, Moon?”
“Don't you ever again let anyone mock your uncle and then walk away. He waited, Michael. He gave you time to step in.”
A deep sigh. ”I know he did.”
“Just, don't forget who you are. And don't make me remind you.”
Don't forget who you are?
Okay, who am I?
Am I Tom Fallon's son or Jake Failon's nephew? Am I the son of a drunken dropout who was probably a criminal or am I what Uncle Jake has been working so hard to turn me into? Do I look for another Mary Beth or do I keep scouting out the country club Kimberlys?
Dean's list grad from Notre Dame. An officer and a gentleman.
Don't forget who you are? Don't change?
What hasn't changed?
After four months' training in Texas, he was shipped to Germany, where he joined the 2nd Armored Cavalry, based in Nuremberg. While there, he studied the language and, because of a compulsion he could not resist, spent a week's leave following the route along which his father fought more than thirty years earlier. It took him through half of Austria and well up into Czechoslovakia. Patton would have taken Prague if Eisenhower hadn't stopped him. Hell, Patton would have taken Moscow. And Tom Fallon would have followed him.
He spent his third year of active duty in England where, he was pleased to tell Uncle Jake, he finally got to play Rugby. The army promoted him to captain in the hope that he'd extend his tour but Michael had other plans. He was taking courses toward a graduate degree at the London School of Economics. If Uncle Jake would advance him the money from his trust, he would stay to complete it.
Uncle Jake liked the sound of it. The London School of Economics. Very classy. A clear step up for a former stickball player from Horatio Street.
Two years later he was on Wall Street, still in his twenties and making more than ninety thousand dollars a year. He had a nice apartment and an active social life.
Moon would drop by every now and then.
Now . . . this was not snobbishness. It really wasn't.
But he would have preferred to meet Moon elsewhere because, from the looks the other tenants gave him afterward, Moon was presumed to be his dealer making a delivery.
Moon, of course, knew this as well as he did. Moon was no doubt waiting to dump all over him if he should suggest an alternative arrangement. Once a young woman, in whom Michael was interested, was there for one of Moon's visits. He introduced himself as “Mike's Uncle Moon.” The young woman's interest cooled before his eyes. She suddenly remembered a hair appointment.
“Count your blessings, Michael,” said Moon when she left.
After four years with Shearson, he was recruited by Lehman-Stone. They had learned that he had a good working knowledge of busine
ss German and they needed a specialist in West German offerings, primarily in the area of chemicals and Pharmaceuticals. The job would involve considerable travel. That was a welcome change from Shearson where he stared at a computer screen all day with a phone at each ear. And the money was double.
At Lehman-Stone, he worked with three West German clients but, eventually, the needs of the business forced him to concentrate on one firm in particular. Adler-Chemiker AG. Or AdChem. It was a fast-growing pharmaceutical company, based in Munich with branches in the Far East. Lehman-Stone held a major position in the company's stock and had raised much of AdChem's start-up and expansion capital.
He was now thirty-five, doing quite well, but getting increasing heat from his Uncle Jake about not having started a family.
“Michael.. . not that I'd think any the less of you ...”
“I'm not gay, Uncle Jake.”
The Shadow Box Page 19