“No,” I said, resisting the urge to start laying the groundwork for our inevitable postsplit child battles. I figured there would be time enough for that when this was all over. “It’s my fault, all of it. I’ve been a jerk.”
“But you’ve always been a jerk, Dad,” said Shelby. “That’s you.”
“Thank you, sweetie. Look, that’s not what I want to talk about. Your mom and I will figure things out eventually, but right now that’s between us. What I want to talk about is why you’ve been stuck here for these few days without phone or e-mail.”
“It’s not so bad,” said Shelby.
“Really?” I said.
“I thought I’d go crazy without a phone, but it’s so calm. And I sort of like Mathilda in a weird way.
“Speak for yourself,” said Eric. “That lady creeps me out.”
“She’s okay,” said Shelby. “She taught me how to make biscuits.”
“Biscuits?”
“Yeah, can you imagine?”
“No,” I said.
“She asked me if I was a sinner,” said Eric. “I told her not yet, but I’m only eleven, give me time.”
“Even Mom laughed at that,” said Shelby.
“But there has been no phoning or e-mailing, right? You’re not doing anything that can give your location away, are you?”
“We’re not stupid, Dad,” said Shelby.
“I know you’re not, sweetie.”
“We just go to the library and read.”
“But no phones.”
“No, I promise.”
“Okay, here’s the story. A long time ago, when I was just a bit older than Shelby, some friends and I discovered a stash of money. I mean a lot of it. And we took it, just like that.”
“You stole it?” said Eric.
“Sort of.”
“How cool is that?” said Eric.
“No, it wasn’t cool.”
“Sort of stealing,” said Shelby. “Is that sort of like being pregnant?”
“Well, sort of means it wasn’t really anybody’s money. It was drug money. The guys we took it from made it selling drugs. To kids. In schoolyards. They had no more right to it than we did.”
“So it wasn’t stealing?” said Shelby.
“It was like Grand Theft Auto,” said Eric, “where everyone is bad so you can do whatever you want?”
“We didn’t shoot hookers and steal cars,” I said.
“But you stole something,” said Eric.
“Did the people you took it from think it was stealing?” said Shelby.
“Oh, yes. And that’s what’s going on right now. They’re looking for it. And they think I still have it.”
“And do you?”
“Not much of it anymore. I spent most of it. On us, I mean. The house, the cars.”
“And your strippers?” said Shelby.
“Strippers?” said Eric. “You really are the Batman.”
“No, I’m not. And I know it’s a disappointment to you, Shelby, but I actually don’t like strip clubs. I’d rather go to a ball game.”
“So, you bought all our stuff with drug money?” said Shelby.
“Some of it, I guess. Though I didn’t make it selling drugs.”
“But still,” said Shelby.
“Look, I was young and stupid.”
“But you weren’t young when you were buying, like, cars with it. That was, like, last week.”
“No, I was just stupid then.”
“This is all pretty cool, Dad,” said Eric. “You’re an outlaw. I can’t wait to tell Teddy.”
“No, it’s not cool, and I’m not an outlaw, and you’re not telling anyone. The truth is, I’m just another idiot who screwed up badly. Everything would have been better if we just left it alone.”
“So it was stealing,” said Shelby.
Here’s a new rule to live by. If you can’t justify your actions to your kids without sounding like a fool, then all your little rationalizations are nothing so much as puffs of wind dying at the mountain’s edge. And it’s true whether you’re stealing drug money from a basement, or selling subprime mortgages to people who can’t afford them, or betting other people’s life savings on credit-default swaps.
Fortunately, before I tried to wade again into the untenable, my cell phone rang and saved me from the humiliation.
“Give me a minute,” I said to my kids before heading to the ocean’s edge, where the surf could drown out my conversation. This call wasn’t coming into my original phone, or the phone I had used to call Clevenger on the way south from Philadelphia—those were both long gone. The phone that rang had a number I had given to only one person. I looked at it a bit to steel my nerves, and then pressed the ANSWER button.
“Is this Mr. Moretti?” An older voice, solid and discreet, like a concierge at the Hotel Adultery.
“The name’s Willing,” I said. “Jon Willing.”
“Call yourself anything you want,” he said. “I’m phoning from the offices of Talbott, Kittredge, and Chase, Mr. Willing. We’re a law firm in Philadelphia.”
“You don’t need to identify yourself to me,” I said. “My mother got the occasional missive from Talbott, Kittredge, and Chase during our darkest days in the wilderness. You’re the Willing family firm, specializing in disinheritance and body bags.”
“We’re just lawyers, Mr. Willing.”
“And Al Capone just sold a little beer.”
“We have some information for you, but first we’re going to put you on a recorded line. Is that acceptable?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No.”
“Then knock yourself out.”
“Thank you.”
There was a pause, and then a click, and then another pause, followed by the man giving the time and date.
“Now, you claim to be Jonathon Willing, is that right?” said the man.
“It’s the truth,” I said.
“We won’t dispute that for purposes of this conversation, Mr. Willing, though we admit to nothing. And you’ve been made aware that this conversation is being recorded, isn’t that correct?”
“So you said.”
“Very good. Now, Mr. Willing, our understanding is that you are intending today to renounce all claims you might have against the estate of Montgomery Willing III or of his son Preston Willing, is that correct?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On what I get in return.”
“Mr. Willing, you made a request, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“And you relayed that request to Montgomery Willing at the Philadelphia Country Club, is that not correct?”
“Yes.”
“And now, in full consideration of his efforts to meet that request, and for the payment of one dollar, which will be sent forthwith to your address in Virginia, you are intending today to renounce all claims against the aforementioned estates, isn’t that correct?”
“What did you find?”
“What we found is not under discussion at the moment. We have made a good-faith effort to satisfy your request. We are also sending you the dollar. If that is sufficient consideration to renounce all possible claims, please say so on the recording. If not, our business here is at an end.”
“You’re not going to tell me what you found?”
“Not until this part is clarified.”
“Okay, I accept. I renounce.”
“And you are renouncing all claims not only for yourself, but also for all of your issue, for all of time. Is that acceptable?”
I glanced at Shelby and Eric clowning in the sand, thought of that old man at the club, and I said, “Good riddance.”
“Just say yes or no, please.”
“Yes.”
“And you admit that your claim to be a relation of Montgomery Willing III is fraudulent.”
“No.”
“Excuse me? Need we try this again?”
�
��No, the only thing fraudulent is that old bastard. I don’t want his money, but I’m his grandson. And he knows it. And you checked the DNA already, or the marriage records, or something, or we wouldn’t be having this discussion, so you know it, too. And let me ask you, how does it feel to so blithely slice off a member of your client’s family tree?”
“It’s what we do, Mr. Willing.”
“So said Al Capone on Valentine’s Day. Anything else?”
“There are a few more things we need to go over.”
“No, there aren’t. I’m done. Give me what I want or I’m coming back to Philadelphia. The press always likes to blat out the scandals of the aristocracy. I can see the headline in the Daily News: ‘Disowned Scion Ready and Willing.’”
“There is no need for publicity here.”
“Heaven forbid.”
“We’re going to end the recording now, is that acceptable?”
“Let’s keep it going. We’re having so much fun.”
A pause, a click, another pause.
“It’s off,” he said.
“All right, bub. What do you have for me?”
“We have an address for you, Mr. Moretti.”
“Willing.”
“Whatever. It’s not the exact address of the man you’re looking for, but it’s the next-best thing. A contact number buried deep within the files of the Department of Justice. It was quite hard to obtain, quite expensive. You should be grateful to your grandfather.”
“That’s like being grateful to a scorpion. It doesn’t matter how grateful you are, he’d still sting you just because he can. Let me have it.”
“The number itself won’t be much help. It’s the number for a local US Marshals Service office, most likely the office charged with keeping tabs on the protected witness. Will that address help?”
“It’s a start.”
“Good. Two-Ninety-Nine East Broward Boulevard.”
“East Broward? What is that, Florida?”
“Fort Lauderdale,” he said.
“Son of a bitch,” I said. And suddenly, the one thing that had puzzled me through the whole of this mess became clear. “Son of a bitch.”
“Is that valuable to you, Mr. Moretti?”
“It’ll do,” I said. “Now, can you relay something to my grandfather for me?”
“Off the record?”
“Yes, definitely off the record.”
“That can be arranged.”
I looked at my kids staring at me as I stared at them. The scene blurred, like a film had been placed over a lens to soften the image.
“Tell my grandfather thank you.”
“Of course.”
“And tell him that I love him, still. That I always have. And that I miss my father.”
By the time I left the ocean’s edge and reached my children I thought I had gotten myself under control, but that was a mirage.
“Dad?” said Shelby, as if she was seeing an apparition, and I suppose she was. What could be more ghostly than watching your father cry? How could my children know that I was finally mourning my own father’s death?
“Is everything okay?” said Eric.
“Of course everything’s not okay,” said Shelby. “Look at him.”
“He’s crying, so what?” said Eric. “If I have to spend another day in this pit I’ll be crying, too.”
“What’s wrong, Dad?” said Shelby.
“It’s nothing,” I said, my jaw trembling still. I reached out and hugged them. “It’s just that I love you both so much. And I screwed up so badly. And worst of all, now I have to go to Florida.”
IV. EVERFAIR
“Have you ever noticed, boys, everyone who finds themselves living in Florida ends up dying?”
—Augie Iannucci
41. The Final Third
I WAS ALONE in the room I had rented in Fort Lauderdale. The refrigerator rumbled like it was still digesting. The faucet in the kitchenette dripped liked a Chinese torturer: drip, drip, nothing, drip. There was a brown hot plate, a mold-stained shower I wouldn’t walk into without boots, two beds with stained plaid covers, a television with a picture tube that painted everything a sickly shade of green. This is what I had done to myself, this is what my existence had been whittled down to: scratching my skin raw in the Sea Queen Motel. The way things were going, there was a pretty good chance that this was the first day of the rest of my life.
And I had earned every inch of it.
Outside the traffic poured through the sunlight with bleats and roars up and down Atlantic Avenue. There was an apartment building across the street and beyond the apartment building another, finer motel and then the beach. The lovely beach. If only they didn’t have so damn much of it. I sat with the lights off, in a tattered chair, facing the doorway, waiting. When I left Kitty Hawk I had been filled to the brim with a host of emotions, and not all of them were negative, emotions like hope and love and even a twist of optimism. But the positive emotions had been burned out of me by the reality of the situation facing me now, and I was stewing in a toxic mix of anger, fear, and self-loathing as I waited.
The trip down the day before had been sixteen hours in Harry’s truck. I had been battered in Vegas, I had been in a brutal collision in Virginia, I had been cracked and beaten like a scrambled egg in Pitchford, where my chest and stomach had been purpled with bruises, and still all of it had been just a prelude to the pounding I took in Harry’s truck. We had showed up in Fort Lauderdale well after midnight, cruised the strip until we saw a VACANCY sign, and bought this hole for a couple of nights. Sixty-five a day, snapping bugs included for no extra charge. Harry, though, seemed to like the accommodations. “Living like princes,” he had said before collapsing in his bed and snoring gloriously through the rest of the night. I understood, I had been in his boat. But I hadn’t slept as soundly, tossing and turning and scratching until the night bled into the bleary morning.
When Harry finally awoke with a snort and a start, we found a diner and ate our hash and eggs as we hashed out our plans. “Any questions?” I said.
“Not that I can think of,” said Harry, “though thinking was never my strong suit. You mind I take a couple beers with me while I wait, just for the company?”
I looked at my watch. “It’s not even noon.”
“Just for the company, Johnny, not for any real drinking.”
“Do whatever you want. You’re about all I’ve got left to trust, so I’ll trust you’ll take care of business.”
“You know I will, Johnny. With me, business is business, and beer is still just beer. I’d drink water if it wasn’t so damn wet.”
“I don’t know exactly what he’ll look like. It’s been a long time.”
“I got enough to find him, don’t you worry.”
“And don’t scare him or anything, keep it nice and calm. Just show him what I gave you to show him and don’t let him make a call before you bring him back to the motel.”
“And if the varmint don’t want to come?”
“You show him what I gave you to show him and he’ll come.”
There was really only one way to play it anymore, which was why I was waiting in the motel room while Harry did the legwork. It wasn’t enough that we had ditched my car. I had made it clear to Clevenger that I was coming for Derek and now we knew that Derek was here. If Holmes had my picture, they all had my picture, and who knows how many of them were trolling Fort Lauderdale looking for me. But Harry, an old beaten-down drunk in an old beaten-down truck, could float through the city as unnoticed as a hyena on Wall Street. He could go to the house and wait, he could follow, he could make contact, he could say just what I told him to say and show what I told him to show in order to lure our quarry to this motel room, where I waited.
“What are you going to do?” Caitlin had asked just before Harry and I left Kitty Hawk.
“End it one way or the other.”
“How long will you be?”
“Not too long. Either it
happens or it doesn’t.”
“We won’t be here when you’re finished.”
“I know.”
“I went a little crazy last night.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
She looked at me and sighed. I had seen that same look before, and that same sigh, from every girl who ever broke up with me. “Just make the deal, Jonathon. Just end it.”
“If I trusted the man on the other side, I would. But I don’t. My grandfather gave me another option and I’m going to take it. I’ll call you when we get down there, just so you know we’ve arrived.”
“We won’t leave until you do.”
“Are you ready to start over?”
“Yes, I am,” she said.
“With me or without me?”
“Nothing’s changed.”
“What about last night?”
“What about it, Jonathon?”
“It was something, wasn’t it?”
“Something like good-bye,” she said.
“It would be different with us from now on, you know that.”
“But that’s not enough, is it?”
And she was right, it wasn’t enough just to be different. What kind of husband and lover would I be, shorn of my secret? A bigger bore than I was already? Just like every other father at the Little League games, just like every other parent at the choral concerts, just like Thad? Was that what she wanted? Evidently.
And yet still, even in the squalid Sea Queen Motel with its hot- and cold-running chiggers, I was clear-eyed enough to see in this whole brutal crisis not just danger but opportunity, too. With my secret blown, and my whole life at risk, I had the opportunity to re-create my marriage, my relationship with my children, to re-create myself and my future. I had spent the last twenty-five years dreading exactly this moment, and yet now that it was here it felt less like a curse than like a benediction. Augie was crying in his last days, so said Selma, and I understood. How long had he felt trapped by his life? Twenty-five years and running, no doubt. And so had I, in a way I had never seen before, but not anymore. It had all come crashing down at the exact right moment.
But why now? That was what had puzzled me through all of this. They had found us out, fine, maybe it was inevitable, but why at this moment? There had to be a singular event that cascaded into disaster. I tried to learn what I could from Clevenger, but he was just a shade. I had thought Tony Grubbins would have the answer, but the only answers he had were in The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It was all a mystery, until my grandfather gave me his gift of information and sent me hurtling down to Fort Lauderdale. I now knew who could tell me what I needed to know. And that’s whom I was waiting for.
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