Danny smiled back. “Exactly. Whatever. You know, suddenly I’m supposed to know how to fly this thing? But you don’t have a choice.”
Galvin shook his head. “Man, I gotta hand it to you. If it wasn’t for Celina, I can’t even imagine . . .”
He beckoned Danny over to a couple of overstuffed leather chairs in front of a cluttered antique desk, where they sat. From a low table next to his chair, he lifted a glossy black lacquer box with gold lettering on top that said COHIBA BEHIKE. He lifted the lid and pulled out a couple of cigars, fat as sausages, and offered one to Danny.
Danny nodded, and the solemn ritual began. Galvin handed him a cigar cutter. Danny snipped the end of his cigar, then handed the cutter back. Galvin lit his cigar with a lighter whose hard blue flame looked like it could cut steel. He took a few puffs, and handed the lighter to Danny.
They smoked silently for a minute or so. Danny remembered why he never liked cigars. He thought about complimenting Galvin on the cigar. But what could he say, that it made him only mildly nauseated? Instead, he pointed his cigar at a wooden presentation case on the desk. Seated in a bed of red velvet flocking was a bronze medal that said COLLEGIUM BOSTONIENSE.
“You’re a distinguished alum of BC?”
He nodded. “President’s Medal for Giving a Shitload of Money.”
Danny laughed. Galvin was self-effacing about it, but he still kept the medal on display.
“Wanna know something?” Galvin finally said, contemplative. “I’m just a lucky son of a bitch. I know that sounds like some kind of bullshit false modesty, but believe me.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Ever drive somewhere and you’re pressed for time, but you just hit all the green lights, one after another? You know, boom boom boom—you just hit ’em all right? You just luck out?”
Danny nodded.
“Well, that’s me. God’s honest truth. Hand to heart.” He placed a palm over his heart. “Look up right place, right time in the dictionary, you’re gonna see my picture.”
“I doubt that, but . . . okay.”
“Now, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way. But listen to me when I tell you: I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor.”
“Let me guess which one’s better.”
“Not gonna argue with you there,” he said with a grin. He pulled something out of his inside breast pocket and handed it to Danny: a folded slip of paper.
“Here’s the favor,” Galvin said. “Take this without giving me a hard time.”
It was a check for fifty thousand dollars, written on Galvin’s personal account at J.P. Morgan Private Bank.
Danny looked up. “What’s this?”
“A year’s tuition at that damned overpriced girls’ school, plus some breathing room.”
“What—what are you . . . ?” Danny was momentarily at a loss for words.
“Lyman is Jenna’s fourth school in three years. We’ve pulled her out of Winsor and Milton and BB&N and—jeez Louise, I can’t keep ’em straight. She always falls in with a bad crowd. Or they all think she’s stuck-up. . . . The word gets out that her daddy has some money, and the kids go all Mean Girls on her. I don’t get it. Now, finally, she has a close friend who’s a really good person, and I don’t want anything to screw that up.”
“But . . . but what made you . . . how do you know . . . ?”
“I have my sources.”
Danny’s head was spinning. A few minutes ago he was weighing whether to ask Galvin for a fraction of this, and now . . . Abby must have said something to Jenna; that had to be what happened. “I can’t possibly accept this. I mean . . . and anyway, this is way more than I need.”
“So don’t spend it all.”
“I don’t know when I can pay you back. I mean, I have some money coming from my publisher . . . at some point, but I—”
“Pay when you can.”
“I—I don’t know, I’m uncomfortable about this.” Not so uncomfortable, of course, that he’d turn it away. But it seemed like the right thing to say. He recalled how upset Abby looked earlier, in the kitchen. How she’d cried when she’d opened the letter from Lyman telling her she’d have to leave school.
“For Christ’s sake, don’t get all, like, WASPy and uptight on me. You and me, we’re not like that. Believe me, I deal with guys like that all the time. I could buy and sell most of these snotty a-holes in the Financial District, but God forbid they should let me into the country club, right?”
Danny smiled and nodded. He assumed Galvin was talking about an exclusive place actually called The Country Club, outside of Boston. It sounded like he’d applied and been turned away, or been blackballed or something.
Danny nodded. “When someone told Mark Twain that Andrew Carnegie’s money was tainted, he said, it sure is—’tain’t yours and ’tain’t mine.”
Galvin guffawed. “There you go. Yeah, we come from the same place, you and me. My dad busted his butt to raise ten children. Your dad was a contractor. Neither one of us was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”
“This is incredibly generous of you.”
“Way I see it, this fifty thousand bucks won’t even fill the fuel tanks of my boat, okay? If Abby leaves Lyman, I really don’t know what the hell Jenna’s gonna do. So if you don’t think I’d spend fifty thousand dollars to ensure my daughter’s happiness, well, you don’t know me.” His stare burned into Danny’s eyes. He looked almost angry. His tone was grave. “I would consider it an honor if you would accept this.”
Danny studied the pale blue check. Tears welled up in his eyes, which usually only happened when he remembered Sarah’s last days. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
His cheeks were burning. “Do you think you could wire it instead?”
12
The fifty thousand dollars hit Danny’s bank account by noon the next day.
He checked the balance online. Refreshed his browser a few times. He wanted to make sure it was really there. That it wasn’t an illusion. It was there, and it stayed there.
It was real. Tom Galvin was as good as his word.
Fifty thousand dollars. A lot of money. Not enough to pay off everything he owed, certainly. That would be like trying to put out a house fire with a glass of water. But it would quench enough of the fire to clear a path out of the house, to let him escape the burning wreckage.
Most important, to protect Abby.
He called the Lyman Academy and asked to speak to the bursar, Leah Winokur. The woman whose calls he’d been avoiding for weeks.
She sounded surprised to hear his voice, and not pleased. He told her he was going to drop off a check when he picked Abby up in a few hours.
Haltingly, Leah Winokur replied, “I’m sorry, but today’s the deadline. Five o’clock today.”
“And I’ll see you at two thirty.”
“I’m afraid that’s going to be too late, Mr. Goodman. Technically, the funds have to be received in the school’s bank account by five o’clock today. A personal check won’t clear in time. Unless it’s a cashier’s check, or—”
“I’ll wire it to you right now,” he said. “Will that do?”
• • •
On the way home from school, he said, “Abby, I wanted to set your mind at ease. I got things straightened out with the bursar’s office.”
She let out a breath. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh, thank you, Daddy. Oh my God. Thank God.”
No, thank Galvin, he thought but didn’t say.
“I love you, Daddy,” she said in a small voice, barely audible.
“I love you, Boogie.”
At home, Abby disappeared into her room to do homework, while he sat at his laptop and tried to work on the book. Distracted, he Googled the name of the cigar Galvin and he had smoked in his study. A limited edition Cohiba Behike from Cuba. Maybe he’d buy
Galvin a box as a thank-you gift.
He did a double take. Only four thousand of these particular cigars had been produced.
They cost over four hundred dollars each.
He had smoked a cigar that cost four hundred dollars, and he didn’t even like it.
Then he Googled the single malt Galvin had poured, the 1939 Macallan 40 Year Old. And did another double take.
Over ten thousand dollars per bottle.
Abby emerged from her bedroom around seven. “What’s for supper?” she said.
“How’s pasta?”
She shrugged. “Whatever.”
The phone rang, and Abby picked it up.
“Daddy, it’s for you.” She covered the phone’s mouthpiece. “Someone from something to do with . . . stamps?”
He took the phone. “Yes?”
“Is this Daniel Goodman?” A man’s voice, cordial and professional.
“Who’s this?”
“Mr. Goodman, my name is Glenn Yeager. I’m with the United States Postal Service in Boston.”
“Um . . . yes?” he said warily. “What’s this about?”
The man laughed. “I’m with the postmaster general’s office, and one of my responsibilities is administering something called the Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee. You may have heard of it?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“Well, I’ll keep this brief. The committee meets four times a year to decide what goes on postage stamps.”
“There’s a committee for that?”
“Quite an illustrious committee, in fact. It’s made up of fifteen prominent citizens—artists, musicians, writers, corporate leaders, historians. Public figures. The meetings are held in Washington, and of course all your expenses are covered. And there’s a generous per diem for expenses.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What does this have to do with me?”
“Well, Mr. Goodman, Doris Kearns Goodwin had to drop out at the last minute—a tight book deadline, I think it was—and your name came up. We wanted a writer with expertise in American history.”
“You’re kidding.”
“The reason I’m calling at this late hour is that we need to fill this vacancy immediately. We were wondering whether you might be able to come by our offices in Boston tomorrow morning.”
“I—tomorrow?” Danny paused. “Sure, that’s fine. What time?”
“Say, eleven. And it won’t take more than half an hour. Just some routine questions for the press release and forms and what have you. I know this is terribly last-minute, but if it’s at all possible . . .”
“Sure,” Danny said. “No problem.”
“Wonderful,” Mr. Yeager said. “We’re all excited to meet you. I’m a big fan of your Kennedy book, by the way.”
“So you’re the one,” Danny said, one of his standard jokes.
Mr. Yeager chuckled, and gave directions. “One last thing,” he said. “I need to ask you to keep all this confidential until the official announcement. The government, you know.”
When he hung up, Abby said, “What was that all about?”
“Some—government committee,” he said. “They want my input on who gets put on postage stamps.” He shrugged.
Maybe the old saying was right: Good news really did come in bunches.
When it rains, it pours.
13
The next morning, Danny wrote more than he had in a year. He was on fire. His fingers flew at the keyboard, the sentences spewing out of him like tape out of one of those old stock tickers. By the time he stopped, at a few minutes after noon, he’d written eighteen pages.
It was that drink with Galvin that did it.
The way Galvin had talked about how those snooty blue-blood types had looked down on his money. Galvin, the plumber’s son who’d made a fortune, thought of himself as an outsider and always would.
Something had flicked a switch in his brain, because he finally understood Jay Gould. The problem had been that he didn’t like his subject. Because he didn’t quite understand him. But Gould was no worse, really, than any of the other business titans of his time. He gave to charity, gave money to his employees and to all sorts of people in need. He just didn’t publicize it. Jay Gould’s career was your classic rags-to-riches story. He was born on a farm in upstate New York and went to New York City with five dollars in his pocket. After he hit it big, the newspapers of the time trashed him, and he didn’t bother to defend himself. He let his enemies write his biography. That was his strategic blunder.
Buzzing with satisfaction, Danny called a taxi and got a ride to downtown Boston, to the big ugly building called One Center Plaza, where the stamp commission had its offices, along with a bunch of other government agencies. He got there fifteen minutes early. He had his laptop with him in a shoulder bag, in case he needed to do some work.
The offices were on the second floor. There was no sign on the door, just a number: 322. The gray wall-to-wall carpeting was soiled, a large blob of a stain at the threshold of the office door.
A pretty young African American secretary was sitting at a cheap-looking government-issue L-shaped mahogany-laminate reception desk. She smiled and held up an index finger to signal she’d be with him shortly. After a minute or so she said, “I’m sorry, Mr. . . . Goodman, right?”
He nodded, smiled.
“Would you like to have a seat? I’ll let them know you’re here.”
He sat in one of a row of chairs against one wall under the DEA seal, which showed a stylized eagle’s head in gold on black. Most Wanted posters lined the walls, offering MONETARY AWARDS for MAJOR TRAFFICKERS.
About two minutes later, she said, “He’ll be right out.”
The door to the inner offices opened and a squat, slump-shouldered man in an ill-fitting navy suit emerged. He had a large bald head a size too big for his body, almost no neck, and a fringe of wispy gray hair that reached his collar. With his thin downturned mouth, he vaguely resembled a frog. He had a bristly mustache and a face that bore the scars of serious teenage acne. He wore steel-rimmed bifocals and looked to be around fifty.
“Mr. Goodman, thank you for coming,” the man said. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. Special Agent Glenn Yeager.”
Danny rose slowly, and they shook hands. “Did you say ‘Special Agent’ . . . ?”
“Come on in. We’ll have a talk and I’ll explain. This shouldn’t take long at all,” the man called Yeager said, holding the door open for Danny.
They went down a long corridor. Yeager seemed to have a slight limp. The walls were curved, following the curve of the building’s façade, and painted government-agency white. The floor was covered in ugly gray indoor-outdoor carpeting.
Yeager stopped at the first open door. A man was sitting at a round conference table in a small windowless room, talking on the phone, papers and folders spread out in front of him. He put down the phone’s handset when he saw the men, and got to his feet.
“Mr. Goodman, this is Special Agent Philip Slocum.”
Slocum was slim and had shoe-polish-black hair parted on one side and an athlete’s wiry build. He was whippetlike. His face was sharp and inquisitive, foxlike, lean and lined, with a heavy five-o’clock shadow. He looked coiled, compact and restless. Instead of offering his hand, he showed Danny a black leather badge holder.
The badge was gold-colored metal. The words DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE over an eagle and, below it, the words US DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION and SPECIAL AGENT and a number.
“You guys are DEA?” Danny said. “Now I’m totally confused. What’s this got to do with postage stamps?”
“I trust you haven’t mentioned this meeting to anyone,” said Yeager. He spoke in a precise, almost scholarly tone you wouldn’t expect to emanate from that froglike mouth. He sat at the round table, and beckoned Danny to d
o the same.
Danny remained standing and gave a barely perceptible nod. “What’s going on?”
“It’s for your own protection.”
“My protection? The citizens’ stamp committee—”
“Was a pretext to get you in here, Mr. Goodman,” said Yeager. He glanced at his colleague, who slid a sheet of paper across the table to Danny.
“Do you know what this is?” Yeager said. He seemed to be the one in charge.
The paper was covered with columns of figures. At first glance it meant nothing. When he looked closer, he saw his name and his bank’s name and his checking account number.
Then: WIRE IN and a series of numbers and the words T. X. GALVIN and more numbers and $50,000.00.
“Is that your bank account?” Yeager said.
“Yes.”
“This record is accurate? Thomas Galvin paid you fifty thousand dollars?”
“He didn’t ‘pay’ me anything. It’s a loan. Anyway, what the hell kind of invasion of privacy—?”
“Do you have paperwork for this ‘loan’?”
“Paperwork? A guy lends a friend some cash, he doesn’t make you go to a notary.”
“Thomas Galvin gave you fifty thousand dollars without any paperwork?”
“He’s a friend. He trusts me.”
“I’ll bet he does,” the other one, Slocum, said. His raspy tenor had the harsh sound of metal grinding against metal. His right leg vibrated, pistoned.
“You mind telling me what this is all about?”
“Thomas Galvin is the target of a DEA investigation.”
“Drugs? You seriously think . . . ? He’s an Irish Catholic guy from Southie, for Christ’s sake.”
“Ever hear of the Sinaloa cartel?” said Yeager.
“Mexican drug ring? What about it?”
“We have reason to believe that Thomas Galvin is working on behalf of the Sinaloa cartel.”
Danny stared in disbelief. Then he erupted in laughter. “Ah, now I get it. The Mexican wife. Sure. He’s married to a Mexican woman, so he must be connected to a drug cartel. Because, of course, all Mexicans work for the drug cartels, right?”
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