In the course of this mercenary journey, he discovered a fundamental truth: it was just as easy to sell fine champagnes and wines to high-end clientele as beer to post-adolescents.
By now, with most of his properties sold off and just a couple of flagship restaurants that he kept for show and various tax purposes, Brown was basically retired. His primary task was the daily monitoring of his vast fortune, most of it in stocks, some in bonds and commodities, and some in real estate.
It was the latter category that brought him to this place. In Alexander Cantrell, Brown had sensed a little bit of himself. True, Cantrell was an architect, perhaps even an artist—and he detested that too—but Brown could forgive him for that. He believed in his vision, and Brown suspected that Cantrell had some of the same skill for seeing beyond the curve. Perhaps most important, he had the balls to pull it off.
That’s why Brown was a significant investor in the Exeter. He liked the symmetry of living in a place he partially owned, with the inevitable headaches belonging to somebody else. Needless to say, he had no doubt that the development would bring him profit.
Profit, in the end, was Stu Brown’s family, his creed, his purpose in life.
Poverty was a lingering demon; a nightmare stalker always snapping at his heels. One stumble, the slightest slip, and it would be on him, devouring him whole.
His childhood had been one of empty bellies and bone-chilling nights in a Brooklyn tenement; of insects that lived in the kitchen and rats that shared his bedclothes.
His father had skipped town by the time he was two. It was only him and his mother, who was often away from home working two jobs, sometimes even three, just to put food on the table.
By the time Brown was 14, he was already working; emptying barrels of grease for neighborhood restaurants. He paid for some of the food and utilities by 16. At 18, he was paying all the bills. Tough, physically demanding, low-paying jobs, but he learned so much from them.
The most abiding lesson? That, in the end, he could only rely on himself.
When he was 20, he held his last job as bar-back in a popular jazz joint. He washed dishes and glasses, replenished liquor bottles, slung buckets of ice, emptied the trash for bartenders, and learned a few things about alcohol. He grew fascinated with the profit potential in the liquor trade; that each bottle could be marked up as high as a thousand percent, and that no matter what was going on in the outside world, economically, socially or politically, people would always be thirsty for booze. And willing to pay a premium for it.
Brown showed an inherent skill for negotiation, in convincing the elderly owner of the Clown’s Tears Lounge to turn the business over to him for $1,000 and a share of the profits.
It was a very inauspicious beginning. The bar was a dive, a hangout for neighborhood lushes and lounge lizards. Two months later, renamed the Yellow Pages, the place was packed seven nights a week.
He dove into his destiny with a vengeance. The Yellow Pages was only the beginning. Nothing would stand in his way.
Success followed success, each one greater than the last, none truly satisfying his hunger. His three wives were no more successful in keeping him happy, nor were his houses, his cars or his press clippings.
But happiness had never been Stu Brown’s goaclass="underline" Keeping the wolves at bay was the only thing that ever mattered. He couldn’t hear them yelping or howling, but they were always there, always waiting.
And he’d never stopped fearing them.
5
The psychiatrist, Sharon Knaster, took in the view. “It’s fantastic!” she gushed. “I absolutely love what you’ve done with the place.”
Sharon was being polite. In reality, the flat in which Su Ling and her daughter resided was sparse, especially compared to other units in the Exeter. There was no expensive furniture or art, no state-of-the-art electronics, no Persian rugs, no evidence that an interior decorator had ever set foot in the place.
Over the fireplace was a simple color photograph of the family—what used to be the family—Su Ling, her daughter Anna, and Quan.
There were other mementos: etchings of Asian folklore scenes, an American flag, a framed copy of Su Ling’s and Quan’s citizenship papers. The American decor heavily outweighed the Asian, which was not accidental. The Nugyens were intensely proud of their adopted homeland, and only faintly nostalgic for their native Vietnam.
“How’s our patient this morning?” Sharon asked, getting down to business.
Su Ling attempted a smile and shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t need to say what the gesture signified: Same as always.
Sharon sighed and made her way to the bedroom. She carried a large black valise. It always reminded Su Ling of old-fashioned doctors making house calls in the dead of night.
She creaked open the door.
Anna lay on the carpet, staring blankly at the gray sky outside the window. There was a look in her eyes that struck Sharon as profound sadness, although her professional caution prevented her from rushing to such conclusions.
Anna’s toys lay untouched on their shelves, alongside an impressive collection of neglected juvenile books. The perfect neatness of the room was broken only by a simple pad of paper and a pencil which sat next to the girl, as if waiting to be used.
She really is beautiful. Sharon closed the door behind her. Just like her mother.
Sharon opened her valise, produced several medical tools, and began with a cursory physical examination of the child—pupils, heartbeat, blood pressure—all of which indicated remarkable physical health and strength. Throughout, the girl was passive, almost pliant, like a plastic action figure.
Sharon followed up with a series of stock questions, meaningless in and of themselves; designed to provoke specific responses in the subject.
As usual, there were none. The girl did make limited eye contact when questions were put to her, but there was no sign of cognitive response, nor did she open her mouth to speak.
Anna was not typical of Sharon’s patients. In fact, she was the only child the psychiatrist was seeing. The idea of having children as patients was depressing to Sharon. She had believed in a naïve notion—that children were like flowers, innocent, beautiful and pure. She just couldn’t handle the idea that they could be anything else.
She still wasn’t sure why she made an exception nine months ago when Su Ling had begged her for help.
It was only three months after the accident, and the child had made no progress in the care of other specialists. She remained unresponsive, apathetic. Perhaps the challenge that Anna posed made Sharon bend her own rules.
Sharon’s field of specialty was Alzheimer’s and dementia. Her expertise in this area was renowned. She’d published several papers in prestigious journals and taken home half a dozen national awards. Her waiting list for new patients was six months long.
The diseases in which she specialized were most often associated with the elderly. Her patients, in virtually all cases, were terminal. All Sharon was able to do for them was provide comfort for their families and perhaps, in the luckier cases, alleviate some of their symptoms. It was a rewarding profession, but certainly not a hopeful one.
Hope was what Anna offered.
There was something in the girl’s catatonic stare, something in the way she glided her pencil over the paper—with passion and a focus only she could see—that hinted at a possible breakthrough. There was a certain logic, perhaps even the hint of form, to the girl’s scribblings, which had begun only a few weeks ago. The drawings intrigued Sharon, who took many of them home and studied them at length. They were all different, all abstract, without apparent meaning.