"Dad?"
"Hmm?"
"What's another word for 'lucky'?"
Michael thumbed something sticking to a glass. "What can you think of?"
"Ummmm…" Billy's eyes unfocused. "Happy?"
"Well, somebody lucky would probably be happy. But do they mean the same thing?"
His son chewed his lip. "Guess not." He twiddled the pencil with his fingers, went back to staring. After a moment, he sighed. "Can I have a clue?"
"How many letters?"
Billy hesitated, then ran his finger along the crossword. "Seven, eight, nine."
"Got any of 'em?"
"It starts with an 'F.' "
"Nine letters and an 'F.' " Michael straightened. His feet ached like carpet tacks had been driven into the heels. Occupational hazard. Picking up a rag, he dried his hands. "Okay, if I'm rich, what do I have?"
"Lots of money?"
"Yeah, but what's another word for that?"
"Ummm… a 'fortune'?"
He nodded. "And what's a word like 'fortune' that means-"
RING .
It wasn't loud. Not any louder than usual, anyway. It just seemed that way.
RING .
The back of his neck tingled. Outside, a truck rumbled past, weight shaking the front windows. The towel was old and threadbare, worn soft on bar and glass, and every nerve of his fingers registered it.
RING .
He saw motion out of the corner of his eye. For a moment he stood rooted while his brain processed. Billy. Moving to answer the phone, a chore he delighted in.
That tore it.
Two quick strides brought Michael to the corner of the bar. He reached out and snatched the handset just before Billy reached it. "Mike's Place."
"Mr. Palmer." The voice was soft and precise.
Billy stared with his mouth open like he'd had his ice cream taken. Michael turned, phone cord wrapping around his side as he spun to face the mirrored wall of bottles, bourbon and scotch and whiskey bathed in the reflected glow of afternoon. "Yes."
"You know who this is?"
"Yes."
"Are you okay?"
He smoothed one palm against the leg of his pants. "Just a little nervous."
"Has something happened?"
"No. I just…" Michael squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and middle finger. "It's sinking in, you know? What we're doing. The consequences."
"If you're careful, there won't be any consequences."
"Yeah, well, easy for you to say. You're staying out of sight."
A long pause. "Are you having second thoughts?"
The liquor was arranged in stepped rows, three of them. Sunlight threw spectrums against the mirror. The expensive bottles had dust on them. Why had he even bought the Balvenie? Who in Crenwood wanted seventeen-year-old single malt? His customers were Beam-and-a-Bud guys, payday drinkers, not connoisseurs.
"Mr. Palmer?"
But then, shouldn't there be something to aspire to?
"I'm here."
"Listen, I know this is hard. I understand why you're nervous. But so long as you do just as we discussed, you'll be fine. You haven't told anyone, have you?"
"No," he lied.
"No one?"
"I said no."
"I don't mean to tell you what to do. It's just the people we're dealing with… anyone you tell you put at terrible risk."
"I understand."
"Good." There was a pause, and the rustle of papers. "The usual place?"
Michael looked over at Billy, who leaned halfway across the bar, stretching for the soda tap. His stool was canted backwards on two legs. "I've got my son."
"Just half an hour."
"It has to be right now?"
"Michael…" A dignified sigh. "There comes a time when you have to decide whether you're in or out."
He closed his eyes. "I'll be there." The bell gave a little ding as he hung up the receiver.
Billy had hooked a knee onto the bar and was leaning forward at a precarious angle.
"Hey."
His son froze, tilted his head to look up.
"How many of those have you had?"
"One?"
Michael raised an eyebrow.
"Three." Billy leaned back onto his stool and dropped his chin in one hand, then gave a theatrical sigh.
Michael laughed. "I guess one more won't kill you. Ginger ale, though, not Coke, and that's it, okay? Plus you brush your teeth when we get home."
He set the drink on the bar, then opened the corner cabinet. His wallet was brown leather, mottled with stains, the seams a mess of loose threads. Lisa had given it to him at their last Christmas together. Almost three years now. He slid it in his back pocket, grabbed his phone and keys. Straightened.
The tremor started in his belly and worked out through his whole body. He heard the words again. The people we're dealing with… anyone you tell you put at terrible risk.
He looked at Billy leaning into the crossword with the intensity of a scholar studying an ancient manuscript. His son took a sip of the ginger ale as he puzzled out a clue, lips moving. Michael fought an urge to sweep him off the stool and clutch him tight in his arms, tight and warm and safe.
This is crazy.
It wasn't too late. He hadn't done anything that couldn't be undone. Hell, not even undone – it hadn't gone that far. All he had to do was not take another step. Blow off this meeting, and when the phone rang again, say that he had changed his mind.
"Dad?"
"Hmm?"
"What's a four-letter word for 'obligation'?"
Michael laughed. Sometimes that was all you could do.
November 13, 1995
The machines do not beep, not like medical shows on TV. Mostly, they hum with soft fans. There is a faint suction sound from the one helping his mother breathe.
Jason sits on the monkey bars and watches the sun set the city on fire and thinks about that suction sound. The sky is crimson and gold; the metal is cold through his jeans.
She has been in Cook County for weeks, and every day he and Michael have gone to visit. They sit on opposite sides of her bed – her body – slumped in comfortless chairs. Sometimes they talk, but not for long. She is tired, and drifts away in the middle of senseless sentences. The pills. But without them, the lines of her jaw draw tight and her eyes glisten with moisture.
Jason sits on the monkey bars and thinks of driving Michael's car late at night on the Kennedy, pedal to the floor, the old Chevy rattling like it wants to come apart, the rush of daring it to. He thinks about Terry O'Loughlin, Sweet T, about her long brown hair and lean thighs, and the smell of the back of her neck and the sound she makes when he kisses the spot between her breasts. He thinks about screaming guitars and Pequod's pizza with hot peppers and the high that shivers up his thighs when he runs for an hour. He thinks about swimming deepinto the lake, the water colder with every stroke until he's sure his chest will shatter in the frigid blackness.
None of it drowns out the suction sound. None of it helps him forget that he and Michael should have left thirty minutes ago if they wanted to make visiting hours.
When his older brother finds him, the sun has fallen too low to see, though the sky still glows. Jason watches Michael draw steadily closer. He wonders what his brother will say. He wonders if today is the day his mother will die, and if he will forever regret not going to see her. He wonders if life will ever seem like it belongs to him again.
Michael stops in front of Jason's dangling feet. He sighs.
Then he reaches for a grip and pulls himself up to his stomach, spins, and drops down next to Jason, the impact making the cold metal vibrate.