I went and played it. Without preamble he said, "Dad, it's Michael. Could you give me a call? Anytime, it doesn't matter. I don't know where I'll be, so call me on my cell phone…"
I jotted down the number and went back to the living room. "Whatever it is," I said, "you don't get a clue from his tone of voice, do you? It's perfectly neutral."
"There's probably an easy way to find out what he wants."
"It's almost midnight."
"Which is what, nine in California?"
"If that's where he is."
"If he's in Paris," she said, "it's six in the morning."
"Wherever you go," I said, "it's always sometime. All I have to do is pick up the fucking phone, but I don't seem to want to."
"I know. But it might be good news, honey. Maybe June's expecting another baby."
"I don't think that's it," I said, "and I don't think it's good news. But whatever it is, I might as well hear about it."
"Dad," he said. "Thanks for calling back. Listen, are you at home? The number I called before?"
"Sure, but- "
"Let me call you back. I'm getting an echo on this piece of crap."
He broke the connection, and I hung up myself and waited for the phone to ring. I suppose I ought to have a cell phone, but there's not a day goes by that I'm not glad I don't.
Elaine said, "What happened?" and I was starting to tell her when the phone rang.
"Sorry," he said. "Listen, did Andy call you?"
"No," I said. "Why?"
"I didn't think he would. He said he wasn't going to, but I thought he might have changed his mind. But I guess he didn't."
"Michael…"
"I'm sorry, Dad. He's got himself in a mess, that's all. He wouldn't call you, and he didn't want me to call you, but I felt I had to."
"What kind of a mess?"
"There's no great way to say this. He took some money."
"Stole it, you mean?"
"Technically, yes. I don't think he thought of it that way, but when you take money from your employer that you can't pay back, I guess that's stealing."
A whole slew of questions came to mind. I reached out and picked one. "How much money?"
"Ten thousand dollars."
"From his employer."
"From the company he works for, yes."
"I don't even know who he works for," I said, "or what he does."
"They're an independent auto parts wholesaler. Andy's a sort of branch manager of the Tucson operation, services some accounts, does some back office work."
"It doesn't sound like a business that would handle much cash."
"No, it's all checks. The way he did it, I don't know the details, but he evidently set up some dummy accounts and cut company checks payable to them. Then he set up a bank account where he could deposit the checks, and wrote checks from that account and cashed them through his own account."
That's one way to do it, and it always works like a charm until they catch you.
"His boss found out, and- "
"They always do."
"I know, I can't believe he was that stupid. Anyway, his boss gave him a choice. If he pays the money back before the end of the month he'll let it go. Otherwise he'll press charges, and Andy'll go to jail."
"And ten thousand's the amount he took?"
"That's what it rounds off to, and that's what he has to pay back."
"And he called you asking for the money."
"I'm the one he calls," he said.
"This has happened before."
"Not exactly."
"Not exactly? Meaning what, it wasn't auto parts and it wasn't in Tucson?"
"It was never this serious. He calls me, I don't know, every once in a while. Once or twice a year, I guess. Whenever it's him on the phone, I know he's in some kind of a jam."
"Like what?"
"He's broke, he needs money, something didn't work out. His car died and he has to get it fixed. He borrowed money from people who break your legs if you don't pay. It's always something."
"I didn't know anything about this, Michael."
"No, I'm always the one he calls."
"And you bail him out?"
"Well, he's my brother."
"Sure."
"And, like I said, it was never this serious. It's usually a thousand dollars. Sometimes it's less, and the most it ever was was twenty-five hundred."
"He calls and you send the money. Does he ever pay you back?"
"Every once in a while I'll get a check or a money order in the mail, part of what he owes me. And he's very generous at Christmas. Since Melanie was born, there's always an expensive gift for her, at Christmas and on her birthday. But as far as how we stand, well, you don't like to keep accounts with your brother."
"But you have to know where you stand."
"Well, I keep track, you know?"
"What's he into you for?"
"Something around twelve thousand dollars."
"Twelve thousand," I said.
"I feel funny saying it. June doesn't know how much it comes to. She knows I give Andy money from time to time, but not what it adds up to."
"I had no idea. I knew he was drifting, taking his time finding himself, never staying in one place too long. But it sounds like he's a fuckup."
"He's Andy, Dad. He's charming, he's funny, everybody likes him. But yeah, I don't like to say it, but he's a fuckup."
"Where does it go, Mike? Gambling? Cocaine?"
"He was betting basketball games for a while, I remember that. But I don't think he's a serious gambler. I know he's done coke from something he said once, but just in the sense that he'll take some if he's out partying, more or less to keep going. I gather there are a lot of people who do that."
Otherwise all those other people wouldn't be getting rich selling it.
"He took the ten thousand because he had this investment opportunity. I forget what it was, some new business he could buy a half-interest in if he could come up with ten grand. As a matter of fact he called me, wanted me to invest in it. I didn't pay attention to the details because I never considered it for a minute. We don't have a lot of extra dough to invest, but when we do it goes in an index fund. No glamour there, but I like that a lot better than the idea of waking up one morning and the money's gone."
"He couldn't borrow from you, so he borrowed from his boss."
"That's how he saw it."
"And he made the investment?"
"No, the deal fell apart."
"And what happened to the money?"
"He pissed it away."
"Nice."
"He was depressed because he had high hopes, you know. He's always got high hopes. But he was down, so he got to drinking, and he decided he had to spend some money to cheer himself up. He took a girl to Cancún, he traded his car for a new one."
"And now he pays up or goes to jail."
"That's right."
"What did you tell him?"
"Dad, I didn't know what to tell him. 'Mikey, I swear this is the last time, I learned a big lesson here.' What am I supposed to say, you're full of shit and I know you're full of shit? 'Mikey, you'll get it back.' Yeah, right. I work my ass off, June works as hard as I do, we got the kid, we got the house…"
"I know."
"Could I give him ten grand? Yes, I could. I'd have to sell some securities, take out a loan, but I could do it. Am I going to?" He paused, as if considering the question anew. "I said it was too much. I said I could manage half of that."
"What did he say?"