“I should probably get some sleep,” Eddie said.

  “You worked a double today,” she said, and she smiled. “So I know you aren’t going in early tomorrow.”

  After one round at a bar down the street, they took a cab to her apartment on the Upper West Side, where they kissed for a few minutes on her couch, until she got up to get them each a beer from the fridge. When Eddie woke the next morning in her bed, fully dressed, he had only the vaguest memories of her shaking him lightly awake on the couch and leading him there. She was gone, but he found a note on the bedside table: Had to go to class. You looked like you needed the sleep. Help yourself to anything in the fridge, and call me if you want to meet up later.

  On their third date, Eddie told Kara everything. He hadn’t planned to do it, but it all came out naturally after she asked about his family. When he told her, she knew exactly who they were, which made everything easier, because so much followed from that. She already knew about Frank’s firing and Kit’s arrest. She knew about Justin. She’d gone to hear him speak once when she was still an analyst.

  Telling her about his role in Justin’s arrest meant telling her about the money, which in turn meant telling her about Nash. She’d seen the ads on the subway and the bus stop near the hospital, but she couldn’t believe that they were all his work.

  “I put one up right across the street from my apartment,” he said. “I thought it would make him happy to see it. Now it looks in at me all night while I’m trying to sleep.”

  “That’s terrible,” Kara said, but she started to laugh.

  Eddie had been thinking a lot about how she would react to the story, but he’d never imagined she’d find it funny. Watching her laugh, he could see the cosmic justice to it, and he started laughing, too. It made everything slightly more manageable.

  “I haven’t really slept in almost a month.”

  “Good news,” Kara said. “It’s October 31. Only one night to go. After that, either the world will end, or the billboard will come down.”

  “I’m not sure I can make it one more night,” he told her, no longer laughing.

  “More good news. You’ve got someplace else to stay.”

  They were both on the noon-to-eight the next day, and they spent a lazy morning at Kara’s apartment before heading in together. The few hours after they woke were the happiest Eddie had experienced since Nash’s disappearance.

  He was back in Rob’s cube that day, and they were the first in line. They’d been on for only a few minutes when a call came in. A homeless man had thrown himself into traffic on Fifth Avenue, near the public library. He was still conscious, drunk but not seriously hurt, which was why the fire department had passed on the call.

  Rob drove straight crosstown on Seventy-Second, swerving occasionally into oncoming traffic to get through red lights. Eddie listened to the siren whining above them and felt a sense of great well-being, as though he was doing what he’d been born to do. They turned down Fifth and moved quickly through traffic to Forty-Eighth, where they arrived at a wall of cars. A cop was directing traffic over to Madison, and he stepped out to open the bus lane for them. In front of them a cab was stuck half in the lane, so it was impossible to get past. Rob got on the mike to shout the cab out of his way, and it pulled up another six inches, just enough for them to get around. Once they’d shot through the bottleneck, all of Fifth opened in front of them. The only car in the street for the next twenty blocks was the cab that had hit the man. A scrum of onlookers near it hid the man himself from view, and Eddie could see a cop struggling to keep them at bay. Most of them turned when the ambulance emerged from the traffic. They cleared out as Rob pulled the cube alongside the cab, stopping it in the middle of the street.

  The first thing Eddie noticed as the man came into view was the book on the ground beside him. One of his father’s baseball books. A strange thing for a homeless man to be carrying. Just as this was sinking in, Eddie spotted the dress pants. One leg was brown with blood, and the foot below it was twisted in an awkward direction, so that Eddie could see the heel of it, where he read the name of an old Italian cobbler. He was too shocked at first to say anything, and as he brought himself under control he was stopped by an odd kind of reticence. He looked up from the leg to the stubbled face and sunken cheeks, and he waited for a sign of recognition, but in the eyes he saw only the frightened expression of an injured man.

  “Dad,” he said.

  Rob and the cop both stopped and looked at Eddie. Only Frank failed to respond to the word.

  “Fuck,” the cop answered.

  Eddie got down on his knees, placing himself at his father’s eye level. Frank still looked back blankly. Eddie felt suddenly embarrassed, as though the others might think he’d been lying.

  “Dad,” he said again.

  Now Frank looked right at him.

  “What?” he responded, as though a stranger had spoken his name.

  With surprising tenderness, Rob put a hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

  “We need to take vitals.”

  Eddie took his kit from his shoulder bag and went to work. Temperature was low, pulse elevated, breathing rate slow, but none of it dangerously. Frank was obviously in shock, and Eddie suspected that the leg was badly broken, but they would make it to the hospital all right.

  “You’re going to be fine,” he said.

  “What would you—”

  Before Frank could finish, Rob was beside them with the splint, starting to stabilize the broken leg.

  “Let’s get the board,” Rob said when they were done.

  They pulled the gurney from the back of the cube and wheeled it over. Eddie thought of his father as such a large man, and his instinct was to ask the cop for help in moving him, but as they slid the draw sheet under him Eddie realized that Frank had turned thin and fragile. They got him on the gurney and wheeled him to the cube, where Eddie put on an oxygen mask while Rob opened Frank’s shirt and applied the 12-lead ECG. They loaded him inside, and Eddie climbed into the cube behind him. Rob closed the doors and walked around to the driver’s seat. As the sirens went on and the cube started moving, Eddie reached out for his father’s hand.

  Frank looked over at him, and Eddie thought he saw a first hint of recognition. Frank tried to speak, but the flow of oxygen seemed to send the words back down his throat. He swatted in frustration at the mask until Eddie gently lifted it from his face.

  “What?” Frank said again.

  “Dad,” Eddie told him. “It’s me.”

  “What would you change?”

  “About what?”

  “What would you change?”

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”

  “If you knew?”

  All at once it came to Eddie, and he didn’t want to hear it again. As if this desire had acted in the world, the cube was filled with the urgent beeping of the ECG and the oximeter.

  “What’s going on back there?” Rob asked.

  “He’s going,” Eddie yelled. For the first time in almost a decade of emergencies, he felt himself panicking. He wanted to be told what to do.

  “If you knew,” Frank said.

  “We’re almost there,” Rob yelled. He looked briefly over his shoulder. “Put his fucking oxygen on.”

  “If you knew it was all going to,” Frank said as Eddie let go of the mask, which snapped over Frank’s mouth, swallowing forever the last word.

  4.

  He’d been completely unprepared when they came for him. Of course he’d expected it eventually, but he’d assumed he would have some time. The FBI would want to build their case, corroborate what he’d told Kit. They had no reason to imagine that he knew about the recording—if he’d known, why would he have confessed? Maybe they would tap his phone, try to get something on Eisen out of it. Later he learned that Kit had disappeared after the meeting and thrown her wire out. The Feds were worried that she’d run off to warn him, and they’d moved in before he could destroy any evidence. But he’d known none of this that night.

  They’d come prepared to break their way in, but they didn’t even have to knock. His apartment was the only one on his floor, and the elevator didn’t stop there without a key, so he often left the front door unlocked. Once the doorman let them up, all they had to do was turn the knob. When they’d charged down the hall with their guns out, Justin honestly thought they were going to kill him. If they could do it on Eastern Parkway, why not Fifth Avenue? He’d never been so scared in his life. They surrounded him on the living room couch, and in his rush to get his hands above his head, he poured half a glass of red wine on his white shirt. Looking at the stain, he imagined he’d already been shot. They stood him up, cuffed him, and brought him downstairs.

  At least his mother hadn’t been forced to cower in a corner while they dragged him off. In her apartment upstairs, she would tell him later, she hadn’t noticed the helicopter spotlight pouring through her park-facing windows. Hugh called up to her after Justin was walked out of the lobby, and she’d turned on the TV just in time to see the police car pull away. At the station, he asked his lawyer to tell her he’d be home the next day and explain everything. She was a strong woman, she wasn’t going to collapse in a heap, but beyond that he wasn’t sure how she would take it.

  When he explained what he’d done, she almost seemed to have been expecting it, as though she’d known that wealth of the kind he’d acquired must always be accompanied by some crime. Perhaps this explained his parents’ long-standing resistance to living with him: they hadn’t wanted to be implicated.

  “We didn’t need all this,” she said. “You didn’t have to do it.”

  He might have told her some of the things that Eisen had told him—that things had always been done this way in their world, that the rules really existed to exclude people like them, that there was a kind of justice on their side. But this all seemed paltry when placed in the light of her implacable expression.

  “I know,” he said.

  “All I wanted was for you to be safe.”

  “I’ll be safe,” he said. “They’re going to make sure I’m sent to a place that isn’t too bad. I’m telling them everything I know.”

  Netta wrapped her arms around him and briefly cried, but she brought herself quickly back under control.

  “You’ve got to stay on the righteous path now,” she said. “I might not be around when you get out, but I want to know that we’re heading to the same place.”

  “You’ve got a lot of years left,” Justin insisted. “We’re going to have plenty of time together.”

  He really believed this. By the time he was released, she would be in her mid-sixties. But she didn’t seem to need his reassurances.

  “Just stay on the path from here,” she said. “I want you to talk with the pastor about all this.”

  Justin had no desire to see Jonathan, let alone to talk with him about his life, but he would do anything to make his mother feel better. He would have preferred to meet at the church, so that he could minimize social niceties and leave when he wanted, but he didn’t much feel like facing the reporters outside his building. He certainly didn’t feel like leading them to Crown Heights so that they could put a picture of the Pathway on page one and speculate about the state of his soul. He agreed to a meeting at the apartment.

  Jonathan arrived right on time, dressed in a black suit and a clerical collar. He’d spent many afternoons upstairs with Netta, but he’d never been down to Justin’s before, and he didn’t seem especially impressed by what he saw. Perhaps when he looked around he sensed only the wages of sin.

  “Can I get you something?” Yoyo asked after letting him in.

  Justin expected him to ask for some water, or maybe a beer.

  “I’ll take a whiskey on the rocks.”

  Jonathan sat down comfortably on the couch to wait for his drink. He’d grown into his role over the years, Justin thought. He had some of his Elder George’s presence, if not his charisma, which probably could not be learned. Was he happy he’d followed in the man’s footsteps? Did he worry as much as Justin did about what his father would think of the life he’d made?

  Justin asked Yoyo for the same and took a seat on the other couch. He wasn’t sure what would happen now. Was he supposed to make some kind of confession? He’d more or less done that when he’d said everything out loud at Eddie’s apartment, and he would have to do it again when he made the sworn statement that would be used for his plea agreement. He couldn’t see what would be gained by repeating it all now, and he wasn’t sure how much Jonathan would understand anyway. It seemed superfluous. Hadn’t God heard everything the first time?

  “Brother Justin,” Jonathan said. “I was hoping I’d hear from you.”

  “My mother wanted me to call,” Justin said.

  “She’s a good woman,” Jonathan replied. “She’s proud of you.”

  Justin didn’t like the idea of his mother talking about him with Jonathan, even to express her pride.

  “I want her to be happy. She thinks I’m on the right path now, and I want that to be true. But I can’t pretend to believe something I don’t believe, not if being on the right path means living honestly.”

  “You don’t have to pretend anything,” Jonathan assured him. “Let’s just talk. Everything that passes between us stays between us.”

  Their drinks arrived, and they each took a long sip before Jonathan continued.

  He started telling Justin about some kind of service he wanted to hold for him. He called it a “prison wake,” as though part of Justin had died and would now be memorialized. He was vague on exactly what it would entail, except that it should take place right before Justin went away and wouldn’t require any declaration of faith. All Justin had to do was show up at the appointed hour and leave himself open to the experience.

  “It will be a good way for the community to say goodbye,” Jonathan explained, as though Justin were still part of the community, still living down the block, sitting in a pew every Sunday morning. “It might help you to know that you aren’t alone, that you’ve got people on the outside.”

  “Give me some time to think about it,” Justin said, though he already knew what his answer would be. He had no intention of going back into that place.

  “I don’t have to tell you that you’re not the first brother from the neighborhood to go away. I’ve spent a lot of time doing prison ministry. Maybe I can give you some sense of what to expect.”

  Justin was headed to a minimum-security lockup as part of the deal he’d worked out by saving the government the cost of a trial. He didn’t think he’d have to worry about skinheads or shower rape or whatever else Jonathan was used to hearing at Rikers prayer groups, but he was happy to fill the time.

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “The biggest thing people tell me about isn’t the fear of violence. It isn’t the gangs. It isn’t the bad food or the lack of privacy. It isn’t even missing people outside. I hear about a loss of dignity. I hear about despair. When you’re given a number and treated as nothing but that number, it’s easy to think of yourself that way. When you live in a place designed to make you feel worthless, it’s easy to do just that. But you’re not a number, and you’re not worthless. You are a child of God.”

  He’d obviously made this speech before, and he was good at it, but Justin didn’t think it applied all that well in his case. Perhaps Jonathan recognized the thought somehow in Justin’s expression, because he sat up suddenly and looked around the room, as though he’d only just noticed where he was.

  “I must sound pretty silly warning a guy with a hundred million in the bank about feeling worthless.”

  Justin laughed.

  “A little bit,” he admitted.

  “Well, I’ve got bad news for you,” Jonathan said somewhat fiercely. “Where you’re going, you’re no better than any other nigger with a rap sheet.” Justin had never heard Jonathan say the word in the thirty-five years they’d known each other, and he was visibly struck by it. Having produced the desired effect, Jonathan leaned back with a smile. “The good news is that in the house of God, you’re no worse than one, either.”

  “I don’t believe in God,” Justin said simply.

  “That’s all right,” Jonathan answered. “God still believes in you.”

  He smiled again, this time a bit sheepishly, as though he knew this was a weak response but couldn’t quite break himself of the habit. For a moment it seemed that they were boys again, sitting in the back of the church while Jonathan’s father preached.

  Maybe it was that feeling that made Justin ask, “Are you seeing a lot of Terrance’s mom?”

  The smile left Jonathan’s face.

  “I come by and visit her on my usual rounds. I think she did right by coming back.”

  “It must be tough for her,” Justin said. “Even worse than it is for my mom.”

  Jonathan nodded, and it seemed that this might be the end of the conversation, until he said, “I’m sorry about everything.”

  Somehow Justin knew right away what he was talking about, but as though he didn’t he answered, “It’s a sad story.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Jonathan told him.

  “I know it’s not,” Justin said.

  Jonathan took a long sip of his drink.

  “T told me himself,” he said. “Swore me to secrecy. I think I was jealous of you two. Not that I was—not like that. You were the only friends I had. Then it seemed like you had something that I couldn’t share with you. I felt excluded. So I told a few kids at school. Once I saw what was happening, I told my dad, so he’d make it stop. I didn’t mean for him to tell your mothers, didn’t mean for them to break you up.”

  “It was a long time ago,” Justin said.

  “After Terrance died, I spent a lot time thinking that was my fault. I was the reason they left town. I always told myself that things had turned out so well for you, that I’d actually done you a favor. But now maybe you see it differently.”

  “I don’t regret getting out of the neighborhood,” Justin said. “Whatever happened after that wasn’t your fault.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51