Late one night, I’m watching reruns when Daniel called and said sometime the next day the FBI would stop by with questions about the company’s books. Those words alone and I was ready to dig a hole to climb into. But Daniel knew how to handle me so I didn’t get spooked. The way he talked was like honey dripping off a spoon. It’ll be fine, Alex. Just relax and don’t get excited. FBI’s a bunch of limp-wristed handjobs anyway. They don’t know which way is up. And with your brain? They’ll eat right out of your hand. You’re done in half an hour tops and I’ll pop for lunch downtown. I tried to believe him. I hung up the phone and got in bed. But I didn’t sleep ten minutes all night and my restless feet kept rubbing against each other like tadpoles squirming in the mud.
From Daniel’s setup I was ready for Wilkie to prod at me with some vague you-know-that-I-know routine. But this guy had it all together. From a snappy black briefcase out come a dozen or so manila folders on the table. Inside the folders were documents with everything I’d been doing for the last six years. Wire transfers, deposit slips, bogus receipts, dummy payrolls. Spreadsheets with perfect columns stapled to photocopies of phony bills of lading and forged invoices. These steady waves of paper rolled out of the briefcase and crashed against me. Wilkie’s presentation was cool and unhurried. My handwriting on balled-up pieces of paper that must have been rooted out of the Dumpsters behind Daniel’s warehouse. The pages smoothed out and laid flat in laminated coating. It must have taken months to put it all together. So much attention put in you’d think it had to be love.
I stood and paced the room and looked for something to switch on or off. Sure, just give up Daniel and everything’s fine. Wilkie watched me mince around with an icy smirk. The itchy feeling had spread all over me by then. And there was something about this FBI man that set me off in a strange way. Another blue suit with the same folders and maybe I would have kept it together. But Wilkie was like the genuine article. A freckle-faced astronaut waving to the camera in a sunny home movie, backing a Corvette out of the driveway on his way to the launch pad. Be like him and you can slip into that ray of pure light everyone’s looking for. I didn’t even know that angle worked on me until this guy showed up. I asked again if he wanted coffee and he said no.
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I threw on my coat. Alex Jr.’s room was dark but for these frantic streaks of light spewing out of the TV. His fingers fluttered on the controller in a wild blur. You ever hear of sunlight, I asked. Casts a glare on the screen, he said. Bombs exploding and heavy artillery fire over muffled, hard-charging guitars that sounded like raw meat was stuck in the frets. Posters on the wall of comic-book heroes posing with futuristic guns. All of them with buggy mutant eyes scowling at a world fallen into permanent midnight. I once asked who the good guys were and he just looked at me weird.
I asked whether Daniel had been in and Russ said he hadn’t seen him all week. That didn’t sound right. Daniel owned the Galaxy and a half dozen other spots downtown. He stopped by all of them at some point during the day. A bolt of pain shimmied down my arm and I rubbed at it. There was a twisting grip in my jaw. Russ said you look like you’re about to fall out and asked if I was OK. I’m fine, I said. Just if you see Daniel, let him know I came by looking. Whatever it was passed and I felt all right again but for a dull burn in my shoulder. I reached over the bar and opened the drawer for a pack of cigarettes. Not my brand but it was a chance to show Russ who was top dog between us. He didn’t even see it that way though. Just gave this big howdy-do wave as I left.
The dining room was empty as usual. Yao’s did mostly carryout business. A dozen or so pictures of the Yaos posing with the local bigshots were tacked to the wall. The Yaos with the mayor. With the governor. The guy from the 11 o’clock news and so on. A Yao on either side and a white guy in the middle was the theme. Some pictures were faded, others were new. There was a picture of them with Daniel, too. Local businessman and all-around good guy. Gap-toothed smile full of life, but looking past the camera and out the front door, his mind on the next move.
